A reader writes:
I’m trying to piece together an apologetics answer involving some Greek and Aramaic and this is getting dangerous. Could you help? It centers on the objection to Catholics claiming that the "brothers of Jesus" actually refers to "cousins or kinfolk" following the indefinite term aha (I think) in Aramaic. Aramaic apparently has no strict term for cousin and the Greek author transliterated adelphos from the Aramaic "brother". So far so good. But someone recently retorted that if there is no term for cousin in Aramaic, why is Elizabeth called Mary’s "cousin" (sungenes) in Luke 1, 36? OK, I’ve learned that "cousin" is only one word used here by English translators- along with kinswoman and relative. So, Elizabeth’s not strictly meant to be seen as Mary’s literal cousin. But now I’m trying to learn if there is a corresponding Aramaic term for the Elizabeth-Mary relationship as there is for the Jesus-Brothers relationship. It seems that, to be consistent, Luke must have transliterated some sort of Aramaic term to arrive at sungenes for the Elizabeth-Mary relation. Any ideas?
First, let me take a moment to comment on the translation in Luke 1:36 in the New American Bible of sungenis (the feminine form of sungenēs) as "cousin." This is a terrible rendering that has caused confusion for countless faithful Catholics. It is just another one of the seemingly countless flaws with this translation. The meaning of the Greek word sungenēs (pronounced sun-gen-ace) is too general to be translated "cousin." "Relative," "kinsman," or (in the feminine) "kinswoman" would be acceptable translations. "Cousin" is simply wrong, and so clearly wrong that in Luke 1:36 in the current version of the NAB, they’ve stopped rendering it that way and translated it as "relative" instead. If only the translators hadn’t been so irresponsible as to do the misrendering in the first place, countless Catholics would have been spared confusion.
Now, on the subject of Aramaic, yes, Aramaic has no word for "cousin." If one wanted to refer to the cousin relationship, one has to use a circumlocution such as “the son of his uncle” (brona d-`ammeh). This often is too much trouble, so broader kinship terms are used that don’t mean “cousin” in particular; e.g., ahyana ("kinsman"), qariwa ("close relation"), or nasha ("relative"). One such term is aha, which literally means “brother” but is also frequently used in the sense of “relative, kinsman.”
Luke could have been translating any one of these more general terms (or, rather, their feminine equivalents) as sungenēs, or he could have been translating a different, general term, or he could have been paraphrasing what the angel said rather than translating from the Aramaic. There’s really no way to know which is the case, but there certainly are alternatives.
