260 Charles C. Torrey, 



uniformly " province." On the other hand, the old Greek translation 

 of Dan. 11:24 renders it by ttoXu ; and this version, as I have shown 

 elsewhere,* was made not long after the middle of the second century 

 B.C. By the second century A.D., the meaning " city " was the usual 

 one, in Jewish Aramaic as well as in the northern (Syriac) dialect. Thus 

 we have D^p^D 713^1X2 in the Megillaih Taaiiith ; and the translator 

 Symmachus even corrects the 'ij^^^ of the older Greek versions of the 

 Old Testament to noXis, in i Kings 20 : 14, Dan. 8:2, and (presumably) 

 the conflate Hexaplar text of Neh. 1 : .3, sv rrj "/"^P? ^'^ "^^ TroXet.'- It 

 must be borne in mind that tioXis is a flat mistranslation in these cases, 

 especially noticeable in Dan. 8:2, " In the city (!) Elam," showing that 

 the signification " province," for n^lXi) was then nearly or quite obsolete. 

 Hence also, probably, the corruption of the text of Ezra 6 : 2 (appar- 

 ently omitting '^'7!2D ^*l) which lay before Theodotion. But the most 

 important mistranslation of this sort, marking the vanishing use of HS'^'ID 

 = " province," is found in the New Testament Gospels, in Luke 1 : 39. 

 The Greek reads: otvaaTaaa oe Mapia{x ev xai? yjfxepat? xauxais ETropsuOr] 

 z\z Tf^^ opEivYjv fxeta (j-ouo"^? il? TToltv " lovSa, xai sia^XOev ei? tov otxov 

 Zayapiou, x.t.s. " And Mary arose in those days and went into the hill 

 country with haste, /o the city (?) of Judah (?) ; and entered into the 

 house of Zachariah," etc. This cannot be "to a city of Judah," which 

 would be £1? iToXtv xr^c 'louoat'ac, cf. vs. 26. The only peiTnissible 

 rendering is " to the city (named) Judah ;" but this will not do, for there 

 was no city which could be referred to in this way. Nor has any 

 commentator been able to suggest a plausible explanation of this phrase. 

 But when we compare vs. 65, iv SXt) tt] opstvTj xTf 'louoaias ; 2 : 4, avspT) 

 6e xal 'Iio^Tjcp . . . . £x TroXeto? Na^apeB si? xrjv 'louoaiav, etc., it is obvious 

 that the Greek of 1 : 39 contains another mistranslation of the obsolescent 

 nJ^HD =" " province." What the evangelist wrote was either (Hebrew) 

 niirr' riinia h% or else (Aramaic) Kn3'''7l2 TlH"''? ; and the translation 

 should have been: etc xrjv ^((opav irf. 'louoaiac, " to the province ofjudea.'''' 

 Cf. the occurrences of this phrase in Ezra 5 : 8, Neh. 1:3, 11 : 3, and 

 in ii Mace. 1:1, iv xr] /oipct x^? 'louoai'a;. This is absolutely certain 

 proof that the first two chapters of Luke were originally written in a 

 Semitic language, and it is the only sure jjroof which has thus far been 

 rendered. 



2 : 48 " And he gave him authority over all the province of Baby- 

 lonia, and [appointed him] chief prefect over all the wise men of 



* See above, at the end of the introduction; also Ezra Studies^ pp. 82-85. 

 ^ See the Otd Testament aud Semitic Studies i?t memory of W. R. Hai-per^ 

 vol. ii, pp. 104 f. 



