Hebrew Word for Romans 12:1,2

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Danitaz
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Hebrew Word for Romans 12:1,2

Post by Danitaz »

Hello everyone,

I'm new here and I have a request. I'm naming my worship song album based on Romans 12:1 and (2). Our life itself being a worship, Living sacrifice and the likes. I'm looking for a single Hebrew word to sum this up. Appreciate if anyone could help. Blessings
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Kirk Lowery
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Re: Hebrew Word for Romans 12:1,2

Post by Kirk Lowery »

Welcome to B-Hebrew. Please note that we require all posts to be signed with one's first and last name. You can do this by placing your name in your "signature", as I have done below. That way you don't need to think about it. Any other information you put there besides your name is optional. You can edit your signature in your user control panel.

Also, B-Hebrew's charter is primarily about the language and literature of the Hebrew Bible. This question is a bit off-topic, but we'll let it go this time. :-)
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Mark Lightman
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Re: Hebrew Word for Romans 12:1,2

Post by Mark Lightman »

Danitaz wrote:I'm naming my worship song album based on Romans 12:1 and (2). Our life itself being a worship, Living sacrifice and the likes. I'm looking for a single Hebrew word to sum this up.
Delitzsch, Salkinson-Ginsburg, and BSI all have קָרְבָּן חַי for θυσία ζῶσα in 12:1b.
Kirk Lowery wrote:...B-Hebrew's charter is primarily about the language and literature of the Hebrew Bible. This question is a bit off-topic... :)
Hi, Kirk,

Is the Hebrew New Testament off-topic for Biblical Hebrew because it is not Hebrew or because it is not biblical? :)
Mark Lightman
Yigal Levin
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Re: Hebrew Word for Romans 12:1,2

Post by Yigal Levin »

Mark wrote: "Is the Hebrew New Testament off-topic for Biblical Hebrew because it is not Hebrew or because it is not biblical?"

Mark, there is no Hebrew New Testament. There are several modern translations of the Greek New Testament into Hebrew, which attempt to recreate a "biblical-feeling" language. These translations, however, do not reflect ancient traditions, and as such are not authentic sources for the study of either the "original" text of the New Testament or for the study of the ancient (biblical) Hebrew language.

Thanks,

Yigal Levin
Mark Lightman
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Re: Hebrew Word for Romans 12:1,2

Post by Mark Lightman »

Yigal Levin wrote:Mark wrote: "Is the Hebrew New Testament off-topic for Biblical Hebrew because it is not Hebrew or because it is not biblical?"

Mark, there is no Hebrew New Testament. There are several modern translations of the Greek New Testament into Hebrew, which attempt to recreate a "biblical-feeling" language. These translations, however, do not reflect ancient traditions, and as such are not authentic sources for the study of either the "original" text of the New Testament or for the study of the ancient (biblical) Hebrew language.

Thanks,

Yigal Levin
Yes, Yigal, I agree that reading the several versions of the Hebrew New Testament will not help one "study" the ancient (biblical) Hebrew language, but they will help one learn it.

One quibble: Shem Tov's translation of Matthew is not really "modern."
Mark Lightman
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Kirk Lowery
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Re: Hebrew Word for Romans 12:1,2

Post by Kirk Lowery »

I assume, Mark, your comment was made jokingly, or sarcastically. But the original poster's question was not about the NT in Hebrew, but what would be an appropriate Hebrew expression for the ideas expressed in Greek by Paul. Something very different. We've had discussions about the NT as they've related to the Hebrew Bible and its language from time to time. I consider those types of topics to be marginal to our forum. This present topic is definitely outside our charter.

Sorry if I come across pedantic, Mark. It's because I am being pedantic! Sometimes the boundaries of our forum are unclear to some. I'm taking this opportunity to (hopefully) add some clarity to that.

And to our friend "danitaz", no criticism is implied. This is an exception to our rule; I permitted it. ;-)

Blessings,
Kirk
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Re: Hebrew Word for Romans 12:1,2

Post by Mark Lightman »

Yes, Kirk, I was trying to be funny. I was really responding to your earlier post
Kirk Lowery wrote:Mark,

The New Testament, even in Hebrew, is rarely a subject within B-Hebrew's charter.
but I see that I have misunderstood both of your comments, and I am glad to know that the Hebrew New Testament is not a banned topic, which did not in fact make sense to me.

For what it's worth, reading the Hebrew New Testament is a big part of my attempt to master Biblical Hebrew. I about split my Hebrew learning time between reading this and reading Hebrew Tanak. Why? 1.The Hebrew NT is easier than the Hebrew OT, providing therefore more comprehensible input. 2. We have 3-4 versions of it, and reading them side by side, often one is able to figure out one by reading another, without resorting to a bilingual lexicon or translation. 3. I have mastered the Greek New Testament, so I can use a Greek-Hebrew diglot without ever resorting to English, staying therefore in my target languages. 4. The Hebrew NT expands the territory of Biblical Hebrew. A word which may occur only once or twice in the HOT may occur a bunch of times in the HNT, which, if nothing else, helps drill rare words.

You could almost say the same four things about the pedagogical value the LXX for mastering New Testament Greek.
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Re: Hebrew Word for Romans 12:1,2

Post by talmid56 »

Kirk and Yigal, you make good points. Although there was no ancient written Hebrew NT, there is good reason to believe that some of the oral teaching that later became part of tthe NT was first given in Hebrew, as Buth, Penner, and Notley have shown. Granted, probably closer to Mishnaic than Biblical, but Hebrew.

Mark makes several valid points about the value of the Hebrew NT as an adjunct to Tanak. I have spent a lot of time listeninng to mp3s of the Israel Bible Society NT and noticed it uses a large amount of vocabulary from the Tanak. Hearing this in conversational contexts in the Gospels is very helpful. It helps reinforce what I have observed in Tanak.

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kwrandolph
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Re: Hebrew Word for Romans 12:1,2

Post by kwrandolph »

Mark Lightman wrote:
Kirk Lowery wrote:Mark,

The New Testament, even in Hebrew, is rarely a subject within B-Hebrew's charter.
but I see that I have misunderstood both of your comments, and I am glad to know that the Hebrew New Testament is not a banned topic, which did not in fact make sense to me.
It does make sense to me, seeing as the earliest translations of the New Testament into Hebrew use Medieval Hebrew as their earliest source of Hebrew. Medieval Hebrew is in many ways a different language—different grammar, many words have different meanings, etc.
Mark Lightman wrote:For what it's worth, reading the Hebrew New Testament is a big part of my attempt to master Biblical Hebrew.


Mastering medieval to modern Hebrews can actually be a hindrance to mastering Biblical Hebrew, as was brought out in discussions when Randall Buth was on this list. The problem is cross-language contamination, which is at its worst when the two languages being learned are close cognates.
Mark Lightman wrote:I about split my Hebrew learning time between reading this and reading Hebrew Tanak. Why? … 4. The Hebrew NT expands the territory of Biblical Hebrew. A word which may occur only once or twice in the HOT may occur a bunch of times in the HNT, which, if nothing else, helps drill rare words.
Here we need to be really careful. Already by the LXX, there is evidence that rarely used terms in Tanakh were forgotten. So their uses in a translation based on even later Hebrew could actually lead you astray in trying to understand Biblical Hebrew.
Mark Lightman wrote:You could almost say the same four things about the pedagogical value the LXX for mastering New Testament Greek.
One thing that would help us understand Biblical Hebrew would be if we had a massive library of extra-Biblical documents in Biblical Hebrew from the time when Biblical Hebrew was a natively spoken language. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exist. The closest we have is from centuries later, centuries after evidence that Hebrew was no longer natively spoken (oh it was spoken, but non-natively, in the same manner as medieval Latin), after the grammar apparently had changed, after many terms had been forgotten or their meanings changed, and after other changes.

We do have that body of literature to help us understand the Greek New Testament, of which the LXX is only a part. In fact, it is on that basis of that body of literature that I disagree with the common translation of one term, μυστεριον, as the examples I’ve seen from that wider body of literature indicate it had the meaning of “revelation” and not “mystery”. It is how that wider body of literature helps us understand the Greek of the New Testament that makes me wish that we had a similar body of literature for Tanakh and Biblical Hebrew, but we don’t have that wider body of literature.

One area where the Greek New Testament helps is in the ideas it presents and even the Greek vocabulary chosen—they were based on ideas first presented in Tanakh. As such, they can help us understand Tanakh. This is no surprise, for as far as I can tell, all the writers of the New Testament were Jews who believed that the New Testament that they were writing was a continuation of Tanakh.

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SteveMiller
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Re: Hebrew Word for Romans 12:1,2

Post by SteveMiller »

Danitaz,
The words suggested by Mark for living sacrifice could be transliterated as korban chai or korban hai.

Suggestions I have from similar thoughts in the Psalms:
Ps 42:9(8) שִׁיר֣וֹ עִמִּ֑י shiroo imi - His song with me
Ps 42:9(8) לְאֵ֣ל חַיָּֽי leal chayi - to the God of my life (or my living)
Ps 27:6 זִבְחֵ֣י תְרוּעָ֑ה zibchai trooah - sacrifices of shouts of joy
Ps 20:3(4) מִנְחֹתֶ֑ךָ minchotehcha - your offerings
Ps 20:3(4) עוֹלָתְךָ֖ olahtecha - your whole burnt offering
Ps 50:14 נְדָרֶֽיךָ nedahrehchah - your vows
Ps 50:23 זֹבֵ֥חַ תּוֹדָ֗ה zohbayach todah - sacrifice of thanksgiving (or praise)
Ps 110:3 בְּֽהַדְרֵי־קֹ֭דֶשׁ bichadrei-kodesh - in the beauty of consecration
Ps 118:27 אִסְרוּ־חַ֥ג isru chag - bind [the sacrifice for] the feast. (This is a striking mysterious phrase to Orthodox Jews. From it they derive the tradition to add an extra day to the feasts, which is not at all what the phrase means, but it shows how the phrase is striking.)
Sincerely yours,
Steve Miller
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http://www.voiceInWilderness.info
Honesty is the best policy. - George Washington (1732-99)
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