To: Campion
We don't know for sure whether the Gospels were written first in Aramaic or not, or for that matter whether Jesus and the Apostles spoke to each other or to the Jewish crowds in Aramaic. Greek was the Lingua Franca of the Middle East since the time of Alexander the Great. We have no manuscripts going back prior to the Greek, so it's all speculative as to what might have preceded what we have. And much "scientific biblical criticism" has an axe of one kind or another to grind.
15 posted on
02/04/2002 1:13:14 PM PST by
Cicero
To: Cicero
We don't know for sure whether the Gospels were written first in Aramaic or not, or for that matter whether Jesus and the Apostles spoke to each other or to the Jewish crowds in Aramaic. Greek was the Lingua Franca of the Middle East since the time of Alexander the Great. We have no manuscripts going back prior to the Greek, so it's all speculative as to what might have preceded what we have. Continuing on with your train of though - we don't know for sure - that Jesus was the Son of God....got to have some faith here!
But dollars to donut holes that Jews speaking familarly with each other did not use Greek, but use a Hebrew/Aramaic dialect.
To: Cicero
We don't know for sure whether the Gospels were written first in Aramaic or not, or for that matter whether Jesus and the Apostles spoke to each other or to the Jewish crowds in Aramaic. But, as I pointed out, we do know that Peter was called "Rock" in Aramaic, because there is, AFAIK, no other possible origin for the name "Cephas".
21 posted on
02/04/2002 1:31:16 PM PST by
Campion
To: Cicero
We have no manuscripts going back prior to the Greek, so it's all speculative as to what might have preceded what we have. And much "scientific biblical criticism" has an axe of one kind or another to grind.
Well actually, we do have manuscripts from Naghamaddi sp? and Qumran. Also, it has been noted that Jesus' ministry was to the Jews. We have ample evidence that Jesus and His Apostles taught in Aramaic since he was constantly expounding the scriptures. At that time, the almost fanatical devotion by the Pharisees to all things Jewish guaranteed that Jesus had to argue his case in Aramaic. Furthermore, his Apostles were, by and large, common men and were probably unlearned in Greek.
I will agree that too much so-called Biblical scholarship seems to have an axe to grind.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson