Subject: language Jesus speak |
Bible Note: Granted Aramaic and Greek were the common day to day languages, but I always thought that Hebrew was still taught in the Temples. True the knowledge of Hebrew had faded in the diaspora, thus the need for the Septuagint, but in Palestine? In Jeruselem at the site of the Temple? Didn't Ptolemy send to Palestine for the 72 scholars that translated the Torah into Greek in the first phase of the development of the Septuagint? I know that Hebrew was unused as a daily language until the establishment of Israel, but weren't Jews, and especially male Jews, taught at least enough Hebrew to study the scriptures and receive Bar Mitsvah? I just never considered the possibility that a Palestinian Jew like Jesus, or especially a Pharisee, as opposed to say an Alexandrian Jew, might have learned scripture from the Septuagint. When one considers that many of Jesus's quotations of scripture occur during a conversation with an Orthodox Pharisee, the idea just seems a little strange. I would have thought that Pharisees would have little or no respect for the Septuagint over the Hebrew scriptures especially given their preoccupation with the interpretation of the law. Of course I have no evidence one way or the other so I accept your information as something to be considered and, if possible, researched further. As I said, it is very interesting. |