Peter Kirby

Both Latin and Greek were used in Rome. The educated Roman would be expected to know Greek if he were considered cultured, even if he would prefer Latin in his writing. Contemporary literature written in Rome was written in Greek (as well as some in Latin), such as the Antiquities of Josephus. (Josephus had to translate his original Aramaic Wars into Greek so that his Roman audience could read it!) But Rome was a city of immigrants (for a large part), not necessarily very educated, and Jews and half-Jews generally did not have a command of Latin, although some did. Greek was used throughout the Roman Empire, including Rome, as can be shown through the inscriptions. Indeed, the vast majority of inscriptions in the Roman catacombs were in Greek or Latin but not Aramaic. First Clement was written from Rome in the Greek language, and Ignatius wrote to Rome in the Greek language. Greek would be the obvious choice, especially if Paul were more capable in Greek than Latin, which is prima facie more likely for someone who grew up in the Roman East. Thus, even if Paul knew both Greek and Aramaic, Paul would almost certainly have chosen Greek of the two for a letter to be read in a mixed Jewish-Gentile community in the city of Rome.

This is not competely accurate. Here is the relevant passage from Eusebius:

Historia Ecclesiastica 3.38.1-3

1 Thus Ignatius has done in the epistles which we have mentioned, and Clement in his epistle which is accepted by all, and which he wrote in the name of the church of Rome to the church of Corinth. In this epistle he gives many thoughts drawn from the Epistle to the Hebrews, and also quotes verbally some of its expressions, thus showing most plainly that it is not a recent production.
2 Wherefore it has seemed reasonable to reckon it with the other writings of the apostle. For as Paul had written to the Hebrews in his native tongue, some say that the evangelist Luke, others that this Clement himself, translated the epistle.
3 The latter seems more probable, because the epistle of Clement and that to the Hebrews have a similar character in regard to style, and still further because the thoughts contained in the two works are not very different.

Here is the the text of Eusebius for verse 2 above:

Ἑβραίοις γὰρ διὰ τῆς πατρίου γλώττης ἐγγράφως ὡμιληκότος τοῦ Παύλου, οἳ μὲν τὸν εὐαγγελιστὴν Λουκᾶν, οἳ δὲ τὸν Κλήμεντα τοῦτον αὐτὸν ἑρμηνεῦσαι λέγουσι τὴν γραφήν

The meaning is even more clear in the Greek: Eusebius is speaking of the epistle (singular) written to the Hebrews (the first word in the Greek above, which is dative showing action towards, placed there for emphasis).

Thus, Eusebius thought of Paul as writing only "to the Hebrews" in the Hebrew tongue, with the implication that the rest of the Paulines were written in another language, to which the single epistle was translated, namely Greek. (Of course, most scholars now think that Eusebius wasn't right about the Epistle to the Hebrews being by Paul, though Eusebius does admit that others before him had disputed the Pauline authorship of the tractate.)

Where did Eusebius get such an idea? He tells us, in H.E. 6.14.2-4.

2 He says that the Epistle to the Hebrews is the work of Paul, and that it was written to the Hebrews in the Hebrew language; but that Luke translated it carefully and published it for the Greeks, and hence the same style of expression is found in this epistle and in the Acts.
3 But he says that the words, Paul the Apostle, were probably not prefixed, because, in sending it to the Hebrews, who were prejudiced and suspicious of him, he wisely did not wish to repel them at the very beginning by giving his name.
4 Farther on he says: "But now, as the blessed presbyter said, since the Lord being the apostle of the Almighty, was sent to the Hebrews, Paul, as sent to the Gentiles, on account of his modesty did not subscribe himself an apostle of the Hebrews, through respect for the Lord, and because being a herald and apostle of the Gentiles he wrote to the Hebrews out of his superabundance."

In other words, both Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea treat the Epistle to the Hebrews as a special case, with the clear presupposition that the Apostle to the Gentiles wrote his other letters in Greek. Translation into Greek was not necessary for the (other) epistles of Paul.

Here is what Jerome says (Lives of Illustrious Men, chapter 5):

He wrote nine epistles to seven churches: To the Romans one, To the Corinthians two, To the Galatians one, To the Ephesians one, To the Philippians one, To the Colossians one, To the Thessalonians two; and besides these to his disciples, To Timothy two, To Titus one, To Philemon one. The epistle which is called the Epistle to the Hebrews is not considered his, on account of its difference from the others in style and language, but it is reckoned, either according to Tertullian to be the work of Barnabas, or according to others, to be by Luke the Evangelist or Clement afterwards bishop of the church at Rome, who, they say, arranged and adorned the ideas of Paul in his own language, though to be sure, since Paul was writing to Hebrews and was indisrepute among them he may have omitted his name from the salvation on this account. He being a Hebrew wrote Hebrew, that is his own tongue and most fluently while the things which were eloquently written in Hebrew were more eloquently turned into Greek and this is the reason why it seems to differ from other epistles of Paul.

Once again, "the Epistle to the Hebrews" is considered a special case, and the alleged translation from Hebrew to Greek of the "Epistle to the Hebrews" is compared in style to the Greek of the accepted epistles, once again presupposing that Paul wrote his epistles to the churches in Greek.

best,
Peter Kirby

Yuri Kuchinsky

Sure, demoninho, the Peshitta could well have been such a compilation. But, in such a case, the Peshitta supporters would need to draw a line somewhere, between which books were originally Aramaic, and which ones weren't.

Yet, unfortunately, the Peshitta folk do not seem to be capable of any such rational effort. For the most part, they just seem like a bunch of cultists, repeating the same chants over and over again...

At the same time, mainstream NT scholars are certainly no better. It's also basically a brainwashing Cult, and their chant is that Jesus was a Greek, so of course he could never leave any Aramaic teachings for his Aramaic followers.

Regards,

Yuri.

demoninho

Why should they, Yuri? Each manuscript has to by looked at separately and it seems they could have a case then for an Arameic Mark. The translated version from arameic seems to make sense but the translation certainly doesn't. Are there any other criteria why Mark was originally written in greek, other than the biblical scholars say so?

By the way Jesus was Gr!?!

Yuri Kuchinsky

Why?

BTW, have you ever looked at any manuscript yourself?

Yuri.

demoninho

My qualifications for BC&H are zilch, but I preparing to discuss the bible with fundies and I'm playing the devil's advocate right now so to speak.

Anyway you don't discard an intire library if you find one bad book.

I'm just curious how it is we know Mark, Matthew and Luke weren't written in Arameic and then translated into Greek. How well does the greek in Matthew and Luke follow Mark? Only a 100% similarity would make a original Greek likely, because if 3 person translate the same text there will be some differences but not a lot. I compared 3 different dutch bible translations were 2 have >80% of the same word order (the other one is a very old translation from the 17th century).

Yuri Kuchinsky

We don't know this. Lots of stuff in this area is unknown.

Quote:

How well does the greek in Matthew and Luke follow Mark?

They don't follow Mark. This is just one of those myths... I don't think that Mk was the earliest gospel.

Best,

Yuri.

demoninho

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=60947

I'm confused Yuri , DoctorX uses the similarity of the greek in Mt and Lk to Mk as evidence for greek being the original language of these 3 gospels, doesn't he.

Regards,
A