Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!hao!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Yiri's Last Stand Message-ID: <282@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Tue, 9-Oct-84 18:58:01 EDT Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.282 Posted: Tue Oct 9 18:58:01 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 11-Oct-84 07:31:00 EDT References: <1539@ucf-cs.UUCP>, <203@umcp-cs.UUCP> <197@usfbobo.UUCP> Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD Lines: 33 > Who can deny that the gentile church callously, deliberately, violently, > and *wickedly* cut itself off from its jewish roots? But people need > a heritage, and so the church adopted the greek. I must say that I > *cringe* when people start talking about "the original greek." Or > (like CS Lewis), are so enamored of the greek world-view that they > apply this goyishe abomination in discussing essentially Hebrew concepts > (love, judgement, righteousness, wisdom, understanding, and even > *knowledge*). > The NT writings were (with the possible exception of Luke) written by > Jews whose native language, culture, and *heritage* was jewish. It > seems clear that the best way to properly understand them is to become > saturated in Hebrew culture, concepts, and heritage. First of all, scholars have recently come to the conclusion that NT contains Jewish ideas couched in Greek. I will certainly agree that it is important to understand something of first century Judaism to understand certain aspects of the NT text. On the other hand, there is no evidence for a Hebrew text for any gospel, and the textual evidence we have strongly implies the original texts were in Greek. Almost all OT/Tenakh quotations are from the Septuagint, which is in Greek; it would be hard to explain this if the original were in anything but Greek. C. S. Lewis, by the way, was a classicist, and I suspect that he knew more about this than either you or I know. Brunson's argument is essentially that the church ought not to look to any heritage other than this lost Hebrew one. I for one am unwilling to throw away two thousand years of christian thought, if only because I think it is valuable to examine other people's mistakes. (and not incidentally, to instill a little humility into my theology) Charley Wingate