judge

Hi,
I think it is highly unlikely that the author of Hebrews would have written to jewsih believers in greek. They would have written in Aramaic.
Here is one translation avaliable online.

Alternatively one can check out the peshitto , which is an edited version of the original peshitta. If you click on the word in this version you can get the meaning of each word in syriac/aramaic.

Jedi Mind Trick

If he was writing to the diaspora in general which covered a large part of the then known world then the language of Alexander the Great would have been the logical choice.

funinspace

Hey we agree on something I would wonder, why after the destruction of the temple, and the diaspora, it would be written in Aramaic? And since Paul was so worldly and Roman, why would he or whoever wrote it as him, choose to write in Aramaic?

DK

judge

Well I am aware that is the consensus. I can't seem to find any evidence whatsover to support this, so in the absence of evidence I do not believe it must be true.
If you know of any evidcne to support this I would be very interested in looking at it.

There dies seem to be evidence that the greek was translated from the peshitta though.


True but in the books of acts Paul does speak in Aramaic or the "hebrew dialect" , and on the road to Damascus Jesus addresses him not in greek but in Aramaic /hebrew dialect.

Also his letters still contain the aramaic word maranatha

Yes, I don't thin we will ever know who really wrote it. I did say "the author of hebrews" in my original post.
I tend to agree, people tend to use this verse as an excuse for flogging themselves or other people, rather than just getting on with life the best they can.

spin

That's because you don't want to believe it.

No, you don't. Otherwise you would have dealt with the foreign words in the Peshitta narrative. Why is evangelion in Mk 1:1 transliterated into the Aramaic??

Every potted example you've tried here has been shown not to stand up.

Aramaic and Hebrew are not the same thing. You know that. Hebrew was very much alive at the time. Don't try to conflate the two. That would be dishonest.

Where is it in the Peshitta?


spin

judge

Hello Spin, the topic here is whether the book of Hebrews was written in aramaic or the "hebrew dialect"

Lets cut to the point, do you have any evidence this book (Hebrews) was written in greek or not?

If you have evidence then let's see it. If you don't have evidence then why do you believe it was penned in greek?

Every language has loan words. This proves nothing. We have many in english..."after I had a sauna I went and ate some ravioli and a croisant


Please Spin I am not conflating the no need to accuse me of dishonesty
Note I used the phrase "hebrew dialect" not hebrew language. (Papias could have said language as well but he said dialect.) This refers to the dialect of Aramaic spoken by jews.

That the "hebrew dialect" was in fact Aramaic is not a new idea. Consider the Catholic Encyclopaedia in relation to this phrase. . . . . .
Moreover, Eusebius (Hist. eccl., III, xxiv, 6) tells us that the Gospel of Matthew was a reproduction of his preaching, and this we know, was in Aramaic. An investigation of the Semitic idioms observed in the Gospel does not permit us to conclude as to whether the original was in Hebrew or Aramaic, as the two languages are so closely related. Besides, it must be home in mind that the greater part of these Semitisms simply reproduce colloquial Greek and are not of Hebrew or Aramaic origin. However, we believe the second hypothesis to be the more probable, viz., that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Aramaic.�

Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)

We know that Eusebius attributes Papias as having said matthew wrote in the "hebrew dialect". He could have said Hebrew language but instead he said dialect.

What we have is this (in greek)
MATQAIOS MEN OUN hEBRAIDI DIALEKTWi TO LOGIA SUNETAKSATO, hHRMHNEUSEN D AUTA hWS HN DUNATOS hEKASTOS

Schollars have argued about the exact meaning of the words here but I believe the plain reading is as follows. . . . "that Matthew wrote his work in a/the hebrew dialect and each translated as best they could".

spin

And you were talking about Peshitta primacy.

You need to understand this process. Words are borrowed for reasons, usually because they don't exist in the target language, as all your examples show. However, good tidings is an idea which can be expresssed in any language so a borrowing is not necessary. What we have with the term euaggelion is a word which has developed a specific meaning in itself to describe a type of written text, ie a gospel. This notion didn't exist when Mark was translated into Syriac.

This is downright silly. You are playing with English and not noticing the original language of what you are referring to. Look at Acts 2:6 and tell me how you translate dialektos. You shouldn't make linguistic claims based on translation.

Yes, this was back in the times that people didn't believe that Hebrew was still a spoken language. The DSS has blown that erroneous theory away.

(Josephus knew what the difference between Aramaic and Hebrew was and spoke to the Jerusalemites in Hebrew.)

Just consult Liddell and Scott on dialektos to know how silly this diatribe is. We know what "dialect" means in English, but it doesn't mean the same thing in ancient Greek. You should know that. I'll have to take away several browny points for this blunder.


spin

spin

And could I have an answer to this please?


spin

spin

Here are some examples of the use of dialektos

1. Strabo 14.2.28
   This was particularly the case with the Carians, for, although the other peoples were not yet having very much intercourse with the Greeks nor even trying to live in Greek fashion or to learn our language
   .
   touto de malista sunebh tois Karsi: twn gar allwn out' epiplekomenwn pô sfodra tois ellhsin, out' epixeirountwn ellhnikws zhn h manqanein thn hmeteran dialekton
   .
2. Strabo 6.3.1
   those people who in the Greek language are called Daunii
   .
   Daunioi kata thn ellada dialekton prosagoreuomenoi
   .
3. Diodorus Siculus, Library 57,5
   Themistocles meanwhile learned the Persian language
   .
   ho men Qemistoklhs maqwn thn Persida dialekton

spin

judge

So you are saying you do not know what language Hebrews was written in then?


Previously
here you claimed that because the Latin word for soldier was transliterated into the peshitta it proved that the peshitta was translated.
What did you expect them to do, invent an entirely new word for soldier? Of course they transliterated it!
You also claimed the word for whip was transliterated from greek to aramaic. I pointed out this was wrong that there actually was an aramaic word here that being pragela.
Rather than just admit you had made a mistake you then claimed that this word had travelled from Latin to Aramaic by showing how this might have occured.
The problem here is that it works both ways.
IOW one can just as easily argue that it went from Aramaic to greek.
I provided the example of the word TUNIC.



I will come back to you on this in the meantime can you provide an example of this word used before this in greek and suggest how you think an Aramaic original should have read?

OK I concede this point

You ignore the fact that Aramaic writings were also found with the dead sea scrolls. We know why Hebrew survived because it was a language that had been used for religious works. Latin also survived as a religious language long after it ceased to be spoken.
You also ignore the fact that the gospels do not contain any hebrew words but many aramaic ones.
You need to explain this.

Do you have a reference for this?