Ὑμεῖς Y'all
Ὑμεῖς
Y'all
Watching
this week's PBS revival of The
Civil War and reviving my oldtime adoration of General Lee, it's gratifying this morning as I read the gospel for Sunday, to
observe that Jesus was a Southerner. A rebel even. Well, we've always known he's a rebel. As he and his disciples are
wandering through the villages of Philip's Caesarea, he asks them who
people (ἄνθρωποι,
that's “people” not “men”) are saying he is. Okay, that sort
of out of the blue egotism doesn't sound like Jesus to me, but fine,
Mark says Jesus said it; and the disciples give several answers. Then
Jesus says, “But who do y'all (Ὑμεῖς
Y'all) say I am? To which Peter blurts out Σὺ
εἶ ὁ χριστός You are the Christ. Why some English
translations annoy me by rendering it “messiah” when Mark's Greek
uses “χριστός” I don't know, but that's not a concern of the moment.
Actually, there is
no
concern, but there are
several
things of interest in this snippet from Sunday's gospel reading.
For
one thing, there's Mark's breathless use of the connective kai "and" as he rushes from sentence to sentence. For another, there's the
so-called “messianic secret” or “Markan secret” that has
Jesus telling people who recognize him to keep quiet about it,
scholarly a mystery why Jesus does that, or at least why Mark quotes
Jesus doing that. Why the big secret? You can speculate all you want,
but we don't know; however, it makes for great dicussion in Sunday
School class.
For still another, one of Mark's key agenda items in
writing this gospel is to frustrate his hearer/reader that nobody
around Jesus realizes who he is, not even his disciples. All through
Mark's gospel, and as it progresses, God knows who Jesus is, Mark
knows, we the reader/hearer know because Mark tells us, Jesus knows
(told by the Voice at his baptism), the demons know, and then finally
at the gospel's end the Roman centurion in charge of the crucifixion
detail knows. Mark's development of his agenda is brilliant (that's
all I'm saying here, come to Sunday School class or to Tuesday Bible
Seminar, it's not part of where I'm going this morning). One might say
oh yes, Peter knows, see, he says, You are the Messiah,” but not
so. Messiah was, for Peter and in that day and age, just another man,
in David's line, who would rise up to assume the ancient throne of
David and lead a rebellion to reclaim Palestine for Israel. Peter's
confession is close but no cigar. Peter doesn't get the cigar until
Matthew 16:16 when he says “you are the Christ, the Son of the
living God.” See?
Anyway,
in English it's hard to tell the difference in the singular and
plural form of the pronoun “you.” Except in the South, where we
say “you” for singular and “y'all” for plural. Clearly one of
us, Jesus here uses Ὑμεῖς: who do y'all say I am?
TW+
Mark
8:27f Disciples’ Literal New Testament (DLNT)
Who
Do Ὑμεῖς Y'all Say That I Am? Peter Says, Σὺ
εἶ ὁ χριστός You Are The Christ
27 And
Jesus and His disciples went forth into the villages of
Caesarea-the-Philip's [a]. And on the way, He was questioning His
disciples, saying to
them “Who do people say that
I am?” 28 And
the ones
spoke to
Him, saying “That You
are
John the Baptist. And others, Elijah. But others, that You
are
one of
the prophets”. 29 And
He
was questioning them, “But who do you
say that
I am?” Having responded, Peter says to
Him Σὺ εἶ ὁ χριστός “You
are the Christ”. 30 And
He warned them that they should be telling no one about Him.
Footnotes:
[a] Mark
8:27
That is, the capital city of Herod Philip II (see Lk
3:1),
north of the Sea of Galilee (as opposed to the Caesarea on the
coast).
Disciples'
Literal New Testament: Serving Modern Disciples by More Fully
Reflecting the Writing Style of the Ancient Disciples, Copyright ©
2011 Michael J. Magill. All Rights Reserved. Published by Reyma
Publishing