From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Silly Bible semi-pedantry [was: Re: Happy Christmas!]
Date: 30 Dec 92 05:25:11 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

In article <1992Dec28.234520.13834@netcom.com> sue@netcom.com (Sue Miller) writes:
>
>I was told that the contrary was true; that a lot of Jews by the 1st century
>were in fact more likely to be fluent in Greek than in Hebrew.  The
>language all but died out among the common folk.  Jesus (which name is but
>a Greek-ified version of Joshua (which is an Anglicized version of...))
>and his mates were supposedly speakers of Aramaic, and none of them were
>scholars.  Greek, I was told, was the language of trade and commerce
>in those days.  From my limited knowledge, I'd guess that only Paul would
>have known how to read and write Hebrew at all.  This situation is somewhat
>analogous to the situation among Jews today.  

I believe this is correct.  The translation of the Bible into Greek two
centuries previous was unheard of in all of history -- that the sacred
writings of one folk would be translated into the tongue of another, 
especially in the case of the Jews who regarded themselves perhaps more
than others as chosen by God.  The reason the scriptures had to be trans-
lated was that nobody understood Hebrew anymore then.  Note well that
they were _not_ translated into Aramaic.  The late Karl Friedrich Althoff
argued forcefully that the language Jesus spoke most of the time was
Greek.

>
>But yes, I suppose the angels would know how to speak Hebrew.  I was
>supposing that they would speak to the shepherds in a language which
>they'd be likely to understand.  :-)

Smiley face notwithstanding, this is a serious issue but not as difficult
as it seems.  Angels are supersensible beings, and one experiencing them
would be experiencing a form of communication and meaning that one would
have to translate into ones own language.  Unfortunately the angelic hosts,
which other peoples call gods, have been trivialized and cutesified to
the point that one can only chuckle at the idea of their existence. 
>
>And yes, I also suspect the evangelists were using the septuagint.  
>The verse(s) I mentioned above are apparently a bit of a blow to
>those with a belief in the divine inspiration of the bible and the
>literal interpretation thereof.  Apparently one of the gospels has
>Jesus quoting a passage from the septuagint which itself is a mistranslation
>from the Hebrew manuscripts.  
>
Divine inspiration does not require inerrancy.

>OBsoc.culture.brit:
>Must all be bogus anyway, since the gospels seem to completely drop
>out the bit where Jesus visits the UK.  Would have been the highlight
>of his travels, so the chronicles must therefore be entirely bogus. 
>
The Bible never claims to be a complete biography of Christ or a history
of the events surrounding his life in the conventional sense.  Your 
conlusion that their failure to mention this implies that they are therefore
entirely bogus is about as logical as the claim that they can only be
inspired if they are totally inerrant.

The legendary appearance of Christ in England implies that he appeared
there after the Resurrection, i.e. at a time when the possibility for
him to appear in the body of resurrection would have made such appearances
no longer constrained by physical time and space.  The Bible does not 
mention this, though John does write, "Many other signs therefore Jesus
also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written
in this book..." 20:30.  In 20:25, the last verse of his gospel, he
writes,

  "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they
   were all written in detaile, I suppose that even the world itself
   would not contain the books which were written." 

Well, some of it was "written down" in the form of impressions and
experiences that were so strong that they were passed on orally and
becames legends which still made an impression on men like Blake,
and not a few others today who believe that it just might have happened.

Hope this brings it all back to UK.

Gerry Palo (73237.2006@compuserve.com)