Soul Invictus

I've been reading Godfrey Higgins' Anacalypsis. Right now I'm reading about translation errors. Right now I'm reading about the word Elohim. Can anyone add any insight to this topic. I've been trying to make heads or tails of older languages...like Arabic,Hebrew,Greek, and Latin and their signifigance in reference to which texts would have been written in what language and if there is any similarities between them.

Any feedback is appreciated

Invictus

CX

Yuri Kuchinsky's objections notwithstanding the NT was written entirely in Greek. Specifically a now dead dialect of Greek called Koine. The KJV is based on late Greek manuscripts and some reverse translations from Latin to Greek. In any event anytime one tries to translate from one language to another much of the nuance is lost. This is particularly true of languages that are no longer spoken as we have very little frame of reference. The fact is there isn't a great deal of Koine extant apart from the NT. Mostly just pedestrian scraps from Oxyrhynchus (Grocery lists, personal letters, statements of accounts etc.) Add to that the variant readings in extant MSS and it becomes very difficult to discern precisely what the original text said. I'd recommend reading the work of Kurt and Barbara Aland on the Greek text of the NT. Kurt Aland is an editor of the Nestle-Aland 27th Edition of the Greek New Testament and is a luminary in the field. If you are interested in studying up on Biblical Greek Dr. Bill Mounce has an outstanding couple of text books for beginning and intermediate students.

Answerer

Well, here are some of the wrongly translated words:

English-Virgin, Latin-virgo(unmarried woman), Hebrew-almah(young woman)

English-devil, Latin-Diablos(aggressor),Hebrew-Satan(opposer)

English-Carpenter, ancient greek-ho tekton(teacher), Hebrew-nagger(scholar)

English-angel, Latin-angelus(messenger)

As for the Canaanite word 'Elohim', it simply means 'gods' rather than God. I hope this helps.

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: Answerer ]

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: Answerer ]</p>

Geoff Hudson

Dear Answerer,

Thankyou for the above. How many more are there? Do you know of a comprehensive list? Do I take it from the above that you disagree with CX's statement: "Yuri Kuchinsky's objections notwithstanding the NT was written entirely in Greek. Specifically a now dead dialect of Greek called Koine."? I can't see how he can make such a sweeping statement. Perhaps he would justify it. I may be wrong, but I thought there were about 30 dialects of Greek Koine. If so, it wouldn't have been such a good language for communication as is commonly said.

Apart from the epistles of Paul, I suspect that most of the other books of the NT were first written in Hebrew or Aramaic. There is frequent Hellenizing of concepts that were originally Jewish. I have also read that Paul's epistle to the Romans has a structure that shows it was first written in Latin.

Geoff

Toto

Koine Greek was a simplified language used for trade. There were many dialects of ancient Greek, but not Koine AFAIK.

I would like to ask Answerer why he thinks "tekton" translates to "teacher" instead of "carpenter."

Peter Kirby

It may be possible to claim that there were 30 dialects of Koine Greek, depending on how you define Koine Greek. But then there are a few "dialects" of English in use today -- British, Scottish, Southern, 'Hollywood', Eubonics, Australian -- but people who have a certain dialect as their background can usually understand people with different dialects. It so happens that modern Greeks can usually puzzle out the sense of NT Greek, though the usage is clearly archaic, somewhat as middle English is to us. Certainly the "dialects" of ancient Koine were closer to each other than modern Greek is to any of them.

Furthermore, on the face of it the argument is false. If the common (koine) Greek were such a poor method of communication, why do we find thousands of papyri and inscriptions written in Greek during this era? Only Latin, the official language of the Romans, rivals the extent of the epigraphic and manuscript evidence of Greek in the Roman Empire. Moreover, in the Eastern half of the Roman empire, which is generally regarded as the locus of early Christianity with the exception of Rome, Greek easily beats out Latin, of course with the modest use of other languages such as Syriac, Aramaic, and Coptic in certain regions. But Greek seems to be established as the language of trade and administration (with Latin for Roman administration) in the Roman East. Just browse through the Oxyrhynchus papyri to witness one cross-section; you will find a lot of Greek, a little Latin, and a little Coptic in that area. Inscriptions and tombstones elsewhere fill out that picture in other areas.

I won't comment on whether this shows that Greek was or was not used for all the NT books. But that is because I have not seen any sort of detailed case intended to establish that any particular NT book was written in a language other than Greek. I would not like to pronounce judgment on the idea before I consider it, so can you suggest any works touching upon the subject?

If you want to attempt to learn Greek with some online resources, check out these books:

<a href="http://www.ccel.org/m/machen/greek/png/0007=vii.htm" target="_blank">Machen, New Testament Greek For Beginners</a>

<a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/davis/" target="_blank">Davis, Beginner's Grammar of the Greek New Testament</a>

If it interests you, you might want to get a more recent grammar--but note that more recent is not always better, as both of these books are recognized as classics.

best,
Peter Kirby

Geoff Hudson

Scribes and Scholars, Reynolds, L. and Wilson, N.,Oxford 1986

P48 - ... the lands of the eastern Mediterranean area commonly believed to have been bi-lingual under the Roman Empire. But this view is exaggerated, and the mass of the population probably spoke little or no Greek.

****
The Geographer Strabo, a contemporary of John the Prophet writing about the Koine spoken in his native land of Cappodocia to the north of Judea where there were 26 dialects has: 'they had no easy means of communicating with one another'. (Geography 11.4.6). The tongues were not interactive.

It is an assumption that the language used for the transmission of the NT was some form of Koine, let alone the language in which much of it was first written. The remnants in the text of Jewishness, and the ease with which one can consistently reverse the Hellenizing ideas to Jewish ones are, to me at least, good indications that the original writers were Jewish working in their native languages.

Geoff

Yuri Kuchinsky

Greetings,

The question of whether or not all 4 gospels were originally written in Greek is one that has been discussed literally for ages. There are many studies about this available, although some of them are about 100 years old, and difficult to find.

At this time, of course, the overwhelming majority of NT scholars are Greek prioritists, and accept blanket priority of Greek. Then, there are also some few scholars who are the blanket prioritists of either Hebrew or Aramaic. Thus, these are the views generally found today in various studies. But, in my own view, both of these two sides are probably wrong.

What both of these two sides usually disregard is the following,

-- our canonical Greek gospels are 2nd or maybe even 3rd century texts, with a long history of editing and development. So while some of the original shorter texts may have indeed been Semitic-language, the later editing and additions were probably in Greek.

-- the priority of Western text. I've already posted about this on this forum, and no objections were heard to what I said. It's very well known that Western texts such as Bezae have a lot more Aramaicisms compared to Alexandrian text. But who pays attention to Western text nowadays?

-- the chances are a lot better for GMatthew being originally a Semitic-language document, compared to the other 3 gospels.

-- the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew (Howard's text). Even some of today's Semitic-prioritists (like Dr. Trimm) often fail to see its true importance. And, typically, the Greek prioritists never even laid their eyes on this highly intriguing text...

-- the focus is usually on the Sayings Tradition, i.e. what Jesus said. So most scholars are looking at the "Q-Source", and its possible Aramaic roots. But AFAIAC this is all wrong. IMHO the Sayings Tradition is not so early at all, generally speaking, but was mostly developed in the 2nd century. So this would not really be the best place to look for Aramaic precedents.

In addition,

-- the Greek prioritists usually ignore the ancient Aramaic textual tradition, and its great importance.

In regard to this last point, I've been studying up on the Old Syriac and, in the last few months, I've done a lot of comparison between the Old Syriac and Greek texts. And my conclusions in this area will surely surprise quite a few. In fact, they surprised even myself!

Because, IMHO, when compared with the Greek, almost every passage in the Old Syriac gospels seems prior to the Alexandrian Greek text. Take it for what it's worth, but I do mean what I say. This is demonstrable.

But, of course, for a typical NT scholar today, blinded as they are by their rank Alexandrian delusion, these Old Syriac gospels are off the map somewhere -- something that they've never even laid their eyes on. And yet these same ignorant Alexandrian drones never tire of pontificating about their sorry Alexandrian dud being the original text of the gospels... Yes, and pigs can fly!

Regards,

Yuri.

Peter Kirby

Geoff writes:

Scribes and Scholars, Reynolds, L. and Wilson, N.,Oxford 1986

P48 - ... the lands of the eastern Mediterranean area commonly believed to have been bi-lingual under the Roman Empire. But this view is exaggerated, and the mass of the population probably spoke little or no Greek.

We could try to stack up quotes for a long time and not get anywhere. What is the evidence on which this is based?

Geoff writes:

The Geographer Strabo, a contemporary of John the Prophet writing about the Koine spoken in his native land of Cappodocia to the north of Judea where there were 26 dialects has: 'they had no easy means of communicating with one another'. (Geography 11.4.6). The tongues were not interactive.

Your source must have misrepresented this passage from Strabo. It is available online here.

<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Strab.+11.4.1" target="_blank">Strabo's Geography, Book II, Chapter 4</a>

Strabo is clearly speaking of Albania, not Cappodocia. Albania is in the northern Balkans, not north of Judea. This was not Strabo's native land. And Strabo himself, of course, wrote in Greek and must have expected to be understood.

Most importantly, there is no indication in Strabo that the twenty-six tongues in Albania of which he speaks are all or even mostly Greek dialects. At least in Albania today, which naturally may not reflect Albania in the second century (but it would be up to you to show that Albania in the second century was Greek-speaking in order to make your argument), the language used is not Greek but an idiosyncratic Indo-European language termed simply Albanian, with its own regional dialects.

<a href="http://www.albania.co.uk/culture/vocab.html" target="_blank">http://www.albania.co.uk/culture/vocab.html</a>

Thus, we have not seen any evidence at all that there were thirty Greek dialects in the ancient Roman Empire that were mutually unintelligible.

Geoff writes:

It is an assumption that the language used for the transmission of the NT was some form of Koine, let alone the language in which much of it was first written.

It is obviously demonstrable that Greek was a language used for the transmission of the NT. Whether Greek was the original language is something that would have to be decided case by case for each of the twenty-seven books. I have yet to get any references with regard to people who make a detailed case for a language other than Greek being the original language of any particular NT book. If anyone has such references, it would be interesting for me to follow them up.

Geoff writes:

The remnants in the text of Jewishness, and the ease with which one can consistently reverse the Hellenizing ideas to Jewish ones are, to me at least, good indications that the original writers were Jewish working in their native languages.

The ability to retrovert "Hellenizing ideas" into Jewish ones is no indication of anything, as Jewish ideas could easily have been expressed in Latin, Greek, Armenian, Syriac, or any other language. What you would need to do is to show that the syntax and usage of the NT book in question is characteristic of translation Greek from a semitic tongue.

best,
Peter Kirby

Toto

Albania is a modern state. It is often assumed to be the heir of the ancient Illyrians, and Albanian is considered to be the only surviving member of the Thraco-Illyrian branch of Indo-European. Ancient Illyria had a number of warlike tribes who probably spoke a number of dialects or languages - it is only when people start living in cities and engaging in trade that they need to develop common trading languages like Koine Greek.