Discover-Aramaic-Book

297 Pages·2016·7.79 MB·English

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2 Discover ARAMAIC – THE BIBLE'S SECOND HOLY LANGUAGE
Discover
ARAMAIC
The Bible's
SECOND Holy Language
By Ewan MacLeod, B.Sc. Hons, M.Sc.
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Ewan MacLeod is the creator of the following websites:
JesusSpokeAramaic.com
JesusSpokeAramaicBook.com
BibleManuscriptSociety.com
Copyright © Ewan MacLeod, JesusSpokeAramaic.com, 2016.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or
introduced into, a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, scanning, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without
prior written permission from the copyright holder.
The right of Ewan MacLeod to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the copyright
holder's prior consent, in any form, or binding, or cover, other than that in which it is
published, and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.
Jesus Spoke AramaicTM is a Trademark.
4 Discover ARAMAIC – THE BIBLE'S SECOND HOLY LANGUAGE
TABLE O F CONTENTS
Introduction.............................................................................6
The Importance of Aramaic..................................................... 9
A Brief History of Aramaic...................................................... 11
In the beginning... Aramaic!.....................................................17
Aramaic and the Old Testament............................................20
Aramaic and the Assyrian Empire..........................................26
Aramaic and the Babylonian Empire......................................35
The Babylonian Exile............................................................ 45
Aramaic and the Medo-Persian Empire..................................55
Aramaic and the Greek Empire..............................................64
The Maccabean Revolt...........................................................75
Aramaic and the Roman Empire.............................................90
A.D. 70 – The End of an Age.................................................97
The Bar Kokhba Revolt......................................................... 112
Aramaic, Hebrew and the Greek Septuagint Translation.......123
What Does Josephus Say?...................................................130
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Aramaic – The Language of Egypt......................................140
Aramaic in the New Testament...............................................145
Aramaic – The Language of Jesus........................................155
Did Jews speak Greek?........................................................164
Aramaic and the Church Fathers............................................171
Aramaic and the Dead Sea Scrolls.......................................180
What About Hebrew?!...........................................................186
Was Latin spoken amongst Jews?.........................................192
Aramaic – Judaism’s Second Holy Language........................197
What is Biblical Aramaic?.....................................................200
What are the Aramaic Targums?...........................................204
What is the Aramaic Peshitta OLD Testament?......................211
What is the Aramaic Peshitta NEW Testament?......................218
Armenian Bible – From Aramaic, not Greek!.........................226
The Arabic Bible – From The Aramaic New Testament!..........231
From Aramaic to Arabic........................................................235
Aramaic into Crusader Times...............................................239
Aramaic (and the Gospel) Spread EAST............................248
The (Aramaic) Church of the East......................................260
Dialects of Aramaic............................................................. 270
The Syriac Dialect of Aramaic..............................................276
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Aramaic is Still Spoken Today..............................................282
How Different are Hebrew and Aramaic?.............................284
Glossary...............................................................................289
About Ewan MacLeod..........................................................291
Visit JesusSpokeAramaic.com..............................................293
INTRODUCTION 7
Introduction
T
HANK YOU for your interest in Aramaic, and for being
interested enough to read this book. Before you get started,
however, please take a few minutes to read this Introduction.
It may help to put a few things into context.
From a great deal of experience in talking to people about Aramaic, I
invariably find that nearly everyone falls into one of two camps:
➔ Some people are reasonably open to, and interested in, the
idea that Aramaic forms such a central part of the Holy
Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments. Whether atheists
or Bible believers of one sort or another, they have little
resistance to Aramaic, and are eager to learn more.
➔ I have learned from bitter first-hand experience, however,
that other people are incredibly hostile against Aramaic,
with attacks becoming very personal, very malicious, very
illogical, very unpredictable and rather surprising.
How so? Why the stark contrast? Why should it be such a divisive
subject? Why are some people so vehemently against Aramaic? Well,
I am well placed to answer that, because I used to be one of those
people!
I was (and still am) extremely pro-Hebrew. I believed (and still do)
that Hebrew is the Holy Language. I was aware, of course, that
portions of the Old Testament were written in Aramaic (Biblical
Aramaic). But when I started to hear that Aramaic should be central
to Bible studies and was the source of the New Testament, I initially
attacked that idea. My resistance came, I suppose, because I felt that
emphasizing Aramaic somehow detracted from the importance of
Hebrew. Similarly, I often find that those who are pro-Hebrew are
often very anti-Aramaic.
8 Discover ARAMAIC – THE BIBLE'S SECOND HOLY LANGUAGE
That's a great pity. If you love Hebrew, you should love Aramaic for
exactly the same reasons. There should be no resistance to another
Semitic, Jewish, Biblical language being important. And Aramaic is
important – it already forms part of the Hebrew Bible! It has been
used down through Bible times for thousands of years!
Therefore, if you feel some resistance to Aramaic because you are
pro-Hebrew, please just respectfully read this book and understand
that Aramaic isalso important. There really is no reason why you
should be anti-Aramaic. The two languages are both important.
They are friends. They are on the same side.
On the other hand, many people (especially Christians) feel that the
concept of an Aramaic New Testament is completely new to them.
You may never have heard of this idea before, you may have no
framework in your mind to interpret that idea, you believe that the
New Testament was originally written (only) in Greek, and that any
claim of Aramaic being the 'original' is an insult, an outrage, a
blasphemy, a heresy, and such a person should be hounded,
persecuted, and ex-communicated. I know many people have
treated me this way.
But a Bible believer once said:
“Men who will not investigate, yet denounce, are either fools or
knaves. There are multitudes of this sort of people in all parts of
the world. Their unwillingness to investigate what they
denounce arises from a diversity of causes: pride, avarice, love of
ease, dullness of intellect, indifference to truth and error, to right
and wrong, etc. are among the conditions that involve men in
such folly and wickedness.”
In other words, truth should have nothing to fear from error.
So, if you are currently anti-Aramaic, why don't you gird up the
loins of your mind, temporarily set aside your enmity, and honestly
investigate the evidence presented in this book? If it turns out that
you were wrong, then the sooner you correct that error, the better.
But if you are right, investigation into the matter can only help your
spiritual journey. We always instinctively resist new ideas. I know I
did. But investigating new ideas is the only way to learn.
Or maybe you feel that, if there is an Aramaic New Testament, this
INTRODUCTION 9
fact somehow implies that the Greek New Testament has no value.
You recoil at such a thought. But why does there have to be a
conflict? Does one have to be a winner, and the other a loser? Can we
not useboth Greekand Aramaic to help us understand the Bible
better? The apostles were inspired, and they had the Holy Spirit gift
of tongues. So why would you assume that if there is an Aramaic
New Testament, then the Greek New Testament must not be
inspired, that it is a duel to the death between one or the other?
Instead of forcing sides and artificially pitting Aramaic and Greek
against each other as an either/or choice, is it not more honest and
resourceful to get what we can from each language, and benefit from
both where appropriate?
So, if you are currently very pro-Greek and very anti-Aramaic, I
would respectfully ask you to put aside your hostility, be honest, and
simply look at the evidence presented in this book. Give the
evidence a fair hearing. Probably, in your search for Truth, you will
find that you have gained a friend (Aramaic) to help you in your
Bible studies, and that you have not really lost a friend (Greek). It is
better to have more friends, especially faithful ones.
On the other hand, if you already know and understand how
Aramaic can benefit you as you study the Bible, you are going to
love this book! It goes into lines of evidence that you might never
even have thought of. Enjoy!
If you read through this book sequentially (chapter after chapter),
you will probably notice that there is some repetition, where
important points are often repeatedly brought out in multiple
lessons. There is intentional, and there are two reasons for doing it.
First, repetition will instil those ideas deeper in your mind. Second,
some readers will cherry-pick the chapters that are of most interest
to them, and by mentioning important points in several chapters, it
makes it more likely that you will learn those key points.
Finally, unless otherwise stated, all Bible passages are taken from the
King James Version.
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The Importance of Aramaic
W
ELCOME TO this book,Discover Aramaic – the Bible's
SECOND Holy Language! Hebrew, of course, is the Bible's
FIRST Holy Language. And, as we shall see, Hebrew and
Aramaic are very closely related.
Everyone interested in the Bible should study this book – there are
no exceptions! These chapters are designed to take you step-by-step
through the history of Aramaic down through the centuries, starting
from the early chapters of Genesis, through all the major empires of
the Biblical world, showing you how Aramaic was used at the time
of Jesus in Israel in the first century, and progressing onwards from
that time right through to the Crusades and beyond. Did you know
that Aramaic was used continuously throughout all that time? And
yet, Aramaic is still spoken today! It’s amazing, isn’t it? Along with
Hebrew, Aramaic is the language with the oldest recorded history.
It is highly recommended that you go through every chapter in this
book carefully, because each chapter provides a wealth of
background material that you will almost certainly find both
fascinating and useful. All the questions that people typically ask
about Aramaic are covered somewhere in these chapters.
Experience has shown that most people coming to the
JesusSpokeAramaic.com website typically have a good knowledge
of some aspects of Aramaic, but might know very little about other
aspects. By going through all these chapters systematically, you will
have the best possible understanding of the context of Aramaic and
how Aramaic relates to the Bible, Old Testament history – and
especially the background of the New Testament.
It is more than likely that, if you have a question about Aramaic, it
will be answered here, in the chapters of this book.