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Qnoma?...definition
#1
I have been discussing qnoma elsewhere and someone suggested that a good definition would be member of a taxonomic group.
Perhpas in the same way that the days of the week are all dyys of the week but all have their own names (and parsopa <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile --> )
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#2
Shlama Akhi Michael,

That's actually the closest English definition I've heard to date.
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
[Image: sig.jpg]
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#3
Akhi Judge,

What's the matter with "self" as definition of Qnoma ? "Member of taxonomic group" seems to be a wordy phrase for "individual" , whether person, place or thing.
Are you using "taxonomic group" in the biological sense ? As such, a member of such a group would be an "organism". Does a bacterium qualify as a "qnoma" ?

[font="Estrangelo (V1.1)"]Fxrwb[/font]


Dave B
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#4
"Self" would be a horrible definition for Qnoma. "Self" is nearly synonymous with "Person", yet two Qnome from the same Kyana (nature) do not have the necessary amount of differentiating information to be considered two distinct "persons."

Kyana (nature) is abstract. Qnoma is an instantiation, a concrete example, of a Kyana......yet it does not contain enough information to become a different "Person" from a fellow Qnoma of the same Kyana.

The only thing which differentiates one Qnoma from another in the same Kyana is number - by that I mean that each one is distinct, yet not distinct enough to be considered two different "persons."
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
[Image: sig.jpg]
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#5
Akhi Paul,

"The scenery itself is reason enough for many to chose to live there."
"Self" need not refer to a person or even a living thing. Is not qnoma used to refer to personal pronouns, including inanimate objects- 3rd person , as well as 1st, 2nd person ?

,[font="Estrangelo (V1.1)"]Fxrwb F0ygs[/font]

Dave B
Reply
#6
Shlama Dave and all,

Obviously Akhan Paul is the true expert, but I would also like to weigh in here a bit. In my opinion, the use of "self" by any stretch linguistically as an equivalent of QNOMA would be disastrous.

In fact, such an equivalence invites a flexibility on the English side that leads to more confusion. In Hebrew and Aramaic thought, it is possible to have what we call the "abstract face", i.e., the use of PANIM to indicate the presence of purely spiritual entities, such as YHWH Himself. YHWH says "Seek My face" and the blessing of the kohenim is "May YHWH lift up his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you and give you peace."

The problem is, when we say FACE in English, most often there is a physcial connotation Now Dave, I am sure you will counter by suggesting that FACE as a verb approaches your point, so that, if we "face the truth" we are in the presence of the truth, are dealing with the truth, etc. But, the normative usage of FACE in English is a physical one, and physical characteristics that define differences between two members of the same species are PARSOPA, not QNOMA.

I resist the SELF defintion because the references in Scripture do not support it, and it makes a huge difference to me doctrinally and personally. For example:

"And in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desires to one another, men with men committing indecent acts, and receiving in their QNOMEH the due penalty for their error."

Romans 1:27

Now Greek based translations read "themselves" or "persons", but to my mind this creates a false impression. The Aramaic is telling us instead that the sexual sins go straight to the heart of one's essence and substance, to the core of their being. In fact, there can be no stronger indication of this than to say that such sins eat at the heart of the occurrence of our human nature!

Furthermore:

"For just as the Father has life in His QNOMA so does the Son have life in his QNOMA. Even so He gave to the Son also to have life in his QNOMA."

John 5:26

Here we see Y'shua claiming that his life is bound up in the Father's, and that he has an occurrence of the divine nature, which is QNOMA. He also teaches on the divine QNOMA in John 4 as living water. These are important concepts, but the use of SELF and the concept of SELF is Hellenistic, and we need to leave such masks behind us when looking at this original text.

In fact, the greatest problem with QNOMA as SELF, is that we could also say the PARSOPA is SELF. In other words, those characteristics that make me different from you, my individuality, is my SELF. PARSOPA's cognate in Greek is PROSOPON (person) and that is where the west got this whole gig wrong in the first place. And, if you read the history of how the West got this wrong, you will see how they first changed the meaning of the Greek word HYPOSTASIS (originally having a closer meaning to QNOMA) and then declared that HYPOSTASIS (and QNOMA by implication) was the same as PROSOPON/PERSON, leading to divine persons, and in my view, idolatry.

It may then seem hard to fit a word like QNOMA into our western frameworks, but we have to. We have to make a space and a distinction for it that our previous understandiings did not have available previously. We should not make the word fit us. Rather, we should have our minds and understanding fit the word.

And so I stand with QNOMA as an occurrence of a nature, and individuated instance of a nature, but that there is no distinction between like QNOMEH except that of number. In other words, the only difference between your QNOMA and mine is that yours is occurrence #5 and mine is occurrence #6 of the same nature.

Therefore, QNOMA must remain something that is differentiated from personality or other factors that indicate a way to discern between two members of the same species.

Hope this helps, and of course I defer to Akhan Paul and his answer should mine be insufficient.
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
Reply
#7
Akha Andrew and Paul,

I perceive that this is a theologically and emotionally loaded question with you both. I think we should approach it linguistically and entymologically. As I recall, the lexicons give "self" as one of the major definitions; again , "self" need not refer to a person. Often it is neuter in meaning and impersonal:
[font="Estrangelo (V1.1)"]lpn glptm hmwnq l9d 0tybw brxt h$pn l9 glpttd wklm lk Nwhl rm0 Nwhtb$xm 0wh 9dyd Nyd 9w$y[/font]Lu 11:17
Lu 11:17 autov de eidwv autwn ta dianohmata eipen autoiv pasa basileia ef eauthn diamerisyeisa erhmoutai kai oikov epi oikon piptei

This is the first NT occurrence of Qnoma; it refers to a house falling in on itself. It also appears to be synonymous
to "napsa" in the same verse, "kingdom divided against itself". Are you both saying that this word can never have that meaning ? How is it that Luke, knowing Aramaic and Greek(who I believe wrote and translated his books and translated Hebrews) has "oikov" for "qnoma" in that verse (Luke 11:17) , meaning "house" is renamed in "qnoma" ?
He also uses "eautos" (himself) in Hebrews 1:3 for "qnoma" .
I take it that this Zorba knew what he was about ! Remember, all Zorbas had to know Aramaic as well as Greek to translate the NT into Greek.This is a common usage among the 15 places qnoma occurs in the NT.

As far as the theology of the various sects of the Aramaic speaking Christians regarding this word, I think the lexicons should decide how a word is used and make the proper application for each occurrence accordingly; there is no one set usage for the word, in my humble opinion. It may or may not refer to a self or a person , or an "individuated nature", depending on the context.

Does not Aramaic employ synonyms ? I see napsa used as a synonym for qnoma at times; if not so, how is qnoma used in Luke 11:17 ?
The idea of a nature seems to apply at times, and others,not.
Romans 9:3-not.
1 Cor 6:7-not.
The nature of the Spirit born cannot be condemned or accursed. It does not fit. A person can be condemned if he does evil.

I wish I could see this the way you do. I will continue to study and consider it. Much thanks for the the input.

,[font="Estrangelo (V1.1)"]Fxrwb F0ygs[/font]


Dave B
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#8
Shlama Akhi Dave,

Actually, you are correct in stating that our understanding is heavily influenced by our theological stand on Christology. The piece you are missing is that this word, Qnoma, has an archaic meaning (pre-Hellenism) and another totally different meaning, post-Hellenism. The archaic meaning has been preserved by the Church of the East, while the altered (post-Hellenistic) meaning has been adopted by other groups such as the Syriac Orthodox Church.

This topic is treated extensively by the series of Pro-Oriente Dialogues which can be found at http://www.pro-oriente.at/Home2Startseite_en.htm. These meetings involving all the churches of the Aramaic tradition were held in Vienna beginning in 1994 and continuing to this day.

I quote from Professor Sebastian Brock, of the Oriental Institute, Oxford University, who presented at the 1994 session of Pro-Oriente in Vienna:

Professor Sebastian Brock Wrote:"First of all (and this goes without saying), we need to try to understand what writers actually meant by the technical terms they use, rather than rely on what their opponents claimed they meant.....in this context, both the Syriac (Aramaic) terminology, and the understanding of that terminology, in the Church of the East can be described as both archaic and conservative."

"I conclude by looking at two sets of specific example....both are cases where the language used by the Church of the East could best be described as archaic.....we are dealing with imagery which was once widespread and which is still preserved in the Church of the East after it had been for the most part dropped by everyone else in the course of the fifth century controversies."

"It is essentially this (the archaic) understanding of kyana that is retained in the Church of the East.....by contrast, later fifth- and sixth-century Syrian Orthodox writers understand kyana as virtually a synonym with hypostasis.....significantly, in Syriac Orthodox translations of the later fifth and of the sixth century, the older rendering...is replaced by various other translations, thus removing the (now archaic) association of kyana with ousia."

"At the outset I would suggest that....it is important to retain the Syriac term (Qnoma), and not retrovert it into hypostasis (let alone translate it as "person", as has occasionally been done)."

"In many cases...the tradition of the Church of the East will be found to have preserved images and metaphors of the incarnation which were once widely current, but which writers in other Syriac traditions had subsequently dropped, either on grounds of their perceived inadequacy, or because they were thought to lend support to the position of their theological opponents."

"The 4th century texts seem to understand kyana very much with ousia....This meaning was kept unchanged in the East. In the 6th and 7th centuries however the Syrian Orthodox moved with the times and their understanding came close to the Western/Greek development of hypostasis/prosopon. This gave rise to most of the problems."

"The Church of the East in the Sasanian Persian Empire up to the Sixth Century and it's absence from the Councils in the Roman Empire", by Prof. Sebastian Brock, Oxford University, June 25th, 1994, Vienna Austria - presented at the First Syriac Dialogue, hosted by Pro Oriente. ISBN: 3-901188-05-3

As you can see from Prof. Brock's (a Roman Catholic) excellent analysis - the Syrian Orthodox understanding of these terms evolved over time to become closer to Greek definitions and Christology. You see, they lived in the Byzantine empire where the Greek church was the official creed. The Church of the East, on the other hand, lay in Persia outside of the reach of Hellenism.

The "lexicons" and "dictionaries" you mention which give meanings of "self" and "person" are, disastrously, influenced by this very chain of events mentioned by Prof. Brock (by no means a member of the CoE.) Because the SOC meanings changed, this is reflected in the dictionaries and lexicons. But, again, the archaic meaning of these Aramaic terms, as preserved by the Church of the East, is vastly different and more correct. This is according to a Roman Catholic professor at Oxford University....not Andrew and I.

I very much agree with the excellent treatment of this topic in Akhan Andrew's post. We must adapt to Qnoma and not try to redefine what it means based on our Western mindset. It is this very thing which Prof. Brock (the world's pre-eminent Aramaic scholar) warned against when he suggested that we not "retrovert" it into "person."

The bottom line is that, as any bi-lingual person can attest, sometimes there can be no 1-to-1 relationship between words in two different languages (especially when the languages are as different as Aramaic and Greek (or English) are.) This is an unfortunate consequence of the tower of Babel. But it's a fact we have to live with.

We have to leave Qnoma alone. I know both Aramaic and English, so trust me when I say that we don't have an English "Qnoma." The concept doesn't even exist, let alone a word.
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
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#9
gbausc Wrote:Akha Andrew and Paul,

I perceive that this is a theologically and emotionally loaded question with you both. I think we should approach it linguistically and entymologically.

Akhi Dave, when dealing with Elohim-breathed sacred text, theology is the key to everything, and it arises from linguistic and etymological grounds. It is those original meanings that draw us to this text to begin with. As for emotion, I do not think either myself or Akhi Paul has exhibited one bit of that. The word means what it means.

gbausc Wrote:As I recall, the lexicons give "self" as one of the major definitions; again , "self" need not refer to a person. Often it is neuter in meaning and impersonal:
[font="Estrangelo (V1.1)"]lpn glptm hmwnq l9d 0tybw brxt h$pn l9 glpttd wklm lk Nwhl rm0 Nwhtb$xm 0wh 9dyd Nyd 9w$y[/font]Lu 11:17
Lu 11:17 autov de eidwv autwn ta dianohmata eipen autoiv pasa basileia ef eauthn diamerisyeisa erhmoutai kai oikov epi oikon piptei

This is the first NT occurrence of Qnoma; it refers to a house falling in on itself. It also appears to be synonymous
to "napsa" in the same verse, "kingdom divided against itself". Are you both saying that this word can never have that meaning ?

With all due respect Akhi Dave, you need to see this through Eastern eyes. Have you never heard houses metaphorically described as having a personality? More fundamentally, KYANNA speaks to a total abstraction, a theoretical construct, and so you could have a house nature. Then, when you have an occurrence, an actual house, it is the qnoma, or occurrence of a house.

NAPHSHA, meaning soul, also can mean LIFE, and by that understanding a LIFE and an occurrence of a human nature--QNOMA--is also a LIFE. That is why they appear synonymous--not because you can ipso facto switch it for "self". That substituttion to "self" is a western attempt to process the word. It is not found in the eastern original rendering.

gbausc Wrote:How is it that Luke, knowing Aramaic and Greek(who I believe wrote and translated his books and translated Hebrews) has "oikov" for "qnoma" in that verse (Luke 11:17) , meaning "house" is renamed in "qnoma" ? He also uses "eautos" (himself) in Hebrews 1:3 for "qnoma".

It does not matter Akhi Dave. We are dealing with terminology that has NO COGNATE IN GREEK. The only way to deal with QNOMA is to describe it at length. Or you can do what Paul did with MILTHA--list a bunch of terms and descriptions but leave it UNTRANSLATED.

In both cases, there is nothing that substitutes totally for it in any other language. And so, by your example, you are looking at the difficult and incomplete choices that Luke had to make to get his Gospel into Greek, and now, from the view of how that Greek was itself brought into English, are imposing a flexibility on the meaning that does not exist in Aramaic that began it.

gbausc Wrote:I take it that this Zorba knew what he was about ! Remember, all Zorbas had to know Aramaic as well as Greek to translate the NT into Greek.This is a common usage among the 15 places qnoma occurs in the NT.

As far as the theology of the various sects of the Aramaic speaking Christians regarding this word, I think the lexicons should decide how a word is used and make the proper application for each occurrence accordingly; there is no one set usage for the word, in my humble opinion. It may or may not refer to a self or a person , or an "individuated nature", depending on the context.

Does not Aramaic employ synonyms ? I see napsa used as a synonym for qnoma at times; if not so, how is qnoma used in Luke 11:17 ?
The idea of a nature seems to apply at times, and others,not.
Romans 9:3-not.
1 Cor 6:7-not.

Akhi Dave, NAPSHA (soul, life) and QNOMA can be synonyms in the sense that they refer to the same thing but from a different perspective. If I have a soul, I have a life. If I have a life then, by definition of it being alive, I have a QNOMA, an occurrence of a nature.

Then you write:

gbausc Wrote:The nature of the Spirit born cannot be condemned or accursed. It does not fit. A person can be condemned if he does evil.

I wish I could see this the way you do. I will continue to study and consider it. Much thanks for the the input.

Akhi Dave, we are not talking about nature or KYANNA. There is only one divine nature and only one human nature, as well as one nature of birds, reptiles, etc. They are pure abstractions, classifications looking for a concrete example.

But leave that aside and focus on QNOMA.

QNOMA is not abstract but an actual occurrence of a nature. It is not theory, but real living fact. By western standards that can mean "person", but from the viewpoint of the word QNOMA it does not.

What concerns me is a kind of linguistic slippery slope. We take a word that means X and translate into another language, and the new language has a word that means both X and Y. Now, of the two meanings, only X is right, but the receiving language has no word that only means X, and this leaves the door open for people to think either X or Y is a valid choice.

Now, take that receiving language, and translate X/Y into a third language, where it also has a word that matches one meaning, but half a dozen other words are also possible meanings.

You see my point I trust. By the time the NT goes from Aramaic, into Greek, possibly influenced by Latin, into Shakespearean English (KJV) and finally into modern English, what we have is a whisper down the lane effect, where an avalanche of lexical meanings are picked up along the way. I would argue, quite strongly, that this type of linguistic accretion has happened to QNOMA, as it went in to HYPOSTASIS, and then as HYPOSTASIS changed its meaning and became the same as PROSOPON, making some people now think that SELF is the correct meaning as a result.

Therefore, it is not for anyone to look at how the Greek handled the word and think that is fine for English too. Instead, we need to look at the original Aramaic and translate IT AND ONLY IT DIRECTLY INTO THE BEST ENGLISH WORD OR DEFINTION. If there is no matching equivalent, which is true a lot of the time, then the task is define it, explain it, and do whatever is necessary for however long it takes, until the concept matches the original.

Hope this helps.
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
Reply
#10
Akha Paul and Andrew,

You both admit that your theologies govern your understanding of "qnoma". I don't see your position as objective and cannot see any evidence for your position.

Brock's position is to leave the word untranslated because there is no synonym for it; it is an untranslatable. That sounds like nonsense to me. God's word is for the whole world to hear. He would not use words that no one can understand; neither of you has convinced me that you know what it means; one definition Paul gave is "individuated nature"; that is essentially the English definition of "self". Rob wrote that qnoma is "member of a taxonomic class"; Paul responded , "That is the best English definition I've seen yet." In Biology, a member of a taxonomic class is an "organism".
I don't know that non -biological taxonomic classes exist.I'm sure there are no developed charts for any such classes.
Bottom line of all this is that this becomes such an exercise in esoterica that nobody understands it or is edified by it. Like "Miltha", we lose a precious description and understanding of The Son of God as LOGOS ,"The WORD" ,to the ether of some nebulous , untranslatable "Miltha" .
Now it is "Qnoma" that no one can translate. This kind of club mentality has no limits; the "unknowable" word list will grow.
All this smacks of Gnosticism to me.

I do not believe my Lord ever intended his disciples to evince an unapproachable elitism that claims to know certain esoteric words or doctrines that unlock the secrets of the universe.

We are children of God by faith which works by love; "knowledge puffs up; love builds up".
"The letter killeth; The Spirit gives life".

"I thank Thee Father, LORD of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes; Amen, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight."

Scholarship is wonderful, if it be meek and humble of heart, and is filled with faith and the guidance of The Holy Spirit, and I will add- good sense.

Luke 11:17 has nothing to do with "a personality of a house", as you imply, Andrew. I don't even know why you would use the word "personality" in conjunction with "qnoma", if it has nothing to do with "person", according to your position.

The parallel passages in Matthew and Mark use "napsa" in place of "qnoma". This is Aramaic usage that shows plainly that the words are interchangeable in the mind of the Holy Spirit and of The Christ.
That is all the evidence I need.And last I checked, God was not a westerner.

Why do we make simple things so complicated ?


[font="Estrangelo (V1.1)"]Fxrwb F0ygs [/font]


Dave B
Reply
#11
Shlama Akhi Dave,

This has nothing to do with any club mentality or elitism. It has everything to do with the basic fundamentals of linguistics. It is very naive to suggest that every word in Aramaic must have a direct cognate in every other language that has ever existed, including English, Eskimo or Swahili for that matter!

In your estimation, if a direct cognate doesn't exist, then God is guilty of creating a "club" by simply choosing Aramaic to be the language HE spoke while here with us. But that is completely irrational, as it may not always be possible to find an equivalent unit for a source language term in a target language. (especially when the languages are as far apart as Aramaic and English.) It may not always be possible to find an appropriate correspondence between words, or even abstract ideas and concepts.

There is no English cognate for Qnoma, either linguistically or conceptually, no matter how badly we think there should be. The words of the world's leading Aramaic scholar at Oxford University are nonsense to you? Well, I'm afraid to say that if I had quoted a Church of the East scholar, you would probably have charged that he was theologically biased and would have summarily dismissed his testimony outright!

Akhi Dave, with all due respect, I strongly suspect that you are a monolingual person. No one who can effectively communicate in more than one language would ever suggest that there must be direct cognates in two different languages 100% of the time, all the time. That is nonsensical. Think about it.

Does the conceptual absence of "Qnoma" in English linguistics mean that you or anyone else cannot understand that concept unless you speak Aramaic, and that therefore God is playing tricks with you and excluding you from an elitist, gnostic, esoteric, cultic kind of sect?

Of course not! To even suggest it would be very unreasonable. Prof. Brock is as white as you can get. And he isn't a member of my church, either. But he has a perfect understanding of this concept - more so, I dare say, than most of the priests in the Church of the East whose sermons on this topic I have listened to in frustration. And why does he have a perfect understanding of this terminology? Well, first and foremost he treated Aramaic as a language that existed thousands of years before anything remotely resembling his own native English even existed. He took his Western glasses off. He treated Aramaic as it should be treated by someone who doesn't speak it - as a foreign language with its own idiom, concepts, terminology and life. Most importantly, it is his job to understand Aramaic from the standpoint of how the speakers of the language understand it. Remember, Aramaic is not a dead language like Latin, nor did it need to be "resurrected" as a spoken language like Hebrew did last century. It is spoken by almost a million people today as an everyday language. It has been spoken as an everyday language for the last 3,000 years, at least. It is living and breathing. It is Prof. Brock's job to understand Aramaic the way that he does, which again is more than many native speakers understand it.

The fact remains that we have no English cognate to Qnoma - never was one. We can make one, though. But we don't have one right now.

It's too bad God didn't dictate the words of the bible in English, then you would understand what I am talking about.

Because if that were the case, then people who speak Swahili would be complaining to you and calling you elitist when you sincerely tried to explain a concept in English to them that simply had no direct linguistic congate, or conceptual cognate, in the Swahili language.

Or worse yet, after you tried to explain to them that "raining cats and dogs" during Noah's day isn't meant to be taken literally, yet they still argue with you and say "We follow the literal meaning of the text, and the text says "it was raining cats and dogs", so therefore as irrational as it sounds we have no cognate to this idiom in Swahili, and if God had wanted to create an elitist club, etc, etc, etc."

You know where I am going with this. <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->

Finally, yes my understanding of the term is based on the usage of the term in Christological declarations of my church. Everyone's understanding is based on something of their life experience. That having been said, it has been thoroughly and scientifically demonstrated that the CoE understanding of this crucial term is the archaic, original meaning.

So I don't know where you are going with that argument, but rest assured that I wouldn't just take my church's word for it. I would go so far as to admit to bias, if every scholar on the face of the planet didn't agree that my church preserved the original, archaic meanings of these words. And, more importantly, that they preserved the archaic CONCEPTS behind this terminology.

I'm not being elitist. This is the truth - this is historical fact. The Church of the East was isolated, extremely isolated, from Hellenism because of the geographical situation it found itself in.

If you don't want to accept the archaic meaning of Qnoma as preserved by the Church of the East, that is of course your right. But please don't insinuate that I am biased or base my opinion solely on what my church says. I quoted from a British ROMAN CATHOLIC scholar, the world's leading scholar in Aramaic~Syriac, someone who happens to be a professor of this very topic at Oxford.

If that's not good enough for you, then there's nothing further I can add to try and convince you. I'm here to convince those who actually want to take the Aramaic at its face value, its historical context, and not people who are trying to shape it into their own standard based on Western understanding.

No, God is neither Eastern nor Western .... neither Northern nor Southern. He did, however, choose to speak Aramaic while down here with us. That is historical FACT. I do hope you choose to understand His words in his native idiom, rather than in your own 21st-century English idiom.

Also, for your information, Qnoma and Napsha are closely related terms, but not exact synonyms. Neither is directly related to the English "Self." The difference is that one is at a physical level (Napsha) and the other on a non-physical level (Qnoma.)

If it is any consolation, there are plenty of concepts and idioms in English that are untranslatable in Aramaic! <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
[Image: sig.jpg]
Reply
#12
Akhi Paul,

Thanks for the attempt at clarification.

Brock seems to shed considerable darkness upon a simple word which has become a war zone between Eastern and Western churches. He may be the world's expert Aramaic scholar; he is also human with biases and prejudices like you and I are.I don't see great wisdom or understanding in the conclusions he draws- "qnoma is not this and it is not that; it is untranslateable; "
"I am right about this and everyone else be damned", seems to be his position. I cannot take the word of a man who contradicts the plain sense of scripture;
Matthew 12:25 and Mark 3:24,25 -both passages use "napsha" in the place where "qnoma" occurs in the parallel sentence of Luke 11:17.
You say they are not exact synonyms. I ask, "Are synonyms ever exact?" Is not the point that , given the context, they are close enough to be used interchangeably ?
These three verses of scripture weigh more than all the scriptureless scholarship of all the experts in the world. You cannot tell me that Matthew, Mark or Luke used the wrong word in those verses. Their understanding, and obviously the Holy Spirit's use of these two words, reveals that these words are certainly very close in meaning, if not identical.
Where is Brock's citation of scriptural of evidence for his position ?
He reminds me of Westcott and Hort, who were supposedly the world's experts on the Greek NT, at whose feet the western churches practically worshipped for giving them a "Revised New Testament" and Greek text, based on the "most accurate" mss., when what they were doing was putting the Bible on the chopping block to be butchered.

I am extremely skeptical of "authorities", especially those whose work seems to result in the stealing away of scripture from the people, and the "corruption of the simplicity which is in The Christ."- even if it involves only one word of scripture.(2 Cor. 11:3)

If the words in question are worlds apart, they would not be used interchangeably as they are. If they are close in meaning, what are we arguing about ?
The Aramaic-Greek translators of the first century, including Luke, used Greek cognates "eautos" and "upostasis" for "qnoma". "Napsha" is also translated into "eautos" in not a few places. How would you have translated "qnoma" into Greek ?

Does Brock's statement suffice to negate the work of first century Luke in this translation ? Was Luke a westerner too?
Was Luke wrong to put "qnoma" for "napsha" in Luke 11:17 ? Or were Matthew and Mark wrong in putting "napsha" instead of "qnoma" ?

They obviously had not read Brock ! <!-- sSleepy --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/sleepy.gif" alt="Sleepy" title="Sleepy" /><!-- sSleepy --> They would have known that "qnoma" cannot mean "napsha" (self).

[font="Estrangelo (V1.1)"]Fxrwb F0ygs [/font]


Dave B
Reply
#13
Shlama Akhi Dave,

Actually, if you read the series of papers he presented at the Pro-Oriente dialogue (with representatives of the SOC attending), you will notice that both he (along with others like Mar Bawai of the CoE) give very detailed English definitions of Qnoma.

Note: by English "definition", I do not mean that they came up with any single English word that is a cognate for Qnoma. In fact, the definition of "individuated nature" that I have quoted in the past was a direct result of these consultations in Vienna.

Prof. Brock has researched this terminology extensively, and the research was not limited to Christian writings....the word existed before the NT was written, you know! <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->

You bring up an excellent question: how would I have translated Qnoma into Greek? The answer is: I don't know. It certainly doesn't have an acceptable cognate in Greek. (let alone in English)

Again, Napsha does not mean "self" - although that is sometimes the closest English equivalent. Napsha comes from Naphesh, which means "breath."

I know enough English to know that "self" does not mean "breath" or have anything to do with "breathing."

See Akhi, this is what I mean. It is also what I meant when I said that any bi-lingual person will immediately recognize the problem I am speaking of. (and why translations are never as good as the original - why information is always lost in a translation!)
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
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#14
Akhi Michael,

I was researching this and I found the following definition for Qnoma by Mar Bawai the Great (6th c., head of Mar Abraham monastery on Mount Izla and later Patriarch), in his Book of the Union, Memra IV:

Mar Bawai the Great Wrote:(a) A particular nature which has been individuated but not independently personalized
(b) As a specific exemplar of that which is common to a general classification or species ??? that which moves from an abstract generalization to a concrete example;
© As a set of natural properties (as opposed to distinguishing accidents) as they exist in an individual.
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
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#15
Akhi Michael,

The following from the Synodicon Oriental may be of help...

Quote:Concerning this, we believe in our hearts and confess with our lips one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whose Godhead does not disappear, and whose manhood is not stolen away, but who is complete God and complete man. When we say of Christ ???complete God??? we are not naming the Trinity, but one of the qnome of the Trinity, God the Word. Again, when we call Christ ???complete man??? it is not all men we are naming, but the one qnoma which was specifically taken for our salvation into union with the Word.
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
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