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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Genesis 3:15 and order of ideas
  • Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 09:56:20 -0600

Dear Moshe,

HH: What follows is not the Tanakh, and the grammar of the passage is debated (the KJV thought that Sarah conceived seed), but the best interpretation of Heb 11:11 follows the path of the NIV:


You cannot be seriously arguing from Greek usage to Hebrew meaning.

HH: Why not? I am quoting from a letter to the Hebrews. The letter is presumed to have a Jewish person for its author. You speak as though Jewish culture did not transcend language barriers. The other day I had the oil changed in my car. As I left I wanted to give the man who did the work a Christmas tract (pamphlet). I asked whether he preferred one in Spanish or English. He said, "It does not matter. They're the same." Obviously he was a person who read both languages, but he implied that the message was essentially the same, whatever the language. I am supposing that the case was comparable in the ancient world. It may be that Jews used Greek in one context, Aramaic in another, and Hebrew in another, but the culture itself would be much the same. And the ideas expressed in one language would have their counterparts in another language. If the Hebrews spoke of Abraham sowing seed in Sarah in Greek, they might speak and think similarly in any other language they happened to use.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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