> At 03:17 PM 9/23/97 +1000, McKay family wrote:
>
> >If you haven't seen Jack Kilmon's Scriptorium, it is worth a look.
> >http://users.accesscomm.net/scriptorium/
> >
> >It contains reproductions of a few favourite texts in what Jack
> believes
> >may have been their original forms. He gives some interesting
> information
> >about each one, and has each available for sale on papyrus!
>
> I am curious about his methodology. How can you produce a
> reconstruction of
> Jesus' words in Aramaic that is more accurate than the earlier texts
> we have
> in Greek?
Jesus did not give the prayer in Greek. He gave it in his own
language, Aramaic.The Greek translation resulted in some clumsiness due
to the loss of the Aramaic idiom
in several places. Most notable is the Greek OFEILHMATA/OFEILETAIJ
which
did not transmit the meaning of the Aramaic xwbyn/lxybyn idiom. Even
Luke
recognized this problem and attempted to fix it by using the Greek
AMARTIAJ
in the first part of that petition to explain the Aramaic idiom for
OFEILONTI in
the second half. It is true, as you state, that the earliest *texts* we
have are in
Greek, just as the earliest texts we have for some Greek literature is
in Latin.
That does not speak, however, to the accuracy of translational Greek
for
the Aramaic originals. In this case, retroversion or reconstruction of
the
original language oftimes reveals a more accurate portrayal of the
original.
Jack
-- Dâman dith laych idneh dânishMA nishMA Jack Kilmon (jpman@accesscomm.net)