Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

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