Frank Luke

7,071 reputation

11735

bio	website	crossandcosmos.com
	location	Knoxville, IA
	age	36
visits	member for	1 year, 4 months
	seen	May 13 at 20:37
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I am a web programmer by day (PHP) and work on sermons and teaching material in the evenings.

I attended Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri, for a Master of Arts in Theological Studies and a Master of Divinity. I am an associate pastor at a small church in Iowa. While in seminary, my emphasis was on Old Testament studies, but Dr. Wave Nunnally introduced me to the rabbinics. Those have become a special interest as well.

I also enjoy apologetics and was a very active member of the apologetics.org forum before it went defunct.

	7,071 reputation	bio	website	crossandcosmos.com	visits	member for	1 year, 4 months
11735 badges		location	Knoxville, IA		seen	May 13 at 20:37

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Mar 14	comment	Who were the Hellenistic and Hebraic Jews of Acts 6:1? 1 Maccabees lists the sins of Judea that required internal reform. #1 on the list was Hellenization: removing the marks of their circumcision, attending the gymnasium (a place to discuss Greek philosophy as well as work out naked-serious problems), and leaving the covenant. vv. 11-15 (quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/r/rsv/rsv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=4219672). Things got worse from there (v. 54 tells of the final straw-a foreign offering upon the altar in the Temple).
Mar 13	comment	How do Aramaic primacists respond to Greek primacy arguments? Josephus does NOT say that the Romans HAD TO have him translate. Here's the quote: "And being sensible that exhortations are frequently more effectual than arms, [Titus] persuaded them to surrender the city, now in a manner already taken, and thereby to save themselves, and sent Josephus to speak to them in their own language; for he imagined they might yield to the persuasion of a countryman of their own." It doesn't say that the Jews couldn't understand the Romans. It says that Titus thought a Jew could persudae Jews better than a Roman. sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/war-5.htm
Mar 13	comment	How do Aramaic primacists respond to Greek primacy arguments? according to your argument, every time "Greek" appears in the NT, the Peshitta has a word meaning "Arameans" who "are Aramaic speaking Gentiles." In Acts 6, the first deacons are chosen because of complaints from the elleniston, whom you say are really Aramaic-speaking Gentiles. However, the Spirit had not yet compelled the Apostles to take the good news to the gentiles. That wouldn't happen until Acts 10. These aren't gentiles in Acts 6. They are Jews who speak Greek.
Mar 13	comment	How do Aramaic primacists respond to Greek primacy arguments? They had Greek names: Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon (though I have one source that says this name might be of Hebrew origin), Parmenas, and Nicolas. The last is a proselyte from Antioch. This means he was born a gentile but converted to Judaism. Under the laws of the time, he was considered a Jew with full legal standing (this did not change social standing, but legally, he was a Jew).
Mar 13	comment	How do Aramaic primacists respond to Greek primacy arguments? -1. I thought a lot about this post. In the end, I voted down because it is based on old research, and is just flat wrong in postulating that Jews outside the Land did not speak Greek. Even in the Land, it was spoken. We see this in the names of the first deacons. When a dispute arose between the Greek-speaking believers and the Hebrew-speaking believers, seven men were chosen to help in the ministry. Note that as the Spirit had not sent Peter to the gentiles, these believers were Jews.
Mar 13	comment	How do Aramaic primacists respond to Greek primacy arguments? In Antiquities XX 11.2, Josephus is referring to Jews in the Land do not encourage speaking Greek. It was known there, and it was used for commerce but not religious instruction. However, to the west, Greek was the lingua franca. Here's what Josephus says, "for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations." Can you provide the quote where Josephus says Jews don't speak Greek?
Mar 13	comment	How do Aramaic primacists respond to Greek primacy arguments? A lot of these so-called problems go away when you start looking into Mishnaic Hebrew. Sone' is even Biblical Hebrew. I lay out the archeological, literary, and historical evidence for Mishnaic Hebrew being in use by the common people here: hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/4146/…
Mar 13	comment	What arguments exist that would refute the theory concerning Aramaic primacy of the New Testament? @Sarah, it seems that the earliest reference for a Syriac translation (and not the Peshitta, even) is AD 160-180. However, that is not based on having a manuscript from that time, but a quote of Eusebius. In Church History IV xxii, he refers to the "Gospel according to the Hebrew and the Syriac Gospel." (Please note that he here distinguishes between Hebrew and Syriac.) In fact, it is known that there were versions of the Aramaic that existed before the Peshitta (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshitta#Old_Syriac_texts). That rules out Apostolic authority on the Peshitta.
Mar 13	comment	What arguments exist that would refute the theory concerning Aramaic primacy of the New Testament? @Sarah, my most recent edit addresses some of this. Almost wherever Aramaic was spoken, so to was Greek. Going into that one language covered a lot of territory and hit many more people. Most people to the west of Judea didn't speak Aramaic. However, both directions spoke Greek. In theory, both of your items are possible. They could have been translated early into Aramaic, but we have no manuscript evidence of this. What we have is the tradition of a group who want their work to be first. Most books of the NT have an audience in mind. Those first audiences were in Greek cities.
Mar 13	comment	What arguments exist that would refute the theory concerning Aramaic primacy of the New Testament? @Sarah, I've seen their examples. Those problems can be answered just as easily by Jesus speaking Mishnaic Hebrew and the Apostles thinking in it. For example, sone' exists in Hebrew from the (OT) Biblical period throughout the Mishnaic (it may be in Modern Hebrew as well, but I have not studied that language). Likewise, "son of peace." The Hebrew would be "ben shalom." Shalom carries the same range of meaning as its Aramaic cousin.
Mar 13	revised	What arguments exist that would refute the theory concerning Aramaic primacy of the New Testament? Added bibliography
Mar 13	revised	What arguments exist that would refute the theory concerning Aramaic primacy of the New Testament? Added bibliography
Mar 13	revised	What arguments exist that would refute the theory concerning Aramaic primacy of the New Testament? Added paragraph about the early manuscripts.
Mar 13	comment	What arguments exist that would refute the theory concerning Aramaic primacy of the New Testament? The problem this raises for AP is that they argue that ALL of the NT comes from Aramaic. If even one book is shown to be in Greek, then their argument falls flat. Obviously, the Scriptures were translated for the regions they were being taken to. Those that were going east would be taken from Greek to Aramaic. But we have no evidence for Aramaic originals while there is plenty for Greek originals.
Mar 13	comment	What arguments exist that would refute the theory concerning Aramaic primacy of the New Testament? Another part of the problem with Aramaic primacy (and I should edit this in) is that there are NT fragments in Greek that are older than anything in Aramaic. Very early fragments. P52 (AD ~125) is older by centuries than any copy of the Peshitta that has survived, and even older than the work in the colophon that the Peshitta claims to come from. There is a fragment of Mark in Greek that has not been publicized yet that "almost certainly" comes from the first century. That's huge.
Mar 13	comment	What arguments exist that would refute the theory concerning Aramaic primacy of the New Testament? @Sarah, there are people who argue for parts of the NT to have been in Hebrew originally. Papias, the early church father argues such for Matthew (and that undermines the claims of the Aramaic primacists). Dr. Nunnally teaches that Luke had a Hebrew source for the books of Luke and Acts (up to chapter 16 when Luke joins the missionary party). It is also evident in much of the NT that the authors were used to thinking in Hebrew even though they wrote in Greek.
Mar 13	comment	What arguments exist that would refute the theory concerning Aramaic primacy of the New Testament? @Sarah, you are correct about the trade and coins. The Hebrew on the coins also indicates that Hebrew was known by the common people. You put words on currency that people can understand. If Hebrew were an academic language at the time, then the coins should have also had Aramaic. That they did not (with the exception of AJ's one series), tells us that Hebrew thrived in the Land among the common people.
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