From: Jack Kilmon (jkilmon@historian.net)
Date: Wed Jan 06 1999 - 13:08:48 EST
jtownsle@iupui.edu wrote:
>
> Here's another quick follow-up question. Does anybody know if Lamsa's
> Aramaic Hypothesis is related at all to Funk's Jesus Seminar? For
> example, did Funk get his impetus from Lamsa? Just asking.
>
> BTW--I presented several arguments supporting that Greek was the original
> language of the written NT, and this clergyman got all snippy, talking
> about not casting peals before swine, I should stop being so
> ignroant, blah, blah, blah. He accused me
> of following the agenda of a few small-minded academics rather than
> looking at the truth of the Aramaic record. Of course he has yet to
> provide any evidence for an early Aramaic text or counter any of the
> standard Greek arguments. Instead of discussing it rationally, he
> simply shut the conversation down. That in itself gives me a big clue to
> the validity of the hypothesis, if he is representative of Lamsa's
> followers.
Since this subject is tangential to Greek studies, I'll address it
to attempt to put the Aramaic/Hebrew vs. Greek into some type of
perspective (from my own studied viewpoint).
ALL of the NT gospels.epistles were written in Greek. There is
no syntactic evidence, that I am aware, that any are 100%
translational Greek from a Semitic original. There is evidence
that some inclusions came from a semitic source and retains
some Semitic structure, "Aramaisms" and the gospeler either
translated it to Greek when including it in his work or used
a Greek source work that at some point was Semitic.
A fundamental difference between Greek and Aramaic is that
Greek may have a number of words for one meaning while
Aramaic has a number of meanings for one word. In some
cases variants in the Greek papyri can distill to one word
when retroverted to Aramaic. This seems to work on occasion
with some difficult "sayings" material.
Example: Luke 14:26 EI TIS ERXETAI PROS ME KAI OU MISEI TON
PATERA....
In Greek MISEI is "hate" where the Aramaic word SAneh means
"hate" and ALSO "set aside." The "set aside" reading makes
more sense of this difficult pericope and COULD point to a
case where Greek did not transmit the Aramaic idiom that
originally left the mouth of Jesus. The same situation
also applies to the Aramaic idiom for "sins" from <Aram>xwbyn
"hayabeen" translated as "debts" OFEILHMATA in the Lord's
Prayer and subsequently explained as AMARTIAS by Luke against
Matthew.
Aramaic, therefore, can be a tool in understanding a Greek
rendering of a "sayings" passage that may have had its origin
in the mouth of the historical Jesus...but NOT definitive.
Some Aramaicists, like many Graecists, tend to be overly
chauvinistic concerning the importance of their language
in NT exegesis. The Graecists believing Jesus spoke Greek
(highly unlikely) and the Aramaicists insisting (as I do)
that he spoke Aramaic. As far as I am aware Lamsa
has translated the NT (I have a copy) from the Peshitta
and Syriac texts which I think is going to far around
the barn since the Peshitta, Sinaitic and Curetonian Syriac
texts are translations from Greek. Where Lamsa is
valuable is his treatment of Aramaic idiom that was not
transmitted in Greek (ONLY in "sayings" material).
In my opinion, Aramaic retroversion is only valuable when
examining a single word rather than an entire pericope.
It is obvious that there are many rewordings, editings,
paraphrases and interpolations in between the Gospels,
Gospel of Thomas, and the Greek manuscript witnesses
and therefore impossible to claim that this particular
pericope is in the same form as delivered by Jesus....
if indeed it was original to him.
Having said this, I will say that there are many cases
when Aramaic retroversion "lights up" a saying of Jesus.
I don't believe recourse to the Aramaic was a major tool
of the JS but it was used in the discussions of specific
sayings.
Your clergyman interlocutor is not an example of Lamsa
students (myself included) and no Aramaicist who has
also a background in Greek will claim that the NT
was autographed in Aramaic. My only "bone to pick"
with NT Graecists is their loathing to examine an
Aramaic source when discussing a difficult word or
phrase when the Aramaic word may light up what the
Greek-writing gospeler or author intended. This
tendenz has much to do with the debate over the
language Jesus spoke.
If an Aramaic substratum to a Greek phrase or word
in the NT sheds some light on the exegesis, I usually
take it as appropriate to b-greek and will chime in.
Since in-depth discussion of Aramaic (outside relevence
to a Greek context) is not appropriate forum material,
we have established a b-aramaic discussion list.
Jack
-- ______________________________________________taybutheh d'maran yeshua masheecha am kulkon
Jack Kilmon jkilmon@historian.net
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