The Gospels

by Sarah Ruden

  Sit: Many versions of the Gospels, especially older ones, use this word for the dining posture, as if men sat in chairs for formal meals, whereas they lay on their sides on couches, propped on their elbows, sometimes with a dining companion lying in parallel. Sitting was the posture of teaching and governing, and so would have been wrong for conviviality; Jesus is repeatedly shown sitting to teach. My usual word for those dining is “recline.”

  Son Of Man: The Greek is literally “son of the human being.” See entry for Man above and this page of the Introduction for more on this critical designation, which I render throughout as “son of mankind” (or “son of humankind” to accommodate wordplay concerning other “human beings”).

  Soul: Psuchē is the inner self or consciousness (including in animals), which may persist after death. The psuchē was even thought to leave the body during a faint or extreme psychological stress. But “the life within” seems a much better translation than “soul,” as we consider souls as permanently separable from bodies, whereas early Christians considered life to be bound to the body, reviving along with it or not at all.

  S/Spirit: Pneuma never originally meant a vague something to do with the human metaphysical potential, but instead the physical breath, the wind or breeze, a freelance minor deity, or a servant or manifestation or associate of God. The hagion pneuma, commonly translated in English as “Holy Spirit,” was a “holy” or “pure” or “set-aside” creature—I use the adjective “holy” as more comprehensively descriptive—possibly almost like a personal divinity (daimōn) of God himself. My translations track the natural imagery, and I find “spirit” useful virtually nowhere except in phrases like “unclean spirit” (a demon or creature like a demon, which could possess a person), where there is no good English equivalent.

  Stumbling: Block: The Septuagint (see, for example, Sirach 9:5) shows that the metaphor of a trap was well established, and it fits well in some Gospel contexts; in others, where the context is unclear, I still prefer related metaphors such as “falling” or “tripping up” or “obstacle.”

  Swear (see also Curse): In the context of the Gospels, swearing never means using obscenity or similar forbidden words, but oath taking. In the Hebrew of the Bible, and reflected in the Greek of the Septuagint and the New Testament, there is a special syntax of oath taking, which drops the words for the consequences if the oath is not fulfilled. I represent such sentences by circumlocution.

  Teacher (see also Rabbi): I use this translation only for the Greek didaskalos, where the meaning is more straightforward, and not for the Hebrew rabbí.

  T/Temple: English translations of the Gospels usually identify naos, as well as hieron, as the “Temple.” A naos, however, is an inner shrine. This distinction is vital in the New Testament, because of the special privacy, sanctity, and exclusivity associated with a naos: it can be a metaphor for the body of a faithful person, or even for Jesus’ body. The enclosures of the Jerusalem Temple were increasingly restrictive going inward, and humans were barred from the inmost, most sacred part. This setup, however, necessitates care in translating hieron too: ancient holy places as wholes were defined not by the building but by the precinct, including outdoor spaces, and there is no indication that the adult Jesus ever enters into the exclusive ritual spaces of the Temple but rather is active in the courtyard, which was open (in different parts) to tourists, women, commercial activities, and eclectic teaching and debating. I therefore usually write “temple precinct” for hieron.

  Temptation: The word peirasmos refers to outward tests of all kinds, including those done on inanimate objects; but interrogation under torture could be a reference in some passages of the Gospels. Torture of noncitizens was routine in evidence gathering in the Roman legal system, and large-scale persecutions of Christians had begun before any of the Gospels’ texts were finalized. “Test” or “ordeal” covers this without suggesting sexual tantalization, in which the Gospels evince almost no interest.

  Thief: The Gospels contain a word describing an ordinary housebreaker, but a lēstēs, such as the two shown to be crucified with Jesus, was a bandit living in a remote camp and raiding settled communities. The difference is important, because rebellious groups in the Judean province used bandits’ methods, and bandits used political pretexts, and both provoked Roman crackdowns.

  Time: For the ancients, concepts of time were centered not on objective, technological measurements but on practical, ritual, and interpretive functions, so highly contextual translations are needed. Kairos can be a critical or important time, even a crisis, but it can also be just the time a specific thing happens. A hōra can sometimes be an “hour,” but even then it is merely an approximate measurement, marked (if at all) by a sundial or water clock, but usually just estimated; “time” tends to be a closer English equivalent. Trickiest of all is aiōn, most simply an “age” or “era” but sometimes denoting either the whole present world or the whole world to come. The same word can allude to all the limits of material existence (or to dangerous worldly distractions in particular), or to their absence in the eternal age to come. Looking forward, especially to “ages of ages” (in the pattern of “King of Kings”), the meaning is “eternity.”

  Tribulation: The Greek thlipsis indicates, and I reflect, literal “crushing” or “wearing down,” “grinding down,” or even “shattering.” The expression almost recedes as a figure of speech and becomes merely empirical when it refers to brutal wars, persecutions (which often included torture), or natural disasters. Thlipsis is the action of history’s grindstone on the human body.

  Unwashed: The Greek word koinos, literally “common,” can be used in the Gospels for the failure to wash according to the prescribed Jewish practice. The sense is of things’ failing to be “set apart” or “holy” because of indiscriminate activities and associations whose taint is never cleansed away.

  Virgin: Lack of sexual experience was assumed in a freeborn unmarried young girl, but the English word evokes some misleading expectations. The Jews included virginity testing of brides in their laws and customs, whereas the Greeks did not and had only vague ideas about the hymen; their word parthenos tended to mean simply “unmarried,” whereas the nearest word in Hebrew—of which parthenos could be a translation—concentrated on sexual ripeness and could include young motherhood. Careful contextual translation is required.

  Wicked: See Evil.

  Wisdom: This translation works in some cases, but a strict distinction should be made between a transcendent or august understanding (the English “wisdom,” I believe, is limited to that) and the earthier meanings the word sophia often carries in the Gospels: “shrewd,” “clever,” “prudent,” “intelligent,” “sensible.”

  Woman, Wife: This is a single Greek word, gunē, its sense to be derived from context in each instance; in discussions of divorce and adultery, it is critical whether a “wife” or a mere “woman” is concerned.

  W/Word: Logos can mean merely “statement” or “speech,” but it also has lofty philosophical uses, especially in the opening of the Book of John, where it is probably connected to the Stoic conception of the divine reasoning posited to pervade the universe. The essential connotation here is not language but the lasting, indisputable, and morally cogent truth of numbers, as displayed in correct financial accounting: this is the most basic sense of logos. “True account” is among the translations that can be justified on occasion. Also, logos appears sometimes to be related to the important dabar or “spoken word/matter/thing” of the Hebrew Bible: it can be the truth or commandment God imparts to his prophets or in his law. But the Greek words rēma and rēthen (both meaning “spoken thing”) seem to function more reliably in this way than logos does. Logos is not capitalized in the Nestle-Aland text, so my various renderings are not capitalized either; in any case it would be impossible for me to distinguish for certain in every case how special the word is.
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  World (see also Creation and Time): There are three main terms, none adequately covered by the English “world.” Kosmos means the universe, the whole of what God brought into order at the beginning of history. Oikoumenē is the “settled/inhabited (land),” or all of the civilized world, sometimes conceived as stopping at the boundaries of the Roman Empire. Finally, the word aiōn, basically “era,” can refer to the conditions of human life, meaning the “worldly” sphere of passing time, imperfection, and decay, which translators have sometimes called simply “the world.” But the same word can mean the other world, coming into existence for humankind in a future era.

  Worship: See Bow Down.

  Unfamiliar Transliterations of Important Proper Names in the Greek Text

  A Note on Phonology

  Some scholars would like to move the pronunciation of Koinē Greek closer to that of Modern Greek, which, among other changes, has merged a variety of previous vowel sounds into the sound ee (iotacization). In transliterating proper names and other terms for this translation, I’ve chosen to retain the old Attic or Athenian pronunciation that Classical scholars use.

  Because a great deal of Athenian and allied literature survives, we have a reliable idea of how the words were pronounced: metrical poetry, onomatopoeia (Aristophanes mimics the voices of frogs and sheep), the remarks of contemporary scholars, and other clues are helpful in reconstructing the sounds. Koinē Greek, in contrast, is far less well attested at an early stage; the main example is Greek scripture itself, which threatens to make the question of pronunciation circular—or centrifugal, sending us off to far-flung evidence like the spelling of words on the walls of a monastery in what is now Turkey.

  But I’d like to urge two things. One is some remarks in Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions, probably written in 398 C.E. The author pictures orators’ moral horror at the possibility of saying Latin words wrong—differently, that is, than the revered Roman orator Cicero had said them four and a half centuries before. Augustine himself provides a good deal of evidence that Latin was changing, as language always does. But he also shows that mainstream resistance to change was powerful and could push back. People with enough credibility can even revive ancient linguistic norms and reestablish a “dead” language, which is what happened with Hebrew in modern Israel. I remember listening with astonishment to my teacher of Modern Hebrew as she told how, in the fifties, the decision whether to maintain the Classical Hebrew indicator of some direct objects but not others—a fussy, archaic distinction, many thought—came from the top of the government and was accepted and instituted on the ground.

  The habit of pushing back against pronunciation change in formal settings could well have prevailed when the New Testament was written and first read aloud—and certain spelling variations, even in fairly early papyri and manuscripts, are not persuasive as evidence to the contrary. As a late-Imperial, cosmopolitan comparison, think of the wildly different ways people pronounce English today, sometimes unintelligibly to those at the cultural centers. “Errors,” including written errors, proliferate in provincial obscurity while a hidebound, more letter-by-letter pronunciation at the BBC and in the American news media remains the formal standard and is very widely understood and accepted. Like the ancients, we are not going to hear hegemonic pronunciation slide into nowhere until its foundations, the institutions that reinforce the old-time conformity, are gone.

  Unfamiliar Transliterations of Important Proper Names in the Greek Text

  Aaron: Aarōn

  Abilene: Abilēnē

  Abraham: Abraam

  Alexander: Alexandros

  Alphaeus: Alfaios

  Andrew: Andreas

  Archelaus: Archelaos

  Arimathea: Arimathaia

  Augustus: Augoustos

  Babylon: Babulōn

  Bar-Jona: Bariōna

  Bartholomew: Bartholomaios

  Beelzebub: Be’elzeboul

  Bethany: Bēthania

  Bethlehem: Bēthle’em

  Bethphage: Bēthfagē

  Bethsaida: Bēthsaïda

  Bethzatha: Bēthzatha

  Caesar: Kaisar

  Caesarea: Kaisareia

  Caiphas: Kaïafas

  Cana: Kana

  Canaanite: Chananaia (feminine)

  Cananean: Kananaios

  Capernaum: Kafarnaoum

  Cephas: Kēfas

  Chuza: Chouzas

  Cleopas: Kleopas

  Clopas: Klōpas

  Cyrenian: Kurēnaios

  Dalmanutha: Dalmanoutha

  Daniel: Daniēl

  Egypt: Aiguptos

  Elijah: Ēlias

  Elisha: Elisaios

  Elizabeth: Elisabet

  Gabriel: Gabriēl

  Gadarenes: Gadarēnoi

  Galilean: Galilaios

  Galilee: Galilaia

  Gehenna: ge’enna

  Gennesaret: Gennēsaret

  Gerasenes: Gerasēnoi

  Gethsemane: Gethsēmani

  Gomorrah: Gomorra

  Herod: Hērōdēs

  Herodias: Hērōdias

  Idumea: Idoumaia

  Isaac: Isaak

  Isaiah: Ēsaïas

  Iscariot: Iskariōth, Iskariōtēs

  Israel: Israēl

  Israelite: Israēlitēs

  Iturea: Itouraia

  Jacob: Iakōb

  Jairus: Iaïros

  James: Iakōbos

  Jeremiah: Ieremias

  Jericho: Ierichō

  Jerusalem: Ierousalēm or Hierosoluma; people of Jerusalem: Hierosolumitai

  Jesse: Iessai

  Jesus: Iēsous

  Jew, Jews: Ioudaios, Ioudaioi

  Joanna: Iōanna

  John: Iōannēs

  Jonah: Iōnas

  Jordan: Iordanēs

  Joseph: Iōsēf

  Joses: Iōsēs

  Judas: Ioudas

  Judea: Ioudaia

  Lazarus: Lazaros

  Levi: Leui

  Levite: Leuitēs

  Lot: Lōt

  Luke: Loukas

  Lysanias: Lusanias

  Magdalene: Magdalēnē

  Malchus: Malchos

  Mark: Markos

  Mary: Maria or Mariam

  Matthew: Maththaios

  Messiah: Messias

  Moses: Mōüsēs

  Naphtali: Nefthalim

  Nathan: Natham

  Nathanael: Nathanaēl

  Nazarene: Nazarēnos or Nazōraios

  Nazareth: Nazara or Nazaret or Nazareth

  Nicodemus: Nikodēmos

  Nineveh, people of: Nineuitai

  Noah: Nōe

  Passover: pascha

  Peter: Petros

  Pharisee, Pharisees: Farisaios, Farisaioi

  Philip: Filippos

  Pilate: Pilatos

  Pontius: Pontios

  Quirinius: Kurēnios

  Rachel: Rachēl

  Rufus: Roufos

  Sabbath: sabbaton or sabbata (singular and plural forms)

  Sadducees: Saddoukaioi

  Salome: Salōmē

  Samaria: Samareia

  Samaritan: Samaritēs, Samaritai (pl.), Samaritis (f.)

  Satan: satanas

  Sidon (city): Sidōn

  Sidon (region): Sidōnia

  Simeon: Sumeōn

  Simon: Simōn

  Sodom: Sodoma

  Susanna: Sousanna

  Syria, Syrian: Suria, Suros

  Syrophoenician: Surofoinikissa (f.)

  Thaddeus: Thaddaios

&n
bsp; Theophilus: Theofilos

  Thomas: Thōmas

  Tiberius: Tiberios

  Timaeus: Timaios

  Trachonitis: Trachōnîtis

  Tyre: Turos

  Zacchaeus: Zakchaios

  Zebedee: Zebedaios

  Zebulun: Zaboulōn

  Zechariah: Zacharias

  Zion: Siōn

  The Good News According to Markos

  Chapter 1

  1 The inauguration of the good news of Iēsous the Anointed One, [the son of god].*1 2 As it is written in the prophet Ēsaïas,

  “ ‘Look, I’m sending my messenger ahead of you,

  And he will build your road.’

  3 The voice of someone shouting in the wasteland:

  ‘Prepare the lord’s road,

  Make his beaten paths straight’ ”;*2

  4 Iōannēs [the] baptizer appeared in the wasteland, announcing baptism to change people’s purpose and absolve them from their offenses.*3 5 And they traveled out to him, inhabitants of the whole countryside of Ioudaia, and all the Hierosolumitai, and they were baptized by him in the river Iordanēs,*4 acknowledging their offenses. 6 Now, Iōannēs was dressed in unshorn camel hide, and he had an animal-skin belt covering his groin, and he ate locusts and wild honey.