[B-Greek] Paul writing in Latin or Hebrew/Aramaic?
Barry H.
nebarry at verizon.net
Sat Aug 28 07:17:46 EDT 2010
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dewayne Dulaney" <dewayne.dulaney at gmail.com>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>; <kevin at bombaxo.com>; <nebarry at verizon.net>;
<j.d.ernest at bc.edu>; <stbaldwi at hotmail.com>; <sarah.r.madden at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 7:30 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Paul writing in Latin or Hebrew/Aramaic?
> Thus, the knowledge of Greek among even native Romans may well have
> been widespread in the first century. As Colossians 4:16 indicates the
> practice was to read Paul's letters aloud to the Christian assemblies,
> likely the readers of Romans could understand spoken Greek as well as
> read it.
>
> Δεβένιος Δυλένιος (DEBENIOS DULENIOS)
Good observations. Let me supplement that even "the poor" who couldn't
afford to send their potential novus homo ("new man," i.e., not a member of
the partician class) to one of the ludi ("school") still might pick up quite
a bit of Greek in the age old fashion of learning it on the street.
Interesting that in just a generation or two, Greek will fade from the West
as a lingua franca and become essentially possession of the educated classes
as a literary study, though in the eastern Empire it will remain the common
language.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Classics and Bible Instructor, TAA
http://www.theamericanacademy.net
(2010 Savatori Excellence in Education Winner)
V-P of Academic Affairs, TNARS
bhofstetter at tnars.net
http://www.tnars.net
http://my.opera.com/barryhofstetter/blog
http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry
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