Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

How do you want to understand "par' hEmin gar ouk ekeinous 
apodechontai tous pollOn ethnOn dialekton ekmathontas dia to koinon 
einai nomizein to epitEdeuma touto"? To me it means "for by them those 
learning the dialect of many nations are not accepted as they consider 
this pursuit to be common". In this context "common" (KOINOS) implies 
"vulgar" but the basic meaning of the word is "widespread". The only 
difference from the English translation I gave earlier is that the 
"dialect" is not specified as Greek, but surely this must be the 
meaning.

Your chain of conjecture is getting even longer if you rely on 
Tertullian as confirmation of Josephus. What epigraphic evidence do we 
have for the existence of Tertullian and the dating of his works? What 
is the date of the earliest surviving manuscripts?

Now I have no doubts about accepting the historicity of Jospehus and 
Tertullian, and few about Ezra (which is a different question from the 
dating of the book that bears his name). But by the same rigorous 
method which you have used to expunge Moses, David, Solomon, Ezra etc 
from the historical record as "unprovable", you have to expunge also 
Josephus, Tertullian, in fact almost everyone from the "classical" 
world whose name does not happen to have survived on a block of 
marble. Did you not say this yourself not long ago? You cannot pick 
and choose arbitrarily which figures you accept as reliable sources 
and which you reject as unprovavble; you need to be consistent! That 
is my point.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[5]: Hebrew & Aramaic again (Peter)
Author:  mc2499 AT mclink.it at internet
Date:    18/07/1999 14:39


Dear Peter,

>Do you have the Greek text of Josephus at hand? I know that in English 
>"common" can mean "vulgar", but can the word which Josephus used here 
>mean that, or does he mean (as I assumed) that knowledge of Greek was 
>widespread, even or especially among the lower classes?

I'll provide the Greek for anyone who can make sense of it, for the idea 
seems quite different from the Whiston translation.

<snip>

Tertullian, for example, is well aware of Josephus's "Contra Apion", 
referring to it and him in the "Apology" (ch19), which was written a 
hundred years after the time of Josephus. The first examples of knowledge 
of the canonical book of Ezra were seven hundred years or so after the 
reputed date. If Josephus cannot be pinned down to the end of the first 
century, then the first mention of Ezra, ie Josephus epitomising 1 Esdras, 
would be some time before Tertullian.

<snip>