Interesting quote

[Paul Younan]

How do you deal with the Koine enthusiast claims. that Koine does infact use bad Greek grammar. That its dialect, word order etc, varies according to the area and people that learn it. (So they would adject their speach patterns to fit whatever their native tongue was)

Other literary works from the same area and time as the NT include the works of Josephus.

Now, Josephus clearly stated that he wrote his own language (Aramaic) first, then he, himself, at great pains translated them into Greek. He admitted that he was in no way, shape or form proficient in Greek.

Now, why do the Greek translations made by Josephus himself (an Aramaic-speaking-and-writing-Jew) read like good Greek....and totally unlike the Greek of the NT?

Why does Josephus never, ever have "got up to speak Caesar, and beheld him the crowd" in the Greek?

I'll tell you why: nobody translates into bad Greek, otherwise what would be the point of translating it if Greeks would laugh at it and make fun of it? Why would Josephus have done that? If one is going to bother to translate something, they are going to make *damn* sure that it's respectable....right?

Right. So then why would the Greeks, when they translated the Aramaic NT, not have made a similiar effort in rendering the NT into "good Greek."

The simple answer is that they revered the text before them and wished only to give a literal translation, even at the expense of Greek grammar.

Much like the Interlinear on this website reads funny in English, the Greek translators wished to preserve the text they revered in much the same way the translators of the LXX sacrificed good Greek grammar in order to create a translation as literal and as close to the original as humanly possible.

You see that with the Aramaic words that Zorba chose to keep in the Greek, but explain with a gloss. You see that in the choice of verb-subject-object order reflecting that of the underlying Aramaic.

Now, I would challenge those Greek primacists who say that Koine is the reason why to show me one passage, just one, from Josephus that reads the way the GNT does.