Greek vs. English: which one is better?

Steve,

Do you think the conversation between Jesus and Peter in John 21 was in Greek or Hebrew?

Jesus' languages were Greek and Aramaic, and the gospel writers were careful to record and translate (into Greek) whenever Jesus spoke Aramaic. Even close to death, Jesus does not slip into Hebrew, but into Aramaic as He calls out to God.

It is a nice idea that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, but there is no manuscript evidence for this. Surely with the 100s of Greek copies of Matthew there are, one Hebrew form could be found.

You are right that neither of us were there. So I choose to build my opinions on the basis of hundreds of manuscripts, you choose to build yours on a supposition.

If no-one knows why is it important that we accept your point of view? Why is there so much literature going into the shades of meaning of Hebrew words by your own admission we don't know were even in the writer's heads?

Steve,

Do you think the conversation between Jesus and Peter in John 21 was in Greek or Hebrew?

Jesus' languages were Greek and Aramaic, and the gospel writers were careful to record and translate (into Greek) whenever Jesus spoke Aramaic. Even close to death, Jesus does not slip into Hebrew, but into Aramaic as He calls out to God.

It is a nice idea that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, but there is no manuscript evidence for this. Surely with the 100s of Greek copies of Matthew there are, one Hebrew form could be found.

You are right that neither of us were there. So I choose to build my opinions on the basis of hundreds of manuscripts, you choose to build yours on a supposition.

If no-one knows why is it important that we accept your point of view? Why is there so much literature going into the shades of meaning of Hebrew words by your own admission we don't know were even in the writer's heads?

This is admittedly a bit of speculation on my part, but just to bolster your point, I believe the total number if early church NT manuscripts found total somewhere near 28,000 at this point. So, conceivably there could be thousands (not hundreds) copies of the Gospel of Matthew written in Greek.

That said knowing the Greek would probably be optimal, but when Paul quotes from the OT, written in Hebrew (mostly), he does so through the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew. The inclusion of translated test into scripture itself, tells me there is divine permission to translate God’s words into other languages as necessary.

The other side of that coin is to fall in the pit that Islam finds itself in at the moment. They believe that the Koran cannot be translated from its original language and remain the words of their god. This is a hinderance that the true God didn’t place on His people.

I guess that why paul call it dung! Phil.3;8

Paul never called the scripture 'dung'. He was referring to his attempts to attain rightousness through his works by the law.