From: "Alice Turner" <al@interport.net>
Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v022.n002
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 19:04:06 


>
>>From: Nigel Price <NigelPrice1@compuserve.com>
>>Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney, wrote:
>>
>>>>John 19:30 cum ergo accepisset Iesus acetum dixit consummatum est et
>>>> inclinato capite tradidit spiritum
>>>>
>>>>("And when Jesus had received the vinegar, he said "It is finished" and
>>>>bowed his head and gave up his spirit.")
>>
>>Yeah, bummer isn't it?  Definitely "consummatum est" ("it is
accomplished")
>>rather than "terminus est" in the Vulgate.  I still haven't found my copy
>
>...
>>And, of course, I looked at John 19.30 and found "consummatum est", which
>>just about put the tin lid on a bad day, much of the afternoon of which I
>
>
>Fear not, friend Nigel--your position is salvageable. I have it on good
>authority that Jesus' grasp of Latin was pretty weak. In fact, he hardly
>used it at all, preferring the local patois (Hebrew? Aramaic? Dang, my
>seminary days were wasted, I fear. No, the Sergeant doth not jest--he
really
>spent a year in seminary, during which he learned nothing.)

>Of course, we all know that the words of Jesus as recorded in the Latin
>Vulgate are themselves a translation--actually, a translation of a
>translation, since the New Testament was first recorded in Greek...which
>Jesus probably didn't speak either.

Actually, according to something I read somewhere lately (don't you love
that?--such a perfect Usenet reference), perhaps an article in The Atlantic,
Jesus may well have spoken some or even a fair amount of Greek, from the
evidence that the next town over from Nazareth (the name of which escapes
me, naturally) was a highly Hellenicized trading town---before you pounce to
point out that the occupation was Roman, not Greek, the author made the
point that the lingua franca was at that time Greek (you take my
meaning--the English of today, heh, heh).

On the other hand, it's unlikely that he went around spouting Greek at
wedding parties, on top of Mounts and on the cross.

> I think it's reasonable to
>suggest that "terminus est" may be translated into English as "it is
>finished", and that Wolfe was aware of this.  I've always been partial to
>that translation of the sword's name (and I've said so before).

I also. But then I've always been partial to the Sarge.

-alga



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