Hebrew was a living language in first-century Israel, part of a multilingual environment (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek).
The Amidah Prayer
The Amidah is the essential part of the morning, afternoon and evening weekday services in the synagogue. Every Jew is religiously obligated to pray the Eighteen Benedictions daily.
Jehovah and PIPI
According to Jerome, those who were unfamiliar with Jewish customs tried to pronounce the Hebrew letters as if they were Greek letters. The result was quite a howler: they pronounced YHVH as PIPI!
What is the significance of the two Greek words for “love” in John 21:15-17?
Does Hebrew have two words that would differentiate between the love of Christ for Peter and Peter’s love for Christ?
Hananiah Notos: The Never-ending Importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls
One of the recently published Dead Sea Scroll documents is known as the “Register of Rebukes.” Only parts of eleven lines of a column of this document have survived. However, even these few words and parts of words are enough to see that the document, or a portion of it, was a list of the sect’s members who were rebuked because they had violated community laws.
Divorce and Remarriage in Historical Perspective
This study is dedicated to those who have suffered the agony of divorce. Tragically their pain has been compounded by well-meaning Christians who have distorted both the letter and the spirit of Jesus’ teaching concerning divorce and remarriage. For them, may this article bring a measure of healing.
Matthew 5:19: The Importance of “Light” Commandments
In the modern Hebrew translation that was published by the Israeli Bible Society in 1976, and revised in 1991 and 1995, Matthew 5:19 was rendered “…ha-mitsvot ha-ketanot…katon yikare’…gadol yikare’…” (the small commandments…small [smaller, smallest] he will be called…big [bigger, biggest] he will be called). It is highly probable, however, that in this context Jesus was speaking about mitsvot kalot (light commandments) and not about mitsvot ketanot (little or small commandments).
Call No Man “Father”
The word abba (אַבָּא), which literally means “the father” in Aramaic, but also can mean “our father” or “my father,” was brought into Hebrew and used in the endearing sense of “daddy.”
Another Look at the “Cleansing of the Temple” Story
Based on archaeological excavations near the southern wall of the temple, the research of Shmuel Safrai, and a nuance of the Hebrew verb that is one of the equivalents for Greek ekballein (drive out, banish; throw out; throw away, reject; cast out of a place, expel; remove, get rid of; put out), it may be necessary to reinterpret the gospel accounts of Jesus’ “cleansing” of the temple, even suggesting a different location for Jesus’ action.
Cataloging the Gospels’ Hebraisms: Part One (Luke 10:23-24)
Hebrew idioms leap out from every page of Jesus’ life story.