Julian9EHP wrote:

From: (WardNA)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking


[ . . . ]


The authors of the gospels didn't think so: they prefered a sedate,
ritualistic, even pedantic style with a tone of ironic understatement.


[ . . . ]

A reader of certain translations of the Bible can be lulled by overfamiliarity.
For "buffeted," read "tortured"; for "smote," read "punched." One can be
jarred by reading the Bible in another language.
This is one way that people with less learning than ours, less conditioning,
can have an advantage: they don't have as many overtones, some of which aren't
part of the original.

The original prose was written in a trade language -- Koine, the "common
tongue" -- and with certain devices common in Hebrew and Aramaic (e.g.,
paralellism and repetition).

So I'd question your reading of the style as "ritualistic, even pedantic".

Ob. Food: Oatmeal, oatmeal, oatmeal.
;-)
E. P.


Mark's gospel is anything but sedate. His favorite word seems to be
"immediately".

-bob