Qnoma?...definition

[Paul Younan]

Shlama Akhi Dave,

Thank you for your responses and patience. I still have some bones to pick, however. Is Luke 11:17 discussing a conceptual house and Matthew 12:25 a physical house?

Neither is talking about a house. If we think of a house (conceptual or physical) when reading that idiom, we miss the point of the teaching entirely.

How can you even imagine "self" being translated in Hebrews 10:1 ??? That verse alone should tell you that we have no English cognate to "Qnoma!"

You say "napsha" is not cognate with "self", yet you translate it as "self" many times. I understand that a cognate may not always exist, but still a fairly good approximation may usually exist.

Isn't that what I've been saying all along? There is no English equivalent of "Qnoma", but sometimes the different shades of meaning overlap with some English terms......not any one single English term, but many.

Do you really think that "Qnoma" is the only word that, when I was translating it, I *cringed* because there was no real good English approximation? Do you realize how often that happens to anyone translating from any language into any other language?

Akhan Michael brought this topic up originally about a possible English way of looking at Qnoma, I said I liked it, and you asked why it couldn't just simply be "self" to make it simple.

I like "simple", too. But the problem exists that if you try and force the Aramaic word to have a concrete meaning in English, and insist that the very same concept conveyed in Aramaic must have a cognate, or a way of saying it *simply* in English, then all sorts of problems (like the council of Ephesus) can occur.

We have been searching for a way to say it in English for a long time - but we haven't gotten there yet. By "we", I mean native speakers along with some of the most brilliant minds on earth alive today, people who know Aramaic like the back of their hands.

I don't believe in perfect translations; only in the original; yet I do believe the essential ideas may be conveyed through a good translation.

Absolutely. However, as you already essentially stated, some information is always lost when translating. Not so much so when going from Spanish to English, because these languages belong to the same family......but when going from Aramaic to Greek....or, even worse yet, to English? Wow - we are talking about a BIG jump with a lot of information loss.....or, worse yet, incorrect information gain!

There would be no reason at all to study original languages if a translation was just as good.....if all the same concepts and imagery from a source language could be conveyed equally well in a target language.

This is why you have dozens of translations from just the Greek to the English!! How many do you think it would take to get from Aramaic to English? You could make millions upon millions of translations from Aramaic into English.....and you would still inadequately convey the same imagery that the Aramaic does.

Is that because English is somehow inferior to Aramaic? NO! But they each have their own linguistic psyche. And when languages have different psyche, there is no way on heaven or on earth to align the imagery perfectly!

The "two qnomas of Christ" bothers me , because I cannot find it in The Peshitta.

Sure you can - you can even find it in the English. When Meshikha forgave sins, that was the Divine Qnoma. When He was tempted by Satan, that was the Human Qnoma.

Do you need it to explicitly say "Meshikha had two qnome, one Divine and one Human?" What we are talking about is the mystery of the Incarnation - something that is, essentially, ineffable.

I don't wish to split hairs with you. We've argued about this for 15 centuries.

Orthodox Christianity (all Orthodox Christianity) believes that the subject of the Incarnation was both "God and Man"....not a "God-man." Pagans believed in "god-men." There is a BIG difference between the two.

The way Aramaic-speaking believers understand this revelation (God and Man) is through the concept of "God-Qnoma and Human-Qnoma", and this fits in perfectly with revelation in scripture.

If Meshikha didn't have a Divine Qnoma, then he was a liar. If Meshikha didn't have a Human Qnoma, then the sacrifice is useless and I reject it.

You HAVE to understand that when you even suggest that Meshikha didn't have a divine Qnoma, you are saying that he wasn't God. And if you even suggest that Meshikha didn't have a human Qnoma, then you are saying that he wasn't born of a woman!

In the Aramaic psyche - you cannot be human, and not have a human Qnoma. You cannot be God, and not have a divine Qnoma. In other words, in the Aramaic psyche you cannot go directly from abstract nature to concrete person. That abstract nature must be *individuated* first. That's where Qnoma comes in.

If you tell an Aramaic-speaking person that a bird flying above does not have a "bird qnoma", that person would look at you like you were insane - because what you are saying, essentially, is that you think the bird is imaginary! That you think that bird doesn't exist!

How many ways can I possibly stress this point? You have to understand that Aramaic isn't just a language. That no language is just words....cold words on a dictionary page. All languages come with concepts and imagery associated with technical terms. Aramaic is no different, actually it is a very much an imagery-associated language.

You can't just sit there and look up English "approximations" on C.A.L. and hope to understand what an Aramaic text, or any foreign text, is saying....really saying. You have to study word imagery and concepts that the words in that language are conveying.

Every language has it's own psyche - and the psyche of Aramaic is very, very, very different from the psyche of Greek......let alone English.

I don't know how many more ways I can say this, but I hope I got something across. Like I said, those bi-lingual people who are reading this message understand exactly what I am talking about.