danrael

Hmmm. Seems that you are all doing what Alan Watts described as "eating the menu instead of the meal." I would like to see you have a discussion from the point of view of which of the statements Jesus was purported to have spoken, regardless of which language or dialect was spoken or heard, is the most plausible considering the context in which the words were spoken. As I had introduced earlier, the only two statements I know of are: 1> "Why hast thou forsaken me?", and, 2> "For this I was saved." For my money, number two is far more plausible than number one. I gave my reasons. What do you think, and why?

Zen story: Several monks were huddled around a campfire discussing the scriptures. Soon the discussion became heated, and, at the height of the argument, a passing monk quietly grabbed the scriptures and tossed them all into the fire.

judge

As I mentioned George Lamsa thought it should be translated "For this purpose I was kept" IIRC.
But from the material I presented earlier in this thread it seems difficult to avoid seeing the statement as a question.

Have you seen Victor Alexanders translation ?

spin

Yup, and you failed dismally to show that there was much Aramaic in the nt, relying on the hope that words that were already in Greek must have come from Aramaic, words which may have come from Hebrew must have come from Aramaic.

I'm fascinated with your gloating over the way your contribution to the subject dissipated. Let me supply the link once again so that one can see the evidence. Perhaps you could thrill other readers by showing them the examples that are necessarily Aramaic given the discussion in the thread. In other threads I have shown you words in the Aramaic that are necessarily Greek and Latin.



One Greek word that I have mentioned proswpon, which is a simple word which means face and can be found in Mk 1:2,

"I send my messenger before my face (proswpon)".

This is a citation from the Hebrew bible, Malachi 3:1, though Greek Mk 1:2 uses the LXX version and doesn't touch the Hebrew. The LXX of course providing proswpon. The Hebrew has the word pny, the usually word for "face". In some other places in the nt the Peshitta has the Aramaic equivalent, )pyh, meaning face, but in Mk 1:2 as in many other places it has prcwp), a transliteration of the Greek proswpon.

This notion "before my face" is a Hebrew idiom for "ahead of me". It is extremely difficult to contemplate a Hebrew idiom getting into idiomatic Aramaic using a Greek word in the idiom. A development in Aramaic, so as to use the word prcwp), transliterating the Greek, doesn't make sense in a spoken context, but only in a written one. The translator didn't use a Hebrew source for the citation or an Aramaic source but a Greek one, the easiest to contemplate here was the Greek gospel of Mk, which used proswpon in the right place for an Aramaic translator to borrow it from.

I know it doesn't mean anything to give judge linguistic data, because he cannot evaluate it. This is directed towards anyone who might be able to evaluate it to see if you can make reasonable sense of the appearance of this Greek word in an Aramaic phrase derived from a Hebrew idiom.


spin

andrewcriddle

I would agree that spoken Hebrew was probably uncommon in the Galilee.

(Had I said something which suggested I thought otherwise ?)

Andrew Criddle

Pilate

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pilate from ABD
and was the major spoken language of Palestine,

[QUOTE=spin]OK. Simply unsubstantiated.

I found this in Andrew Benson's book: The Origins of Christianity and the Bible.
Please read what he says:
"The editor of Acts wrote that Peter said, “This became known to all the residents of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their language Hakeldama, that is, Field of Blood.� (Acts 1:19 NRSV) The word “Hakeldama� (Strong’s word # 184) is Aramaic. “The name “Akeldama� is derived from the Aramaic expression ăqēl dĕma.� The editor of Acts wrote that the “Field of Blood� was called “Hakeldama� in the language of the residents of Jerusalem, that is, the Aramaic language. (This explanation implies, that the writer of Acts wrote for non-Palestinians. His literary audience was not the residents Palestinian Jews or people who spoke Aramaic. This is true for the whole New Testament. ) "

spin

[QUOTE=Pilate]Quote:
Originally Posted by Pilate from ABD
and was the major spoken language of Palestine,

Andy, I've specifically given you a reference to Josephus:

Josephus tells us he spoke to the people of Jerusalem in the Hebrew language (BJ 6.2.1/6.96).

And I tell ya boyo, citing Strongs won't get you much sympathy. FYI, if the word comes from Aramaic, the parts are xlq dm), which cashes out to "chalek dema" -- and note the metathesis in the first word (=field): there has been a problem in the transmission as the qof and the lamed have been exchanged, ie xlq -> xql. As this is the case, then there is no special reason to believe that the word is Hakeldema is Aramaic, because Hebrew can supply basically the same source xlq dm, with the Greek adding a final alpha for morphological purposes. You'll note that Acts doesn't say it's Aramaic. (And even if it were, one word will never make a case for a whole language.)

Don't trust Strongs: it has numerous errors based on the compiler's presuppositions. The old but classical scholarly Hebrew lexicon is BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs. Hendrickson pub.s).

So, no, Hakeldema won't do anything to support your proxy case for Aramaic and you still have to deal with Josephus telling you he spoke to the Jerusalemites in Hebrew.


spin

Chris Weimer

No, but I thought I would differentiate between Judaea and Galilee for the readers.

Pilate

[QUOTE=spin]OK lets see,
Don't trust the scholars of the Anchor Bible Dictionary
Don't trust the scholars of the Encyclopedia Britannica,
Dont trust Strong's
Throw away Thayer's
Don't listen to the Jewish scholars (Shemariahou Talmon and Frank Cross)
listen to some guy on the internet who has a false name 'spin"!!! :rolling: Could spin be God??
Anyway
here is your evidence, I am posting it for all to see: " (96) 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.
Josephus, F., & Whiston, W. (1996, c1987). The works of Josephus : Complete and unabridged. Includes index. (Wars 6.95-96). Peabody: Hendrickson."

One guy spoke Hebrew in Palestine one time, and this settles it for all times!
How about all the Mexicans who speak Spanish in America? There sure are a lot more of them, and they speak every day. They are more than the one man you mentioned (the one incident with Josephus).
Are we now going to say that Spanish is the language of the US?
Every country in the ancient world had some people who talked some language other than the common language. There are always exception to the rule.
I will talk to you, even though you have closed your mind. But you are useful, in a way, for the following reason: while I am talking to you others are listening!
The ANCHOR BIBLE DICTIONARY (just as the Encyclopedia Britannica) was not put together by one man. Several men, listed in the front pages of the encyclopedia formed a goup, which made descisions which experts (from the 900) were going to be awarded each subject. Now that's alot of brains working together. (If "two brains are better than one" then 900 brains are better than 899.)
Here is something that will help further in understanding about the Hellenist Christians and the Aramaic language:
Another quote from ABD (by a different scholar):
“It is important that in the consensus of recent scholarship the Hellenists of Acts 6:1 acquire an immense significance in the development of the early Church. Robin Scroggs (1968: 177) has termed their community “the mother of Western Christianity.� Of course Palestine had been subject to a process of Hellenization at least since its conquest by Alexander. But the local persistence of Aramaic as the primary language of acculturation means that it is still useful to distinguish between a Palestinian sphere and the larger Hellenistic world. Thus it is now thought that it was this community of Christian Hellenists who accelerated the transferal of the Jesus tradition from Aramaic into Greek, who helped bring Christian theology fully into the realm of Greek thought freed from Aramaic pre-acculturation, who were instrumental in moving Christianity from its Palestinian setting into the urban culture of the larger Empire, who first saw the implications of Jesus’ resurrection for a Law-free Gospel for the gentiles (and for Jews), and who were the bridge between Jesus and Paul. These Christian Hellenists were the founders of Christian mission outside Palestine, and a theological tradition capable of articulating a gospel for the Greco-Roman world.� The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3. p. 136, article: Hellenists.
spin,
If you know better than those scholars, please take your case to them and tell them this "The blind are leading the blind ... αμφοτεÏ?οι εις λάκον θΪλουσει πΪσει!"

Toto

Hi Pilate - in another thread you have asked for evidence of those Hellenist Christians. Maybe you should wait for that evidence.

Unfortunately, I think that the "experts" have decided that Jesus must have spoken Aramaic, although they have no evidence of Jesus' existence outside of some documents written in Greek. And they know that the earliest churches they have evidence of used Greek. So they assume that there were some Hellenist Christians who took over from the Aramaicist Christians. Then different experts repeat this factoid to each other until it becomes the consensus. This is what passes for expertise in NT studies.

spin

Don't tell everybody, Andy.

---

I don't think I'll ever make a skeptical scholar out of you.

While I say don't trust them (as I say don't trust me), I also say check their data, because you may find something useful. The problem is how will you recognize it?

Even Strongs has its use: find the verb number and you have quick access in

Cross is not a Jewish scholar. He may be a Hebrew philologist, but Talmon is a Jewish scholar. Cross was also a student of WF Albright (Mr Biblical Archaeology, the spade and bible man), a very influential fundamentalist; other students included Ernest Wright, Noel David Freedman, John Bright, plus more big names. The Albright legacy fills biblical scholarship and has held its progress back, but this is changing now. Incidentally, Freedman is the editor of ABD.

Not all my evidence though. I mentioned other indications, so I hope you don't sink to simple misrepresentation.

I can't help it if you have pathetic rhetorical skills.

The evidence is plain: he spoke to the people of Jerusalem in Hebrew. That says that they understood him in Hebrew. (Josephus also tells us that Herod Agrippa understood Hebrew (AJ 18.6.10).)

Add to this the fact that there is no similar claims regarding Aramaic from anyone else and that nearly 60% of the DSS are written in non-biblical Hebrew (so no-one should make silly arguments about sacred languages, because the DSS stuff isn't the biblical dialect).

Sorry, you have to do more than retroject a modern situation as an hypothetical analogy to an ancient situation. What you need is umm, evidence. Incidentally, who are the equivalents of the Mexicans??

You're right: I've closed my mind. I don't think you're going to take a more responsible scholarly approach.

I think most people on this forum BC&H understand the idea of good sources by now, so don't expect too many to listen to you while you're in the thrall of secondary sources.


spin