It is written:
When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. He was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.
This is in Acts 13:6-8 according to the English Standard Version (bolding mine). Every version says basically the same thing.
What does the bold part mean? How does Elymas mean Bar-Jesus? In what language?
WRS
dre2xl
November 7, 2004, 2:27am
2
WeRSauron:
It is written:
This is in Acts 13:6-8 according to the English Standard Version (bolding mine). Every version says basically the same thing.
What does the bold part mean? How does Elymas mean Bar-Jesus? In what language?
WRS
My Strong’s Concordance says that Bar-Jesus means the Son of Jesus/Joshua. Elymas means “wizard”. My guess is that Bar-Jesus was his real name, and they called him Elymas in the way someone might say “the midwife” to refer to someone whose profession was well-known in a small town.
From The Interpreter’s Bible (Abingdon, 1954), exegesis by G.H.C. Macgregor:
8. Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name): A very puzzling sentence. Does it mean that “Elymas” is a “translation” of Bar-Jesus, or that the meaning of “Elymas” – in this case the man’s proper name added to the patronymic Bar-Jesus – is “magician”? (a) On the latter assumption the best suggestion is that “Elymas” is related to a similar Arabic word meaning “wise,” but this seems very farfetched. (b) It is very difficult to see how “Elymas” can be a translation of “Bar-Jesus” (“son of salvation”), unless we accept the even more farfetched suggestion that “Bar-Jesus” is itself a corruption of a transliteration of an Aramaic word meaning “make ready”; this might then be “translated” by the Greek word “Etoimas,” which the Western text reads in place of “Elymas” (so Zahn, Die Apostelgeschichte des Lucas [Leipzig: A. Deichert, 1922], II, 417-18). This man “Etoimas” might then conceivably be identified with a Cypriote sorcerer whom Josephus calls “Atomus” (Antiquities XX. 7. 2). © Probably the best solution is to take the idea of translation very loosely and suppose that the meaning simply is that the Jew “Bar-Jesus” was commonly known among the Greek-speaking populace as “Elymas” – two names which, as in the case, e.g., of John Mark, were not etymologically related. F.C. Burkitt suggests that “Elymas” may be a corruption of [a Greek word], meaning “the pestilential fellow” (“The Interpretation of Bar-Jesus,” Journal of Theological Studies , IV (1902), 127-29).