Religion:Aramaic New Testament

The New Testament in Aramaic languages exists in a number of versions:

1. the Vetus Syra (Old Syriac), the oldest translation from the original Greek into early Classical Syriac, represented in the Curetonian Gospels and the Sinaitic Palimpsest
2. the Christian Palestinian Aramaic Lectionary fragments represented in such manuscripts as Codex Climaci Rescriptus and later lectionary codices
3. the Classical Syriac Peshitta, a translation of the entire Bible from Hebrew and Greek and still the standard in most Syriac churches
4. the Harklean, a strictly literal translation by Thomas of Harqel into Classical Syriac
5. the Assyrian Modern Version, a new translation into Assyrian Neo-Aramaic from the Greek published in 1997 and mainly in use among Protestants
6. and a number of other scattered versions in various dialects

The official Assyrian Church of the East (known by some as the Nestorian Church) does not recognise the new "Assyrian Modern" edition, and traditionally considers the New Testament of the Peshitta to be the original New Testament, and Aramaic to be its original language. This view was popularised in the West by the Assyrian Church of the East scholar George Lamsa, but is not supported by the majority of scholars, either of the Peshitta or the Greek New Testament.

The traditional New Testament of the Peshitta has 22 books, lacking the Second Epistle of John, the Third Epistle of John, the Second Epistle of Peter, the Epistle of Jude and the Book of Revelation, which are books of the Antilegomena. The text of Gospels also lacks the verses known as Jesus and the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53–8:11) and Luke 22:17–18. These missing books were reconstructed by the Syriacist John Gwynn in 1893 and 1897 from alternative manuscripts, and included them in the United Bible Societies edition of 1905. The 1997 modern Aramaic New Testament has all 27 books.

Greek Original - New Testament Hypothesis

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 Greek Gospels may be translations from an Aramaic source 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 acknowledged the presence of scattered Aramaic expressions, written phonetically and then translated, in the Greek New Testament. Although it was frequently suggested that Q was a written source, it could have been a collection of oral sayings, usually referred to as the "logia" (See Luke 1:2–3).

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:

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.

Aramaic Original - New Testament Hypothesis

Although physical evidence has yet to be found, J.S. Assemane in his Bibliotheca stated that a Syriac Gospel dated 78 A.D. was found in Mesopotamia.

The marginal hypothesis that the New Testament text that was read by the Apostles would have preserved the life and sayings of Yeshua (as he spoke them in Aramaic - the language of Jesus) in their own native tongue of Aramaic before it was translated for those not among them who spoke Greek is not held by the majority of scholars.

The position of the Assyrian Church of the East is that the Syriac Peshitta (a Bible version which is written in a vernacular form of Aramaic), used in that church, is the original of the New Testament. For instance, the patriarch Shimun XXI Eshai declared in 1957:

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." (April 5, 1957)

This view is to be distinguished from the view held by most historical critics, that the Greek New Testament (particularly the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Mark) may have had Aramaic source texts which are no longer extant.

The most noteworthy advocate of the "Peshitta-original" hypothesis in the West was George Lamsa of the Aramaic Bible Center. A tiny minority of more recent scholars are backers of the Peshitta-original theory today, whereas the overwhelming majority of scholars consider the Peshitta New Testament to be a translation from a Greek original. For instance Sebastian Brock wrote:

The only complete English translation of the Peshitta is by G. Lamsa. This is unfortunately not always very accurate, and his claims that the Peshitta Gospels represent the Aramaic original underlying the Greek Gospels are entirely without foundation; such views, which are not infrequently found in more popular literature, are rejected by all serious scholars.

(Lamsa and Bauscher didn't translate the Old Testament Peshitta's deuterocanonical books, but did translate the remainder of the Peshitta Old Testament, plus the New Testament. Gorgias Press has published translations of many Peshitta Old Testament books, and of the entire Peshitta New Testament.)

E. Jan Wilson writes, "I believe firmly that both Matthew and Luke were derived from Aramaic originals." - xli of his The Old Syriac Gospels: Studies and Comparative Translations (vol. 1, Matthew and Mark) (2003), 381pp.

Some advocates of the "Peshitta-original" theory also use the term "Aramaic primacy", though this is not used in academic sources, and appears to be a recent neologism, as is the phrase "Greek primacy", used to characterize the consensus view. The expression "Aramaic primacy" was used by L. I. Levine, but only as a general expression used to denote the primacy of Aramaic over Hebrew and Greek in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period (i.e. roughly 200 BC - 70 AD). The earliest appearance of the phrase in print appears to be in David Bauscher.

Charles Cutler Torrey, while teaching at Yale, wrote a series of books that presented detailed manuscripturial evidence supporting the Aramaic New Testament, starting with The Translations Made from the Original Aramaic Gospels, and including the widely known Our Translated Gospels.

James Trimm presented a lot of evidence for an Aramaic New Testament in the preface to hisThe Hebrew Roots Version of the New Testament.

Yoseph Viel presented evidence for a Hebrew origin to the books of Matthew and Hebrews, theorizing that they were translated from Hebrew to Aramaic to Greek in his book, The Hebrew Pages of the New Testament.

Brief history

George Lamsa'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. Diatessaronic 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, 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.

Historical criticism

An argument that at least one of the Greek books of the New Testament have been translated out of the Aramaic comes from a textual analysis of those attributed to the Apostle John. Their variation in writing style is so considerable, that it would preclude them having been written in Greek by the same author. St Dionysius of Alexandria lent support to this argument, when pointing out how John's style of writing differs so markedly between his Gospel and Revelation. He concluded that the sophisticated writer of the former could not have written the clumsy Greek of the latter. Thus, the only way for John to have been the author of Revelation is for it to have been penned by a translator. However, Dionysius himself left open the possibility that it was written in Greek "by a holy and inspired writer" other than John.

Response to Papias

Papias 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 [hēprormēneusen, 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 may be based on) Papias.

Even if they do imply non-Greek originals, these accounts 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; 1 Peter 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.

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 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, most notably Lamsa, 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 "rope" thus saying "it easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle".

Advocates of Aramaic Primacy note that the best evidence of Aramaic being the original would be mistranslations in the Greek translation. Some grant that 'camel through the eye of a needle' is a more-striking metaphor than 'rope through the eye of a needle,' but go on to claim that accurate translations of the original Aramaic remove several mistranslations present in Greek manuscripts:

• mistranslation at Mt 1:16

Matthew 1:17 says there are 14, 14, 14 generations. Greek manuscripts of Matthew's genealogy list 14, 14, 13 generations. In Aramaic mss. of Matthew's genealogy, with Mt 1:16's "gbra" correctly translated as father/guardian, Matthew's genealogy lists 14, 14, 14 generations. Mary had a father/guardian named Joseph (plus a husband also called Joseph). Native Aramaic speaker Paul Younan detected this mistranslation.

• mistranslation at Mt 26:6 and Mk 14:3

Greek mss. have Jesus and his disciples visiting the house of a leper. The Greek translation from Aramaic has leper at Mt 26:6 and Mk 14:3, while the Aramaic allows for potter. Lepers were unclean and weren't allowed to have guests over. It's actually Simon the _potter_. To continue to call someone a leper even after he'd been healed of leprosy would have constituted slander.

• mistranslations at Mt 7:6

For Mt 7:6, it's actually 'hang earrings on dogs,' not 'give a holy thing to dogs.' Native Aramaic speaker Paul Younan noticed the two mistranslations in this verse.

• mistranslation at Lk 14:26

The Greek manuscripts have a mistranslation for Lk 14:26, which when translated well reads: "He who comes to me [Jesus] and does not *sena* [put aside; contextually improper here: hate, have an aversion to] his father and his mother and his brothers and his sisters and his wife and his children and even himself, is not able to be a talmida [student] to me."

• mistranslation for Acts 2:24

When translated well it reads: "But Allaha [God] loosed the *cords* of Sheol [the Grave/Death] and raised him [Yeshua/Jesus] because it was not possible that he be held in it, in Sheol." Re: cords, the Greek versions mistranslated this word as 'pain.' Cf. Jn 2:15 & 2 Samuel 22:6. -- Paul Younan

• mistranslation for Acts 5:13

The Greek manuscripts have a mistranslation for Acts 5:13: And there was a great fear in all the eidta [congregation], and in all those who heard. And many mighty deeds and signs occurred by the hands of the Shelikha [Apostles] among the people. And they were all assembled together in the Porch of Shlemon [Soloman]. 13. And of other men, not one dared to *touch* them, rather the people magnified them. Re: touch, this word can mean "join/commune" but also "touch," the latter undoubtedly being the correct reading. The Greek versions mistranslated this word as "join."--PY

• mistranslation for Acts 8:23

The Greek manuscripts have a mistranslation for Acts 8:23: "But repent of this your evil and beseech Allaha [God]. Perhaps you [Simon the sorcerer] will be forgiven the guile of your heart. 23. For I [Shimon Keepa/ Simon Peter] see that you are in bitter *anger* and in the bonds of iniquity." Re: anger, the Aramaic word kabda can mean gall/liver/anger. The Greek versions mistranslate "bitter kabda" as "gall of bitterness" instead of the more contextually proper "bitter anger."--PY

• mistranslation for Acts 8:27

The Greek manuscripts have a mistranslation for Acts 8:27, which when translated well reads: "And he [Pileepos/ Philip] arose (and) went and met a certain *mahaymina* [believer] who had come from Cush, an official of Qandeq, the malkta [queen] of the Cushites, and he was an authority over all her treasures. And he had come to worship in Urishlim." Re: MHYMNA, it can mean either 'believer' or 'eunuch'-- or many similar things. The Greek versions mistranslate this as 'eunuch' instead of the more contextually correct 'believer.'-- PY. The Ethiopian _believer_ was intending to worship in Jerusalem, presumably in the temple there-- which eunuchs were prohibited from doing by Deut 23:2. Cf. Mt 19:12.

• mistranslation at Mark 9:49

Mark 9:49 (HCSB) For everyone will be salted with fire.[a: Other mss add _and every sacrifice will be salted with salt_] The complete text was present as of A.D. 175: Arabic Diatesseron 25:23 Every _one_ shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.

The original Aramaic has the complete text; When translated well Mk 9:49 (based on Younan) reads: "For with fire everything will be *vaporized*, and with salt every sacrifice will be *seasoned*." Re: vaporized and seasoned, the root MLKh can mean 'to salt, season' or 'to destroy, vaporize, scatter.' The intended meaning shifted between the first and second lines-- the Messiah plays on the dual meaning of MLKh. See Mk 9 PDF of Paul Younan at http://dukhrana.com

• mistranslation at Rev 1:13

The mistranslation says Jesus has female breasts: Rev 1:13 (The Passion Translation) And walking among the lampstands, I saw someone like a son of man, wearing a full-length robe with a golden sash over his chest.[aj] The Greek word used here is mastos and is used exclusively for a woman's breasts.

• mistranslation at Rev 2:22

The Greek mistranslation rendered a word as "bed," thereby having an adulterous woman being thrown into a bed. (It should have used "bier.") The KJV translators apparently failed to notice the irony: Rev 2:21-22 (KJV) And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

The NASB added "of sickness" and were honest in that they put "of sickness" in italics, thereby indicating to the reader that they'd added it beyond what the Greek has: Rev 2:21-22 (NASB) I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. Behold, I will throw her on a bed _of sickness_, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds.

It'd make more sense if she'd been said to have been thrown onto a mortuary couch i.e. a bier-- and doing such is possible translating from the Aramaic Revelation.

Modern Aramaic to English translations

Translations from Syriac to English include:

• Translation of the Four Gospels from the Peschito, based on the eastern text, J. W. Etheridge (1846)
• John Wesley Etheridge's translation of the entire New Testament appears in The Etheridge New Testament (2013) compiled by Bruce A. Klein (has Etheridge's bracketed comments), and also in Etheridge Translation of the Aramaic Peshitta New Testament (2016) compiled by Ewan MacLeod
• Murdock Translation of the Aramaic Peshitta New Testament (2015) compiled by Ewan MacLeod
• The Syriac New Testament, based on the western text, James Murdock (1851)
• The New Testament According to the Eastern Text. Translated from Original Aramaic Sources. Philadelphia: A.J. Holman, 1940, based on the eastern text, George Lamsa
• The Peshitta Holy Bible Translated (2019) by David Bauscher
• The Original Aramaic New Testament in Plain English with Psalms & Proverbs (8th edition with notes) (2013) by David Bauscher
• Aramaic Peshitta New Testament Translation by Janet M. Magiera
• The Messianic Aleph Tav Interlinear Scriptures: Volume Four Gospels (2016) and Messianic Aleph Tav Interlinear Scriptures: Volume Five Acts-Revelation by William H. Sanford (interlinear Aramaic + Etheridge translation; interlinear Greek + English translation)
• The Aramaic Gospels and Acts: Text and Translation (2003) by Joseph Pashka
• A Translation, in English Daily Used, of the Peshito-Syriac Text, and of the Received Greek Text, of Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, and 1 John (1889) and A Translation, In English Daily Used, of the Seventeen Letters Forming Part of the Peshito-Syriac Books (1890) by William Norton
• The Testimony of Yeshua (2013) by Lonnie Martin is a reworked Etheridge and Murdock rendition of the New Testament
• The Message of Matthew: An Annotated Parallel Aramaic-English Gospel of Matthew (1991) by Rocco A. Errico
• Crawford Codex of Revelation: Aramaic Interlinear with English Translation (2016) by Greg Glaser
• Gorgias Press's The Antioch Bible series contains the Peshitta New Testament with English translation, plus many Peshitta Old Testament books
• Lapid Jewish Aramaic New Testament (2019)

This list does not include adaptations of such as the Hebraic Roots Version by James Trimm (2001) which are adaptations from the JPS New Testament (translated directly from Greek into Hebrew), not the Peshitta.

Bibliography

• Ben-Hayyim, Z. (1957–77), The Literary and Oral Tradition of Hebrew and Aramaic amongst the Samaritans, Jerusalem Academy of the Hebrew Language 
• Black, M. (1967), An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts. 3rd Ed., Hendrickson Publishers 
• Burney, C. F. (1922), The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, https://archive.org/details/TheAramaicOrigin4thGospel/page/n6 
• Casey, M. (1998), The Aramaic Sources of Marks' Gospel, Cambridge University Press 
• Casey, M. (2002), An Aramaic Approach to Q, Cambridge University Press 
• Fitzmyer, J. (1997), The Semitic Background of the New Testament, Eerdmans Publishing 
• Lamsa, G. (1976), New Testament Origin, Aramaic Bible Center 
• Torrey, C. (1941), Documents of the Primitive Church, Harper & Brothers 
• Zimmermann, F. (1979), The Aramaic Origin of the Four Gospels, Ktav Publishing House 

External links

• Dukhrana.com — site contains the transcription of the Khaboris Codex plus Etheridge, Murdock, and Lamsa, and an interlinear study tool
• Lamsa - OT and Lamsa - NT — Lamsa's translation of the Peshitta's Old Testament and New Testament
• aramaicdb.lightofword.org — site contains Magiera and Murdock, and an interlinear study tool
• Was the New Testament Really Written in Greek? — a book arguing for Aramaic primacy
• The Composition and Date of Acts (1916) by Charles Cutler Torrey
• Our Translated Gospels: Some of the Evidence (1936) by Charles Cutler Torrey