thevagrant88 wrote:So sorry if some of my questions come off as naïve, but I ask out of genuine curiosity and interest.
It’s my understanding that, generally speaking, the Greek of the New Testament is considered to be pretty straight forward. Occasionally I’ve even heard it described as an “easy” text to work through, at least for the gospels and other less abstract sections like revelations, for example
Generally speaking, and obviously this is totally subjective, but is this somewhat uncommon amongst these foundational religious texts of the world? Texts like the Hebrew of the Bible, Latin translations of the NT, Arabic of the Quran, etc. I’ve heard the Sanskrit of the Vedas is very challenging but I couldn’t say much more outside of that.
Can't comment on anything except the Hebrew OT and Latin, but all of these seem to be relatively easy, possibly even easier than much of the New Testament.
I haven't got that far with actual Hebrew study, and yet it's amazing how far that gets you in understanding texts. The language is alien, of course, compared to anything Indo-European, but much of the text is not hard. Not unlike many ancient texts (Icelandic sagas, Homer, etc. Etc) there isn't that much descriptive language compared to modern texts. The core vocabulary is much simpler than, say, a modern novel. Much of it is clearly designed to be read, and to be widely understood - it's not complex literature for they enjoyment of the erudite, nor abstruse like some mystical-philosophical texts (Plotinus!) There are harder bits: some if the poetry is more difficult, and the huge range of era and style between early Torah and the final prophets presents challenges. There are some points where textual transmission makes it hard to understand, though none that really affect any central points.
The Latin Vulgate, on the other hand, is just easy. Again, doubtless parts are harder, but what I've read or dipped into has been easier than the final chapters of most textbooks. It's translated simply and clearly for the masses, and that shows. That also means the style is more regular - whereas in the Greek NT the gulf between easy (Mark's blunt style, or John's elegant simplicity) and hard (Erudite Luke, and especially Hebrews) is substantial.
I'm not far on in any language bar perhaps NT Greek, but there very fact I can read these texts to some level at this stage indicates that are pretty simple.