stephan huller

most jews couldnt read hebrew that well. hence the influence of the targumim

stephan huller

the naasenes spoke greek certainly but knew something of hebrew too

sotto voce

Increasingly, scholarship believes otherwise (to the discomfiture of Catholicism, of course). Galilee in particular was cosmopolitan, and koine was the lingua franca there, for trade and commerce at least.

stephan huller

Stanley Porter on the subject "For Jews in Palestine, however, in the Judean villages they used Hebrew and Aramaic, in Galilee they used Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek, in the coastal cities they used Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew, and in Jerusalem, if they were upper class." But Schiffman right corrects the prevailing opinion: "That some Jews, even in the Land of Israel, were more at home in Greek than in Hebrew or Aramaic is suggested by the presence of some manuscripts of Greek translations of the Bible at Qumran and in the Bar Kokhba corpus." Schiffman and others actually argue for a greater use of Hebrew than is typically conceded by others. I still say there is little evidence for widespread use of Greek outside of the richest segments of Palestinian Jewish society or those who engaged in trade with outsiders.

The bottom line nevertheless would be that all Jews thought Hebrew was a holy language and all others secular and profane. It makes sense that core theological ideas would be formulated in Hebrew.

sotto voce

That's not too bad. There was probably very little Hebrew in Galilee, except in some synagogues, and koine was the necessary 'glue' rather than Aramaic. Recent studies have suggested that Greek was more prevalent in Judean cities than previously thought, though this makes sense, because commercial pressure would have been almost great in those places as in the prosperous Galilee. So there is no reason to exclude a role for koine in any of the region's important phenomena of the period.

stephan huller

Of course there is because koine Greek, Latin and Aramaic are junk languages that - in the eyes of religious Jews - are far from the divine court.

stephan huller

Anyway, I am not interesting in arguing about what languages were spoken where. Hebrew is always the sacred language of the Jews and it is hard to believe that core Christian concepts did not develop from that sacred tongue. So let's book at the relationship between nissa and nes:

I think this is deeply significant to make sense of why 'Christ crucified' was such an important concept for early Christianity. The pagan critic Celsus criticizes the gospel narrative for the same reason - why is Jesus proved to be the Son of God merely because he committed suicide? If we imagine that the concept developed from an important faux-etymology which goes back to extremely early sources in the Jewish tradition which was needed to explain apparently contradictions in the Pentateuch and other texts, I think there is good reason why a sect would identify themselves as 'the Naasenes.'

sotto voce

Not so, because some of the Tanakh was in Aramaic. Though strict Jews were a minority, even in Jerusalem. The fact that the mostly Jewish church wrote in koine meant that anything post Pharisee Paul's letters, say, written in koine was of acceptable 'Christian' status. In fact, every heretic wrote in it, and often copied Paul's style!

sotto voce

Gnosticism is not a core Christian concept! It's antichrist, no matter what that cesspit Wiki says. And Christians used koine, among themselves, and to others, and hardly ever Hebrew, because most Hebrew speakers would not speak to Christians! Even Peter wrote to his Jewish churches in koine, and the author of Hebrews, too.

stephan huller

Daniel is a problem which has never been satisfactorily solved by anyone. This does not obstruct the core notion of Hebrew as the language of the heavenly court.