I'm currently working through C.K. Barrett's The New Testament Background: Selected Documents, and I have to say, it's been very good so far as he gives a very good overview of a lot of primary sources. Today I came across a section titled "Heretics," and here's what he said:
"A word commonly used to describe a heretic or sceptic is אפיקורוס ('appiqoros). The origin of the word is uncertain, but even if it was derived from a Hebrew root the coincidence of its sound with the name of the Greek thinker Epicurus must have played no small part in the development of its meaning."1
Is this a coincidence?
While it may be a bit anachronistic and taking things out of context, Elie Wiesel once said, "In Jewish history, there are no coincidences."
1C.K. Barrett, The New Testament Background: Selected Documents, (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 210.
2 comments:
wow... this entry seems almost as insightful as a PhD student... too bad you don't know Elie Wiesel...Night
Haha. Night was a good book.
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