The Text, the Whole Text, and the Context

[kerravonsen]

I was pondering bible-studies I had participated in, and I realised something. Many Christians just sit around in bible-studies and wait to be told what to think. How totally bizarre! What do they think bible-studies are for? A place where someone in authority (the leader) spoon-feeds them pre-digested doctrine, and then they have a cup of tea and

Comments

[reapermum]

I think of theology and quantum physics in the same way, I can't understand either beyond the edges. But I will take on faith what the experts who know tell me about both. And neither has the full story yet, and probably never will do here on earth.

On problem I have with bible studies is the fact it has gone through several languages before it reached me. And each translation was provided by mankind, which is fallible. So anything that depends on precise wording can be questioned, we need to get to the underlying truth of what God is telling us.

[kerravonsen]

I think of theology and quantum physics in the same way, I can't understand either beyond the edges. But I will take on faith what the experts who know tell me about both. And neither has the full story yet, and probably never will do here on earth.

(nod nod nod)

On problem I have with bible studies is the fact it has gone through several languages before it reached me.

Several? Modern translations don't translate into intermediary languages, they go direct from the ancient Hebrew (or Greek) to the destination language. Or did you mean something else?

[reapermum]

Several? Modern translations don't translate into intermediary languages

I was thinking intermediate languages and versions before we get the fixed text of the bible. For example, I doubt the parables were told in Greek. So there'll be the original words straight from Jesus himself, then what his followers remembered of what they heard, both in Aramaic. Then translating it into Greek and probably editing to get a version everyone could agree to, before getting to the version that was translated into English.

[kerravonsen]

For example, I doubt the parables were told in Greek.So there'll be the original words straight from Jesus himself, then what his followers remembered of what they heard, both in Aramaic. Then translating it into Greek...

Um, what makes you think they were all speaking Aramaic rather than Greek?

[reapermum]

I'm sure I was taught that Aramaic was the language that the ordinary people were speaking at the time, Greek was what the top people used.

Like only the top people speaking French in Norman Britain, the ordinary people continued with English.

Or is that not current thinking? There's been 50 years of gathering new evidence since then.

[kerravonsen]

I'm not sure what current thinking is, but I find the arguments that Koine (low) Greek was commonly spoken to be more convincing to me, even if it's an unpopular view. The Gospels were written in Greek, we know that. They weren't translated from Aramaic, they were actually written in Greek. If Greek was just used by the elite, then one would expect that Luke and maybe John would have been written in Greek and the other two written in Aramaic, but all four of them were written in Koine Greek. That indicates to me that all four Gospel writers were comfortable with Greek. And it makes sense that they were, because in the multi-lingual multicultural Roman Empire, you wouldn't just stick to your native language, you'd have to know Latin or Greek just to get along. Most people would be bilingual or more. (In history, monolingualism has been the exception rather than the rule, but we forget that, since native English speakers tend to be monolingual).

And I really need to go to sleep!

[reapermum]

I agree the gospels were written in Greek, but I always thought that was so there was a text to take up to all those churches St Paul had founded.

I knew I'd read something recently, a modern book on the Arab conquests. It claimed that despite centuries of Greek rule, everyday use of Greek was an urban habit, the villages at the time of the arrival of the Arabs in the 7thC still spoke Aramaic, just as Coptic was still the language of Egypt.

[kerravonsen]

Ah well, neither of us actually knows the answer for sure...

[reapermum]

That we probably can be sure of. :~)