Aramaic language

“ Another modern movement of research also carries us away from the old classicism. While the New Testament writers used the colloquial language of the cosmopolitan Greek-speaking people of their day, they were all, or nearly all, brought up in Jewish schools and taught to think in Jewish modes of thought. This indicates that some of their expressions can best be interpreted by a knowledge of Aramaic, the language of Palestine in the time of Christ. And now Aramaic studies have been brought in to assist in the interpretation of the New Testament with luminous results. ”

“ The three Synoptic Gospels are based upon one original Gospel written in the Aramaic language. A large number of verbal variations can thus be accounted for. They might have sprung from different renderings of the same Aramaic original, and various passages derived from oral tradition might have been added to the original Gospel when it was translated. It has been held by some that there was at least an Aramaic document behind Mark, if there was not an Aramaic original employed by all the Synoptics. The different forms of this hypothesis can be described as the theory of an Aramaic original. ”

“ In that country, where the native writing was so formidable to the learner, the Aramaic language and script may well have appeared peculiarly serviceable. Thus they were employed, and frequently, even by indigenous Egyptians. But we need not doubt that, in Egypt, Aramaic was also spoken by many who had migrated from Syria; and this must be assumed to have been the case with the Jewish colonists mentioned. The fact is now established that these Jews who had come to Egypt before the Persian period were military colonists, and were often referred to in documents as “Aramaeans.” ”

“ They include the Arama’ic, Hebræo-Phœnician, and Arabic, which are much more alike than the Aryan tongues. Assyrio-Babylonian occupies a peculiar position between the Northern and Southern Semitic groups.
Aramaic (from the Hebrew Arâm—highlands) was spoken in northern Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia. A dialect of it, the Jews gradually adopted after their return from captivity at Babylon (536 B.C.) , retaining the Hebrew as their sacred language, but speaking and writing in Aramaic somewhat modified by Greek. Aramaic, therefore, was the tongue in which our Lord and his disciples conversed. ”

“ The Semitic family is divided into three branches, the Aramaic, the Hebraic, and the Arabic.280
[pg 276] The Aramaic occupies the north, including Syria, Mesopotamia, and part of the ancient kingdoms of Babylonia and Assyria. It is known to us chiefly in two dialects, the Syriac and Chaldee. The former name is given to the language which has been preserved to us in a translation of the Bible (the Peshito281) ascribed to the second century, and in the rich Christian literature dating from the fourth. ”

“ This latter passage is important, not only as showing the difference of the two languages, but also as showing the existence of two scripts, one called Hebrew (עברית‎) , the other Ashuri (אשורית‎) which is variously rendered "upright," "sacred," or "Assyrian." The old alphabet and the Aramaic language were profane: the Hebrew and the new alphabet, which came with Ezra from Babylon, were sacred. ”

“ To use the words of one of the most eminent modern authorities, "It is now generally recognised that in grammatical structure the Arabic preserves much more of the original forms than either the Hebrew or Aramaic."
History, ethnology, and philology now combine inexorably to place the account of the confusion of tongues and the dispersion of races at Babel among the myths; but their work has not been merely destructive: more and more strong are the grounds for belief in an evolution of language. ”

“ No part of the Bible has called forth a greater diversity of opinions than the Song of Solomon, and this for two reasons. In the first place, the book holds so unique a position in the Old Testament, that the general analogy of Hebrew literature is a very inadequate key to the verbal difficulties, the artistic structure, and the general conception and purpose of the poem. In point of language the departures from ordinary Hebrew are almost always in the direction of Aramaic. Many forms unique in Biblical Hebrew are at once explained by the Aramaic dialects, but not a few are still obscure. ”

“ On the whole, the language appears to bear so strong an affinity to that which we know to have been commonly spoken in the country as{303} late as the fourth century, that the peasantry may, without exaggeration, be said to speak Aramaic rather than Arabic, or at least a dialect formed by the influence of the language of their Arab conquerors on the original Aramaic tongue. ”

“ We have a translation of his words from the Aramaic into the Greek, made either by the writers of the Gospels, or by some one in their day. We have quoted the testimony of Papias, that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew (by which he undoubtedly means Aramaic) , and that each one interpreted it as best he could; and if this be true, then that copy first made by Matthew did contain many of our Lord's very words. But that Aramaic copy has never been seen since that day; we have no manuscript of any New Testament book except in the Greek language. ”

“ The Samaritan language properly so called is a dialect of Palestinian Aramaic, of which the best examples are found in the literature of the 4th century A.D. An archaic alphabet, derived from the old Hebrew, was retained, and is still used by them for writing Aramaic. Hebrew and sometimes even Arabic. ”

“ Many, no doubt, could speak no other language. But if a man desired to make his way in the world in any public capacity or in trade he would be obliged to learn the cosmopolitan language of the time. No doubt very many could speak both languages.
Jesus and his apostles belonged to those circles which were least affected by the encroachments of Greek civilization. The whole atmosphere of the Gospels is as un-Greek as could be imagined. As is proved by the presence of Aramaic words even in our Greek Gospels, Aramaic was undoubtedly the language in which the gospel was originally proclaimed. ”

“ This land was called Aram and the ancient language spoken there, the Aramaic. Between Phœnician and Aramaic the connection is close. The Aramaic took the place of the Phœnician language, when the Phœnicians were edged out of Palestine westward over the Mediterranean. So we see that Arabic, which looks so strange and is so elegant and fantastic when embroidered on banners or traced on tiles or written on the beautiful mulberry-leaf paper of the Orient, really uses, in the main, the same alphabet that looks so plain and simple on the page you are reading! ”

“ During the hundred and eighty years and more which intervened between the Restoration of the Temple, B.C. 516, and the overthrow of Darius Codomannus, B.C. 331, Judæa was a portion of that province of the Persian empire, in which the Aramaic was the prevalent dialect. The ancient Hebrew gradually ceased to be the language of the Jews in common life, and, before the time of our Lord, had been supplanted by the language of their Eastern neighbours. ”

“ The Scriptures of the Jews were written in Hebrew, the older language of the people; but a few chapters in Ezra and Daniel are in Aramaic, which gradually replaced Hebrew as the vernacular of Palestine from the fifth century B.C. The Sacred Books comprise the Law, that is, the Five Books of Moses; the Prophets, under which name are included the older historical books (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings) as well as what we call the Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve, i.e. Minor Prophets) ”

“ Language of the Talmud:
The Mishna is written in Hebrew, and so too are some of the older quotations in the Gemara. Many Greek words are adopted, of which Sanhedrin is one; some Latin words too. But the bulk of both Gemaras is written in a dialect of Aramaic—we might say Jüdisch-Aramaic just as we speak of Jüdisch-Deutsch to-day.
A knowledge of grammar was brought to Persia (Babylonia) from Greece, which resulted in the important service of introducing vowel points and accents. This tended to simplify the study of Hebrew Scriptures and made the text more certain. ”

“ This hypothesis is not intrinsically improbable—and in Aramaic, a language closely related to Hebrew, “to be” actually is hāwā—but it should be noted that in adopting it we admit that, using the name Hebrew in the historical sense, Yahweh is not a Hebrew name. And, inasmuch as nowhere in the Old Testament, outside of Exod. iii., is there the slightest indication that the Israelites connected the name of their God with the idea of “being” in any sense, it may fairly be questioned whether, if the author of Exod. ”

“ Cumulative testimony is furnished 459by the unquestioned adoption, in the time of Jesus, of the Aramaic characters in place of the old Hebrew in copies of the Bible text. The change of character naturally presupposes a change of language. Stress is laid by Professor Dalman on the facts that the Judaism of the second century of our era possessed the Bible text only in “Assyrian,” i.e., Aramaic handwriting, and that even the Alexandrian or Septuagint translation had been based upon Hebrew texts in this character. ”

“ During the whole period of the preponderance of Aramaic this language exercised a great influence upon the vocabulary of the Arabs. The more carefully we investigate the more clearly does it appear that numerous Arabic words, used for ideas or objects which presuppose a certain degree of civilization, are borrowed from the Aramaeans. Hence the civilizing influence of their northern neighbours must have been very strongly felt by the Arabs, and contributed in no small measure to prepare them for playing so important a part in the history of the world. ”

“ In fact, a hybrid work in two languages would be a literary monstrosity. In view of the apparent unity of the entire work, the only possible explanation seems to be that the book was written at first all in Hebrew, but for the convenience of the general reader whose vernacular was Aramaic, a translation, possibly from the same pen as the original, was made into Aramaic. ”

“ In general, the later books of the Old Testament show, roughly speaking, a greater simplicity and uniformity of style, as well as a tendency to Aramaisms. For some centuries after the Exile, the people of Palestine must have been bilingual, speaking Aramaic for ordinary purposes, but still at least understanding Hebrew. ”

“ Hebrew literature, so scantily represented for this period, has to mourn this great loss. A page of fragments, gathered from the Talmud and 195the Midrāshīm, [279] is all that we can, with some occasional hesitation, plausibly regard as genuine. There is indeed a small work, called the Alphabet of Ben Sira, consisting of two series of proverbs, one in Aramaic, and one in Hebrew. ”

“ To seize the full meaning, or meanings, we must be able to retranslate the Greek words into the original Aramaic expression. It is well known that in some circumstances the Aramaic dialects use the phrase 'a son of man' for 'a human being '; moreover, there is an undoubted connexion of some kind between our Lord's use of 'The Son of Man' and the very similar phrase in Daniel's Vision [8] which itself was written in Aramaic. For many reasons, therefore, we turn to the Syriac renderings of ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου with some justifiable expectation of obtaining help. ”

“ The Aramaic portions of the literature under treatment comprise both the eastern and the western dialects. [1] Owing to the close mental exchange between the Palestinian and the Babylonian Jews, these dialects are often found inextricably interwoven, and cannot be distinguished lexicographically.
The subjects of this literature are as unlimited as are the interests of the human mind. ”

“ In spite of its great wealth, Arabic is characterized by a certain monotony, which can scarcely have existed from the beginning. Both Hebrew and even Aramaic are in many respects more ancient than Arabic. This would no doubt be far more apparent if we knew Hebrew more completely and according to the original pronunciation of its vowels, and if we could discover how Aramaic was pronounced about the 13th century before our era. It must always be borne in mind that we are far more fully and accurately acquainted with Arabic than with the other Semitic languages of antiquity. ”

“ The presence of short inscriptions in Aramaic on a few contract-tablets naturally raised hopes, in the early days of decipherment, of finding some check upon the reading of cuneiform. So far as these went they were by no means inconsistent with the readings of the cuneiform. ”

“ A series of passages and discourses which had been endangered because from the modern theological point of view which had been made the criterion of the tradition they appeared to be without meaning, are now secured. The stone which the critics rejected has become the corner-stone of the tradition.
If Aramaic scholarship appears in regard to the Son-of-Man question among the opponents of the thorough-going eschatological view, it takes no other position in connexion with the retranslations and in the application of illustrative parallels from the Rabbinic literature. ”

“ The employment in worship of the Hebrew languages, in which the priceless treasures of divine revelation have been preserved and the immortal monuments of a literature dominating all civilization have been handed down, must be regulated by the knowledge or ignorance of that language by the people for whom the ritual is arranged. ”

“ The writings of the Old Testament are the only books remaining in the Hebrew language. There are no Hebrew books to throw light on dark passages, or to settle the meaning of doubtful words and phrases. ”