religion and language?

Question

catholic mass used to be all in latin! muslims read the qur'an in arabic. jews read the torah in hebrew. hindus study sanskrit for to study their sacred books. lots of people of different faiths learn basic prayers / hymns in a certain language.

what religion are you and what language is generally and / or historically associated with your religion? christians, i know lots of you only speak english, but wasn't the early church primarily based in either greek or latin?

Answer 1

LDS and everything is done in whatever language the person speaks.

Answer 2

"christians, i know lots of you only speak english, but wasn't the early church primarily based in either greek or latin?"

Yes, but while many Christians believe that being able to read the bible in the original languages it was written in is helpful, it is not generally considered necessary. Almost from the beginning, the New Testament was translated into several languages, such as Coptic.

And I am a non-denominational Christian.

Answer 3

I am a follower of Christ.
The Bible was originally written in Hebrew & Greek with brief passages of aramaic in the OT. I use english in my worship and study, though i do use a greek/hebrew program on my computer to look into meanings of words that may be taken many ways in texts.

The OT was Translated into the greek in the late BC's and was used by jews and God fearing greeks who didnt know hebrew.

Latin was later used by the church because it was the Roman language of the day, but eventually it became "holy" in the eyes of the catholic church as their power increased and they became intermingled with the Roman state.

The christian faith, while it comes in many ethnic shades, is one that is separate from and indeed its own culture. Thats why its ok to translate the Bible from the original languages to any other. Unlike Islam, where the faith is deeply embedded in Arabic cultures and Hinduism, where it is embedded into Indian culture.

Answer 4

Major religions such as Christian and Jewish have congregations/subdivisions/branches that adopted the language of the people they serve so as to be more easily understood by the people. Catholics made this change in the 20th century, but many miss the awe and mystery of hearing services in a language they do not understand.

Aramaic was the earliest languages of the old and new testaments; then Greek; Latin was a late comer.

And what do you think of fundamentalists who act as though God wrote the Bible in English, since they do not accept latter-day discoveries of mistranslations.

The idea that Moses had horns came from such a mistranslation; and that Exodus involved the parting of the waters of the Red Sea (sea of reeds).

Answer 5

I am Catholic and Latin is the language of the Church.

Personally, I can not wait for the Latin Mass to be offered here - kind of justify the 4 years I spent learning it.

Answer 6

I was baptised in a Russian Orthodox church, but they spoke both Russian and English...we mainly went to a Greek Orthodox Church..almost all of it in Greek...now I am a member of the Lutheran Church, which historically broke from the Catholic Church...since I am in America our church is in English, but it would not be surprising to hear it in German

the whole tower of babel comes into mind when i hear this...though all true christians share the same language...cheesy, huh?

Answer 7

or hebrew, because many of the first members were Jewish first.

Personally I would love to learn greek and latin and hebrew.

But I'm christian... and at the moment we speak english here but I'm pretty sure German was part of the reason it's not quite as much of the old languages.

Answer 8

I'm Catholic & the Traditional Latin Mass is going to come in vogue again.

Answer 9

I suppose we're going to get a lot out of a Latin Mass.

Answer 10

Greek, Latin, and Aramaic are the three Bible languages. Rather than learn all three, we rely on groups of Bible scholars to translate scripture into English. Personally, I look at several versions to help understand the meaning of passages.

Ops, forgot Hewbrew. Thanks, Littlebird.

Answer 11

My mom used to go to Latin mass before it was taken away.