I thought we could discuss this article's pros and cons (YEAH, not a catholic vs. protestant thread 
)
http://foundationsmin.org/studies/idioms.htm
I'm going to start this with a bold statement. I am convinced that much of what is written in Scripture is incomprehensible and easily misinterpreted and misunderstood apart from sound knowledge of Jewish Culture. Let me explain.
I'm going to start by taking a look at idioms. These are phrases that mean something different from the literal meaning of the words they use. A few American English speakers are familiar with are "hit the ceiling," "kill time," or "eat your heart out." A non-English-speaker that heard these idioms translated literally into his own language would probably find them amusing. However, if he didn't suspect that they were literal translations of English idioms and took them at face value, the information he received would be very misleading. The same principle is true of Scripture. Context Counts.
While it is impossible to translate the meaning of words and their "nuances" with complete accuracy from one language to another, Scripture is most accurately interpreted within its Jewish cultural context. The word "context" comes from the Latin verb, "contextuere" and means "to weave". A book or any other writing consists of words and thoughts woven together. One of the primary rules of Biblical interpretation is to understand what the original readers would have understood. This necessarily implies an awareness of the culture that would have affected that understanding. In other words, in order to understand the meaning of words from a different culture, we must understand the culture of the people using that language. The meaning of the word is in its use. I am convinced that a majority of our doctrinal differences would be resolved if more Believers had an intimate acquaintance and understanding of the ancient Jewish culture that serves as the background for Scripture. I'm going to tell a short, true, story to illustrate. A press statement released in July 1945 might have ended WW II weeks earlier. The Japanese emperor was certainly ready to end it and had the power to do so. He and his cabinet were preparing to comply to the Potsdam ultimatum of the Allies - surrender or be crushed - but wanted a little more time to discuss the terms.
Now, Mokusatsu is a Japanese word that has two meanings: to ignore or to refrain from comment. The cabinet prepared a press release announcing a policy of mokusatsu, with the "no comment" implication. But a mix-up in translation put it on the foreign wires with the "ignore" implication instead: "The cabinet ignores the demand to surrender."
To recall the release would have entailed an unthinkable loss of face from the oriental way of thinking. Had the intended meaning been publicized, the cabinet might have backed up the Emperor's decision to surrender; in which event, there might have been no atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no Russian armies in Manchuria, and no Korean war to follow. Tens of thousands of lives might have been saved save for one word, misinterpreted. As we can see, one problem with translating one language into another is how to deal with words that have more than one meaning. Another problem is how to handle cultural idioms. If you translate idiomatic expressions literally there is a chance they will be misunderstood. We understand the common phrase, "It's raining cats and dogs," but put that literally into another language and it probably won't make much sense.
Realizing that the Bible came to us from a time and culture different from our own, we have to ask ourselves if there are cases where the biblical writers are using an idiom and the meaning has been lost? The answer is yes, there are. I'll give one brief example to illustrate this fact.
The text of Matthew 6:22-23 literally reads: "The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is good, your whole body is full of light; but if your eye is evil your whole body is full of darkness..." Now, "If your eye is good" is a Hebrew saying that means, "if you are generous." But our English translators have not recognized this Hebrew idiom. Almost all translations preserve the singular, "eye," even though "eyes" would make more sense in English. Do we need only one of our eyes to be good? Only three translations (Good News For Modern Man, New English Bible, New International Version) have recognized the absurdity of "eye." These translations have translated "eyes" in spite of the fact that the original Greek text has "eye." More variety exists in the translation of the word "good." Weymouth and the NIV translate literally. But "good" in relation to an eye doesn't make much sense in this particular context. Weymouth tries to solve this problem by translating eye as "eyesight" - "If your eyesight is good". Other translators simply guess at the meaning of "good." "Single" is the traditional translation of "good" (King James, American Standard). Most modem versions prefer "sound" (Amplified, Goodspeed, Jerusalem Bible, New Berkeley, New English Bible, Phillips, Revised Standard, Williams). Other suggestions are "clear" (Good News For Modern Man, New American Standard), and "pure" (The Living Bible). Only James Moffatt translates "good eye" as "generous," but even he uses "sound" in the parallel to Matthew 6:22 found in Luke, even though the same Greek word for "good" appears in both places.
So, if a "good eye" speaks to generosity, what is an evil eye? Someone not knowing the Jewish background might suppose it is speaking of casting spells. But in Hebrew culture, having an "evil eye," means being stingy - just like having a "good eye," means being generous. Yeshua is warning against lack of generosity and nothing else. This fits the context perfectly: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.... You cannot serve both God and money."
Now I'd like to make something clear. Although not everyone is aware of this, there is some debate among scholars as to what language the New Testament was originally written, with some claiming an 'original" Hebrew or Aramaic text, often citing the example I just used and others as evidence. I have studied the different positions, but I'm not going to get into the details of the debate, since that is beside the point here. I do want to make my own point however. There is a reason why God chose to, at the least, preserve the New Testament writings in Greek. Just as there are certain words and sayings that can't be understood outside a knowledge of the Hebraic culture from which they arose, there are also words that are best understood in the Greek. The word from which we get our English "baptism" is a good example.
The Hebrew word for immersion is tevilah and means literally, "to totally immerse" The closest word in Greek for tevilah is baptidzo. Baptidzo is derived from an industry of dying cloth in Lebanon. It's root meaning is "to dip, soak, immerse" into a liquid, so that the thing immersed takes on the characteristics of that which it is immersed into - i.e., a cloth into dye or leather into a tanning solution. Baptidzo is where we get our word "baptism". There is no other word in any other language that conveys the exact same meaning as the Greek word "baptidzo". If for no other reason than this one word, (and there are other reasons) I would have to reject the arguments for an original Hebrew text.
However, there are many other expressions in the Greek texts of the synoptic Gospels that seem to derive from Hebrew idioms. The phrase "poor in spirit: in Matthew 5:3 is an abbreviated idiom that refers to the "poor and crippled in spirit" from Isaiah 66:2. It means those that have come to the end of their strength and cry out in desperation to God, acknowledging they have no righteousness of their own. The "green tree" and the "dry tree" from Luke 23:31 is another example. Based on a prophecy from Ezekiel 20, . The "green tree" symbolizes righteousness - the "dry tree" symbolizes wickedness. Matthew 16:19 speaks of "binding and loosing" and I have heard some very "interesting" interpretations of this phrase. However, there are many examples in ancient Jewish writings of the rabbinical use of "binding" and "loosing". That which is said to be "bound" is something that is forbidden. That which is "loosed" is permitted, nothing more, nothing less.
Another example is the terms "destroy" and "fulfill" (I have not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it) from Matthew 5:17-18. These are part of rabbinical argumentation. When it was felt that a sage had misinterpreted a passage, it was said he had "destroyed" the Torah. When it was felt he had interpreted correctly, it was said he had "fulfilled" it. In light of this, we could paraphrase these verses to read, "I have not come to abolish the Torah, but to complete it - to make the meaning full" Yeshua did not come to abolish, but to make full the meaning of what Torah and the ethical demands of the Prophets require. He came to complete our understanding of the Torah and the Prophets so that we can more effectively try to be and do what they instruct us to be and do. Since all of Scripture teaches that obedience is a recognition of - not a requirement for Gods grace, this understanding in no way contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture that we "are saved by grace alone, not works, lest any man should boast." A few more examples of often misunderstood words and phrases are found in Matthew 11:15 and Rev. 2 &3 in the letters to the churches ("he who has ears, let him hear" which simply means that everyone should listen carefully), in Matthew 23:32 (" Fill up the measure of . . . your fathers!" which means to finish what your ancestors began), Mark 10:38 - ("Drink the cup I drink" which is a Jewish expression that means to share someone's fate), John 9::24 ("Give glory to God" which comes from Joshua 7:19 and is a solemn charge, a promise under oath to tell the truth), and Acts 28:27 ("they hear heavily with their ears" which means they are slow to understand).
Hopefully, by looking at these "Hebraism's" from the New Testament, we can see the importance of understanding the "Hebraic Background" of our faith, an understanding that is essential, not optional, as it has far too long been considered.
)http://foundationsmin.org/studies/idioms.htm
I'm going to start this with a bold statement. I am convinced that much of what is written in Scripture is incomprehensible and easily misinterpreted and misunderstood apart from sound knowledge of Jewish Culture. Let me explain.
I'm going to start by taking a look at idioms. These are phrases that mean something different from the literal meaning of the words they use. A few American English speakers are familiar with are "hit the ceiling," "kill time," or "eat your heart out." A non-English-speaker that heard these idioms translated literally into his own language would probably find them amusing. However, if he didn't suspect that they were literal translations of English idioms and took them at face value, the information he received would be very misleading. The same principle is true of Scripture. Context Counts.
While it is impossible to translate the meaning of words and their "nuances" with complete accuracy from one language to another, Scripture is most accurately interpreted within its Jewish cultural context. The word "context" comes from the Latin verb, "contextuere" and means "to weave". A book or any other writing consists of words and thoughts woven together. One of the primary rules of Biblical interpretation is to understand what the original readers would have understood. This necessarily implies an awareness of the culture that would have affected that understanding. In other words, in order to understand the meaning of words from a different culture, we must understand the culture of the people using that language. The meaning of the word is in its use. I am convinced that a majority of our doctrinal differences would be resolved if more Believers had an intimate acquaintance and understanding of the ancient Jewish culture that serves as the background for Scripture. I'm going to tell a short, true, story to illustrate. A press statement released in July 1945 might have ended WW II weeks earlier. The Japanese emperor was certainly ready to end it and had the power to do so. He and his cabinet were preparing to comply to the Potsdam ultimatum of the Allies - surrender or be crushed - but wanted a little more time to discuss the terms.
Now, Mokusatsu is a Japanese word that has two meanings: to ignore or to refrain from comment. The cabinet prepared a press release announcing a policy of mokusatsu, with the "no comment" implication. But a mix-up in translation put it on the foreign wires with the "ignore" implication instead: "The cabinet ignores the demand to surrender."
To recall the release would have entailed an unthinkable loss of face from the oriental way of thinking. Had the intended meaning been publicized, the cabinet might have backed up the Emperor's decision to surrender; in which event, there might have been no atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no Russian armies in Manchuria, and no Korean war to follow. Tens of thousands of lives might have been saved save for one word, misinterpreted. As we can see, one problem with translating one language into another is how to deal with words that have more than one meaning. Another problem is how to handle cultural idioms. If you translate idiomatic expressions literally there is a chance they will be misunderstood. We understand the common phrase, "It's raining cats and dogs," but put that literally into another language and it probably won't make much sense.
Realizing that the Bible came to us from a time and culture different from our own, we have to ask ourselves if there are cases where the biblical writers are using an idiom and the meaning has been lost? The answer is yes, there are. I'll give one brief example to illustrate this fact.
The text of Matthew 6:22-23 literally reads: "The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is good, your whole body is full of light; but if your eye is evil your whole body is full of darkness..." Now, "If your eye is good" is a Hebrew saying that means, "if you are generous." But our English translators have not recognized this Hebrew idiom. Almost all translations preserve the singular, "eye," even though "eyes" would make more sense in English. Do we need only one of our eyes to be good? Only three translations (Good News For Modern Man, New English Bible, New International Version) have recognized the absurdity of "eye." These translations have translated "eyes" in spite of the fact that the original Greek text has "eye." More variety exists in the translation of the word "good." Weymouth and the NIV translate literally. But "good" in relation to an eye doesn't make much sense in this particular context. Weymouth tries to solve this problem by translating eye as "eyesight" - "If your eyesight is good". Other translators simply guess at the meaning of "good." "Single" is the traditional translation of "good" (King James, American Standard). Most modem versions prefer "sound" (Amplified, Goodspeed, Jerusalem Bible, New Berkeley, New English Bible, Phillips, Revised Standard, Williams). Other suggestions are "clear" (Good News For Modern Man, New American Standard), and "pure" (The Living Bible). Only James Moffatt translates "good eye" as "generous," but even he uses "sound" in the parallel to Matthew 6:22 found in Luke, even though the same Greek word for "good" appears in both places.
So, if a "good eye" speaks to generosity, what is an evil eye? Someone not knowing the Jewish background might suppose it is speaking of casting spells. But in Hebrew culture, having an "evil eye," means being stingy - just like having a "good eye," means being generous. Yeshua is warning against lack of generosity and nothing else. This fits the context perfectly: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.... You cannot serve both God and money."
Now I'd like to make something clear. Although not everyone is aware of this, there is some debate among scholars as to what language the New Testament was originally written, with some claiming an 'original" Hebrew or Aramaic text, often citing the example I just used and others as evidence. I have studied the different positions, but I'm not going to get into the details of the debate, since that is beside the point here. I do want to make my own point however. There is a reason why God chose to, at the least, preserve the New Testament writings in Greek. Just as there are certain words and sayings that can't be understood outside a knowledge of the Hebraic culture from which they arose, there are also words that are best understood in the Greek. The word from which we get our English "baptism" is a good example.
The Hebrew word for immersion is tevilah and means literally, "to totally immerse" The closest word in Greek for tevilah is baptidzo. Baptidzo is derived from an industry of dying cloth in Lebanon. It's root meaning is "to dip, soak, immerse" into a liquid, so that the thing immersed takes on the characteristics of that which it is immersed into - i.e., a cloth into dye or leather into a tanning solution. Baptidzo is where we get our word "baptism". There is no other word in any other language that conveys the exact same meaning as the Greek word "baptidzo". If for no other reason than this one word, (and there are other reasons) I would have to reject the arguments for an original Hebrew text.
However, there are many other expressions in the Greek texts of the synoptic Gospels that seem to derive from Hebrew idioms. The phrase "poor in spirit: in Matthew 5:3 is an abbreviated idiom that refers to the "poor and crippled in spirit" from Isaiah 66:2. It means those that have come to the end of their strength and cry out in desperation to God, acknowledging they have no righteousness of their own. The "green tree" and the "dry tree" from Luke 23:31 is another example. Based on a prophecy from Ezekiel 20, . The "green tree" symbolizes righteousness - the "dry tree" symbolizes wickedness. Matthew 16:19 speaks of "binding and loosing" and I have heard some very "interesting" interpretations of this phrase. However, there are many examples in ancient Jewish writings of the rabbinical use of "binding" and "loosing". That which is said to be "bound" is something that is forbidden. That which is "loosed" is permitted, nothing more, nothing less.
Another example is the terms "destroy" and "fulfill" (I have not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it) from Matthew 5:17-18. These are part of rabbinical argumentation. When it was felt that a sage had misinterpreted a passage, it was said he had "destroyed" the Torah. When it was felt he had interpreted correctly, it was said he had "fulfilled" it. In light of this, we could paraphrase these verses to read, "I have not come to abolish the Torah, but to complete it - to make the meaning full" Yeshua did not come to abolish, but to make full the meaning of what Torah and the ethical demands of the Prophets require. He came to complete our understanding of the Torah and the Prophets so that we can more effectively try to be and do what they instruct us to be and do. Since all of Scripture teaches that obedience is a recognition of - not a requirement for Gods grace, this understanding in no way contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture that we "are saved by grace alone, not works, lest any man should boast." A few more examples of often misunderstood words and phrases are found in Matthew 11:15 and Rev. 2 &3 in the letters to the churches ("he who has ears, let him hear" which simply means that everyone should listen carefully), in Matthew 23:32 (" Fill up the measure of . . . your fathers!" which means to finish what your ancestors began), Mark 10:38 - ("Drink the cup I drink" which is a Jewish expression that means to share someone's fate), John 9::24 ("Give glory to God" which comes from Joshua 7:19 and is a solemn charge, a promise under oath to tell the truth), and Acts 28:27 ("they hear heavily with their ears" which means they are slow to understand).
Hopefully, by looking at these "Hebraism's" from the New Testament, we can see the importance of understanding the "Hebraic Background" of our faith, an understanding that is essential, not optional, as it has far too long been considered.
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