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Author Topic:   What is the biggest bible contradiction?
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 39 of 311 (366107)
11-26-2006 4:15 PM


subtle, but devastating
from the "kingly" genealogy of jesus, found in matthew 1:
quote:
Mat 1:11 And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon:
now, luke has a totally different genealogy, so that's 1 contradiction before we even get started. now, let's go check this line against the old testament.
quote:
1Ch 3:15 And the sons of Josiah were, the firstborn Johanan, the second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, the fourth Shallum.
hm, no jechoniah. oh, here he is in the next line:
quote:
1Ch 3:16 And the sons of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, Zedekiah his son.
matthew skips a generation. so that's 2. why does matthew skip a generation, you ask?
quote:
Jer 36:30 Therefore thus saith the LORD of Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.
Jer 36:31 And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them; but they hearkened not.
no son of jehoiakim will ever sit on the throne of judah. in fact, after his son does sit on the throne, (you counting? that's three contradictions) the kingly line reverts back to jehoiakim's brother (not his son) zedekiah, who becomes the last rightful king of judah.
so where's the subtle point? jesus is listed as a son of not only josiah, but of his grandson jeconiah, who was part of a cursed lineage. meaning, jesus has no claim to the throne -- meaning he cannot be the messiah. which is kind of devastating to the entire point of the new testament. there are lots of little genealogical contradictions that can be fudged here and there as copyist errors and whatnot, but this is a rather important and legitimate issue with the text. matthew either made a big mistake, or this is in fact his point.


arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 52 of 311 (366365)
11-27-2006 5:36 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by anastasia
11-26-2006 11:19 PM


Re: Gospel of John
I still think you ae misreading something. Last Supper is on Thursday. Jesus dies Friday, the Preparation Day. This is the day before the Sabbath, which is on Saturday in the Jewish calendar, and not Sunday.
days of the week are actually irrelevent. i don't mean this to be insulting, but they really don't matter. passover changes from year to year. this year, it started on a wednesday. next year will be a monday. even so, you're thinking about them all wrong. since the hebrew days begins at sunset, the "eve of" or preparation for the passover would occur on what would be the same day (to us) as the seder itself.
thus, matthew, mark and luke as making the last supper not be a pre-passover meal, but the passover seder itself. this is not a minor technical objection; this is a major theological point. the idea of christ's sacrifice and the original passover are intimately tied -- the synoptic gospels intend to portray jesus leading the disciples from bondage (of sin) as moses led the israelites from bondage (of egypt), after a symbolic meal.
john has a different point. to john, jesus is the passover lamb, sacrificed and eaten, whose blood saves those from wrath of god. which is why in john, you will see, jesus is sacrificed on the first day of pesach, not the second. it's contradictory because the authors have different points to make about jesus's role in the early church. perhaps it's that m-m-l intend to invoke the passover symbolically, and john intends more abstract symbolism, literally making jesus the lamb.
As I said before, read chapters 13-18. The entire thing is the Last Supper, or Passover Seder. It is actually longer than any of the others, as John was an eye-witness.
by "last supper" people generally mean the communion, or eucharist which is not found in john. indeed, the reference you give starts:
quote:
Jhn 13:1 Now before the feast of the passover...
Jhn 13:2 And supper being ended...
the description of that supper is not given in chapter 12, either. it happens somewhere between 12 and 13. there are many other elements of the last supper story found between 13 and 18, but no euchasist.
and still, the other gospels have this supper occurring not before passover, but as the feast of unleavened bread itself. see luke's reference, which you were already given:
quote:
22:7 Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed.
22:8 And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the passover, that we may eat.
compared to john's, above:
quote:
13:1 Now before the feast of the passover...
13:2 And supper being ended...
matthew, mark, and luke's last suppers are pesach seders. john's crucifixion of christ is the slaughtering of the pesach lamb, and the last supper is before passover. i don't know how this can be any more clear.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by anastasia, posted 11-26-2006 11:19 PM anastasia has replied

Replies to this message:
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 53 of 311 (366366)
11-27-2006 5:45 PM
Reply to: Message 51 by anastasia
11-27-2006 4:50 PM


Re: Gospel of John
Strike two! the words 'according to' mean what they say, or they would be called 'the gospels, according to what someone thought was John'.
yes, they do.
but who's john, exactly? which john? how do we know?
sure, there was a guy name john present (according to john), and the book is coincidentally called john by a group of people who came a lot later, but what does that mean? even if it was a legitimate claim to authorship, what's to say this john was not named after that john? or perhaps another john, as yonatan is a rather common jewish name.
The namings of the Gospels may have happened late. So what? They were being researched, they still are. It makes no difference to me with Matthew, Mark, and Luke, what their names really were. They are in fact little more than names anyway biographically speaking.
but you make the claim that john -- the john who wrote "john" -- was there. that's a little hard to substantiate. especially since it's not the earliest gospel we have (in the bible, mark is. elsewhere, i think thomas is), and it so often contradicts the other gospels that pre-date it.
and yes, the gospels are still being researched, all the time in fact. but many people who subscribe to the ideas that the authors of the bible were eyewitnesses tend not to like that kind of research.


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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 54 of 311 (366368)
11-27-2006 5:48 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by anastasia
11-27-2006 4:26 PM


Re: apologetics?
Apologetics is fascinating, if you ask me, but in this case I see nothing squishy and maleable,
i'm with you here. i see nothing squishy and maleable. the texts clearly and literally contradict.
even supposing that john and matt/mark/luke count the start of the day differently, one group is clearly portraying the last supper as a passover seder, and the other is clearly portraying the last supper as prior to passover. that's just what the text says, literally.


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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 84 of 311 (366690)
11-28-2006 11:28 PM
Reply to: Message 55 by anastasia
11-27-2006 8:23 PM


Re: Gospel of John
Seriously though, I am not worried about actual days. I am looking for a measure of elapsed time. Since we know already that the Sabbath is Saturday, and also know that the Sabbath was the day after Jesus' death,
no, that's just the point. we don't know that. according to one book it is, but the other books are a day different. the days of the week, and the relation to shabat doesn't tell us anything. the difference between matt/mark/luke's last supper on the first day of passover, and john's last supper the day before passover is a perfectly clear contradiction. they are told in the same terms.
we can backtrack to conclude that the last Supper/Passover Seder fell on a what-we-now-call-Thursday.
no, you are attempting to confuse the issue.
I said Friday is the Preperation Day for the Sabbath. It is.
ask any jewish person you know, shabat starts on friday night, and continues to saturday morning. in israel, friday is a half-day at work.
Even if the Sabbath starts at sundown, Friday is still the day before it.
look, i'll make this really, really simple for you. it's not about when jesus died -- the synoptic gospels and john agree that he died on friday, the preparation for shabat. the contradiction is when passover was that year.
see luke's last supper, which makes numerous references to the chag ha-matzot (feast of unleavened bread) and pesach (passover):
quote:
Luk 22:15 And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:
compared to john's trial of jesus, which happens after the last supper:
quote:
Jhn 19:14 And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!
john exchanges the "preparation for the sabbath" (friday morning) in matt/mark/luke for "prepatation for passover" and moves passover up one day.
In John 13, he says 'before the feast of the passover'. You can take this as days before if you like, personally I do not.
no, it's a single day. because the very next day is the trial, above, which is on the day before passover. in john, jesus dies on passover, as the sacrificial lamb. the matthew, mark, and luke, the last supper is the passover seder. they cannot both be right.
I take it as a matter of a few minutes before the feast itself, since right after this John begins to speak about the supper.
then you have clearly missed where the text continues to explicitly state that it is before passover, up until jesus is actually on the cross. again, see above. jesus's trial is still the day before passover.
The first thing which is done is the washing of the disciples feet, which is the first thing which occurs in the ritual of Seder.
no? one (sometimes) washes their own hands after the kiddush, and again before bread is broken. but i know of no foot-washing traditions, except among the early christian church. doing so in the ancient near east was a symbol of hospitality -- something that would be utterly foriegn to the themes of pesach, which involve servitude, hardship, and family, and the instruction of youth.
There are other parallels which make it evident that John is talking about the same meal as the others.
i never said he wasn't -- he just isn't portraying it as a passover seder. instead, he portrays jesus as the sacrificial lamb -- his death starts passover.
It may be worth noting that in some instances the word Passover is being used in relation to a feast day or days, in other instances it refers to the meal itself.
and you claim i insulted you?
this really isn't very complicated. matthew, mark, and luke say that the last supper takes place on the first night of passover. john says it takes place before passover, and jesus's trial is on the day before passover (making his death, in the evening, the first day of passover).


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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 85 of 311 (366691)
11-28-2006 11:46 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by anastasia
11-28-2006 3:26 PM


it's all greek to me.
clark writes:
Also, if the author of Matthew is an eyewitness, presumably he is a disciple of Jesus and therefore a Jew from Galilee. In the Gospel of Matthew it is clear that when he quotes the Old Testament, he is quoting from the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT) and not directly from the Hebrew. So, why would a disciple of Jesus and a Jew from Galilee quote from a Greek translation instead of Hebrew?
audience. greek was the lingua franca of the 1st century roman-occupied middle east, and probably a fair portion of the rest of the empire. educated jews in the area spoke and read greek (which is why there was a septuagint in the first place, btw). it's actually entirely possible that jesus himself conducted most or at least part of his teaching in koine greek. when he talks to pontius pilate, he must be doing so in greek. if it weren't for the fact that we have numerous aramaic inclusions in the gospels, the case might even be better. personally, i would think that jesus conducted his sermons in aramaic (being aimed largely at the common people), but we can't rule out the possibility that he only resorted to his native aramaic when he was at a loss for greek words.
nem writes:
What? Why is clear that he was quoting from the Septuagint?
well, we know he wasn't quoting the masoretic, because it didn't exist then. we can't actually say that the changes between the septuagint and the masoretic were the septuagint's doing and not the masoretic's, but the versions of quotes that matthew uses are closer to the septuagint than to the masoretic.
for instance, a famous example, the virgin birth, and isaiah 7:14. the greek used in the septuagint is the word for "virgin." but the hebrew word in the masoretic carries no such connotation.
anastasia writes:
I think the situation is more that Matthew did write in Hebrew, but quoted an OT more similar to the Greek Septuagint than to the Hebrew.
actually, we can pretty much rule out matthew writing in hebrew. he would have had to have been a pharisee to even know the language. hebrew was a dead language at this point in history, and if it was even ever spoken aloud, it would have been by church elders, for ceremonial purposes. (sort of like latin, in catholic mass. nobody speaks latin anymore, really)
even by the end of the old testament biblical period, hebrew was a dead language. the most recent books of the old testament are written in aramaic.


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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 87 of 311 (366699)
11-29-2006 12:23 AM
Reply to: Message 69 by anastasia
11-28-2006 2:06 PM


disproof by contradictions
Q. How do you know the Bible is from God?
A. Because it says so!
Q. How do you know what it says is true?
A. Because God wrote it.
Hmmm.....
But what is even more odd, is disproving the Bible with the Bible.
Q. How do you know John did not write the gospel?
A. Because the Bible doesn't say so.
it's not a case so much of disproving the bible, but of logic.
if one text says one thing, and another text says the opposite, they cannot both be right. logically, one must be wrong, but without further evidence we cannot say which. however, knowing that either text a or text b must be wrong, we can say that the whole volumne or library of texts cannot be wholely correct in every way.
so in a manner, contradictions do disprove parts of the bible, using the bible, and disprove the notion of inerrancy. a text that says something AND that things opposite cannot be entirely correct.
these are not issues so much of ambiguity and overlap, like saying "god loves you, but he'll kill you." maybe god kills out of love, right? these are issues to plain statement of facts: was the last supper before or on passover? it cannot be both.
Thing is, we don't know when the cock crowed, how many times, or if it even happened at all.
no, and that's important to remember. it's a story. it may or may not have some truth to it.
The story of Peter's denial is like much of the Bible. It is a moral written into a plot.
this is overly simplistic. much of the bible has little to do with morality, and many books play many different roles and serve many different functions.
Take away the moral and you will have won me over. The contradictions mentioned have taken nothing away fron the meaning behind the story of the money changers, for example, and these spiritual lessons are what is thought of as being inspired. Not the history, not the science.
well, see, there are a few problems here. the point about when jesus died in relation to passover is a very important point in christian theology. john derives one more from it, the synoptic gospels derive another. we modern christians have confounded the two, and accept an amalgum of the gospels as a singular moral tale -- but they all have different points, and different audiences. if they didn't, we had one gospel, not four. it is very important not to lose the flavor and subtlety of the texts.
the other issue is that very, very often in the bible, the spiritual messages themselves are contradictory. for instance, god is just -- but punishes job for no good reason. god kills people for touching his box -- but sends his son to die for us. god tells the israelites to beware (or exterminate) foriegners -- but to be hospitable to strangers, even telling jonah to go to nineveh. these are big, big points, not silly little "when did the cock crow" things.
and we shouldn't expect anything different from the text. all these tell us is that this collection of texts is not what the fundies say it is, but what it on first sight appears to be: a collection of texts, by many different authors, presenting many different points of view, from many different places and times. if it did agree, it would be a miracle. as this very board illustrates, total agreement is not within the realm of human capability.
heck, some of us contradict ourselves.
I am still not sure how GoJ changed the day of Jesus' death. He says 'the parasceve of the Pasch', the evening before the Passover. But a parasceve is only before the Shabbat, or Saturday.
yes, he switches shabat for pesach. where matthew mark and luke read "preparation for sabbath" (after the first night of passover) john reads "prepatation for passover," thus moving passover up to the day of jesus's death.
there is a preparation for passover, btw. for instance, the night before pesach, there is a ritual where the family searches for (and removes) all leavening from the house.
So either John meant that this was the Shabbat within the week of Passover, (which seems likely because he called it a high day, and not just a normal Sabbath),
since passover is 7 days long, there is always a saturday during it.
or that Passover would start on the night of Shabbat, which seems unlikely, since when this happens, some preparations for passover take place on on the Thursday before. Among these is a fast, and the disciples are not seen to be fasting on Thursday.
i'm not aware of this, can you elaborate?
either way, it's clear by john's phrasing during the trial of jesus that he intended to place jesus's death on the first night of passover, or perhaps even the day before passover, with passover coinciding with the sabbath.
quote:
Jhn 19:14 And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!
quote:
Jhn 19:31 The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and [that] they might be taken away.
the question is whether or not it becomes passover while jesus is on the cross, or whether the two preparations are the same. either reading is possible, but both contradict matthew, mark and luke which say the last supper is a passover seder.


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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 88 of 311 (366700)
11-29-2006 12:33 AM
Reply to: Message 86 by anastasia
11-29-2006 12:09 AM


Re: Gospel of John
Ok, I will concede some points to you. The topic is tricky in some ways. I have a bible which says Jesus died on preparation day for Shabat, but the Latin Vulgate says 'parasceve of the pasch
john actually says both, in chapter 19. the question is how much time elapses between them. and either way, the other texts still place this DURING passover, not before.
It seems if John wants to illustrate Jesus being the paschal lamb, he would have included the 'eucharist' part.
no, he doesn't need the extra symbolism. he's straight forward about it. to him, jesus literally is the sacrifice that keeps those who live in him safe from the wrath of god. the synoptic gospels take a more abstracted approach, but john goes for the jugular. it's just his style.
Who knows, he may not have even been Jewish.
i have a suspicion that he had some gnostic influences.
Strange thing is, many scholars argue that John is right, and not matt/mark/luke.
john is a preferred text in christian churches, probably because it is more forward. people teach from the pauline epistles because paul says "do this, don't do that" and describes the meaning of christ point-blank. people quote john because jesus just comes out and says who he is, and what he means. it's easier to digest, really, because of this. you don't have to abstract out the meaning of a plot when the meaning is simply handed to you. (this is also why all of the earliest non-canonical gospels are simply collections of sayings, such as thomas.)
but to a careful reader, the gospels of john presents a very different theological character of jesus, and a very different personality. many educated readers don't like john very much, because they see john's jesus as arrogant, self-righteous, and breaking a number of commandments and jewish traditions. the jesus of the synoptic gospels is a little more modest.


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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 141 of 311 (368322)
12-07-2006 10:30 PM
Reply to: Message 139 by AnswersInGenitals
12-07-2006 5:16 PM


The major contradiction I found is "In the beginning god created the heaven and the earth." If god already existed to create the heaven and the earth...
to elaborate on the above post, because the singular past tense and singular present tense of verbs are the same in hebrew, there is another way to acceptably break up the grammar of the first sentance in genesis. the hebrew says:
quote:
‘, ‘ —, ,
b'reishit bara elohim et ha-shamim v'et ha-eretz
in-first create(d?) god (d.o.) the-skies and-(d.o.) the-land
this can be read as a very straightforward and simplistic sentance:
quote:
in the beginning, god created the skies and the land
or as part of a more complex statement:
quote:
when god began creating the skies and the ground... (and the earth was shapeless and empty... etc)
either is an entirely acceptable reading. if the concept that "b'reishit" refers to the beginning of time (or before the beginning of time) is a bit abstact for you, take the second reading. though really, the first chapter of genesis was basically written to explain time itself, the passage of days, and the structure of the week.
Or, if god had existed forever, there simply was no beginning.
the text seems to mean, in my humble opinion, the beginning of the earth.
And where did god reside before he created heaven?
in (above?) "the deep." there is a kind of primordial ocean from which everything else is created. "heaven" here is literally the word for "sky" (in plural).
Apparently, the heaven that good people go to when they die is NOT the abode of god!
this concept is decidedly missing from the torah. i can't find much hint of any belief in the afterlife until much later in the bible, and the question about the torah's usage of "sheol" (the grave) is debatable. at best, it is akin to the greek hades (the word the new testament uses for "hell") where people are shades of their former selves. at worst, it's a literal grave.
the first person to "go to heaven" in the bible is enoch, and the second is elijah, and those were both bodily transportations it seems.
I suspect the bible has other contradictions, but this is as far as I've read so far.
keep reading, lol.
Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.


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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 142 of 311 (368323)
12-07-2006 10:34 PM
Reply to: Message 136 by Neutralmind
12-07-2006 4:18 PM


Re: A new thread if you have the time and will?
I'm particularly interested in this statement. Should we make a new thread or discuss it here briefly?
Would be very nice to know about these problems and contradictions in JW's Bible. Please, if you have the time.
i haven't had the opportunity to take a good look at the wt edition. if someone would like to open a thread on the differences (pros and cons) i would be interested.


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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 143 of 311 (368324)
12-07-2006 10:41 PM
Reply to: Message 133 by Neutralmind
12-07-2006 4:03 PM


Re: just one more
Did dinosaurs and man coexist according to the bible?
contrary to the fundamentalist claims, there is no mention of dinosaurs in the bible. there is the leviathan, but he seems to a collective levantine mythological sea monster. there is more argument for him being a giant squid than a dinosaur. or really, there's more argument for him being a greatly exagerated whale -- "livyatan" does mean "whale" in modern hebrew.
i don't mean to side-track this. there have been numerous threads on him AND behemot before.
If not, how was there "meat eating" before "the fall" ?
also, another mistaken and empty fundamentalist point. if they were paying close attention to the bible they would find that it's only man that did not eat meat, and it had nothing to with the fall, but rather the flood. the bible does not consider animals people, so it doesn't care to issue commands about what they can and cannot eat.
there are also vague references in isaiah about predatory animals laying down with domesticated animals and eating straw. but this is prophecy, and probably symbolic.


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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 144 of 311 (368325)
12-07-2006 10:58 PM
Reply to: Message 132 by 8upwidit2
12-07-2006 12:51 PM


Re: Just another contridiction/ridiculous Biblical quotation, not sure if it the bigg
Unless my math is a bit fuzzy again, this says 50,070 men were killed for looking into the Ark of the Covenant. Are we to conclude that each and every one of these 50,070 men looked into that box?
remember raiders of the lost ark? how many nazi faces did god melt at a shot?
it's curious that this only happens once the ark is returned to the levites. and the text is actually unclear (grammatically) WHO does the smiting.
it's also entirely plausible that this verse simply tallies smiting already committed. the various palestinian groups all suffered plagues because of the presence of the ark, and this seems to be about the people from beth-shemesh dying as a result of the ark's stay with them, much like the last few chapters.


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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 145 of 311 (368326)
12-07-2006 11:12 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by anastasia
11-30-2006 1:31 PM


aramaic
Any evidence of when Aramaic was first recognized as a language?
as brian said, the tel dan stele. other than that, we have few books of the bible (ezra, daniel) which are written entirely in aramaic, and a few references (possibly even in the torah) which appear to be aramaic.
Or, any possibility it was still called Hebrew at times?
aramaic is a separate (though semantically related) language. it's confusing now, because modern hebrew derives from the bible -- which includes aramaic text. the two languages are closer today than there were in jesus's time.
i'll have to take brian's word that aramaic is the older of the two; i'm not sure myself. i can tell you that aramaic pre-dates the modern hebrew block-lettering, as this derives from the aramaic alef-bet, which in turn derives from phoenician.
Edited by arachnophilia, : subtitle


This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by anastasia, posted 11-30-2006 1:31 PM anastasia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 146 by anastasia, posted 12-07-2006 11:43 PM arachnophilia has replied

arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 149 of 311 (368588)
12-08-2006 11:31 PM
Reply to: Message 146 by anastasia
12-07-2006 11:43 PM


Re: aramaic
but I think I was wondering about Matthew writing in Hebrew. I clearly see that in all existing documents, he wrote in Aramaic, but I still had that nagging remembrance of hearing, like someone mentioned, that he wrote in Hebrew.
that's still a big negative on both counts. matthew wrote in koine greek, as did every other author of the new testament.
it's possible that source documents (or possibly an original) in aramaic exists, but i find this idea quite unlikely. there are other gospels that DO exist in aramaic, but to my knowledge there is no known aramaic manuscript of matthew.
Then Brian mentioned Papias, and Papias claimed Matthew wrote in Hebrew.
this is actually more likely than aramaic. let me make an argument based on a number of faulty assumptions for a second. let's assume for a second that the gospel is entirely accurate and unchanged from it's original form (it's not). and let's also assume that the name attached to the gospel is accurate, and refers to the matthew in the gospel (also unlikely).
supposing these two facts are true... matthew is called "levi" a number of times other gospels, and it's possible he is a levite, the only family of jews at the time that would be in a position to even know hebrew. although he was a tax-collector and not a pharisee, it's somewhat possible.
but let's look a verse or two, say the last words of jesus.
quote:
Around the ninth hour, Jesus shouted in a loud voice, saying "Eli Eli lema sabachthani?" which is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
now, the statement jesus utters, — — — ‘, is a transliteration of the aramaic into greek (and into english). he says "elahi, elahi, lamah shabaqt-ani?" which in itself is a reference to the twenty second psalm. but imagine that matthew wrote in aramaic for a second. what's the purpose of the included translation?
the equivalent in aramaic would read:
quote:
"my god, my god, why have you abandoned me?" meaning "my god, my god, why have you abandoned me?"
matthew includes a number of places where jesus speaks in aramaic, and then matthew translates it into some other language (say, greek). NONE of these can possibly make any sense if the language of the text is aramaic. but it can in hebrew.
in hebrew, that verse of matthew would be the aramaic jesus said, and the hebrew rendering of it, which is — —, — —‘ with ezbetani instead of shabaqtani.
but there are problems with this, of course. for instance, the fact that anyone who spoke hebrew in that place and time also spoke aramaic. the languages are very, very similar. similar enough that my untrained ear catches about as much of what jesus says in the passion of the christ as it does a native hebrew speaker speaking fluently.
hebrew, at that time, was more or less only spoken by the pharisees. matthew is NOT addressed to them. aramaic would get the book to the masses locally but matthew is aimed at a much larger audience. and even if it's only addressed to jews, there were much more that spoke greek abroad than there that spoke aramaic in judea. it also gets the book to non-jews, and helps save it for posterity in a very hellenized world.
the arguments for greek authorship really are just the most convincing.
I may have phrased my questions wrong; I did think that Hebrew was the older language, but my point was whether or not Papias could have called Aramaic 'Hebrew' as in 'the language of the Hebrews'? I mean, was Aramaic called Aramaic then?
"hebrew" and "the language of the hebrews" could be different things, i'm not sure.
I mean, was Aramaic called Aramaic then?
quote:
Gen 10:22 The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.
aram is a son of shem ("semitic"), according to genesis. this is a neighboring country, just to the south east of judah. the name exists in genesis, so i'm going to wager a guess of "yes." aram's brother, arpakshad, is the father of eber, as in or , "hebrew." so we have the name "aram" existing in biblical times, and aram being older than eber according to genesis. but whatever stock into that you will, but the function of genesis is partially to explain the origins of names -- so these names had to exist at the time.
It may seem like a silly question, but I am thinking about a scenerio like with Old Church Slavonic, the language (now dead) used by Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics. This language has progressed into other slavic languages, but at the time when the liturgies of the Orthodox churches were written, I do not think it was called 'Old Church Slavonic'.
aramaic was a foriegn language (but full of cognates, and using the same alef-bet) that slowly infiltrated judea through foreign influence, and became the vernacular dialect after some time. at this point, sometime while the ot was still being written, hebrew essentially became a dead language. some time between 600bc and 200ad (they might have a date, i'm not sure) the original hebrew alef-bet was replaced with one resembling aramaic. our oldest hebrew copy of the complete tanakh (masoretic) is written in the aramaic-influenced script. most of the dss scrolls are in this script too, though some inclusions of ancient hebrew exist. we have some older documents in ancient hebrew.
hebrew, especially ancient/biblical hebrew, was then considered a "holy language" for some time, spoken only by rabbis performing ceremonies. because of this, it stayed dead until about 1940 something, around the time israel became a country. it seemed the perfect language to make the official state language, but even still there were a number of objections based on the dilution of the language through use, and avoiding using holy things.
since 1948 or so, hebrew has continued to evolve, and now incorporates many arabic, aramaic, and even english terms. they have a council that regulates this, but nobody cares. but anyways, hebrew comes from the eberites (hebrews), aramaic from the arameans. two different languages.
Edited by arachnophilia, : typo


This message is a reply to:
 Message 146 by anastasia, posted 12-07-2006 11:43 PM anastasia has not replied

arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 150 of 311 (368589)
12-08-2006 11:41 PM
Reply to: Message 148 by ConsequentAtheist
12-08-2006 7:10 AM


J.C. de Moore writes in The Rise of Yahwism: "... the people of Ugarit believed in a kind of creatio continua, like the Egyptians and the Israelites."
the regard that god seems to continue to act (sometimes making it up as he goes along, or correcting mistakes), this is probably accurate.
it's also important to remember that the NAME of genesis is "b'reishit." the whole book is called "in the beginning." while titles in the torah are taken from the first word, it is a fitting title, as the book is entirely about the beginnings (the genesis) of all kinds of things. so "in the beginning" could refer to basically everything before the formation of formal judaism with moses.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 148 by ConsequentAtheist, posted 12-08-2006 7:10 AM ConsequentAtheist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 189 by ConsequentAtheist, posted 12-11-2006 8:09 PM arachnophilia has replied

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