Original language of the Bible

Mohsin · 03-18-2004, 07:55 PM

Asalam-u-Alaikum. May peace and guidance be upon you all.

A question was asked that what is the original language of the Bible. The Jews, Christians and the Muslims believe that the Old Testimony was revealed to the Prophet Moses(P.B.U.H). The Christians and the Muslims believe that the New Testimony was revealed on Jesus(P.B.U.H). Now, we all know that english is not the native language of the Bible. The Bible holds the record of being the most translated book on the face of the earth, then in which language was it actually revealed? Can the original copy of the Bible be obtained? Please clarify.

bananabrain · 03-19-2004, 01:03 PM

mohsin,

jews traditionally believe that the Torah or pentateuch was revealed to moses. it is axiomatic to judaism that this was done by G!D, *directly* and that it was then written down by him over the rest of his life, without his removing anything, or adding anything of his own. the rest of the "old testament" (as the christians call it) - the Nevi'im (prophets) and Ketuvim (writings/hagiographa) are traditionally considered to have been written down by various people; for example, qohelet (ecclesiastes) proverbs and the song of songs are all by king solomon.

the language of the TaNaKh (acrostic for Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim) was and still is biblical hebrew. originally this was written in the proto-hebraic semitic characters, but it was changed to the "ashurit" alphabet during the Temple period, which hebrew is written in in formally to this day. the later texts, such as the book of daniel, were probably written directly into ashurit - by that time it was strongly influenced by the aramaic language, which originally used ashurit script and was spoken as the vernacular by jewish communities thoughout the middle east.

by the time of the destruction of the second Temple and the hebrew was generally translated into aramaic on the fly during services after the portion of Torah for the day was read. there are two extant translations of the Torah into aramaic, known as the targum onkelos and the targum yonatan. i'm not sure if these predate the translation of the Tanakh into greek, known as the "septuagint". bob_x would know better than me about this, but he would also say that the Torah was written by various humans over time, which is not what i happen to believe.

anyway, if one believes (as traditionally religious jews do) that the text of Torah we have today is, to the letter, that which was given to moses on sinai, we still have it. the original scroll is believed to have been kept in the Ark of the Covenant - and we don't know where that is, though there are a lot of different theories! the "original copy", then, is in our opinion, widely available in the original language. a very good resource is http://unbound.biola.edu, which has the whole of the OT and NT in any language you could wish for including the original hebrew.

was-salaam

bananabrain

Mohsin · 03-19-2004, 06:29 PM

Many thanks for clearing this out bananabrain.

I have a thought in my mind that I wanted to share. Please concired these examples form the IRF lectures first.

(Q) Salaamualaikum. I am Kashmira Nazda, I am a revert Muslim. I am a student of final C.A., my question is actually in the first part of your lecture, you said there are no contradiction in the Qur’an, okay but there is a ayah in the Qur’an which the number I am not aware of but Allah says in the Qur’an that he seals the hearts of certain people and hence they do not understand. But we all know that it is the brain that thinks and the mind. Can we clarify that?
(Dr. Zakir) The sister has asked a very good question and I would like to congratulate her too thrice for reverting to Islam. She said... she said that Allah says in certain parts of the Qur’an and I do agree with her that Allah seals the heart, ‘Mohur Lagai’, on the heart and so that people who do not come close to the truth, they have been sealed. She has asked the question that today science is advanced and we know that brain is the main organ required for thinking not the heart. Previously people thought it was the heart, so is not there an error in the Qur’an. If you realize, in the beginning of my talk I also quoted a verse of the Qur’an, the third quotation Verse from Surah Ta Ha, Ch. No. 20, Verse No. 25 to 28, which says...(Arabic)... ‘O my Lord, increase my breast for me’ ...(Arabic)... ‘Increase my breast for me and make my task easy for me and remove the impediment from my speech so that they will understand’. Now here the word again ‘Sadr’ - heart. So why should Allah increase my heart, the Arabic word ‘Sadr’ has got two meanings. One is heart and the other is center. If you go to Karachi, you will find ‘Sadr’ so and so ‘Sadr’ so and so, center so and so. So ‘Sadr’ in Arabic, besides meaning heart, also means center. So here Qur’an says that we have sealed your centers- brain. I asked Allah (SWT)...(Arabic)... ‘O my Lord, increase my center(intellect) and remove the impediment between me and the audience’. Hope that answers the question.

(Q) As salaamualaikum brother Zakir, my name is Israt Ansari and I am a science graduate, presently doing my MA in Islamic studies. My question to you is in the Qur’an it has been mentioned that no one besides God knows the sex of the child in the mothers womb. However modern science have developed certain tests by which we can determine the sex of the child in the Qur’an?
(Dr. Zakir) Wa laikum salaam sister. She has posed a question that Qur’an mentions that no one besides Allah (SWT) knows the sex of the child in the womb and today I do agree with her that there are many medical tests for example, Amiocentencis, ultra sonography, which can determine the sex of child so is not there a mistake. A scientific error in the Qur’an? What the sister is referring to is referring to a verse from Surah Luqmaan, Ch. No. 31, Verse No. 34, which says... ‘Only Allah knows the hour that is the day of judgement, no one besides Allah knows the day of judgement when will it rain what is in the womb of the mother what will a person earn and where will he die’. These five things no one besides Allah (SWT) knows. Her main question is that Qur’an says that no one besides Allah knows the sex of the child in the womb. Sister the misconception is because there are a few translation, there are a few translations especially the Urdu translation which has mentioned that no one besides Allah knows the sex of the child in the womb. In the Arabic the word sex is not mentioned. The Qur’an says no one besides Allah knows what is in the womb. The Qur’an does not refer here to sex, it refers to how will the child be? Will he be honest? Will he be dishonest? Will he be a boon for the society? Will he be a bane for society? What will he become? Will he be an engineer? Will he be a doctor? And believe me with all your medical scientific knowledge you can never tell in advance what will a person be.

Now, my purpose for presenting these example is that though the Holy Quran has been translated by many people and in many languages, these translations are handiwork of man and not the work of Allah(all mighty God). Thus, there are bound to be mistranslations, bound to be errors. Thus by keeping the Arabic text, the clarification of these errors can be made. This also promotes the Arabic language.

The Bible has a record of being translated in the most languages and several times in one language alone. The researchers say that there are over thousand coppies of the Holy Bible, and sadly, no one is exactly the same. There are in smaller or lesser quantity, fewer or in many plases, mistranslations and misquotations. So, why don't the Christians keep the original text with the Bible translations as well? This will surely remove the Bible from curroption.

I, Brian · 03-19-2004, 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mohsin

So here Qur’an says that we have sealed your centers- brain.

I have to be honest that I do find that explanation a little forced. He has made a clear personal association between the the words "center" and "brain" without explaining why the Quran should reference the brain as "the center".

As an interpolation in English, the phrase about sealing hearts would make perfect figurative sense. In the ancient world the heart was seen (I believe) as the seat of thinking and emotions. Although modern medical science suggests that the heart is in no way directly associated with these processes, there is still the powerful figurative use of the word.

After all, the phrase "listen to your heart" may be taken as showing plainly that English is a stupid language fior stupid people, as hearts cannot speak, so how can one listen to a heart for guidance? The obvious point is that it is the questioner who has not understood the question, or the intended context, of the phrase.

Hence why I do not understand the man's explanation.

Perhaps it would help if I knew Arabic better as a tongue - I once tried to learn Arabic - spent £30 on a language pack on birthday about 5 years ago. Never got past lesson two. I have never been very good with learning languages.

bob x · 03-19-2004, 08:44 PM

"by the time of the destruction of the second Temple and the hebrew was generally translated into aramaic on the fly during services after the portion of Torah for the day was read. there are two extant translations of the Torah into aramaic, known as the targum onkelos and the targum yonatan. i'm not sure if these predate the translation of the Tanakh into greek, known as the "septuagint". bob_x would know better than me about this, but he would also say that the Torah was written by various humans over time, which is not what i happen to believe"
"Onkelos" and "Yonathan" were the Hebrew names of "Aquila" and "Theodotion" (it was common in post-Maccabean times for people to have both Semitic and Greek names; in the case of Aquila/Onkelos, the Hebrew is a repronunciation of the Greek, where in Yonathan/Theodotion, the Greek is a translation of the Hebrew), who lived subsequent to the "Septuagint" translation of the text into Greek, a translation that was widely criticized (the original "70" translated only the Torah, and that translation is pretty good; the Prophets and Writings were subsequently translated by various people, with hit-or-miss results). Onkelos did a new translation into Greek in a very literalist style, reproducing even the word-order in sentences where the natural order in Greek would be different, and trying to use the same Greek word for the same Hebrew word every time, although this too was often very unnatural. Yonathan did a translation in a more loosey-goosey style, trying to capture the meaning and make the Greek sentences natural. These names became tags for the two styles of translation; the "Onkelos" and "Yonathan" translations into Aramaic were not by the original Onkelos and Yonathan, but rather were translations in the literalistic or naturalistic styles.

Joke that bananabrain might enjoy:
From: Mitch Gerber/Chronicle

THE LIVING TALMUD

Rabbi Tarfon of Bet She'an said of Rabbi Shlomo ben Yechezkel of Tiverya: It is said that in those days Rabbi Shlomo ben Yechezkel of Tiverya designed a web site for the mother of his father, Sarah the daughter of Pinchas, who begat Yechezkel, who begat Rabbi Shlomo ben Yechezkel of Tiverya. Thus Rabbi Shlomo ben Yechezkel of Tiverya performed the mitzvah of web site design.

Rabbi Michal ben Elkanah, who only had one eye, said: But is it not also said that in those days there was no web, only gopher? Rabbi Shmaryahu of Hevron said: It is true, but as it is written: "A web browser may also use the gopher protocol, in addition to the HTTP protocol."

Rabbi Eliezer asked: Why does it specifically mention that the web browser may also use the gopher protocol, when it is written elsewhere that a web browser may use any protocol? Because the gopher protocol is especially meritorious, since it enables support of legacy systems.

One time a poor man came into the home of Rabbi Shmaryahu of Hevron and asked for two megabytes of disk space on the web site of Rabbi Shmaryahu of Hevron. Rabbi Shmaryahu of Hevron refused the man, but instead gave him a personal web server for his own use.

Rabbi Yehudah ben Yerachmiel asked Rabbi Shmaryahu of Hevron: Why did you refuse this man's request, but instead give him a personal web server for his own use? Rabbi Shmaryahu of Hevron replied: It (the Mishnah) teaches: If a man asks for disk space on your web site, first ascertain whether he is going to use it for his own purpose or for the purpose of idol worship.

If he is going to use it for his own purpose, grant him the space he asks, unless it exceeds twenty ephraot [one ephrah ~ 213 kilobytes], in which case you may refer him to a local Internet service provider, for, as it is written: It is not upon you to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it.

If he is going to use it for the purpose of idol worship, then do not give him the space, but instead rebuke him, that he might see the error of his ways and refrain from idol worship."

Rabbi Gideon of Sh'chem disagreed, saying: It [the Mishnah] also teaches: "When a poor man requests space on an FTP server, you must grant it without asking why he is going to use it." Why would the Mishnah impose requirements on a web server but not an FTP server?

Rabbi Shmaryahu of Hevron said: Rabbi Eliezer said: Why does it specifically mention that the web browser may also use the gopher protocol, when it is written elsewhere that a web browser may use any protocol? Because the gopher protocol is especially meritorious, since it enables support of legacy systems. Similarly, the FTP protocol is especially meritorious. Therefore, it is unfair to deny a poor man access to FTP, whereas it is sometimes permitted to refrain from giving a poor man access to

HTTP, because without HTTP he can still serve files using FTP, but without FTP he will be unable to put his files on the server, since the means for saving files over HTTP are unreliable.

Vajradhara · 03-20-2004, 12:36 AM

crikey!

should i post the Tao of Backups as well? LOL

I, Brian · 03-20-2004, 01:20 PM

I thought that pretty brilliant myself.

Let's see the Tao of Backups on the Taoism board, then?

Mus Zibii · 06-23-2004, 09:29 AM

This is off topic, but the thread is mostly dead and I'm bored.

Has anyone interested themselves in the Aramaic primacy of certain parts of the New Testament? I got interested a few years back and was totally blown away by the influence Aramaic has had not only on parts of the Gospels, but also the Qu'ran.

This will be old news if you've looked into what I just said, but...

Lines like 'Its easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle...'. In Aramaic the word for camel is an idiom for thick rope. Considering how much apologetic effort went into making sense of the camel/needle line by anglo-Christians its funny to have such a common sense solution.

In addition there's the rhyming of various sayings, resolved contradictions, etc.

bananabrain · 06-23-2004, 10:36 AM

hur, hur, hur, hur. that's really funny. ta, bob. i've only just seen it. and that's interesting stuff about onkelos and jonathan.

b'shalom

bananabrain

I, Brian · 06-23-2004, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mus Zibii

Lines like 'Its easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle...'. In Aramaic the word for camel is an idiom for thick rope. Considering how much apologetic effort went into making sense of the camel/needle line by anglo-Christians its funny to have such a common sense solution.

Is the usualy apologetic stance that of one of the narrow gates to the temple being called the "Needle", which in itself would be far too small for a fully laden pack animal to pass through?

juantoo3 · 06-23-2004, 02:21 PM

Kindest Regards, Mohsin!

My apologies for being tardy, I had not seen this thread before.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mohsin

The Bible has a record of being translated in the most languages and several times in one language alone...So, why don't the Christians keep the original text with the Bible translations as well? This will surely remove the Bible from curroption.

Your concern is valid, and most Christians do tend to hold their translation of choice for their denomination or sect. For Bible scholars, there is a translation called the "Interlinear" that includes the Hebrew and Greek, with English subtitles written verbatim. It is difficult to read the English, because these languages do not flow in the same manner, but the intention is to overcome the obstacles you mention. Most Christians will not bother with such a scholarly work, but such work is available for those who seek.

juantoo3 · 06-23-2004, 02:35 PM

Kindest Regards, Brian!

Quote:

Originally Posted by I, Brian

Is the usualy apologetic stance that of one of the narrow gates to the temple being called the "Needle", which in itself would be far too small for a fully laden pack animal to pass through?

My understanding is that it was a narrow gate in the outer wall of the city, not the Temple. The main gate(s) would close at sundown, requiring entrance through the narrow gate after dark for security reasons. The point would seem to be that the task is not impossible, merely difficult, since the subject I recall was that of a rich man making it to heaven.

Context...so many of the "contradictions" are resolved by maintaining context.

juantoo3 · 06-23-2004, 02:42 PM

Kindest Regards, Mus Zibii!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mus Zibii

Has anyone interested themselves in the Aramaic primacy of certain parts of the New Testament? ...
Lines like 'Its easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle...'. In Aramaic the word for camel is an idiom for thick rope. Considering how much apologetic effort went into making sense of the camel/needle line by anglo-Christians its funny to have such a common sense solution.

A very good translation of the Bible from the Aramaic is the Pe****ta by George M. Lamsa. It highlights many of the points you mention here, and places them in cultural context. I hope this helps.

Avinash · 06-23-2004, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mohsin

Now, my purpose for presenting these example is that though the Holy Quran has been translated by many people and in many languages, these translations are handiwork of man and not the work of Allah(all mighty God). Thus, there are bound to be mistranslations, bound to be errors. Thus by keeping the Arabic text, the clarification of these errors can be made. This also promotes the Arabic language.

The Bible has a record of being translated in the most languages and several times in one language alone. The researchers say that there are over thousand coppies of the Holy Bible, and sadly, no one is exactly the same. There are in smaller or lesser quantity, fewer or in many plases, mistranslations and misquotations. So, why don't the Christians keep the original text with the Bible translations as well? This will surely remove the Bible from curroption.

Namaskar,

So, if I understand Mohsin well, the Christian Bible is corrupted and isn't holy because its original texts were not written down in a single language and are partly lost in their original form and hence contain errors.

The Quran on the other hand is holy because it can be read in the original language Arabic which is a (holy?) language worth of promotion.

Is the Quran really more holy because it was written down in one single (holy?) language? Can you speak at all of a "holy book"? Or is it only God Himself who can be called Holy?

I, Brian · 06-23-2004, 11:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avinash

Namaskar,

So, if I understand Mohsin well, the Christian Bible is corrupted and isn't holy because its original texts were not written down in a single language and are partly lost in their original form and hence contain errors.

The Quran on the other hand is holy because it can be read in the original language Arabic which is a (holy?) language worth of promotion.

Is the Quran really more holy because it was written down in one single (holy?) language? Can you speak at all of a "holy book"? Or is it only God Himself who can be called Holy?

There are a lot of concerns about revisionism within the New Testament, the first texts themselves not even surfacing for at least 20 years after the apparent death of Jesus - and only then appearing in dribs and drabs over the next 50 or so years, and apparently focussed on the needs of different local congregations - but then applied to a universal house of faith. A lot of apocrypha, pseudonymous writing, and pseudepigrapha also begins to arise.

The Gospel of Mark is one of the earliest apparent Gospels - dating seems to vary wildly, but earliest claims has it written mid-50's AD, though others don't see it existing in literary form until early second century. Even still, as I recall, Mark 16, which deals with the Resurrection, is not present in earlier texts (possibly even the Codex Sinaiticus - I'll have to check on that).

Either way, there's a general charge of revisionism across the New Testment, taking place not simply in the first four centuries - but also some period after. The degree of the actual revisionism is certainly contentious.

Of course, there are hypthoses about mutliple redaction (editing) processes on the Pentateuch writings (first 5 books of the Old Testament/Torah) themselves (something our member bob x discusses here: Torah torah Torah.

The Qur'an itself hasn't apparently undergone either redaction or revisionism - once the book was set down in the main arab dialect of Mohammed's followers, apparently it remained unchanged. I sometimes smell seeds of contention here as well, but although I've read early Islamic History, it's hard to chase down specifics without a proper appreciation of Arabic.

So there are certain claims made regarding the incorruptability of the Qur'an itself - certainly in comparison to older writings.