JESUS GOSPEL: Language of Jesus

it is generally agreed that Jesus and his disciples primarily spoke Aramaic, the common language of Judea in the first century AD, most likely a Galilean dialect distinguishable from that of Jerusalem.^[1] The towns of Nazareth and Capernaum in Galilee, where Jesus spent most of his time, were Aramaic-speaking communities.^[2]

Cultural and linguistic background

Aramaic was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean during and after the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid Empires (722–330 BC) and remained a common language of the region in the first century AD. In spite of the increasing importance of Greek, the use of Aramaic was also expanding, and it would eventually be dominant among Jews both in the Holy Land and elsewhere in the Middle East around 200 AD^[3] and would remain so until the Arab conquest in the seventh century.^[4]^[5]
According to Dead Sea Scrolls archaeologist, Yigael Yadin, Aramaic was the spoken language of Jews until Simon Bar Kokhba tried to revive Hebrew and make it the official language of Jews during the revolt that he led (132-135 AD). Yadin noticed the shift from Aramaic to Hebrew during the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt. In his book "Bar Kokhba: The rediscovery of the legendary hero of the last Jewish Revolt Against Imperial Rome" Yigael Yadin notes, "It is interesting that the earlier documents are written in Aramaic while the later ones are in Hebrew. Possibly the change was made by a special decree of Bar Kokhba who wanted to restore Hebrew as the official language of the state" (page 181).
In the book "A Roadmap to the Heavens: An Anthropological Study of Hegemony among Priests, Sages, and Laymen (Judaism and Jewish Life)" by Sigalit Ben-Zion (page 155), Yadin said: "it seems that this change came as a result of the order that was given by Bar Kokhba, who wanted to revive the Hebrew language and make it the official language of the state."
According to Jewish historian Josephus, Greek wasn't spoken in first century Israel. Josephus also points out the extreme rarity of a Jew knowing Greek.^[6]
Josephus wrote:

I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to all sorts of free-men, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully acquainted with our laws, and is able to interpret their meaning; on which account, as there have been many who have done their endeavors with great patience to obtain this learning, there have yet hardly been so many as two or three that have succeeded therein, who were immediately well rewarded for their pains.

—Antiquities of Jews XX, XI

In the first century AD, the Aramaic language was widespread throughout the Middle East. This is supported by the testimony of Josephus in the book The Jewish War.^[7]
Josephus points out how people from what are now Iran, Iraq and remote parts of the Arabian Peninsula knew all about the war of the Jews against the Romans due to the books he wrote "in the language of our country", books which he then translated into Greek for the benefit of the Greeks and Romans:

I have proposed to myself, for the sake of such as live under the government of the Romans, to translate those books into the Greek tongue, which I formerly composed in the language of our country, and sent to the Upper Barbarians; Joseph, the son of Matthias, by birth a Hebrew, a priest also, and one who at first fought against the Romans myself, and was forced to be present at what was done afterwards, [am the author of this work].

—Jewish Wars (Book 1, Preface, Paragraph 1)

I thought it therefore an absurd thing to see the truth falsified in affairs of such great consequence, and to take no notice of it; but to suffer those Greeks and Romans that were not in the wars to be ignorant of these things, and to read either flatteries or fictions, while the Parthians, and the Babylonians, and the remotest Arabians, and those of our nation beyond Euphrates, with the Adiabeni, by my means, knew accurately both whence the war begun, what miseries it brought upon us, and after what manner it ended.

—Jewish Wars (Book 1 Preface, Paragraph 2)

Aramaic phrases in the Greek New Testament

The Greek New Testament transliterates a few Semitic words. When the text itself refers to the language of such Semitic glosses, it uses words meaning "Hebrew"/"Jewish",^[8] but this term is often applied to unmistakably Aramaic words and phrases;^[9]^[10] for this reason, it is often interpreted as meaning "the (Aramaic) vernacular of the Jews" in recent translations.^[11] The "Semitisms" are mainly words attributed to Jesus by the Gospel of Mark, and perhaps had a special significance because of this.
A very small minority believe that most or all of the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic.^[12]^[13] However, such theories are rejected by mainstream Biblical scholarship. Traditionally parts of the Church of the East (Nestorian church) have also claimed originality for the Aramaic New Testament, though this is considered by scholars to be a translation from Greek. Instead, the consensus among mainstream academia is that although it is possible that there may be Aramaic source materials that underpin some portions of the New Testament, the New Testament was compiled and redacted in the Greek language. Scholars are also in agreement that there did exist at one time an early Aramaic/Hebrew version of a Jewish-Christian gospel, although its relation to the Greek gospels is not completely clear due to a lack of sources.

Talitha kum (Ταλιθα κουμ)

Daughter of Jairus

Mark 5:41

And taking the hand of the child, he said to her, "Talitha kum", which translates as, "Little girl, I say to you, get up."

This verse gives an Aramaic phrase, attributed to Jesus bringing the girl back to life, with a transliteration into Greek, as ταλιθα κουμ.
A few Greek manuscripts (Codex Sinaiticus, Vaticanus) of Mark's Gospel have this form of the text, but others (Codex Alexandrinus, the text-type known as the Majority Text, and the Latin Vulgate) write κουμι (koumi) instead. The latter is in the Textus Receptus, and is the version that appears in the KJV.
The Aramaic is ţlīthā qūm. The word ţlīthā is the feminine form of the word ţlē, meaning "young". Qūm is the Aramaic verb 'to rise, stand, get up'. In the feminine singular imperative, it was originally 'qūmī'. However, there is evidence that in speech the final -ī was dropped so that the imperative did not distinguish between masculine and feminine genders. The older manuscripts, therefore, used a Greek spelling that reflected pronunciation, whereas the addition of an 'ι' was perhaps due to a bookish copyist.
In square script Aramaic, it could be טליתא קומי or טלתא קומי.

Ephphatha (Εφφαθα)

Healing the deaf mute of Decapolis

Mark 7:34

And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," which is 'be opened'.

Once again, the Aramaic word is given with the transliteration, only this time the word to be transliterated is more complicated. In Greek, the Aramaic is written εφφαθα. This could be from the Aramaic 'ethpthaḥ', the passive imperative of the verb 'pthaḥ', 'to open', since the 'th' could assimilate in western Aramaic. The guttural 'ḥ' was often omitted in Greek transcriptions in the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) and was also softened in Galilean speech,.^[14]
In Aramaic, it could be אתפתח or אפתח.

Abba (Αββα)

Raca (Ρακα)

Mammon (Μαμωνας)

Main article: Mammon

Rabbuni (Ραββουνει)

Maranatha (Μαραναθα)

Main article: Maranatha

Didache 10 (Prayer after Communion)

.. Let grace come, and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God (Son) of David! If any one is holy, let him come; if any one is not so, let him repent. Maranatha. Amen. (Roberts-Donaldson)

1 Corinthians 16:22

If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.

Depending on how one selects to split the single Greek expression of the early manuscripts into Aramaic, it could be either מרנא תא (marana tha, "Lord, come!") or מרן אתא (maran atha, "Our Lord has come").

Eli Eli lema sabachthani (Ηλει Ηλει λεμα σαβαχθανει)

Main article: Sayings of Jesus on the cross

Matthew 27:46

Around the ninth hour, Jesus shouted in a loud voice, saying "Eli Eli lema sabachthani?" which is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Mark 15:34

And at the ninth hour, Jesus shouted in a loud voice, "Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?" which is translated, "My God, my God, for what have you forsaken me?"

This phrase, shouted by Jesus from the cross, is given to us in these two versions. The Matthean version of the phrase is transliterated in Greek as ηλι ηλι λιμα σαβαχθανει. The Markan version is ελωι ελωι λιμα σαβαχθανει (elōi rather than il-ee and supposedly lama rather than lema).
Overall, both versions appear to be Aramaic rather than Hebrew because of the verb שבק (šbq) "abandon", which is originally Aramaic.^[15]^[18] The "pure" Biblical Hebrew counterpart to this word, עזב (`zb) is seen in the first line of Psalm 22, which the saying appears to quote. Thus, Jesus is not quoting the canonical Hebrew version (êlî êlî lâmâ `^azabtânî); he may be quoting the version given in an Aramaic Targum (surviving Aramaic Targums do use šbq in their translations of the Psalm 22 ^[19]).
The Markan word for "my god", ελωι, definitely corresponds to the Aramaic form אלהי, elāhî. The Matthean one, ηλι, fits in better with the אלי of the original Hebrew Psalm, as has been pointed out in the literature; however, it may also be Aramaic, because this form is attested abundantly in Aramaic as well.^[18]^[20]
In the following verse, in both accounts, some who hear Jesus' cry imagine that he is calling for help from Elijah (Ēlīyā in Aramaic).
Almost all ancient Greek manuscripts show signs of trying to normalize this text. For instance, the peculiar Codex Bezae renders both versions with ηλι ηλι λαμα ζαφθανι (ēli ēli lama zaphthani). The Alexandrian, Western and Caesarean textual families all reflect harmonization of the texts between Matthew and Mark. Only the Byzantine textual tradition preserves a distinction.
The Aramaic word form šəbaqtanî is based on the verb šəbaq/šābaq, 'to allow, to permit, to forgive, and to forsake', with the perfect tense ending -t (2nd person singular: 'you'), and the object suffix -anî (1st person singular: 'me').
In Aramaic, it could be אלהי אלהי למא שבקתני.

JESUS GOSPEL

Tuesday, 27 May 2014

Language of Jesus