Subject: language Jesus speak |
Bible Note: I have never heard the Babylonian captivity referred to as the dispersion before I'm sorry. You caused me to start reading some of my material on Septuagint and now reasons and explanations are becoming clearer. As we both agree the Greek language was the common language and Hebrew was used like Latin was in the Catholic Church in 1950’s. Using Latin and going back to the 50’s as example we find that some priest were fluent in Latin but others only mastered the pronunciation and had crude understanding of the language, certainly not enough for reasonable conversation. So it was in Israel while the Jews resisted the influx of foreign culture the battle was gradually being lost. The religious aspect of the ruling Sanhedrin the Pharisees was the last hold out. Theyu attempted to keep Hebrew the language of the Jewish world. However the power structure of the Sanhedrin was controlled politically by the Sadduccess which coming from wealthy families welcomed outside sources of revenue and openly embraced the languages of these source of revenue. Therefore in spite of the insistence of the Pharisees to retain Hebrew only scripture reading was actually in Hebrew and this would not be understood by the common man. Greek was the language of the power brokers of the day. Therefore when Jesus went before these members of the Sanhedrin He probably used Greek or Aramaic for their benefit and the benefit of the common man hearing the exchange. The Septuagint was recognized as the Rabbinical translation and commonly used in teaching the Torah to the people. There was an earlier copy of the Old Testament written in Greek about 800 years earlier but it never had the wide spread acceptance with in the Jewish community. Your right Ptolemy Philadelphus was convinced by a high official from his court to commission the work.. I don’t know how I missed that it was underlined. :-) I understand your interest now and share to a degree you curiosity over influences of translation. However I’m satisfied in my heart and spirit that word like Almah were correctly translated in the Septuagint. Because whether Jesus actually read and quoted from it or not, the fact remains the Septuagint was a big enough factor of the day that Jesus could not ignore such a mistranslation had it been wrong. While I’m very familiar with all the arguments I have talked to Hebrew scholars that say the term we use “young woman” as a translation of Hebrew falls short of the real meaning of a (virginal) young woman the connotation the word actually carries in Hebrew. We can only guess at some of the real meanings of Hebrew words and especially what they really meant to the Hebrew speaking populace of the day since the use of Hebrew was extinguish for so long. For that matter one can think of many English words that carry nearly opposite meanings to what they did 40 years ago. “cool’ “gay” “fat” “duh” are just a few that pop into my mind. Thanks for making me get some of this stuff out and dusting it off. I enjoyed an afternoon of study. EdB |