Diogenes the Cynic

Actually, I should have said mid-80's.

Do you have some evidence that there was a prior expulsion than the one which is known to have been decreed in 85 CE?
It's how I understand Philo. John expands on Philo by personifying the Logos but Philo is the one who incorporated it as a distinct, mediating quality of the god-force.
"Ev archei en ho logos, kai ho logos en pros ton theon, kai theos en ho logos."

That is clearly a personification of the Philonic conception of the Logos. Jhn is explaining who Jesus was, not who God was. John sees Jesus as the mediating force of God, a specific temporal expression of God which is not precisely God in toto.
It would be an educated opinion as well as a common one. (Have you read Philo on the Logos?)
Now this is an assertion without any support whatsoever. Could you summarize your case. please? Are the embedded materials also originally Aramaic? Can you spot any smoking gun artifacts of translation? Can you point to an Aramaic or Syriac manuscript prior to the 3rd century?
Becaus there isn't one.
There is no reason to assume it either or even seriously consider it. It's an anonymous book. What reason is there to attach to a legendary "apostle" who may or may not have ever existed. Especially given the late dating of the book, its plainly ahistorical detail, its lack of any claim to be a first hand account, its apparently layered authorship, its historical anachronisms, its anti-Jewish rhetoric and (in the vast consensus of scholarship) its Greek composition.
Why on earth should that tradition be given any credence?
The rules of evidence require that the person who is attempting to attach a specific author to an anonymous work of ancient religious literature is the one who has the burden of proof. There is no burden on anyone else to prove who didn't write it. I think it would also be helpful to start by proving that either Jesus or John were ever real historical figures to begin with.

Diogenes the Cynic

Your own source claims that it is unclear how much these ideas were influenced by Hellenistic concepts of the Logos, especially via Philo.

yalla

I have seen the introduction of the birkhat ha-minim [sp.?] variously dated from the mid 80s to the mid 90s.Any way you slice it it is a big anachronism in "John".Similarly the author's use of the name Sea of Tiberias is,according John Marsh in his Penguin "St.John", anachronistic as that name was not used until the second century.

judge

There are many many examples of where the translations have left a "smoking gun"

Where a word in the Aramaic may possibly be correctly translated
several ways it turns up in these different ways in various greek
manuscripts.
An example would be John 3:15
So that everyone who believes in Him not will perish.
The word translated here as "in him" may be translated 'in Him", "on
Him", "into him" or perhaps "through him".
All the Aramaic read the same but when it comes to the greek.

The following Greek manuscripts translate it "In Him": p75, B, W, 083
0113

The following translate it "On Him": p63vid, p66, A, L

And the following translate it "Into Him": S, K, Delta, Theta, Pi, Psi,
086, f1, f13, 28, 33, 565, 700, 892, 1010, 1241

judge

I am not interested in converting anyone to accept anything.
Vinnie originally asked for those interested in some sort of debate. Vinnie howvever seems to assume that John was written in greek (apologies if I have misunderstood Vinnie). Unfortunately there is no evidecne to support such an assertion and much against it.

Amaleq13

Your many previous posts on the same topic have made it clear to me that Aramaic is a very flexible language with a single word covering a broad variety of meanings. I'm pretty sure this has been brought up before in response to this particular argument but this "evidence" is ultimately meaningless since this is the same result we would expect given an Aramaic translator working with multiple variations. Rather than arbitrarily favoring one of the variations and translating it literally, he chooses a word that covers them all.

Unless you can somehow eliminate this obvious and reasonable explanation, you'll have to find a smoking gun elsewhere.

judge

This occurs in all languages. In English we have a single word that covers a broad range of meanings all the time.

The problem is that it happenes again and again and again when we compare the Aramaic and the greek, and each time the Aramaic translator just happens by some fluke to find a word that fits all the greek variations.

It does not seem very parsimonious to suggest that the Aramaic translator had access to all the multiple variations that occur between the numersous greek mss when he made the alleged Aramaic translation and on each occaision just happned to find an Aramaic word to fit all the meanings.

Much simpler ,using William of Ockhams toolkit, to have one Aramaic version that changed slightly with each new translation

Amaleq13

I agree that the flaw in the argument is not limited to Arabic.

It doesn't "just happen by some fluke" but by a conscious effort on the part of the translator.

I don't think it is necessary to assume "all" variations would have to be available but how old are the oldest Arabic versions? When I look at the example you provided, the "variations" don't seem all that varied. In fact, I'm not sure how you can claim any clear and specific meaning for some. What the hell does it mean to believe "into him" or "on him"?

Please explain how these variations actually differ in meaning. They all convey the notion of a faith-based relationship with Jesus resulting in enternal life. The only difference is the apparently subjective choice of preposition and related imagery. What other options did our Arabic author have to convey this notion?

spin

This sounds like the usual load of bollocks, judge.

It might be useful for you to supply the Greek preposition in each case rather than the usual anonymous cut and past from someone else's work.

Prepositions are normally very hard to translate. In Jn 3:15 the most common preposition used for "in (him)" is eis, which can be rendered in English as "into, to, unto, for, in, on, towards, against, etc." The Alexandrian type text used by Hort uses en which can be rendered "in, by, with, among, at, on, through".

One needs to have some theory that the supposed Aramaic original was translated diversely a number of times to justify the variation in the Greek, whereas the simple choice of preposition will depend on the scribe copying the Greek. While one scribe might have no problem with eis, another might prefer en, etc. It's like in English when some people say "different from", others "different than", and still others "different to". Obviously, "different from" is correct.

The verb which is translated as "believe", pisteuw, required an object in the dative case at least in classical Greek, but in the koine of the gospels the dative is often replaced by the use of a preposition. The verb "hope", elpizw, also takes the dative in classical Greek (and Mt 12:21), but is often followed by a preposition in koine when the meaning is "hope in", eg Jn 5:45 eis on umeis hlpikate, "in whom you hope"; Rom 15:12 ep autw eQnh elpiousin, "in him (the) nations hope", 1 Pet 3:5 elpizousai epi ton Qeon, "hope in God", but W&H elpizousai eis Qeon. Before judge starts hoping for another example of b- being translated various ways, he should be aware that while 1 Pet has dmsbrn hwy b-'lh' "(they) hope in God", Rom has `lwhy nsbrwn `mm' "the peoples shall hope in him".

The variation of prepositions has nothing to do with any hypothesized translation from Aramaic: it relates to the loss of the use of the dative case manifested often enough, though not totally, required in classical Greek, but often replaced by prepositions, as can be seen with other Greek verbs. The variation from one codex to another is best explained by the preferences of the scribes, when such variations occur. The notion of multiple translation from Aramaic implied by judge's source is utterly ridiculous.


spin

judge

Fine have you anything, anything at all that shows the aramaic was translated from greek? Do have any internal evidence that shows that John was originally penned in greek. Or do have have to believe this as an article of faith? :wave:


Ohh, OK , time and time again the greek scribes decided to change words, and by some miraculous coincidence every time they decided to vary the original text there was an Aramaic word which covered every meaning.

Incredible. Your faith is strong to believe this

And then (according to Amaleq13 anyway) after all these variations came into being, then the Aramaic translator inspected all the variations and miraculously found an Aramaic word to cover them all.

Any way as you seem sure that John was penned in greek you must have based this belief on some evidence. Just what is this evidence? Earlier mss?
Don't forget that prior to the discovery of the DSS the oldest HB was in greek.

Or are going to start of with your belief, and then find evidence to fit your belief after the fact as you did with Matthew?