Extraction and Emission Language in Luke 8:45

Abstract

This brief philological study focuses on Luke’s alteration of Mark’s συνθλίβειν, “compress,” to ἀποθλίβειν, “to squeeze out,” in the famous tableau of the woman with chronic uterine blood flow (Mark 5:25–34; Luke 8:42–48). The author first points to the general lack of critical attention this change receives and then traces out why the two terms, συνθλίβειν and ἀποθλίβειν, should not be understood as interchangeable. Finally, he suggests that Luke’s shift to ἀποθλίβειν offered him a term with more expansive semantic range for depicting the exit of δύναµις, “power,” from Jesus and the woman’s subsequent healing.