万民的正道 Torah for Gentiles

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Aaron Wood

October 6, 2010

前些日子收到一本书《Torah for Gentiles》，作者让我读了之后评评？怎么评呢？绝大部分中国人对于Torah这个词都很不熟悉，知道Bnei Noah的就少之又少了。我觉得吧，先谈不上评，先介绍一下基本词汇吧。

Torah这个词我已经发文谈过了，读者可以参考《” title=”犹太人的“五经”” target=”_blank”>犹太人的“五经”》。然后我要谈gentile这个词。

Barre女士用Gentile这个词指犹太人以外的人，即非犹太人。大概15年前第一次接触Gentile这个英语单词的时候，同时看到这个词被翻译成“外邦人”，当时觉得这个翻译挺奇怪的，纳闷为什么不翻译成“外国人”。后来了解到那个翻译至少有大约一个世纪的历史了，也许百年以前“外邦人”是当时普遍的说法。

虽然在英语中，Gentile最常见的用法是指“非犹太人”，Barre女士用这个词也是这个意思，但Gentile这个词却不是来源于犹太人的民族语言——希伯来语。据我所知Gentile来源于拉丁语的gens，Barre女士在书的第274页也提到了这个来源。对于古时说拉丁语的罗马人来说，

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万民的正道 Torah for Gentiles

Aaron Wood

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