23 March 2022

In this blog entry we continue focusing on the most complex structure diagrams in the Book of Isaiah.

Start bibref in a new window first.

(If you click on a structure diagram, you can change the numbers into Greek/Latin texts and back.)

In some previous blog entries we already detected this match. Now we extend our finding that here just minor grammatical changes are made by Paul, to fit the quoted text into his context. The quotation is a combination of class 4 and 5 matches. As reported formerly, this quotation can be found with the getrefs algorithm.

This match was formerly reported. Here we note that just minor changes are added by Paul, but maybe he allows himself a play on words in the first insertion: the LXX reads “ως ωρα επι των ορεων / ως” (“as an hour upon the mountains / as”), while the SBLGNT reads “Ως ωραιοι οι” (“How beautiful / the”). The other two insertions (“των”: “of those”, “τα”: “of”) do not insert any new concepts but help Paul to express his message concisely.

The minor differences between these two texts seem to occur because of grammatical reasons. Luke adds the definite article “το” (“the”) before starting the quotation, and instead of writing “εν τοις” (“among the”) he writes “μετα” (“with”). In the remaining two words the first one is written differently because of grammatical reasons. Technically we can identify this quotation as a mixture of a class 4/5 match because the word “μετα” is removed and the words “το” and “εν τοις” are added. Anyway, this match can be found with the getrefs algorithm, despite the longest matches for Isaiah 53:12 are false positives (Matthew 19:29 and Romans 7:10). (Check this in bibref.) Seemingly, a shorter quotation may require some grammatical modifications to fit in the context in general.

Again, this is quite a short quotation. Despite its length it can be detected via the getrefs algorithm. (Check this in bibref. Note that the match is found only as the 6-7. best match.) In addition, John inserts the word “εσονται” (“they will be”) to express future tense – this is not directly mentioned in Isaiah 54:13 but in its preceding verse (“θησω”: “I will make”). The words “τους υιους σου” (“your sons”) are skipped by John. Finally we can summarize that this quotation is a mixture of a class 4/5 match because of an additions and a removal, however, the addition plays the role of clarification of the tense. Maybe John wants to shorten the quoted text but express the same message – that's why some minor edits were performed by him.