Bernard Muller wrote:to spin,
Transliteration is based on the sound the scribe heard when the reader enunciated/dictated the words in the text. The scribe didn't read the text and then translate it. The process was about hearing. The reader spoke the name. Would he have pronounced it differently from the way casual speakers would have said it?
I agree. I said Paul very likely did not read in Aramaic the nickname, but transliterated what he heard:
And if Paul learned of the nickname from Aramaic illiterate Galilean speakers orally (with a strong local accent!), he could have easily transliterated what he heard by "Κηφᾶς". Then later, "Mark" was told by others that "Κηφᾶς" means "stone" in Aramaic and changed "Κηφᾶς" by "Petros", which of course his Greek speaking audience would know it means "rock".
My point was that the scribes transliterated what they heard when they transcribed the
Kaf as a
chi and there is no reason to believe that Paul heard it any differently. We should be able to assume that what he transliterated was not the syncretizing proposal of christian orthodoxy, but something more like Qyp', the Semitic name we know as Caiaphas.
Syriac is not a viable source for a Galilean Aramaic nickname. The phonology of the two languages is different.
This entry doesn't help overcome the problem of the improbable trajectory of
Kaf to
kappa.
Bernard Muller wrote:I think there is.
It might not be exactly sounding like "Κηφᾶς", but as Ben wrote:
One of the things my Classics stressed, both for Latin and for Greek, is that we do not really know exactly how ancient people pronounced their letters and words; ...
And the problem is worse about Galilean Aramaic as spoken by uneducated people.
This is where transliteration becomes so important. We have evidence in the crossover from Hebrew into Greek just how certain names—and so specific phonemes—were generally heard. Hence the problem of
Kaf to
kappa. One cannot make special pleas
about Galilean Aramaic as spoken by uneducated people, without having some confirming evidence. All we have—with regard to the figure Paul refers to—is
post hoc syncretism. I can see no way to separate the claim that Cephas means "rock" (and therefore equates to Peter) from the need to tie Peter into the Pauline ethos. I don't know (or perhaps remember) your position on Gal 2:7b-8, but I think the evidence is strong that it is an interpolation specifically to support Peter's priority, so the connection of Peter to Cephas is colored by theological tendency.
Bernard Muller wrote:All what was needed is for "Mark" (and possibly Paul) to be told that "Κηφᾶς" means "stone". I also note that "Mark" did not make a theological point on "Petros" as "Matthew" did.
My reaction is—naturally—that the above is more conjecture!