Hebrew-Aramaic NT Roots

[Javanut]

Hebraic-Aramaic NT Roots



This is the first installment in a series that will introduce people to the concept that the NT was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic rather than Greek and that it is best understood from the original Hebrew and Aramaic.

The Hebraic Roots Version (which began as the Semitic New Testament Project) has been a ten year project to produce a new and accurate translation of the New Testament taken primarily from old Hebrew and
Aramaic sources. Unlike most translations this edition is not rooted in a Greek Hellenistic text. Instead this translation will seek to understand the text of the New Testament from the languages in which it was originally written. This is important because there are some passages in the NT which do not make sense at all in Greek, but only begin to make sense when we look at them in Hebrew and Aramaic.

(for more info on the HRV see http://www.nazarene.net/hrv )

Acts 11:27-30

And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch. Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all THE WORLD, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the talmidim, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brothers dwelling IN JUDEA. This they also did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.


Now this doesn't make sense at all, why would those in Antioch send relief to those dwelling IN JUDEA if the famine was to strike all THE WORLD. They would be facing famine themselves.

The Jewish New Testament translates the Greek word as "throughout the Roman Empire" but this has the same problem, since Antioch and Judea were both in the Roman Empire.

The solution lies in the fact that the word for "WORLD" in the Aramaic manuscripts is ERA (Strong's #772) the Aramaic form of the Hebrew word ERETZ (Strong's 776). This word can mean "world" (as in Prov. 19:4) "earth" (as in Dan. 2:35) or "land" (as in Dan. 9:15) and is often used as a euphemism for "The Land of Israel" (as in Dan.
9:6). Certainly the word here is not meant to mean "world" but "land of Israel."


Mt. 26:6 = Mk. 14:3

And when Y'shua was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper,(KJV)

As any Bible student knows, lepers were not permitted to live in the city (see Lev. 13:46).

Stern's JNT attempts to fix the problem by translating:

Stern's JNT has:
Yeshua was in Beit-Anyah, at the hom of Shim'on, the man who had had the repulsive skin disease.

But in fact the Greek does NOT say that Shim'on HAD BEEN a Leper. The Greek calls him "Simon the Leper".

Since ancient Hebrew and Aramaic were written without vowels, there was no distinction between the Aramaic words GAR'BA (leper)and GARABA (jar maker or jar merchant). Since in this story a woman pours oil from a jar it is apparent that Simon was a jar merchant or jar maker and not a leper.



Mt. 19:12 & Acts 8:26f

....there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake....--Mt. 19:12 NKJV

So he [Phillip] arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship. --Acts 8:27 NKJV

In Mt. 19 Stern's JNT translates the same Greek phrase for "eunuch" as "do not mary"; "without desire"; "been castrated" and "renounced marraige" to avoid this problem. He translates the same Greek word as "eunuch" in Acts 8:27 just as the KJV does.

The man in Acts 8:27 appears to be a proselyte to Judaism since he seems to be making the Torah-required pilgrimage to Jerusalem (Dt. 16:16). The Torah, however, forbids a eunuch both from becoming a proselyte Jew, and from worshiping at the Temple (Dt. 23:1f). This also raises the question of why one would become a eunuch (be castrated) for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. After all eunuchs are excluded from the assembly of Israel. The word for "eunuch" in the Aramaic manuscripts of both of these passages is M'HAIMNA which can mean "eunuch" but can also mean "believer" or "faithful one" as it clearly means here. In Mt. 19 it appears as a sort of wordplkay bbecsue it also refers to one who is faithful in marraige.



Mt. 19:24 = Mk. 10:25 = Lk. 18:25

...it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.

Stern's JNT has "...it is easier for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God."

The word for "camel" in the Aramaic manuscripts is GAMLA which can mean "camel" but can also refer to a "large rope," which is certainly the meaning here.

Jn. 12:11 & 15:16

One word that the Greek translators often misunderstood was the Aramaic word 'EZAL which normally means "to go" or "to depart" but is used idiomatically in Aramaic to mean that some action goes forward and that something progresses "more and more".

One case where the Greek translator misunderstood this word and translated to literally is in Jn. 12:11:

Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away (!?!?!?!?), and believed on Jesus. (KJV)

Stern's JNT has:

since it was because of him that large numbers of the Judeans were leaving their leaders and putting their trust in Yeshua.

Note that Stern adds the phrase "their leaders" which does NOT appear in the Greek in an attempt to forse the Greek to make some kind of sense.

Now I have translated the Aramaic of this passage as follows:

because many of the Judeans, on account of him, were trusting more and more ('EZAL) in Yeshua.

And Jn. 15:16:

...that ye should go and bring forth fruit...KJV

...to go and bear fruit...JNT

I have translated from the Aramaic:

...that you also should bear fruit more and more ('EZAL)...

James Trimm

PS: In the above HRV = Hebraic Roots Version; KJV = King James
Version and JNT = Jewish New Testament.

[Javanut]

This is the second installment in a series I am posting to introduce people to the idea that the NT was, like the Tanak originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic and was later translated into Greek, Latin and other European languages. The HRV Version of the NT ( http://www.nazarene.net/hrv ) is translated from the ancient Hebrew and Aramaic NT manuscripts rather than from the Greek.

In part two I shall demonstrate that Hebrew and Aramaic NOT Greek were the languages of first century Israel.



Language of First Century Israel

The Middle East, through all of its political turmoil, has in fact been dominated by a single master from the earliest ages until the present day. The Semitic tongue has dominated the Middle Eastfrom ancient times, until the modern day. Aramaic dominated the three great Empires, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian. It endured until the seventh century, when under the Islamic nation it was displaced by a cognate Semitic language, Arabic. Even today some few Syrians, Assyrians and Chaldeans speak Aramaic as their native tongue, including three villages north of Damascus .

The Jewish people, through all of their persecutions, sufferings and wanderings have never lost sight of their Semitic hheritage, nor their Semitic tongue. Hebrew, a Semitic tongue closely related to Aramaic, served as their language until the great dispersion when a cognate language, Aramaic, began to replace it. Hebrew, however continued to be used for religious literature, and is today the spoken language in Israel.

The Babylonian Exile

Some scholars have proposed that the Jews lost their Hebrew language, replacing it with Aramaic during the Babylonian captivity. The error of this position becomes obvious. The Jewish people had spent 400 years in captivity in Egypt yet they did not stop speaking Hebrew and begin speaking Egyptian, why should they exchange Hebrew for Aramaic after only seventy years in Babylonian captivity? Upon return from the Babylonian captivity it was realized that a small minority could not speak "the language of Judah" so drastic measures were taken to abolish these marriages and maintain the purity of the Jewish people and language One final evidence rests in the fact that the post-captivity books (Zech., Hag., Mal., Neh., Ezra, and Ester) are written in Hebrew rather than Aramaic.

Hellenization

Some scholars have also suggested that under the Helene Empire Jews lost their Semitic language and in their rush to hellenize, began speaking Greek. The books of the Maccabees do record an attempt by Antiochus Epiphanies to forcibly Hellenize the Jewish people. In response, the Jews formed an army led by Judas Maccabee This army defeated the Greeks and eradicated Hellenism .

This military victory is still celebrated today as Chanukkah, the feast of the dedication of the Temple a holiday that even Yeshua seems to have observed at the Temple at Jerusalem in the first century. Those who claim that the Jews were Hellenized and began speaking Greek at this time seem to deny the historical fact of the Maccabean success.

During the first century, Hebrew remained the language of the Jews living in Judah and to a lesser extent in Galilee. Aramaic remained a secondary language and the language of commerce. Jews at this time did not speak Greek, in fact one tradition had it that it was better to feed ones children swine than to teach them the Greek language. It was only with the permission of authorities that a young official could learn Greek, and then, solely for the purpose of political discourse on the National level. The Greek language was completely inaccessible and undesirable to the vast majority of Jews in Israel in the 1st century.70a Any gauge of Greek language outside of Israel cannot, nor can any evidence hundreds of years removed from the 1st century, alter the fact that the Jews of Israel in the 1st century did not know Greek.

The Testimony of Josephus

The first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37-c.100 C.E.) testifies to the fact that Hebrew was the language of first century Jews. Moreover, he testifies that Hebrew, and not Greek, was the language of his place and time. Josephus gives us the only first hand account of the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. According to Josephus, the Romans had to have him translate the call to the Jews to surrender into "their own language" (Wars 5:9:2)) . Josephus gives us a point-blank statement regarding the language of his people during his time:

I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understanding the elements of the Greek language although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own language, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness: for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations. (Ant. 20:11:2)

Thus, Josephus makes it clear that first century Jews could not even speak or understand Greek, but spoke "their own language."

Archaeology

Confirmation of Josephus's claims has been found by Archaeologists. The Bar Kokhba coins are one example. These coins were struck by Jews during the Bar Kokhba revolt (c. 132 C.E.). All of these coins bear only Hebrew inscriptions. Countless other inscriptions found at excavations of the Temple Mount, Masada and various Jewish tombs, have revealed first century Hebrew inscriptions.

Even more profound evidence that Hebrew was a living language during the first century may be found in ancient Documents from about that time, which have been discovered in Israel. These include the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Bar Kokhba letters.

The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of over 40,000 fragments of more than 500 scrolls dating from 250 B.C.E . to 70 C.E.. Theses Scrolls are primarily in Hebrew and Aramaic. A large number of the "secular scrolls" (those which are not Bible manuscripts) are in Hebrew.

The Bar Kokhba letters are letters between Simon Bar Kokhba and his army, written during the Jewish revolt of 132 C.E.. These letters were discovered by Yigdale Yadin in 1961 and are almost all written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Two of the letters are written in Greek, both were written by men with Greek names to Bar Kokhba. One of the two Greek letters actually apologizes for writing to Bar Kokhba in Greek, saying "the letter is written in Greek, as we have no one who knows Hebrew here."

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bar Kokhba letters not only include first and second century Hebrew documents, but give an even more significant evidence in the dialect of that Hebrew. The dialect of these documents was not the Biblical Hebrew of the Tenach (Old Testament), nor was it the Mishnaic Hebrew of the Mishna (c. 220 C.E.). The Hebrew of these documents is colloquial, it is a fluid living language in a state of flux somewhere in the evolutionary process from Biblical to Mishnaic Hebrew. Moreover, the Hebrew of the Bar Kokhba letters represents Galilean Hebrew (Bar Kokhba was a Galilean) , while the Dead Sea Scrolls give us an example of Judean Hebrew. Comparing the documents shows a living distinction of geographic dialect as well, a sure sign that Hebrew was not a dead language.

Final evidence that first century Jews conversed in Hebrew and Aramaic can be found in other documents of the period, and even later. These include: the Roll Concerning Fasts in Aramaic (66-70 C.E.), The Letter of Gamaliel in Aramaic (c. 30 - 110 C.E.), Wars of the Jews by Josephus in Hebrew (c. 75 C.E.), the Mishna in Hebrew (c. 220 C.E.) and the Gemara in Aramaic (c. 500 C.E.)

James Trimm
New Messianic Translation http://www.nazarene.net/hrv

[Javanut]

Below is the third instalment in my series on the Hebrew and Aramaic origins of the New Testament and why we have used the Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts for the HRV Translation (for more info on the HRV see http://www.nazarene.net/hrv )



Scholars on the Language of the New Testament

Having thus demonstrated that Hebrew and Aramaic were languages of Jews living in Israel in the first century, we shall now go on to demonstrate that the New Testament was first written in these languages.

Although Stern uses the UBS Greek New Testament text and NOT the Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts as the source for his Jewish New Testament version (Which also appears in THE COMPLETE JEWISH BIBLE) (JNT p. xxii; CJB p. xxxi) he also admits:

Nevertheless, there is good reason to think that several books of the New Testament either were written in Hebrew or Aramaic, or drew upon source materials in those languages; this case has been made by one scholar or another for all four Gospels, Acts, Revelation and several of the General Letters.... In fact, some phrases in the New Testament manuscripts make sense unless one reaches through the Greek to the underlying Hebrew expressions. (David Stern; Complete Jewish Bible p. xxxi) (an almost identical statement appears in JNT p. xvii)

(It should be noted that Stern also indicates his belief, with which I do not agree, that the Pauline Epistles were composed in Greek. I will deal with the issue of the Pauline Epistles in a future instalment)

Stern is absolutely correct in the above statement. A number of noted scholars have argued that at least portions of the New Testament were originally penned in a Semitic tongue.

The following is just some of what these scholars have written on the topic:

When we turn to the New Testament we find that there are reasons for suspecting a Hebrew or Aramaic original for the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, John and for the apocalypse.
- Hugh J. Schonfield; An Old Hebrew Text of St. Matthew's Gospel; 1927; p. vii

The material of our Four Gospels is all Palestinian, and the language in which it was originally written is Aramaic, then the principle language of the land...
-C. C. Torrey; Our Translated Gospels; 1936 p. ix

The pioneer in this study of Aramaic and Greek relationships was Charles Cutler Torrey (1863-1956),... His work however fell short of completeness; as a pioneering effort, in the nature of the case, some of his work has to be revised and supplemented. His main contention of translation, however, is undeniably correct. ...

The translation into Greek from Aramaic must have been made from a written record, including the Fourth Gospel. The language was Eastern Aramaic, as the material itself revealed, most strikingly through a comparison of parallel passages. ...

One group [of scholars], which originated in the nineteenth century and persists to the present day [1979], contends that the Gospels were written in Greek...

Another group of scholars, among them C. C. Torrey ... comes out flatly with the proposition that the Four Gospels... including Acts up to 15:35 are translated directly from Aramaic and from a written Aramaic text....

My own researches have led me to consider Torrey's position valid and convincing that the Gospels as a whole were translated from Aramaic into Greek.
- Frank Zimmerman; The Aramaic Origin of the Four Gospels; KTAV; 1979

Thus it was that the writer turned seriously to tackle the question of the original language of the Fourth Gospel;
and quickly convincing himself that the theory of an original Aramaic document was no chimera, but a fact which was capable of the fullest verification...
- Charles Fox Burney; The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel; 1922; p. 3

...this [Old Syriac] Gospel of St. Matthew appears at least to be built upon the original Aramaic text which was the work of the Apostle himself.
- William Cureton; Remains of a Very Ancient Recension of the Four Gospels in Syriac; 1858; p. vi)

...the Book of Revelation was written in a Semitic language, and that the Greek translation... is a remarkably close
rendering of the original."
- C. C. Torrey; Documents of the Primitive Church 1941; p. 160

We come to the conclusion, therefore that the Apocalypse as a whole is a translation from Hebrew or Aramaic...
- R. B. Y. Scott; The Original Language of the Apocalypse 1928; p. 6

The question of the Luke/Acts tradition holds particular interest to us. This is because the common wisdom has been to portray Luke as a Greek speaking, Greek writing Gentile who wrote his account to the Gentiles. The reality of the matter is (whether Luke himself knew Greek or not) that Luke was most certainly written in a Semitic language. as Charles Cutler Torrey states:

In regard to Lk. it remains to be said, that of all the Four Gospels it is the one which gives by far the plainest
and most constant evidence of being a translation.
- C.C. Torrey; Our Translated Gospels p. lix

James Trimm
New Messianic Version HRV http://www.nazarene.net/hrv

[Javanut]

PART 4: Testimony of the "Church Fathers" and Talmudic Rabbis



TESTIMONY OF THE "CHURCH FATHERS"

All of the "Church Fathers", both East and West, testified to the Semitic origin of at least the Book of Matthew, as the following quotes demonstrate:

Papias (150-170 C.E.)
Matthew composed the words in the Hebrew dialect, and each translated as he was able. (quoted by Eusebius Eccl. Hist. 3:39)

Ireneus (170 C.E.)
Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect. (Irenaeus; Against Heresies 3:1)

Origen (c. 210 C.E.)
The first [Gospel] is written according to Matthew, the same that was once a tax collector, but afterwards an emissary of Yeshua the Messiah, who having published it for the Jewish believers, wrote it in Hebrew.
(quoted by Eusebius; Eccl. Hist. 6:25)

Eusebius (c. 315 C.E.)
Matthew also, having first proclaimed the Gospel in Hebrew, when on the point of going also to the other nations,
committed it to writing in his native tongue, and thus supplied the want of his presence to them by his writings.
(Eusebius; Eccl. Hist. 3:24)

Pantaenus... penetrated as far as India, where it is reported that he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had been delivered before his arrival to some who had the knowledge of Messiah, to whom Bartholomew, one of the emissaries, as it is said, had proclaimed, and left them the writing of Matthew in Hebrew letters. (Eusebius; Eccl. Hist. 5:10)

Epiphanius (370 C.E.)
They [the Nazarenes] have the Gospel according to Matthew quite complete in Hebrew, for this Gospel is certainly still preserved among them as it was first written, in Hebrew letters. (Epiphanius; Panarion 29:9:4)

Jerome (382 C.E.)
"Matthew, who is also Levi, and from a tax collector came to be an emissary first of all evangelists composed a Gospel of Messiah in Judea in the Hebrew language and letters, for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed, who translated it into Greek is not sufficiently ascertained. Furthermore, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea, which the martyr Pamphilus so diligently collected. I also was allowed by the Nazarenes who use this volume in the Syrian city of Borea to copy it. In which is to be remarked that, wherever the evangelist... makes use of the testimonies of the Old Scripture, he does not follow the authority of the seventy translators [the Greek Septuagint], but that of the Hebrew." (Lives of Illustrious Men 3)

"Pantaenus found that Bartholomew, one of the twelve emissaries, had there [India] preached the advent of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah according to the Gospel of Matthew, which was written in Hebrew letters, and which, on returning to Alexandria, he brought with him." (De Vir. 3:36)

Isho'dad (850 C.E.)
His [Matthew's] book was in existence in Caesarea of Palestine, and everyone acknowledges that he wrote it with his hands in Hebrew... (Isho'dad Commentary on the Gospels)

Other "church fathers" have testified to the Semitic origin of at least one of Paul's epistles. These "church fathers" claim that Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews was translated into Greek from a Hebrew original, as the following quotes demonstrate:

Clement of Alexandria (150 - 212 C.E.)
In the work called Hypotyposes, to sum up the matter briefly he [Clement of Alexandria] has given us abridged accounts of all the canonical Scriptures,... the Epistle to the Hebrews he asserts was written by Paul, to the Hebrews, in the Hebrew tongue; but that it was carefully translated by Luke, and published among the Greeks.
(Clement of Alexandria; Hypotyposes; referred to by Eusebius in Eccl. Hist. 6:14:2)

Eusebius (315 C.E.)
For as Paul had addressed the Hebrews in the language of his country; some say that the evangelist Luke, others that Clement, translated the epistle.
(Eusebius; Eccl. Hist. 3:38:2-3)

Jerome (382)
"He (Paul) being a Hebrew wrote in Hebrew, that is, his own tongue and most fluently while things which were eloquently written in Hebrew were more eloquently turned into Greek.
(Lives of Illustrious Men, Book 5)

It should be noted that these church fathers did not always agree that the other books of the New Testament were written in Hebrew. Epiphanius for example, believed "that only Matthew put the setting forth of the preaching of the Gospel into the New Testament in the Hebrew language and letters." (Epiphanius; Pan. 30:3) Epiphanius does, however, tell us that the Jewish believers would disagree with him, and point out the existence of Hebrew copies of John and Acts in a "Gaza" or "treasury" [Genizah?] in Tiberius, Israel. (Epipnanius; Pan. 30:3, 6) Epiphanius believed these versions to be mere "translations" (Epiphanius; Pan. 30:3, 6, 12) but admitted that the Jewish believers would disagree with him. (Epiphanius; Pan. 30:3) The truth in this matter is clear, if Greek had replaced Hebrew as the language of Jews as early as the first century, then why would fourth century Jews have any need for Hebrew translations. The very existence of Hebrew manuscripts of these books in fourth century Israel testifies to their originality, not to mention the fact that the Jewish believers regarded them as authentic.

TESTIMONY OF THE TALMUDIC RABBIS

In addition to the statements made by the early Christian church fathers, the ancient Jewish Rabbis also hint of a Hebrew original for the Gospels. Both the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds and the Tosefta relate a debate among Rabbinic Jews over the method of destruction of manuscripts of New Testament books (t.Shab. 13:5; b.Shab. 116a; j.Shab. 15c) . Specifically mentioned is a book called by them as ALEF-VAV-NUN-GIMEL-LAMED-YUD-VAV-NUN (see end note) (or "Gospels"). The question which arose was how to handle the destruction of these manuscripts since they contained the actual name of God. It is of course, well known that the Greek New Testament manuscripts do not contain the Name but use the Greek titles "God" and "Lord" as substitutes. This is because the Name is not traditionally translated into other languages, but instead is (unfortunately) translated "Lord", just as we have it in most English Bibles today, and just as we find in our late manuscripts of the Septuagint . The manuscripts these Rabbi's were discussing must have represented the original Hebrew text from which the Greek was translated.

ENDNOTE
(b.Shab. 116a) The word ALEF-VAV-NUN-GIMEL-LAMED-YUD-VAV-NUN is part of the title of the Old Syriac manuscripts, and is also used in some passages of the Peshitta (such as Mk. 1:1) and may be a loan word from the Greek word for "Gospel" and in Hebrew and in Aramaic may mean "a powerful scroll." The exact same spelling is used both in the Talmud, the Old Syriac and the Peshitta.

James Trimm
New Messisnic Version, translated from the Hebrew and Aramaic
HRV http://www.nazarene.net/hrv

[Suedonym]

I'm really enjoying this. I thought you had just posted this but it was in 2009! Still writing that on my checks too.

[Javanut]

I'm glad someone is finally reading it!!