01-04-2015, 03:25 PM
Quote:Claim #1) "With fire everything will be vaporized and all sacrifices will be seasoned with salt." (Mat 9:49) One claim states that the root (mlk) can mean "to salt, season" or on the other hand, it can mean "to destroy, vaporize, or scatter." The AP argumentis that this points to an Aramaic original..." which I might agree makes sense if it could be proven or demonstrated.
Response: There is no evidence to support the alleged secondary meaning of "mlk" as "destroy / vaporize" in Jennings, Payne Smith, or CAL lexicons. These lexicons only give salted, or maybe "scatter," but that doesn't make any sense in the context of the passage, and wouldn't make much difference from the Greek-based English reading.
(These are the only three Aramaic-English lexicons that I currently have, so please feel free to enlighten me to others. I would certainly appreciate it). Furthermore, I don't every find the root "mlk" used in the NT for "destroy / vaporize" (i.e. no cross-references to support this claim). Therefore, there appears to be no evidence to back this claim up. How would that look to a Greek primacist?
mlk does indeed carry the meaning 'vaporize' or 'dissolve away'. Notice Isaiah 51:6 where it speaks of the heavens, that they will 'be dissolved away' (mlk) like smoke.
This root is also used to describe worn out clothing, described in Jeremiah 38:11, 12...'worn out rags' (mlkim).
Another use of mlk is used to describe a sailor, as one who is snipped from land, separated from it by spending a great deal of time at sea.
Every word with the ml marriage root contains this idea of something being snipped or reduced in some way. Now, it is true that the examples I gave are Hebrew words, not Aramaic. But the meanings, from over 10 years of my personal research, are shared by the usage of the same root letters, all pointing to an original concrete action meaning.
In a very real sense, salt (by removing moisture) dissolves away, and conversely, helps certain molecules release to arouse our senses. There are positive and negative connotations to the ml root, from circumcision to dissolving to flavoring, even to sailing.