andrewcriddle

The prologue by Josephus to the Antiquities is in effect an advert, the equivalent of a blurb by a modern publisher. It tries to answer the question Why should anyone buy this book ?.

It makes the claim (formally true) that the attempt by the Jews in the time of Ptolemy II to make their sacred books available to Greek-speaking Gentiles was confined to the Torah, and argues that hence there is a need for a further work addressed to the Gentiles covering all Jewish history. This need is met by the Antiquities

If challenged that since the early Ptolemies many other Jewish sacred texts had received unofficial translations into Greek for the benefit of Jews not reading Hebrew, Josephus could have replied that these translations, unlike the original translation of the Torah, were directed not at Gentiles but at Helleenistic Jews.

However, the strategy of Josephus here seems to imply that an educated Gentile Greek-speaker was likely to be aware of the original translation of the Torah and unlikely to have any such knowledge of the later translations of the other books.

Andrew Criddle

Steven Avery

Hi Jeffrey,

No, you are wrong on two counts.

1) The word "believer" can be used for those who don't match up to a
strict doctrinal scorecared .. eg. I accept the King James Bible as the pure
word of God, yet consider many who do not share that view as "believers"
(in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ). As led, I share with them that God's
word is pure, inspired and preserved and tangible today.

2) Your list above is not my set of beliefs
(nor, in one case, would it be my phraseology).

When you go into your definitional probe-mode, which can be a
continuing enterprise, I try to extract what I think may be sensible
and helpful questions, like above. You are welcome to repeat
any others but I make my decision as to what is productive
(and hopefully edifying) and worth the composing effort post
by post.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Thank you, Andrew.

Would you help with your view on two questions.

1) Do you think that Josephus actually translated the historical
Tanach books into Greek as a separate enterprise in order
to help facilitate the writing of Antiquities ?

2) In the Antiquities Prologue, where Josephus says..

"but because this work would take up a great compass,
I separated it into a set treatise by itself"

What work do you view as the referent for 'it' ?

Maybe you can help us determine who is 'pronoun handicapped'.

Thanks.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Apikorus

1 Sam 10:24c reads,

vayari'u kol-ha'am vayomru yechi hamelekh

which means

And they shouted all the people and they said "may the king live!".

The KJV's translation:

And all the people shouted, and said, God save the king..

Where is the mention of "God" in the Hebrew yechi melekh?

The phrase "God save the king" is not from the Hebrew Bible here, but rather a "dynamic equivalent" straight from 17th century British English. Another example of this sort of thing is the KJV's "God forbid" in place of "may/let it not be". In this case the KJV is "pure" indeed -- pure 17th century British vernacular.

jgibson000

How kind of you.

So what are they? And what phraseology would you use?

Well, this raises the question of what criteria you use to determine what questions are "sensible" and "helpful" and worth spending time to answer. From this end it looks like "unsensible" means "what you can't answer" and/ or that which, if you answered, would discredit you.

But more importantly, why you think that answering my questions on

1. who the "believer" you mentioned in post 4185641 was and why being a "believer" as opposed to a "skeptic" was significant in the matter under discussion,

2. what you mean by "skeptic" and how you determine who is and who is not one, and .

3. Whether by "skeptic" you mean "non believer", since you set "skeptic" in contradistinction with "believer".

would not be "helpful" or "edifying" is beyond me. They would be helpful and edifying to me and, I'm sure, to others here as well.

Jeffrey Gibson

jgibson000

May you could produce the Greek text and tell us what word is the pronoun you are referring to, and what its antecedent, is.

JG

Steven Avery

Are you claiming that the issue here is the Josephian Greek, that it makes a substantive difference to the meaning of the sentence at issue?

Spin made no such claim in many posts, he based his claim here on the English translation (unlike Judges 13, where he made the Greek a major issue but either was ignorant of or hid the manuscript variation).

So Jeffrey, if you, unlike Spin, want to claim a difference in Josephus based on going to the Greek .. simply share the difference. If not, why waste our time ?

In fact, Spin is claiming I am 'pronoun handicapped' in English, while he reads the English more astutely. So going to the Greek would not even deal with his position in that regard.

So why don't you actually contribute to the discussion ?

Tell the forum.
1) What you think is the referent.
2) If you read the Prologue as if Josephus translated the historical books into Greek.

If you can't even help on those, where Spin appealled a few times, and I seconded the request, your posts on this thread would qualify as agenda-driven. More concerned with image than substance.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

jgibson000

Shouldn't you already know?

So what? That what he did or did not base his claim on is irrelevant to what I am asking you to do -- which is to show us that the English translation that you appeal to as accurate, as authoritative for understanding what Josephus said, and as knock down evidence for your larger claim, is what you claim it is.

But I never made such a claim. I asked whether or not you knew if it did.

Why is asking you to show us how the Greek text of Josephus supports your claim about what Josephus says as waste of time?

If anyone is doing anything here it's you confirming once again that you do not have, and do not understand how to use, the tools that anyone wishing, as you certainly do, to make authoritative statements, about what Josephus says would have to employ.

Jeffrey Gibson

Steven Avery

As shared above ..

Image trumps substance.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

jgibson000

Well, you certainly would be the one to know.

JG