Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Jan 25, 2008 4:59 AM, Jane Peters wrote:
> Hi there!
>
>   My friends and I were discussing how we would translate a famous line
> from Monty Python's 'Life of Brian' into biblical Hebrew.
>
>   The line was:
>   'All I said was, "That piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah."'
>
>   (Actually, the exact line is "All I said *to my wife* was ...", but we 
> were making
> it more generally applicable.)

Your Hebrew translation doesn't really translate that sentence.  The
question has to
be asked: why Biblical Hebrew?  During the time of Jesus, a form of
Mishnaic Hebrew as
well as Aramaic and Greek were spoken.

In any case, I think the following would have passed for Mishnaic
Hebrew, but I'm not sure:
rak ?amarti $e?oto dag dayyo haya liyahweh.
I only said that that fish was enough for Yahweh.

Yitzhak Sapir