Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 17/11/2006 17:42, Ethel Jean (Kowan) Saltz wrote:
> ...
>
> I KNOW with my own eyes how ancient Greek Jews thought because of the
> treatment of women in Ecclesiasticus Chapters 25 (last verses) and
> 26(beginning verses).  My favorite verses I used to tell Catholics what God
> told them about females:)  It's great in Spanish too:) In fact, and this is
> the truth, my mom wouldn't let me get her a Bible, but when I showed her
> these verses, she said "You can get me that Bible" and I did:)   You should
> see people when I personally show them these verses.  They do what I did.
> Made the same indignant noises spontaneously:)  Wonder how it really sounds
> in Greek to a Greek:)  This book was originally written in Hebrew.  Wonder
> how it sounds in Hebrew:)
>
>   
Ethel, thank you for pointing me to these verses. I don't think I had 
ever read them, so I just read them in the Good News Translation 
(Today's English Version) electronic text which I happen to have open. 
Here is 25:24-26:
> 24 Sin began with a woman, and we must all die because of her. 25 
> Don't let a bad wife have her way, any more than you would allow water 
> to leak from your cistern. 26 If she won't do as you tell her, divorce 
> her. 
I'm so pleased that this didn't make its way into the Hebrew Bible, and 
thence into to the Protestant Christian canon (although it is accepted 
by Catholic and Orthodox Christians). What a contrast with what another 
Greek-speaking Jew wrote a few centuries later, quotations from the same 
version:
> 12 Sin came into the world through one man, and his sin brought death 
> with it. (Romans 5:12)
> 3 A man should fulfil his duty as a husband, and a woman should fulfil 
> her duty as a wife, and each should satisfy the other's needs. ... 10 
> For married people I have a command which is not my own but the 
> Lord's: a wife must not leave her husband; 11 but if she does, she 
> must remain single or else be reconciled to her husband; and a husband 
> must not divorce his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:4,10-11)

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/