10-02-2008, 11:05 PM
sean Wrote:Apparently in the new testament, in many places where it has the word gentiles, it should be the word nations according to Jay.P.Green, greek textus recptus text. Could someone who can read the aramaic in the peshitta, please check this out in the aramaic bible, and send a reply. Thank you.
Sean,
Yes. It is true. If you want to translate Greek text literally word for word, then indeed, the same word "ethnos" (this is singular, you will find most of the time in TR one of the plural declensions of that) is translated into English sometimes as gentiles, sometimes as nations. If you look at the Peshitta, you can find out that two different words "amma" (see, Hebrew "am") and "khanpa" (this is word number 7349 in the lexicon) have only one word ("ethnos") on the Greek side. You can check it for yourself using Peshitta at dukhrana (great tool, can't express my gratitude enough to the authors), or in some electronic version of Peshitta.
BTW, It is one of those cases where two different Aramaic words have only one counterpart in Greek. A good example is Matti 10:5 - where in Greek there is ethnon, translated properly in English as Gentiles (heathen?). Even better is Keefa 4:3, there is one more in the 1st letter to Corinthians. The rest of 164 occurrences of "nations" in Greek are of the "am" type. Multiple inheritance, or whatchacallit.
I remember posting on a very similar topic in the old forum, somethng about gentiles and nations in Acts if memory serves me well, pity it has evaporated. Maybe it will come back to me with reading Acts again.
Peace,
Jerzy