"When they had gone though the whole island as far

as Paphos, they met a certain magician, a Jewish

false prophet, named Bar-Jesus. He was with the

proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man, who

summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear

the word of God. But Elymas the magician (for that is

the translation of his name) opposed them and tried

to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But Saul,

also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked

intently at him and said, "You son of the devil, you

enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and

villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight

paths of the Lord? And now listen - the hand of the

Lord is against you, and you will be blind for a

while, unable to see the sun. Immediately mist and

darkness came over him, and he went about groping

for someone to lead him by the hand" (Acts 13:6-11)

The name “Elymas”

Commentators have long been puzzled about how the name "Elymas" can be

interpreted to mean "magician" in the passage above. However, Rick Strelan appears to

have resolved the problem.(1) In a recent article he suggests that the magician had

taken the name of Elam, the eldest son of Shem, the son of Noah, and that Elam was

considered an archetypal magician. The name "Elymas" would then have signified

"magician" and this would explain Acts 13:8. In support of his proposal Strelan quotes

Josephus:

"For Elymos left behind him the Elamites, the ancestors of the Persians" (Ant 1.6.4),

and notes that the magoi were commonly associated with the Persians. There is also

evidence, not mentioned by Strelan, that Shem was considered a magician. Firstly, in

the Book of Jubilees a book of healing arts is given by Noah to his eldest son, Shem:

"And we explained to Noah all the medicines of their diseases, together with their

seductions, how he might heal them with herbs of the earth. And Noah wrote down all

things in a book as we instructed him concerning every kind of medicine. Thus the evil

spirits were precluded from (hurting) the sons of Noah. And he gave all that he had

written to Shem, his eldest son; for he loved him exceedingly above all his sons."

The Treatise of Shem is a Pseudepigraphic work, written in the name of Shem, probably

in the first century BC. It is an astrological treatise and therefore shows that Shem was

associated with astrology.

To sum up: Noah's eldest son was Shem, whose eldest son was Elam, whose name

was written "Elymos" by Josephus in the first century. The evidence suggests that there

was a tradition that the magical arts of astrology and perhaps healing passed down the

Noah-Shem-Elam line. Therefore, by accepting the name "Elymas", Bar-Jesus was

identifying himself as a magician in an ancient Jewish tradition.

The name "Bar-Jesus"

Strelan argues that Elymas was, like Simon Magus, a follower of Jesus, of sorts. He

suggests that Elymas took the name "Bar-Jesus" because he considered himself to be

a disciple of Jesus. Strelan cites several cases where the term "Bar" or "Son of" is

used to mean "disciple of". While "Jesus" was a common name for Jews, Strelan is

probably right. Someone who had named himself after Elam and had then started to

perform his magic in the name of Jesus, might well have taken the name "Son of Jesus"

to reflect the new source of his power or inspiration.

Strelan goes on to suggest that Luke intended to suggest that the name "Bar-Jesus

somehow represented the name "Elymas". This suggestion seems entirely

unnecessary, given Strelan's own convincing explanation of the name "Elymas".

Atomus

It is clear that "Elymas" was not his birth name. The name "Bar-Jesus", on any

hypothesis, cannot have been his only name in infancy, so he must have had another

name. Josephus describes a Jewish magician from Cyprus:

"At the time when Felix was procurator of Judaea, he beheld her; and, inasmuch as she

surpassed all other women in beauty, he conceived a passion for the lady. He sent to

her one of his friends, a Cyprian Jew named Atomus, who pretended to be a magician,

in an effort to persuade her to leave her husband and to marry Felix." (Josephus

Ant.20.142)

Both Atomus and Elymas were Jewish magicians from Cyprus who associated with

high Roman officials. Felix was procurator from A.D. 52-59 so Atomus incident was only

about a decade later than the Elymas incident. It is therefore chronologically possible

that they were one and the same person. If, as seems likely, Elymas was employed by

Sergius Paulus, he might well have lost his job after the encounter with Paul. If his other

name, Bar-Jesus, indicates that he had been in contact with the Jesus movement, he

may have had Judean connections. Thus it would not be surprising if Elymas left the

employment of Sergius Paulus and attached himself to Felix in Judea.

The similarity in sound between "Atomus" and "Elymas" makes the identity more likely.

The western text of Acts has "Etoimos", which may be a form of the name "Atomus".

There are many examples of cases where a new name is chosen, in part, because of

its phonetic resemblance to the original name (BarKosiba/BarKokhba/BarKoziba,

Titus-Timothy, Mary-Magdalene, Saul-Paul, Silvanus-Silas etc.).

(1) Strelan "Who Was Bar Jesus (Acts 13,6-12)?" Biblica 85 (2004) 65-81

http://www.bsw.org/?l=71851&a=Comm04.html

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