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What supports a meaning related to epilepsy for σπαράσσω in the Greek lexicons? There could be some justification for allowing such a meaning to influence corresponding Syriac vocabulary, if we could be sure that the underlying Greek was explicitly terminology related to epilepsy. LN’s meaning has its origin in Barclay Newman’s given contextual meaning for his entry on σπαράσσω

234 _{Thus we find in Dan 8:7 (concerning an enraged goat knocking down a ram) that some Greek manuscripts have}

ἐσπάραξεν αὐτὸν ἐπὶτὴν γήν whilst others have ἔῤῥιψεν αὐτὸν ἐπὶτὴν γήν. See the ‘Alternate Texts’ in Alfred Rahlfs and

Robert Hanhart, eds., Septuaginta: SESB Edition (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006).

235 _{The Harklean simply employs a consistent Greek-Syriac correspondence for every occurrence of}

σπαράσσω/συσπαράσσω in its Greek source, namely we can posit that σπαράσσω/συσπαράσσω appeared in the

Harklean’s source precisely where it appears in the text of NA28 _{(Mk 1:26, 9:20,26; Lk 9:39,42).}

236 _{The Pael of ܩܥܒ is apparently more ‘convulsive’ than the Peal verb according to CSD. However, if we were to}

read a Peal in the Harklean (rather than the Pael) this would further support the animalistic connotations of a ‘wild beast’ mauling (‘tearing apart’) its prey in Mk 9:18–26. An unpointed text remains ambiguous here (as either ‘tear with the teeth’ and/or ‘[cause to] shake violently’).

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(throw into convulsions). Newman attempted to prioritise the contextual meaning of lexemes (“in this first stage, I attempted to analyze the specific contextual meanings of each entry in the New Testament”)237 _{and to give meanings “in present-day English.”}238

The most influential source for the convulsive meaning in KPG comes from the Greek lexicons, namely directly via LN (and Newman) and indirectly via the treatment in Jennings and Whish (both influenced by the Greek). Although the given meaning is not particularly medical in Whish, the meaning is obviously tied down to the meaning of the underlying Greek and of the Greek parallel in Lk 9:42. Likewise we can see that the meaning in Jennings resembles the meaning given in the Greek lexicons, such as Thayer, for σπαράσσω (to convulse τινά and here also Thayer’s cross reference to meaning ‘c’ for ῥήγνυμι).239 The main difference between Thayer and earlier Greek New Testament lexicons of the nineteenth century is that the entry in Thayer is a little clearer about the lexeme having different senses in other texts, implying that ‘convulse’ is not a sense found outside the New Testament. The meaning given in Thayer (‘to convulse someone’) is a conscious contextual application of a transitive use of the verb with the demon as subject and a person as object (the demon is specified in the entry for the third meaning of ῥήγνυμι “c. i.q. [equivalent to] σπαράσσω, to distort, convulse: of a demon causing convulsions in a man possessed”). Thayer’s meaning at least indicates that it is a suggested contextual meaning.

The nineteenth century saw a buttressing of a meaning apparently indicating epileptic convulsions when the seventh and eighth editions of the Liddell-Scott lexicon (1883; 1897) specified a fourth ‘medical’ sense for σπαράσσω. It is into this fourth sense that the ninth edition (LSJ, 1925–1940)240 _{places ‘convulse’ 4b:}

237 _{Barclay M. Newman Jr., “A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament: Reflections and}

Ruminations,” in Biblical Greek Language and Lexicography, ed. Bernard A. Taylor, John A. L. Lee, Peter R. Burton, and Richard E. Whitaker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 93.

238 _{Barclay M. Newman Jr., Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament(London: United Bible Societies, 1971),}

preface. The entry for σπαράσσωhas remained unchanged in the revised 2010 edition. LN based its meanings on

Newman, according to Lee, History, 158.

239 _{Joseph Henry Thayer, ed., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, being Grimm’s Wilke’s Clavis Novi Testamenti.}

(4th ed.; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1901).

240 _{Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (rev. Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick}

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4 . Medic., σ. τὸστόμα τῆς κοιλίαςprovoke sickness, Gal.II.57; cf. σπαρακτέον: ς.

ἀνημέτως:—Pass., retch without being able to vomit, Hp.Coac.546. b.convulse, of an evil spirit, Ev.Marc.1.26.

Whether or not ‘convulse’ fitted best within the fourth (medical) category was, apparently, not critically evaluated. A more viable option would have been to treat σπαράσσω in Mk 1:26 as a more figurative use of the verb (i.e. meaning 3: “metaph., pull to pieces, attack” or perhaps with meaning 1: “tear, rend, esp. of dogs, carnivorous animals, and the like”).241

The medical references given in LSJ (for meaning 4a) align more readily with the ‘middle-passive’ morpho-semantics of the verb’s other uses, as would be expected of bodily ‘disturbances’ and ‘ruptures’, so the verb’s grammatical subject, in such cases, differs to that in Mk 1:26. A similar confusion of grammatical subjects and of forms appears in BDAG where the cited subject is presumably a man and the form is suitably middle, not active. Thus the meaning shake to and fro is immediately explained as “an unclean spirit convulses the person in whom it dwells (ἄνθρωπος σπαραττόμενος of an attack: Cyranides p. 59, 15) Mk 1:26…” We can now see that the convulsive meaning is largely indebted to the Greek lexicons and that such a meaning rests on shaky

foundations (the merging of different grammatical subjects and different morphology, and being influenced by medical texts).242