Originally Posted by judge

One problem is that western scholars have no coherent explanation for the origin of the peshitta.

Originally Posted by spin

In my mind western scholars have no coherent explanation for the origin of the nt.


spin

Originally Posted by Angyson

One disappointment in this work is the lack of clarity why Jesus would say to his apostles " eat this bread, it is my body " and " drink this wine, it is my blood ", or some such thing. His apostles found it revolting then, as I do now.

Originally Posted by cweb255

eli eli lama sbachthani is not hebrew, greek, or latin, but aramaic.

Originally Posted by spin

The Aramaic primacy story always seems to come down to trusting the claim by Eusebius's Papias that Matthew wrote in the "Hebrew manner of speech", reinterpreted by moderns to mean Aramaic.

When we look at the texts we find very little that might support any hope of Aramaic being the forerunner of the gospels we have today.

One that is always fascinating is why the Aramaic of Mk 1:1 would use the greek word evaggelion in the form 'WGLYWN, considering the claim that Aramaic came first. Obviously it didn't. And one could ask what the Aramaic for praetorium is, because in Mk 15:16 we find the Aramaic has PRtWRYN. Greek and Latin words are found unnecessarily in the Aramaic text, ie there's no special reason for choosing a non-Aramaic word (except of course that the translator didn't think of anything more relevant at the time. I'm often stumped for words when translating as well.)

Various attempts to show that difficult passages in Greek can be resolved considering the Aramaic as presented on this forum have proven to be without substance.


spin

Originally Posted by judge

At one point in one (or more) of the gospels Jesus tells a guy to come and follow him and the guy says..."first let me go and bury my father"
According to lamsa this does not mean the guys father was dead, it means "first let me look after my father until he dies"

In Thessalonians Paul writes that believers will be "caught up in the air"
Lamsa says that this idiom means for something to happen very quickly.

Another Aramaic speaker who has attempted to explain idiomtic constructions in the NT is Victor Alexander who is doing an online translation of the NT peshitta and OT peshitta online at the moment. Be aware that other native Aramaic speaker I have corresponed with suggest he gets it wrong on many occaisions. None the less his ideas are interesting.

One I recall is that of a man coming to Jesus saying his sone "falls into the water and then into the fire" Alexander says as far as he knows this is an idiomatic term for having hot and cold fevers.

Also intetesting is his take on the phrase used in Pauls letters saying "the day of the Lord has already happened" Aleaxander suggests this is a n idiom meaning 'Will never happen".

Another (which i'm not sure if either of them mention) is in Mark 16 where believers are told they will "handle deadly snakes" (or something similar).
Compare this with psalm 91. apparently it is an idiom menaing one will have victory over ones enemies.


Anyway there are many many more. Some suggestions can be found on Victor Alexanders site.
www.v-a.com

Originally Posted by Koyaanisqatsi

Eddie Izzard's take on that is priceless.

God (who is James Mason) to Jesus: "'Drink this wine it is my blood?' That's vampirism! You've got vampirism right there on the first day of the new religion! Why didn't you just say, 'Drink this wine, it is a Merlot?'"

:rolling:

Originally Posted by Angyson

On the contrary. Difficult passages containing Aramaic idiomatic expressions open your eyes to the simplicity of Christ's sayings.