Chili

Egypt here is the place where realization takes place outside of Judaism and it takes ten days to achieve that, I think.

Chili

How true that is. Born again does not make the distinction between reborn from above and reborn from below while John makes this clear in Jon.1:13 where we can be reborn from carnal desire or blood or man's willing it somehow or other but also from God and herein lies the difference between above and below.

Notice here that both are born again of which the different outcome is shown in Rev. 13 with born from above coming from the water and from below form the [old] earth.

Chili

Well yes, the faculty of reason (Herod here) will do this every time if awakening is a non-rational event. Ten days, did I say? (this would be something an evangelist needs to know but how can he?)

Amaleq13

It requires one to assume Matthew's story is history while ignoring the incompatibility with Luke's version.

Lógos Sokratikós

It doesn't have to be a pun for the idea to have punch. I'm a full bilingual (as many Eastern Mediterraneans two thousand years ago) and sometimes it surprises me that ideas and (some) jokes that are totally "linguistic" in English, are perfectly well understood for my completely monolingual Spanish-speaking friends when I translate them.

I have no doubt that the idea could have gotten accross in Aramaic as it does today in both Spanish and English. The spiritual idea is perfectly clear for me in both these modern languages. The only thing I required is that somebody tell me it's analogic (metonymic to be exact, but there's no need for such pinheaded exactness). It's my understanding such ways of speaking are usual for semitic peoples and even more so for frequent listeners of Jesus. Not a new subject for him anyway.


In conclusion:
The argument that the "born again" argument looks more likely to have been thought of and expressed in Greek is a good one, but doesn't rule out an aramaic origin.
In addition, there are alternate explanations:
1) Jesus could be thinking in Greek and said it in Aramaic, it happens to me all the time with English and Spanish.
2) Nicodemus was learned. And as a learned rabbi he could know Greek, actually both could. Just as there are polyglots at the Vatican today, there could most certainly (I have no doubts) there were in Jerusalem. The international Jewish language at that time was Greek, not Hebrew, just as today English is. Nothing outlandish about this!

ksen

What incompatibility is there between Matthew's account of Jesus' early life and Luke's account?

Magdlyn

Clouseau

I think he did.

judge

The problem is that there is no indication in the text that Nicodemus thought Jesus said "born from above".
Nicodemus isn't sure what Jesus meant but we can't automatically assume that he he thought Jesus said "born from above". Jesus had an opportunity to indicate he meant above, but didn't do so.

The passage still makes just as much sense without needing Nicodemus to have thought Jesus meant "above".
Is this really the kind of argument used to show that events in the NT didn't happen?
It is just not very powerful.

Born again..born from above..they are both enigmatic sayings.

Added in edit:
I have been a bit unclear here . What I mean is that there is no indication that Nicodemusus's puzzlement is because Jesus meant above and not again.

Amaleq13

That has been the subject of several previous threads and I'm not interested in creating a tangent here. My comment was sufficient for the individual to whom it was addressed.

Search the archives if you are truly unfamiliar with the topic but I am well aware of the apologetic efforts to deny the obvious and they clearly require faith to be accepted.