If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

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mlinssen
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by mlinssen »

StephenGoranson wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 2:47 am I mention without necessarily endorsing the following: if interested in a proposal of a Hebrew biography of Jesus used by Luke (and Luke as prior to Mark and Matthew) see works by Robert L. Lindsay and David Flusser and some of their students; searching “Jerusalem School hypothesis” or “Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research” will lead to bibliography.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lisle_Lindsey

Lindsey is the author of A Hebrew Translation of The Gospel of Mark. The book is notable for its solution to the Synoptic Problem. He argues the existence of a Proto-Mark gospel ("Ur Markus"), which was a highly literal translation from an originally Hebrew source into Greek, which he calls the Proto-Narrative. The text of the Gospel of Luke is the most faithful to and best preserves this Proto-Narrative. Especially in the "minor agreements" between Matthew and Luke against Mark, it is evident that Mark deviates paraphrastically from the Proto-Narrative. Mark's paraphrases Graecize the text, including many phrases that are "non-Hebraic", being common in Greek but lacking an idiomatic counterpart in Hebrew. Luke knows this Mark-like Hebraic Proto-Narrative, but does not know the Gospel of Mark as we know it today.[2]

While it is easy to show that Luke knows a Proto-Mark (which happens to be closer to Hebrew) and not Mark, Lindsey speculates further with more surprising conclusions, and argues for Lucan priority. Thus, the first gospel texts are in Hebrew. These were translated into Greek as the Proto-Narrative and the collection of sayings, often called Q. Luke knows PN and Q. Lindsey argues Mark knows both PN and Luke, as well as other New Testament documents, including Acts, James, and Paul's Colossians 1&2, Thessalonians 1&2, and Romans. Then Matthew knows both PN and Mark (but not Luke). Matthew is faithful to both PN and Mark and weaves their texts together, thus often agrees with Luke through PN against Mark.

Despite the surprising claim that Mark depends partially on Luke, Lindsey emphasizes that his solution to the Synoptic Problem agrees substantially with the majority who hypothesize Marcan priority, since this Proto-Narrative is identical with "Ur-Markus", and that all three synoptic gospels - Luke, Mark, and Matthew - depend directly on the Proto-Narrative.


While it's a fun story and certainly complies with most of the theories, "a highly literal translation" will not deviate from the text in any sense - as I have demonstrated with my extremely literal (and fully normalised) translation of Thomas. It becomes less legible, yes. But it preserves the text without any issue. Consider logion 22, Lambdin's and mine:

(35) Jesus said, "It is not possible for anyone to enter the house of a strong man and take it by force unless he binds his hands; then he will (be able to) ransack his house."


35 said IS there-is-not strength of one go-inward to the house of the strong and he take he of forearm Unless and he bind [dop] his(PL) hand Then he will move-out of his house

That is my untouched, literal, fully normalised translation where every Coptic word gets translated into a unique English word, and vice versa - it doesn't get more scientific and abstract than that, completely dictated by rules without allowing for any exception. I could even tweak it a bit, bit is evident how this doesn't interfere with the source text at all.
Now, the bold and italic part, that is where the fun is at!
The Coptic word is ϫⲛⲁϩ, https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C7271

1. (En) forearm, wing
(Fr) avant-bras, aile
(De) Unterarm, Flügel
Bibliography: CD 777a; CED 317; KoptHWb 428; DELC 329a; ChLCS 103a
2. (En) strength, violence
(Fr) force, violence, effort
(De) Stärke, Gewalt, Anstrengung
Bibliography: CD 777a; KoptHWb 428; DELC 329a; ChLCS 103a

Lambdin uses a translation for this noun that comes secondary: force.
I use the primary translation: forearm

That is what changes all of the logion, its interpretation, and its meaning - not the literal way of translating. One could even argue that my literal translation is better, as it uses the primary meaning of that word, whereas Lambdin creates an interpretation by using the secondary meaning, which always is less likely than the primary one

There is a lot more that I could add to the quoted part above, but this is the essence to its main argument.
One other remark on the rest though: Luke and Matthew reaching the absolutely amazing verbatim agreement that they do naturally couldn't possibly be explained by both of them drawing independently from a Hebrew source
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by mlinssen »

StephenGoranson wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 2:47 am I mention without necessarily endorsing the following: if interested in a proposal of a Hebrew biography of Jesus used by Luke (and Luke as prior to Mark and Matthew) see works by Robert L. Lindsay and David Flusser and some of their students; searching “Jerusalem School hypothesis” or “Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research” will lead to bibliography.
https://archive.org/details/a-hebrew-tr ... 6/mode/2up

Page 85 is where the fun starts. Greek on the left, Hebrew to the right, and it goes on through page 159 where Mark ends.
Impossible for me to comment on, my Greek is fair but my Hebrew non existent
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by StephenGoranson »

Though my knowledge of Coptic is admittedly very limited, it seems to me exceedingly improbable that a complex gospel would appear in Coptic before any gospel would appear in Greek. (And, maybe, compare the Demotic Gospel of Thomas hoax thread for an even more extreme case, in which a proposal seemed too early.)

Also, the quite manifold claims, mlinssen, that you have made for this text, imo, themselves amount to reason for caution. Have you ever stopped to consider, or to ask someone you trust, whether some of these claims amount, in part, to delusion?
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by mlinssen »

StephenGoranson wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 6:15 am Though my knowledge of Coptic is admittedly very limited, it seems to me exceedingly improbable that a complex gospel would appear in Coptic before any gospel would appear in Greek. (And, maybe, compare the Demotic Gospel of Thomas hoax thread for an even more extreme case, in which a proposal seemed too early.)

Also, the quite manifold claims, mlinssen, that you have made for this text, imo, themselves amount to reason for caution. Have you ever stopped to consider, or to ask someone you trust, whether some of these claims amount, in part, to delusion?
Hi Stephen, thanks for engaging.
my knowledge of Coptic is admittedly very limited
1. My interactive translation of Thomas has largely solved the language barrier there, every word hyperlinks to the free and publicly accessible KELLIA, initiative of the German University of Goettingen, that in turn gives you a single click access to the renowned Coptic Dictionary of Walter E. Crum, as well as Perseus Tufts that gives you a similarly free access to the renowned Greek dictionaries of Liddell Scott Jones, Middle Liddell, and even others like that.
The translation not only gives you the transcription in perfect form, but also shows which word is chosen that leads to the dictionaries. This is not some half-assed amateurish translation that you can only take for granted, this is a fully verifiable one, and also one with a full and complete index AND concordance, both of which are available in reverse as well: both English-Coptic and Coptic-English.
There is nothing, nor a single word or even letter, in my entire translation that one has to second-guess at - perhaps one wonders why I picked word X while word Y if demonstrates to be available as well, sure. That can't be avoided in any language, where almost every single word has more than one definition

1a. In that light your undoubtedly true claim here becomes much less of a threshold, I think. What do you think?
it seems to me exceedingly improbable that a complex gospel would appear in Coptic before any gospel would appear in Greek
2. I couldn't agree with you more! To the best of my knowledge, any and all Christian texts that made it into the NT started out in Greek, and there are many Greek texts that originated in that same language and didn't make it in there, at least not in the final version. I know of no Coptic text that was ever even considered to be "canonised", to use a word that perhaps is anachronistic throughout the centuries, but you and I know what is meant by it, I think.

2a. So yes, I agree with you here. What do you think about what I say?
the quite manifold claims, mlinssen, that you have made for this text, imo, themselves amount to reason for caution
3. I have made quite a few indeed, over the past months, and I have made quite a few in the past days. I am inclined to think that you don't mean each and every one of them, but you don't give me anything to go on here. I could start at any of them but it works seem more efficient if you name just a couple.

3a. What do you think?
Have you ever stopped to consider, or to ask someone you trust, whether some of these claims amount, in part, to delusion?
4. That is an extraordinary question, especially coming from you. It is a manifold question, so let me take it in parts.
4.1 Have I stopped to consider? Most certainly, many times - I do nothing but, really. I read the texts, in their original language, and I look at their meaning - with each text isolated in their own vacuum. I think of nothing but the content of Thomas when I consider Thomas. I think of nothing but the content of Mark when I look at Mark. When I compare the two, I think of nothing but the two.
4.2 Is there someone I trust? I trust most people, in fact that is where I start out, and only when my trust proves to be misplaced is it that I withdraw it.
4.3 Delusion? Now that is an unusual word in your vocabulary as I have come to know it on this site, and it is an awkward word in the field of research. What is delusion? Something I see and others don't, and vice versa?

4a. Quite a few attempts at answering this complicated question. What do you think? Can you give at least one example of a claim by me that might seem delusional?
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by StephenGoranson »

Reply to mlinssen (above, Wed Jul 07, 2021 11:17 am; there's no need to repeat text that’s easily available).

Hi.

I am grateful for dictionaries and translations and use them both almost every day. So, thanks.
But no dictionary is perfect, and no translation is perfect. My favorite dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary online, at the word “kibosh, n.” cites a book I coauthored, and I admit that that pleased me, even though some other text also included right there in that revised entry is, at best, debatable. I’m no expert in judging translations from Coptic, but, generally, I don’t agree that atomizing, word by word, is always the best way for all purposes (e.g., because of idioms; because of etymological fallacy; etc.). Also, I don’t agree that every world should always have just one equivalent in the translation. J. H. Charlesworth required this for some Dead Sea Scroll translations, which might not have helped, but I digress.

To get back to direct reply, you are quite right that using the word “delusion” is a big step, at least for me. I hesitated to use that word for several days. Even though this forum sometimes seems like, say, the stereotyped wild west or like, well, other similies that I’ll skip for now. Not you, for example, but arguing here for—insisting on, as if a given—a negative, like maryhelena and Giuseppe, despite their differences, and others here do, seems to me merely doggedly demanding a different dogma.

You asked for an example. Fair enough. To set this up, perhaps we can agree that--value judgements aside--whatever your opinion of Christianity, and whatever your definition of Christianity, it is (or they, the varieties, are) pretty widespread and deeply rooted.
OK, here’s one example, from the “Did Mark Bottom Out?...” thread (Wed Jun 30, 2021 5:55 am), you wrote, in part: “….what I propose is the very end of Christianity.”
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by mlinssen »

Hi Stephen, I'll follow your lead then

Nothing deeply rooted on this side, I don't care about Christianity at all, and it isn't until 2 to 3 years ago that it crossed my path again after decades of absence

The IS of Thomas and the Jesus of Christianity can't co-exist: they share nothing. Either the former was first and the latter a fake invention on top of that, or vice versa

As I have now become absolutely convinced (and can argument to a great extent) that the first scenario applies, that implies, in concrete terms, that Thomas wrote his text simply as a text about a Dionysian character personifying his protagonist who wants to instruct the reader in reaching liberation from the Ego as well as the Self [EDIT: and all that against an Egyptian background, put in a Judaic setting].
Awfully concise, that is what Thomas is about

And with that, everything Christian would be demonstrated to be fable and fiction for the full 100%.
And that, I believe, would be defined as "the very end of Christianity" - which may or may not happen, as religions don't usually bother much with facts, but it all depends on how widespread this story will come to be

So it's not I who propose to make an end to Christianity, that would certainly be delusional indeed - apart from not being worth my time and energy
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

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Peter Kirby wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 10:14 pm Interesting. Thanks! Looking forward to seeing what you find.
I find Hermann Raschke's conclusion the easiest to accept, certainly easier than the view that our gospels were originally written in Hebrew or derived from a written Hebrew source. At the conclusion of his discussion of Aramaic or Hebrew puns lying behind a retroverted text (the case for such retroversion in principle is not circular as some have proposed), other puns working in both Aramaic and Greek, and others that work in Greek only in the gospels and cannot have any Aramaic equivalent... and reasons the puns and other word games are not generally obvious when one listens to a reading of the gospels..... and after considering all possible variants (e.g. two versions of a gospel being composed, one in each language....)
  • 1. the basic language of the Gospel of Mark is Greek.
  • 2. the Gospel of Mark was written between two languages, i.e. the author was a bilingual Aramaic Hellenist who wrote in Greek.
From pages 19-21 of Raschke's Die werkstatt des Markusevangelisten
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by ebion »

Last edited by ebion on Tue Nov 28, 2023 1:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by rgprice »

Holy resurrection. But yeah, the case against having originally been in Aramaic seems quite strong. Obviously in Mark we have phrases that are translated into Aramaic by the writer. That wouldn't make any sense if the original were already in Aramaic. Also, there are scriptural references that seem to draw from the LXX as opposed to Aramaic sources.

That the writer was himself bilingual and perhaps himself thought in Aramaic and who composed in his head in Aramaic, while writing in Greek, seems to solve many issues.

My question along these lines is this: What do we find in the works of Josephus? We know that Greek was not the first language of Josephus. He wrote in Greek but his first language was Aramaic. How does the text of Josephus compare to the Gospels in terms of "loan words", "word play", etc.
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by ebion »

neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Jun 11, 2021 10:27 pm On the other hand, there is some work completed by a French scholar that shows if one replaces much of the Greek text of Mark and Matthew with Hebrew/Aramaic then one does encounter a significant number of puns and various wordplays that do not appear in the Greek. I'm cautious with this "discovery" because I am not entirely sure of its validity. It's certainly intriguing, though. If there is anything to it, I am more inclined to suspect gospels being composed in Hebrew/Aramaic initially rather than copying a common source -- the theologies of each of our gospels appear to be too distinct to be explained by different translations.
Look at the book cited in Was the New Testament Originally Written in Aramaic?, and he has a whole chapter on Poetry and Word Plays with 28 examples. He analyzes some as examples of wordplays that would not work in Hebrew.

I haven't redone them for here because the KJV Howlers are so strong and no one has refuted one yet.
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