12-08-2007, 04:29 PM
Shlama to all,
I have a Brother in Law who was Associate Pastor and Dean of Students with Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist and Liberty University at Lynchburg Va. .
He later pastored Calvary Church in Grand Rapids Mich. with 7000 attending every Sunday in three services. Now retired due to ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), he is still active giving Holy Land lectures on tours and his son is studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. They both have been studying Hebrew for several years with Rabbis and Hebrew Professors. When I told my Brother-in-Law Ed about Aramaic primacy and The Peshitta, he said that Jesus spoke Aramaic & Hebrew and that He would have used Hebrew when discussing The Torah, and probably taught the disciples in Hebrew.
I have done a google on the subject, and it seems that the scholars at Hebrew University are campaigning for Hebrew primacy, touting Dead Sea Scrolls and Bar Kochba scrolls of AD 135, among other finds, as evidence that Hebrew was still commonly spoken in Israel in the first century.
I smell a conspiracy. It seems that the enemy is countering the newly emerging Aramaic primacy with a Hebrew primacy strategy, knowing that the Greek primacy argument is already lost, as there simply is no evidence to support it.
Ah, but Hebrew, well all one needs is a few Hebrew mss. written in Israel in the 2nd century after the temple and Israel has essentially been destroyed, or letters conceivably written for practice by Hebrew students- (who knows the identity of the individuals who wrote the scrolls found in clay pots near the Dead Sea? ), then show that a few Aramaic words transliterated in Greek mss. are very similar in Hebrew, and voila ! You have Hebrew as the common everyday language spoken in Israel in an unbroken tradition from the time of Joshua to Jesus!
This is the new trend, my friends. Greek primacy is indefensible. The Hebrew scholars are lining up and subscribing to Hebrew primacy. We should arm ourselves to combat this trend. All we need are the historical facts as recorded by Josephus and the NT. Both of them address this question specifically. Josephus wrote about Greek not being the spoken tongue in Israel. He also wrote about "the language of our country" as what he used in his writing his history of the Wars of The Jews, which he sent in its original form to "the upper Barbarians" of Babylon, Mesopotamia, Persia, etc.
As to the New Testament itself, or even the gospels, there is no such thing as a Hebrew Gospel written before the 15th century AD, and the translation
of the Hebrew Matthew I have seen shows it to be a blasphemous piece of garbage, written obviously to denigrate The Messiah Yeshua and to exalt John The Baptist as the true Messiah!
Regardless, not even a scrap of any Hebrew Gospel exists from even the first millenium, much less the first century. If God wrote a Hebrew Gospel, where is it?
If no ancient Hebrew ms. of any New testament book exists, there is no argument for a Hebrew original.
But, look out, for this propaganda is coming. Many evangelical churches are turning to Judaism in their worship style and sympathies. Hebrew is being studied more (which is a good thing) but it is going to fill the void in NT language when Greek is discredited, unless people are properly educated in the Aramaic culture and The Peshitta.
I hope I'm wrong about all this, but I felt I should express my thoughts about it.
Many blessings to all in our Lord Messiah and God our Father,
Dave Bauscher
I have a Brother in Law who was Associate Pastor and Dean of Students with Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist and Liberty University at Lynchburg Va. .
He later pastored Calvary Church in Grand Rapids Mich. with 7000 attending every Sunday in three services. Now retired due to ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), he is still active giving Holy Land lectures on tours and his son is studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. They both have been studying Hebrew for several years with Rabbis and Hebrew Professors. When I told my Brother-in-Law Ed about Aramaic primacy and The Peshitta, he said that Jesus spoke Aramaic & Hebrew and that He would have used Hebrew when discussing The Torah, and probably taught the disciples in Hebrew.
I have done a google on the subject, and it seems that the scholars at Hebrew University are campaigning for Hebrew primacy, touting Dead Sea Scrolls and Bar Kochba scrolls of AD 135, among other finds, as evidence that Hebrew was still commonly spoken in Israel in the first century.
I smell a conspiracy. It seems that the enemy is countering the newly emerging Aramaic primacy with a Hebrew primacy strategy, knowing that the Greek primacy argument is already lost, as there simply is no evidence to support it.
Ah, but Hebrew, well all one needs is a few Hebrew mss. written in Israel in the 2nd century after the temple and Israel has essentially been destroyed, or letters conceivably written for practice by Hebrew students- (who knows the identity of the individuals who wrote the scrolls found in clay pots near the Dead Sea? ), then show that a few Aramaic words transliterated in Greek mss. are very similar in Hebrew, and voila ! You have Hebrew as the common everyday language spoken in Israel in an unbroken tradition from the time of Joshua to Jesus!
This is the new trend, my friends. Greek primacy is indefensible. The Hebrew scholars are lining up and subscribing to Hebrew primacy. We should arm ourselves to combat this trend. All we need are the historical facts as recorded by Josephus and the NT. Both of them address this question specifically. Josephus wrote about Greek not being the spoken tongue in Israel. He also wrote about "the language of our country" as what he used in his writing his history of the Wars of The Jews, which he sent in its original form to "the upper Barbarians" of Babylon, Mesopotamia, Persia, etc.
Quote:Who these Upper Barbarians, remote from the sea, were, Josephus himself will inform us, sect. 2, viz. the Parthians and Babylonians, and remotest Arabians [of the Jews among them]; besides the Jews beyond Euphrates, and the Adiabeni, or Assyrians. Whence we also learn that these Parthians, Babylonians, the remotest Arabians, [or at least the Jews among them,] as also the Jews beyond Euphrates, and the Adiabeni, or Assyrians, understood Josephus's Hebrew, or rather Chaldaic, books of The Jewish War, before they were put into the Greek language.-William Whiston's famous translation of Josephus
As to the New Testament itself, or even the gospels, there is no such thing as a Hebrew Gospel written before the 15th century AD, and the translation
of the Hebrew Matthew I have seen shows it to be a blasphemous piece of garbage, written obviously to denigrate The Messiah Yeshua and to exalt John The Baptist as the true Messiah!
Regardless, not even a scrap of any Hebrew Gospel exists from even the first millenium, much less the first century. If God wrote a Hebrew Gospel, where is it?
If no ancient Hebrew ms. of any New testament book exists, there is no argument for a Hebrew original.
But, look out, for this propaganda is coming. Many evangelical churches are turning to Judaism in their worship style and sympathies. Hebrew is being studied more (which is a good thing) but it is going to fill the void in NT language when Greek is discredited, unless people are properly educated in the Aramaic culture and The Peshitta.
I hope I'm wrong about all this, but I felt I should express my thoughts about it.
Many blessings to all in our Lord Messiah and God our Father,
Dave Bauscher