Symbolic Identification
One of the oldest extant versions of the Gospel of Luke, preserved in the Codex Bezae, reads "Oulammaus" instead of Emmaus. In Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures, Oulammaus was the place where Jacob was visited by God in his dream, while sleeping on a rock. However, Oulammaus was not a real place name at all, but created only by an unfortunate translation mistake. The original name in Hebrew was "Luz". This mistake has long been corrected, but it was still there at the time when the Gospel was written around 100 AD. Thus, a theory has been put forward, that the story in the Gospel was merely symbolic, wanting to draw a parallel between Jacob being visited by God and the disciples being visited by Jesus. This symbolic significance, however, would not preclude the account being historically accurate. To be noted also is that Jacob was sleeping on a rock and Jesus' main disciple Simon Peter was called by the name of rock (Petros).
Read more about this topic: Emmaus
Famous quotes containing the word symbolic:
“I find it profoundly symbolic that I am appearing before a committee of fifteen men who will report to a legislative body of one hundred men because of a decision handed down by a court comprised of nine men—on an issue that affects millions of women.... I have the feeling that if men could get pregnant, we wouldn’t be struggling for this legislation. If men could get pregnant, maternity benefits would be as sacrosanct as the G.I. Bill.”
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