Mr. Manalo's Favorite Lamsa Bible translation

Mr. Felix Manalo’s Favorite Lamsa Bible translation

The george Lamsa translation of the Aramaic. Lamsa believed the original texts were written in Aramaic and were latter changed to Greek. That the Aramaic were more authoritative, but he is wrong. This is upheld despite all the manuscript evidence that contradicts his theories. Although the language principally spoken by Jesus was Aramaic almost all Jews were bi or tri lingual. This is even upheld by the fact that the Hebrew scriptures were translated into the Greek language ( Septuagint) 200 years before Christ.The Aramaic text (the Pershitta) is a later 4th century Syriac translation, a Semitic language used in Syria. All the earliest manuscripts are of the Greek and the majority of manuscript scholars agree. Lamsa intentionally ignores this stating that Greek was never the language of Palestine saying" Josephus states that even though a number of Jews had tried to learn the language of the Greeks, hardly any of them were succeeded."(Lamsa p.9) This is not what Josephus said in his antiquities of the Jews. "What Josephus wrote was that he had failed to attain precision in the pronunciation of Greek. "Lamsa also claims" Indeed the teaching of Greek was forbidden by Jewish rabbis. It was said that it was better for a man to give his child meat of swine than to teach him the language of the Greeks."(Lamsa p.10) (Cited in Greek , Hebrew Aramaic, or Syriac? A critique of the claims of G.M Lamsa by Edwin M.Yamauchi)
Then how does he explain the Septuagint? All this is contradicted by the facts of Greek manuscript evidence found in the quamrun caves and quotes from the Septuagint in the New testament which are more in number than quotes from the Masoretic text (the Hebrew)
Rabbi Hillel’s school is where Paul learned under rabbi Gamaliel who was the grandson of rabbi Hillel It is a fact the Paul who was versed in the Greek language and philosophy as well as Judaism learning this from his schooling. He certainly did not speak to those on mars hill in the Hebrew language which was reserved for and exclusive to the Jews. Neither did he converse to the roman rulers in Aramaic. Proof that the Jews were bilingual, In AD 132-135 we find those who were nationals rebelling in Bar Kochba’s side wrote in Greek as well as Hebrew and Aramaic.
The N T. is written in koine Greek (Common Greek), there were 4 languages used in the NT. times Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin, of which Greek was the dominant language. We find the inscription over Christ as being the King of the Jews was written in Greek, Hebrew, Latin. The Greek language was spread by Alexander the Great after he defeated the Persian empire 323 B.C. He saw it as his divine mission to spread the Greek culture throughout the world ( even though he was Macedonian and not Greek) His Hellenistic empire spread to Asia minor, Persia, India, Syria, Egypt, and Israel. He established 70 Greek cities of which half were in Israel. By 300 AD. all the worlds languages were Greek.
Jn. 12:20,23 Seems to strongly imply that Philip, Andrew and Jesus understood and spoke Greek as Greeks came up to worship. When the Gospel writers quoted from the O.T. it was mostly from the Greek Septuagint. EX: Isa.61:1 The Jews used Hebrew word patterns in the Greek. Acts and Hebrews used a blend of classical and koine Greek. There are Aramaic and Hebrew words in the Greek, words that were transposed.
There is no New Testament letter written in Hebrew originally, all are in (koine) the common Greek language.
In Mk.7:24 when Jesus spoke to the syrophoenician woman The Greek word for dogs had no correlation in Hebrew or Aramaic.
In Jn. 21 Jesus uses two Greek words for love and tending the flock that cannot be reproduced in the Hebrew nor Aramaic language. So it was likely a conversation carried on in the Greek. When Jesus spoke to Pilate I Don't think it was in Hebrew since he was a pagan unwilling to learn the language of the Jews.