Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
> >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.  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.
>
Harold,

Paul, being a Roman citizen from Asia Minor, probably spoke Greek as his
mother toungue, and probably thought in Greek as well. Chances are that he
"imported" Greek expressions into his Hebrew or Aramaic, not the other way
around. Certainly, when writing Greek, he thought like a Greek.

Yigal