by euripides 29 Replies latest watchtower bible
Even if not the case, there should still be room for both irony (at a more literal reading) and hyperbole (at a more rhetorical reading).
Our choices then are irony, hyperbole, or error, or some combination therein.Who says textual criticism can't be fun?!
well, there actually is a solution...
1. Epimenides is a Cretan.
2. Epimenides states, "All Cretans are liars" (or "Cretans are always liars").
3. Thus Epidemindes is a liar.
4. Liars don't necessarily always lie.
5. Thus Epimenides' statement can be true.
there would be a real paradox if he'd say: "Cretans are always lying" (along with claiming this statement to be true).
the sentence in this post is false.
As you say Leolaia, the matter may be more subtle. For it seems to take a popular maxim which may well have been understood to be a paradox (or an intended one) but tweaks it and appropriates it in hyperbolic fashion. Later New Testament writing commonly does this, wherein I think we are missing part of an already inside joke. I would suggest there is a deliberate ambiguity perhaps, in that the listener, if aware, will understand, but if not will go on as if no paradox was invoked. A clever rhetorical device!
Either that or the writer really had no clue what he was writing about.
I'd like to know when and in which form this sentence traditionally ascribed to Epimenides is first attested.
From the usual quotations, I could imagine pantes Krètes pseustai, rather than Krètes aei pseustai (Titus). Which would be somewhat looser imo, and I'm not sure if this proverbial-like saying was meant as a paradox in the first place.
In that case the Titus version would make it tighter, but I doubt it is on purpose. If it is, "this testimony is true" (v. 13) would be a good joke, but the author doesn't strike me as especially funny or witty...
The paradox is in the nature of lie: no liar always lies.
On the other hand, googlemagoole's one is tougher.
Narkissos....Apparently, the writer of the Pastorals got it right with his quotation, at least with this phrase. Callimachus (third century BC) alludes to Epimenides in his own poem about the Cretan beliefs about Zeus:
"Cretans are always liars (Krétes aei pseustai), for a tomb, O Lord, Cretans build for you, but you did not die, for you are forever (essi gar aiei)" (Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus 1.8-9).
Both Epimenides and Callimachus were challenging the traditional Cretan claim that the Greek gods were originally mortal men who lived and died in Crete (rather than eternal gods on Olympus). In another text, Callimachus says that one "speaks without lying (apseuda legón)" when one says that he "knows that the Cretan tomb is empty (taphon ton Kréta ginósken kenon)". (Iambus 12, fr. 202, 15-16). The tomb was traditionally located on Mt. Juktas on Crete, where the rocky terrain resembles a giant face looking skyard. Thus Lucan compares the recent tomb of Pompey in Egypt with that of Zeus in Crete: "In a more fortunate age, Egyptians who point to the stone and say 'This once marked Pompey's grave will meet as little belief from our posterity as do the Cretans who point out the alleged tomb of Jupiter on Mount Juktas" (Pharsalia, 8.870-872). Diodorus Siculus (first century BC) goes into some detail about the Cretan beliefs (Historical Library 5.64.1-2) about Crete being the birthplace of the gods and the location of Zeus' tomb. Epimenides rejected this claim and promoted the normative non-local Olympian view and is quoted by Ishodad of Mero (9th century AD) as follows:
"They fashioned a tomb for you, O holy and high one. The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies! But you are not dead; you live and abide forever. For in you we live and move and have our being." (Ishodad of Mero, Commentary on Acts).
If Ishodad's quotation from Epimenides' Cretica is accurate, we would also have the source of the wording in Acts 17:27-28: "God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' " The quotation that ends the verse in Acts 17:28, "We are his offspring," is thought to derive from Aratus or from the Hymn of Cleanthes.
I also wonder if the purpose of citing Epimenides in Titus is not only to defame the Cretans but also to remind one of the vain traditions about Zeus as a sort of analogy to the "Jewish myths" mentioned two verses later (Titus 1:14). Note also the use of apseudés in v. 2, which parallels Callimachus' use of the same word in reference to the Cretan myths.
Thanks for the research Leolaia.
So the common translation "all Cretans are liars" is a pretty loose one.
I vaguely remembered the story about the "historical Zeus" though... It could make a lot of sense inasmuch as the anti-Pauline Judeo-Christians, which claim to be the natural heirs of the "historical Jesus", are the real target of the passage
Isn't it interesting that the Cretans by use of a modified Euhemeral idea became the scorn of antiquity? And that this belief was not too far removed from the legacy of the empty tomb of Jesus apotheosized? I like your idea Narkissos, of the anti-Pauline school being attacked through this quotation, it makes sense rhetorically. And Leolaia, well, girl you just continue to sweep me off my feet with your encyclopedic approach. Now this is what it's all about!
Philo of Byblos also gives a euhemeristic theogony of the gods of Phoenecia.
We should also note the Pastorals' emphasis on rejecting "fables" (muthoi) and "geneologies" (genealogias) which are lumped together with "controversies about the Law (makhas nomikas)" (cf. 1 Timothy 1:4; Titus 3:9), and this is paralleled with the telling of "ancient myths" (mutheumasin palaiois) in Ignatius (Magnesians 8:1) who links it to living "according to Judaism (kata Ioudaismon)". I have usually read this as refering to Jewish haggada and pseudepigrapha but I wonder if the allusion to "geneologies" has in view the early narrative gospel tradition, and attempts like those of Matthew and Luke to construct geneologies for Jesus. The gospel narrative tradition is similar to haggada in its appropriation of OT material to construct stories about Jesus. However, since the Pastorals originated in a later proto-orthodox setting where Jesus' humanity was accepted (cf. the credal statements of Ignatius and Polycarp) and where oral traditions about Jesus flourished (cf. Papias), I don't think this can be pushed too far.
The Pastorals confess Jesus' humanity as part of the "revealed mystery" but do not insist (understatement) on his being a Jew.
Luke, who is certainly closer to the Pastorals than Matthew, avoids the kingly line in his genealogy -- his "Christ" has nothing in common with a Davidic Messiah -- and traces it back to Adam (obvious universalistic purpose).
IMO the Pastorals advocate a middle way (cf. the constant appeal to sôphrosunè, "sensibleness", the middle-class ethical values, etc.) between Judeo-Christians and Christian Gnostics, and they fight on both fronts. Non-Christian Judaism and Paganism have already gone offstage.
