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View Full Version : Why was the New Testament written in Greek when Jesus spoke Aramaic?
Medicine*Woman 05-08-07, 12:28 PM *************
M*W: This has always puzzled me. If Jesus existed, he would have spoken Aramaic, a dialect of ancient Hebrew. Yet, the NT was written in Greek and not in the language Jesus actually spoke. (I'm not implying here that I believe Jesus existed other than hypothetically for this post). I've always been uncomfortable with this difference in languages, especially if Jesus were god. It seems odd that the story of Jesus (which allegedly includes his own words) would be written in any other language than what he spoke. Any comments on this? Thanks!
nietzschefan 05-08-07, 12:45 PM Kinda makes you wonder what's "lost in translation" huh? We know "Murder" got translated to "kill"...that one is a dooozy.
Whatever the "original" message was it has been handled and re-handled by men of various ages.
mapsdnasggeyerg 05-08-07, 03:39 PM If you can rely on wikipedia (look for Aramaic). It seems to suggest that Greek was the most widely used language at that time. So maybe it was a marketing decision...
tablariddim 05-08-07, 04:32 PM Fishermen couldn't write so they used ghost writers and ghosts could only write in Greek.
ashpwner 05-08-07, 05:17 PM becuase the bibal is bull, in my opinion but people have there right to think otherwise, i mean what's to say jesus wasent the sun of god!
M*W:
There had been Aramaic Gospels, but they got lost and only the translations remained. There is not any trace left of those Gospels, and not a single proof of their existence, but you have to trust the word of those guys who wrote the Greek ones because they did not write them on their own but they were filled with the Holy Ghost :-P
I wish he fill me sometime, Sandy, if you read this please pray for me to get filled with the Holy Ghost, I want to know what he feels like...
Medicine*Woman 05-08-07, 10:06 PM becuase the bibal is bull, in my opinion but people have there right to think otherwise, i mean what's to say jesus wasent the sun of god!
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M*W: That's what I've been saying. That's the only thing that makes sense to me. Good to hear it from you!
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M*W: This has always puzzled me. If Jesus existed, he would have spoken Aramaic, a dialect of ancient Hebrew. Yet, the NT was written in Greek and not in the language Jesus actually spoke. (I'm not implying here that I believe Jesus existed other than hypothetically for this post). I've always been uncomfortable with this difference in languages, especially if Jesus were god. It seems odd that the story of Jesus (which allegedly includes his own words) would be written in any other language than what he spoke. Any comments on this? Thanks!
Perhaps Greek was the language of choice for written works, much like Latin was the language of choice for written academic work a few centuries ago.
Jeremyhfht 05-09-07, 12:25 AM Actually, the apostles themselves are what wrote it. They wrote in greek, many many years after Jesus died. supposedly anyway, that's when the documents date.
P.S: check wikipedia for similar information. Jesus Myth is the keyword.
A better keyword in this context is Greek primacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Primacy).
Speaking and writing in Aramaic or Hebrew would have limited the audience too much. Go from one village to another, and you run into people speaking too many different languages in a small area... but no matter what language they spoke at home, they would have also spoken Greek back then in order to be able to communicate with the world outside their own village no matter what the other local home languages were.
EmptyForceOfChi 05-10-07, 06:43 PM god doesent exist niether did jesus, that should be the title of all of yur posts M*W, it would save all of this beating around the bush.
peace.
Medicine*Woman 05-10-07, 07:49 PM god doesent exist niether did jesus, that should be the title of all of yur posts M*W, it would save all of this beating around the bush. peace.
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M*W: Haven't you noticed the little phrase by my avatar?
EmptyForceOfChi 05-10-07, 08:12 PM yes you advertise it well. :)
peace.
Jeremyhfht 05-10-07, 08:16 PM A better keyword in this context is Greek primacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Primacy).
Yes of course, but that's included in the myth page. Or so it was.
Fraggle Rocker 05-11-07, 09:14 PM Perhaps Greek was the language of choice for written works, much like Latin was the language of choice for written academic work a few centuries ago.All scholarship and formal education in that region was done in Greek because the Greeks had political and cultural leadership. Anyone who was going to invest the effort to learn to read and write would do it in Greek because there was so much more material available. Even the Romans deferred to Greek scholarship in the early days of their empire. It wasn't until both the Greek and Roman empires collapsed that Aramaic gathered more respect. It was the lingua franca of a huge swath of the Middle East for something like a thousand years and if I'm not mistaken it was still in wide use a couple of hundred years ago during the Ottoman era.
IceAgeCivilizations 05-11-07, 09:31 PM I think it was Herodotus who said that Arami lived along the northeast coast of the Black Sea, between the Scythians (Crimea) and the Assyrians (Caucasus).
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