04-03-2012, 01:54 AM
Galatians 1:19 is a verse which features strongly in debates about whether there was an historical Jesus. This is a subject of some intetest these days in some quarters as evidenced by Bart Ehrmans latest book.
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There are several reasons to think that the peshitta contains the original version, the most important being that the greek translator made the mistake of referring to jesus as "the Lord".
Nowhere is semitic thought does "the Lord" refer to anyone but yahweh. We find this in the hebrew bible and the peshitta NT.
The best example is in psalm 110 which reads.... "the lord (Yahweh) said the my Lord"
I tend to think in the PNT jesus is referred to as our/my Lord, never "the Lord".
However the greek translator changed this in quite afew places probably due to the ever confusing issue of the divinity of Jesus, and referred to Jesus as the Lord, a term strictly reserved for Yahweh in hebrew thought.
The peshitta makes it clear that a kinship relationship is being referred to in Galatians 1:19, and this is supported by modern liguistic theory particularly construction grammar which has all but abandoned the idea that a lexicon combined with a grammatical component is sufficient to understand language. Instead we need to be aware of constructions and see that language is often composed of "prefabs".
Galatians 1:19 is good example as it contains the construction X the Y of Z, which was used as a kinship identifier. Eleanor Dickey's study of greek letters from the period had this to say ..."There is no evidence that a person mentioned as being the brother or sister of someone other than the writer or addressee can be a spouse or anything else other than a sibling. "
Yet the greek translator by exchanging "the Lord" for "Our Lord" makes it appear to say James the brother of Yahweh, not James the brother of Jesus.
p.s I Know this has the potential to stir up debates about the divinity of Jesus but Im not a christian and am just interested in examining the texts.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062204602">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062204602</a><!-- m -->
There are several reasons to think that the peshitta contains the original version, the most important being that the greek translator made the mistake of referring to jesus as "the Lord".
Nowhere is semitic thought does "the Lord" refer to anyone but yahweh. We find this in the hebrew bible and the peshitta NT.
The best example is in psalm 110 which reads.... "the lord (Yahweh) said the my Lord"
I tend to think in the PNT jesus is referred to as our/my Lord, never "the Lord".
However the greek translator changed this in quite afew places probably due to the ever confusing issue of the divinity of Jesus, and referred to Jesus as the Lord, a term strictly reserved for Yahweh in hebrew thought.
The peshitta makes it clear that a kinship relationship is being referred to in Galatians 1:19, and this is supported by modern liguistic theory particularly construction grammar which has all but abandoned the idea that a lexicon combined with a grammatical component is sufficient to understand language. Instead we need to be aware of constructions and see that language is often composed of "prefabs".
Galatians 1:19 is good example as it contains the construction X the Y of Z, which was used as a kinship identifier. Eleanor Dickey's study of greek letters from the period had this to say ..."There is no evidence that a person mentioned as being the brother or sister of someone other than the writer or addressee can be a spouse or anything else other than a sibling. "
Yet the greek translator by exchanging "the Lord" for "Our Lord" makes it appear to say James the brother of Yahweh, not James the brother of Jesus.
p.s I Know this has the potential to stir up debates about the divinity of Jesus but Im not a christian and am just interested in examining the texts.