Monthly Archives: November 2015

Some insights from the 2015 ETS conference

27 Friday Nov 2015

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This past week I attended the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Atlanta, Georgia. This is the largest annual gathering of evangelical Christian Bible scholars in the world. Here is a summary of highlights from some of the presentations I attended.

Ben Montoya gave a presentation on the Southern Baptist scholar A. T. Robertson, who published in 1915 a massive reference grammar for New Testament Greek that is still in print and in use today. It is interesting that this famous Greek scholar lost a Greek competition when he was in college. Montoya was unable to find the name of the guy who beat Robertson in the contest, which I suppose shows that such contests are not the ultimate test of competence. Some other interesting points from Montoya’s presentation:

  • Robertson handwrote the manuscript for his grammar. When he was finished, the stack of paper measured from the floor to the height of his desk.
  • The Lutheran theologian Oscar Cullmann told of a meeting he had with Pope John XXIII (reigned 1958-1963), during which he noticed a copy of Robertson’s grammar next to the pope’s Greek New Testament. Cullman asked the pope why he was using an English language grammar. He replied, “It is the best one available.”
  • Montoya said one of the things that makes Robertson’s grammar different from more recent grammars is that Robertson viewed language as reality. Modern grammars view language as a portrayal of reality.
  • According to Montoya, Robertson’s greatest mistake was the anachronistic application of grammatical categories from Latin to Greek, since Robertson had learned Latin before learning Greek. An example Montoya gave was Robertson’s category of deponancy, where modern linguists would see a middle-only verb. This criticism is, of course, debatable.

My friend Rodger Young presented on discrepancies between Carbon-14 (14C) dates and dates derived by conventional archaeological methods from about 2200 BC to 1400 BC. He said that, at present, there is an unresolved conflict between these two systems of dating. One problem with the 14C dates is that the data used to calibrate them has been kept secret. (One does not simply feed a piece of wood into a machine and receive an objective date; the scientists must “calibrate” the machine by inputting dates for various concentrations of radiocarbon in a material.) Three major universities analyzed the 14C dates in question—one in the U. S., one in the U. K., and one in Germany. All three universities have refused to release the dendrochronological (tree ring) data that they used to calibrate the 14C dates. The University of Belfast released a limited amount of data after a three year lawsuit under the British Freedom of Information Act, but this data was insufficient to understand the radiocarbon calibration curves. Hence, archaeologists suspect there is some sort of problem with the German oak data used to calibrate the 14C dates, but so far lawsuits have been unsuccessful in obtaining this data. Young’s handout is posted on his website. I personally am deeply mistrustful of radioisotope dating in general, as well as of archaeological dates that are not rooted in a biblical foundation.

Todd Chipman of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary gave a presentation on the Greek perfect tense in Hebrews. There has been a revolution in the study of biblical Greek and biblical Hebrew in recent years, as the product of a battle between traditional grammatical analysis of language versus an analysis based on modern linguistic theories. Part of this battle involves the study of ancient Greek verb tenses, which traditionally were seen as primarily temporal in reference, but which linguistic approaches say have more to do with aspect than with time. Three different linguistic approaches to understanding New Testament Greek verb tenses have been propounded by leading scholars in recent decades. Stanley Porter’s work, which applies the theory of a leading linguist to the Greek of the New Testament, is the basis of the modern discussion. Porter argues that that Greek verb tenses do not have temporal reference, just stative (perfect), perfective (aorist), or imperfective (present). Buist Fanning’s work Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek is not based on linguistic studies, but it presents a theory of verbal aspect that is similar in some ways to Porter’s yet also differs in certain respects. A third linguist, Constantine Campbell, argues that the Greek verb tenses of the NT only have perfective and imperfective aspects, with spatial values of greater importance than temporal values. Ironically, he views the perfect and pluperfect tenses as imperfective in aspect. In his presentation, Chipman analyzed examples of the use of perfect tense verbs in the contexts in the book of Hebrews in which present tense verbs were nearby, and tested the passages according to these three linguistic models. He found that, in every test passage, the models of Porter and Fanning made better sense of the context in Hebrews than Campbell’s model. Yet Chipman seemed to think that aspect is not as important in discussions of Greek verb tenses as Porter and Fanning make it out to be.

Phil Silvia presented, in association with Steve Collins, on the event which destroyed Tall el-Hammam. Tall el-Hammam is the site of a very large ancient city just to the northeast of the Dead Sea, on the plain opposite the Jordan River from Jericho. Silvia, Collins, and some other scholars believe that Tall el-Hammam is the site of the biblical city of Sodom. The evidence in support of this conclusion is impressive—there are major cities in the area which can be identified with Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, along with many smaller suburbs. In addition, there is strong biblical evidence for locating Sodom in the geographical area of Tall el-Hammam. According to Collins and Silvia, Tall el-Hammam and the surrounding cities were not destroyed in the usual manner; they appear to have been virtually incinerated, with everything above the level of the ground gone without a trace. In addition, there are high levels of salt in the layer of soil from the time of the destruction, which explains why the cities were not reoccupied for a very long period of time (cf. Gen 19:26). Silvia’s presentation focused on a piece of pottery and a rock from the area with a type of surface melting that scientific experts say could only have been produced through exposure to a temperature of 12,000° C for a few milliseconds. The one aspect of Collins’ and Silvia’s theory that I cannot agree with is the date they propose for the destruction of Sodom—1700 BC. From a biblical point of view, Sodom must have been destroyed around 2067 BC; however, Collins claims that the archaeological evidence points to the major destruction of Tall el-Hammam occurring around 1700 BC. But because the methods used by archaeologists to date ancient sites are often very tenuous (e.g., pieces of pottery), and they often disagree with biblical dates, I am skeptical of the grounds for Collins’ date for the destruction of Tall el-Hammam. On the whole, I favor identifying biblical Sodom with Tall el-Hammam on the basis of biblical statements regarding the geographical location of Sodom (Gen 13:3, 10-12); one can expect this theory to be subjected to further scholarly review in the coming years.

On Wednesday night, filmmaker Timothy Mahoney showed Patterns of Evidence: Exodus. This is a very professionally-produced documentary which searches for archaeological evidence of Israel’s exodus from Egypt in response to challenges from archaeologists who deny that the exodus event ever happened. This film shows that there is in fact abundant archaeological evidence for the biblical account of the Israelites journeying to Egypt, becoming a great nation there, being enslaved, and leaving in a dramatic exodus. However, this evidence is not recognized by scholars who are committed to interpreting archaeological data within the conventional chronological framework, since the evidence is not from the right time period. Nevertheless, the methods used to date these early archaeological periods are very tenuous and generally conflict with the Bible’s chronology. Thus, Mahoney argues (correctly) that the archaeological chronology should be compressed, resulting in the evidence for the Israelites living in Egypt lining up with the biblical chronology. I suggested to Mahoney that some of the specific arguments he makes regarding the identity of the Semitic population in and around Avaris could be objectively tested by obtaining samples of the DNA in the bones of those buried there, and using these samples to determine whether the Jews are their modern relatives.

My former professor Todd Beall presented a paper on principles of marriage from the book of Genesis. While Beall argued for a traditional view of marriage, an increasing number of evangelical writers are supporting contemporary, non-traditional views. Surely one reason for this is the widespread denial of the historicity of Genesis 2, in which God created Adam and Eve and ordained the marriage relationship between a man and a woman. In general, the abandonment of the literal hermeneutic has opened the door for evangelical acceptance of the non-biblical views of marriage and sexuality that dominate popular culture.

Randall Buth, director of the Biblical Language Center, presented a review of a new Greek-Greek dictionary by Emiliano Caruso (Monolingual Dictionary of Ancient  Greek). Buth was enthusiastic about the dictionary as a good first step toward thinking about the meaning of Greek words within the context of the Greek world, rather than within the context of the English world. The dictionary does not include the complete vocabulary of the New Testament, but it does include many words that are used outside of the New Testament. Buth would like the next edition of this dictionary to be more complete, but he likes the idea of including words that are not in the New Testament, since there are words that were common in ancient Greek that do not appear in the New Testament for reasons of subject matter. Knowing extrabiblical vocabulary therefore enhances one’s understanding of the ancient Greek language. One problem with this dictionary is that it mostly defines words by synonyms and antonyms, some of which do not appear elsewhere in the dictionary. Entries need to be expanded, with descriptive definitions, more examples, and multiple meanings. Also, it would be ideal for a dictionary like this one to be compiled by a team of scholars, rather than by one individual. I noted that a Greek-Greek dictionary of ancient Greek was composed by Valerius Harpocration in the second century AD (Lexeis of the Ten Orators), and suggested that this work might still be useful for a project such as Caruso’s. After the presentation, I asked Buth if he knows of anyone who is fluent in both the ancient and modern forms of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. He said he knows a lot of people who are fluent in the ancient and modern forms of one of the three, but he does not think there is anyone in the world who is fluent in the ancient and modern forms of all three. Knowing the ancient forms of these languages is something different than knowing the modern forms.

Richard Oster of the Harding School of Theology gave a presentation which noted some archaeological finds relevant to New Testament studies. At the end of his presentation, he commented on the state of New Testament programs in evangelical seminaries. He said that in the late 1800s and early 1900s, evangelical seminaries included classical studies in their New Testament programs, especially at the Ph.D. level. Today, many New Testament Ph.D. programs do not even offer Latin—the language of the Empire—let alone require it. Classical studies and language studies in general have fallen on hard times in New Testament programs, which now tend to emphasize Jewish studies and theology. This is in contrast to Old Testament studies programs, which are much more engaged with the languages and histories of the peoples in the world around the Old Testament. Oster believes there is a greater need for New Testament scholars to know what was happening in the world in which the events of the New Testament took place.

Wayne Grudem gave a presentation which reflected on the scholarly discussion over the thirty years since his publication of a seminal article on the meaning of the Greek word κεφαλή (head). This has become a controversial issue because some egalitarian feminists argue that κεφαλή means “source” in 1 Corinthians 11:3 and Ephesians 5:23, in which the husband is said to be the “head” of the wife. Grudem said that no one has yet been able to present an example where κεφαλή means something other than “ruler” or “leader” when it is used of a person. He also discussed an article written in the standard reference work Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, published by InterVarsity Press (IVP) in 1993. The IVP editors selected a feminist named Catherine Kroeger to write the article on “Head” for this dictionary. In it, Kroeger literally invented multiple citations and quotations in order to argue that κεφαλή means “source,” not “ruler,” when affirming that the man is the head of the wife. Although Grudem has published multiple articles pointing out Kroeger’s dishonesty, the editors at IVP have never removed this article or corrected it! Grudem’s conclusion was that after all of the scholarly discussion of the passages related to male headship in the New Testament, it is as clear as ever that the Bible commands wives to be in submission to their husbands; there are no serious exegetical challenges to the traditional view.

Finally, I gave a presentation in which I summarized the arguments made in my Ph.D. dissertation and published book for identifying Daniel’s Darius the Mede with Xenophon’s Cyaxares II. The session was well attended, and included several scholars who had already read the book and given me feedback via email. I presented a bold theory which argues for the historical reliability of Xenophon’s account of the rise of Cyrus to power (which includes a Median king who corresponds to Darius the Mede) over the historical reliability of Herodotus’ account. Although modern scholarship favors Herodotus, the evidence supporting Xenophon is diverse and compelling. The questions and comments following the presentation were overwhelmingly favorable. Other scholars are beginning to argue for and reference the theory I have presented (which is not completely original with me), and it is my hope that these references in academic literature will eventually have an effect on the view of Darius the Mede in scholarship as a whole.

Aramaic: The Bible’s third language

23 Monday Nov 2015

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Aramaic has been in some ways a forgotten language in biblical studies, except at a very high academic level. The New Testament is written in Greek; nearly all the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, while the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the LXX) is significant to biblical studies. Yet 268 verses of the Bible were written in a language called Aramaic.

The portions of Scripture that were written in Aramaic include Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12-26 (67 verses), Daniel 2:4b–7:28 (200 verses), Jeremiah 10:11, and various proper names and single words and phrases scattered throughout the Old and New Testaments. Despite the relatively small percentage of Scripture that is written in this language, the Aramaic portion of the Bible is disproportionately significant because of the importance of the book of Daniel to biblical prophecy. Aramaic is also important for New Testament studies, as several direct quotes from Jesus and others are preserved in the original Aramaic that was spoken by Palestinian Jews of the Second Temple period. New Testament verses which include Aramaic words transliterated by Greek letters are: Matt 5:22; 27:46; Mark 5:41; 7:34; 10:51; 14:36; John 1:42; 20:16; Acts 9:36, 40; Rom 8:15; 1 Cor 16:22; Gal 4:6.

In the Old Testament, four verses make a direct reference to the Aramaic language: 2 Kings 18:26, Ezra 4:7, Isaiah 36:11, and Daniel 2:4. Each of these verses calls Aramaic “Aramaic” (אֲרָמִית, an adverbial form of אֲרָמִי), though this used to be translated as “Syrian” or “Chaldee” in English. Aramaic is called “Hebrew” (Ἑβραΐς or Ἑβραϊστί) in the New Testament, since it was the tongue of the Hebrews (John 5:2; 19:13, 17, 20; 20:16; Acts 21:40; 22:2; 26:14). Some newer translations render the Greek word for “Hebrew” in these verses as “Aramaic,” which recognizes that these verses refer to the language we now call Aramaic.

Aramaic was originally the language of the Arameans, who were comprised of tribes that lived along the Euphrates River. Two of the most prominent of these tribes were the Syrians to the northwest, and the Chaldeans to the southeast. The word Aramaic is derived from Aram, a son of Shem who was the progenitor of the Arameans. In the earliest stages of the history of Aramaic, the language was only spoken in Aramean locales, including the area where Laban lived (cf. Gen 31:47; Deut 26:5). However, as the Syrians and Chaldeans gained prominence in the ancient Near East, their tongue became established as an international language of commerce and diplomacy, gradually displacing Akkadian. Akkadian was still the official language of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, although 2 Kings 18:26 indicates that Aramaic was already becoming established as a lingua franca of the ancient Near East by 700 BC. When the Chaldeans subsequently conquered Assyria, it was natural for them to use their own language of Aramaic as the administrative language of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, rather than adopting Akkadian. This is why Daniel 2:4 says the wise men of Babylon addressed the king in Aramaic, and why the following section of the book of Daniel is written in Aramaic. After the conquest of Babylon by Persia, the Persians also established Aramaic as the official language of their vast empire. This is why the portions of Ezra which record official correspondence are written in Aramaic.

At the time when the books of Daniel and Ezra were written, most Jews could speak and understand both Hebrew and Aramaic. They understood Hebrew as the language spoken at home, among themselves, and in the reading of the Scriptures, while Aramaic was the language spoken in broader society. Over time, Aramaic replaced Hebrew as the primary language spoken by the Jews who lived in Palestine and regions to the east. The Jews had not learned Aramaic in Palestine (cf. 2 Kgs 18:26), but they had to learn it in exile, since it was the language of their captors. Thus, the parts of the Old Testament which were composed in Aramaic were written in that language as a result of the Babylonian captivity.

Because of this, Aramaic was the native tongue of our Lord; Hebrew was rarely used as a spoken language by Jews of the first century AD.[1] There are several places where the Gospel writers preserve quotations from Jesus in the original Aramaic, including His cry from the cross, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani? (Mark 15:34). These words expressed Christ’s deepest feelings at a time of great personal anguish and emotion. That He spoke these words from Psalm 22:1 in Aramaic, rather than from the Hebrew original or the Greek Septuagint translation, shows that Aramaic was the language that He knew most intimately. Thus, the New Testament preserves Aramaic words because Aramaic was the mother tongue of Palestinian Jews in the first century AD.

The Greek of the New Testament was influenced by Aramaic, and so contains some Aramaic idioms and forms of expression, such as the phrase “answered and said.” Although the degree of Aramaic influence on the Greek of the New Testament has been a subject of much debate, it is fair to say that the style of New Testament Greek is Semiticized to one degree or another. But it is not true that parts of the New Testament were originally written in Aramaic, as some have claimed. No manuscript of any part of the New Testament has ever been discovered that is written in the Jewish Palestinian Aramaic dialect known to Jesus and the apostles.

After the resurrection of Jesus, the Syriac dialect of Aramaic became the language of the Syrian church. Aramaic also remained an important language for the Jews. Because of this, there are two major Aramaic translations of the Old Testament, the Jewish Targums and the Syriac Peshitta. There are a number of important Syriac versions of the New Testament. Much of Jewish rabbinic literature, and nearly all Syrian Christian literature, is written in Aramaic. Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls were also written in Aramaic.

Both Aramaic and Hebrew are West Semitic languages. Thus, Aramaic and Hebrew share many of the same linguistic characteristics and modes of expression. Overall, Hebrew grammar and morphology is somewhat closer to proto-Semitic, especially in its patterns of vocalization, though Aramaic has a fuller complement of distinct verbal stems. Some distinctive characteristics of Aramaic include the frequent use of the participle for a finite verb, the versatile particle דִּי, the use of a determined form instead of a prefixed definite article, and such idioms as “son of man” (for “man”) and “answered and said” (for “said”). Because of the importance of Aramaic in the Second Temple period, Hebrew gradually began to be written in Aramaic letters during that time, and Hebrew has used the Aramaic square script ever since.[2] However, Syriac and other dialects of Aramaic use different scripts, while the Targumim have a system of pointing that differs from the Masoretic pointing of the Old Testament.

One of the peculiarities of biblical Aramaic is that the divine name יהוה (Yahweh) is never used. For some reason, this name was only used in Hebrew. However, the term אֱלָהּ שְׁמַיָּא (the God of heaven) occurs very frequently in Aramaic, much more than in Hebrew. It is also interesting that there are no Old Testament books written entirely in Aramaic. This is apparently to retain the character of the Old Testament as a Hebrew text.

Because of the very long linguistic history of Aramaic, and the diverse number of groups that have spoken it, there are quite a variety of Aramaic dialects, of which Syriac is the most prominent. Some eighty percent of extant Aramaic writing is in Syriac, a language which is still spoken today (in various dialects) and is used in the liturgy of some Eastern churches. There are also distinct differences between different chronological periods of Aramaic. Although liberal scholars have long attempted to deny it, the Aramaic of both Daniel and Ezra is of the Imperial Aramaic dialect that would have been in use in the sixth century BC. It is noticeably different from both the Aramaic of Qumran and from first-century AD Jewish Palestinian Aramaic.

While Hebrew was used sparingly outside of the Bible, Aramaic was used very broadly. There is a huge corpus of Aramaic literature. From about 600 BC until AD 700, Aramaic was the primary trade language of the ancient Near East. It was also the primary spoken language of Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia at the time of Christ. Aramaic was only displaced by Arabic when the Muslims conquered the Middle East—though the language never died out completely, and is still spoken in pockets of Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. Aramaic is possibly the language with the longest continuous written record in the world. Because of the broad use of Aramaic outside of the Bible, there is rarely any doubt about the meaning of words or constructions in biblical Aramaic, as there are many opportunities to research their usage in extrabiblical literature.

Although there is only a limited amount of biblical material composed in Aramaic, the influence of the Aramaic language is felt throughout the Old and New Testaments, as it was present in the background from Genesis until Revelation. Aramaic also had a prominent place in the early church and in postbiblical Judaism. But insofar as it is directly used in the Bible, Aramaic is the language of the captivity and of the Redeemer.

Postscript: For recommended resources for the study of Biblical Aramaic, see this post.

[1] Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, there has been a debate over the extent to which Aramaic had displaced Hebrew in Palestine by the first century AD. However, first-century AD inscriptions in Palestine are almost exclusively in Aramaic (or Greek), and Aramaic is consistently used by Jesus, rather than Hebrew. Jesus probably understood Hebrew, but as a literary, rather than spoken, language. He would have known Greek as a second language and spoke it on some occasions (as when dealing with Gentiles), but He would have been more at home in Aramaic.

[2] The Aramaic square script is also called the “Jewish script,” the “square script,” or the “Assyrian script.” Three stages in the development of this script at Qumran are called the “archaic script” (250-150 B.C.), the “Hasmonean script” (150-30 B.C.), and the “Herodian script” (30 B.C. – 70 A.D.). Despite the prevalence of the square script in Hebrew writing, twelve Qumran fragments were found written in a paleo-Hebrew script similar to the original Hebrew script in which most of the Old Testament was written, while several other Qumran manuscripts used the square script for the main body text and the paleo-Hebrew script for nomina sacra. See E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (3rd ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), 206-7.

Koine Greek: the language of the New Testament

14 Saturday Nov 2015

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Jesus was born in “the fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), in a world dominated by Greek culture and Roman governance. Several propitious states of affairs providentially came together at this time, making it the perfect time for the Messiah to come—and also for the church to begin. One important aspect of the first century AD world is that the gospel message could be spread quickly after the formation of the church because the whole Mediterranean world shared a common government—allowing for freedom of travel—and also because the world understood a common language, which was called Koine Greek. Were it not for this common language, the books of the New Testament probably would have been written in a variety of different languages, and they would not have been accessible to all without a translation. Further, the early Christian evangelists could not have communicated the gospel to people in other parts of the world very easily without a shared tongue.

The prevalence of the Greek language in the Mediterranean world began with the establishment of Greek colonies, designed to enhance trade, from about 750 to 550 BC. These colonies ranged throughout the Mediterranean and Black Seas, including outposts in Spain, Gaul, Illyria, Corsica, North Africa, Egypt, Asia Minor, and elsewhere. But while Greek trade began to introduce the Greek language to the world, Greek only became the world’s dominant language through the efforts of Alexander the Great and his successors. Alexander deliberately sought to Hellenize the lands he conquered, especially by making them adopt the Greek language. Yet at one time there was no unified Greek language, for Classical Greek included a number of dialects, many of which had significant differences.

The form of Greek that the world spoke from the time of Alexander until well after the time of Christ was Koine Greek, not Classical Greek. The word Koine (κοινή) means “common”; hence, “Koine Greek” was the common dialect (κοινή διάλεκτος) of Greek. This term was first used to refer to the variety of Atticized Greek that Alexander’s army spoke as a bridge amongst the various regional dialects of Greek. As Alexander conquered Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and westward past the Indus, he founded cities and outposts all along the way. Since his soldiers spoke Koine among themselves, this form of Greek became officially established in the lands Alexander conquered.

The Koine dialect had its foundations in the dominance of Athens in the fifth-century BC Delian League, in which the Athenian (Attic) dialect was imposed upon the other members of the confederacy as a lingua franca. After this, Attic Greek began to be used as a language of trade, then as a common language for military expeditions which assembled units from various parts of Greece. As a result of its common use in the business and military sectors, Attic/Koine finally began to be spoken throughout Greece as the everyday tongue of the populace, displacing other dialects. When Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander united Greece, Koine was made the official language of the army and the royal court.

As Koine spread, it lost some of the peculiarities of the Attic dialect, and assimilated some characteristics of other dialects. This commonly involved simplification, as Koine adopted forms common to all the dialects. The use of Koine for everyday conversation rather than literature and poetry also contributed to its simplification. The development and simplification of Koine continued as it was adopted by foreigners and continuously spoken throughout the known world for hundreds of years.

As the Koine Greek language became more prevalent in the Mediterranean world, its influence also increased among the Jews. Beginning around 275 BC, a Greek translation of the Hebrew/Aramaic Old Testament was made, which we know today as the Septuagint (Seventy), abbreviated LXX (70). The influence of this translation is seen in the frequent New Testament quotations of the LXX. Most Jews who lived in the Diaspora (i.e., outside of Palestine) spoke Koine Greek as their everyday language. Even in Palestine, most Jews would have had a working knowledge of Greek, in addition to their native tongue of Aramaic.

Assigning definite dates to the period of Koine Greek is not a clear-cut matter, since languages are always changing, and these changes tend to occur gradually. However, the period of Koine can roughly be dated from 334 BC, when Alexander crossed the Hellespont, until AD 330, when the movement of the Empire’s capital from Rome to Constantinople helped to isolate West from East, and allowed for Latin to replace Greek as the lingua franca of the West—though this Latinizing process had begun as early the second century AD. The time of Koine’s widest geographical distribution and most distinctively “Koine” linguistic qualities falls in the period between these dates, in the first centuries BC and AD.

Despite the linguistic simplification that occurred in Koine, the Greek of the New Testament is still a remarkably precise and explicit language. The vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of Greek allows for precise and subtle distinctions between various forms of expression. Verbs can occur in six different tenses, four moods, and three voices, each with its own nuance. Nouns and adjectives occur in five different cases so as to specify exactly their function in the sentence and their relationship to other words. Relative and demonstrative pronouns share the number (singular/plural) and gender (masculine/feminine/neuter) of their antecedent, which removes much potential ambiguity. Further, Greek has many technical or narrowly defined terms that communicate a very precise idea.

Unlike the situation with ancient Hebrew, there is a great corpus of extrabiblical Greek literature that allows Bible scholars to see how New Testament words and grammatical constructions were employed in other literary works. Because of this, there is much more certainty about the meaning of rare words in the New Testament than there is in the Old Testament. There is also greater opportunity for scholars to do extensive research on key terms in the New Testament. An example of this is John Lee’s extensive study on the word ἕξις, which occurs only once in the New Testament (Heb 5:14), but over 6,000 times in extrabiblical Greek.[1] Another example is Wayne Grudem’s analysis of 2,336 occurrences of the word κεφαλή (head) in selected works of Greek literature, in connection with the egalitarian feminist interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:3 and Ephesians 5:23.[2] While much of extent Greek literature dates from the period of Classical Greek—and therefore is less useful for comparison with the New Testament—an ample number of works survive from the time of the New Testament, including both literary works and examples of vernacular Koine from papyrus letters.

Unlike in the Old Testament, the Greek style of the New Testament varies considerably among its writers and books. This is partly because many New Testament books were originally letters, and were not primarily written as literary works. Variation in style also occurs because of different personal writing styles, and different levels of familiarity with the Greek language. The most polished, Classical-style Greek of the New Testament is found in the book of Acts, which was written by Luke (a Gentile medical doctor). John’s Greek is the simplest and most non-native, though this does not mean that his content is simplistic. Many New Testament books use the kind of Greek that educated people would have used in letters. It should be noted that the New Testament was written on a literary level, and not on the level of vernacular speech—just as an educated English-speaker uses a more formal and proper form of the language when writing a document than when speaking to friends. The literary style of the New Testament ranges from that of a formal letter to that of a formal narrative or treatise.

The Greek of the New Testament has a heavily Semitic coloring, due in part to the influence of the Hebrew Old Testament on the New Testament and Christianity. In addition, since Aramaic was widely spoken in Palestine and Syria, the common Greek of Palestine and Syria contained Aramaic influences. Aramaic was the mother tongue of Jesus and most of the apostles. Thus, one frequently finds the word “hour” used in the sense of “moment” in the New Testament, which is an Aramaism (cf. Acts 16:18). The frequent use of the descriptive term “son of” is also an Aramaism (cf. Mark 3:17). One often finds the Greek words καί and δέ used like the Hebrew conjunction wāw in New Testament narratives, especially in the Gospel of Mark. There are even some examples of Greek words used with Semitic grammar, especially in quotations of the Old Testament and in the book of Revelation. For this reason, anyone who wants to be an expert in the Greek of the New Testament must also have a working knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic.

Jesus Christ came into the world at a time when there was a universal language. Because Koine Greek was understood by everyone, most early Christian missionaries spread the gospel in this language, and the whole New Testament was written in this language. Even New Testament books that were sent to Palestine (James, Hebrews) or Rome (Mark, Romans) were written in Koine Greek, since this language was understood by everyone. It was spoken by men of all races, geographic locales, and societal classes, from slaves and common laborers to kings and intellectuals. To summarize: Koine Greek was the world’s universal language.

[1] John A. L. Lee, “Hebrews 5:14 and Ἕξις: A History of Misunderstanding,” NovT 39:2 (Apr. 1997): 151-76.

[2] Wayne Grudem, “Does Κεφαλή (‘Head’) mean ‘Source’ or ‘Authority Over’ in Greek Literature? A Survey of 2,336 Examples,” TrinJ 6:1 (Spr. 1985): 38-59.

Why was the Old Testament written in Hebrew?

07 Saturday Nov 2015

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In Genesis 12:1, God commanded Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee. It is because of the call of Abram (Abraham) to the land of Canaan that nearly all the Old Testament (except 268 verses) was written in the Hebrew language. Abraham’s native tongue, in “Ur of the Chaldees,” was certainly not Hebrew. Abraham probably spoke multiple major languages of the Ancient Near East; for details, see my post on Ur of the Chaldees. Abraham did not begin his life among Canaanites, but he was called by God to leave his homeland and move to the land of Canaan. There were several closely related dialects of the ancient Canaanite language, one of which was Hebrew.[1] Because Hebrew was the language of Canaan, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their sons adopted this language as their own. Their land was Canaan, not Mesopotamia or Egypt. When the Hebrews settled in Goshen, they purposefully retained the Canaanite language, and were able to do so because they lived in separation from the Egyptians. As God gave His Word to Abraham’s chosen seed in Jacob, He gave it in their language, which was Canaan’s language. Thus, it is ultimately because of God’s call to Abraham that nearly all biblical revelation before the coming Christ was written in Hebrew.

The name “Hebrew” is not used in the Old Testament to describe Israel’s language. What we call “Hebrew” is called “Jewish” (יְהוּדִי) six times in the Old Testament (2 Kgs 18:26, 28; 2 Chr 32:18; Neh 13:24; Isa 36:11, 13). In the New Testament, “Hebrew” (Ἑβραΐς or Ἑβραϊστί) is normally used to refer to Aramaic, but twice designates the language we today call Hebrew (Rev 9:11; 16:16).

Hebrew is an offshoot of the Proto-Semitic tongue that was probably the language spoken by Adam. The form of Semitic preserved in the Hebrew tongue[2] includes such features as the following: (1) As with other Semitic languages, Hebrew features a basic three-letter (triliteral) consonantal root for each word. (2) This triliteral root system allowed Hebrew to be written in a consonantal script, without vowels, accents or punctuation. Unlike Greek, however, Hebrew has always marked word divisions (by spaces, dots, or vertical lines). (3) Hebrew is a highly inflected language; that is, various forms of verbs, nouns, and adjectives are formed by internal changes to the basic consonantal form of the word, such as by altering vowels, doubling consonants, or adding prefixes, suffixes, or infixes. (4) There are few parts of speech; most concepts are expressed merely through the use of nouns and verbs. Nouns in construct often substitute for adjectives (e.g., “worthless men” are called “sons of worthlessness”). Prepositions and conjunctions are used frequently, of course, but a very limited number are used for a wide range of English ones. (5) As in all Semitic languages, Hebrew has a number of frequently occurring gutteral sounds and emphatic consonants. Many of these sounds are eliminated in modern Hebrew, which is influenced by the sounds of the German language. (6) Biblical Hebrew has only two verb tenses, perfect and imperfect. (7) All Semitic languages once had three numbers for verbs, nouns, and adjectives (singular, dual, and plural) and two genders (masculine and feminine). The dual form is latent in biblical Hebrew.

Biblical Hebrew remained incredibly uniform and stable throughout the thousand years from Moses to Malachi. There are only subtle variations in writing style, grammar, and vocabulary in the corpus of biblical Hebrew. This is quite different from the New Testament, wherein each author has a very distinctive writing style and grammatical peculiarities. The lack of variation among Hebrew writers occurs because Semitic grammar and idiom tend to be more rigidly fixed than in other language families.

The Hebrew language is beautiful, and rich in metaphor. Like other Semitic languages, Hebrew has a relatively simple vocabulary, and likes to use body parts or other concrete terms to express abstract concepts that English speakers would communicate using adjectival or adverbial modifiers or technical terms. This adds much color to the language and communicates graphic pictures, allowing the reader to form a more concrete idea of the actions described. For example, a variety of organs are used to refer to one’s innermost person: “heart,” “kidneys,” “liver,” and “bowels.” Where English would use the word “stubborn,” Hebrew would say “hard of neck.” Where English would say “with tremendous power,” Hebrew might say “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” For “settled,” Hebrew could have “pitched his tent”; for “looked up,” “lifted up his eyes”; for “miserable,” “bitter of soul”; for “before,” “to the face of”; for “burned up,” “burnt with fire”; for “killed,” “smote with the mouth (edge) of the sword”; for “the Israelites,” “the sons of Israel”; for “she irritated her,” “she caused her to thunder” (1 Sam 1:6); for “left,” “lifted up his feet” or “took his journey” or “went forth”; for “by means of,” “by the hand of,” etc. Many Hebrew idioms are altered to a more “English” form of expression in Bible translations, especially modern ones—but at the loss of the richness of the language. However, some Hebraisms have actually become English idioms through their translation in the King James Version (e.g., “the skin of my teeth,” Job 19:20). Hebrew is actually a very easy language to translate literally because of its simple vocabulary and forms of expression. Few words and expressions cannot be given an exact equivalent in the receptor language. Ironically, it is much more difficult to make a “dynamic equivalent” translation of the Old Testament than it is to make a literal translation. When the Old Testament is translated literally, there is very little loss of meaning, style, or rhythm from the original Hebrew.

It should be noted that Greek and Hebrew have exactly the same communicative capabilities. Some have claimed that Greek is a superior language, meaning that it can express concepts which Hebrew cannot. This is simply not the case. There is no New Testament theological concept that cannot be communicated in the Hebrew language. Also, there is nothing about the characteristics of the Hebrew language that creates a “Hebrew mind” which thinks differently from the “Greek mind.” Jesus and most of the apostles, including Paul, probably grew up speaking both Greek and Aramaic (and possibly Hebrew), yet had only one worldview and one way of thinking.

Four thousand years ago, God called Abraham out of his native country, and into a land of promise. Because of this, almost all of biblical revelation before Christ was written in the language of the Promised Land. This is the reason why Bible scholars devote so much time and energy to studying the Hebrew language, even though the number of surviving extrabiblical Hebrew texts from the Old Testament period is miniscule in comparison with the corpus of extant texts in such languages as Egyptian, Ugaritic, Hittite, and Akkadian. Unlike Aramaic and Greek, which had universal appeal, Hebrew was a very localized language, a tongue that was spoken only in Canaan—yet its importance far transcends the limited size of that land. The reason? Hebrew is the language of the Promised Land.

The following facts about Hebrew may help an English reader understand the Old Testament text more fully:

  • Hebrew typically uses the same word for “and” and “but”; the translation of this word is the decision of the translator. The word “and” can be given a variety of other translations, such as “now,” “then,” “so,” etc.
  • Names that end in “-iah” in English represent Hebrew “-yahu” or “-yah,” which are short forms of “Yahweh” (the LORD). Thus, the last name of Israel’s prime minister, Netanyahu, is “Nethaniah” in the English Bible.
  • The Hebrew word הַר can mean “mountain,” “hill,” or “hill-country.” Often translations use the word “mountain” where “hill” or “hill-country” is preferable.
  • Hebrew uses the same word for moral evil and general calamity (רַע). Older Bible translations often spoke of God bringing “evil” upon a nation, whereas newer translations usually use a word such as “calamity.”
  • “Heart” = “mind” in Hebrew; the same word is used for both (לֵבָב or לֵב), though sometimes words for other internal organs are translated as “heart” in English. This is in contrast to the English way of thinking, in which the heart and mind are thought to be totally distinct and sometimes opposed. On more than one occasion I have heard preachers make the point that the Bible uses the word “heart” in an Old Testament passage, rather than “mind,” but this is an exegetical mistake based on a lack of knowledge of the Hebrew language.

[1] We know that Hebrew is a Canaanite language because we have a written record of Phoenician and Moabite, and we can see that they are very close to Hebrew (especially Moabite). Ammonite and Edomite are preserved only in fragments, but appear to use a Canaanite script, vocabulary, and grammar. It is interesting that Ammonite, Moabite, and Edomite are very closely related to Hebrew, since Ammon, Moab, and Edom are countries that were populated by Abraham’s descendants or relatives. There is also evidence within the Hebrew language that it was a Canaanite tongue: the Hebrew word for “west” is “Sea” (יָם), referring to the Mediterranean, while the word for “south” is “Negev” (נֶגֶב), referring to the desert area south of Beersheba.

Further evidence that Hebrew was the language of Canaan comes from Isaiah 19:18, which apparently calls Hebrew “the language of Canaan.” Egypt and Mesopotamian countries are represented as lands of strange tongues (Deut 28:49; Psa 81:5; 114:1; Isa 28:11; Jer 5:15), whereas the lands of Philistia, Canaan, Edom, Moab, and Ammon are never represented as such. Without exception, Israelites were able to freely converse with Canaanites without an interpreter, whereas this was not the case with other nations (cf. Gen 42:23; 2 Kgs 18:26).

[2] All Semitic languages are closely linked in a way that Indo-European languages are not. Thus, Hebrew is similar to such languages as Aramaic, Ugaritic, Arabic, Amharic, and Akkadian. However, it is closer to, say, Aramaic than it is to Akkadian. Also, modern Hebrew is closer to biblical Hebrew than modern Greek is to biblical Greek, though there are important differences.

Language learning: a key to deeper Bible study

01 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by in Biblical languages

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Nearly every Bible-believing Christian in the world first hears and reads the Bible in a translation. In fact, the vast majority of Christians only read and study translations of the Bible. Only a small number of Christians—usually young aspiring pastors and Bible scholars—acquire professional training in one or more of the languages in which the Bible was originally written. Yet even out of this group of people, only a small number can actually read the Bible fluently in one or more of its original languages. Only a small number of these people, in turn, can read the Bible fluently in all three of the languages in which it was written. Very few people have read the Bible cover-to-cover entirely in its original languages (I have).

The three languages in which the Bible was originally written are the Classical dialect of Hebrew, the Koine dialect of Greek, and the Imperial dialect of Aramaic. Each of these languages also has modern forms (Aramaic has several modern dialects), but modern spoken Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic differ considerably from the ancient forms of these languages (especially so with Greek and Aramaic). For this reason, there is probably no one in the world who is fluent in both the ancient and modern forms of all three of these languages. The entire New Testament was written in Greek. The entire Old Testament was written in Hebrew, except for Ezra 4:6–6:18, Ezra 7:12-26, Daniel 2:4–7:28, and Jeremiah 10:11, which were written in Aramaic.

The Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek in the second century BC. This translation is called the Septuagint (Seventy), abbreviated LXX (70). However, Greek is not the original language of the Old Testament—most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, with the exception of the 268 Aramaic verses listed above. Most seminaries emphasize the study of Greek over the study of Hebrew, and pastors are much more likely to have a working knowledge of Greek than of Hebrew (very few have studied Aramaic), but Greek is only the language of the New Testament, not the language of the entire Bible.

Before I learned Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic I did not think that they were important for studying and interpreting the Bible. I felt quite capable of studying and understanding the Bible without these languages, and I was annoyed when commentaries used Greek and Hebrew words without translating them. But my perspective changed after spending many years learning Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, and reading and studying the Bible in the original languages. Now, these languages seem completely indispensable for my study of the Bible. Of course, on one level, it is certainly possible to understand and study the Bible without knowing the original languages. But one can never delve very deeply into details of the text without this knowledge, and the one who tries will probably end up with many misinterpretations. Also, while there have been many significant battles in churches all over the world concerning which translation of the Bible to use, the translation problem becomes irrelevant when one can read and understand the Bible in its original languages.

Discussions of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic grammar can be very technical, and many pastors and laymen alike are quick to label them as irrelevant for practical Christianity. But our understanding of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic grammar is the basis for our understanding of the Bible, and there are no more relevant words to man than the words of God as recorded in the Bible. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic, so every translation of the Old Testament is ultimately based on someone’s understanding of the Hebrew and Aramaic languages. No one today speaks the ancient form of Hebrew and Aramaic, so scholars have to study the grammar of these languages in order to understand the meaning of the Old Testament. This also involves the study of extrabiblical texts in Hebrew and Aramaic, the study of cognate languages (e.g., Akkadian, Ugaritic, and Arabic), and the study of ancient translations of the Old Testament (such as the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, and the Syriac Peshitta). In like manner, our understanding of the Koine dialect of the Greek language is the basis for our understanding of the New Testament, and for any translation of the New Testament. Those dry scholarly discussions of technical grammatical and lexical issues may seem totally irrelevant to your daily life, but they influence the Bible translation you read, the notes in your study Bible, and the interpretations your pastor reads in Bible commentaries. And there are many competing theories about the grammar of these ancient languages and the meaning of words in them; one cannot assume that scholarship is settled and that the final product of scholarly research has already arrived. Anyone who wants to be a Bible scholar must learn the languages in order to evaluate the issues for himself.

Admittedly, the situation of many Christians is such that they are not able to learn Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic (due in part to the church’s failure to promote the learning of these languages from an early age). But even if one does not know the original languages of the Bible, knowing some things about them can aid in one’s understanding of the Bible. For example, it is useful to know that at the time the Bible was written, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek made no distinction between capital and lowercase letters and used no punctuation. Thus, all capitalization and punctuation in English Bibles represent editorial decisions made by the translators, often based on decisions made by scribes who copied manuscripts during the Middle Ages. It is also useful to know that chapter and verse divisions were not part of the original text, although some early manuscripts do have line breaks between major sections. While the chapter and verse divisions in our modern Bibles generally make good sense, occasionally they do not. The reader should realize that these divisions are interpretive decisions, and that they can be wrong—unlike the biblical text itself, which is inerrant.

In my next three posts, I will look at each of the Bible’s three original languages in turn and will describe their significance and major characteristics.