A reader writes:
Question: An atheist has claimed that Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus couldn’t have happened because it’s a greek word that has two meanings, critical to the story, and Jesus didn’t speak greek.
I know neither greek nor aramaic, and according to some english, so any thing you happen to know would be useful. Thanks!
It’s true that in John’s account of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus (John 3:1ff) the Greek word anothen (an-OH-thin) is used, and that this word can mean either “from above” or “again.” It is often assumed that the Gospel of John uses this word as a deliberate pun (“born again” vs. “born from above”).
However, from an apologetic perspective, this is a non-problem.
#1 Paraphrase is allowed in writings of this sort. It is easy to demonstrate that the New Testament authors employ paraphrase (as do ALL ancient historical writers). The claim is that the gospels faithfully reflect the teaching of Jesus (they speak with his ipsissima vox) not that they give an exact word-for-word Greek translation of what he said on all occasions (his ipsissima verba). Thus in faithfully transmitting the *teaching* of Jesus, John may have noticed that a Greek pun was possible and chosen to use it. On the other hand . . .
#2 Cross-language puns are far easier to construct than people imagine. Just because there is a pun in one language doesn’t mean that there can’t be an *equivalent* pun in another. Jesus may have made a pun in Aramaic and then John constructed an equivalent pun in Greek. On the other hand . . .
#3 The pun may not be intentional on John’s part. The objection assumes that John was deliberately punning, but as we all know, it’s quite possible for someone “to be a poet and not know it.” On the other hand . . .
#4 They *did* speak a good bit of Greek in first century Palestine. While it is more likely that they were speaking in Aramaic, this conversation could have taken place in Greek.
I don’t view these alternatives as equally likely (my money would be on #1 as the most likely explanation, then #2), but they are all possible, and the claim that the conversation couldn’t have happened because of a Greek pun in the gospel is simply false.
#2 is actually very likely indeed. Philology is Serious Business, and textual critics, alas, tend to be a humourless lot, which makes them apt to miss important minor points. Paronomasia (Greek for ‘wordplay’, for the benefit of your reader, if your reader is reading the comments) was regarded as one of the chief graces of literary Greek. If an educated Aramaic-speaker showed off his learning by speaking in parables, an educated Greek showed off by speaking in puns.
Linguists often forget that languages don’t just evolve of themselves; they are developed by human beings, and over time, a language tends to become more useful at expressing the kinds of ideas its speakers find most important to communicate. The Romans, for instance, were an extremely legalistic and political people, and Latin contains many unique words and idioms dealing with law and politics. Literary French is renowned for being clear and precise. Classical Sanskrit contains so many expressions specially designed for Indian philosophy that, as I have heard, it is impossible to accurately express that philosophy in any other language. And Greek, especially Attic Greek (from which New Testament Greek is descended), was developed in part to express poetry and puns.
I have only studied elementary Attic Greek myself, but even before my first year of study was done, I could appreciate a certain amount of Greek wordplay and even construct simple puns myself. Greek is so rich a medium for puns, I would not be surprised to find that nearly any pun in any language can be translated into an equivalent Greek pun.
This, by the way, argues to some degree against #3. Anyone who had good enough Greek to write a book like John’s Gospel would have to be familiar with at least the basics of paronomasia. At the very worst, John constructed his pun accidentally and then decided to leave it in. More probably he knew just what he was doing.