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Monday, May 14, 2007

‘brood of vipers’: insights on an idiom

From ‘Aramaic Thoughts’:

In Matt 3:7, John calls those Pharisees and Sadducees who have come out to him “brood of vipers.” The Syriac word for “viper” is simply a transliteration of the Greek echidna, and is not the Hebrew/Aramaic nachash that is used in the Old Testament. Lamsa takes this phrase as an idiom meaning “sly, deceptive.” Unfortunately, this meaning neither fits the context nor explains the origin of the phrase.

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Posted by Nathan Bierma on 05/14 at 10:14 AM
Interdisciplinary Application • Language • Preaching • Reading • (0) Comments • Permalink
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