Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jonathan Walther <krooger AT debian.org>]

On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 07:33:39PM -0700, Dave Washburn wrote:
> If you want to see the material for yourself and add up the numbers,
> pick up my book "A Catalog of Biblical Passages in the Dead Sea
> Scrolls" published by SBL (paper) and Brill (hardcover).  It lists
> every biblical text and quote in the DSS and includes a textual
> analysis of each, plus publication info so you can look at the original
> yourself if you want.

Thank you for the reference, and for your patience.  My budget is
limited, so I will request it at my local public library.

> I don't see how he can claim that Jesus didn't speak Aramaic, when we
> have several transliterated Aramaic words and phrases in the New
> Testament.  

That was my error; on looking at Pastor Herrell's book again, I noticed
that he made no such claim.  He did claim the New Testament was probably
originally written in Greek, and that Jesus spoke Greek as well as
Aramaic, and possibly Hebrew.  He said that because of the
multi-cultural nature of Palestine in Jesus time, and having been a
Hellenized territory for the previous 200 years, it would be almost
impossible not to believe that Greek was the common language of the land
that everyone spoke.  Maccabees continually refers to all the different
national groups that were living in Palestine, and as the Maccabean wars
went on, I notice the names of the Hebrews became more and more
Hellenic.

Jonathan

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