NT quoting Septuagint? How does that work?

[GreenWhiteBlue]

Because poor, uneducated fishermen are not able to read koine greek let alone write a work like the gospels.

First, you seem not to know many orthodox Jews. For Jews, poverty has never been seen as an excuse for being unable to read the Torah. To learn Torah and to teach it is an important mitzvah, and there is no reason to think that the apostles could not read – and once you have mastered the concept of reading an alphabetic language, learning to read another is not that hard.

Secondly, Matthew was not a “poor uneducated fisherman”, but was a tax collector, which presumes an ability to read and write. It is clear from the narrative of Luke and Acts, along with references in Paul’s letters, that Luke was the author of both. Luke was a physician, which would indicate an ability not merely to read, but to read Greek. Papias tells us that Mark was Peter’s translator and scribe – which certainly presumes an ability to read – and leads us to the next point.

Third, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to you that the author of a book could dictate to a scribe. Paul’s references to sentences written in his own handwriting suggest that the rest of the letter is NOT in his handwriting – which means he was using an amanuensis. That, however, does not keep him from being the author of his letters, nor does it prevent anyone else who used a scribe from being described as the author of something.

 

[spina1953]

Hi Aristocles X: you are right on the money! I think that Peter could also read and write as well as James, Andrew and John since even as fishermen, they were in business together so would have had to know how to write just read. I also think the other Apostles knew how to read ad most also most likely spoke Greek as well as Hebrew and Aramaic.

 

[Mintaka]

Pretty much everybody in the Roman Empire spoke Greek. It was the normal business language. If you didn’t speak Greek, how the heck would you know what was going on?

Aramaic speakers were giving their Jewish Aramaic kids Greek names as well as Hebrew names, and apparently they usually went by their Greek names just like American Jews usually go by their English names instead of their Hebrew ones. Greek had been the trade language of the Mediterranean for several centuries by Jesus’ day.

Jesus was raised near a Greek-speaking city where he and his dad probably commuted to do housebuilding and carpentry while living in much-cheaper Nazareth; and he almost certainly spoke Greek to Pilate, Herod, all the Gentiles he talked to, and any Jew who wasn’t from Israel/Judea. Peter and his fishing buddies were hicks from the sticks, but they sold fish in the markets and they spoke Greek. Women bought food in the market, so they had to speak Greek. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to think that any of the apostles or disciples or people we meet in the NT didn’t speak Greek. It would be a big affectation to insist that you only spoke Aramaic and Hebrew. Roman soldiers would probably beat you up for being a barbarian who couldn’t understand civilized orders.

The Septuagint was created for use in Egypt, where Jesus spent several years as a youngster, and it was read extensively even in Judea by people who knew and used Greek more than Hebrew.

It was a lot easier to get hold of Septuagint copies than Hebrew copies of the Bible, because copying the actual Torah and other scriptures was a Very Big Thing that required great care. But anybody could copy the Septuagint, even a Gentile scribe who just copied books for money; and even Gentiles had copies to read, and so did many of the semi-public libraries of the Roman world. This probably included any semi-public libraries in Judea, or rich people’s houses, or synagogues with library resources for study. (If you were rich and had a library, letting poorer scholars copy out copies of books showed your benevolence. And if you weren’t benevolent, you might have a slave of yours make copies and sell them.)

 

[spina1953]

Pretty much everybody in the Roman Empire spoke Greek. It was the normal business language. If you didn’t speak Greek, how the heck would you know what was going on?

Aramaic speakers were giving their Jewish Aramaic kids Greek names as well as Hebrew names, and apparently they usually went by their Greek names just like American Jews usually go by their English names instead of their Hebrew ones. Greek had been the trade language of the Mediterranean for several centuries by Jesus’ day.

Jesus was raised near a Greek-speaking city where he and his dad probably commuted to do housebuilding and carpentry while living in much-cheaper Nazareth; and he almost certainly spoke Greek to Pilate, Herod, all the Gentiles he talked to, and any Jew who wasn’t from Israel/Judea. Peter and his fishing buddies were hicks from the sticks, but they sold fish in the markets and they spoke Greek. Women bought food in the market, so they had to speak Greek. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to think that any of the apostles or disciples or people we meet in the NT didn’t speak Greek. It would be a big affectation to insist that you only spoke Aramaic and Hebrew. Roman soldiers would probably beat you up for being a barbarian who couldn’t understand civilized orders.

The Septuagint was created for use in Egypt, where Jesus spent several years as a youngster, and it was read extensively even in Judea by people who knew and used Greek more than Hebrew.

It was a lot easier to get hold of Septuagint copies than Hebrew copies of the Bible, because copying the actual Torah and other scriptures was a Very Big Thing that required great care. But anybody could copy the Septuagint, even a Gentile scribe who just copied books for money; and even Gentiles had copies to read, and so did many of the semi-public libraries of the Roman world. This probably included any semi-public libraries in Judea, or rich people’s houses, or synagogues with library resources for study. (If you were rich and had a library, letting poorer scholars copy out copies of books showed your benevolence. And if you weren’t benevolent, you might have a slave of yours make copies and sell them.)

I will have to look it up but I think if I remember correctly Jesus only spoke Aramaic, but Jesus being the Son of God would have known what others said in what ever language they spoke and they would have understood because he would have done a miracle for them to understand, but it could be that Pilot and others may have spoke Aramaic or even Hebrew, but that’s just speculation on my part.

 

[GreenWhiteBlue]

I will have to look it up but I think if I remember correctly Jesus only spoke Aramaic,

You do not remember correctly. There is no explicit statement in the Gospels that Jesus only spoke Aramaic. On the other hand, you find Jesus reading the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah (which would have been written in Hebrew) in the synagogue, and you also find Jesus engaged in a dialogue with Pontius Pilate – who almost certainly spoke Greek, but not Aramaic.

 

[spina1953]

You do not remember correctly. There is no explicit statement in the Gospels that Jesus only spoke Aramaic. On the other hand, you find Jesus reading the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah (which would have been written in Hebrew) in the synagogue, and you also find Jesus engaged in a dialogue with Pontius Pilate – who almost certainly spoke Greek, but not Aramaic.

Hi Green White Blue: It was by tradition that it is said that Jesus spoke only Aramaic. yes, you are correct that there is no explicit statement of Jesus speaking Aramaic. While in most synagogues in Judea Hebrew was the spoken language, in the area of Galilee, Aramaic and Greek was spoken and often in synagogues where either Jews who spoke Aramaic or Greek those languages were used. As for the dialogue with Pontius Pilate, most likely He spoke Greek but it could be said that he had someone who spoke Aramaic translate for him, but that can only be implied by the use of understanding history of the times.
The Septuagint was written in Greek because there were many reek speaking Jews who did not speak either Aramaic or Hebrew as there were of the desporia and did not live in Judea , but in Galilee as well as in and around the Middle East and the Med. area. That being said Jesus being Divine as well as Human would have understood any and all languages that was spoken due to His divine nature and He would have caused anyone to understand Him no matter what language they spoke. The reason I think this is that in Acts Peter spoke as well as the other Apostles and the crowd understood them even though they spoke several languages, while the Apostles spoke in either Aramaic or Hebrew. So it would seem to me that as far as Jesus is concerned, that would have been the case also that others understood though they spoke different languages.

 

[gus]

This has nothing to do with it. Jesus and the disciples likely used the Hebrew in worship, which is why the “Jesus used the Septuagint” argument is just ridiculous coming from some armchair apologists.

It’s not whether Jesus used the Septuagint (which he likely didn’t) but what the New Testament authors quoted from. The New Testament is written in Greek, so it would only make sense to quote from the most popular Greek Old Testament translation in use at the time. Even if the New Testament writer puts an LXX quote into the mouth of Jesus, it’s just the author using the LXX as a suitable Greek text, no matter what language Jesus actually spoke.

I disagree you have zero evidence that Jesus didn’t use the the Septuagint or actually the same ancient Hebrew text that the ancient scholars used for that translation.
The Dead Sea Scrolls used by the Ancient Essenes contains many texts in Hebrew that actually are closer to Greek translation used by early Christians. Than the later Rabbinic texts. I’m not saying one was right and the other wrong but I’m concluding at least that multiple Hebrew versions were in use at the time of Christ.
There were actually 5 copies in Hebrew of Tobit.

 

[patrick457]

I disagree you have zero evidence that Jesus didn’t use the the Septuagint or actually the same ancient Hebrew text that the ancient scholars used for that translation.
The Dead Sea Scrolls used by the Ancient Essenes contains many texts in Hebrew that actually are closer to Greek translation used by early Christians. Than the later Rabbinic texts. I’m not saying one was right and the other wrong but I’m concluding at least that multiple Hebrew versions were in use at the time of Christ.

They’re actually just a fraction of the total (around 3.3%), even lesser than the manuscripts which have similarities with the Samaritan version of the Torah (about 6.5% of scrolls with pentateuchal books). Much of the texts either largely agree with the later Masoretic text (47% of the total) or don’t show any consistent agreement or disagreement with other witnesses (47%).

There were actually 5 copies in Hebrew of Tobit.

There were fragments from five copies of Tobit - four was in Aramaic and one was in Hebrew.