From: David Moore (dvdmoore@dcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us)
Date: Wed Jan 03 1996 - 12:54:34 EST
On Wed, 3 Jan 1996, Indepen wrote:
>
> Actually, the question in my mind that prompted the post on hAMARTIA was
> this: Greek civilization did not have a strong sense of sin, and the word
> for it merely means a "missing of the mark." Given that, is Greek the
> wrong language for transmission of Jesus's revision of Judaic tradition?
> Is there not some basic incompatibility? Jesus spoke Aramaic and read
> Hebrew. Doesn't the Greek text already put us at a remove from what he
> actually said, even before the NT is translated into English or any other
> language?
> In many ways Islam is right to say, "If it is not in Arabic it is
> not the Koran."
There are a number of writings by competent linguists who have
been trained in biblical studies which address your concerns. Those who
are interested in the missionary enterprise of the church do an especially
thorough job of dealing with the possibilities and limitations of
translation. A helpful book of this latter sort (although it is now
rather old) is Eugene A. Nida, _Message and Mission_, (New York: Harper &
Row, 1960).
Regarding of the term hAMARTIA, we should remember that the Jewish
community of the 1st Century had a well-established (200-year?) tradition
of the use of Greek to express the theological concepts of the Hebrew
Bible. The New Testament draws considerably on that tradition, and such
terms as hAMARTIA and its cognates are strongly influenced by it.
IMHO, the elitist attitude that those who read the Scriptures in
translation can't hope to really understand them is far from the truth.
Judging from differences of opinion among scholars who do understand the
original languages of the Scripture, I would observe that other factors
also exert considerable influence.
David L. Moore Southeastern Spanish District
Miami, Florida of the Assemblies of God
dvdmoore@dcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us Department of Education
http://members.aol.com/dvdmoore
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