Talk:Aramaic original New Testament theory

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Copyvio

Unfortunately I just removed some material that originally came from Christopher Lancaster's book on the Peshitta. We can put it back in only if we have his permission, due to copyright. Jdavidb 14:16, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I think it might have been Chris Lancaster who put that it there! I had edited it a bit to make it more NPOV, but it still wasn't perfect, and perhaps should have been put under Rabbulas with a link from Aramaic Primacy. User:Carltonh

That's great, and I was hoping you'd say that. If Lancaster himself put it there, then by all means, have him declare so on this talk page and expressly grant permission for his material to be redistributed under the GNU FDL. Jdavidb 17:33, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Someone might explain to these editors that 1. Greek was not simply the language of mainland Greece in the 1st century, and 2. that the Aramaic-speaking inner circle of Jesus are not often confused with the Greek-speaking authors of the books of the New Testament by many educated readers and 3. that the New Testament is a library of books with various histories, not one book. Scarcely worth discussing as it stands. --Wetman 05:00, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'll eventually be adding summaries of the works of Casey, Zimmerman, Black, Burney, Chilton, Crawford, and others, as well as deal with these three points. Especially relevant might be the work I'm doing concerning the Dialogues Source of the Gospel of John (it'd take care of #3 rather nicely). --The Thadman 1 July 2005 02:07 (UTC)

The three semitic utterances of Jesus are not Aramaic

We have three Semitic utterances of Jesus. Indeed there are Aramaic words in them, but that is not enough to conclude for Aramaic as the language of Jesus. Why? Because the used forms of the verbs speek for normal Hebrew. The form 'koum' (in Talitha koum) is equal in Hebrew and in Aramaic and is not decisive.

Agreed. But then again, it could also be Arabic. :-) However, talitha the word that precedes it, is the Aramaic form for "little girl" or "maiden." --Steve Caruso 14:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

As Aramaic is a semitic language anyway, and as languages naturally tend to develop local dialects, I suspect that some of these arguments are a little tenuous.

The form 'sabachtani' (in Eloï Eloï lama sabachtani) is definitely Hebrew. In normal Aramaic and in Hebrew we would expect here 'sebachtani'. Without suffix the form is in Aramaic 'sebachta' and in Hebrew 'sabachta'. It is this Hebrew form that we recognize in 'sabachtani'. So we have here a less correct Hebrew form, but Hebrew anyway. Interesting is that the Aramaic word 'sebach' is used in the Mishna (Hebrew) instead of the old Hebrew word 'azab'. So the Aramaic 'sebach' was definitely a loanword in Hebrew in Jesus' days.

The word is shvaqtani/shbaqthani which is directly transliterated from Aramaic, not Hebrew. The shin became a sigma (as Greek does not have an "sh" sound), the beth became a beta. The qof became a kappa. The tau became a theta, the noon a nu, and the final yodh an iota. Vowels are liquid in Greek transliteration, especially between manuscript types. --Steve Caruso 14:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Than, last but not least: Effatha (Become open). In Aramaic this would be (two possibilities): Effetha (etpe'el) or Effattha (etpa'al). Comparing with Effatha we see in the first case 'e' instead of 'a', and in the second case 'double t' instead of 'one t'. The Hebrew form is 'Hiffatha', but in the Greek transliteration of the Greek New Testament and the Septuaginta (the old Greek translation of the Old Testament) 'Hi' becomes 'E'. And so the Hebrew Hiffatha becomes Effatha in Greek transliteration. The same is to see in the word 'Geënna' (place of the dead) which is in Hebrew 'Gehinna' (hi becomes ë). There are more examples to give for this phenomenon in Hebrew: Ezekia, Ennom, Ellel, Eddekel, etc.

The word could also be ethfathakh which is Aramaic. Alap, ayin, khet, and he were all pronounced similarly (like he) in Galilean Aramaic (or so claims the Mishnah). I can see that one could argue that it's too close to call between them, but not that it's exclusively Hebrew. --Steve Caruso 14:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The conclusion is the simple fact that Jesus used Aramaic loanwords when he spoke sometimes Hebrew. It is not possible to conclude from the Semitic utterances of Jesus that Aramaic was daily life language in Israel in the first century. Archaeological findings are neither conclusive for this standpoint. What is the meaning of this all? 1. The widespread idea that Jesus spoke Aramaic is a myth.

That's a mighty large claim to make without the qualification of evidence to support it. --Steve Caruso 14:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

2. Hebrew and Greek were the two languages of the people in Jerusalem in Jesus time as we can learn from the two groups of Christians in the Jerusalem church: a Greek speaking and a Hebrew speaking group. Greek representing the lower social class and Hebrew representing the upper class. (Acts 6:1-2)

Describing that group as Hebrew-speaking is up to much debate. To make a truth claim either way concerning it would ignore all of the research that has been done on the subject. --Steve Caruso 14:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

3. As Jesus spoke in public to the lost sheep of Israel he spoke surely Greek (to the lower social class).

Actually, there's very little evidence (given where he came from (Galilee), and the semitic-speaking cities he visited) that he knew much Greek at all. --Steve Caruso 14:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

4. During the second temple Jews spoke Hebrew in Judea to keep the knowledge of the Old Testament (Hebrew) alive.

Taking a look at the Dead Sea Scrolls, we can see that Hebrew was no longer the vernacular language. For example, the Great Isaiah Scroll is riddled with Aramaic words, spellings, and grammar, as if the scribes spoke in Aramaic and knew Hebrew as an academic language. --Steve Caruso 14:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

5. At home Jesus learned also Hebrew and he used it selectively, to people who had learned Hebrew at home, for instance, to the daughter of the overseer of the synagogue in Kafarnaüm to raise her from the dead.

This assumes too much to be a strong argument (ex: That Hebrew was a spoken language, that Jesus learned Hebrew at home, that he used it selectively, that other people at the time learned Hebrew at home, that talitha koum is exclusively Hebrew, etc.). --Steve Caruso 14:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

6. The teachings of Jesus in the gospels are not translations from Aramaic and even not of Hebrew. So we meet the original words of Jesus in the Greek New Testament.

I strongly suggest that you read up on the Aramaic phenomena of Jesus' discourse as well as the narrative elements in the Gospels. There was at least one Aramaic source employed in writing each of the Gospels as well as Paul's letters, regardless of what language they ended up in :-) --Steve Caruso 14:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

7. The final conclusion is that Christians possess the original words of Jesus, the founder of their faith, in contrast with the opinion of both liberal and orthodox theologians that Christians don't have the authentic words of Jesus (ipsissima verba) at all.

No one has the "original words of Jesus." We don't know of any scribe that sat down and wrote out what he talked about verbatim, nor do we have any works from his own pen. To say that any one group has the "authentic words of Jesus" is misguided, in my humble opinion. It would be like us saying that we have the original words of Socrates. --Steve Caruso 14:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

(The mass of implications of this position for New Testament theology I have discussed in my book: 'De vastheid van het gesproken woord.' B.J.E. van Noort, Importantia Publishing, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 2004. www.teologia.nl) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.234.63.113 (talk • contribs).

Expert Needed?

Bob_A, what do you feel needs to be revised? --Steve Caruso 13:46, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

the counter arguments section is underdeveloped, and its arguments are rather weak. Bob A 16:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Stephen Silver

About Stephen Silver, he owns and operates; http://www.dukhrana.com/ a Syriac/English website that's devoted to the Khabouris Codex. By User Albion_ G (Albion Guppy) 22:44 18 July 2007.

Is the Stephen Silver mentioned here the Stephen Silver the name links to? This seems to be a disconnect to me. --Steve Caruso 14:47, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. I will remove it, and then if someone wants to prove there is a Stephen Silver significantly involved in Aramaic Primacy, somehow independently of other well-known writers who know of each other, then it could be added back. Carltonh 19:42, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Peshitta??

How can the Peshitta be the original version of the New Testament when the Peshitta didn't exist until centuries after the Diatessaron -- and since the Pehsitta was written in EASTERN Aramaic (i.e. Syriac), while Jesus spoke a form of WESTERN Aramaic? Also, mention should be made that the consensus of mainstream New Testament scholars is that there might possibly have been an original Aramaic "sayings document" (i.e. an unadorned list of quotations of Jesus) which influenced several of the Gospels, but no book of the New Testament as we have it today was translated directly from Aramaic or Hebrew to Greek...]

Phrasing

"claimed the Aramaic Peshitta was the original-language New Testament."

This is clumsy. I tried to fix it and then was reverted on interpretative grounds. Fine. But then interpret it for me: what on earth is this odd sentence supposed to mean? If you do know, please fix it. The last part is ambiguous and contains confusing grammar. Isn't there a connector missing beween "language" and "New Testament"? And what grammatical relationship is the slash bewteen "original" and "language" supposed to indicate? 201.37.71.146 17:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

"Peshitta" is the name of the extant version of the New Testament in the Aramaic language. All adherents of the theory of Aramaic primacy are making a claim about the original-language text of the New Testament. (I don't really see how you can come up with a much less awkwared phrasing, because the whole point is that there's a disagreement about what the original language is.) Anyway, while most believers in Aramaic primacy consider the New Testament "original" to be some Aramaic version, now lost, older than the Peshitta, there are a few who are willing to say, no, the Peshitta, the version we actually possess and which mainstream scholars consider to be a translation into Aramaic, is in fact the original version of the New Testament, from which all others derive, albeit usually indirectly. I hope that provides the necessary clarification; I am not ambitious enough to attempt a better formulation myself. As far as why your reverted edit was a misconstrual, the key point to understand here is that the sentence in question does not refer to a claim about the original language of the New Testament; rather, within the large group of those who believe that that language was Aramaic, the sentence refers to a minority sub-group, who believe that one particular Aramaic version (the Peshitta, as opposed to a conjectured older Aramaic version) is the original. Wareh 17:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I've gone ahead and changed the sentence to, "The Assyrian Church of the East and other Aramaic-speaking churches have historically claimed that the Peshitta is the original text of the New Testament." Is this better? It is redundant to say "the Aramaic Peshitta," and it's also redundant to specify that the NT's original version is the original-language version. Wareh 17:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it looks better. Thanks.201.37.71.146 17:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I also added the piece above from Mar Eshai Shimun about the Peshitta and the Assyrian Church of the East.

User: Albion_G (Albion Guppy) 2247 18 July 2007.

Lamsa Criticisms: Better References Needed

I flagged the statement that most academics regard Lamsa's version as a bad translation with the {{fact}} tag, fully assuming that the statement was true and that references could and would be produced. The references that have been added, however, are unscholarly and do not sustain the statement about "most academics." First of all, they are not references to the published works of academics! Rather, we have (1) the pastor John Juedes, (2) a webpage by some person who writes poorly ("on account of many reasons") and who uses Juedes as his only source, (3) an article on "Syriac computing" in which I find a dismissal of Aramaic primacy, i.e. the soundness of Lamsa's agenda, but not a criticism of the quality of his translation work, and (4) an online bibliography of Syriac Orthodox Resources (not attributed by name to any scholar) that makes the offhand, unsupported comment that there is a better translation of the Peshitta.

I still believe that it would probably be easy to find support for the statement, but this is a travesty of what real support would look like. The obvious place to look is in reviews of Lamsa's translation, published in reputable scholarly journals in the fields of Biblical research and philology. So I'm removing the claim and the footnote. I will welcome the return of the statement with proper citations to reliable scholarly sources. Such citations can be found by Google, but this is the Google search you need, not the one that produced sources whose quality was the very opposite of the Cambridge University Press reference sitting next to them in the next footnote! Wareh 16:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I was in a hurry (Intute has nothing on Lamsa, so I had to rely on Google Scholar to find anyone who bothers with it!). George Kiraz's comment is worth keeping though, that's why I put that one first — he is certainly a Syriac scholar. Working in the academic field of Syriac studies and having read Lamsa's translation, I know that I and my colleagues, here and elsewhere, think it is increadibly poor stuff. He doesn't refer to the Diatessaron or the Old Syriac versions (Peshitta primacy?), and translates the standard Peshitta with a little help from the King James Version. Lamsa's translation technique (speaking as one who translates Syriac as a day job) is simply poor — straightforward passages are given bizarre twists without any explanation, unusual passages in the Syriac are replaced by their KJV equivalent (he obviously couldn't work it out). Part of the problem of finding references is that Aramaic primacists have a reasonable web presence, whereas the academic community hardly ever feels that the subject is worth the effort, whether on the web or in print. I'll add the JSTOR article you referenced though. — Gareth Hughes 17:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

As an academic who works in ancient languages (not Syriac!) myself, I am sympathetic to the problem of having to correct misleading Wikipedia articles that fly in the face of scholarly common knowledge. On the other hand, this is a controversial topic, and I'm glad the article now cites actual views from academia—thanks for that. When it comes to things that have been considered not to merit much scholarly attention, I'd propose the guidelines (1) correct any impression given by the article that unscholarly ideas issue from academic sources, (2) make the negative point that the ideas have not been recognized as worthwhile in any of the major scholarly journals, etc. (in my opinion, in this case the burden is on other editors to produce a counterexample).

I believe the statements in the lead could stand further improvement. Really, the lead is not the most appropriate place for arguing them, and it would be nice to see them developed in the body. I wish you would take your expertise (and knowledge of reliable sources to cite) and make the needed points in the sections "Peshitta Primacy" etc. below. Do they adequately present the reasons why the Peshitta should not be regarded as an independent witness to (even the Syriac) text? Is the mention of Geza Vermes as a "Critical Aramaic primacist" presented with enough nuance? Etc. Wareh 19:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Peshitta primacy was seriously considered at an earlier stage of Syriac NT scholarship (Gwiliam is the chief proponent of this). Because of the slight witnesses to the other forms of Syriac NT tradition — Diatessaron and Old Syriac — the exact history of Syriac NT versions is a difficult business. All forms, however, show influence from the Greek NT, which is generally regarded as translation from Greek to Syriac. This is the opposite of Aramaic primacy — thus putting the Peshitta first is a complete reversal of the best reconstructed textual history. What the article refers to as 'critical Aramaic primacists' is rather odd. Black, Casey and Vermes do have their fair share of controversy, but are mainstream academics. They work on finding Aramaic undercurrents to the NT in the belief that it came out of an Aramaic milieu. In varying degrees, they recognise that the NT was severally composed in Greek, but that parts of it draw on Aramaic sources that may have been written down (that stray quote of Papias that keeps popping up!). I'm not sure that all of them would be happy with the label 'Aramaic primacist' (maybe I'll ask one of them!). They've worked on the Aramaic milieu of first-century Galilee and Palestine, but I don't think they are this dogmatic. It looks like their Aramaic-positive approach is being tagged onto the more extreme approach to lend creadence to it. I think it may be this that has led to a growing Aramaic-negative approach, emphasizing the continuing place of Hebrew. It's the usual academic swings and roundabouts, but they never swing out as far as this Lamsa/Younan stuff. Perhaps, as you say, the lead should be more descriptive and less argumentative. I think that your suggestions for dealing with fringe theories that have the appearance of academic acceptibility are good ones. I took that lead on my last edit to the Paul Younan article. Any other suggestions? — Gareth Hughes 23:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The quote from Papias was what first brought me into this article (at the time it was included in the Bible article). I went to the Greek and tried to give a fairer account of what Papias actually says (diff). I also added the Hengel quote (diff), so that readers would see a standard and bland account of what a mainstream scholar supposes the impact of the "Aramaic milieu" is on the NT. From what you say, I'd think another good contribution you could consider would be a short account, with references, of the standard view of the textual history of the various ancient versions in question—arguments about their Greek Vorlagen would obviously be particularly worth reporting. I am not in a position to undertake any of this; if I were, Googling would lead me to try to mine Peter John Williams, Early Syriac Translation Technique And The Textual Criticism Of The Greek Gospels and Peterson's JBL review of Kiraz, Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels for something useful. Wareh 01:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

AramaicNT.org

Since it is not in the spirit of Wikipedia to mess with references to oneself, I bring up the following request here on the talk page. AramaicNT.org is listed as a "collection of amateur articles on Aramaic priimacy." I do translate Aramaic professionally, it is my vocation, so to say "amateur" is misleading. However, I fully accept that my hypotheses are not mainstream. Also, "primacy" is misspelled, but I think that I'll go ahead and fix that as I doubt that it would draw criticism. :-) --אמר Steve Caruso 05:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

In an academic field, a professional Aramaicist has qualifications in the field: money certainly is not the issue. I really do wonder how these blog and tatoo websites actually measure up to Wikipedia:External links. — Gareth Hughes 20:10, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm aware with how the academic field works, my problem was with the term "amateur" as it bears multiple connotations in this context. Also AramaicNT.org is not a blog. Wordpress just happens to be the Content Management System it runs on. Most of the articles posted there (which are now being reformatted and reposted one at a time as it has only recently been switched over to Wordpress) have been reviewed by other scholars, or are from authors who are published. Google ranks it 5th out of 50,700 sites. My personal website, The Aramaic Blog is a blog, albeit a research blog where Aramaic Designs is strictly a commercial site, so I believe that neither AramaicNT or Aramaic Designs would be appropriate here. אמר Steve Caruso 02:12, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Missing position

It's odd that the article doesn't even mention the hypothesis which has had some degree of "mainstream" academic respectability (at least in past decades) -- namely, the idea that while none of the canonical gospels were originally written in Aramaic, there did exist a very early written Aramaic "sayings document" (or largely unordered list of Jesus quotes) which had a certain direct or indirect influence on at least some of the canonical gospels... AnonMoos (talk) 11:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I know this comment is a bit late and after the fact, but yes I agree totally. This article needs a complete overhaul to express the growing body of consensus among academics and a change of title to "Aramaic Source Criticism" as a whole. אמר Steve Caruso 15:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely: the Criticism section isn't very critical at all, and the same arguments present in the Criticism section of Greek Primacy are used here to refute all criticisms, and stand unrefuted in that page. Reading these sections, one comes away with the feeling that Aramaic Primacy should be the majority opinion! --Wtrmute (talk) 18:58, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Aramaic oral primacy

"The fact that the Gospel of Mark in the Greek also has Jesus quoting Psalms 22:1 in Aramaic as shown above, is confirmation that an Aramaic rendering of the Old Testament already had established itself in popular oral tradition as documented by Zeev ben-Hayyim and others. Accordingly, other instances of Greek New Testament manuscripts not following the Hebrew text when they quote the Old Testament, indicate that further evidence exists to support Aramaic primacy in the spoken Word, if not the written. For example, not only do they not follow the Hebrew in all such instances, but they supply Greek readings that faithfully represent the Aramaic text even to the extent of contradicting the Hebrew. While such evidence is nonetheless inconclusive for any Gospel to have been written first in Aramaic, it is as impossible for oral accounts in Aramaic of Gospel events not to have been known to Gospel authors so as not to have influenced Greek readings, as it is impossible for oral accounts of official acts of war or terror to be unknown to its target audience, let alone non-existent in their native tongue, before they document it in a foreign one, as exemplified by Josephus in his Wars of the Jews."

(Moved from main page. Needs integration into the other sections of the article rather than a section of itself and removal of OR synthesis.) אמר Steve Caruso 14:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

"righteous" (רשינא ܪܫܝܢܐ)

Please, someone, help me find an Aramaic or Syriac dictionary that translates "reshyana" (רשינא ܪܫܝܢܐ) as "righteous"! I doubt it exists :) and therefore this claim should be removed. Chdn777 (talk) 21:43, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

True... Another issue is that Hebrew Aramaic was never written in Syriac script. I will remove the whole section for now.--Rafy talk 00:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)