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Sea or Lake?
#1
Shlama Akhai!

The word qalassa in Greek signifies ???SEA???. In the dictionary I own (Diccionario manual Griego-Espa??ol, Jose M. Pabon S. de Urbina, Barcelona, 1981, 14th ed.) that???s the ???normal??? meaning, but it records also the secondary meaning of ???LAKE, in the NT??? (Ex. ???lake of Galilee???).

Here we have the occurrences of qalassa in the GNT:
Matt. 4:15, 18; 8:24, 26f, 32; 13:1, 47; 14:25f; 15:29; 17:27; 18:6; 21:21; 23:15; Mk. 1:16; 2:13; 3:7; 4:1, 39, 41; 5:1, 13, 21; 6:47ff; 7:31; 9:42; 11:23; Lk. 17:2, 6; 21:25; Jn. 6:1[???of Galilee ???Tiberias???], 16ff, 22, 25; 21:1[???of Tiberias???], 7; Acts 4:24; 7:36; 10:6, 32; 14:15; 17:14; 27:30, 38, 40; 28:4; Rom. 9:27; 1 Co. 10:1f; 2 Co. 11:26; Heb. 11:12, 29; Jas. 1:6;
(+Peshitto): Jude 1:13; Rev. 4:6; 5:13; 7:1ff; 8:8f; 10:2, 5f, 8; 12:12, 18; 13:1; 14:7; 15:2; 16:3; 18:17, 19, 21; 20:8, 13; 21:1.
(Searched in BibleWorks 5). NB. There???re many Gr. variants, BUT NEVER REGARDING THE WORD ???SEA??? ITSELF!

All Gospels quotes, except Mt 21:21;23:15; Mk 9:42(=Lk 17:2) 11:23; Lk 17:6; 21:25 are -direct or indirect- references to the ???Sea [=lake] of Galilee/Tiberias/Genesaret???). The rest clearly refers to the ???actual??? [=salted] Sea. It???s to be said, however, as a matter of fact, that in the HOT appears twice the expression trnk ??y yam kinereth: sea of Gene[sa]ret (See Num. 34:11; Jos. 13:27; POT: [font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]trnkd 0my [/font], yama dkenarat).

In all these cases, Peshitta (or Peshitto) has the word [font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]0my [/font](yama), which means: SEA or LAKE... So it???s likely that Zorba could have been confused with the polysemy of the Aramaic term, furthermore considering that in Greek does exist another word for ???lake???: limnj (See: Lk. 5:1f [???lake of Genesaret???]; 8:22f, 33; Rev. 19:20; 20:10, 14f; 21:8, in Peshitta/o [font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]0my [/font]all the time).
Curiously, NIV translates qalassa as ???lake???, in the cases that it would be the logical translation (betraying again, of course, the ???original Greek text???).
BTW, this has been a classical ???argument??? of the atheists/rationalists critics of the Gospels for disparage their Truth, accusing the ???(Greek, of course) original authors??? of being ignorants of the Palestinian Geography... Shouldn???t they reconsider that charge and blame Zorba instead?

[font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]Fwx0b[/font]
Ab. Valentin
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#2
I don't think this is a split word, as we would need one Greek text saying "lake" and one saying "sea", for the same verse in the Aramaic. As a mistranslation though, there might be something in this.
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#3
qalassa, the large body of water, can mean sea or lake. <!-- sSad --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/sad.gif" alt="Sad" title="Sad" /><!-- sSad -->
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#4
drmlanc Wrote:qalassa, the large body of water, can mean sea or lake. <!-- sSad --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/sad.gif" alt="Sad" title="Sad" /><!-- sSad -->

Where did you find that???
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#5
Hearsay from a colleague asserts it can mean sea and lake, and many others believe this also, though it may stem from the confusion of the Greek... I found this. Apparently Aristotle used the word to refer to other than sea, but I haven't got his works. e.g. a general term for great bodies of water, like in Hebrew. Maybe your famous library has them...


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I'm curious as to just how set the definition of "thalassa" was. I find
> that
> > Aristotle refers to a salt lake as "thalassa," the LXX uses the term for
> a
> > channel, and Apollodorus and Herodotus use it for the saltwater well on
> the
> > Acropolis. The latter is quite possibly just metonymic, but Aristotle's
> use
> > especially makes me wonder if we are not imposing an etic distinction
> between
> > "lake" and "sea."
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