judge

Boy , I never thought I'd hear that from an American!

show_no_mercy

Ironically, the epistle from James uses the same language as John:

The Greek word he uses here is "anothen". If we assume that the entire NT is consistent in its soteriology, then we have to assume that they do mean "from above" when dealing with salvation and the kingdom of god/heaven.

judge

But that argument assumes that the NT was penned in greek. It may just be that the greek translator used that word.

If one wants to look at wordplays in the NT then one needs to look at the Aramaic version of the NT, including the letter of James (James chapter 3 verse 18 for example) , which is full of wordplays that don't exist in the greek versions.

Any argument for wordplays in the greek NT will be crushed by simply comparing the alleged ones to the ones that exist in the Aramaic NT.

spamandham

The oldest fragments we have are in Greek. There is no reason to presuppose that the Gospels were not originally written in Greek...which would be expected anyway since that was the language of scholarship in the day. Further, we know the Septuagint existed. Why would the Jewish scriptures need to be translated to Greek if Hebrew was widely known?

You have your work cut out for you if you wish to propose the Gospels are translations from Aramaic.

judge

Well it is quite easy to propose this is the case. For example. Was Mark writen in Aramaic. As you can see from the example in that link it looks like the LXX. It contains the exact same peculiarities that the LXX shows.
One explanation, and perhaps the most obvious, is that it is a translation.

So proposing it is easy. Most people who study the NT have wasted years learning NT greek. Naturally, in such a postion, one might be reluctant to accept that the greek might just be a translation.
Convincing those who have wasted years with NT greek might be another matter.

JoeWallack

JW:
John 3:3 has been inventoried as an Anachronistic error at ErrancyWiki:

John 3:3

The conversation:

John 3

Per Strong's the offending word from verse 3, "born anew" has a double meaning in Greek:

http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/...ngs=G509&t=KJV

Nicodemus' response makes clear that he understood the offending word as "anew" (again):

"4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother`s womb, and be born?"

Jesus' response makes clear that Nicodemus has misunderstood the meaning of the offending word as referring to a physical birth:

"5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God!

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

"John" subsequently explains that the other meaning of the offending word, "from above", means Heaven:

John 3:31

"He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is of the earth, and of the earth he speaketh: he that cometh from heaven is above all"

Brownie writes in ''The Gospel According to John'', possibly still the best Critical Commentary, page 134:

Brown points out several other problems with the historicity of the related story on 135:

1) Implication of miracles in Jerusalem but none indicated by previous narrative.

2) Verse 11 in the plural.

3) Verse 13 seems post ascension.

Regarding the possible defense that the historical conversation was in Greek the consensus of Authority is that Jesus and his audiences spoke Aramaic. The setting strongly Implies an Aramaic conversation:

1) Location = Jerusalem.

2) Time = Early 1st century

3) Jesus = Native Israelite and Teacher of 1) & 2).

4) Nicodemus = Native Israelite and Teacher of 1) & 2).

Plus there is nothing else in "John" that Explicitly or even strongly Implies any Greek conversation of Jesus although one of the supposed signs over "John's" Jesus was in Greek.



Joseph

BIRTH, n.
The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Clivedurdle

We are continuously debating whether he is mythical or historical.

This looks to me like it might be game set and match for a mythic character but there are serious problems - like the huge assumption that Greek speaking was rare at the time.

Why should that be in a Greek built town?

Has anyone searched for a highly educated Greek speaking Jesus?

Toto

People have searched high and low for any sort of Jesus, and "found" him in all sorts of unverifiable places.

James Tabor's Jesus of the Jesus Dynasty would probably have been a highly educated, Greek speaking type. Tabor does not seem to have persuaded anyone, however. :huh:

spamandham

That's a possible explanation, but not the simplest, since Mark also uses Aramaic in a few places and provides the Greek translation. That makes no sense at all if Mark was originally written in Aramaic.

Mark 5:41
He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum!" (which means, "Little girl, I say to you, get up!" ).

Are we to believe Mark was explaining to his Aramaic readers what "Talitha koum" means?

Mark 15:33-34
At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

...same question.

Clearly, the author of Mark wrote originally in Greek, and wishes to portray Jesus as speaking words in Aramaic at the right dramatic times, much like in movies where an exotic language is used from time to time for effect.

show_no_mercy

I actually don't think John 2:23 - 24 - John 3:1 - 21 was original to the text. But that's just my layman pseudo-scholarly opinion lol. This is the only section of John that talks about the "kingdom of god"; nowhere else in John's gospel does this phrase show up.