Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 23.37 20/07/99 -0400, peter_kirk AT sil.org wrote:
>In that case was he not repeating himself in writing "Babylonians,... 
>Mesopotamian Jews"? 

Would you equate Jerusalem and Palestine?

>And was he then talking about Greek and Roman Jews 
>in the following paragraph? Hardly, because in the previous paragraph 
>he contrasts Jews with Romans. Obviously elsewhere he is referring to 
>Hebrew as "our own tongue", which is a slightly different expression, 
>and anyway who said he had to be consistent? I think the evidence 
>points to Josephus being bilingual in Hebrew and Aramaic.

Josephus has said that he wrote his book in the "language of his own
country" and sent it to the land of the "Upper Barbarians" -- where
numerous Jews lived.

Now he has translated it into Greek ostensibly because there were a number
of works in Greek and Latin dealing with the same material, but which
didn't represent what really happened. That is, the reason for the
*translation* was due to erroneous texts in circulation amongst the Greeks
and Romans: while his works were available in Babylon, Adiabene, etc., the
Greeks and Romans remained ignorant because there existed fallacious
reports about the war.

I think you are trying to stretch too little too far.


Cheers,


Ian