Cataloging the New Testament's Hebraisms: Part 1 (Luke 14:26; 15:18-22)

The most frequent question Jerusalem Perspective receives from readers is: “Have you published a list of Hebraisms in the New Testament (NT)?” In an attempt to respond to JP readers’ interest, we launch a series of blogs on Hebraisms in the NT. In this series, I identify and clarify the meaning and personal, practical significance of hundreds of Hebraisms buried in the Greek of the NT.

According to the Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary, a “Hebraism” is “a characteristic feature of Hebrew occurring in another language.” For this series of blogs, a “Hebraism” will refer to a feature of Hebrew discovered in the Greek text of the NT.

Hebrew idioms leap off every page of Jesus’ life story, and I began cataloging them years ago. I discussed a number of them in the Appendix to Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus, for example: “bring out your name bad” (Lk 6:22), “the appearance of his face was altered” (Lk 9:29), “lay these things in your ears” (Lk 9:54), and “he set his face to go” (Lk 9:51).

I discussed many additional gospel Hebraisms in the 56 issues of Jerusalem Perspective magazine, published between 1987 and 1999. See, for example, my “Hebrew Idioms in the Gospels”; “Hendiadys in the Synoptic Gospels”; “Noun Chains in the Gospels”; ”Seeing (and Hearing!) the Kingdom of Heaven”; and “‘Prophets and Kings,’ the Evangelist Luke’s Curious Doublet.” For those who enjoy the study of Hebrew idioms, I recommend that you begin with Pieter Lechner’s excellent tutorial, “Significance of Idioms”.

Why is there such interest in these Hebraisms? Probably because such Hebrew idioms and grammatical structures may point to lost Hebrew scrolls that were used indirectly by authors of books of the NT.

Most readers are not interested in a reasoned, scholarly presentation of the NT’s Hebraisms. As one Christian businessman told me, “I’m not interested in how you got there. Just give me the bottom line! Just tell me the meaning of each Hebraism.” This man wasn’t interested in the sometimes fascinating story of the discovery -- he was confident that we had done our homework -- he was only interested in the practical results of the research.

In this series of blogs, I will try to present these “practical results,” the essence of each Hebraism, omitting details of the research. I will attempt to explain only the Hebrew idiom’s meaning and the resultant, clearer English meaning.

Hebraisms can be found in all books of the NT -- after all, most, if not all, of these books were authored by Jews living in the land of Israel in the first century -- but the vast majority of the NT’s Hebraisms lie buried in the Greek texts of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Isolated idioms do not prove Hebrew origins, just as a French word or idiom in American English does not prove Americans speak French. No single Hebraism can support the supposition that a NT book was originally written in Hebrew; however, masses of Hebraisms in a NT book tend to indicate a Hebrew ancestor.

Why Hebraisms, and not Aramaisms? Doesn’t everyone know that Jesus spoke Aramaic, and that, if there existed a pre-NT source for one of the books of the NT, it was written in Aramaic? True, most scholars assume Aramaic, and standard NT reference works inform us that, when mentioned in the NT, the Greek words for “Hebrew” and “in the Hebrew language” (10xx) refer, in fact, to “Aramaic.” Despite “Aramaic” not being mentioned in the NT, and early church tradition (e.g., Papias, 70-160 A.D.) that Jesus’ disciple Matthew wrote a gospel in Hebrew, it is assumed by a majority of authorities that Jesus and his disciples were Aramaic speakers.

Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (79% of which are written in Hebrew), the Hebrew Ben-Koseba letters, and other epigraphical materials, there has been a dramatic change in scholarly thinking, with more and more NT scholars giving Hebrew a place in the multilingual situation that existed in the land in the first-century.

Common nouns, such as “mammon” (Mt 6:24; Lk 16:9, 11, 13), “abba” (Mk 14:36), and “corban” (cf. Mk 7:11), are used in both languages. Most transliterated proper nouns such as “Gethsemane” (Mt 26:36; Mk 14:32), and “Tabitha” (Acts 9:36, 40), do not distinguish Hebrew from Aramaic: the same word is used in both languages. The word “rabbouni” (Mk 10:51; Jn 20:16) is correctly called “Hebrew” by John. Most NT scholars assume this word is Aramaic, but it is good, first-century Hebrew, as shown by E. Y. Kutscher (Hebrew and Aramaic Studies [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977], 268-271).

A number of transliterated Aramaic words are found in the NT: “talitha koum” (Mk 5:41); “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani” (Mk 15:34); “Hakeldamach” (Acts 1:19); and “maran atha” (1 Cor 16:22). Martin G. Abegg, Jr., comments on the transliteration “ephphatha”: “A third verbal instance pointed out by scholars, Ephphatha, ‘Be opened’ (Mark 7:34), is ambiguous and by form more likely Hebrew than Aramaic” (“Hebrew Language,” in Dictionary of New Testament Background [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000], 462).

The Aramaic supposition hangs by two very thin threads:

1. Three supposedly Aramaic place names: Bethzatha, Gabbatha and Golgotha (Jn 5:2; 19:13, 17). Place names, however, cannot distinguish Hebrew from Aramaic. “San Francisco” is the name of a famous city and used daily in English conversation, but is the name really English? The name of the biblical city Beit-shan (1 Sam 31:10-12; 2 Sam 21:12) was preserved for thousands of years (from the early Canaanite period) as conquerors (speaking various languages), one after another, inhabited the location. When the town of about 5,000 Arabs fell to Jewish militias in 1948, it carried the Arabic name Beisan, remarkably similar to the place's biblical name. Place names tend not to change. Anyway, John calls the place names Bethzatha, Gabbatha and Golgotha “Hebrew.” Why not assume that John knew the difference between Hebrew and Aramaic?

2. “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani.” Randall Buth has shown in a forthcoming article that the Hebrew “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani” (Mt 27:46) and its parallel, the Aramaic “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani” (Mk 15:34), both derive from a Hebrew tradition.

Enough about the Aramaic-Hebrew debate. Let’s look at 2 examples of Hebraisms in the NT.

Example One

In Luke 14:26 Jesus says: “If someone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother...he cannot be my disciple.”

Here is a modern English translation of the passage: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother...he cannot be my disciple” (NIV).

From the NIV translation, it appears that Jesus desired his disciples to despise their parents; however, that seems difficult to suppose, since honoring father and mother is one of the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:12). In the Luke 14:26 context, the word “hate” does not carry the meaning it normally has in English usage, but seems to be used in a Hebraic sense. If we found these words in a first-century Hebrew inscription or manuscript, we would translate them to English as follows: “If a person comes to me and doesn’t love his father and mother less (than me)...he cannot be my disciple.”

In Hebrew, “hate” can also mean “love less” or “put in second place,” and “love” can mean “love more” or “prefer.” For example, Genesis 29:31 states that Leah was “hated” (by Jacob), but the context indicates that Leah was not unloved, but rather loved less than Jacob’s other wife Rachel. Rachel was Jacob’s favorite wife. Notice that the preceding verse specifically says that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah.

A second illustration of this particular Hebraic shade of meaning of the word “hate” is found in Deuteronomy 21:15: “If a man has two wives, one loved and the other hated….” Here, too, the context shows that the “hated” wife is only second in affection and not really hated in the English sense of the word.

In summary, the meaning of Jesus’ saying might be: “If a person comes to me and does not love me more than his father and mother...he cannot be my disciple.” Perhaps Jesus was saying that his disciples should make him (or, make study with him) their first priority?

What’s the bottom line? The meaning of Jesus’ important saying could be almost the exact opposite of the Greek, and its usual English translation! Instead of “hate,” the meaning of the verb might be “put in second place.” This would make more sense and solve a difficult textual problem.

Example Two

In his desperation, the prodigal son thought to himself: “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you’... and he got up and came... ‘and give a ring on his hand’” (Lk 15:18-22).

Here is a modern English translation of the same passage: “I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you...’ And he arose and came... ‘and put [Greek: “give”] a ring on his hand’” (RSV).

“I have sinned against heaven and before you.” Strange. “Sinned against heaven”? “Before you”? This passage is full of what look like Hebraisms. “Arise and go” appears to be idiomatic Hebrew, and if so would simply means “go” in English. “Heaven” is a euphemism for “God,” a way of avoiding the tetragrammaton. “Before you” is a Hebrew idiom meaning “against you.” “Arise and came,” like “arise and go,” is probably idiomatic Hebrew, and should be rendered in English simply as “came.” Instead of “give a ring on the hand,” the English idiom is “put a ring on the finger.”

In summary, the meaning of Jesus’ words in Luke 15:18-22 might be: “I will go to my father and say to him, ‘Abba, I have sinned against God and against you’... and he went... ‘and put a ring on his finger....’”

What’s the bottom line? Asking, “What might Jesus have said in Hebrew?” has caused us to consider other, much different possible English translations of this text.

We will discuss more Hebraisms in “Cataloging the New Testament’s Hebraisms: Part 2.”