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Colossians 3:11 Scythians
#1
Anyone noticed the mentioning of 'scythians and barbarians' in the Greek Colossians 3:11
while in the Aramaic colossians the pair is called 'Greek or foreigner'

The difference is, I think, a cultural difference, not a translation error.

But I would rather expect mentioning scythians and barbarians in the aramaic and 'Greek and foreigner' in the Greek bible.

Any thoughts on this?
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#2
Regarding 'Barbraya', it idiomatically means 'foreigner': more specifically "anyone who is not Greek"1 (as Barbraya is of Greek origin).The other pairs of this verse seem to be juxtapositions, yet a definition of 'Scythian' is "the wildest of barbarians"2. I'm no expert here, but it seems that the translators missed the contrast... literally "Greek and non-Greek". I think the translator did not pick up on this and regarded the term 'Greek' here as negative, thus rendering it as 'Scythian.'
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#3
shlomo Aaron wDistazo,

Aaron S Wrote:Regarding 'Barbraya', it idiomatically means 'foreigner': more specifically "anyone who is not Greek"1 (as Barbraya is of Greek origin).

The word "barbarian" comes from Aramaic and not Greek. The term in Aramaic is actually two words written together to form an idiom.

bar <= son of
braya <= Singular: foreign, outer, distant, etc...

Together => barbraya <= foreigner, etc...

Here's what a section of the verse is saying in Aramaic:
wla yawnaya wbarbraya. <= Not Greek nor Barbarian

distazo Wrote:Any thoughts on this?

Here are the few section of this verse:
layt ihudaya warmaya <= Is not Jew nor an Aramean (aka Gentile in the Jewish perspective)
la ghzurta w'urluto <= Not circumcised nor uncircumcised
la yawnaya wbarbraya <= Not Greek nor Barbarian

-The Jews saw non-Jews as Gentile, and they were surrounded by people who spoke Aramaic and who weren't Jewish
-Circumcised and uncircumcised, these were the Christians of Jewish descent and non-Jewish descent
-Greek and Barbarian, meaning those following Greek philosophy and those that don't follow Greek philosophy

Each seen from the prospective of: the Jew, the Circumcised, and the Greek. Prevailing themes of the time, that St Paul encountered in his ministry.

push bashlomo,
keefa bar morun
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???????????????????? ???????????????? ???????????????????? ???????? ??????????????? ????????????. ?????????????? ?????????? ??????????????????????????
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#4
You know what I expect to be some cultural influence?

For the Greek, Scythians were synonous with 'foreigners'. It's even a fact, that at the eastern Roman border, the parthians and scythians kept the Romans at distance behind the Eufrates river.

Since jews themselves lived among Scyths and Greeks, (Acts 2:6-9) and they seemed to have spoken there language as wel, the wording for jews-barbarians (foreigners) is well chosen.

So, for a jew, a scyth was much less of a 'barbarian' than for a native Greek.
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