spin

Thanks for the reference.

But let no one blame me for writing down every thing of this nature, as I find it in our ancient books; for as to that matter, I have plainly assured those that think me defective in any such point, or complain of my management, and have told them in the beginning of this history, that I intended to do no more than translate the Hebrew books into the Greek language, and promised them to explain those facts, without adding any thing to them of my own, or taking any thing away from there.

Let's see what praxeus can do with the pronouns.



I only have the second half of AJ in Loeb. I've taken a rather ad hoc approach, ie I've bought only those volumes that I really and truly needed. But thanks again.


spin

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Thank you Jeffrey.

Now to be even more helpful .. does Feldman interpret this as Josephus
definitely or maybe doing much or all of the scripture translation before he
switched into the mode of simply writing his own history and not including
much literal scripture text per se ?

Either way this is very strong evidence that there was not a reliable
and full translation of the Greek OT histories at the time of Josephus.

Which definitely will be helpful for my view that the NT quotes
are not from the Greek OT ! Thanks.

http://www.godrules.net/library/flav...viusb10c10.htm

But let no one blame me for writing down every thing of this nature, as I find it in our ancient books; for as to that matter, I have plainly assured those that think me defective in any such point, or complain of my management, and have told them in the beginning of this history, that I intended to do no more than translate the Hebrew books into the Greek language, and promised them to explain those facts, without adding any thing to them of my own, or taking any thing away from there.

And, Jeffrey, you are very welcome to give your view of what is the "it" in the Prologue, the pronoun-challenged question.

but because this work would take up a great compass, I separated it into a set treatise by itself, with a beginning of its own, and its own conclusion; but in process of time, as usually happens to such as undertake great things, I grew weary and went on slowly, it being a large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our history into a foreign, and to us unaccustomed language.

Wars ? (spin's view)
Or the material that morphed into Antiquities ?
The PCA awaits your response.

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

spin

And just how many nt quotes are there from the histories for them to have come from the LXX??

Once more unto the breach, dear friends...

Intention: write a work about the war which included explaining "who the Jews originally were" including all the Jewish history.

Problem: he bit off more than he could chew at the time.

Solution: "because this work would take up a great compass" he "separated it into a set treatise by itself, with a beginning of its own, and its own conclusion" and abandoned the translation of the Jewish history, until now.

Recap: this work is the original planned work bout the war which proved too much, so he separated it out into a treatise of its own without the historical context he intended, because the translation of the Jewish history into Greek got up his goat.

Current state: his friends pushed him to finish the translation and thus produce the Antiquities.


spin

Amaleq13

At the risk of reinforcing your delusions of conspiracy, your repeated references to the apparent absence of support for spin's reading of this passage have become too annoying to ignore. Frankly, I haven't bothered to post because I find this discussion rather boring. That said and working only from the provided English translation, I agree with spin's reading of this passage. Josephus is initially digresses in referring to his decision to describe the war in a separate document and later referring back the original project:

2. Now I have undertaken the present work, as thinking it (writing a history of the Jews) will appear to all the Greeks worthy of their study; for it (writing a history of the Jews) will contain all our antiquities, and the constitution of our government, as interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures. And indeed I did formerly intend, when I wrote of the war, to explain who the Jews originally were, — what fortunes they had been subject to, — and by what legislature they had been instructed in piety, and the exercise of other virtues, — what wars also they had made in remote ages, till they were unwillingly engaged in this last with the Romans: but because this work (describing the war) would take up a great compass, I separated it (describing the war) into a set treatise by itself, with a beginning of its own, and its own conclusion;...

He goes on to describe how, despite intending to separate out the discussion of the war into its own text, he became tired of the original project (ie "the present work") of writing a more general history but was persuaded by others to continue.

...but in process of time, as usually happens to such as undertake great things, I grew weary and went on slowly, it (writing a history of the Jews) being a large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our history into a foreign, and to us unaccustomed language. However, some persons there were who desired to know our history, and so exhorted me to go on with it (writing a history of the Jews)

I think where I disagree with spin is in understanding the nature of the original project. It seems to me to have been originally intended to be a comprehensive history but the subject of the war seemed to deserved its own, individual volume.

jgibson000

To do a you: You are very welcome to produce the Feldman text.

JG

Steven Avery

Actually Jeffrey, when I have a text in front of me I will share and quote from it. You are welcome to give an example where I have not.

However you are being true to your posting style.

And similarly you avoid answering the rather simple pronoun question.

Shalom,
Praxaluh

Apikorus

Jeffrey, praxeus prefers to get his information from the internets. No fair quoting from an actual book.

jgibson000

Wow. You are actually going to look at, and gather information from, a book rather than just what you can find on the internet and at pro KJV web sites???

Actually, I was copying yours.

Just as you did when I asked you any number of simple questions including whether you'd be gracious enough to post the Greek text of JA 1.7 so that we could see what the syntax and the grammar of the Greek indicates the antecedent of the pronoun actually is.

But when you go into "accusation of avoiding questions" mode, which can be a continuing enterprise, I try to extract what I think may be sensible
and helpful questions, and I make my decision as to I answer and what I don't on the basis of what I think is productive (and hopefully edifying) and worth the composing effort post by post.

JG

Steven Avery

Fair enough.

It is noted that Jeffrey refuses to answer the simple question about the Challenged Pronoun.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

jgibson000

While you are noting things, note this and this.

JG