Strange, then your Jesus must want me to hate my mom, wife and kids. I’ll pass. Let’s use a bit of judgment on these matters. 
We can go round and round the houses on this one as indeed on many issues within our attempts at coming to grips with the Word where most of us are looking at a translation of a translation of a translation and all the problems that therefore arise. I think this is just another case of the word bringing death but the Spirit bringing life. So in the end it might come back to my self experience of God colouring my perceptions. For myself if I find some conflict within the scope of the written word I tend to cut God and myself some slack and try see it all within the scope of the cross. it works for me anyway. Just as a postscript I would add that I do appreciate the thought and work which is put into these discussions.
Hi Chris,
What is this “translation of a translation of a translation”? The entire New Testament, with the possible exception of Matthew, was written in the Greek language. Greek is the language I look at in an attempt to get the meaning of the various words. Indeed, I frequently examine transcriptions of the earliest copies available such as papyrus 46 (middle of the second century) and papyrus papyrus 66 (middle of the second century).
It also helps to note that even though it was written in Greek, the people writing it thought using Hebrew language. So I agree with Chris, here.
There is also the possibility that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic and later translated into Greek.
That’s a long stretch, Pilgrim.
I think is is an unproven theory that the whole New Testament was originally written in Greek. Some may have been Syriac, some Aramaic, and as Nick wrote, even if it was originally written in Greek(which I doubt but that’s another topic), it was almost wholly written by Hebrews (Paul, John, Peter, James) so the connection to OT language and thought of the Jews still illuminates the thoughts behind the words, they did not think like Plato and Aristotle, they thought like Messiah and the prophets- as Jews.
Also, I’m not really married to “love less”, it is a Strong’s and Thayer’s definition of a usage that does not mean hatred as in personal enmity…
But if we say that because in many instances miseo is used as plain ol’ hate, therefore God hated Esau- is that reasonable?
I don’t think so, because we have to consider the whole context of the word. God is love, who does He hate? To me, in addition to translation and specific usages, It is necessary to factor in the whole context of what is written about the divine nature and not only look at one debatable point of translation.
Did Jesus hate the people who crucified Him? he said, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father” , He said, “Forgive them father they don’t kno what they are doing.”
Imo, it is completely clear that God never “hated” Esau, as we understand the word to mean personal enmity, but hated him only in so far as he rejected him in favor of Jacob for the birthright. As a matter of fact, the context in Romans clearly demonstrates this because the issue there is sovereign choice, or election. Jacob was chosen and Esau rejected before either of them were born to have merited favor of disfavor.
A long-shot, I agree. Have you studied the arguments FOR presented by eminent scholars and have you dismissed them Nick?
There is some evidence that that was the case with the gospel of Matthew. I don’t think there’s any evidence for the rest of the NT.
Yes, that may be the case; no one knows. But even if that is the case, how does it help in any way to know it? None of the original manuscripts of the New Testament exists. The earliest extant manuscripts date from the middle of the second century, and they are all in Greek.
Hi Paidion…
What about the inference in Gen 29 I cited earlier… certainly Jacob, the cad, in his “love-less” or scornful approach to Leah? Unloved NKJV (hated) certainly carries strong connotations of being despised and rejected. Interestingly, in her rejection God moves mercifully in Leah’s favour; amazing how God loves where humanity hates.
I could be wrong, but I think this might have been what Chris B was suggesting by his “…a translation of a translation of a translation…” you were asking about.
When I say it’s a long shot, I didn’t mean to offend the work of scholars who went out of their way to prove the other languages besides Greek were the original language of the NT. I’m saying more from inference that if that were true, the implications are noticeable. First, if it were written in a spoken language such as Aramaic then anyone translating it to Greek would have to be someone who knew Aramaic well but knew Greek as a scholastic language or someone who is Greek but knows Aramaic for scholastic reasons or someone who knows both because they are both Roman and Hebrew or someone who is neither but is a scholar who has interest in translations. For such a biased group of books, it would be extremely unlikely that there would be a mere scholar translating it. This narrows it down to three possibilities.
If someone were Aramaic then they would probably have the most interest and provide the most accurate translations from the Hebrew but would not know how to provide the best word for what they would want to say in Greek. They would probably try to use word-pictures or phrases to describe what they are talking about. I obviously require more training and study to determine whether word-pictures (Hebrew language concept) are the most often used in Greek expression. One of the main differences between Greek and Hebrew is that Greek is a two-dimensional language whereas Hebrew is three-dimensional, as I once heard a translator say. Trying to stuff Hebrew word-pictures into Greek language would be quite a daunting task. Ultimately, we would see in Greek to English lexicons the use of description of meaning of words as a literary device rather than statements of logic (as is the Greek focus.) When I have read these lexicons, I notice that there are a mix of graphic expressions with the sort of wordplay Hebrews are fond of. In Matthew, the word play is noticeable as I have read in one study (such as when Jesus refers to Peter as the rock of the church). This seems to suggest that either was someone who was Aramaic who translated Matthew into Greek or that Matthew was originally written in Aramaic and such literary devices were already written into the text.
If someone were primarily Greek, they would probably not recognize or care much for little textual idiosyncrasies. They would be focused on the main message coming across. If this were the case, it would be necessary that there would be previous Aramaic written translations unless they had help from people who actually knew all the stories of Jesus or the epistles of Paul. I imagine that is very unlikely. Even though Luke is a Greek physician who wrote a gospel, he had Paul to help him out. If what we are seeing in the oldest manuscripts are Luke’s writing or word for word copies then it would probably be very accurate. If the original translations of the NT are Aramaic then Luke’s writings would be the exception to the rule.
The fact is that while there are definitely errors in the Greek that we see today (such as lack of specification of the true meaning of hell or death in each context) that cause a bunch of logical contradictions in the text.
I also doubt that the writers or translators are both Hebrew and Roman (Greek is the main language of eastern Roman empire region.) Paul didn’t write his own epistles. They were written by a scribe. Unless the scribe had the fluency that Paul had there would some amount of errors. I really have no way of knowing whether the translators were bi-lingual. Unfortunately, the translators didn’t leave mini-autobiographies describing their experience in languages and translations (as far as I am aware) and cite their sources.
My final evaluation: While I’m not an expert and I’m only trying to make sense of information that I know, my hypothesis is that it was originally written in Greek by someone who is Aramaic-speaking but over time translations increased errors when people of primarily Greek language attempted to copy the previous Greek manuscript without knowledge of the original Hebrew intent of words. Like Chris said, translations upon translations are the most likely events that affect what we read today from Greek manuscripts.
Thanks, Davo. Actually, when I made that statement, I had only the New Testament in mind.
However, just now, I looked up the Gen 29:31 statement in the Greek Septuagint, and found that the same Greek word “μισεω” was used, that is translated as “hate” in the New Testament. I also found that verse 30 states (in the Septuagint) that Jacob loved Rachel MORE THAN Leah. So I concede that the Greek verb “μισεω” DOES sometimes mean “love less”.