On 3/17/2011 11:05 PM, Andrew Fildes wrote:
> Interesting, but wasn't the original in Hebrew and Aramaic rather than Greek?
No one knows for sure, but it appears that although Aramic was undoubtedly the
language spoken by those in the Gospels,
that they may have been written in Greek. Greek was the 'serious' language of
the time, as Latin became later in Europe.
In any case all of the documented oldest sources are in Greek. There is an
Aramaic version used by the Eastern Church,
called the Peshitta. They claim it is copied from the originals received from
the authors. They don't claim to have any
of the originals, so it's not a historically proven thing.
It does apparently date from early enough that if it is a translation from
Greek, it was done by people who were fluent
in both languages as they were spoken at the time of the events related. That
would certainly be better than any later
translation is at recreating the original language as spoken.
This is of some import, as Aramic and Greek are quite different sorts of
languages. In addition to problems of words
that don't exactly correspond to each other, Aramaic is much like English, full
of words with multiple meanings,
homophones, multiple words with very similar or overlapping meanings, etc.
Apparently, Geek is much less like that; poor
for puns, double entendres, and so on, I guess.
Neil Douglas-Klotz is a linguistic scholar who grew up speaking the
contemporary version of Aramic as a second language.
He has written a book, "The Hidden Gospel", and a couple of others that explore
likely alternate translations of key
words and some key passages of the Gospels. From the Introduction:
'EVERY VERY GOOD TREE BRINGETH FORTH GOOD FRUIT, BUT A CORRUPT TREE BRINGETH
FORTH EVIL FRUIT" (MATTHEW 7:17).
WHEN OR IF JESUS SPOKE THOSE WORDS, HE SPOKE THEM in a Middle Eastern language,
Aramaic. In Aramaic and in all the
Semitic languages, the word for "good" primarily means ripe, and the word for
"corrupt" or "evil" primarily means
unripe. When heard with Aramaic ears, those words might sound more like this:
"A ripe tree brings forth ripe fruit, an unripe tree brings forth unripe fruit.'
This makes a world of difference. The tree is not morally bad, but rather
unripe: this is not the right time and place
for it to bear. The saying gives an example from nature. Rather than imposing
an external standard of goodness, the
lesson has to do with time and place, setting and circumstance, health and
disease."
I've found his work both interesting and enlightening.
Moose
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