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NASB | Matthew 16:18 "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Matthew 16:18 "And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades (death) will not overpower it [by preventing the resurrection of the Christ]. [Eph 1:22; 4:15; 5:23; Col 1:18] |
Subject: "upon this rock I will build my church" |
Bible Note: MJH The problem here is there is almost an equal number of "noted" scholars that disagree this subject. The only real proof we have and it is not much is when Jesus did speak he spoke in what appears to be Aramaic. Knowledge of the area would say they spoke Greek. I think I mentioned this in one other thread, the Greek idea of conquest was to simulate their culture and language into the culture and language of the conquered people. We know the people from surrounding areas spoke many different languages Acts 2:7-11 (NKJV) 7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, "Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? 8 "And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? 9 "Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 "Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 "Cretans and Arabs--we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God." The common language for all of these would have been Greek. The next thought would be since they are Jews why wouldn’t they all speak Hebrew. However history tells us Hebrew was a ceremonial language of the time, much like Latin the Catholic Church in the 50”s, but few actually spoke it. The next choice is Aramaic and below is a few excerpts from CAL a group that is putting to together a Comphensive Aramaic Lexicon. Aramaic is one of the Semitic languages, an important group of languages known almost from the beginning of human history and including also Arabic, Hebrew, Ethiopic, and Akkadian (ancient Babylonian and Assyrian). It is particularly closely related to Hebrew, and was written in a variety of alphabetic scripts. (What is usually called "Hebrew" script is actually an Aramaic script.) The Earliest Aramaic 0ur first glimpse of Aramaic comes from a small number of ancient royal inscriptions from almost three thousand years ago (900-700 B.C.E.). Dedications to the gods, international treaties, and memorial stelae reveal to us the history of the first small Aramean kingdoms, in the territories of modem Syria and Southeast Turkey, living under the shadow of the rising Assyrian empire. Aramaic as an Imperial Language Aramaic was used by the conquering Assyrians as a language of administration communication, and following them by the Babylonian and Persian empires, which ruled from India to Ethiopia, and employed Aramaic as the official language. For this period, then (about 700–320 B.C.E.), Aramaic held a position similar to that occupied by English today. The most important documents of this period are numerous papyri from Egypt and Palestine. Biblical Aramaic Aramaic displaced Hebrew for many purposes among the Jews, a fact reflected in the Bible, where portions of Ezra and Daniel are in Aramaic. Some of the best known stories in biblical literature, including that of Belshazzar’s feast with the famous "handwriting on the wall" are in Aramaic. Jewish Aramaic Literature Aramaic remained a dominant language for Jewish worship, scholarship, and everyday life for centuries in both the land of Israel and in the diaspora, especially in Babylon. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the remains of the library of a Jewish sect from around the turn of the Era, are many compositions in Aramaic. These new texts also provide the best evidence for Palestinian Aramaic of the sort used by Jesus and his disciples. Since the Jews spoke Aramaic, and knowledge of Hebrew was no longer widespread, the practice arose in the synagogue of providing the reading of the sacred Hebrew scriptures with an Aramaic translation or paraphrase, a "Targum" In the course of time a whole array of targums for the Law and other parts of the Bible were composed. More than translations, they incorporated much of traditional Jewish scriptural interpretation. In their academies the rabbis and their disciples transmitted, commented, and debated Jewish law; the records of their deliberations constitute the two talmuds: that of the land of Israel and the much larger Babylonian Talmud. Although the talmuds contain much material in Hebrew, the basic language of these vast compilations is Aramaic (in Western and Eastern dialects). I think the answer to this question is still up in air. I “believe” Jesus probably spoke in Aramaic but also knew Greek as did the writers of the New Testament. They wrote in Greek to insure the greatest audience for their work. EdB |