Originally posted by edpobre
The Lamsa version
GEORGE M. LAMSA: Christian Scholar or Cultic Torchbearer? Cont'd
by John P. Juedes
Wide Use of Greek in Israel
Languages gain wide use through conquest and contact, which accounts for the prevalence of Spanish and English in the world today. Greek was used throughout the Mediterranean area and Persia from 335 B.C. to A.D. 200 because of Alexander the Great's conquests. The Seleucid dynasty imposed Greek rule and ways over the Mideast from 280-63 B.C. and, with Herod, founded over 30 Greek cities in Israel. Some Greek rulers, especially Antiochus Epiphanes, aggressively attempted to Hellenize the Jews (i.e., force acceptance of Greek speech and ways on them), killing thousands who tried to maintain their Hebrew culture and religion. Greeks occupied Palestine for 270 years, not seven years as Lamsa ignorantly maintained. Thus Greek was used almost universally in the New Testament world, dominating government, commerce, and instruction.37 Even slaves and farmers of less-Hellenized areas knew Greek as a second language.
Archaeology attests to the widespread use of Greek. Virtually every coin issued by the Greek rulers (363-35 B.C.), Jewish Herodian Kings (37 B.C.-A.D. 70), and Romans was struck in Greek.38 One study of inscriptions in Palestine listed 168, of which 114 are in Greek only. Greek appeared in Jewish ossuaries (stone chests which held the bones of the dead) and on the Ophel synagogue, indicating that ordinary Jews used Greek.39 Moreover, key trade routes passed through Israel, requiring knowledge of Greek to service them. Letters that Jewish rebel leader Bar Cochba wrote to his lieutenants (A.D. 132-135) show that these insurgents used Greek as easily as Aramaic and Hebrew.40
The oldest biblical manuscript known today is not the (as Lamsa holds), but a Hebrew copy of Isaiah written about 100 B.C. We now have scores of Greek portions of the New Testament written before Lamsa's. (More will be said about this later.) The Estrangeli alphabet Lamsa used was not even created until at least the second century A.D.
Jews outside of Israel could not read Hebrew, so they translated it into a Greek version called the Septuagint (referred to as the "LXX" today) which became the "Authorized Version" of the Bible for Greek-speaking Jews and Christians. More than half of the Old Testament passages found in the New Testament are quoted from the Greek LXX, not from an Aramaic Targum or Hebrew text. Even Matthew, written by a Jew for Jews, quotes primarily from the LXX and uses 76 words found nowhere but the LXX.41 The vocabulary and style of the LXX dominates the NT, even though it was archaic at the time. Common "Jewish" words, including "Synagogue," "Sanhedrin," and "hypocrite" (meaning "actor," for which Hebrew has no equivalent due to a Talmudic prohibition against theater) are actually Greek words. The Babylonian Talmud mentions the rabbis' use of Greek proverbs and their families who learned Greek (Sota 49b). The 1,500 Greek loan words in Talmudic literature indicate that rabbis knew Greek.42
Gospel history also suggests common use of Greek. Jesus and 11 of His disciples came from "Galilee of the Gentiles" and Jesus used the Greek city Capernaum as His headquarters. The tax collector, Matthew, and fishermen like Peter and John needed Greek to do business. On Pentecost, Persians, Mesopotamians, and Medes were surprised to hear the disciples speak in their own tongues (by the Spirit's power), indicating that their languages were very different from Galilean Aramaic. Yet, Peter was able to address them about this phenomenon in a common language: most certainly Greek. A special name, the "Hellenists" (NIV: "Grecian Jews," Acts 6:1) was used for Jews who spoke Greek, and each of the seven deacons who served them had Greek names.
The evidence against the Lamsa position is overwhelming. Greek was commonly used by all types of people in Israel and the Mediterranean world in Jesus' day. The apostles knew Greek and wanted all nations to believe. They had no reason to write in a politically and racially-colored dialect (Aramaic) when the universally known Greek existed. They wrote as bilingual men, intimately acquainted with the Greek version of the Scriptures; they thought in Aramaic (and/or Hebrew) and wrote in the Greek style of the LXX.
LAMSA'S TRANSLATION: ACCURATE OR FAULTY?
Lamsa's distrust of anything Greek and his personal presuppositions also produced bias and error in his translation.
On the surface Lamsa appeared to regard all of the Bible highly. However, he distinguishes between the authoritative teachings of Jesus and what he considered to be the inferior doctrine of His disciples. The apostles, he claims, were unduly influenced by Jewish religion, traditions, laws, and practices, and so reveal human weaknesses in what they wrote.
Lamsa says some Scriptures were lost and others were destroyed (e.g., burned) or rejected because they were "contrary to the new doctrines and dogmas" adopted at the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325.43 He says certain passages were "deliberately forged" and added to the books of the Bible.44 The Greek texts as well as subsequent Bible versions, he adds, are corrupted by mistranslations and contradictions due to ignorant translators and the texts' transition from Aramaic to Greek, Greek to Latin, and Latin to English.45 Lamsa also asserts that the two oldest biblical manuscripts known today are Pe[wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]ta Aramaic texts from the fifth and seventh centuries, making Greek texts appear to be later and corrupt.46 Thus, despite Lamsa's superficial respect for the Bible, he distrusts, condemns, and changes portions of it.
Scholars universally agree that the New Testament was written in Greek and that we now possess scores of manuscripts which were written before this. Most pastors have copies of the Greek New Testament (the UBS or Nestle-Aland text) which compiles readings of several hundred old manuscripts in Greek, Aramaic, and other languages. The reader can refer to this to find the names, content, dates of production, and current location of these texts. Their dates are determined by many factors, so a claim made by Lamsa47 that deceitful translators cut the dates out of texts to make them appear older is false. Most contemporary versions (NIV, NAS, etc.) translate the UBS text directly into English (or another language), so Lamsa's assertion that the Bible was corrupted by being translated from Greek to Latin to English is inaccurate.
This Nestle-Aland Greek text does cite Syriac manuscripts where the readings are valuable for reference. Lamsa, on the other hand, follows only the Pe[wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]ta, ignoring the many earlier Greek and Old Syriac texts. However, since it does not include the books of 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation, Lamsa had to use later Syriac texts, risking corruption due to age. Even if the it had all the books, it would still be flawed because it is not an original or even a new translation of the Greek into Aramaic, but is a late fourth century revision of superior Old Syriac versions.48 Therefore, one of several weaknesses in Lamsa's translation is blemished on which it is based.
Mistranslations
At the time Lamsa began to translate, popular contemporary versions such as the New International Version and Today's English Version (Good News Bible) had not yet been published. Hence, part of the popularity of Lamsa's version was due to its clear style and clarification of some of the obscurities in the King James Version.
Lamsa's version does offer some insight into Aramaic words and idioms in the Bible. However, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin idioms are also common in the Bible, so the reader benefits most by acquaintance with all four of these cultures and languages. Lamsa's understanding of Scripture is warped by his insistence on using Aramaic alone and his assumption that his twentieth century Iranian Syriac exactly matches fifth century Aramaic.
The most disturbing feature of the Lamsa Bible is that he often allows his theology and opinions to dictate his renderings. For example, he does not believe that people personally live after death, so he inserts the word "death" in places the writer used "sleep" (1 Cor. 15:6,18,20). Most passages which refer to the Trinity and Christ's deity are left intact, but Lamsa changes the wording of John 1:18, Acts 20:28, Micah 5:2, and Hebrews 7:3 because they contradict his Nestorian presuppositions. His anti-Greek bias shows as he repeatedly replaces references to "Greeks" with "Arameans."
Cont'd
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