Re: GRAFH

Micheal Palmer (mwpalmer@earthlink.net)
Thu, 6 Mar 1997 22:21:03 -0800 (PST)

At 8:01 AM -0600 2/9/97, John Oaklands wrote:
>As time has allowed I have followed with much interest the discussions on
>GRAFH and have even enjoyed the can of worms opened up. I'm not sure
>however that I've read everything written in on the topic, so hope I'm not
>duplicating anything.
>
>Has anyone thought of the possible Hebrew word behind Paul's use of GRAFH
>here? Could GRAFH be a reference in 2 Tim 3:16 to the k'thuvym (writings,
>scriptures) in the triple title of the Hebrew OT, as a applying not merely
>to the Psalms section but also to the whole OT?
>
>Since Paul is writing to a Greek in Greek and making use of the LXX it would
>seem to me that what he is possibly suggesting is that the LXX GRAFH are
>just as inspired as the HEBREW GRAFH or k'thuvym.
>
>Does this make sense to anyone else?

Yes it does make sense, but it is important to recognize that we do not
know for sure how much of the k'thuvhm was considered scripture in Paul's
day. The Hebrew canon was not closed until later and it was precisely this
section, the writings, which was still in debate. Certainly the Torah would
have been universally accepted as scripture and the Prophets would have
been widely recognized as such (though not by the Sadducees), but the
k'thuvim (Writings) was not a closed category yet.

I'm not sure what importance this acknowledgment might have for
understanding the way the author of 2 Timothy would have used GRAFH, but I
do think it is necessary if we are going to consider the posibility that he
ment by it something like what that term represented for the Greek
translation of the Hebrew scriptures.

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Micheal W. Palmer
Religion & Philosophy
Meredith College

mwpalmer@earthlink.net
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