Angyson

Who here has read the lifetime work of George Lamsa : his translation of the Aramaic bible written in the original spoken language of Jesus ? It explains away many of the idiomatic expressions that make no sense otherwise.

Vorkosigan

Can you give us some examples?

Angyson

I'm sorry not to have a copy of his work as I gave them all away to friends.

The one idiomatic expression that does come to mind is that a man must be born again, which evangelical Christians have highjacked as their own private mantra. Lamsa explains that the idiomatic expression " to be born again " merely means one must change one's thoughts and habits. As Nicodamus was not familiar with this phrase, he took it literally, and Jesus probably just smiled.

Another idiomatic expression concerns the entry of the rich man into heaven.
The analogy was to a camel entering the small portal to a city. In order to do so, the camel had to be brought down to its knees, thus a rich man must first humble himself in order to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

Chris Weimer

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

CX

Indeed, but is it an idiomatic expression which makes no sense?

Koyaanisqatsi

I vaguely remember a friend of the family talking about this when I was a teen. Supposedly, "to sin" (if translated directly) was "to miss the bullseye of a target."

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

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.

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

judge

One problem is that western scholars have no coherent explanation for the origin of the peshitta.
If anyone here would like to provide some specific claims regarding for example the date of it's origin I would be happy to reply.