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This Appendix is an edited version of
the Internet article “In Which Language was the ‘New Testament’ Originally
Written?” by Rabbi Julio Dam. It was found on the Internet at numerous different locations. The
original document was probably posted at www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7775/Language.htm,
which no longer exists on the Internet. Rabbi Dam is the spiritual leader of
Messianic Congregation Beit Shalom in Asuncion, Paraguay.
Why is it
important to discover the language in which the Apostolic Scriptures (the
B’rit Hadasha or so-called “New Testament” documents) were originally
written?
As pointed out by Messianic
Pastor Julio Dam, each individual language possesses an inner structure, a
specific flavor, and idioms of its own, which provide each language with a
unique cultural background.
All of these elements shape
the way that those speaking a given language actually think, and make it
important that we know for certain in which language the Apostolic
Scriptures were originally written.
To understand the teaching
of Yeshua and His talmidim more precisely and with any real depth of
comprehension, it would be ideal if we could read their words in the actual
language in which they were originally spoken or written, because a
language’s words, especially its idioms, are only fully comprehensible in the
context of that language. The second best condition would be to attempt to
reconstruct the original text from the language one has at hand. However, to
literally translate words, especially idioms, from one language to another
often only makes them absurd and reveals their foreign origin. In fact, we
use many words every day that would either have a completely different
meaning, or perhaps make no sense at all, if translated literally into
another language.
For example, in English we
use the term “my darling” as a term of endearment. When we want to express
that same term of endearment in Spanish, we would use the term “mi vida”
which, if translated literally back into English, would come back as “my
life”—a phrase that may have a totally different meaning in a different
context.
Another example of a literal
translation taking on an entirely different meaning is the result of an early
experiment in computer-generated translation. The scientists working on the
project wished to develop a computer program that could translate between
English and Russian. After creating complete dictionaries for both
languages and creating the cross-references between the two languages, they
had the computer translate the well-know English phrase “The spirit is
willing but the flesh is weak” into Russian. They then took the Russian
result and translated it directly back into English with the following
result: “The vodka is fine, but the meat has spoiled.”
Idioms compound the problem,
because we use many idiomatic expressions that we don’t even think of as
idioms.
For example, what does
“taking my hair” mean in English? It could mean several different things,
depending upon the context in which it was used. However, if (a) we
understand that “taking my hair” is the literal translation of the Spanish
idiom “tomar el pelo,” and (b) we understand that it is being used in its
idiomatic context, then we can translate it dynamically instead of literally
and arrive at the intended English equivalent idiom, “pulling my leg.” But in
order to translate the phrase and arrive at the originally intended meaning,
one has first to know that it was originally spoken or written in Spanish,
and that it was intended in its idiomatic sense. Only then one may try to
find an equivalent idiom in English, as we did.
On the other hand, if we
assumed that “tomar el pelo” was originally spoken or written in French, we
would be at a total loss to find anything in French like “prenez les cheveaux,”
the literal translation. We would therefore erroneously conclude that the
original writer had a poor grasp of French.
This is exactly what
happened with the original language of the Apostolic Scriptures, as we shall
try to prove, with the “French” in our hypothetical example standing for
Greek and/or Aramaic, and our “Spanish” for Hebrew.
What we will try to prove,
then, is that the original language of the Apostolic Scriptures was
neither Greek nor Aramaic (as popularly believed), but Hebrew — the same
Hebrew that the original Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh, or so-called “Old
Testament”) was written in. It is only natural that the language of the
Apostolic Scriptures should be Hebrew, since we are dealing with the same
country, only in a latter period of its history.
Are there any proofs that
the original language was Hebrew, and not Greek or Aramaic? Yes, there most
definitely are, both external and internal to the Scriptures. We will deal
with the external proofs first.
There are several external
sources (i.e., outside Scripture) that point to Hebrew as the written
language of the Apostolic Scriptures, as Dr. David Bivin has most eloquently
attested.[141] The two primary sources that we will very briefly
examine are the testimony of the Church fathers and of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
• Papias (c. 150 CE), Bishop of Hierapolis, said: “Matthew put
down the words of the Lord in the Hebrew language, and others have translated
them, each as best he could.”
• Irenaeus (120-202 CE), Bishop of Lions, France, wrote:
“Matthew, indeed, produced his Gospel written among the Hebrews in their own
dialect.”
• Origen (c. 225 CE) said: “The first Gospel composed in the
Hebrew language, was written by Matthew … for those who came to faith from
Judaism.”
• Eusebius (c. 325 A.D.), Bishop of Caesarea, wrote: “Matthew
had first preached to the Hebrews, and when he was about to go to others
also, he transmitted his Gospel in writing in his native language.”[142]
• And Jerome, translator of the Scripture into Latin (the
Vulgata or Vulgate version), says the same.
The Dead Sea Scrolls,
discovered by an Arab shepherd boy in the caves of Qumran in the Judean
wilderness, contains a treasure load of Scripture: some 40,000 fragments of
rolls, with 600 partial manuscripts, both scriptural as well as
non-scriptural. Says Dr. Bivin: “Of the ten major non-biblical scrolls
published to date, only one, the Genesis Apocryphon, is in Aramaic. The most
recently published scroll, and the longest to date (28 feet, equivalent to
over 80 Old Testament chapters), is the now famous Temple Scroll, also
written in Hebrew … If we compare the total number of pages in these ten
sectarian scrolls, we again find a nine-to-one ratio of Hebrew to
Aramaic (179 pages in the nine Hebrew scrolls to 22 pages of Aramaic in the
Genesis Apocryphon).”[143]
In sum, as far as the
external evidence is concerned, both the Church Fathers as well as the
recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls state quite clearly and without any
subtlety that Hebrew was the language spoken and written at the time of the
Rabbi Yeshua.
The internal proofs for
Hebrew being the original language spoken by the Rabbi Yeshua are equally
direct and even more convincing, for we can take the Apostolic Scriptures and
prove so now, in our own native language, be it English or Spanish or any
other.
First of all, Scripture
itself says the language of the Rabbi Yeshua and His disciples was Hebrew.
Despite this scriptural proof, several translations, especially the NIV, have
arbitrarily changed the word
ebraisti (Hebraisti)
in the Greek manuscripts to “Aramaic” (see John
19:13,19; Luke 23:38; Acts 21:40). It does not
require one to be a Greek scholar to understand that
Hebraisti says “Hebrew.”
Additionally, there are over
5,366 Greek manuscripts of the Apostolic Scriptures, each differing from the
other and containing several hundred variants. However, in each one of these
manuscripts there are idioms which are almost meaningless in any
language—including Greek—except in Hebrew! How can this phenomena be
explained unless Hebrew was the original language?
Of these many of these
Hebraisms, one of the most common is “Son of man.” What does “Son of man”
mean in English, Spanish, German, or any other language? Absolutely nothing;
it only has significant meaning in Hebrew. The expression “ben Adam” means
literally “son of Adam” and, by extension, “son of man” and “man,” Adam being
of course the first man alive. In any street corner in Israel you may hear,
“Here comes this ben Adam,” meaning “Here comes this man.”
This phrase occurs no less
than 92 times in the Tanakh and 43 times in the Apostolic Scriptures (per
Cruden’s Concordance), and is obviously the same Hebrew idiom.
Most scholars claim that the
Apostolic Scriptures were written in Koine (or common) Greek, because Koine
is a rather unsophisticated version of Greek, and the Apostles are assumed by
many to have been unsophisticated men. But when we find the many Hebraisms
there, we begin to understand that it is not Koine Greek underlying the text,
but actually a Hebrew original. Since the Hebrew original was translated
almost literally into Greek, the text sounds like poor Greek.
As another example, the
idiom “Peace be to you,” appears twelve times in the Apostolic Scriptures.
What kind of a greeting is “Peace be to you” in English, Spanish, French, or
any other language except Hebrew? It is meaningless. Only in Hebrew does it
make any real sense. This is the most common, everyday greeting in
Israel today, the world-famous “shalom” or “shalom aleikhem.” Shalom
literally means “peace,” but it is used as an everyday greeting, meaning
anything from “Hi” to “Goodbye” to “How are you?” according to the intonation
and the mood of the speaker, like the Hawaiian greeting “Aloha.”
The third internal proof of
the Hebrew character of the Apostolic Scriptures is the use of two very
Jewish ways of speaking: that of repeating things twice, and the answering of
a question with another question. Yeshua did both quite often. In Matthew
27:46: At about three, Yeshua uttered a loud cry, “Eli! Eli! L’mah sh’vaktani?
(My G-d! My G-d! Why have you deserted me?)” and in Luke 20:2-3 (NAS): “…
and they spoke, saying to Him, ‘Tell us by what authority You are doing these
things, or who is the one who gave You this authority?’ Jesus answered and
said to them, ‘I will also ask you a question, and you tell Me:…’”
It is important to stress
that these two characteristics, especially the former, are strongly
associated with Hebrew. We don’t see them in English or in any other European
language.
If
this is true, then …
How did it come about that
“everybody knows” that the Apostolic Scriptures were originally written in
Greek or Aramaic?
First of all, let us say
that the issue of the Apostolic Scriptures being written in Greek or
Aramaic was non-existent prior to the Fourth or Fifth Century C.E. It has
been a rather modern theory.
The question we must ask is
this: What basis does the “Aramaic theory” have? What are its external and
internal proofs?
The answer—quite
unbelievably—is: None!
There are a few isolated
“loaned” Aramaic words present in the Apostolic Scriptures, but these are far
outweighed by the Hebrew words and idioms.
The “Greek theory” is based
on the fact that the Apostolic Scripture manuscripts that survive are all in
Greek, and not one single copy remains of the Hebrew originals. Admittedly,
this might be sufficient basis for the theory, but only if we disregard the
other evidence: the statements by the church fathers, the Hebraisms, the
idioms, the language of the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.
In sum, what we have are
assumptions by theologians. These assumptions have historically been based
upon or influenced by ugly, anti-Semitic prejudices. Why do we say prejudice?
Is there a basis for raising up the ugly specter of anti-Semitism within the
Church? Judge for yourself.
Historically, the Church has
had a consistent record of being very anti-Semitic for most of the 2,000
years of its history.
Consider first the
Inquisition, with hundreds of thousands of Jews (and Christians) tortured and
slaughtered simply because they were Jews.
Consider the anti-Semitic
statements by the fathers of the Church, such as Chrysosthom, Eusebius,
Origen, Cyril, Hyppolitus, and even Marthin Luther, the father of the
Reformation. Let us quote a couple of brief paragraphs from sermons that
Luther wrote just four days before he died.
The
Jews deserve the most severe penalties. Their synagogues should be razed to
the ground, their homes destroyed. They themselves should be exiled to living
in tents, like the gypsies. Their religious writings [the Tanakh and the
Talmud] should be taken away from them. The Rabbis should be forbidden to
teach the Law [the Torah]. They should be forbidden to do any profession.
Only the hardest, most strenuous work should be allowed to them. Their
fortunes should be confiscated from them …”
A
Jewish heart is as hard as a stick, a stone, as iron, as a devil.[144]
The famous historian, the
late William Schirer, author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,
says that the influence of Martin Luther on the German Church is one of the
two factors explaining its behavior towards the Jews during the Holocaust (p.
294).
Throughout the centuries
there has been a Satan-led movement away from anything Jewish. In this
spirit, the Church was forbidden to celebrate Passover on the “Jewish” (i.e.,
scriptural) dates set for it, and it could be only celebrated on any other
date EXCEPT the “Jewish” (scriptural) date.
Those who insisted on
celebrating Pessakh (Passover) on the correct date were called “quatorcediman,”
from the fourteenth day of the first month, on which Passover was ordained by
G-d to be celebrated.
Even today the Church
celebrates “Easter” (the pagan Feast of Ishtar re-dressed up with “Bible”
words) not Passover.
The wisdom of the Jewish
sages contained in the many-volume Talmud, from which the Jewish Rabbi
Yeshua drew countless parables and examples, was condemned by all within the
Church, including Luther, as we just quoted. The books of the Talmud were not
merely condemned, but were burned along with their owners.
A sustained campaign of
“de-Judaization” continues to this day. We can only offer some brief
highlights here:
• Statements by almost all of the Church Fathers like
Chrysosthom, Hippolytus, Origen, Cyril, Eusebius (“Abraham was a Christian,
he was not a Jew.”), Bishop Agobard, and, of course, Luther.
• For twenty centuries the Jews have been accused of
kidnapping Christian children and drinking their blood for Passover meals.
(The last time this accusation surfaced—believe it or not—was in 1992 in the
Soviet Union.)
• Jews were accused of murdering G-d. [Can you murder G-d?!]
• All sorts of doctrines were made “Judenrein” (free of Jews),
as if the Renewed Covenant was never made with “the House of Israel and the
House of Judah” but with the Church.
• The appropriate name for the Land of Israel has been
obliterated for the last 2,000 years at the bidding of Emperor Julius Cesar
who swore to wipe the name of Judea from the face of the earth—and he
succeeded. Even contemporary Christian authors call Israel “Palestine”
and both the news media and the United States government insists on referring
to Israel as “the Middle East” or the “West Bank”!
• The true name of our Lord was Yeshua. What we have been left
with is a very Gentile-sounding “Jesus.”
• The name of Rabbi Yeshua’s brother was Ya`akov (Jacob)
—apparently too Jewish for the Christians, although there is a form of
“Jacob” in every known language—so the anti-Semites “Gentilized” it to
“James,” as in the book of “James,” even though in the Greek manuscripts it
is quite clearly titled
Ejpistolhv
jIavkwboß (Epistole Iakobus, the Letter of Ya`akov).
• Marcion, a historically recognized heretic within the
Church, created two gods: A Jewish G-d, the G-d of the “Old” Covenant,
“Yahweh,” akin to a small deity, severe, for the Jews; and a Gentile God,
Jesus, the G-d of Love. [How many gods are there?] However, the spirit of
Marcion lives on the Church to this day.
• There are several specific references in Scripture to both
Yeshua and Sha’ul (Paul) speaking Hebrew. Westcott and Hort arbitrarily
changed the Greek word “hebraisti” (which should obviously be translated as
“Hebrew”) to “Aramaic.”[145]
The above discussion
demonstrates that the “Aramaic” and “Greek” theories were not isolated
mistakes or misconceptions, but part of a worldwide, centuries-old
“de-Judaization” campaign by the anti-Semites within the Church to make the
Church “Judenrein,” despite the fact that we worship a Jewish G-d of
Israel and the promised Messiah of Israel.
The external and internal
proofs show, on the other hand, that the New Covenant was written in
Hebrew in its original and not in Greek or in Aramaic.
In addition to the above
evidences for a Hebrew original of the Apostolic Scriptures, see also Norman
B. Willis, “Was the ‘New’ Testament originally written in Greek, or in
Hebrew?” on the Internet at www.nazareneisrael.org/studies/Minim.doc.
Renowned Jewish historian
Flavius Josephus also wrote that although he far exceeded those of his own
nation in Jewish learning, he could not pronounce Greek with sufficient
exactness, and that “our nation does not encourage those that learn the
languages of many nations …” Furthermore Josephus reveals, “The Greeks called
old nations by names of their own,” (Antiq. I,v,) “and put the Hebrew names
into their own form” (c.vi.) This explains why some Hebrew names end up in
English texts in a Grecianized form. |
