The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Was the New Testament Really Written in Greek

Studies Books
#1

I found this the other day and downloaded the book (it was free when I did so but seems not to be now).

This book contains arguments for the original NT having been written in Aramaic and not Greek (even though the oldest Aramaic NT is not as old as the oldest Greek manuscripts). Some of the proofs such as the line ‘it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle’ in the Aramaic saying ‘it is easier for a rope to pass through the eye of a needle’ would not alter theology built on a Greek original NT; but others such as ‘My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?’ in the Aramaic being rendered as ‘My God! My God! why have you spared me?’ would have quite an impact (I don’t know what it says about UR passages of the NT).

I won’t add the pdf at the moment because a) it is 8 meg and b) I don’t think it is free anymore.

Auggy - what would you suggest if people would like the file?

#2

On a recent trip to Israel our guide was a fan of something like this view (jerusalemperspective.com/). She gave me some magazines arguing that there was an original Hebrew ‘gospel’ that became Matthew in Greek, was reduced to Mark and finally expanded to Luke. Sounds a little wacky but she really knew what she was talking about!

That scholars can argue this sort of line, but others can create Q, while others push for Johannie priority, while others think there was no Q but Mark was first, shows me that synoptic criticism just doesn’t have enough to go on!

#3

Spared Him from what?! (Obviously not from being beaten, scourged and crucified, and not from dying a while later either.)

Seeing as how the phrase is a quote from Psalm 22:1, where (even though the ultimate point of the Psalm is that the Psalmist trusts that God hasn’t abandoned him) David is hardly complaining to God that God has spared him, I’m dubious that this could have been an Aramaic original, regardless of whether this or that Gospel was originally written in Aramaic.

On the broader issue: it seems clear that at least some of the prior source material in the existent Gospels (not counting any of the other NT texts) goes back to Aramaic. Whether this points toward Aramaic documents per se, is beyond my own competency as a source-critic to figure out. (And I tend to agree with JAT Robinson, that the source-tracing of the Gospel composition is beyond anyone’s competency to figure out; we just don’t have enough data. {nod to Qoholet!} :smiley: )

GosMatt has an early tradition, going back to Papias, of having been based on an Aramaic/Hebrew precursor; and it does seem to have the most Aramaic forms of any Gospel (while never bothering to explain Aramaic forms to the reader). Interestingly, the GosMatt text is also the one to contain all the references (few though those are) to the idea of Jesus Himself having scribes. (Which, by the way, would be standard operating procedure for an operating prophet, whether in 1st century Palestinian culture or in any ancient Mediterranean culture, going back thousands of years BCE.) Moreover, the refs are dropped in off-hand, not in an apologetic fashion, which adds to the likelihood that they were understood to be uncontroversial knowledge among GosMatt’s audience and sources. The weight, though it isn’t much, leans I think toward there being written notes of Jesus’ sayings during His ministry. (Which in turn could easily become a sayings-source like ‘Q’ as a common resource for authors to draw upon, but also as a common resource for evangelical and liturgical purposes in communities under the administration of authorized teachers.)

I’m not sure how much stronger this line of reasoning should be considered beyond ‘plausible speculation’, though. :ugeek: :mrgreen:

On the distribution issue: if you think that the text is now no longer free-access, give us a link to where we can purchase the pdf. I can’t really be in favor of posting free-access to it in various ways. (Annoying, yes; but fair to the author. :slight_smile: )

Another possibility for reference purposes, though: does the author have a Search Inside the Book option set up at Amazon? And/or, does the author have a books.google.com registration with some (or even all) access to the book?

#4

Sorry! I meant to post the link originally - aramaicpeshitta.com/

It may be the free download is still available (I can’t remember which part of the site it was I downloaded from but was definitely not underhand at the time). The actual download page seems to only be with payment (forgive me I am old and decrepid :mrgreen: )

Having only skimmed the pdf I am in no position to offer my views as yet I onlythouht it might be interesting to you all.

#5

I agree that Jesus and the twelve apostles primarily spoke in Aramaic while they were at least bilingual and also spoke in Common Greek. I assume they typically spoke in Aramaic to native Aramaic speakers while they spoke in Greek to everybody else. Likewise, many of the speeches in the Gospels and Acts were originally spoken in Aramaic. There also may have been an Aramaic record of the sayings of Jesus that were not preserved. Some ancients additionally said that Matthew may have been originally written in Aramaic while if it ever existed it was not preserved . I moreover never saw a compelling argument that any of the New Testament manuscripts were originally written in Aramaic.

#6

Well - to be fair to this book it tries systematically to show where they feel the aramaic proves its primacy by comparing dozens of passages. If people have the time and inclination to read it they can comment then on the ‘proofs’ provided - for me it is an interesting diversion.

#7

Picking back up on this:

I searched through the site, but only found a forum thread where the question of “lema sabachthenai”'s meaning was debated. I have to say, the arguments in favor of “spared” (even in the sense of, “you left me alive for this??”) seem rather stretchy. And that was the best application of the proposed interpretation I could find!

(i.e., You’ve spared My life until now, only for this to happen? Uh, yeah, what did You think was going to happen when You knew ahead of time You were going to be executed and were trying to warn Your disciples but they weren’t taking You seriously about it and even swore that such a thing should be far from You?–for which You rebuked them in the strongest terms! The narrative synchronization is utterly lacking, and this is in the best case scenario for the meaning being “to spare”.)

What struck me was a total lack of contextual application of Psalm 22, where (to reiterate my original comment) the whole point is that, as anyone familiar with Psalm 22 would know, God has not in fact abandoned David, despite David feeling that way at the start of the Psalm. (The most I saw on that topic, though possibly I skipped over some relevant discussion, was an assertion that the quote couldn’t be a midrash commentary on the Psalm. I might agree with that, depending on what is meant by ‘midrash’–the cry from the cross is hardly an explanatory gloss, for example!) Even the people critiquing the “spared me” interpretation seemed unfamiliar with where the Psalm ends up going; they don’t seem to have used that as part of their critique anyway.

I’ve still bookmarked the site as a good collection of resources. I actually have a lot of respect for the concept of checking on Aramaic underlying the NT Greek. But I remain dubious that the Greek docs go back to now-non-existent original Aramaic written docs in all instances of the NT. Back to Aramaic, yes; that’s understandable as part of the culture (and still explains the prevalence of some Greek variant texts where scribes were trying to figure out which Aramaic word was originally meant–some of which guesses are late enough that they couldn’t possibly have been working from original Aramaic copies but at best had to be cross-checking with the Syriac Peshitta, which even the authors admit was an attempt to translate Greek back into Aramaic.)

#8

I have just noticed that in the introduction to this work the following statement is made

That being so I have made the file available for download at my website…

alderman-family.info/theolog … b.pdf/view

#9

Niftiness!!–much thanks! {bow!}

#10

My pleasure - I am very interested in your thoughts now that you have the whole thing (accepting the time and effort involved in studying and then commenting).

#11

Does anyone know how many (if any) NT Greek texts can be traced back to Aramaic sources? My understanding of scholarship on the issue is that all of the NT books were originally written in Greek; If that’s true, perhaps any Aramaic sources would be essentially untraceable because the transmission would’ve been oral, not written?

I’m especially assuming that Paul’s letters were written originally in Greek.

#12

Honestly, the only people I’ve seen push for original Aramaic texts on all Gospels, are people who also happen to have an ideological commitment to the Syrian Peshitta being the original Aramaic text of all the New Testament (not only the Gospels).

Which, as you note Mel, runs instantly into the problem of Pauline composition to churches in Asia minor, largely (though not solely) composed of Gentiles. (Not even counting that Diaspora Jews would be more familiar with Greek, and the Greek Septuagint, than even with Biblical Hebrew, much less conversational Aramaic.)

Your comment does remind me that I hope to get back to studying this book again eventually. :slight_smile: But there is no conspiracy among modern scholars to deny Aramaic source texts. Modern Christian textual critics especially would wet themselves at the thought that they had an Aramaic original text of GosMatt (for which there is some tradition, not to say some textual credence, for it being a translation from some kind of Aramaic original), much moreso any of the other Gospels, much MUCH moreso any of the epistles or RevJohn. They know about the Syrian texts; and they respect and use the Syrian texts on a regular basis. They aren’t dissing the Peshitta out of ideological prejudice.

I do think there is Aramaic sourcework behind the Gospel texts (all four, plus portions of Acts set in Palestine), going back to historical originality. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were original Aramaic written notes: that would be standard operating procedure for a rabbi and his disciples, and especially for Near Middle Eastern prophets (including Hebrew ones). On top of which, there’s a tradition to the effect that the GosJohn author was voted among the apostles to take notes of their recollections shortly after the final appearances of Jesus; if that happened, it would have more likely been in Aramaic, not Greek.

But I doubt that there were finished Aramaic Gospel texts corresponding to the Greek texts as we have them. The evidence, internally and externally, just doesn’t add up to this. (And nothing of the little I’ve read so far in this book gives me ground to change my mind on that. So far it looks more like ideologically based wishful thinking, borrowing strength from the underlying Aramaic roots of the historical situation. Useful strength, too, to a real extent; but they’re pushing too far.)

#13

I had an old file on the questionable “forsaken” phrase of Matt 24;47.

There is probably no scripture more misunderstood than Jesus’ cry from the cross, “My God. My God. Why hast thou forsaken me?” Did Jesus Christ really utter these words? Would Jesus have accused his heavenly Father of such an act of desertion? Did God really abandon His only begotten son as he was dying on the cross?

The difficulty with Matthew 26:47 is due to an error in translation. “Forsaken” is the wrong choice for the translation in this verse.

“Eli” means “my God.” Lama, or lemana means “why” or “for what purpose” and always introduces a question. It occurs 53 times in the Aramaic-English Interlinear New Testament (#1584) and it is translated “why” 45 times, “what” 5 times, and “for what purpose” 3 times. “Sabachthani” comes from sebaq meaning to leave, forgive, allow, reserve, or spare.

The Greek word translated forsaken, can mean to leave in the sense of forsaking and abandoning, or to leave in the sense of sparing or allowing to remain. The context determines the meaning.

by Rev Wayne Clapp

It is very interesting to note that the Greek version of Matthew contains these original Aramaic words of Jesus. For some reason the Greek translators decided to preserve the original Aramaic of Jesus for these few words. Why?

Even more revealing is the fact that in the Greek text, these Aramaic words have been first transliterated into Greek phonetics and then followed with the exact same phrase translated into Greek. Why did the Greeks record this passage in both Aramaic and Greek? Perhaps to assure that someday the correct translation would be fully understood despite the potentially confusing translation into Greek?

Regardless of whether we read the Greek translation or the original Aramaic, the correct translation depends upon your point of view. Would Jesus have felt forsaken as depicted in the King James translation, or was he fully aware that a Divine plan was being fulfilled by his death? Was it a time of anxiety and isolation or just another day at the office?

Some say that Jesus was quoting from Psalm 22, and in fact the Hebrew words in Psalm 22 are essentially the same as the Aramaic:

My God, My God, why hast thou let me to live?

To me the answer is clear… Jesus knew that he was being betrayed, and could have easily gone into hiding rather than being captured, but he did not. Rather than run or hide, Jesus went peacefully and lovingly into the hands of his captors knowing that he would be crucified.

Jesus knew exactly what was happening. He knew of his impending death. He could have escaped to avoid capture, but he did not run away. In fact, he stayed and even threw a big dinner party to celebrate the occasion. Clearly, Jesus chose to go along with whole plan and certainly would not have felt forsaken.

On the contrary, Jesus showed us that he would not forsake his ministry of Love where the greatest of principles is to “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart…” (Luke 10:27) and in that same manner to “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you…” (Luke 6:27).

Jesus told us that our true life is not just this human body, and that life goes on after the body is dead. That is one of the great messages of his crucifixion. The body is just a temporary material possession, while the spirit is eternal. As Jesus told us: “Man cannot serve both God and material possessions”. (Luke 16:9-13)

Those who choose to put possessions above God will indeed suffer and cry in self-made torment, while those who put God above all possessions will find both love and life eternal.

On that day of crucifixion, while showing all of mankind an example of limitless love and eternal life, Jesus cried out the glorious message:

My God, my God, for this I was kept!

(author unknown)

#14

Some additional info on the topic:

The Greek term {e(n)gkataleipo_}, or in-down-lack, is used ten times in the canonical NT. The term means to leave behind, and each of its uses (leaving aside as questionable, for the moment, the cry from the cross reported at GosMark 15:34 and GosMatt 27:46) can be easily and properly translated that way. Context indicates that the leaving-behind is used negatively in the sense of ‘forsaking’ seven of the eight other times, although almost all those instances involve an expectation that the negative shall or should not happen.

St. Peter, in the first apostolic sermon of Acts 2:27, repeated for explanation at 2:31, quotes the plea of the Psalm not to leave behind the soul of the pleader in Sheol/Hades/the ‘unseen’. St. Paul writes how he is persecuted but not left behind (by God), 2 Cor 4:9. The Hebraist exhorts his readers not to leave-behind assembling together, Heb 10:25; and promises that God will not forsake his readers, Heb 13:5.

Demas and others have left Paul behind in 2 Tim 4:10 and 16. In this case, the leaving-behind has been accomplished, and Paul treats it like a betrayal; it’s a fully negative usage.

Rom 9:29, however, involves a remnant of faithful Israel being left behind (in difficult circumstances involving persecution) by God for good purposes; the metaphor (from the OT story of Elijah) is that of God planting a seed that is later expected to grow and repopulate the field.

It would be strange if the cry from the cross (the final two uses of the term in the NT) was not a quote of Psalm 22:1, since there are other parallels to the situation of that Psalm occurring during the hours of the crucifixion, including in regard to the behavior of the enemies of Christ though also in regard to the suffering of both speakers. While the Psalmist is ultimately hopeful of forthcoming victory from apparent defeat, he is certainly beginning the Psalm with a cry of complaint: “why have you left me behind!?” “My words of groaning are far from my deliverance! O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer; and by night, but there is no silence for me!” It is not just another day at the office for him. :wink:

Is it an untrusting complaint? No, even near the beginning the Psalmist (though he regards himself as a worm and not a man) remembers that God is holy and enthroned upon the praises of Israel for their deliverance; the patriarchs cried out to God, trusting in Him, and they were saved. The Psalmist is hoping in God for the same salvation, all throughout the Psalm, in increasing confidence.

As a further consideration, rabbis (even today) have had a tradition of tacitly rebuking their students by quoting a verse from the OT which might be misunderstood out of context. If the student doesn’t critically recognize the context, and so misses the thrust of the rebuke, then his shame is even greater; whereas, if he is competent enough to remember and understand the context, and so recognize the rebuke, then at least he has that going for him. (There are one or two examples of a rabbi in the Talmud using this rebuke technique on someone probably meant to be Jesus, to give a relevant non-Christian example! Jesus Himself is probably making use of this tactic most obviously elsewhere in John 10:34.) Jesus, in both GosJohn and the Synoptics, has been acting as (at the very least!) a teacher to the rabbis and priests and scribes, especially among the Pharisees; His ‘students’ are the ones on the scene putting themselves into the place of the enemies of David (thus as enemies of the Messiah, by their own subsequent expectation of that Psalm).

The total contextual evidence indicates, therefore, that Jesus was rebuking the nearby religious authorities (especially among the Pharisees, the party which had previously given Him the most support per GosJohn) as a teacher to rebellious students: the Father allows the Son to linger on the cross (left behind) in suffering, but the Son is still loyal to the Father and fully expects the Father to be loyal to Him, reversing the situation to a total victory unexpected by His enemies (who are rather expecting God to have abandoned Jesus to a cursed death as a blasphemer.)

#15

Yes, it far from that, Jason. And I might lean toward the “forsaken” translation. I posted that article to add to the discussion and illustrate a fuller understanding of the opposing view.

Be blessed

#16

I thought it was a good article (or pair of articles maybe, from Rev Clapp and from ‘unknown’?); it brings some ideas to the table worth keeping in mind and incorporating. :slight_smile: In those ways, too, the cry from the cross isn’t likely to be one of the Son believing (though maybe feeling) Himself actually abandoned by the Father.

Also, as I point out elsewhere (in my thread on local metaphysical crits to trinitarianism), had Jesus been actually abandoned by God, there would have been no resurrection. Those who reject the deity of Christ have a good point about the abandonment disproving the substantial deity of the Son, if true; but when those rejectors still go on to affirm a resurrection of Jesus (and most of them do, one way or another), they thus tacitly affirm that the Son was not abandoned after all.

(By itself the lack of actual abandonment doesn’t positively weigh more toward one or another kind of Christology; it just defuses one metaphysical argument, though not a bad one in principle, against the substantial deity of Christ. The Res does serve as evidence of the validation by the Father that Jesus was not a blaspheming heretic after all, but what exactly he was claiming about himself is a whole other discussion. :slight_smile: )