The Age of the Peshitta

[SteveCaruso]

You are still trying to make justification for your errors which I find it deceitful.

First, Josephus says:

And I am so bold as to say, now I have so completely perfected the work I proposed to myself to do, that no other person, whether he were a Jew or foreigner, had he ever so great an inclination to it, could so accurately deliver these accounts to the Greeks as is done in these books. For those of my own nation freely acknowledge that I far exceed them in the learning belonging to Jews; I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to all sorts of free-men, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully acquainted with our laws, and is able to interpret their meaning; on which account, as there have been many who have done their endeavors with great patience to obtain this learning, there have yet hardly been so many as two or three that have succeeded therein, who were immediately well rewarded for their pains.

So what can we see here?

First, Josephus is boasting. He's patting himself on the back. His work, he claims, is indispensable (which is useful in his position, given his sponsor). He says that those of his nation say that he's smarter than they are. What a rude thing to say.

Second, he reveals a prejudice. Greek, he says, was seen as "common" or perhaps a better term is "vulgar." This struck me as similar to how some people here in the USA find Spanish vulgar, as we in America do not encourage the learning of Spanish. (Re-read Josephus' words with "Spanish" in the place of "Greek" and you'll see what I mean.)

Third, he then goes to say that few Jews want to learn Greek because there is no reward in it and that only a few ("two or three") have succeeded in doing so. That little?

The archaeological record paints a very different picture:

Out of all 1st century Jewish ossuaries with inscriptions (there are many without inscriptions of any kind), about 40% to half are in Greek, many of which have religious themes. A number of them were scratched in not by scribes with hammer and chisel but by family members for their own use. If Jews did not learn Greek, why would they be there?

Out of all known 1st century Jewish synagogues (roughly 130 if memory serves) over half of them have Greek inscriptions. These inscriptions are not simple things like signposts or name tags, but religious inscriptions. Bible verses. Explanations of Biblical mosaics in the actual mosaics. If Jews did not learn Greek, why would they be there?

The Septuagint was translated in the 2nd century BC by Jews for Jews, specifically for those Jews in the Disapora who couldn't read Aramaic or Hebrew anymore. If Jews did not learn Greek, why would the LXX be there?

See, Greek was not nearly as rare among Jews as Josephus makes it out to be. The situation was far more nuanced than an all-or-nothing declaration.

One cannot ignore -- from the proper place and time period -- half of all Jewish ossuaries, half of all Synagogue inscriptions, and one of the most well-known translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek by Jews for Jews in order to cling to the boasts of a single, privileged author to his readers who was not representative of the average Jew.

Josephus was exaggerating.