03-07-2015, 07:23 PM
Looks like I came back to the party too late! I typed up most of my reply a few days ago but had to save it til I could finish after a run of 12+ hr night shifts at the hospital. Anyways I'd hate for it to go to waste so here it is anyways. If anyone finds flaws in my post I'd appreciate correction, thanks.
Excellent job copying+pasting nearly all your arguments and talking points from websites.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://orvillejenkins.com/languages/aramaicprimacy.html">http://orvillejenkins.com/languages/aramaicprimacy.html</a><!-- m -->
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://witnessed.wordpress.com/">https://witnessed.wordpress.com/</a><!-- m -->
..and who knows what else since I stopped checking your post after these two.
Just about all the issues you copied over have already been answered before. Shall I just copy+paste several web pages, biblical chapters and postings from others here that answer these things for you to read through?
The websites themselves only parrot assertions with little to no compelling evidence to back them up. Funny how you swallow them anyways while ignoring solid internal primary evidence and first hand accounts pointing away from your position and seem adamant that we do the same. Actually your presence here makes little sense as you clearly have nothing to offer in the way of enlightenment or resolving textual difficulties and uncovering hidden meaning in the bible. Safety in numbers? Political agenda? What would happen to the church of Rome if their basis for authority was exposed as false? What would religious Jews today think if they heard the Gospels and letters from the apostles were actually in Aramaic? They might even dare think about looking at it and find themselves appreciating how it reads like parts of the TNK or their sages and start wondering if they've been mislead by those they trusted. As it is they won't give a second thought to it being even near inspired text simply because they're told it originates in Greek which would be like giving them a nice fat slab of bacon with their morning bagel. Can't have Jews converting now can we? What would that do to the state of Israel? No fighting over land? Peace? Noo! That's for the future world leader to broker isn't it! Why shouldn't Aramaic primacy be suppressed?
One wonders, if you?re not an agent here to derail any progress, do you actually think through what you?re posting here and testing your own side of the argument or are you mindlessly regurgitating what others say? You?re basically illustrating what typically happens in academia which is to simply echo chamber what the chosen Establishment journals and ?scholars? publish creating a self-fulfilling ?consensus? and subsequent talking points (?all scholars agree,? like the secularist refrain ?all scientists agree?) rather than go back to the basics and consult the original sources and check what the evidence shows compared to what is being fed to you. Again, I?m reminded of militant Atheist's organized tactics online with their empty talking points and copy+paste drive-bys -- can't have the common person thinking their on equal footing with kings and priests in the Creator's eyes and part of a plan, noo! they're just soulless apish slaves to the highest authority, the State.
Ignoring history you say? Josephus (a very important historian btw) makes abundantly clear that writings by Jews during NT times would most definitely have been in Aramaic not Greek. Most Greek influence was shunned by Jews especially after the Maccabean revolt and was rarely used fluently among Jews (like a Paul or Philo) with the exception of a minority called ?Hellenized-Jews? ? as it?s said, the exception establishes the rule. The rabbis would lament that the scriptures were translated into Greek. The highly educated Josephus himself wrote his works in Aramaic and admits it was difficult to learn to translate into the foreign and unaccustomed language (Greek). This would not be the case if Greek really was the lingua franca of Jewish communities that we are always assured it was in NT time by Western NT scholars. The Roman commander posted in Jerusalem seems surprised when Paul was able to address him in Greek: As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the commander, ?May I say something to you?? And he said, ?Do you know Greek? Acts 21.37 (NAS). This would not be the case if Greek really was the lingua franca of Jewish communities that we are always assured it was in NT time. Then Paul turns to the crowd (his "brethren," Jews and Israelites, etc) and speaks in Aramaic: Paul, standing on the stairs, motioned to the people with his hand; and when there was a great hush, he spoke to them in the Hebrew dialect, saying, ?Brethren and fathers, hear my defense which I now offer to you.? And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew dialect, they became even more quiet" Acts 21.40-22.2 (NAS). Keep in mind the crowd was made up of mainly Jews and Israelites from surrounding countries! That speaks volumes! This would not be the case if these communities spread around the empire had forgotten the Hebrew tongue, Aramaic, which was still preserved particularly in the synagogues throughout the nations which Paul went to first in each foreign city he went to preach to; OT application of the term "goyim" ("nations," "Gentiles") was a generic term used also to refer to descendants of Israelites/Jews (cf. Gen 48.19). The biblical text itself is really all you need to counter underlying assumptions of Greek primacists if you actually believe and trust what it says, showing that Greek primacists really don't trust the text. ?If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" John 3.12 (NAS).
I?ll also let Josephus shred the Greek primacist argument in his own way:
?Antiquity of the Jews?
1:7 but because this work surrounded a great deal? in process of time, as usually happens to such as undertake great things, I grew weary and went on slowly, it being a large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our history into a foreign, and to us unaccustomed, language.
1:129 for such names are pronounced here after the manner of the Greeks, to please my readers; for our own country language does not so pronounce them;
20:262 And I am so bold as to say, now I have so completely perfected the work I proposed to myself to do, that no other person, whether he were a Jew or foreigner, had he ever so great an inclination to it, could so accurately deliver these accounts to the Greeks as is done in these books.
20:263 For those of my own nation freely acknowledge that I far exceed them in the learning belonging to Jews: I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness;
20:264 for our nation does not encourage those who learn the languages of many nations,
In Against Apion, Josephus also shows that ?Antiquity? was originally written in his own national tongue and only subsequently translated into Greek (with great effort as stated above):
1:1 My books of the ?Antiquity of the Jews? ? Those Antiquities contain the history of five thousand years, and are taken out of our sacred books; but are translated by me into the Greek tongue.
1:50 Afterward I got leisure at Rome; and when all my materials were prepared for that work, I made use of some persons to assist me in learning the Greek tongue.
Jewish War preface:
?I have proposed to myself, for the sake of such as live under the government of the Romans, to translate those books into the Greek tongue, which I formerly composed in the language of our country?
After the exile to Babylon, the lingua franca among the Jews who returned to the land (and stayed in Babylon) was Aramaic. This is why they always used the Aramaic Targumim, Talmuds, Mishna, and Midrash through NT times and beyond. Even the Hebrew bible relies much on Aramaic after the exile and tells how Ezra translated the Hebrew bible for the Jews during readings, where the Aramaic Targum tradition begins. It was a strong tradition and still practiced today; Greek had no place in the synagogue.
Josephus actually lived in the time and area we?re talking about, unlike the biblical ?scholars? 2000 years later who must ignore and invert what he said as a foundation to build their house of cards on because they know better than he who was actually there and concerned himself with the matter. The Jews and Israelites traditionally read from the Hebrew bible along side the Aramaic Targumim in the synagogues throughout the empire. Many different languages were spoken throughout the empire, not just Greek, that?s why on the Pentecost following Yeshua's ascent the bible records that the apostles spoke many different languages surprising the Israelites who had come from different countries, yet they were addressed in the Hebrew tongue by Paul.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, ?Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ?And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? ?Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs?we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.? And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, ?What does this mean?? But others were mocking and saying, ?They are full of sweet wine.? Acts 2.5-13
Why would they be speaking so many different languages throughout the empire if Greek had universally taken over? It may have been the international business language, more so in some regions than others, but apparently the other daily languages didn't die out as the passage in Acts shows.
Why don't Greek primacists address any of these issues? They have bigger and more numerous problems to face down than Aramaic primacists. So who?s the one ignoring history? The Greek primacist must shrug off all these historical facts because they annihilate their argument and overturns their superstructure of bogus scholarship over the ages. God makes the wisdom of this world into foolishness with things that are hidden.
In addition to history, I see you still don?t understand how bad your analogy is. At least have a clue about what you're talking about if you're going to act arrogant. Capiche?
Your reply shows that you don?t even really understand polysemy even though you can provide a definition, especially when you compare it to derived words (English from Latin) which has zero to do with what we're talking about. Another factor your 'stat' misses is that we?re not talking about all polysemic terms in the Peshitta, rather only polysemic terms in Aramaic where their translations are split between/among different definitions due to the related context being ambiguous to some degree (at least to the translator). But I suppose finer points like these are falling on deaf ears if we can?t get past the more elementary points. I won?t be wasting my time further on it so enjoy delving deeper into fantasies of how you (or someone else) calculated a great 'proof' with some irrelevant pseudo statistical analysis. Such tricks might work on gullible Greek primacists but good luck pulling the wool over on those who prayerfully attempt to do their own homework and critical thinking (see above reference to Ehrman).
Excellent job copying+pasting nearly all your arguments and talking points from websites.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://orvillejenkins.com/languages/aramaicprimacy.html">http://orvillejenkins.com/languages/aramaicprimacy.html</a><!-- m -->
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://witnessed.wordpress.com/">https://witnessed.wordpress.com/</a><!-- m -->
..and who knows what else since I stopped checking your post after these two.
Just about all the issues you copied over have already been answered before. Shall I just copy+paste several web pages, biblical chapters and postings from others here that answer these things for you to read through?
The websites themselves only parrot assertions with little to no compelling evidence to back them up. Funny how you swallow them anyways while ignoring solid internal primary evidence and first hand accounts pointing away from your position and seem adamant that we do the same. Actually your presence here makes little sense as you clearly have nothing to offer in the way of enlightenment or resolving textual difficulties and uncovering hidden meaning in the bible. Safety in numbers? Political agenda? What would happen to the church of Rome if their basis for authority was exposed as false? What would religious Jews today think if they heard the Gospels and letters from the apostles were actually in Aramaic? They might even dare think about looking at it and find themselves appreciating how it reads like parts of the TNK or their sages and start wondering if they've been mislead by those they trusted. As it is they won't give a second thought to it being even near inspired text simply because they're told it originates in Greek which would be like giving them a nice fat slab of bacon with their morning bagel. Can't have Jews converting now can we? What would that do to the state of Israel? No fighting over land? Peace? Noo! That's for the future world leader to broker isn't it! Why shouldn't Aramaic primacy be suppressed?
One wonders, if you?re not an agent here to derail any progress, do you actually think through what you?re posting here and testing your own side of the argument or are you mindlessly regurgitating what others say? You?re basically illustrating what typically happens in academia which is to simply echo chamber what the chosen Establishment journals and ?scholars? publish creating a self-fulfilling ?consensus? and subsequent talking points (?all scholars agree,? like the secularist refrain ?all scientists agree?) rather than go back to the basics and consult the original sources and check what the evidence shows compared to what is being fed to you. Again, I?m reminded of militant Atheist's organized tactics online with their empty talking points and copy+paste drive-bys -- can't have the common person thinking their on equal footing with kings and priests in the Creator's eyes and part of a plan, noo! they're just soulless apish slaves to the highest authority, the State.
Ignoring history you say? Josephus (a very important historian btw) makes abundantly clear that writings by Jews during NT times would most definitely have been in Aramaic not Greek. Most Greek influence was shunned by Jews especially after the Maccabean revolt and was rarely used fluently among Jews (like a Paul or Philo) with the exception of a minority called ?Hellenized-Jews? ? as it?s said, the exception establishes the rule. The rabbis would lament that the scriptures were translated into Greek. The highly educated Josephus himself wrote his works in Aramaic and admits it was difficult to learn to translate into the foreign and unaccustomed language (Greek). This would not be the case if Greek really was the lingua franca of Jewish communities that we are always assured it was in NT time by Western NT scholars. The Roman commander posted in Jerusalem seems surprised when Paul was able to address him in Greek: As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the commander, ?May I say something to you?? And he said, ?Do you know Greek? Acts 21.37 (NAS). This would not be the case if Greek really was the lingua franca of Jewish communities that we are always assured it was in NT time. Then Paul turns to the crowd (his "brethren," Jews and Israelites, etc) and speaks in Aramaic: Paul, standing on the stairs, motioned to the people with his hand; and when there was a great hush, he spoke to them in the Hebrew dialect, saying, ?Brethren and fathers, hear my defense which I now offer to you.? And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew dialect, they became even more quiet" Acts 21.40-22.2 (NAS). Keep in mind the crowd was made up of mainly Jews and Israelites from surrounding countries! That speaks volumes! This would not be the case if these communities spread around the empire had forgotten the Hebrew tongue, Aramaic, which was still preserved particularly in the synagogues throughout the nations which Paul went to first in each foreign city he went to preach to; OT application of the term "goyim" ("nations," "Gentiles") was a generic term used also to refer to descendants of Israelites/Jews (cf. Gen 48.19). The biblical text itself is really all you need to counter underlying assumptions of Greek primacists if you actually believe and trust what it says, showing that Greek primacists really don't trust the text. ?If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" John 3.12 (NAS).
I?ll also let Josephus shred the Greek primacist argument in his own way:
?Antiquity of the Jews?
1:7 but because this work surrounded a great deal? in process of time, as usually happens to such as undertake great things, I grew weary and went on slowly, it being a large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our history into a foreign, and to us unaccustomed, language.
1:129 for such names are pronounced here after the manner of the Greeks, to please my readers; for our own country language does not so pronounce them;
20:262 And I am so bold as to say, now I have so completely perfected the work I proposed to myself to do, that no other person, whether he were a Jew or foreigner, had he ever so great an inclination to it, could so accurately deliver these accounts to the Greeks as is done in these books.
20:263 For those of my own nation freely acknowledge that I far exceed them in the learning belonging to Jews: I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness;
20:264 for our nation does not encourage those who learn the languages of many nations,
In Against Apion, Josephus also shows that ?Antiquity? was originally written in his own national tongue and only subsequently translated into Greek (with great effort as stated above):
1:1 My books of the ?Antiquity of the Jews? ? Those Antiquities contain the history of five thousand years, and are taken out of our sacred books; but are translated by me into the Greek tongue.
1:50 Afterward I got leisure at Rome; and when all my materials were prepared for that work, I made use of some persons to assist me in learning the Greek tongue.
Jewish War preface:
?I have proposed to myself, for the sake of such as live under the government of the Romans, to translate those books into the Greek tongue, which I formerly composed in the language of our country?
After the exile to Babylon, the lingua franca among the Jews who returned to the land (and stayed in Babylon) was Aramaic. This is why they always used the Aramaic Targumim, Talmuds, Mishna, and Midrash through NT times and beyond. Even the Hebrew bible relies much on Aramaic after the exile and tells how Ezra translated the Hebrew bible for the Jews during readings, where the Aramaic Targum tradition begins. It was a strong tradition and still practiced today; Greek had no place in the synagogue.
Josephus actually lived in the time and area we?re talking about, unlike the biblical ?scholars? 2000 years later who must ignore and invert what he said as a foundation to build their house of cards on because they know better than he who was actually there and concerned himself with the matter. The Jews and Israelites traditionally read from the Hebrew bible along side the Aramaic Targumim in the synagogues throughout the empire. Many different languages were spoken throughout the empire, not just Greek, that?s why on the Pentecost following Yeshua's ascent the bible records that the apostles spoke many different languages surprising the Israelites who had come from different countries, yet they were addressed in the Hebrew tongue by Paul.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, ?Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ?And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? ?Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs?we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.? And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, ?What does this mean?? But others were mocking and saying, ?They are full of sweet wine.? Acts 2.5-13
Why would they be speaking so many different languages throughout the empire if Greek had universally taken over? It may have been the international business language, more so in some regions than others, but apparently the other daily languages didn't die out as the passage in Acts shows.
Why don't Greek primacists address any of these issues? They have bigger and more numerous problems to face down than Aramaic primacists. So who?s the one ignoring history? The Greek primacist must shrug off all these historical facts because they annihilate their argument and overturns their superstructure of bogus scholarship over the ages. God makes the wisdom of this world into foolishness with things that are hidden.
In addition to history, I see you still don?t understand how bad your analogy is. At least have a clue about what you're talking about if you're going to act arrogant. Capiche?
Your reply shows that you don?t even really understand polysemy even though you can provide a definition, especially when you compare it to derived words (English from Latin) which has zero to do with what we're talking about. Another factor your 'stat' misses is that we?re not talking about all polysemic terms in the Peshitta, rather only polysemic terms in Aramaic where their translations are split between/among different definitions due to the related context being ambiguous to some degree (at least to the translator). But I suppose finer points like these are falling on deaf ears if we can?t get past the more elementary points. I won?t be wasting my time further on it so enjoy delving deeper into fantasies of how you (or someone else) calculated a great 'proof' with some irrelevant pseudo statistical analysis. Such tricks might work on gullible Greek primacists but good luck pulling the wool over on those who prayerfully attempt to do their own homework and critical thinking (see above reference to Ehrman).
"All that openeth the matrix is mine" -Exodus 34.19a