Show description

In other words, the author of Luke is seeking to write a gospel that reads like the Scripture he was reading. There are a number of places where a Hebrew or Aramaic term is simply transliterated in the Gospels and Acts. Usually these terms are explained, as occurs in texts like Matthew 1:23, Mark 5:41, or John 1:38. Sometimes they are not. For example, the final word of 1 Corinthians 16:22, “maranatha,” is Aramaic for “our Lord, come,” which Paul does not translate there. The phrase is expressed elsewhere in Greek (Revelation 22:20).

Sometimes they are not. For example, the final word of 1 Corinthians 16:22, “maranatha,” is Aramaic for “our Lord, come,” which Paul does not translate there. The phrase is expressed elsewhere in Greek (Revelation 22:20). The world out of which the New Testament grew was clearly polylingual, a feature already seen above and that gets ample play in the New Testament (for examples, read passages like Acts 2; 1 Corinthians 14:22; Revelation 7:9). Here another specific example will help illustrate this point, this time with reference to Latin: In the Gospel of Mark, thought to have been written in Rome, the word “executioner” used in 6:27 is a Latin word transliterated into Greek letters, spekoulator.

Interestingly, in this tradition the text is known for adding details such as the hours Paul taught each day in the school of Tyrannus (Acts 19:9-10). The final manuscript tradition is called the Byzantine textual tradition. This stream of manuscripts is massive, having the most manuscripts, though they are later than the above streams and thus often deemed less reliable. The translators of the New Testament in the King James Version relied heavily on the Byzantine tradition. Figure 5. A minuscule text of Matthew’s Gospel.