Post by kartadolofonos on Jan 19, 2008 3:01:08 GMT -5
The third major language spoken in Palestine was Greek. The impact of Alexander the Great's conquests in the fourth century B.C. resulted in the Mediterranean's being a 'Greek sea' in Jesus' day.
Jesus spoke Greek during the following occasions: the visit to Tyre, Sidon and the Decapolis (Mark 7:31ff), the conversation with the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:24-30; compare especially 7?26) and the trial before Pontius Pilate (Mark 15:2-15; compare also Jesus' conversation with the 'Greeks' in John 12:20-36)" (p.87, emphasis all mine).
Jesus Christ and the disciples all knew and spoke Greek, as a in addition to Aramaic and Hebrew, is also indicated and supported by the fact that all the gospels and epistles of the New Testament are written and preserved in the Greek language.
Stop and think! It is very significant that no early Christian documents are extant in Aramaic! ALL the earliest New Testament documents and fragments are in Greek! Papias, a second-century bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor stated that Matthew had put together the "sayings" of Jesus in the Hebrew dialect, Aramaic. But no one has ever seen them. All we have are GREEK manuscripts, and as far back as we go, GREEK is the language of the New Testament! Strange, isn't it, that not one manuscript in Aramaic or Hebrew predates the Greek?
Astonishing as it may seem, however, bits of papyrus in an Oxford University library puts the lie to the cherished theories of unbelieving, skeptical scholars! Three scraps of text of the gospel of Matthew, inscribed in Greek, have traditionally been believed to have been written in the late second century. But German papyrus expert Carsten Thiede has published a paper arguing that these fragments kept at Oxford's Magdalen College very likely represent an actual EYE WITNESS ACCOUNT of the life of Jesus!
The London Times reported that the evidence on an early form of writing paper was a potentially "important breakthrough in biblical scholarship, on a level with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947" (Los Angeles Times, Dec.25, 1994, "Gospel Fragments in Britain May Be Contemporary Account of Life of Jesus Christ, p.A42).
Some scholars have questioned the accuracy of the New Testament as historical, believing that the earliest texts were written long after the actual events described. However, careful new analysis by Professor Thiede has dated the fragments to the middle of the first century, thereby indicating that they are evidence that the Matthew Gospel was written only a generation after the crucifixion, or even earlier! Says William Tuohy of the Los Angeles Times, "Parts of the New Testament may have been written by men who actually knew Christ, rather than authors recounting a 2nd-Century version of an oral tradition."
The Magdalen fragments have been at the Oxford college since 1901. Little work has been done on them since 1953 when they were last edited by biblical scholars. But earlier this year, Thiede visited Oxford and inspected the papyrus. He concluded,
"The Magdalen fragment now appears to belong to a style of handwriting that was current in the 1st Century A.D., and that slowly petered out around the mid-1st Century. Even a hesitant approach to questions of dating would therefore seem to justify a date in the 1st Century, about 100 years earlier than previously thought."
The lines on the fragments are from Matthew 26 and include the oldest written reference to Mary Magdalene and the betrayal of Christ by Judas. This fragment, written soon after the death of Christ, in the first century, is written in the Greek language,
This new discovery by Professor Carsten Thiede, a papyrus expert, will provoke controversy among scholars, if not even dismay and consternation on the part of disbelievers and skeptics. His discovery is strong evidence that the gospel accounts regarding the life of Jesus Christ are accurate, and reliable historical documents.
The Magdalene fragment from the Gospel of Matthew has been identified as coming from a document dated to the middle of the first century A.D. -- during the very lives of the apostles! This fragment is written in GREEK, and could even be a fragment from an original monograph written by the apostle Matthew himself! This amazing new discovery is powerful evidence, obviously, that the writer, evidently the apostle Matthew, was very familiar with the Greek language and was capable of writing intelligently in it.
Furthermore, it is interesting to note that some of the disciples of Christ had Greek names -- Andrew, Philip, Simon It is possible that many Greek terms preserved in the New Testament may be there because they were originally in Greek. One such word is "Sanhedron," which comes from the Greek synedrion. It is of Greek, not Hebrew, derivation, and was the common term used for the Jewish high court.
A word often used by Jesus, "hypocrite," in describing the Pharisees and Sadducees, comes from the Greek word hypokrites, a compound word with the Greek preposition hypo for "under" and krites, meaning "judgment." This form is wholly lacking in Semitic languages. The word hypokrites basically means, "one who answers" (i.e., one who always has an answer, or excuse), but came to mean over time not only "expounder" or "interpreter," but "orator," "actor," stage actor, or one who spoke from behind a dramatic mask on stage. From this it came to mean "pretender," "dissembler." But this Greek word, so familiar in the denunciations of Christ, has no counterpart in Hebrew or Aramaic.
Most Funerary Inscriptions in GREEK!
In the next article in the same issue of Biblical Archaeological Review, the author, Pieter W. Van Der Horst, points out that no less than 1,600 epitaphs -- funerary inscriptions -- are extant from ancient Palestine dating from 300 B.C. to 500 A.D.
Van Der Horst goes on:
"One of the most surprising facts about these funerary inscriptions is that most of them are IN GREEK -- approximately 70 percent; about 12 percent are in Latin; and only 18 percent are in Hebrew or Aramaic.
"These figures are even more instructive if we break them down between Palestine and the Diaspora. Naturally in Palestine we would expect more Hebrew and Aramaic and less Greek. This is true, but not to any great extent. Even in Palestine approximately TWO-THIRDS of these inscriptions are in GREEK.
"Christ" is merely the English form of the Greek word Christos, The name "Jesus" comes from the Greek Iesous, and means "Saviour,"
Jesus spoke Greek during the following occasions: the visit to Tyre, Sidon and the Decapolis (Mark 7:31ff), the conversation with the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:24-30; compare especially 7?26) and the trial before Pontius Pilate (Mark 15:2-15; compare also Jesus' conversation with the 'Greeks' in John 12:20-36)" (p.87, emphasis all mine).
Jesus Christ and the disciples all knew and spoke Greek, as a in addition to Aramaic and Hebrew, is also indicated and supported by the fact that all the gospels and epistles of the New Testament are written and preserved in the Greek language.
Stop and think! It is very significant that no early Christian documents are extant in Aramaic! ALL the earliest New Testament documents and fragments are in Greek! Papias, a second-century bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor stated that Matthew had put together the "sayings" of Jesus in the Hebrew dialect, Aramaic. But no one has ever seen them. All we have are GREEK manuscripts, and as far back as we go, GREEK is the language of the New Testament! Strange, isn't it, that not one manuscript in Aramaic or Hebrew predates the Greek?
Astonishing as it may seem, however, bits of papyrus in an Oxford University library puts the lie to the cherished theories of unbelieving, skeptical scholars! Three scraps of text of the gospel of Matthew, inscribed in Greek, have traditionally been believed to have been written in the late second century. But German papyrus expert Carsten Thiede has published a paper arguing that these fragments kept at Oxford's Magdalen College very likely represent an actual EYE WITNESS ACCOUNT of the life of Jesus!
The London Times reported that the evidence on an early form of writing paper was a potentially "important breakthrough in biblical scholarship, on a level with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947" (Los Angeles Times, Dec.25, 1994, "Gospel Fragments in Britain May Be Contemporary Account of Life of Jesus Christ, p.A42).
Some scholars have questioned the accuracy of the New Testament as historical, believing that the earliest texts were written long after the actual events described. However, careful new analysis by Professor Thiede has dated the fragments to the middle of the first century, thereby indicating that they are evidence that the Matthew Gospel was written only a generation after the crucifixion, or even earlier! Says William Tuohy of the Los Angeles Times, "Parts of the New Testament may have been written by men who actually knew Christ, rather than authors recounting a 2nd-Century version of an oral tradition."
The Magdalen fragments have been at the Oxford college since 1901. Little work has been done on them since 1953 when they were last edited by biblical scholars. But earlier this year, Thiede visited Oxford and inspected the papyrus. He concluded,
"The Magdalen fragment now appears to belong to a style of handwriting that was current in the 1st Century A.D., and that slowly petered out around the mid-1st Century. Even a hesitant approach to questions of dating would therefore seem to justify a date in the 1st Century, about 100 years earlier than previously thought."
The lines on the fragments are from Matthew 26 and include the oldest written reference to Mary Magdalene and the betrayal of Christ by Judas. This fragment, written soon after the death of Christ, in the first century, is written in the Greek language,
This new discovery by Professor Carsten Thiede, a papyrus expert, will provoke controversy among scholars, if not even dismay and consternation on the part of disbelievers and skeptics. His discovery is strong evidence that the gospel accounts regarding the life of Jesus Christ are accurate, and reliable historical documents.
The Magdalene fragment from the Gospel of Matthew has been identified as coming from a document dated to the middle of the first century A.D. -- during the very lives of the apostles! This fragment is written in GREEK, and could even be a fragment from an original monograph written by the apostle Matthew himself! This amazing new discovery is powerful evidence, obviously, that the writer, evidently the apostle Matthew, was very familiar with the Greek language and was capable of writing intelligently in it.
Furthermore, it is interesting to note that some of the disciples of Christ had Greek names -- Andrew, Philip, Simon It is possible that many Greek terms preserved in the New Testament may be there because they were originally in Greek. One such word is "Sanhedron," which comes from the Greek synedrion. It is of Greek, not Hebrew, derivation, and was the common term used for the Jewish high court.
A word often used by Jesus, "hypocrite," in describing the Pharisees and Sadducees, comes from the Greek word hypokrites, a compound word with the Greek preposition hypo for "under" and krites, meaning "judgment." This form is wholly lacking in Semitic languages. The word hypokrites basically means, "one who answers" (i.e., one who always has an answer, or excuse), but came to mean over time not only "expounder" or "interpreter," but "orator," "actor," stage actor, or one who spoke from behind a dramatic mask on stage. From this it came to mean "pretender," "dissembler." But this Greek word, so familiar in the denunciations of Christ, has no counterpart in Hebrew or Aramaic.
Most Funerary Inscriptions in GREEK!
In the next article in the same issue of Biblical Archaeological Review, the author, Pieter W. Van Der Horst, points out that no less than 1,600 epitaphs -- funerary inscriptions -- are extant from ancient Palestine dating from 300 B.C. to 500 A.D.
Van Der Horst goes on:
"One of the most surprising facts about these funerary inscriptions is that most of them are IN GREEK -- approximately 70 percent; about 12 percent are in Latin; and only 18 percent are in Hebrew or Aramaic.
"These figures are even more instructive if we break them down between Palestine and the Diaspora. Naturally in Palestine we would expect more Hebrew and Aramaic and less Greek. This is true, but not to any great extent. Even in Palestine approximately TWO-THIRDS of these inscriptions are in GREEK.
"Christ" is merely the English form of the Greek word Christos, The name "Jesus" comes from the Greek Iesous, and means "Saviour,"