Re: Social Evolution

The Hebrew of Gen. 4:24 unmistakably says 77. The Septuagint translation
into Greek uses exactly the same words as in the Matthew passage. This
would seem to verify 77 as the correct translation in Matthew. The source
of confusion for the translators seems to be that the suffix meaning times
is attached to the 70 rather than the 7. Incidentally, using 70 times 7
would require understanding it as 70 times 7 times, i.e. two uses of the
word times or its equivalent.

Gordon Brown
Department of Mathematics
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0395

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, George Murphy wrote:

> Probably. hebdomekovtakis hepta could be either 77 or 70 x 7. KJV has made the latter the popular form of the saying but the former seems more likely (as in, e.g., NRSV & NIV), especially in view of the fact that it then can be seen as an undoing of Lamech's song.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Robert Schneider
> To: George Murphy ; asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 8:48 PM
> Subject: Re: Social Evolution
>
>
> George,
>
> Recently I was listening to Lamech's victory/taunt song read in an OT lesson, when it suddenly struck me: did Jesus have this passage in mind when he responded to a question of Peter's?
>
> Lamech sings (Gen. 4:24):
> I have killed a man for wounding me,
> A young man for striking me.
> If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
> Truly Lamech sevety-sevenfold.
>
> In Matthew's account (18:21-22), Peter says, "If my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" Jesus says to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven."
>
> Bob
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: George Murphy
> To: steamdoc@aol.com ; asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 2:59 PM
> Subject: Re: Social Evolution
>
>
> There would be some force in David's argument if a kind of social Darwinism were the only type of ethic that social evolution had produced & if we were then trying to impose some different ethic. But along with survival of the fittest ethics there have also developed altruistic ones. (The illustrations of the "Tao" which C.S. Lewis gives in the appendix of The Abolition of Man is helpful here.) & in fact the ethics of the Bible can be seen to have gone through a kind of evolutionary process. E.g., there is a definite development from the demand for unlimited vengeance of Gen.4:23-24 through the limits placed on rettribution in the lex talionis of Ex.21:23-24 to the move beyond any retribution in Mt.5:38-39.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
Received on Wed Jan 25 16:35:13 2006