I do have a question, why are we referring to Greek and Latin texts, shouldn't the originals have been in Hebrew or Aramaic, making any other text just a translation and subject to mistakes? I am no student of the bible I am just asking because I have been led to believe the originals were written in Palestine, were the popular languages were not Greek or Latin.
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Old Testament was written in Hebrew/Aramaic
New Testament was all written in Greek
Not exactly. Whenever Paul quoted the Old Testament, he quoted from Greek (mis)translations of it.
Furthermore, attribution of “Matthew” to Jesus' disciple of the same name is based solely on the testimony of Papias, who tells if via Eusebius' Church History that:
So, the earliest versions of Matthew (at least) were in fact written in Hebrew, not Greek.
Yes, but why should that be? The people who knew about this weren't Greeks, and as far as I know Greek wasn't the common language in Palestine. It should have been written in Hebrew or Aramaic, if it is in Greek it is just what somebody wrote about what he heard.
Much of the New Testament was written to people in Galatia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Ephesis and Rome. Greek was the primary language throughout much of this area, especially for intellectual discourse.
But again the original was not in Greek.
Well, even though Paul was arguably the most literate person in his generation "advancing in Judaism ahead of all his peers" he still used a scribe to write many of his letters. Similarly, John Mark served as a scribe to write down what Peter had to say. Luke was a Greek from Troas, Turkey. John spent most of his last thirty years living in Ephesus, Turkey, no doubt speaking Greek. Revelation was addressed to seven Greek speaking churches in Turkey.
"Everybody" spoke Greek the way "everybody" speaks English in the world today in addition to their native languages. So it was entirely natural for the letters and gospels to be written in the official international language of that day - especially when most of them were addressed to people outside Judea.
Since the apostles were given the Great Commission by Jesus to "make disciples of all nations", it would not make any sense have chosen to do that in Hebrew or Aramaic anyway.
Even the Old Testament had been independently translated into Greek (Septuagint) by 72 Jewish Scholars commissioned by King Ptolemy of Egypt. It became the standard translation in use throughout the world for hundreds of years surrounding the time of Christ.
What evidence do you have of that? Paul spoke Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin and Greek and many of his Gentile companions (e.g Luke and Timothy) were Greek and most of the churches he started were Greek.
The Greeks had ruled the region for hundreds of years since Alexander the Great. Rome was a relative newcomer in 63 BC. The common language changes much slower than armies move.
Because the actors in this were Hebrews, whatever they said they did not say it in Greek, so whatever Paul wrote in Greek or whatever language, he had to have heard it first in Hebrew or Aramaic, therefore in his translation much could have been lost or added. And the important part of the New Testament isn't what the others wrote it is what Jesus said, and if you have to rely on various translations I just think you will have mistakes made. Apart from this, how many people of that time were able to read and write? I bet you anyone who was literate could write whatever he wanted and pass it off as what the oral traditions said.
OK, even though I am not too convinced about Greek being the universal language then, it should have been Latin as Rome ruled.
The Romans conquered Greece in the year 146 BC, so I think language should have started changing since then. Alexander conquered Palestine around 333 BC, I don't think your answer is too convincing, as Latin already had nearly 200 years to become the official language.
Yes. Hebrew was the original - Aramaic is very close to it. One popular "manner of speech" seen throughout the new testament reads, 'and he spoke to them, saying..." which is a Hebrew structure. Tons of evidence is seen when Jesus spoke to Paul after knocking him to the ground blind "in Hebrew."
Good point. We should concentrate on actually completing a pass of the entire bible before we start arguing foreign languages and pet verses. When read, the new testament is interpreted perfectly by the old testament as your right hand, by design, folds into your left.
Maybe this will help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_the_New_Testament
"Koine Greek, the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean[3][4][5][6] from the Conquests of Alexander the Great (335–323 BC) until the evolution of Byzantine Greek (c. 600)."
and
"The New Testament Gospels and Epistles were only part of a Hellenistic Jewish culture in the Roman Empire, where Alexandria had a larger Jewish population than Jerusalem, and Greek was spoken by more Jews than Hebrew."
OK, you say Greek was the official language, fine, but what language did Jesus and his followers speak? So all that I said from the start regardless if you say it was Greek or Latin what we have in the bible are translations from the original Hebrew or Aramaic, and in translations something is always lost or added.
It doesn't matter what language the original version was written in because that is the inspired version. If it is inspired then it is accurate irregardless of the language. If you don't believe in the inspiration of Scripture, then again it doesn't matter if it was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, or Latin. Then it is just another book and we shouldn't even bother talking about it.
Ok, then I will just ask you two more questions which one of the many versions is the inspired one, and why do you think that version is the correct one?
Only the original is inspired.
Here is a good discussion of that issue: https://gotquestions.org/translation-inspiration.html