Who Was Jesus? (Classic Reprint) - Tapa dura

Excerpt from Who Was Jesus?

There will be found in this book a new translation of the sayings of Jesus. The ordinary rule in such cases is, not to make a literal render ing of each word by its synonym in the tongue into which it is trans ferred, but, to represent the idioms of one language by those of another. I have departed from that canon, because all who read this book will have in their hands the Common Version, which, generally, does that work for them. The translations here furnished differ from those in the Common Version, in being usually almost strictly literal, and they have been purposely made so, that such of my readers as are unacquainted with the original may have an Opportunity to compare a literal with an idiomatic version. My renderings from the Greek must be judged by scholars in the light of this statement.

The language employed by Jesus was what is called the Palestinian Aramaic, which is also called Hebrew by early ecclesiastical writers, ao cording to Papias, Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome. Matthew's Gospel was written in that language. Matthew may have written also the Greek version of his own Gospel. The books of Mark, and Luke, and John were written in Greek, a language which it is prob able Jesus sometimes employed. The autographs of these four books are supposed to have perished, and so probably have all the copies made in the first three centuries. In addition to the usual causes for the disappearance of books, we may mention in this case the tho rough manner in which were executed the decrees of Diocletian in the beginning of the fourth century (february, a.d. 303) for the destruction of all the sacred books of the Christians, for the purpose of extirpating the superstition, as he called it. Notwithstanding the severe penal ties which impelled every magistrate to execute those decrees, some copies escaped the flames.

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