Masoretic Text in Error?

So far I have found
1) Nobody presented any arguments or evidences which disprove the ancient scholars statements that Gospel Matthew was originally written in Hebrew.

2) Nobody could disprove that there are discrepancies almost all the time between NT quotations and LXX.

 

Friend

You wrote that you were open. Now you write that you are closed . . . and guided by a spirit.

The Holy Spirit is Holy . . .

What you claim is that you are inspired . . . the authors of the NT (& OT) were inspired. Their writings were inspired . . .

I do not consider any of your writing inspired by God. And I will not elevate your discussion about subject matter that you know so little about. The Holy Scripture of my Lord is inspired. The Holy Spirit inspired the authors to write His intent.

If you do not like what the Holy Spirit inspired . . . take up your argument with God.

 

It seems that I have been caught in the unnecessary arguments.
I would quit the debate with you.

Galatians 5
15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another

 

33Paul

I think you might be a little bit dislexic . . .

 

Wrong!
How could Papias who lived around 150-170 made the statements for Jerome and Epiphanius who lived around 370-380 AD ?
For the quotation itself, I brought only one article and therefore the source is naturally one, the same. But the inner contents of it mentions at least 4 sources:
1) Against Heresies by Irenaeus
2) On Illustrious Men by Jerome
3) Panarion by Epiphanius
4) Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius

I already mentioned that the further confirmation was not made, though I found the huge archive for such Info at University of Toronto which I have access to. I am involved in other work and don't want to spend much time for each trivial confirmation ( Satan may want me to spend a lot of time for many things !) There are many quotations, comments and references to the books mentioned above, in the Novum Testamentum, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Journal of Canadian Church Historical Society, Journal of Biblical Literature, such as Contre Les Heresies, On Illustrious Men, Ecclesiastical History.

I am too slow to read French but there are some books about Hypotyposes by Clement of Alexandria,
La fin des Stromates et les hypotyposes de Clément d'Alexandrie. By: Nautin, Pierre Source: Vigiliae christianae

I have not heard any valuable arguments refuting the article which I posted the other dayhttp://www.modestapparelchristianclothinglydiaofpurpledre ssescustomsewing.com/new_testament_written_in_Hebrew.htm)

Finally, as for the second point, please read it once again:
(when Papias says "Hebrew" he is not talking about the Hebrew language, but the Hebrew orthography used by the Jews to write the Aramaic language.),

Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, c. 150 A.D. said: "Matthew put down the words of the Lord in the Hebrew language, and others have translated them, each as best he could."

 

If we return to the OP question, I would say Masoretic Text is the correct source for OT.

Even though DSS showed the possibility that there existed Hebrew MT similar to LXX, it doesn't mean that such MT was the correct one.
If we check DSS carefully, we can notice that Qumran society collected various scriptures and literatures, not necessarily, only the authenticated scriptures.
Among 6 scrolls for Jeremiah, 5 of them conforms to MT, 1 is similar to LXX. So called Great Isaiah Scroll confirmed that it conforms to the current Masoretic Text with the accuracy of 99.5% despite the elapse of time more than 1000 years. This is an amazing accuracy !
I don't find any other source for OT among the resources available at present better than Masoretic Texts.

It would be quite worthwhile to ask the people who advocate LXX about the canonical value of Apocrypha, as LXX comes with it usually.

 

Eliyu

You are correct - French would be difficult to work with. And to be honest, English can be a difficult languageas well.

So, would you post the original quotation in Greek so that we can analyze what Papias said?

I think that would clear up the issue quickly.

 

You continuously misunderstand what I have said. Where did I say that GNT was written in Aramaic?
Maybe it is because you interfere with too many threads on this board.
Read what I posted carefully first, then tell your profound opinion. I already mentioned Satan may want me to be busy with too many trivial things!
Again sorry to tell you that you don't deserve my words yet.

 

(Dr. Cassidy feel free to modify what I write - I am writing from memory and not looking any of this back up. I trust your memory and more recent study on this.)


Eliyu

Maybe you could realize that while you are involved in a spiritual struggle over this - I am not. I have read Matthew in Greek - not for this discussion. More later *

You claim to spend time in dialogue with God and with satan. How do you know which one is which? While satan has been successful in attacking me, he knows that I do not dialogue with him . . .

You are of the opinion that the Holy Spirit has inspired you to believe something based upon the evidence of only one original author. Why would the Holy Spirit even need one piece of evidence if He was correcting history? The other authors wrote based upon him (and if memory serves me - the other authors even mentioned that they attributed their statement to Papias).

* later - Having read the book of Matthew in Greek twice, I did not get the feeling that this was 'translated from Hebrew'. I am willing to admit that I could be tricked. That was why I appealed to TCassidy and his deeper knowledge and studies on these topics.

However, knowing what I know about translations - this text does NOT EVIDENCE TRANSLATIONAL WORK.

Flow with me a moment. The GNT has difficult passages throughout the books. Matthew has difficult passages. We accept that most of the GNT was originally in Greek. But, we say that in Matthew the difficult Greek was because it was translated that way and the underlying Hebrew would then be easier . . .

Then it would only be reasonable for the early Christians (they were mostly greek speakers) to have a better translation made. We should then expect to find multiple 'trees' of translational evidence.

We just do not have a family (tradition) that would support multiple versions of Matthew early in the first century . . .

The alternative has been proposed that Matthew also wrote (letters, sermons, whatever) in Hebrew. And that Matthew's Hebrew work(s) was considered of lessor importance and that was what has been lost. With the destruction of Jerusalem and the rapid dipsersion of Hebrew speaking Jews into the Greek speaking church - this is more reasonable than explaining why the entire original Hebrew version of Matthew was lost.

 

Shorter post:

Yes, Matthew may have written the book of Matthew in Hebrew (aramaic), but outside of your claim that the Holy Spirit has inspired you to write this - there is not significant support.

I even asked for Papias in Greek so we could look at what he wrote.

 

Yes, you have used that line of reasoning to defend your words in the past.

Maybe when you get excited, your English level drops significantly and you write things you would not normally write? And at the same time, you have a greater likelihood of misunderstanding what others write in English?

Re-reading your posts - your use of English routinely drops from collegiate level down to broken English (6th grade level maybe?). This can be indicative of multiple personalities (I could pursue that - but, I really don't think you are dealing with the disease), it can be indicative of two different people using the same screen name - I would think you would tell us that if true, or you get excited (maybe even angry) when some people seem to 'attack you' and your English goes down.

It is more reasonable to believe that your language capability drops when you encounter resistance that you do not believe you should encounter . . . If that is the case - I don't need to respond to you and encourage your anger. I don't need to cause you more anger than you are already experiencing.




http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=31436&page=10

 

I have translated the complete GNT based on TR and do not remember how many times I read it.

Yes, when I was challenged or angered by others for the groundless accusations, my English gets worse to some extent. I am not skilled to respond to such critism more reasonably, and am struggling with myself to overcome such emotional problem. But I understand the most people, even the most true believers have the same problem and have to overcome such for life time.
If you say that you saw entirely different 2 persons in me or entirely different English from me, it may be too much critic again, because you don't see the beams in your own eyes, considering that people used to respond to others as they received.

You may be too busy in interfering with almost all the threads on this board with superficial information and that's why you don't understand your own problems.

Are you a Doctor in English grammar or literature? Dear Doctor, then would you teach me who has only grade 6 level English(as you said) by indicating one simple sentence? I hear such complaint on my English on this board for the first time, from you, though I have noticed other posts sometimes includes the sentences in poor English to understand. You may be eager to point out that I am a Korean. Yes, many on this thread know that I have translated Bible from Greek into Korean and have been translating OT from Hebrew into Korean. Dr Cassidy knows this. Is this what you want to reveal?
How would you demonstrate your fluent and profound Hispanic English ? But it seems that you don't know how to spell the counter-part's name properly ! Is that University English ?

As for Gospel Matthew, you can eventually reach the reasonable conclusion or thought that it might have been written in Hebrew first, and then was translated into Greek, which might have been the providence of God. God may have wanted to preserve His Words in Greek. That has been my thought so far. If you posted such reasonable thoughts first, then the dialogue between you and me would have been much better. You didn't distinguish between Hebrew and Aramaic and I know it is much more difficult to prove the Hebrew Primacy than Aramaic Primacy as many things in Hebrew have been lost.

So, could you understand wherefrom the unnecessary argument started?

 

Eliyahu

I do not know why you want to take this personal. As I wrote, it seems that you do not find it easy to deal with me. You even admit as much. And I admitted that I can be responsible enough to move on.

I will pray for you - It appears to me that my interaction with you causes you anger and maybe even leads you to sin. I believe that I must remove myself from discussing things with you.

You can say that God has inspired me to act that way, but I think that God inspired Paul to teach me that action.

Personally, if I considered you with the evident disdain that you view me - I would have never interacted with you in the first place. As a Baptist, I would not go to a Philadelphia Brethren Board and try to tell them that they cannot be charismatic. But, you have come here and told us to yield to your charismatic gift of interpretation.

Again brother, I am not trying to make you angry. That seems to come naturally between you and me.

In Christ

Wayne

 

Thank you very much for your reply.
One thing that I would like to correct is about the Brethren. There may be many groups of Brethren. I am so-called Plymouth Brethren and reject Charismatic things, I don't think Philadelphia Brethren Board has anything to do with our group of assemblies. Thanks for your prayer.

 

Thanks. The above cleared quite enough for that part.
But I am not sure whether even Irenaeus mentioned Hebrew Primacy by quoting Papias or Irenaeus himself made such statement as he lived in the same era as Papias, as I haven't read "Against Heresies" by Irenaeus.
I wonder why Eusebius mention the Hebrew Primacy based on such quote? Simply because of his misunderstanding despite the orthography? What about Irenaeus, Jerome, Epiphanius ? Did they all misunderstand it ?


There were several more articles about the Hebrew Primacy, one of which says that Apostle Thomas carried the Gospel Matthew in Hebrew when he went to India.
It is not unreasonable for anyone to think that the gospels were written in Hebrew first and then translated into Greek later. For this part it is more difficult to prove than to claim the Aramaic Primacy, though I used to hear from Messianic Jews that they believe some part of NT must have been written in Hebrew.
Indeed there is no record or literature convincing such argument of Hebrew Primacy and if there had been such evidence, it would have been a big surprise to the Christendom. What I suggested was primarily based on the reasonable reasonings plus certain writings.

What we can confirm clearly from the Bible are:
1) Peter spoke Galilean dialect ( Luke 22:59)
Galilean dialect of Greek ? Galilean dialect of Aramaic? I believe he spoke Galilean dialect of Hebrew. Woman assertained Peter must be with Jesus (Lk 22:56) because of the Galilean dialect.
The maid identified Peter by dialect. I don't think that other disciples spoke Greek or Aramaic while Peter spoke Hebrew. In other words, Matthew and other disciples spoke in Hebrew in their daily life.

2) Jesus spoke to Paul in Hebrew as we read Acts 26:14

3) Many words like Golgotha, Raca, Korban, Bethesda, Gabbatha, etc are Hebrew

4) Title on the Cross included the Hebrew as it might have been read by many people.

5) Some verses in NT has some difficulty when we read GNT.

For example,
Acts 11:28 Agabus prophesied there should be great famine throughout all the world, which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. 29 Then the disciples sent the relief according to their ability unto the brethren in Judea.

If the whole world suffered from the famine, how could the people in Antioch send the relief to Judea?

If we understand Hebrew logic behind this passage, Hebrew word behind οικουμενην( oikomenen=habitable world), it is easy to understand as Ha-Eretz can mean both The Earth and The Land of Israel. Namely Oikomenen might have been translated from Ha-Eretz, and the existing Aramaic Bible supports this.
There are more verses like this.


In addition to the Bible,

6) Coins at Bar-Kohba Revolt and the literatures of DSS show the Hebrew inscriptions or the Hebrew writings.

7) As there is no mentioning or conference about which language was adopted for the NT or whether the writers gathered together to decide on the language for the epistles or gospel, one can hardly prove that NT was uniformly written in Greek from the beginning, while we can understand that Hebrew was the living language for the daily life of the people.
If the people spoke and read in Hebrew for their daily lives and for their religious lives while they use Latin for official government work and Greek for commercial or academic activities, wouldn't the NT writers write in Hebrew?

How can we rule out the possibility that we may have some Hebrew NT or Hebrew literature supporting Hebrew Primacy some day, as we discovered Dead Sea Scrolls and the recent discovery of Psalm in Irish bog?

This is the background for my understanding and reasoning.

 

For better understanding about the language of the daily life in Jerusalem during the first century AD, I would refer to one more verse in Acts 22:2 which mentions Paul spoke to the crowd in Hebrew tongue, which kept the people more silent.
It is interesting to note that the Chief Captain asked Paul if he could speak in Greek ( Acts 21:37) then Paul spoke in Hebrew (21:40)
Jesus spoke to Paul in Hebrew. (Act 26:14) Jesus spoke to Paul in Hebrew at the time He appeared to him for the first time.

Then would Holy Spirit have spoken to Paul in Greek? Did 2 Godheads of the only God speak to the same person in different languages ? It could be possible as long as the listener understood that way. If Paul listened to Jesus in Hebrew language, then there must have been a process of translation if Luke wrote it in Greek.

Can we imagine the situation where NT writers wrote the epistles or gospel in Greek while Holy Spirit spoke to them in Hebrew ?

How would have been the address delivered by Paul in Hebrew in the verses from ac 22:3-21? It must have been spoken in Hebrew originally.

At the end we have to admit a lot of things in original language have been lost, which might be the providence of God.