The Essene Library The Dead Sea Scrolls is a popular name given to the remains of the library of a Jewish community, "in all probability a branch of the Essenes." The Essenes lived in communities west and northwest of the Dead Sea. The Qumran community had been occupied from 130 BC to 70 AD (with a break from 34 BC to 4 BC). The Essenes were "pious Jews who maintained their covenant-loyalty unblemished under the persecution in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 BC). They could not accept as the will of God the ensuing settlement which gave the high priesthood as well as the chief civil and military power to the Hasmonean dynasty. Under the leadership of one whom they called the 'Teacher of Righteousness', they withdrew to the wilderness of Judaea, where they organized themselves as the righteous remnant of Israel, 'a people prepared for the Lord'." They expected the 'end-time' would come in their lifetime.
Of the 500 documents identified to date, about 100 are scrolls of the OT. All of the OT books are represented except Esther. "These biblical MSS date from the last few centuries BC and the earlier part of the 1st century AD. They exhibit at least three distinct text-types of Hebrew scripture--the proto-Massoretic type (probably of Babylonian provenance) from which the received Hebrew text is descended; the text underlying the LXX (probably of Egyptian provenance); and a text (probably of Palestinian provenance) closely related to the Samaritan Pentateuch." Some exhibit a mixed type of text, i.e. LXX and MT (Massoretic), and, LXX and Samaritan.
In addition, some fragments of the Septuagint OT were also found.
(Dead Sea Scrolls, The Illust. Bible Dict., Vol. 1, pp. 372-374)The Essenes, numbering at least 4,000 at times, constituted a group of Jews who separated themselves from politics, rejected the corrupt priesthood of the Temple, and adhered so closely to the law of God and the teachings of Christ (even before Christ came to teach), that some scholars think that Christ was an Essene disciple. It appears that many of the Essenes became followers of Christ.
Contrast this with the Pharisees, also a minority group who numbered at most, 6,000. But they were politically active, and from the time of Queen Alexandra's reign (79-69 BC), were granted full authority over the civil government by the Jewish throne. By 200 AD, Pharisaism had exerted itself over Judaism to the point that the terms were synonymous and this is the basis for modern "Judaism".
Some of what we know of the Essenes is negative, but that is not surprising, since the information comes to us through their enemies, the Pharisees. Some of them led secluded, monastic lifestyles, while others continued to live in the cities of Judea. Josephus called the Essenes the "fourth philosophy" among the Jews. Among other differences, the Essenes observed a different calendar than the Pharisees, in the time of Christ.
Christ never condemned the Essenes as he did the Pharisees and Sadducees.
In light of all this, it is interesting that the Essene library contained not just Hebrew scriptures, but a significant collection of Greek texts of the OT scrolls, plus texts with a "mixed" parentage (Septuagint and Massoretic, Septuagint and Samaritan), plus parts of the Septuagint itself."The LXX translations are valuable for four major reasons among others: (1) they are a witness to the influence of Hellenism on Judaism both in the Diaspora and in Palestine, (2) they form a linguistic bridgehead between the theological vocabulary of the OT and that of the NT; (3) they were the translations in which the church Fathers read their OT in the centuries when they were building their formal theologies; (4) they are an important part of the evidence for the reconstruction of the history of the text of the Hebrew OT."
(Texts and Versions, The Illust. Bible Dict., Tyndale, pp. 1536-1552.)
The Example of Christ In the New Testament, Christ uses the word translated as "Lord" a number of times. While Christ would have spoken Aramaic to the public, the New Testament has been preserved in Greek, for our use in pursuing salvation. If it were critical for our salvation that the Bible be preserved in its original languages, without translation, emendations, additions and errors (not to mention changes in the meanings of words), then we would probably be "lost". But we have nothing to fear from any of these variables in our pursuit of "truth", because the Holy Spirit, which was sent for the purpose of "guiding" us into "all truth", is not limited by the frailties or the interference of men.
Christ said, "I have many more things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
Howbeit, when (it), the Spirit of truth, is come, (it) shall guide you into all truth: for (it) shall not speak of (it)self; but whatsoever (it) shall hear, that shall (it) speak: and (it) will shew you things to come." (John 16:12-13).
"He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Mat. 16:15-17).[Note: If Christ was to be addressed by Yaho-Hoshu-wah, Yahuahtsadaq, or some other variation on 'yah', then Peter gave the wrong answer. "Joshua" or variations such as "yeshua" means "yhwh saves". Peter answered that Jesus was the "Christos", which means "anointed" or 'The Anointed One' and Christ agreed with Peter's answer.]
"And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." (Mat. 16:17).
In other words, God gives us truth, through His Holy Spirit working in us. We may come to understand a truth while listening to men, or reading their words, but it comes from the Father, through His Spirit into our minds. Even reading the words preserved for our use, the Bible, the understanding comes not from our own human reason, which all men possess, but through His Spirit working in us and with our human mind or spirit. Otherwise, all who read would understand immediately, and Christ explained that is not God's intention yet (Mat. 13:1-3, 10-17). While "many" are called now, not "all" are called yet (Mat. 20:16), for the reasons given in Mat. 13.
If you doubt this, try "giving" your understanding of "truth" to someone who obviously does not demonstrate the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and see how much understanding you can "give" to another. "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him:..." (Jn. 6:44). We are "called" or "drawn" to Christ, by God's working with our minds by His Holy Spirit. That limits true understanding to those "many" who are called.
The word "Lord" is from the Greek, "kurios", (Strong's 2962), meaning "Lord, God, master (Mr.), Sir, respectful title". This is the word which, according to supporters of "Hebrew names", was spoken by Christ as the name, "yhvh". They propose that the "Jews" conspired to remove the "Hebrew names" of the Father and the Son from all existing copies of the New Testament early in New Testament history.
This illustrates a contradiction among their arguments. If the New Testament existed originally in Hebrew, why make an effort to delete the "names" from Greek copies used as source documents for our Bible today?
This also ignores the fact that the books of the New Testament were written by different authors in different nations to recipients in other nations, at many different times over the course of some 60 years. (See "The New Testament Books" elsewhere in this article.) How could the Jews of Palestine get control of all the copies, and copies of copies made and distributed over the whole world? If they could accomplish this degree of control, why couldn't they preserve all these books in Hebrew? Why didn't they change the Pagan Greek names of saints while they were at it? (Titus, Philemon, Apollos, etc.). The answer is that there is no valid basis for these arguments. They are based on speculation.How did Christ use the word, "Lord" and how often did he use it? He quotes Old Testament scriptures (which had been translated into Greek approximately 300 years earlier), in which there are references to the Father or to himself, approx. 17 times. He uses the word in direct reference to the Father or to himself, approx. 15 times. He uses the word in parables, approx. 7 times. However he directly addresses the Father with this word only once, and then it is in connection with, and follows, the word "Father". "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,..." (Mat. 11:25).
In contrast, Christ used the word "Father" in reference, approx. 36 times and in direct address, 4 times. He also used the word "God", translated in Greek as "theos", 34 times. Altogether, in the four gospels, Acts, and Revelation, Christ is quoted as using the term "Father", approximately 184 times.
In his first recorded sermon, he gave an example of how to pray, saying, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven..." (Mat. 6:9).
His final prayers, also for our example, were to "O my Father..." (Mat. 26:39, 42, 44).
The Father responded by calling Christ, "my beloved Son" (Mat. 3:17, 17:5).
Just prior to his ascension to heaven to present himself to God, he told Mary, "...Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." (Jn. 20:17).
His last words before his death, were in Aramaic, "My God , My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mat. 27:46).The use of "Father" in the NT agrees with the wording of the prophecies of the Old Testament. David wrote, "He shall cry unto me, Thou are my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.
Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth." (Psa. 89:26-27).Isaiah wrote, "Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not; thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting." (Isa. 63:16).
"But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand." (Isa. 64:8).Jeremiah prophesied, "In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.
But I said, How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? and I said, Thou shalt call me, My father; and halt not turn away from me."(Jer. 3:18-19).Malachi was inspired to write, "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us: why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers? (Mal. 2:10).
Again, in the NT, Christ admonished us all, "And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." (Mat. 23:9).
Part of what Christ revealed was the Father/son relationship which is offered to us all.If Christ ever spoke the name "yhvh", it is not recorded, and it was not preserved as an example for us. If he had publicly spoken the name, the Jews would have at least made an issue out of it, yet none of the witnesses ever made this charge.
In his example prayer, he closed, not "in the name of yeshua" but with "amen" (Mat. 6:13). Later he mentioned that we should ask "in his name" (Jn. 16:23), in other words, we should "ask by his authority", which is how we gain access to the Father to hear our prayers (Heb. 7:15-22), "...by the which we draw nigh unto God." (verse 19).
Did Christ Speak Greek? Did Jesus use both the Aramaic and the Greek expressions for "Father" as Mark recorded in Mk. 14:36?
" Abba, Father (Gr. abba ho pater) [Mk.14:36; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6] Strong's #5;
3962: The term abba is the Aramaic word for father. The Greek term is added not to tell the reader what the Aramaic means, but to express Jesus' dependence on his Father as He faced the sufferings of the crucifixion [Mark 14:36]. No doubt Jesus loved to utter His Father's name in both forms, first in His cherished mother tongue and then in the common language of His day. In this view the use of both words has a charming simplicity and warmth. Paul uses the phrase `Abba, Father' in Rom. 8:15 and Gal. 4:6 to express the intimate relationship the believer has with God (Nelson Study Bible, "Wordfocus", p.1675)."Jesus' inaugural sermon in Nazareth is prefaced--only in Luke (4:16-21)--by a direct quote from the [Greek] LXX, and the claim that the prophecy is now being fulfilled. In these stories (Luke 1-4), not only the content of the LXX is reflected, but also the narrative and semantic style of the LXX translators (Kee, p. 19).
Note that Jesus began His public ministry not at Jerusalem, or Judea, but in the region called Galilee; that is, Galilee of the Gentiles. "Traditionally Galilee has been regarded as a relatively isolated region within Palestine, particularly subject to Hellenization and a hotbed of revolution" (Allen C. Myers, ed., EERDMANS BIBLE DICTIONARY, p. 399, 1989).
Lower Galilee remained outside the main stream of Israelite life until NT times, when Roman rule first brought security. Even then Sepphoris was the chief town of the area, a little to the N of Nazareth. But Nazareth lay close enough to several main trade-routes for easy contact with the outside world, while at the same time her position as a frontier town on the S border of Zebulon overlooking the Esdraelon plain produced a certain aloofness. It was this independence of outlook in Lower Galilee which led to the scorn in which Nazareth was held by strict Jews (Jn. 1:46) (Douglas, NEW BIBLE DICTIONARY, `Nazareth,' p. 819).
According to the CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, it was called,. . . the `district of various peoples.' It was here in the centrally located town of Nazareth, 20 kilometers from the Mediterranean, that Christ spent his early years; as a province it was ruled at that time by Herod Antipas (4 B. C. to A. D. 39). Here also Jesus began and continued the early years of his ministry. . . . In NT times the languages spoken there were Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew (Robert C. Broderick, ed., p. 235, 1987).
It is probably safe to assert that our Lord habitually spoke Aramaic and occasionally Greek, and read and could speak Hebrew . . . We know that Jesus did use, at least at times, the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), rather than the Hebrew text. For example, when teaching in the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus was handed the scroll of Isaiah. It is recorded for us in Luke 4:18 that he read from Isaiah (the passage we know as Isa. 61:1-3). The Luke passage states: `The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.'
The phrase "and recovering of sight to the blind", is not in the Hebrew text. It only appears in the Septuagint. It seems reasonable to assume, since Jesus was reading from the Greek text, he most likely continued his teaching in Greek (Dr. Charles Goodwin & David McBrayer, The Original Word Teaching Series II, New Testament Greek For Bible Study, p. 101 [footnote 21],
1997).In addition, there are several incidents in Jesus' ministry when he spoke to people who knew neither Aramaic nor Hebrew. Thus unless a translator was present (though none is ever mentioned), their conversation probably took place in the Greek language. Probably Jesus spoke Greek during the following occasions: the visit to Tyre, Sidon and the Decapolis (Mk 7:31ff.), the conversation with the Syrophoenician woman (Mk 7:24-30; compare especially 7:26) and the trial before Pontius Pilate (Mk 15:2-15; compare also Jesus' conversation with the "Greeks" in Jn.12:20-36) (Robert H. Stein, Jesus The Messiah, A Survey of the Life of Christ, p.87, 1996).
The extent to which Jesus may have used Greek is subject to debate. But to say that He only spoke Hebrew, or Aramaic, is to argue that Jesus was an ignorant, backwater type of person. The fact that He read in the synagogue proves that He was an educated man. His speaking to the Samaritan woman--and even more so, the calling of the Gentiles--proves that Jesus was not an exclusivist. To say that He was not more than just acquainted with the Greek language is to ignore the evidence of the pervasiveness of the Hellenistic culture, even in Palestine, at that time in history. To argue that He could not speak Greek at all is, to say the least, simply illogical.
Indisputable evidence of the forceful impact of Hellenism is furnished by numerous Greek inscriptions, graffiti, and correspondence, Greek pseudepigrapha written in Palestine, second-century CE Greek translations of the Bible . . . Greek fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Graecisms found throughout rabbinic literature. Studies . . . on a wide range of Greek influence . . . have made absolutely clear the importance and pervasiveness of the Hellenistic language and culture in Palestine (Angel Saenz-Badillos, [Translated by John Elwode], The History of the Hebrew Language, p. 168, 1993).
The entire point of this passage is to show that the ancient Greek language is not the evil language that C. J. Koster [a pro-names supporter] portrays. But it was rather the dominant language of the early Christian era, and it was the language by which the Gospel was spread so rapidly throughout the ancient Roman Empire and beyond. The strongest evidence that the original New Testament was written in Greek is the use of a Greek translation, the Septuagint, as the primary source for quotations from the Old Testament.
Notice that in John 1:42, John uses the name Jesus, which in the Greek is Iesous (transliterated into English). John, writing in Greek, uses the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Yeshua in his writings. If anyone doubts that Iesous is indeed the equivalent of the Hebrew expression, then recall the trilingual sign that Pilate placed above Christ at His crucifixion. The sign read "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews"; and it said this in three languages (John 19:19-20). What did the people see? They saw the name of Jesus written in each of these languages: In the Hebrew, Yeshua; in Latin, Iesus; and, in the Greek, Iesous.
(Source of the above quotes: http://www.bibleresearch.org/law/sacredname.html)"The languages of Palestine in the 1st century AD are a complex problem. It seems clear that Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek were all spoken. Aramaic was most probably Jesus' vernacular, but a Galilean would almost certainly also have a working knowledge of Greek and Hebrew (in a form akin to the later Mishnaic [Hebrew]) may well have been the medium for his debates with the religious authorities in Jerusalem."
Bibliography, F.F. Bruce, New Testament History, 1969, chs. 1-9; P.E. Hughes, 'The Languages spoken by Jesus', in R.N. Longenecker and M.C. Tenney (eds.), New Dimensions in New Testament Study, 1974, pp. 127-143; G. Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 1973, ch. 2 (on Galilee)."
(Jesus Christ, The Illust. Bible Dict., Vol. 2, pp. 761-771).
What Was Christ Called? What example has been preserved for us, in addressing Christ? Martha and Peter addressed him "Lord" (Jn. 11:21, 21:21). The Greeks addressed him as "Jesus" (Iesous in Greek or Jehoshua, in Aramaic) (Jn. 12:21). Christ referred to himself as "Jesus" (Jehoshua) (Jn. 17:3, Acts 9:5). The most common form of address for Christ was "Master". Christ used this word to refer to himself and approved of his disciples using this word (Mat. 23:8-10, 26:18, Jn.13:13-14). Scripture records that his disciples used it approx. 24 times.
The word "master" is translated from the following Greek words:
1320. "didaskalos, an instructor, doctor, master, teacher",
1988. "epistates, an appointee over, i.e. commander (teacher)"
2519. "kathegetes, a guide, i.e. (fig.) a teacher, master"
4461. "rhabbi, my master, i.e. Rabbi, as an official title or honor"The word "Lord" is translated from the following Greek words:
2962. "kurios, supreme in authority, by impl. Mr. (as a respectful title), God Lord, master, Sir."
4462. "rhabboni, (Aramaic), corresponding to 4461, Lord, Rabboni"
1203. "despotes, an absolute ruler, Lord, master"
2961. "kurieuo, to rule, have dominion over, lord, be lord of , exercise lordship over"In the OT, the word "Baal" (master) refers to a pagan god, which Israel worshiped at times. Even so, the most commonly used term to address Christ was, "Master" (see Strong's, p.662).
"... a name which is above every name..." (Phil. 2:9) "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him (Christ), and given him a name which is above every name:" (Phil. 2:9).
Is the name of Christ "above every name"? In Strong's, "Jesus" is cross-referenced with Joshua, Bar-Jesus, and Justus. Even the supporters of "Hebrew names" acknowledge that "Joshua" is the same name as the Son of God, although they disagree among themselves as to its spelling and pronunciation (See Appendix 1).
We also notice that Strong's listing for "Joshua" is cross-referenced with Hosea, Hoshea, Jehoshuah, Jeshua, Jeshuah, Jesus, Osea, and Oshea. All these names are the same name. They all appear in Scripture. How can Christ's name be "above every name" when it refers to a number of other people? It's not, if our concern is primarily with the name, (the non-reality) instead of being concerned with the individual so named. In other words, Christ is exalted above all others because of who he is, what he did, his character, his sacrifice and his present authority, responsibility and power, not because he answered to the name "Joshua", or to some variation of it.
In addition, some point out that "yhvh" applies to both the Father and the Son. If they share it, how can the Son's "personal" name be above that of his Father? If he has some other "personal" name, how can it be "above" the name of the Father?
This scripture only makes sense, when we consider "name" to mean reputation and character, and not just a label without meaning.[For additional evidence of the Greek influence on the Jews in Palestine, see Appendix 9, "The Greek Influence".]
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