70 times 7

[Doom]

So, today we were told that in Greek, "70 times 7" means 77, and not 490.

How accurate is this?

[anawim]

The NIV says seventy seven times
.
According to Strong's Concordance, it can mean multiple things:
1) Seventy times seventy times
2) Seventy times seven times
3) Countless

I think the last one would be in keeping with Jesus' message.

[Highlander]

Septenary system? Base 7?

[Doom]

Septenary system? Base 7?

In base 7, 77 isn't a number

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

The Hebrew of Genesis 4:24 says שִׁבְעִים וְשִׁבְעָה — literally “seventy and seven,” i.e. 77. But the Septuagint Greek of Genesis 4:24 uses the same construction ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά, which appears to mean seventy times seven in Greek. That's one reason the issue is considerably more complicated than simply saying “Jesus said 77.”

^ ChatGPT after I pressed it for a deeper answer.

[Doom]

As I suspected, as with most translation issues, it is more difficult and nuanced than a simple "the Greek says..." assertion implies.

My priest often questions the translation of various passages; one of his favorite ones is the claim that in Genesis 1 and 2 it is a mistranslation to say that God created "man"; it only says "human," and "human" is gender neutral and cannot be called "man" until after the creation of "woman"

I do wonder how much Greek, Latin, and Hebrew the average priest who doesn't decide to specialize in languages is taught about the Biblical languages in seminary. Is the average parish priest really qualified to say that a given translation is "wrong", especially one as well-established as the translation of the first two chapters of Genesis, which goes back centuries and is pretty close to universal in Catholic, Protestant and Jewish translations of Genesis?

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Generally seminarians are expected to take Latin and Greek. Hebrew is a very different language, much harder to learn.

Doom's example sounds a lot more like something that's not driven by language itself, but by how the priest thinks it should be.

[Doom]

Greek and Latin are both languages about which a great deal is known. Hebrew is much more obscure, and there are still significant portions of the Old Testament where the Hebrew is so obscure that translators often have to look at the Septuagint, Vulgate or other versions for assistance. And barring the near-miraculous discovery of another major haul of ancient Hebrew documents at least as large and as ancient as the Dead Sea Scrolls, it doesn't appear that knowledge of ancient Hebrew is ever going to improve.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

It's more a case that both Greek and Latin come from the Indo-European language family and put words together in a way that isn't as challenging for English speakers as Hebrew (a Semitic language does). Even with vocabulary--a lot of English stems from Greek and Latin, so there's something to hang your memory on. Once you get by Yom Kippur (which gives you yom = day), Rosh Hashanah (head of the year, give both rosh = head and shanah = year), and a few other similar phrases, it's all brute memorization. And then there's the weird alphabet going in the wrong direction....

[anawim]

For me the biggest challenge was no vowels. Most words have a three consonant root. You can only truly know what a word is by its context.

t wld b qvlnt t typng nglsh wtht vwls.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

To life! To life! La Chaim!

[Riverboat]

That's one reason the issue is considerably more complicated than simply saying “Jesus said 77.”

Whew! I thought math was hard in high school in 1970-1975 AD here in America. Imagine what a kid had to endure in a Greek classroom in 1 AD.

[Doom]

For me the biggest challenge was no vowels. Most words have a three-consonant root. You can only truly know what a word is by its context.

t wld b qvlnt t typng nglsh wtht vwls.

It's m more complicated than that; there are diacritical marks which indicate what the vowels are supposed to be, but because the diacritical marks are centuries removed from the consonants, there is no way of being certain that the vowels are correct. So when the vowels that are there don't seem to make sense, translators start playing around with the vowels to see if they can find a set of vowels that makes sense. This is why different translations of the OT are sometimes radically different.

Let me give you an example of one: one of the Psalms says, "The Lord is my strength and my song." For centuries, commentators have been confused by that; it doesn't really seem to make sense. Many modern translations say, "The Lord is my strength and my might"; that seems more meaningful, but it was found by playing around with the vowels until they got something that seemed a little more coherent. Which is correct? No one knows.

[Highlander]

Whew! I thought math was hard in high school in 1970-1975 AD here in America. Imagine what a kid had to endure in a Greek classroom in 1 AD.

Well, for a start, they had to learn classical Greek and that would have been no easy task.

[Riverboat]

Well, for a start, they had to learn classical Greek and that would have been no easy task.

True, but a lot less history.

[anawim]

For me the biggest challenge was no vowels. Most words have a three-consonant root. You can only truly know what a word is by its context.

t wld b qvlnt t typng nglsh wtht vwls.

It's m more complicated than that; there are diacritical marks which indicate what the vowels are supposed to be, but because the diacritical marks are centuries removed from the consonants, there is no way of being certain that the vowels are correct. So when the vowels that are there don't seem to make sense, translators start playing around with the vowels to see if they can find a set of vowels that makes sense. This is why different translations of the OT are sometimes radically different.

Let me give you an example of one: one of the Psalms says, "The Lord is my strength and my song." For centuries, commentators have been confused by that; it doesn't really seem to make sense. Many modern translations say, "The Lord is my strength and my might"; that seems more meaningful, but it was found by playing around with the vowels until they got something that seemed a little more coherent. Which is correct? No one knows.

Good point!

[Highlander]

Well, for a start, they had to learn classical Greek and that would have been no easy task.

True, but a lot less history.

Well played!

[peregrinator]

For me the biggest challenge was no vowels. Most words have a three-consonant root. You can only truly know what a word is by its context.

t wld b qvlnt t typng nglsh wtht vwls.

It's m more complicated than that; there are diacritical marks which indicate what the vowels are supposed to be, but because the diacritical marks are centuries removed from the consonants, there is no way of being certain that the vowels are correct. So when the vowels that are there don't seem to make sense, translators start playing around with the vowels to see if they can find a set of vowels that makes sense. This is why different translations of the OT are sometimes radically different.

Yes, this is why making a fetish of the Massora is incomprehensible.

[Highlander]

Like Hebrew, it seems.

[Doom]

Yes, this is why making a fetish of the Massora is incomprehensible.

Especially since it seems clear the Masoretic text has been subtly altered in key places to make a Christian interpretation less likely