From: Jack Kilmon (jpman@accesscomm.net)
Date: Fri Apr 10 1998 - 11:20:29 EDT
Eric Weiss wrote:
>
> [A friend (who I believe has not had formal training in either language
> - i.e., I don't believe he reads the Hebrew and Greek text but rather
> does word studies with English-language helps) made the following
> comments to me re: what he perceived to be differences between Hebrew
> and Greek as languages and as vehicles for communicating their
> respective messages, i.e., the words of the Old and New Covenants,
> respectively. Would anyone care to comment on the substance of my
> friend's remarks - i.e., how true or valid or perceptive they are? If
> the discussion ends up veering outside the parameters of B-Greek or
> B-Hebrew discussion, please continue to respond to me by e-mail
> off-line. Thanks! - Eric Weiss]
>
> Like English, I understand Greek as a transient, somewhat scavenger
> language. Even Agape was
> sort of commandeered and "shifted" for a special purpose in the NT.
> With Hebrew, while you do
> get a bit of drift and fashion among letters, etc., it is a very slow
> creep indeed. Hebrew is
> one of the most calcified and "fixed" languages this planet has ever
> seen. Hebrews thought of
> words as being "holy" and not to be tampered with flippantly. Thus,
> creative "shifts" were
> rare and everyone knew what every word (with its limited vocabulary,
> this was not so hard)
> meant. Greeks appear to be more like us - they do not think words
> "holy" or sacrosanct, but
> rather in a utilitarian sense. Hebrew, insular and rigid. Greek, broad
> and flexible.
A language is formed by the history and culture of its
users. Greek has many words for one concept, Hebrew has generally
one word for several concepts. Hebrew and Aramaic, therefore,
seem to be richer in idiom than Greek. The idiom, therfore, may
be the break from the rigidity that you perceive. It is for this
reason that the retroversion of a translational Greek phrase,
either in the LXX of the Tanakh or the NT to the Hebrew or
Aramaic of its origin often distills to one semitic word,
while the Greek texts may have many variants. This is the
"stuff" of which textual criticism is based.
Jack
-- Dâman dith laych idneh dânishMA nishMA Jack Kilmon (jpman@accesscomm.net) http://scriptorium.accesscomm.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:39:26 EDT