We were too busy arguing about the messenger to discus anything much of importance.
I’m also surprised that apparently everyone doesn’t know already you guys believe the (New Testament) Scriptures were originally written in Hebrew. It’s a key claim for your theology I’d say.
That's probably a fair assumption. I would argue that the 'written' part of your assumption is superseded by the fact that those involved were indeed Hebrew. Consider today if we were conquered by the Chinese and our writings translated into Chinese, you telling me much of the meaning would not be lost?
As I said before, the Greek language is Pagan in nature and doesn't have the ability to fully convey Hebrew meaning. It could be reversed engineered however, given the knowledge and available evidence at our disposal today. That is indeed what is happening. Certainly a better translation than the KJV is now possible.
In addition, no Hebrew manuscripts exist that are older than the oldest Greek texts.
I'm not too sure about that statement. Also, who knows what is hidden away. There are many competing factions who care little about the truth when their side of things is at stake, as we've seen throughout history.
It seems to me given this conundrum, there really is no value in studying the Bible (NT portion) in Hebrew (or any language really).
I completely disagree with that statement. Through careful reconstruction/reverse engineering, we can certainly get much closer. When was it that the Word was even made available to the commoner? What happened to those who made it available against the Church's wishes at the time?
So why not just study the Greek...
As I've said before, much of the meaning is lost in the Greek translation.
That is, if the language of the originally inspired text was Hebrew, why did God let that be destroyed but yet let Greek texts remain, and how can we understand Scripture, from an etymological standpoint, by studying a Hebrew translation of the Greek? A translation is never inspired, in the strict sense.
I don't know the answer to why the Almighty does what he does. I do see why he entrusted the Gentile with the message. I trust in the end, the mystery will be revealed. I agree a translation is never as good as the original meaning. That said, like the six million dollar man theme, we can rebuild it...
Using LXX back-translation for each word in the Greek MS, to take it back to a Hebrew equivalent text yields strong evidence for Hebrew originals.
The places where the Greek makes no sense begin to be understandable in the context of the well known Hebrew culture by this method. (and yes the process is arduous, but well worth while)
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