I don't see how the "critical edition" makes any difference. There's no disagreement on which Greek word is used.
Sometimes a critical edition has a different Greek word, but I checked the Nestle-Aland 28 ( I don't know if that's what they were using or not) and it does have the same Greek word Εβραιδι.
Old translations like the KJV certainly all say "Hebrew," I grant you that.
Old doesn't mean wrong. If I made a new copy of a codex and introduced changes in words that do not reflect the original, the new copy is not better.
I want to point out that the word "Hebrew" comes from a word that is better transliterated as "Ebrie," which comes from the Hebrew word "Eber," like the patriarch. Just looking at the Greek, I can see a similarity between Εβραις and "Ebrie," and hardly any at all with "Aram." I think this is a valid distinction, as do many translators new and old, such as the rather recent Berean Bible translation which has "Hebrew" in the
literal version, and "Aramaic" in their
study version, which is more interpretive than the literal. Both have footnotes referring to the other rendering.
"Satan" in the NT is a Greek name, albeit originally deriving from Aramaic or Hebrew. It declines as a Greek 3rd declension proper noun (with a Doric genitive): Σατανᾶς / Σατανᾶν / Σατανᾶ.
From memory, the LXX often has "the Devil" (ὁ διάβολος) rather than "Satan."
I found it, 2 Corinthians 12:7 uses just σαταν in "messenger of Satan" and not Satana. It's Strong's #G4566, also found in 1 Kings 11:14, 1 Kings 11:23, 1 Kings 11:25, 1 Chronicles 21:1. In each occurrence the Hebrew is שטן without the article.
Whereas the instances of ο διαβολος when referring to the devil in the Septuagint are almost all translated from השטן, the only exception being שטן without the article in Psalms 109:6.
Job 1:6, Job 1:7, Job 1:9, Job 1:12, Job 2:1, Job 2:2, Job 2:3, Job 2:4, Job 2:6, Job 2:7, Zechariah 3:1, Zechariah 3:2 are all השטן, which covers all the instances of השטן in the OT, except Job 1:8 where the Septuagint replaces השטן with an unrelated word.
The point is that the NT uses the phrase ο διαβολος too, where the Aramaic, at least in Matthew 4:1 where I checked, has קרצא (the accuser,) and not שטנא (satana.)
But in 2 Corinthians 12:7 in the Aramaic, it's not שטן like we would expect, it's שטנא (Satana) again! So the Greek has the pattern of the Septuagint (which is a Hebrew translation) and not the Aramaic.
Normally "Saul" (Σαῦλος) is a Greek name (and declines as such), but in Acts 9:4 it is quoted in the Aramaic or Hebrew form (Σαούλ). I'm not sure if you can tell anything from the name itself, but obviously the options in Acts 9:4 are:
- Jesus spoke in Aramaic, with an Aramaic name
- Jesus spoke in Aramaic, with a Hebrew name (quite likely, given Saul's background)
- Jesus spoke in Hebrew, with a Hebrew name (i.e. Ἑβραΐς means "Hebrew" here, although it usually means "Aramaic")
That's interesting that the Greek has a different form for the name there. The Aramaic is still שאול concerning the radicals. But it is a strange fact that names in Hebrew have variations in form. Do you find other variations for Hebrew names like this in the NT, like in Matthew 1, Luke 3?
I'm not decided on which it is, just so you know. I don't think it's a matter of life or death either. But I do think it's worth studying the origins of the various texts.
Come on, that really is a stretch. It's pretty clear that Aramaic was the usual language in 1st century Palestine. And the Aramaic quotes in the NT are mostly places where the original words (usually of Jesus) are quoted directly.
Could it be that Aramaic was the common tongue for the lower classes, and the Hebrew for the upper classes? Paul as a Pharisee would have had opportunity to study the Hebrew manuscripts up close, whereas say John the fisherman, probably not so much! So it could be that Paul would write in Hebrew every now and then, and John in Aramaic, and probably both in Greek.
Also, it's interesting that in Luke 4:16-21 Christ is reading from a book. I'd be curious to know if that was the Hebrew, or if it was an Aramaic translation, (and I've heard some contend that it could even be the Septuagint, which I think is the least likely.)
Not sure what you mean there. Do you mean oldest Aramaic NT manuscript? It seems clear that the Aramaic NT was translated from the Greek.
Or did you mean the language? The switch from Hebrew to Aramaic as the Jewish language is much older, with the more recent parts of the OT being written in (or partly in) Aramaic.
That's not exactly the case. Here are the parts in the OT that are in Aramaic I'm aware of (there may be more): Daniel 2:4-7:28, Ezra 4:8-6:18, 7:12-26, Jeremiah 10:11, Genesis 31:47, and perhaps a smattering of a few names here in there in Chronicles. There's not a single book that is entirely Aramaic, and you'll notice that it can be context based when the text switches to Aramaic, e.g. Ezra 4:7 right before a letter written in Aramaic starts.
Keep in mind that Aramaic is an old language that was spoken by whom we call the Syrians, whose capital is Damascus, who had many interactions with Israel recorded in Kings, Chronicles, and else where in history, and that apparently the Persians were communicating to the Hebrews with it in Ezra.
The Aramaic copy I'm looking at I think is from about 200 A.D. (which is before the oldest extant Greek copy if I'm not incorrect) and it probably does have elements of translation from the Greek in it. Like I said in my first post, I think it's very reasonable to think that the NT autographs of the Gospels and letters were written in multiple languages, and translated into one language when a compilation was made.
