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2 Kings 18:26 has a famous scene in which the Aramaic language and the language of the Jews is contrasted, so the distinction between them was clear at the time of the writing of 2 Kings (which I believe was quite late).

When 2 Maccabees, written 200 years before Josephus, refers to the month of Adar, he says that it is a Syrian, ie Aramaic, word, not a Hebrew word. The distinction between Hebrew and Syrian is clear in the minds of ancient writers.

Josephus tells us AJ 3,12,3

"This was the constitution of the laws which Moses learned of God when the camp lay under Mount Sinai, and this he delivered in writing to the Hebrews."

This can only be a reference to the writing of the torah in Hebrew.

Josephus continually refers to the Hebrew tongue, to Hebrew words. Now at the time of Josephus the Hebrew language was heavily influenced by Aramaic, as the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate, so one can understand Josephus being confused sometimes, but most of his examples of what he calls Hebrew definitely reflect the Hebrew language.

In AJ 2,1,1 he refers to the fact that Edom comes from the Hebrew word for red. In 1,18,1 he tells us that "the Hebrews call such a hairy roughness 'Seir'". In 1,20,2 Phanuel is given as the "face of God" as the term is in Hebrew. And so on.

During the Jewish War Josephus spoke to the people of Jerusalem:

"Upon this Josephus stood in such a place where he might be heard, not by John only, but by many more, and then declared to them what Caesar had given him in charge, and this in the Hebrew language." War 2,2,1

Clearly Josephus knew what the Hebrew language was: it was the language of the Torah handed down to Moses. He is well aware of 2 Kings 18:26 and its distinction between the Hebrew and Syrian languages (see AJ 10,1,2).

In the preface of AJ he claims to have translated Jewish histories into Greek, ie works like Samuel and Kings, written in Hebrew. Josephus clearly knows about the two different languages and the Hebrew dialect is what we know it to be, the Hebrew language. (I have already pointed out judge's erroneous understanding of the greek word dialektos when he says 'the "hebrew dialect" (note not hebrew language) was the dialect of Aramaic spoken by judeans at the time of Christ.'

It doesn't help to quote material which ultimately has the one source, Papias, when judge gives his list of all those fathers who say that Matthew wrote in Aramaic. As these all depend on Papias, they are only one testimony repeated ad nauseum, because that was what had become the tradition.

Our view of the language situation in Judea in Josephus's time has been made much clearer by the Dead Sea Scrolls, most of which were written in Hebrew, yes a Hebrew heavily influenced by Aramaic, but this Hebrew was a productive language, not a dead one. You don't absorb linguistic infuences into a dead language. In fact there were perhaps three dialects (modern sense of the word) of Hebrew found in the scrolls, another indicator that Hebrew was a living diversified language.

Now scholars writing before 1947 when the first scrolls were found, knew nothing about the real state of the Hebrew language, so one cannot cite their opinions as being useful in this matter.

Hebrew was spoken at the time. Josephus knew it and used it. There is no reason to doubt him on the matter.

The Hebrew dialect (=language) is Hebrew, not Aramaic.


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spin

An added thought:

When the voice speaks to Paul in Acts 26:14, saying, "in the Hebrew tongue, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?'", the Peshitta tells us that the voice spoke "in Hebrew", not in Aramaic. (Naaman the Syrian, in Lk 4:27 is Naaman the Aramaean in the Peshitta.)

The Peshitta knows the difference between Hebrew and Aramaic as well.


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spin

In Greek we find phrases like, the Roman dialect, the Persian dialect, the Greek (Hellenic) dialect, the Illyrian dialect and so on. It should be blatantly clear that "dialect" simply meant "language" to the Greeks.

Diod. 11.57.5 Persian dialect (& 17.68.5)
Diod. 17.67.1 Hellenic dialect
Polyb. 27.15.4 Roman dialect (& Strab. 7.1.2)
Polyb. 28.8.9 Illyrian dialect
F.Jos. AJ 8.144 the Phoenician dialect
F.Jos. AJ 1.1.2 a strange and unaccustomed dialect (translate Hebrew into)
Strab. 6.1.6 the Latin dialect

(I hope judge will remember next time and not repeat the error which was brought to his attention some time ago.)


spin

spin

Regarding the OT,

petros (masculine) = stone (as in what you might throw)
petra (feminine) = rock (as in bedrock)

and the name "Simon" is actually a Greek name (Lucian of Samosata uses it, as does Lysias, Demonsthenes and Xenophon). The Hebrew name is best represented as "Simeon", but you can understand the confusion through the similarity and the fact that the text was written in Greek.


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andrewcriddle

There is an example in John's Gospel Thomas/Didymus
Thomas = Semitic language word for twin
Didymus = Greek language word for twin

In secular literature see the various names of the
philosopher commonly known as Porphyry mentioned
in his 'Life of Plotinus'
Malchus his original Syriac name
Basileus a literal translation into Greek
Porphyry a pun on Malchus/Basileus
(kings wear purple)

This is true for the Apostolic Church Order and the Epistle
of the Apostles but Clement appears to believe in two
disciples named Peter/Cephas not one named Peter and
one named Cephas.

In any case Clement is unlikely to be based on early
tradition here, his reconstruction is an apologetic attempt
to avoid Paul daring to challenge Peter the chief apostle,
by having him challenge someone minor instead.

Andrew Criddle

spin

Firstly, accepting the Thomas = twin equation for a moment, the phrase, "Thomas who was called didymos by his fellow disciples" is exceptionally strange. Let's assume for a moment that didymod is a translation from the Hebrew and we have "T'WM called T'WM". See the problem? Otherwise we have to assume that the writer assumed his disciples spoke Greek.

Secondly, do we have to assume that Thomas means "twin"? Why can't it be a masculine form of the Ionian Greek word thwma, meaning "wonder"?

Thirdly, when I used the example of John and Theodore, I threw a wrong direction. Perhaps I should have stuck to nicknames. It is relatively normal if you go to a foreign country that they translate your name into something more comprehensible to them: James (as in Joyce) becomes Giacomo for example for the Triestini. The problem is in our case nicknames.

Our problem isn't names, but nicknames. Ancient names all meant something.

I've argued that the reason why Peter has been inserted into Gal 2 is to make the equality between Peter and Cephas in the Pauline text, as Paul only knows Cephas elsewhere. There is good reason to suspect Gal 2, given Paul's penchant for using Cephas (a name which is not part of the synoptic tradition at all) and the sudden appearance of Peter in the middle of the text which starts and ends with Cephas. The text is also saomewhat disturbed at the point where the name Peter appears, giving the apostle to the circumcised story, when Cephas is in Antioch with the uncircumcised.

Is there any real reason to doubt 1 Clement? Its knowledge of Cephas is straight from Paul to the Corinthians. Its knowledge of Peter, well, who knows? I see no reason to assume from 1 Clement that Peter and Simon are the one person. That two names are used without other indication one should suspect that they were seen as two separate entities.


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andrewcriddle

The Clement at issue here is not Clement of Rome but
Clement of Alexandria about 75 years later.

Eusebius quotes a passage from the lost Hypotyposes
or Outlines of Clement in Book 1 chapter 12 of the
Ecclesiastical History about the dispute between Paul
and Cephas at Antioch.

The fact that the Hypotyposes or Outlines in question is
a work of Clement of Alexandria is made clear in book 6
chapters 13-14.

Andrew Criddle

judge

No, I think you are mistaken here. This is not defferentiating between the languages. This telling us Naaman's origin.

If you are going to accept Acts 26:14 or even use it then you should be more consistent methinks. All throughout the NT we have Jesus using Aramaic words but never Hebrew words. These are retained even in the greek versions.

Here are some Aramaic words reatined in the greek versions.

Lebonthah (frankincense, Matthew 2:11)
Mammona (Luke 16:9)
Wai (Woe! Matthew 23:13)
Rabbi (Matthew 23:7,8)
Beelzebub (Luke 11:15)
Qorban (Mark 7:11)
Satana (Luke 10:18)
cammuna (cummin, Matt 23:23)
raca (a term of contempt Matthew 5:22)
korin (a dry measure, between 10-12 bushels, Luke 16:7)
zezneh (tares, Matthew 13:25)
Boanerges (Mark 3:17)

Perhaps you know of some hebrew words retained if Jesus spoke hebrew? :wave:

judge

Not really the Hebrew dialect would be that language spoken by Hebrews at that time. Again here is a list of Aramaic words from the NT.

Lebonthah (frankincense, Matthew 2:11)
Mammona (Luke 16:9)
Wai (Woe! Matthew 23:13)
Rabbi (Matthew 23:7,8)
Beelzebub (Luke 11:15)
Qorban (Mark 7:11)
Satana (Luke 10:18)
cammuna (cummin, Matt 23:23)
raca (a term of contempt Matthew 5:22)
korin (a dry measure, between 10-12 bushels, Luke 16:7)
zezneh (tares, Matthew 13:25)
Boanerges (Mark 3:17)

Pauls letters still contain Aramaic as well. Even in the greek versions. They do not conatin any Hebrew at all, none. :wave:

spin

Here's the passage in question:

2 They say that Sosthenes also, who wrote to the Corinthians with Paul, was one of them. This is the account of Clement in the fifth book of his Hypotyposes, in which he also says that Cephas was one of the seventy disciples, a man who bore the same name as the apostle Peter, and the one concerning whom Paul says, "When Cephas came to Antioch I withstood him to his face."

This is a wonderful witness to the original state of Gal 2!

Yet another nail in the coffin. Clement is aware of both names and doesn't equate the Cephas of Gal 2 with Peter, because the smoothing hand which inserted Peter in vv.7-8 hadn't been at work in the late 2nc c. CE.

It should start to be obvious that Gal 2 has been fiddled with to help bring together Peter and Cephas.


spin