The Heretics Preferred the Hebrew Bible; the Orthodox Greek

[Secret Alias]

The same thing Irenaeus says about 'the heretics' generally here is reinforced in the Imperial decrees of the late 4th century through medieval periods and the Marcionites by Eznik:

Since, therefore, the Scriptures have been interpreted with such fidelity, and by the grace of God, and since from these God has prepared and formed again our faith towards His Son, and has preserved to us the unadulterated Scriptures in Egypt, where the house of Jacob flourished, fleeing from the famine in Canaan; where also our Lord was preserved when He fled from the persecution set on foot by Herod; and [since] this interpretation of these Scriptures was made prior to our Lord's descent [to earth], and came into being before the Christians appeared--for our Lord was born about the forty-first year of the reign of Augustus; but Ptolemy was much earlier, under whom the Scriptures were interpreted;--[since these things are so, I say,] truly these men are proved to be impudent and presumptuous, who would now show a desire to make different translations, when we refute them out of these Scriptures, and shut them up to a belief in the advent of the Son of God. [Adv Haer 3.21.3]

The only exception seems to be the Valentinians who preserved Jesus's name in Greek rather the correct yeshu according to Irenaeus.

[Peter Kirby]

I've split off my tangent here (this is Stephan's thread after all) about a history of Christian origins that could account for what Secret Alias notes.

http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... f=3&t=1644

[Peter Kirby]

The only exception seems to be the Valentinians who preserved Jesus's name in Greek rather the correct yeshu according to Irenaeus.

It is very important to distinguish between the language of texts used and that of the mystical / divine names used.

Because Hebrew was a magical language and/or the language of God Himself, words and names (and words used as names) loaned from Hebrew (or from Aramaic/Syriac being misunderstood as Hebrew) frequently appear in Greek magical texts or the gnostic tractates, which are generally either Greek or translated from Greek into Coptic. The most famous being, of course, the Greek representations of the Tetragrammaton, such as IAW and PIPI.

[MrMacSon]

I found this

the word "yeshuah" in hebrew means "help", "aid", "assistance", or "salvation" depending on the context in which the word is used. When the word "yeshuah" is used as a name, it basically has no meaning. In Jewish Tanach, there are many men who carry the name Yeshuah but in translation, they are not named "Jesus" or even translitieratively "yeshuah" but Joshuah, Josiah, and even Jesse. King David's own father's name was Yeshuah but his is rendered in translation as Jesse. Hebrew biblical texts will bear this out to be true. Yehoshuah is a completely different name and with a different meaning from Yeshuah. I've already indicated the meaning of "yeshuah" so the meaning of "yehoshuah" would be "God's salvation, help, aid, assistance" possibly. There is no connection between Yahweh and Jehoshuah as is claimed by some. The YHWH anacronym is derived from the verb to be, is the third person singular of the "hiphil" tense of the verb to be. The "hiphil" tense in Hebrew is an future and intensified tense. What is traditionally rendered as "I am who am" would better be translated from the Hebrew "Eh'yeh asher eh'yeh" as "I will be utterly where I will utterly be." Yeh'veh is the third person of this same verb and the hiphil tense. It is also the sacred secret name that is never revealed except at Passover when the High Priest pronounces this name while the shofar and drums and a great din is made.

[Peter Kirby]

Speaking of, the Book of Elchasai is both quite early (early 2nd century, reign of Trajan) and one of the few specific 'Christian' texts known to be written in Aramaic. It influenced Mani. It's known to be written in Aramaic partly because of a cryptogram embedded in the text, in Aramaic.

http://earlychristianwritings.com/elchasai.html

The name Elchasai itself, as Epiphanius notes, translates as 'hidden power', drawing parallels to Acts 8:10 and Gospel of Peter 19.

http://earlychristianwritings.com/info/ ... athen.html

"The contents of the book had been revealed by an angel ninety-six miles high, sixteen miles broad, and twenty-four across the shoulders, whose footprints were fourteen miles long and four miles wide by two miles deep. This was the Son of God, and He was accompanied by His Sister, the Holy Ghost, of the same dimensions. "

This draws a parallel to Gospel of Peter 40.