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Re: orion Spoken DSS Hebrew
I have been following this thread only half heartedly, but it is because
of the confused nature of this discussion.
First, do we or do we not agree that the Jews spoke several languages?
Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic depending upon their educational background? We
are after all dealing with Hellenistic civilization. Aramaic was a very
popular language used very heavily by the early Church due to the many
native speakers of that language. Like Coptic, Syriac was used to convert
the masses. Syriac is an Aramaic dialect still spoked today.
On Wed, 26 Nov 1997, John J. Hays wrote:
.
>
> On to Fred Cryer's image of a person who speaks language X at work, language
> Y at home and language Z to his god. The situation that Fred describes
here
> is almost exclusively a case involving immigrants, yet we know that the Jews
> were in the Jerusalem area for at least several centuries. The speaking of
> language Z also involves a probable anachronistic analogy to the longevity
> of church Latin. What sort of longevity might he be suggesting for the use
> of Hebrew in Jerusalem liturgies?
The Egyptians in Hellenistic times were notorious for having two faces, a
Greek speaking one and an Egyptian one. They spoke Egyptian at home and
wrote greek for official purposes. I expect a very similar trend in
Judea. Aramaic may have been the common tongue, but Hebrew may have had a
more sacred use for religious works. While dealing with the occupying
administration,they used Greek. The XYZ language formula is very valid and
very easily varified. In fact, it was a very typical trend in Eastern
Hellenized cultures, hence the definition of Hellinization being a mix of
Greek and local cuture. We know that even though most Egyptian papyrus
was in Greek, that the People still spoke Egytian/Coptic predominantly
until the Arab Conquest.
Harrison