Biblical language and oral tradition

Mastiani made a number of statements about the bible that are demonstrably false. It may not make for the best discussion topic but I’d like to address them here. If anyone has any other insight feel free to jump in…

Mastiani said…

These statements are just plain wrong. First of all we should make a clear distinction between the Old and New testament since the languages used for each are different.

Let’s deal with the OT first.

Read. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translation
The vast majority of the OT was written in hebrew, not aramaic. There are obviously aramaic passages in some books, but the major written language is hebrew. Today we have access to all of these books in their original language, hebrew, and most modern bibles are translated directly from hebrew into english. No messing around with any other languages in between, as suggested by Mastriani.

Now to the NT.
Read. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament

I’ll just quote directly from the link, "The common language spoken in the time of Jesus was Aramaic. However, the original text of the New Testament was most likely written in Koine Greek, the vernacular dialect in first-century Roman provinces, and has since been widely translated into other languages, most notably Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. (However, some of the church fathers seem to imply that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew or more likely Aramaic, and there is another contention that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews wrote in Hebrew, which was translated into Greek by Luke. Neither view holds much support among contemporary scholars, who argue that the literary facets of Matthew and Hebrews suggests that they were composed directly in Greek, rather than being translated.)

So as I stated in a previous post, modern versions of the bible are translated from greek to english. It’s pretty simple.

Concerning the NT, Mastriani said…

Now, for the first time you have probably said something correct. There is no evidence that Jesus ever wrote anything. And the synoptic gospels may have all been derived from an oral tradition or an undiscovered written document. Not sure what point this will make for you though.

Mastiani continued

These statements are just so much nonsense. The OT was written primarily in Hebrew. The NT primarily in greek. Your assertion that greek versions of the NT only appeared after Constantine is just laughable. Did you know that there are actually 65 papyri and 4 parchment fragments of the NT dated from AD100-300, well before Constantine’s reign from 306AD. Guess what? All these manuscripts are in greek! Unfortunately this creates a big hole in your argument doesn’t it?

Read this link for early NT papyri info.
religionfacts.com/christiani … cripts.htm

LOL… Wikipedia is what you have to offer. LOL

Get off the internets and find a reference book.

I suggest starting with the Dead Sea scrolls. Which contain the oldest Biblical canon manuscripts … anywhere, and that is broadly accepted.

The DSS were split between early Hebrew and Aramaic, mostly Chaldean, and some Syriac. The oldest of those manuscripts predates any of the formal Greek translations by one thousand years. Although there are some Greek manuscripts found also, they contain laws and philosophical concepts, none were related to canon discovery. New Testament records are also found in Aramaic.

Greek, i.e. Hellenistic influence, did not come into play until latter 2nd BCE or early 3rd BCE, (just for clarity, B.C.E. is an acronym for “Before the common era”, or the calendar as arranged by the birth of Y’Shua), especially where language is concerned. It is not likely that any of the apostles lived close to two hundred years.

The language of Jerusalem at that time was primarily Syriac Aramaic and that would have been the language of Y’Shua and the apostles. Add to this the fact that but for Nicodemus, none were learned men, it is highly unlikely that they were able to be fluent in two languages spoken, even less likely in script. Syriac Aramaic was the language of business trade and learning in the world of Y’Shua’s time, historical fact.

The likelihood, if manuscripts were available, is that the first canon was in Aramaic, justified hierarchy:

Proto- Hamito-Semitic → Proto-Semitic → Akkadian → predecessor of Aramaic via → Western Semitic → Aramaic → Caananite → Phoenician(Punic) → Moabite → Ammonite → Edomite → Hebrew.

Although Proto-Semitic is not found in manuscript, it is academically accepted as the predecessor of all other Middle East languages, Aramaic being a dialectic of it’s descendent, Akkadian, and Biblical Hebrew being a further dialectic of Aramaic. Which also it needs to be understood that Biblical Hebrew was first a literary dialect, before an accepted speaking modality.

It behoves one to be aware of certain facts with history. Vae victus illa historia.

Actually I have plenty of reference books. I thought the internet would be a good medium to support my case since we happen to be using it during this discussion. A recent statistical study by Nature has shown that Wikipedia is as reliable as the Encyclopedia Britanica so I have no probelsm using it as source material. After you have stopped laughing if you would like to point out the actual facts that are in error I would be happy to discuss them. I notice that you don’t provide any outside support for your “ideas”. Maybe there is a good reason for that.

Once again you are incorrect. The Dead Sea scrolls contain only a fraction of the OT books and contain none of the NT canon. Please provide your support for your claim that they “contain the oldest Biblical canon manuscripts…anywhere”. Otherwise your claim is spurious.

What you have said may be true. However, as the DSS do not contain any of the NT, except maybe a tiny fragment of Marks gospel (and yes it is written in greek) your point is meaningless. As I have pointed out above, the DSS contain only a small fragment of the bible and also include non-canonical books. If you use the DSS as your sorce of biblical canon you will be left with a very weird bible.

And when did I say that they did? However, as I have already pointed out, we have many, many greek fragments of the NT that are dated as early as the 2nd century. Your point that the NT was not written in greek is therefore wrong. Are you still debating this point? Please provide source material to back up your claims.

All of that is very interesting but it has nothing to do with the point at hand. We have already discussed the fact that Jesus didn’t write the bible, and I presume that we agree Nicodemus didn’t either. The majority of the NT was written by one man, Paul. Paul was a Hellanized Jew from Tarsus. He spoke both Hebrew and greek. All of his letters to churches are addressed to greek-speaking congregations. Why would he possibly use arameic??? The answer is that he didn’t, he used greek! As I’ve already said the majority of the bible was in written form in either hebrew or greek. Your claims to an oral arameic source are just plain wrong. But I’d be happy to read any source material that you provide. But my guess is you don’t have any and are just making statements about an area you don’t understand very well.

Again, very interesting, but has nothing to do with the bible.

LMAO … you criticize when the best you have to offer is unsubstantiated Wikipedia entries.

Obviously it is you who has no understanding, as is typical of a fundamentalist.

The DSS contain ALL of the OT, with the only noted exception being the book of Esther. All these manuscripts are written in a sloppy Hebrew, not the literary Hebrew dialectic of Jerusalem, but one that uses Hebrew as a primary language, and intersperses use of Aramaic … or the text is entirely in Aramaic. Yes there are also “non-canonized” manuscripts, again, all in Aramaic.

Conversely, none of the manuscripts in Greek are biblical, none. The manuscripts in Greek, including the copper cylinder, are about Judaic Law, war conduct, thanksgiving psalms, hymnic compositions, benedictions, liturgical texts, and sapiential writings.

Not understanding the history of the language and making false assertions is typical fundamental behavior. In order to understand the Bible, it is absolutely essential that the language and it’s history and development are understood.

All of the Bible was oral tradition before it ever became written manuscript. Had you ever spoken with an Israeli Jew, they could have given you a wealth of information on the subject, and best sources for finding reference material.

Such as:

1. A History of the Hebrew Language by A.Sáenz-Badillos, Cambridge 1993

2. “Hebrew Language” Encyclopedia Judaica 16, Jerusalem 1971, 1560-1662 (Ch.Brovender: Pre-Biblical; Y.Blau: Biblical; E.Y.Kutscher: The Dead Sea Scrolls; E.Y.Kutscher: Mishnaic; E.Goldenberg: Medieval; E.Eitan: Modern Period)

3. A History of the Hebrew Language by Eduard Y. Kutscher; edited by Raphael Kutscher Published by The Magnes Press, 1982

4. A Short History of the Hebrew Language by Chaim Rabin, Jewish Agency, 1973.

5. In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language by Joel M Hoffman, New York University Press 2004

6. Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew (Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change) by Ghil’ad Zuckermann 2004

7. Histoire de la langue Hébraique. Des origines à l’époque de la Mishna by M.Hadas-Lebel, Leuven 1995

8. Words and their History by E. Y. Kutscher – – Ariel vol. 25 (1969)

9. for the reconstruction of the inflections, sound system and stress patterns of Pre-Biblical and Biblical Hebrew see Torat Hahege Vehatzurot by Joshua Blau, Hakibbutz Hameuchad 1972.

10. The Transition Period in Biblical Hebrew: A Study in Post-Exilic Hebrew and Its Implications for the Dating of Psalms (in Hebrew) by Avi Hurvitz, Bialik Institute 1972

11. Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew (in Hebrew) by Abba Bendavid Dvir 1967 (2 volumes)

12. The Languages of Palestine, 200 B.C.E.-200 C.E. by Jonas C. Greenfield in Al Kanfei Yonah: Collected Studies of Jonas C. Greenfield on Semitic Philology, ed. Shalom M.

13. Languages of Jerusalem in Levine, Lee I. Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity : Conflict or Confluence?, Hendrickson Publishers, 1998. Paul, Michael E. Stone, and Avital Pinnick. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2001.

14. Biblical Hebrew for Students of Modern Israeli Hebrew by Brettler, Marc Zvi, Hebrew
    Yale Language Series, 2004

As far as your ludicrous assertion that Paul wrote the majority of the NT, it is not supported academically … anywhere, not even within the Catholic church, who has proprietorship of the majority of all scholarly texts and manuscripts. Academically, it is agreed, again even by the Catholic church, that the Epistles and didactics are attributed to the authors whose names they bear. The Catholic church attributes all of the NT to a 50 year span, and strangely, do not agree that they were written in Greek first. They seem to be of the opinion that the original manuscripts were in Aramaic, and do not try to date Greek translations, but know that they came later.

Try getting a copy of the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Again, fundamentalism without scholarly inquiry is just passing time in the dark of the ego. Have fun Mr. Flanders, I am quite bored now.

Either you didn’t understand my last post or you have something more to tell us all about the trustworthiness of Wikipedia. Nature (the most prestigious Science magazine in the world) has tested the factual accuracy of Wikipedia versus the Encyclopedia Britiannica using the best scientific minds on the planet as referees. They found a similar level of accuracy, demonstrating that open-source material is not inherently less factually accurate.

nature.com/nature/journal/v4 … 8900a.html
Nature 438, 900-901 (15 December 2005) | doi:10.1038/438900a
Special Report Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Jim Giles
Jimmy Wales’ Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries, a Nature investigation finds.

If you dispute the findings of this investigation then please present your alternative scientific analysis. Otherwise I see no reason to reject the factual accuracy of Wikipedia just because you say so and laugh a little.

Unless you present an alternative substantiated view on the scientific accuracy of Wikipedia, I will take it that you don’t know what you are talking about. And name calling is not a very good way to make your point.

All your claims have so far been unsubstantiated. Please provide evidence for your claims. Even evidence that one other human being on the planet agrees that the whole bible was an oral tradition in Arameic would be a start.

Couldn’t resist posting this link.

vatican.va/roman_curia/ponti … le_en.html

The vatican website itself recommends greek and hebrew sources for any bible translations…

“For joint translation programs, teams should base their work on the critical edition of the Greek New Testament published by the United Bible Societies,…”

“Old Testament: The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, published by the German Bible Society, is recommended for use by joint translation committees.”