[B-Greek] How many languages in Acts 21-22?
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Wed Aug 18 18:58:09 EDT 2010
It is fairly obvious that `eBen Bo' אֶבֶן בּוֹא "a stone is coming", especially
when shortened to בֶּן בוֹא BeN BO' would be subject to being misinterpreted as
"the son comes." It is also true that such is not possible in Aramaic. That
anyone who understood this would translate the phrase as "the son is coming" is
incomprehensible unless one presupposes that he is jesting. If he is jesting
then the reader must be presumed to be aware of the fact or must have it
explained. That it is simply rendered as "the son is coming" without further
explanation can only be explained on the grounds that the one who wrote this did
not himself understand the wordplay and was relying on a translation by another
who did not himself fully understand it.
george
gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.
- Jan Hus
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________________________________
From: Michael Baber <illuminatiaries at yahoo.com>
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Wed, August 18, 2010 12:06:33 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] How many languages in Acts 21-22?
FYI, regarding Josephus, here is a good article regarding the stones:
http://blog.jerusalemperspective.com/archives/000126.html
Quote,
Randall Buth has pointed out to me a fascinating indication that Hebrew was the
spoken language in the first century. The Jewish historian Josephus describes an
incident that took place during the siege of Jerusalem (War 5:269-272). Josephus
relates that watchmen were posted on the towers of the city walls to warn
residents of incoming stones fired from Roman ballistae. Whenever a stone was on
its way, the spotters would shout “in their native tongue, ‘The son is coming!’”
(War 5:272). The meaning the watchmen communicated to the people was: Ha-even
ba’ah (the stone is coming). However, because of the urgency of the situation,
these words were clipped, being abbreviated to ben ba (son comes). (This
well-known Hebrew wordplay is attested in the New Testament: “God is able from
these avanim [stones] to raise up banim [sons] to Abraham” [Matt 3:9 = Luke
3:8].)
The wordplay (and pun) that Josephus preserves is unambiguously Hebrew. This
wordplay does not work in Aramaic: kefa ate (the stone is coming), or the more
literary avna ata, when spoken rapidly, do not sound like bara ate (the son is
coming). Another Aramaic word for “stone,” aven, which is related to Hebrew,
changes the gender of the verb and, in any case, does not work with “son.”
Certainly, a warning about an incoming missile needs to be as brief as possible
(and, of course, shouted in the language of speech). How many words would an
English-speaking soldier use to warn his unit of an incoming artillery shell?
The Hebrew-speaking spotters on the walls of the besieged city of Jerusalem
needed only two, and these they abbreviated to one syllable each."
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