Paul (the apostle) did not know Hebrew (well) or was lying to the people he was writing to.

I believe the “or” we are using is the inclusive ‘or. ’ This means that I will both defend that 1. Paul spoke Hebrew “well” and 2. That Paul was not deceiving people on purpose. My opponent, on the other hand, will only have to reasonably deny one of these premises to win the debate. Argument 1: Paul might have spoken a message in Hebrew. In Acts 22:2, we read, depending on the translation of book, that Paul was either speaking in Hebrew or he was speaking in Aramaic. [1] We know that this Aramaic was similar to the Hebrew language, possibly in the same way that Spanish is similar to Italian. Dale B. Martin says that “Aramaic is kind of a dialect of Hebrew. ”[2] This means that if one was fluent in Aramaic, one might have understood many phrases spoken in Hebrew. Dr. Michael Brown states, “…This [the hypothesis that Jesus debated against religious teachers in Hebrew] would also suggest that when the New Testament speaks of the ‘Hebrew language’ (hebraidi dialekto) it actually means Hebrew and not Aramaic, as many translators and commentators have believed (see Acts 21:40; 22:2, referring to Paul’s speech; 26:14, referring to Yeshua addressing him on the road to Damascus; contrast the NRSV, which has ‘Hebrew’ in the text, with the NIV, which has ‘Aramaic’ in the text and ‘Hebrew’ in the marginal notes). The question, however, is not so simple, as I pointed out in a somewhat technical article published in 1993, and ‘Hebrew’ can simply mean, ‘the language spoken by the Jewish people,’ meaning Aramaic rather than Hebrew. Other scholars have questioned whether a large Jewish audience in Jerusalem could have been expected to understand Paul preaching in Hebrew rather than Aramaic…”[3] Now if this is to be taken as fact, this does not prove that Paul spoke Hebrew or Aramaic, just that he spoke one of these languages. We do know that he was speaking a language the Jews could understand. I believe based on this evidence, it is not unreasonable to suggest that Paul spoke Hebrew. I’m very curious to hear what evidence my opponent will bring to show that in fact, Paul did not know Hebrew. It’s very hard to affirm that someone actually does not know something. Perhaps Paul knew calculus or mechanics! Argument 2: Paul was persecuted and yet remained steadfast to his messages. This argument, again, does not prove that Paul was not a liar (perhaps he was a masochist) but it does suggest that he probably was not. Usually people do not hold to a false belief they know to be false when they are persecuted for that belief. So was Paul persecuted? Well, according to 2nd Corinthians and Acts he was. In 2nd Corinthians 11:24, Paul says he was beaten with 39 lashes 5 times. [4] In Acts 16:22, a crowd beat Paul with rods. [5] Now this could all be false, but we have no reason to believe these stories to be false unless we find contradictions between the passages. Even then, it may be possible that the rest of the accounts are true, and there is only one contradiction between the documents. I personally believe that some atheists attack the scriptures far more than the usual general warranted criticisms of a standard historical passage. But if both Acts and the writings of Paul are completely false, we really cannot affirm or deny the resolution. We would have to say that we do not know whether the resolution is true. And if that is the case, the BoP would be on Pro. So we should examine these passages not necessarily as inspired, but as historical documents that possibly contain contradictions. So was Paul maliciously trying to corrupt the Hebrew Bible? I cannot really see this. It seems Paul correctly carries the messages of scripture across languages. An example can be found where Paul references Exodus 22:28 in Acts 23:5. [6] In conclusion, I believe the best conclusion we can draw from the text is that Paul was familiar with Hebrew and he referred to biblical passages in his writings in an honest manner. However, it is even possible for someone who knows Hebrew well to make honest translation mistakes. I leave it to my opponent to show an alternative view. Sources: [1] . http://biblehub.com... [2] . https://youtu.be... [3] . https://askdrbrown.org... [4] . http://biblehub.com... [5] . http://biblehub.com... [6] . http://biblehub.com...