Aramaic primacy
Encyclopedia
The hypothesis of Aramaic primacy holds that the original text of the New Testament
was not written in Greek, as held by the majority of scholars
, but in the Aramaic language, which was the primary language of Jesus
and his Twelve Apostles.
The position of the Nestorian Church
, per Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
in 1957, is that the Syriac Peshitta
(which is written in a cursive form of Aramaic), used in that church, is the original of the New Testament. Variants of this view are held by some individuals who may argue for a lost Aramaic text preceding the Peshitta as the basis for the New Testament.
This view is to be distinguished from higher criticism and text-critical transmission theories such as the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis
of Lessing and others. The Hebrew Gospel or Proto-Gospel hypothesis includes either Aramaic or Hebrew urtexts for Matthew
and possibly Mark
.
that the Peshitta text, which most scholars consider a translation from Greek, is in fact the original source of the Greek:
The most noteworthy advocate of this view in the west was George Lamsa (1976) of the Aramaic Bible Center. However this view is rejected by the majority of scholars:
The current Patriarch of the Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV (1976-present), has not publicly pronounced that the Peshitta is the original New Testament.
New Testament
and/or its sources were originally written in the Aramaic language
. The phrase "according Aramaic primacy among the languages" and "Aramaic's predominance" had already appeared in print as a general expression used to note the primacy of Aramaic over other languages in specific context, though Levine (1998) had written of evidence "according Aramaic primacy among the languages used in the city" in regard to "Aramaic's predominance" over Hebrew and Greek in Second Temple
Jerusalem, though this is not a term, as Levine could also have written "according primacy to Aramaic."
Likewise advocates of the primacy of an Aramaic New Testament have coined a new meaning for the phrase "Greek primacy
" (earliest confirmed reference 2007) to describe the consensus scholarly view that the New Testament was originally written in Greek. These terms are not used by text-critical scholarship
, since in its view the evidence is overwhelming that the New Testament was written originally in Greek.
's translation of the Peshitta
New Testament from Syriac
into English
brought the claims for primacy of the Aramaic New Testament to the West. However, his translation is poorly regarded by most scholars
in the field. The Old Syriac Texts, the Sinai palimpsest and the Curetonian Gospels
, have also influenced scholars concerning original Aramaic passages. Diatessaron
ic texts such as the Liege Dutch Harmony, the Pepysian Gospel Harmony, Codex Fuldensis
, The Persian Harmony, The Arabic Diatessaron, and the Commentary on the Diatessaron by Ephrem the Syrian
have provided recent insights into Aramaic origins. The Coptic Gospel of Thomas
and the various versions of the medieval Hebrew Gospel of Matthew
also have provided clues to Aramaic foundations in the New Testament especially the gospels. Many 19th Century scholars (H. Holtzmann, Wendt, Jülicher
, Wernle, von Soden
, Wellhausen
, Harnack, B. Weiss, Nicolardot, W. Allen, Montefiore, Plummer, and Stanton) theorized that portions of the gospels, especially Matthew, were derived from an Aramaic source normally referred to as Q.
, his Apostles, and most or all the authors of the New Testament
was Aramaic, not Koine Greek
; see also Aramaic of Jesus
. They also note that the first Christian communities may have come into existence in mostly Aramaic-speaking areas now in modern Lebanon
, Syria
, and Israel
, and that the first converts to Christianity were likely members of Aramaic-speaking Jewish synagogue
s, even when in Greek or Latin-speaking cities. Advocates of an Aramaic original also refer to the patristic writings (Papias, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Jerome) that indicate Aramaic was the original written language of parts of the New Testament.
. There isn't a mountain high enough to view "all of the kingdoms of the earth" since the earth is round. The Hebrew word found in Ibn Shaprut
's medieval translation of the Greek Gospel of Matthew in the appendix to The Touchstone
(c.1380) uses "eretz" which can be translated as earth or land. By substituting the Hebrew word "eretz" into the passage makes it possible that "all the kingdoms of the land of Israel" were viewed from a high mountain such as Mount Tabor in Israel. However the same is true for Greek ge which can mean land or earth depending on context. Also since "all the kingdoms of the land of Israel" is seen as an unlikely meaning most commentators on Matthew have seen "all the kingdoms of the land of earth" as being either hyperbole or a vision.
Another proposed example concerns Matthew 24:51 and Luke 12:46. Agnes Smith Lewis (1910) noted that the verb used in all of the Syriac versions "palleg" has the primary meaning of "cut in pieces" and the secondary one of "appoint to some one his portion." The primary sense leads to the possible problem of how someone cut to pieces could then be assigned to something else. But, Smith argues, if we take the secondary meaning then we are may suggest that the Greek translator misunderstood a Syriac idiom by taking it too literally. The translation would be "and shall allot his portion and shall place him with the unfaithful" instead of the Greek "shall cut him in pieces and shall place him with the unfaithful." Hugh J. Schonfield
(1927) notes that the Hebrew verb "bahkag" means literally to "break forth, cleave asunder" and concludes that the Greek translator has failed to grasp the sense in which the Hebrew word is here used. Again other commentators have seen "and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." as apocalyptic language.
Another proposed example involves the genealogy in Matthew. Schonfield
(1927) argues that the text of Matthew indicates three genealogical groups of 14 each. However, the Greek texts of Matthew have two groups of 14 and a final group of 13. The Syriac Curetonian and Syriac Sinaitic add the following to Matthew 1:13
, "Abiud begat Abiur, Abiur begat Eliakim. Dutillet's Hebrew version of Matthew adds Abihud begat Abner; Abner begat Eliakim. In both Syriac and Hebrew the spellings between Abiud and Abiur are so close that during translation into Greek the second name could have been dropped mistakenly. In any case, all Greek texts contain only 13 names while possibly indicating 14 should be in the final portion of the list. The two Syriac texts and one Hebrew text have 14 names and indicate 14 should be in the final portion of the list. Since the list is a Jewish Genealogy it is highly unlikely that a Jewish genealogical record would have been originally composed in Greek.
as a distinctive subsection of mistranslations. Sometimes it appears that a word in Aramaic with two (or more) distinct and different meanings appears to have been interpreted in the wrong sense, or even translated both ways in different documents. Perhaps the most well known example that advocates of an Aramaic urtext for the Gospels cite is the parable of the "camel (καμηλος) through the eye of a needle
." (Mark 10:25, Matthew 19:24, Luke 18:25) In Aramaic, the word for "camel" (גמלא) is spelled identically to the word for "rope" (גמלא), suggesting that the correct phrase was "rope through the eye of a needle," making the hyperbole
more symmetrical. The Aramaic word can also be translated as "beam", making a connection between this passage and the passage on removing a beam from your eye — Matthew 7:5; Luke 6:41-42.
languages, a family where many words come from three-letter roots
. As a result, speakers of the language employ puns that play on roots with similar sounding consonants, or with the same consonants re-arranged. In applying this principle, scholars have studied the dialogues of the New Testament and in some cases claim that how a choice of words that apparently seem completely unrelated or awkward in Greek may originate from an original Aramaic source that employed puns, or vice-versa.
For example, in the True Children of Abraham debate within the Gospel of John
, some consider the conversation took place in Aramaic, note possible examples of punning between the words "father" (אבא, abba), "Abraham" (אברהם, abraham) and the verb "to do" (עבד, `abad):
John 8:39
For example, Matthew 27.46 reads:
However, the parallel verse in Mark 15:34 reads in both in the quotation/translation form it has in the Greek:
The evidence of these verses, some claim, tend to support the claims of St. Papias and Irenaeus that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic presumably for Aramaic speakers in Syria-Palestine, while the Gospel of Mark was written for the Greek speaking Christians of Rome, who would not have known Aramaic fluently; but, who might have become familiar with certain phrases from the preaching of the Apostles or the liturgy. This is in similar fashion to how the words "Alleluia", "Amen", "Abba", "Hosanna" and "Sabaoth" are still in common usage in the western liturgy.
On the other hand, while Mark 3:17 ("Boanerges") and Mark 15:22 ("Golgatha") is repeated and also slightly changed in the double quotation in the Peshitta , the verses Mark 5:41 ("Talitha koumi"), Mark 7.34 ("Ephphatha") do not include any doubling.
Although the aforementioned is a discussion concerning the inclusion of quotation marks, it should be added that the Lamsa translated Peshitta for Matthew 27:46 reads: "And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice and said, Eli, Eli, lamana shabakthani! which means, My God, My God, for this I was spared (or this was my destiny)." Notice in this translation we can visualize Christ at this moment NOT feeling forsaken, As David wrote in Psalms 9:10, "And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee; for thou hast not forsaken them that seek thee, O Lord" (Peshitta, Lamsa translation).
.
, the Peshitta New Testament is translated from The Greek New Testament. However, Peshitta Primacists believe that the Aramaic Peshitta is the closest text to the original New Testament. Among those who side with this view are William Norton, the late Assyrian author George Lamsa
, Paul Younan (Peshitta.org), Andrew Gabriel Roth (Aramaic NT Truth), Rev. David Bauscher (aramaicnt.com) and Raphael Lataster (Aramaic Peshitta Bible Repository). In modern day, this movement is primarily based on the internet, although some historical Peshitta Primacy advocates include several Aramaic-speaking churches.
For example, Mar Eshai Shimun
, Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East
was quoted:
manuscripts and critically compare them, similar to how some scholars who hold the majority view that the language of the New Testament
is Greek take a critical approach to determining which Greek text better represents the original. Notables who side with this view are James Trimm (S.A.N.J.), and Joe Viel. This movement is also primarily based on the internet.
, Bruce Chilton
, Maurice Casey
, Geza Vermes
, Frank Zimmermann, and Steven Caruso (AramaicNT.org).
An example of how mainstream scholars have dealt with Aramaic influences within an overall view of the Gospels' original Greek-language development may be found in Martin Hengel
's recent synthesis of studies of the linguistic situation in Palestine during the time of Jesus and the Gospels:
provides a very early, source for the idea that the canonical Gospels were either based on some non-Greek written sources, or (in the case of Matthew) possibly "composed" in a non-Greek language. The relevant fragments of Papias' lost work An Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord (Logiōn kuriakōn exēgēsis, c. 110-140) are preserved in quotations by Eusebius. In one fragment, Papias cites an older source who says, "When Mark was the interpreter [hermēneutēs, possibly "translator"] of Peter, he wrote down accurately everything that he recalled of the Lord's words and deeds." Papias' surviving comment about Matthew is more tantalizing, but equally cryptic: "And so Matthew composed [or collected] the sayings [or record] in the Hebrew tongue, and each one interpreted [hērmēneusen, possibly "translated"] them to the best of his ability." A similar claim comes out more clearly in a text by Irenaeus
, but this testimony is later than (and probably based on) Papias.
These accounts, even if they do imply non-Greek originals have been doubted, in part with an argument that the literary quality of the Greek of these books indicates that the Greek would be the original. This argument extends to the other books where the Church Fathers accepted Greek as the original without debate. The Greek New Testament's general agreement with the Septuagint is also counted as evidence by majority view scholars. Aramaic primacists point to quotations from the Hebrew (Masoretic) Old Testament in the Alexandrian text type that indicate at one point a non-Greek speaking audience was addressed (See Matthew 2:15
, 2:18
, 11:10; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27; John 19:37; Acts 13:18; Romans 9:33, 11:35; 1 Corinthians 3:19; 1Peter 2:8). Aramaic primacists question why the New Testament would quote from the Hebrew Old Testament and not from the Septuagint if it was written in Greek originally. Quotes from the Hebrew Old Testament are present in Alexandrian texts that are thought to predate Jerome's use of the Hebrew Old Testament for the Vulgate. On the other hand, there are alternative explanations for the use of the Hebrew Old Testament. The authors, or dictators, would have likely had large portions of the Hebrew scriptures memorized and might have translated them instead of consulting a Greek reference. Or in the case of the passage in the gospel of John, the passage quoted does not include the relevant prophecy in some manuscripts of the Septuagint. The author may therefore have been forced to translate from the Hebrew himself.
Aramaic Primacists generally respond that these sources are late compared to the account in Q
, as the Mishnah
, the base document of the Babylonian Talmud was compiled in 200, where the Acts of Peter and Andrew
is a 3rd century work and therefore the original mistranslation of גמלא (gamlâ) predates and is potentially the source of these subsequent paraphrases. The Aramaic word for camel can also mean "beam" thus implying that the saying "it easier for a beam to go through an "eye'" is referencing Matthew 7:5; Luke 6:41-42 concerning taking the log (beam) out of your eye.
is often overlooked by both Aramaic-supporting and Koine-supporting scholars. It is possible that Aramaic and Koine (and even Latin) versions of the books and oral teachings of the New Testament were circulating contemporaneously, similar to the situation in present day Orthodox Jewish communities, where popular, newly written, religious works in Rabbinical Hebrew
are promptly translated into English and Yiddish.
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
was not written in Greek, as held by the majority of scholars
Language of the New Testament
The mainstream consensus is that the New Testament was written in a form of Koine Greek, which was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean from the Conquests of Alexander the Great till the evolution of Byzantine Greek The mainstream consensus is that the New Testament was written in a...
, but in the Aramaic language, which was the primary language of Jesus
Aramaic of Jesus
It is generally agreed that the historical Jesus primarily spoke Aramaic, perhaps along with some Hebrew and Greek . The towns of Nazareth and Capernaum, where Jesus lived, were primarily Aramaic-speaking communities, although Greek was widely spoken in the major cities of the Eastern Mediterranean...
and his Twelve Apostles.
The position of the Nestorian Church
Church of the East
The Church of the East tāʾ d-Maḏnḥāʾ), also known as the Nestorian Church, is a Christian church, part of the Syriac tradition of Eastern Christianity. Originally the church of the Persian Sassanid Empire, it quickly spread widely through Asia...
, per Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII , sometimes known as Mar Shimun XXI Ishaya, Mar Shimun Ishai, or Simon Jesse, was Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East from 1920, when he was a youth, until his assassination on 6 November 1975...
in 1957, is that the Syriac Peshitta
Peshitta
The Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition.The Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from the Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD...
(which is written in a cursive form of Aramaic), used in that church, is the original of the New Testament. Variants of this view are held by some individuals who may argue for a lost Aramaic text preceding the Peshitta as the basis for the New Testament.
This view is to be distinguished from higher criticism and text-critical transmission theories such as the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis
Hebrew Gospel hypothesis
The modern mainstream consensus is that all of the books of the New Testament including the Gospel of Matthew were written in a form of Koine Greek....
of Lessing and others. The Hebrew Gospel or Proto-Gospel hypothesis includes either Aramaic or Hebrew urtexts for Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
and possibly Mark
Gospel of Mark
The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...
.
Nestorian Chuch beliefs concerning the Peshitta
This is a traditional belief held in the Nestorian ChurchChurch of the East
The Church of the East tāʾ d-Maḏnḥāʾ), also known as the Nestorian Church, is a Christian church, part of the Syriac tradition of Eastern Christianity. Originally the church of the Persian Sassanid Empire, it quickly spread widely through Asia...
that the Peshitta text, which most scholars consider a translation from Greek, is in fact the original source of the Greek:
The most noteworthy advocate of this view in the west was George Lamsa (1976) of the Aramaic Bible Center. However this view is rejected by the majority of scholars:
The current Patriarch of the Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV (1976-present), has not publicly pronounced that the Peshitta is the original New Testament.
Aramaic primacy
Aramaic primacy is a recent term used by advocates of the view that the ChristianChristian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
and/or its sources were originally written in the Aramaic language
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
. The phrase "according Aramaic primacy among the languages" and "Aramaic's predominance" had already appeared in print as a general expression used to note the primacy of Aramaic over other languages in specific context, though Levine (1998) had written of evidence "according Aramaic primacy among the languages used in the city" in regard to "Aramaic's predominance" over Hebrew and Greek in Second Temple
Second Temple
The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...
Jerusalem, though this is not a term, as Levine could also have written "according primacy to Aramaic."
Aramaic New Testament advocates
This article titled "Aramaic primacy" appeared on Wikipedia in August 2004, with the first line "Aramaic Primacists believe that the Christian New Testament was originally written in Aramaic, not Greek as generally claimed by Churches of the West". The term then appeared in print in 2008.Likewise advocates of the primacy of an Aramaic New Testament have coined a new meaning for the phrase "Greek primacy
Greek Primacy
Greek primacy is a scholarly term in general use for the dominance of Hellenism at certain periods of history. In the context of the language of the New Testament, "Greek primacy" is a Wikipedia neologism for the majority view that the New Testament or its sources were originally written in Koine...
" (earliest confirmed reference 2007) to describe the consensus scholarly view that the New Testament was originally written in Greek. These terms are not used by text-critical scholarship
Textual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
, since in its view the evidence is overwhelming that the New Testament was written originally in Greek.
Brief history
George LamsaGeorge Lamsa
George M. Lamsa was an Assyrian author. He was born in Mar Bishu in what is now the extreme east of Turkey. A native Aramaic speaker, he translated the Aramaic Peshitta Old and New Testaments into English.-History and views:Lamsa was a member of the Assyrian Church of the East...
's translation of the Peshitta
Peshitta
The Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition.The Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from the Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD...
New Testament from Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
brought the claims for primacy of the Aramaic New Testament to the West. However, his translation is poorly regarded by most scholars
Academia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
in the field. The Old Syriac Texts, the Sinai palimpsest and the Curetonian Gospels
Curetonian Gospels
The Curetonian Gospels, designated by the siglum syrcur, are contained in a manuscript of the four gospels of the New Testament in Old Syriac, a translation from the Aramaic originals, according to William Cureton differing considerably from the canonical Greek texts, with which they had been...
, have also influenced scholars concerning original Aramaic passages. Diatessaron
Diatessaron
The Diatessaron is the most prominent Gospel harmony created by Tatian, an early Christian apologist and ascetic. The term "diatessaron" is from Middle English by way of Latin, diatessarōn , and ultimately Greek, διὰ τεσσάρων The Diatessaron (c 160 - 175) is the most prominent Gospel harmony...
ic texts such as the Liege Dutch Harmony, the Pepysian Gospel Harmony, Codex Fuldensis
Codex Fuldensis
The Codex Fuldensis, designated by F, is a New Testament manuscript based on the Latin Vulgate made between 541 and 546. The codex is considered the second most important witness to the Vulgate text; and is also the oldest complete manuscript witness to the order of the Diatessaron. It is an...
, The Persian Harmony, The Arabic Diatessaron, and the Commentary on the Diatessaron by Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian was a Syriac and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is venerated by Christians throughout the world, and especially in the Syriac Orthodox Church, as a saint.Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as...
have provided recent insights into Aramaic origins. The Coptic Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel According to Thomas, commonly shortened to the Gospel of Thomas, is a well preserved early Christian, non-canonical sayings-gospel discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945, in one of a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library...
and the various versions of the medieval Hebrew Gospel of Matthew
Hebrew Gospel of Matthew
The Rabbinical translations of Matthew are rabbinical versions of the Gospel of Matthew that are written in Hebrew; Shem-Tob's Matthew, the Du Tillet Matthew, and the Münster Matthew, and which were used in polemical debate with Christians....
also have provided clues to Aramaic foundations in the New Testament especially the gospels. Many 19th Century scholars (H. Holtzmann, Wendt, Jülicher
Adolf Jülicher
Adolf Jülicher was a German scholar and biblical exegete. Specifically, he was the Professor of Church History and New Testament Exegesis, at the University of Marburg.-The Messianic Secret:...
, Wernle, von Soden
Hermann, Freiherr von Soden
Baron Hermann von Soden , German biblical scholar, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 16, 1852, and was educated at the University of Tübingen. He was minister of Dresden-Striesen in 1881 and in 1887 became minister of the Jerusalem Church in Berlin...
, Wellhausen
Julius Wellhausen
Julius Wellhausen , was a German biblical scholar and orientalist, noted particularly for his contribution to scholarly understanding of the origin of the Pentateuch/Torah ....
, Harnack, B. Weiss, Nicolardot, W. Allen, Montefiore, Plummer, and Stanton) theorized that portions of the gospels, especially Matthew, were derived from an Aramaic source normally referred to as Q.
Methods of argument
On a basic level, those advocating the primacy of Aramaic New Testament focus on the high probability that the native language of JesusJesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
, his Apostles, and most or all the authors of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
was Aramaic, not Koine Greek
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
; see also Aramaic of Jesus
Aramaic of Jesus
It is generally agreed that the historical Jesus primarily spoke Aramaic, perhaps along with some Hebrew and Greek . The towns of Nazareth and Capernaum, where Jesus lived, were primarily Aramaic-speaking communities, although Greek was widely spoken in the major cities of the Eastern Mediterranean...
. They also note that the first Christian communities may have come into existence in mostly Aramaic-speaking areas now in modern Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, and Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, and that the first converts to Christianity were likely members of Aramaic-speaking Jewish synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
s, even when in Greek or Latin-speaking cities. Advocates of an Aramaic original also refer to the patristic writings (Papias, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Jerome) that indicate Aramaic was the original written language of parts of the New Testament.
Aramaic phenomena
There are many phenomena that advocates of an Aramaic original for the New Testament consider to be evidence for their case. For example, some of them include:Perceived logical improbabilities in Greek
One passage that it is argued contains a logical improbability in Greek is Matthew 4:8Matthew 4:8
Matthew 4:8 is the eighth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just rejected Satan's second temptation...
. There isn't a mountain high enough to view "all of the kingdoms of the earth" since the earth is round. The Hebrew word found in Ibn Shaprut
Ibn Shaprut
Shem-Tob ben Isaac Shaprut of Tudela was a Spanish Jewish philosopher, physician, and polemicist. He is often confused with the physician Shem-Ṭob ben Isaac of Tortosa, who lived earlier...
's medieval translation of the Greek Gospel of Matthew in the appendix to The Touchstone
Hebrew Gospel of Matthew
The Rabbinical translations of Matthew are rabbinical versions of the Gospel of Matthew that are written in Hebrew; Shem-Tob's Matthew, the Du Tillet Matthew, and the Münster Matthew, and which were used in polemical debate with Christians....
(c.1380) uses "eretz" which can be translated as earth or land. By substituting the Hebrew word "eretz" into the passage makes it possible that "all the kingdoms of the land of Israel" were viewed from a high mountain such as Mount Tabor in Israel. However the same is true for Greek ge which can mean land or earth depending on context. Also since "all the kingdoms of the land of Israel" is seen as an unlikely meaning most commentators on Matthew have seen "all the kingdoms of the land of earth" as being either hyperbole or a vision.
Another proposed example concerns Matthew 24:51 and Luke 12:46. Agnes Smith Lewis (1910) noted that the verb used in all of the Syriac versions "palleg" has the primary meaning of "cut in pieces" and the secondary one of "appoint to some one his portion." The primary sense leads to the possible problem of how someone cut to pieces could then be assigned to something else. But, Smith argues, if we take the secondary meaning then we are may suggest that the Greek translator misunderstood a Syriac idiom by taking it too literally. The translation would be "and shall allot his portion and shall place him with the unfaithful" instead of the Greek "shall cut him in pieces and shall place him with the unfaithful." Hugh J. Schonfield
Hugh J. Schonfield
Hugh Joseph Schonfield was a British Bible scholar specializing in the New Testament and the early development of the Christian religion and church. He was born in London, and educated there at St Paul's School and King's College, doing postgraduate religious studies in Glasgow, Doctor of Sacred...
(1927) notes that the Hebrew verb "bahkag" means literally to "break forth, cleave asunder" and concludes that the Greek translator has failed to grasp the sense in which the Hebrew word is here used. Again other commentators have seen "and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." as apocalyptic language.
Another proposed example involves the genealogy in Matthew. Schonfield
Hugh J. Schonfield
Hugh Joseph Schonfield was a British Bible scholar specializing in the New Testament and the early development of the Christian religion and church. He was born in London, and educated there at St Paul's School and King's College, doing postgraduate religious studies in Glasgow, Doctor of Sacred...
(1927) argues that the text of Matthew indicates three genealogical groups of 14 each. However, the Greek texts of Matthew have two groups of 14 and a final group of 13. The Syriac Curetonian and Syriac Sinaitic add the following to Matthew 1:13
Matthew 1:13
Matthew 1:13 is the thirteenth verse of Matthew 1 of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The verse is part of the section where the genealogy of Joseph, the father of Jesus, is listed...
, "Abiud begat Abiur, Abiur begat Eliakim. Dutillet's Hebrew version of Matthew adds Abihud begat Abner; Abner begat Eliakim. In both Syriac and Hebrew the spellings between Abiud and Abiur are so close that during translation into Greek the second name could have been dropped mistakenly. In any case, all Greek texts contain only 13 names while possibly indicating 14 should be in the final portion of the list. The two Syriac texts and one Hebrew text have 14 names and indicate 14 should be in the final portion of the list. Since the list is a Jewish Genealogy it is highly unlikely that a Jewish genealogical record would have been originally composed in Greek.
Polysemy
Some treat "split words"Polysemy
Polysemy is the capacity for a sign or signs to have multiple meanings , i.e., a large semantic field.Charles Fillmore and Beryl Atkins’ definition stipulates three elements: the various senses of a polysemous word have a central origin, the links between these senses form a network, and ...
as a distinctive subsection of mistranslations. Sometimes it appears that a word in Aramaic with two (or more) distinct and different meanings appears to have been interpreted in the wrong sense, or even translated both ways in different documents. Perhaps the most well known example that advocates of an Aramaic urtext for the Gospels cite is the parable of the "camel (καμηλος) through the eye of a needle
Eye of a needle
The eye of a needle is the section of a sewing needle formed into a loop for pulling thread, located at the end opposite the point. These loops are often shaped like an oval or an "eye", hence the metaphor.-Judaism:...
." (Mark 10:25, Matthew 19:24, Luke 18:25) In Aramaic, the word for "camel" (גמלא) is spelled identically to the word for "rope" (גמלא), suggesting that the correct phrase was "rope through the eye of a needle," making the hyperbole
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally....
more symmetrical. The Aramaic word can also be translated as "beam", making a connection between this passage and the passage on removing a beam from your eye — Matthew 7:5; Luke 6:41-42.
Puns
Aramaic is one of the SemiticSemitic
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...
languages, a family where many words come from three-letter roots
Triliteral
The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals"...
. As a result, speakers of the language employ puns that play on roots with similar sounding consonants, or with the same consonants re-arranged. In applying this principle, scholars have studied the dialogues of the New Testament and in some cases claim that how a choice of words that apparently seem completely unrelated or awkward in Greek may originate from an original Aramaic source that employed puns, or vice-versa.
For example, in the True Children of Abraham debate within the Gospel of John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
, some consider the conversation took place in Aramaic, note possible examples of punning between the words "father" (אבא, abba), "Abraham" (אברהם, abraham) and the verb "to do" (עבד, `abad):
John 8:39
- They retorted and said to him:
- "Our abba (father) is Abraham!"
- Jesus says to them:
- "If you are Abraham's children, `abad (do) as Abraham would `abad (do)!" An alternate possibility is that the above conversation was actually conducted in Aramaic, but translated into Greek by the gospel writer. Portions of the oral sayings in Matthew contain vocabulary that may indicate Hebrew or Aramaic linguistic techniques involving puns, alliterations, and word connections. Hebrew/Aramaic vocabulary choices possibly underlie the text in Matthew 1:21, 3:9, 4:12, 4:21-23, 5:9-10, 5:23, 5:47-48, 7:6, 8:28-31, 9:8, 10:35-39, 11:6, 11:8-10, 11:17, 11:29, 12:13-15, 12:39, 14:32, 14:35-36, 15:34-37, 16:18, 17:05, 18:9, 18:16, 18:23-35, 19:9-13, 19:24, 21:19, 21:37-46, 21:42, 23:25-29, 24:32, 26:28-36, 26:52.
Absence or presence of Aramaic quotations and translations
In the Greek New Testament, a number of verses include Aramaic phrases or words which are then translated into Greek. In the Peshitta, sometimes the word or phrase is quoted twice in Aramaic, indicating that the words needed to be translated from one Aramaic dialect to another.For example, Matthew 27.46 reads:
Peshitta — And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice and said: "Ēl, Ēl, why have you forsaken me?"
Greek — And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying: "Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
However, the parallel verse in Mark 15:34 reads in both in the quotation/translation form it has in the Greek:
Peshitta — And in the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice and said: "Ēl, Ēl lmānā shvaqtāni" that is "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Greek — And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying: "Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabacthani?" Which is, being interpreted, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
The evidence of these verses, some claim, tend to support the claims of St. Papias and Irenaeus that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic presumably for Aramaic speakers in Syria-Palestine, while the Gospel of Mark was written for the Greek speaking Christians of Rome, who would not have known Aramaic fluently; but, who might have become familiar with certain phrases from the preaching of the Apostles or the liturgy. This is in similar fashion to how the words "Alleluia", "Amen", "Abba", "Hosanna" and "Sabaoth" are still in common usage in the western liturgy.
On the other hand, while Mark 3:17 ("Boanerges") and Mark 15:22 ("Golgatha") is repeated and also slightly changed in the double quotation in the Peshitta , the verses Mark 5:41 ("Talitha koumi"), Mark 7.34 ("Ephphatha") do not include any doubling.
Although the aforementioned is a discussion concerning the inclusion of quotation marks, it should be added that the Lamsa translated Peshitta for Matthew 27:46 reads: "And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice and said, Eli, Eli, lamana shabakthani! which means, My God, My God, for this I was spared (or this was my destiny)." Notice in this translation we can visualize Christ at this moment NOT feeling forsaken, As David wrote in Psalms 9:10, "And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee; for thou hast not forsaken them that seek thee, O Lord" (Peshitta, Lamsa translation).
Internal disagreements
Advocates of an Aramaic original New Testament are divided into several distinct camps in terms of their methods of researching and reconstructing the Aramaic layer of the New TestamentNew Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
.
Peshitta primacy approach
According to most textual scholarsTextual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
, the Peshitta New Testament is translated from The Greek New Testament. However, Peshitta Primacists believe that the Aramaic Peshitta is the closest text to the original New Testament. Among those who side with this view are William Norton, the late Assyrian author George Lamsa
George Lamsa
George M. Lamsa was an Assyrian author. He was born in Mar Bishu in what is now the extreme east of Turkey. A native Aramaic speaker, he translated the Aramaic Peshitta Old and New Testaments into English.-History and views:Lamsa was a member of the Assyrian Church of the East...
, Paul Younan (Peshitta.org), Andrew Gabriel Roth (Aramaic NT Truth), Rev. David Bauscher (aramaicnt.com) and Raphael Lataster (Aramaic Peshitta Bible Repository). In modern day, this movement is primarily based on the internet, although some historical Peshitta Primacy advocates include several Aramaic-speaking churches.
For example, Mar Eshai Shimun
Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII , sometimes known as Mar Shimun XXI Ishaya, Mar Shimun Ishai, or Simon Jesse, was Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East from 1920, when he was a youth, until his assassination on 6 November 1975...
, Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East
Assyrian Church of the East
The Assyrian Church of the East, officially the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East ʻIttā Qaddishtā w-Shlikhāitā Qattoliqi d-Madnĕkhā d-Āturāyē), is a Syriac Church historically centered in Mesopotamia. It is one of the churches that claim continuity with the historical...
was quoted:
With reference to....the originality of the Peshitta text, as the Patriarch and Head of the Holy Apostolic and Catholic Church of the East, we wish to state, that the Church of the East received the scriptures from the hands of the blessed Apostles themselves in the Aramaic original, the language spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and that the Peshitta is the text of the Church of the East which has come down from the Biblical times without any change or revision.
Peshitta-critical approach
Peshitta-critical advocates of an alternative Aramaic original take both the Peshitta and the SyriacSyriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
manuscripts and critically compare them, similar to how some scholars who hold the majority view that the language of the New Testament
Language of the New Testament
The mainstream consensus is that the New Testament was written in a form of Koine Greek, which was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean from the Conquests of Alexander the Great till the evolution of Byzantine Greek The mainstream consensus is that the New Testament was written in a...
is Greek take a critical approach to determining which Greek text better represents the original. Notables who side with this view are James Trimm (S.A.N.J.), and Joe Viel. This movement is also primarily based on the internet.
Aramaic source criticism
Source-critical advocates of an Aramaic original research first-century Aramaic, culture, and psychology to reconstruct the New Testament sources in dialects contemporary to its authors. Prominent figures that side with this view are Matthew BlackMatthew Black
Matthew Black Matthew Black Matthew Black (Kilmarnock (3 September 1908 - 2 October 1994) was a Scottish biblical scholar. He was the first editor of New Testament Studies. Black joined the team of Kurt Aland, Bruce Metzger, and Allen Wikgren to work on the UBS Greek New Testament....
, Bruce Chilton
Bruce Chilton
Bruce Chilton is a scholar of early Christianity and Judaism, now Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College, and formerly Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament at Yale University. He holds a degree in New Testament from Cambridge University...
, Maurice Casey
Maurice Casey
Maurice Casey is British scholar of New Testament and early Christianity. He is currently Emeritus Professor at the University of Nottingham, having served there as Professor of New Testament Languages and Literature at the Department of Theology....
, Geza Vermes
Geza Vermes
Géza Vermes or Vermès is a British scholar of Jewish Hungarian origin and writer on religious history, particularly Jewish and Christian. He is a noted authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient works in Aramaic, and on the life and religion of Jesus...
, Frank Zimmermann, and Steven Caruso (AramaicNT.org).
Majority view
Mainstream and modern scholars have generally had a strong agreement that the New Testament was written in Greek and that an Aramaic source text was used for portions of the New Testament, especially the gospels. They acknowledge that many individual sayings of Jesus as found in the Gospels are translations from an Aramaic source normally referred to as Q, but hold that the Gospels' text in its current form was composed in Greek, and so were the other New Testament writings. Scholars of all stripes have had to acknowledge the presence of scattered, Aramaic expressions, transliterated and then translated.An example of how mainstream scholars have dealt with Aramaic influences within an overall view of the Gospels' original Greek-language development may be found in Martin Hengel
Martin Hengel
Martin Hengel was a German historian of religion, focusing on the "Second Temple Period" or "Hellenistic Period" of early Judaism.-Biography:...
's recent synthesis of studies of the linguistic situation in Palestine during the time of Jesus and the Gospels:
Since non-literary, simple Greek knowledge or competency in multiple languages was relatively widespread in Jewish Palestine including Galilee, and a Greek-speaking community had already developed in Jerusalem shortly after Easter, one can assume that this linguistic transformation [from "the Aramaic native language of Jesus" to "the Greek Gospels"] began very early. ... [M]issionaries, above all 'Hellenists' driven out of Jerusalem, soon preached their message in the Greek language. We find them in Damascus as early as AD 32 or 33. A certain percentage of Jesus' earliest followers were presumably bilingual and could therefore report, at least in simple Greek, what had been heard and seen. This probably applies to Cephas/Peter, Andrew, Philip or John. Mark, too, who was better educated in Jerusalem than the Galilean fishermen, belonged to this milieu. The great number of phonetically correct Aramaisms and his knowledge of the conditions in Jewish Palestine compel us to assume a Palestinian Jewish-Christian author. Also, the author's Aramaic native language is still discernible in the Marcan style.
Response to Papias
PapiasPapias
Papias was a bishop of the early Church, canonized as a saint. Eusebius of Caesarea calls him "Bishop of Hierapolis" which is 22 km from Laodicea and near Colossae Papias (writing in the first third of the 2nd century) was a bishop of the early Church, canonized as a saint. Eusebius of...
provides a very early, source for the idea that the canonical Gospels were either based on some non-Greek written sources, or (in the case of Matthew) possibly "composed" in a non-Greek language. The relevant fragments of Papias' lost work An Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord (Logiōn kuriakōn exēgēsis, c. 110-140) are preserved in quotations by Eusebius. In one fragment, Papias cites an older source who says, "When Mark was the interpreter [hermēneutēs, possibly "translator"] of Peter, he wrote down accurately everything that he recalled of the Lord's words and deeds." Papias' surviving comment about Matthew is more tantalizing, but equally cryptic: "And so Matthew composed [or collected] the sayings [or record] in the Hebrew tongue, and each one interpreted [hērmēneusen, possibly "translated"] them to the best of his ability." A similar claim comes out more clearly in a text by Irenaeus
Irenaeus
Saint Irenaeus , was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire . He was an early church father and apologist, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology...
, but this testimony is later than (and probably based on) Papias.
These accounts, even if they do imply non-Greek originals have been doubted, in part with an argument that the literary quality of the Greek of these books indicates that the Greek would be the original. This argument extends to the other books where the Church Fathers accepted Greek as the original without debate. The Greek New Testament's general agreement with the Septuagint is also counted as evidence by majority view scholars. Aramaic primacists point to quotations from the Hebrew (Masoretic) Old Testament in the Alexandrian text type that indicate at one point a non-Greek speaking audience was addressed (See Matthew 2:15
Matthew 2:15
Matthew 2:15 is the fifteenth verse of the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Joseph has taken Jesus and his family to Egypt to flee the wrath of King Herod.In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:-References:...
, 2:18
Matthew 2:18
Matthew 2:18 is the eighteenth verse of the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Herod has ordered the Massacre of the Innocents and this verse quotes from the Book of Jeremiah to show that this event was predicted by the prophets....
, 11:10; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27; John 19:37; Acts 13:18; Romans 9:33, 11:35; 1 Corinthians 3:19; 1Peter 2:8). Aramaic primacists question why the New Testament would quote from the Hebrew Old Testament and not from the Septuagint if it was written in Greek originally. Quotes from the Hebrew Old Testament are present in Alexandrian texts that are thought to predate Jerome's use of the Hebrew Old Testament for the Vulgate. On the other hand, there are alternative explanations for the use of the Hebrew Old Testament. The authors, or dictators, would have likely had large portions of the Hebrew scriptures memorized and might have translated them instead of consulting a Greek reference. Or in the case of the passage in the gospel of John, the passage quoted does not include the relevant prophecy in some manuscripts of the Septuagint. The author may therefore have been forced to translate from the Hebrew himself.
Response to specific verses
There are also alternative explanations for the cases where Aramaic Primacists claim that the Aramaic seems to read better. One example (as stated above) is in the case of the "camel through the eye of a needle." In Jewish and Christian literature we see the following:- "...who can make an elephant pass through the eye of a needle."
- - Babylonian Talmud, Baba Mezi'a, 38b
- "They do not show a man a palm tree of gold, nor an elephant going through the eye of a needle."
- - Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth, 55b
- "13 There was a rich man named Onesiphorus who said: If I believe, shall I be able to do wonders? Andrew said: Yes, if you forsake your wife and all your possessions. He was angry and put his garment about Andrew's neck and began to beat him, saying: You are a wizard, why should I do so? 14 Peter saw it and told him to leave off. He said: I see you are wiser than he. What do you say? Peter said: I tell you this: it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
- - Apocryphal Acts of Peter and Andrew.
Aramaic Primacists generally respond that these sources are late compared to the account in Q
Q source
The Q source is a hypothetical written source for the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke. Q is defined as the "common" material found in Matthew and Luke but not in the Gospel of Mark...
, as the Mishnah
Mishnah
The Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. It was redacted c...
, the base document of the Babylonian Talmud was compiled in 200, where the Acts of Peter and Andrew
Acts of Peter and Andrew
The Acts of Peter and Andrew is a short 3rd-century text from the New Testament apocrypha, not to be confused with either the Acts of Andrew or the Acts of Peter...
is a 3rd century work and therefore the original mistranslation of גמלא (gamlâ) predates and is potentially the source of these subsequent paraphrases. The Aramaic word for camel can also mean "beam" thus implying that the saying "it easier for a beam to go through an "eye'" is referencing Matthew 7:5; Luke 6:41-42 concerning taking the log (beam) out of your eye.
Multiple versions
Josephus' The Jewish War was originally written in Aramaic and later translated into Greek. Furthermore, the possibility that the Jewish community was more polyglotPolyglot
Polyglot may refer to:*Polyglot , someone who uses many languages*Polyglot , a book that contains the same text in more than one language*Polyglot , a computer program that is valid in more than one programming language...
is often overlooked by both Aramaic-supporting and Koine-supporting scholars. It is possible that Aramaic and Koine (and even Latin) versions of the books and oral teachings of the New Testament were circulating contemporaneously, similar to the situation in present day Orthodox Jewish communities, where popular, newly written, religious works in Rabbinical Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
are promptly translated into English and Yiddish.
External links
- AramaicNT.org — collection of articles on Aramaic source criticism
- Dukhrana.com — site contains the transcription of the Khaboris CodexKhaboris CodexThe Khaburis Codex is a late and unremarkable Syriac manuscript of the New Testament. The Khaburis Codex is the complete Peshitta New Testament containing 22 books, in comparison to the Western New Testament Canon which contains 27 books. The missing books are II Peter, II John, III John, Jude...
- AramaicNT.com - research articles and twelve published books on the Peshitta Bible, including N.T. interlinear translation and plain English N.T. translation plus Peshitta interlinear Psalms, Proverbs & Ecclesiastes.