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  • From: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Aramaic - Abba
  • Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 18:12:43 +0200

RE: [b-hebrew] Aramaic - AbbaOf course, you read the words of Jesus, as
recorded by the evangelists. Assuming that your Greek is good enough to get
"behind" the translations and to get a "feel" for the text in Greek, the
question of whether Mark intended for Jesus' cry to be formal or not is still
more a literary question than a historical one.

Yigal
----- Original Message -----
From: Read, James C
To: Yigal Levin
Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Friday, July 22, 2005 4:26 PM
Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] Aramaic - Abba


I can't comment much on the translation of abba but I
have felt for a long time that modern translations of many
scriptures have been overly formalised and not well
reflected the informal nature with which such words were
originally penned.
I think this has arose from various sentiments of
piousness and a feeling for the need to transmit the
thoughts and feelings of the original composer/s in a
respectful and formal manner.
I have no linguistic evidence in favour of a translation
of 'dad' for abba other than it just seems to sound good.
The reason I say this is an emotional one and nothing more.
Because when I read the words of Jesus it makes me feel that
his personality was rather informal and that his method of
teaching was very simplistic and heart-reaching in its nature.
For this reason, I like the translation of 'dad' becomes (to me)
it seems to better reflect the close and warm relationship he
had with his heavenly father.
In most modern languages I have had contact with, the term
'Father' would only serve to distance the relationship, whereas
the term 'Dad' is an endearment that calls to mind a close and
intimate relationship.

All of this is of course just my opinion and the way I like to
think things and has little to no scholastic basis to it.



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