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Shlama to all,

Water is an important theme that winds its way through Scripture. I'm not sure if the Greek New Testament fully encapsulates it. A case in point would be 1st Corinthians 13:2. "And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." In William Jennings' Lexicon to the Syriac New Testament,in the entry immediately under the "prophecy" entry we have an Aramaic word that means gushed, welled up or forth as in John 4:14 -"But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life." There are other examples I could give where the Semitic root concept of gushing, welling up, springing up, etc., is inseparably linked to prophecy. In Matthew 13:35, which quotes Psalm 78:2, we have "declare" taking on the meaning of "utter voluminously" (also taken from Jennings' lexicon), as well as "caused to bubble forth" in the Aphel form. Parallel themes such as "out of his belly (innermost being) shall flow rivers of living water" play right into this. Also consider verses like Proverbs 18:4 - "Deep waters are the words of man's mouth, the fountain of wisdom a gushing stream." Zorba loses out on the Semitic "buried treasure" connecting prophecy with the springing up of God's well of wisdom, knowledge and understanding. He missed the boat and the "water" it floats in for that matter. <!-- sRolleyes --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/rolleyes.gif" alt="Rolleyes" title="Roll Eyes" /><!-- sRolleyes -->
Shlama,
Thanks but what word would that be?
Shalom Distazo,

I was trying to express how the Aramaic of the New Testament forms great continuity of thought with the Hebrew of the Old Testament. The words for "prophecy" and "prophet" in New Testament Aramaic and Old Testament Hebrew carry an underlying root meaning of "bubbling up"~"gushing up or forth", and so forth, while the Greek does not. The verbal and contextual continuity becomes enormous when you consider themes like living waters flowing out of our innermost being and a wise man's words being compared to deep waters and a fountain in Proverbs. When you translate into a totally non-Semitic language such as Greek all of these underlying root concepts and their corresponding contextual flow throughout the whole of Scripture get lost.
Perhaps this is one of many reasons why missionaries have noticed that Aramaeans have not bothered with textual comparison at all. Apparently for many centuries they have felt that there is not one good reason to compare their Scriptures with Greek, Latin, or any other text in any other language. Surely they have enjoyed these underlying root concepts and the effervescent flow of continuity between the testaments. After all, the Hebrews were their next of kin and stll are for that matter.

Shlama w'Burkate, Bro. Larry
Study2Learn Wrote:Shalom Distazo,

I was trying to express how the Aramaic of the New Testament forms great continuity of thought with the Hebrew of the Old Testament. The words for "prophecy" and "prophet" in New Testament Aramaic and Old Testament Hebrew carry an underlying root meaning of "bubbling up"~"gushing up or forth", and so forth, while the Greek does not. The verbal and contextual continuity becomes enormous when you consider themes like living waters flowing out of our innermost being and a wise man's words being compared to deep waters and a fountain in Proverbs. When you translate into a totally non-Semitic language such as Greek all of these underlying root concepts and their corresponding contextual flow throughout the whole of Scripture get lost.

Hi Akhi!

I see what you mean. I agree that these languages share meaning and mean a lot more than in Greek. However, I wonder if there are a lot of samples, like here, where the writer was hinting to the root words, like the 3 or even 2 letter root. (If that is what you mean with the root).
For instance, the Semitic word for killing, would have a root word for cutting as in cutting meat in pieces. If these words became common for 'killing' instead of the original and ancient source of it, people hardly would consider the original meaning.

But maybe it is so. Just not quite convinced <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->