Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Hi Fred,

 

Mt. 10:5-6 does, indeed, quote Jesus telling his apostles to preach to the
Jews. Presumingly, this is what they do. But after the Crucifixion, some of
the apostles, especially Paul, change the mission of the church and begin
preaching to gentiles. Now whether the Gospel of Matthew itself was
originally meant for Jews or for gentiles can be debated. Most of Paul's
epistles, Romans included, were addressed to Greek-speaking Jewish
communities. So they would have been written in Greek. The fact that Western
Jewish communities were Greek-speaking is well-documented. They also read
the Tanakh in Greek - that's why the Septuagint was produced in the first
place, and why Christian-Jewish missionaries such as Paul (who came from
just such a community in Tarsus) were so much at home there. Most of these
communities were wiped out during the Diaspora Rebellion in 115-117. After
that time, as there were less Greek-speaking Jews around and most of those
who were had become Christians, the Jews "back east" (in what was left of
the Levantine communities and in Babylon, which was outside of the Roman
Empire) did indeed reject Greek. That's where the Talmud was produced. But
this has nothing to do with the question at hand.

 

There were no synagogues in Jerusalem in 100 CE (AD). 

 

You also (in a different post than the one below) seem to be confusing
"Hebrews" with Hebrew-speakers. The NT text often uses "Hebrews" to mean
"Jews", but this is no indication of the language that those Jews were
speaking. The same goes for "Greeks". In the NT, "Greeks" are gentiles,
whatever language they spoke. 

 

As to the purpose of the list: it is to study the biblical Hebrew language.
This means the Hebrew language that the existing books of the Bible are
written in. We know that we do not have the "original" text of any of these
books, but, following scholarly convention, we use the MT as the "default
text", assuming that it represents an unbroken tradition of transmission
among Hebrew-readers of the text. We argue about whether and to what extent
the Mesoretic vocalization also represents such a tradition. We use existing
texts, such as the DDS and the LXX as evidence of other readings, and yes,
the NT quotes of OT passages are certainly relevant. However, we then must
consider if these quotes are really intended to be direct quotes or
paraphrases, and what was changed in translation. As has been stated many
times over the past few hours, we do not have an "original" Hebrew of any NT
book, so that even if there had been one, there is really nothing to
discuss. As I've already stated, "back-translating" the Greek NT into Hebrew
(by the way, it would of course have to be 1st century Hebrew of which we
know very little, not the Iron-Age or Persian Period Hebrew of the Tanakh)
could be an interesting exercise, but little more. 

 

By the way, there are several such translations of the Apocrypha, Josephus
and the like, and there are major difference between them. No serious
scholar of, say 1 Maccabees or Judith would base his research on a modern
Hebrew translation rather than the Greek, even though both books were
apparently written in Hebrew.  

 

 

Yigal Levin

 

 

 

 

From: fred burlingame [mailto:tensorpath AT gmail.com] 
Sent: Sunday, October 17, 2010 5:02 AM
To: Yigal Levin
Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] the hellenization of isaiah

 

Hello Yigal:

 

Thanks for your comments.

 

I offer the following response.

 

1. Pretermitting the veracity of the statements, the new testament ("n.t.")
nonetheless recites its purpose to communicate the good news to the jewish
people of judah, first and foremost. Matthew 10:5-6; Romans 1:16.

2. I cannot imagine the hebrew people in a synagogue in jerusalem in 100
a.d., responding with favor to the following scenario. A Christ missionary
arrives and begins to preach by first holding up and reading from an Isaiah
hebrew scroll; and then holding up and reading from a Matthew greek scroll;
all the while pronouncing a new and improved truth based on the greek
language document. The greeks you will recall desecrated the temple and
tortured the hebrews during the maccabean period. Certainly, the massive
talmud that followed the n.t., period was authored in hebrew, never in
greek. The hebrews just do not appear inclined towards greek language in
their sacred documents, then or now.

 

3. As for the purpose of re-translating the greek to hebrew n.t., I would
inquire as to the purpose of this forum? Is it not to share, foster,
discover and increase the participants' understanding of biblical hebrew? Is
not disagreement extant and common amongst and between the septuagint, dead
sea scrolls and masoretic texts, both as to form and content? And yet such
conflict prevents not the flourishing of this forum's discussion about the
old testament hebrew. Why therefore would a 2010 hebrew re-translation of
the greek manuscripts, suffer any less credibility as an "original document"
or source material, than the 1010 a.d., codex leningrad, or the 110 b.c.,
isaiah scroll?

 

Regards,

 

fred burlingame