From: Jack Kilmon (jkilmon@historian.net)
Date: Tue Jul 07 1998 - 23:40:13 EDT
Mr. Lemuel G. Abarte wrote:
> How about the adverb ANWQEN in John 3:3? If Jesus and Nicodemus conversed in Aramaic, "again" might be the proper translation since Jesus would have likely used 'vd - a numerical substantive. The response of Nicodemus concerning a second birth makes sense. The subsequent explanation of Jesus would have clarified the meaning of the adverb with the equivalent EK from a Hebrew original - perhaps mn?
Let's look at the Greek first. EAN MH TIS GENNHQH ANWQEN
UNLESS ANYONE BE BORN (FROM THE FIRST, BEGINNING) but understood as something "fresh from Heaven."
Now the Aramaic.
dan )n$ l) mtyld mn dr$ <deen anash lo meetheeled meen dresh>
But let's look at the parallel at Matthew 18:3 which is considered the more ancient rendering than
the parallels at Jn 3:3, Mk 10:15, Lk 18:17
EAN MH STRAFHTE KAI GENHSQE TA PAIDIA
According to Jeremias, STRAFHTE cannot mean "to be converted" since this is a rare usage
and EPISTREFEIN would have been likely. STREFESQAI instead rendered for <Aram>
twbh, hzr for "AGAIN"
Now to idiom. In Northern Aramaic, to be "born again" meant to change one's life around
or to change one's habits....sort of like our "turning over a new leaf."
Niqodmon would have spoken Southern Aramaic and may not have understood.
This logion and it's parallels are clear Semitisms so my earlier point in this thread
was that ALSO looking at the Aramaic substratum behind translational Greek in
the NT can do nothing but expand our exegetical efforts. The Greek is not ALL
there is. After all "Unless you turn over a new leaf, you cannot enter the
Kingdom of God." (g)
>
>
> If Jesus used m'l, Nicodemus would have been dumbfounded. "Being born from above", is seemingly foreign to Jewish thinking since only angels are the bny h'lhym.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jack Kilmon [SMTP:jkilmon@historian.net]
> Sent: Monday, July 06, 1998 1:30 PM
> To: Biblical Greek
> Cc: Biblical Greek
> Subject: Re: follow up
>
> CRAIG R HARMON wrote:
>
> > >scholars that take NT exegesis a step further by transposing
> > >the Semitic linguistic and cultural context behind the Greek often
> > >come closer to the ipsa verba than those Graecists who
> > >tendentiously cling to Greek exegesis alone.
> > >Jack
> > >jkilmon@historian.net
> >
> > That's an interesting statement. How do you know that they come closer to
> > the ipsissima verba? It rather assumes that anyone knows what those are
> > (unless, as I'm sure you're not) you mean the Greek text (which, let's face
> > it, is all we have). Anything else is conjecture pure and simple. IMO.
>
> I do not agree. The LXX is not compositional Greek. It is 100%
> translational Greek. The NT is a combination of compositional Greek
> with imbedments of translational Greek. The translational Greek retains,
> in many cases, Semitic structures but often loses the Semitic idiom.
> As a result, there are textual variants throughout the witnesses and
> these variants often distill to one word when retroverted back to
> Aramaic (NT) or compared to the MT. (LXX). To ignore this is to do only
> half a job in exegesis.
>
> Jack
> jkilmon@historian.net
>
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