Roger Pearse

'Fraid not. Must be made by foreigners, or maybe even Jews or something. What could they know about it?

NoeL

Look it up (YouTube series). Good shit.

Jeffrey Gibson

Given the strange penchant of many list members here not to read or actually be familiar with published scholarly material on the topics they speak authoritatively about, it may be foolish to list some literature which discusses the topic at hand.

But in the off chance that someone here might wish to be an informed contributor, here is some relevant bibliography:

J.A. Fitzmyer,"Did Jesus Speak Greek?" BAR 18 (1992) 58-63

Stanley E. Porter, “Did Jesus Ever Teach in Greek?” Tyndale Bulletin. 44:2 (1993): 199-235.

P. Maurice Casey, “In Which Language Did Jesus Teach?” Expository Times. 108:11 (1997) 326-28.


Stanley E. Porter, “Jesus and the Use of Greek: A Response to Maurice Casey.” Bulletin for Biblical Research. 10:1 (2000): 71-87.

Michael O. Wise, “Languages of Palestine,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Joel B Green and Scot McKnight (Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 1992).

Jeffrey

Littlejohn

Jesus knew many languages. After Aramaic, was the greek language who knew better.

Should one not believe as written in the canonical Gospels, according to which Jesus would not gone to school. There are clear signs that testify for the exact opposite. Must one not forget, also, that the grandparents of Jesus were very rich (see infancy's Gospels), and so perfectly able to financially support Jesus in his studies. Even by talmudic literature is obtained evidence that Jesus attended the school. (see, also, the 'Epistle of the Apostles')

Greetings


Littlejohn

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gdeering

Thanks for the link, but it brings up a question, if Jesus knew Hebrew (and some Greek), he chose to talk to God in Aramaic. I'd think with his last breath(s) he'd chose to converse in Hebrew, particularly if he's quoting a Psalm to the almighty?

Jeffrey Gibson

It's my understanding based on Joseph Heinemann's Prayer in the Talmud: Forms and Patterns (Studia Judaica, Walter de Gruyter, 1977) (or via: amazon.co.uk), Ismar Elbogen's Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1993) (or via: amazon.co.uk), Stephen Reif's Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History (or via: amazon.co.uk), Lee Levine's The Ancient Synagogue (or via: amazon.co.uk), the articles on prayer in the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia Judaica, and the ABD, as well as the evidence provided by the Kaddish and by the Targums, that private prayer (and even private prayer in which an individual quoted Biblical material) would have been said in Aramaic.

Jeffrey

spin

But do the titles you refer to provide you with any contemporary, or near contemporary, evidence to back up your use of those titles? If so, what evidence?

Don't you think that you are merely putting forward a biased thesis as to the state of Jewish religious practice at the turn of the era based on indirect evidence which appears principally to be that of the orthodox winners of the heterodox struggle and whose relation to the time you could never substantiate?

There are at least three dialects of Hebrew to be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, with varying degrees of Aramaic influence on them, showing that these were living dialects and reflect different speech communities. To quote Qimron on one dialect, "The fact that DSS Hebrew is especially close to the language of the late biblical books proves that it is not an imitation of BH but rather a continuation of it." (Qimron, The Hebrew of the DSS, Scholars Press, 1986, p.116) Then we have the Hebrew of the Samaritan-style fragments and that of the Wadi Murabba'at letters, as well as BH and LBH. Hebrew was clearly alive and kicking at the turn of the era. People were writing deeds and contracts in Hebrew, so it must clearly have been a spoken language: one doesn't sign documents one doesn't understand. A sufficient number put Hebrew, rather than Aramaic or Greek, on gravestones (perhaps you think this was a casual choice). Do you think any of your book titles deal with what was spoken at the time?

Given the religious use of Hebrew found in the DSS, is it so difficult to imagine that someone could have used it for religious purposes at the time??


spin

ApostateAbe

Jesus spoke Aramaic, and he didn't know Greek. Yes, it would be somewhat obvious when the Greek translates from Aramaic and when it doesn't, because there are some Greek words and turns of phrase that simply don't exist in Aramaic, and there are quotes that are more elegant in Greek than in the Aramaic translation/retranslation. That is an established technique to help separate the Greek interpolations from the original sayings of Jesus and/or his immediate followers.

Toto

Source?

ApostateAbe

Sorry, I don't have a source. All I know is that I read it in some book by Ehrman.