Aramaic words

[Ramon_Pedrosa]

I have been looking for the Aramaic originals and their phonetic pronunciation of passages in the New Testament. Like how did it sound when John exclaimed “Behold the Lamb of God”
Or our Lord’s pronouncements of consecration at the upper room. Etc etc

 

[Battleaxe]

You`ve taken on a mouthful!

Googling brought up some info and the best may be this, at least as a starting point:
www.peshitta.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1626

i envy you, so, happy hunting!

 

[patrick457]

I have been looking for the Aramaic originals and their phonetic pronunciation of passages in the New Testament. Like how did it sound when John exclaimed “Behold the Lamb of God”
Or our Lord’s pronouncements of consecration at the upper room. Etc etc

A word of advice. The dialects of Aramaic spoken by 1st-century Palestinian Jews are all long extinct. In fact, most of its relatives are nowadays gone as well: the only surviving dialect of Western Aramaic (to which the Galilean, Judaean, etc. dialects belonged) is Western Neo-Aramaic spoken in three remote villages in Syria. All the other dialects of Aramaic which are still in use today belong to the Eastern branch. As you can guess reconstructing them is rather difficult, especially in the case of Galilean dialect (the one Jesus and associates would have spoken), since all that survives of the so-called ‘Galilean Aramaic’ are bits and pieces, most of which date from a few centuries after the time of Jesus. Not to mention that much of what goes under the heading of ‘Galilean’ is actually not specific to the Galilee.

 

[kkollwitz]

I think that the Maronite Liturgy is in Aramaic, although I don’t think they say “Behold the Lamb of God.” But still it’s an interesting experience if you haven’t been.

 

[patrick457]

I think that the Maronite Liturgy is in Aramaic, although I don’t think they say “Behold the Lamb of God.” But still it’s an interesting experience if you haven’t been.

To be more precise, it’s in Syriac, an Eastern Aramaic language.

 

[kkollwitz]

To be more precise, it’s in Syriac, an Eastern Aramaic language.

That’s it!

 

[thistle]

So are we saying that the OP’s request is impossible to fulfill because nobody knows how the Aramaic used by Jesus and the Apostles was pronounced?

 

[patrick457]

So are we saying that the OP’s request is impossible to fulfill because nobody knows how the Aramaic used by Jesus and the Apostles was pronounced?

In a word, yes. At best all we have are guesses.

(In case one is wondering, the Aramaic used in The Passion of the Christ is an artificial dialect reconstructed from Hebrew, Syriac and OT Aramaic.)

 

[patrick457]

I have been looking for the Aramaic originals and their phonetic pronunciation of passages in the New Testament. Like how did it sound when John exclaimed “Behold the Lamb of God”
Or our Lord’s pronouncements of consecration at the upper room. Etc etc

The Peshitta (Syriac) renders it as ܗܳܐ ܐܶܡܪܶܗ ܕ݁ܰܐܠܳܗܳܐ hâ emreh ḏ’alâhâ (cf. OT Aramaic 'immar; Ezra 6:9, 17; 7:17 'immərîn “lambs”). Some scholars however think that the phrase was originally ṭalyâ d’alâhâ (cf. Hebrew taleh), thinking that a wordplay between the different meanings of the word ṭalyâ (which could mean ‘lamb’ as well as ‘boy’, ‘servant’) was being intended.

 

[patrick457]

A word of advice. The dialects of Aramaic spoken by 1st-century Palestinian Jews are all long extinct. In fact, most of its relatives are nowadays gone as well: the only surviving dialect of Western Aramaic (to which the Galilean, Judaean, etc. dialects belonged) is Western Neo-Aramaic spoken in three remote villages in Syria. All the other dialects of Aramaic which are still in use today belong to the Eastern branch. As you can guess reconstructing them is rather difficult, especially in the case of Galilean dialect (the one Jesus and associates would have spoken), since all that survives of the so-called ‘Galilean Aramaic’ are bits and pieces, most of which date from a few centuries after the time of Jesus. Not to mention that much of what goes under the heading of ‘Galilean’ is actually not specific to the Galilee.

I should also add that there is also some dispute concerning sources.

The only available near-contemporary source we have are the gospels themselves, which provide Semitic snippets in the form of proper names (Golgotha, Gethsemane, Bartholomaios, Barabbas, Bariōnas, Boanērges, Kēphas, Thōmas, etc.), words (hōsanna, korban, raka) and short phrases (Abba; Talitha kum; Ephphatha; Maranatha; Eloi Eloi lema sabachthani). Some of these are Aramaic, while others are Hebrew, and still others could be either. Determining the specific language of these loanwords is at times difficult not only because Aramaic and Hebrew are closely related (both are Semitic languages), but also by the fact that the spoken Hebrew of Jesus’ time is believed to have been Mishnaic Hebrew - a variety heavily influenced by Aramaic, which incorporated a large amount of Aramaic loans. Not to mention the fact that when the text itself refers to the language of such Semitic glosses, it applies to it terms like “Hebrew,” even if the gloss in question is more likely to be Aramaic rather than the language we call ‘Hebrew’ today. And there is also no guarantee that the Aramaic snippets were transmitted in the original Galilean dialect rather than in, say, Judaean Aramaic.

No literary source transmitting the idiomatic and colloquial language spoken in the Galilee at the time of Jesus is available. Very few Aramaic writings of any description survive from that period and not a single piece represents the dialect of the Galilee. While some like Fr. Joseph Fitzmyer have a stricter view, thinking that only contemporary sources (such as the Aramaic attested at Qumran) provides valid comparative material, others like Geza Vermes and Maurice Casey are willing to take into consideration the so-called ‘Galilean Aramaic’ attested in later rabbinic literature and Syriac translations like the Peshitta.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

patrick457: Does anyone know if it was possible in Galilean Aramaic that Jesus spoke to utter “Do penance”?

 

[Ramon_Pedrosa]

I should also add that there is also some dispute concerning sources.

The only available near-contemporary source we have are the gospels themselves, which provide Semitic snippets in the form of proper names (Golgotha, Gethsemane, Bartholomaios, Barabbas, Bariōnas, Boanērges, Kēphas, Thōmas, etc.), words (hōsanna, korban, raka) and short phrases (Abba; Talitha kum; Ephphatha; Maranatha; Eloi Eloi lema sabachthani). Some of these are Aramaic, while others are Hebrew, and still others could be either. Determining the specific language of these loanwords is at times difficult not only because Aramaic and Hebrew are closely related (both are Semitic languages), but also by the fact that the spoken Hebrew of Jesus’ time is believed to have been Mishnaic Hebrew - a variety heavily influenced by Aramaic, which incorporated a large amount of Aramaic loans. Not to mention the fact that when the text itself refers to the language of such Semitic glosses, it applies to it terms like “Hebrew,” even if the gloss in question is more likely to be Aramaic rather than the language we call ‘Hebrew’ today. And there is also no guarantee that the Aramaic snippets were transmitted in the original Galilean dialect rather than in, say, Judaean Aramaic.

No literary source transmitting the idiomatic and colloquial language spoken in the Galilee at the time of Jesus is available. Very few Aramaic writings of any description survive from that period and not a single piece represents the dialect of the Galilee. While some like Fr. Joseph Fitzmyer have a stricter view, thinking that only contemporary sources (such as the Aramaic attested at Qumran) provides valid comparative material, others like Geza Vermes and Maurice Casey are willing to take into consideration the so-called ‘Galilean Aramaic’ attested in later rabbinic literature and Syriac translations like the Peshitta.

Posted by: patrick457:
“…the only surviving dialect of Western Aramaic (to
which the Galilean, Judaean, etc. dialects belonged) is Western
Neo-Aramaic spoken in three remote villages in Syria.”

Yes i was told about them in the*Maaloula district in the Qalamun mountains. Is there any way to get through to them. The St Sergius Church there still celebrate the rites in the language of Jesus. How accurate is this. Is there a library there?

 

[patrick457]

patrick457: Does anyone know if it was possible in Galilean Aramaic that Jesus spoke to utter “Do penance”?

The Syriac Peshitta renders μετανοεῖτε (metanoeite) ‘change [your] nous’ in Mark 1:15 as ܬ݁ܽܘܒ݂ܘ (tūḇu) ‘turn back’, ‘return’. Ṯūb is cognate to Hebrew šub, which is translated literally in the Septuagint as ἐπιστρέφω (epistrephō). Μετανοέω by contrast is often used in the LXX to translate the Hebrew naḥam/niḥam ‘to grieve’, ‘to be sorry’ (literally ‘to sigh’, ‘to pant’).

 

[patrick457]

Yes i was told about them in the*Maaloula district in the Qalamun mountains. Is there any way to get through to them. The St Sergius Church there still celebrate the rites in the language of Jesus. How accurate is this. Is there a library there?

I don’t know; I’ve never been there myself. I think it would be better to check a map, perhaps? And no, the Aramaic spoken in Ma’loula and the nearby towns of Bakh’a and Jubba’din (Western Neo-Aramaic) is not the exact dialect Jesus spoke, although it is indeed closely related.

 

[Verbum]

Hi Ramón,

You seem to entertain the idea that the Gospels were written in Aramaic. The inspired texts we have received were all written in Greek. St Jerome passes on a tradition that Matthew’s gospel was originally wriltten in “Hebrew”, i.e. Aramaic. But no one has ever found any traces ot this.

Verbum

 

[patrick457]

You seem to entertain the idea that the Gospels were written in Aramaic. The inspired texts we have received were all written in Greek. St Jerome passes on a tradition that Matthew’s gospel was originally wriltten in “Hebrew”, i.e. Aramaic. But no one has ever found any traces ot this.

Verbum

To be more precise, the 2nd-century writer Papias says that Matthew wrote down (syntatexo; could also mean ‘arranged’ or ‘compiled’) the logia (‘words’, ‘sayings’, ‘oracles’) of Jesus in the Hebraidi dialekto (either ‘in the ‘Hebrew’ language’ or ‘in Hebrew style’) and that “each one interpreted them as he was able.” Papias’ statement seems to have given rise to the patristic idea that Matthew originally wrote a ‘Hebrew’ gospel: in fact when many earlier Fathers speak of Matthew being the first of the four to write a gospel they almost always meant by it what some called “the gospel according to the Hebrews,” with the canonical Greek Matthew being a (later) translation.

Some Fathers also believed that this ‘Hebrew’ logia was preserved down to their own day and quoted snippets from what they believed to be the fabled gospel. However, since the document (or rather, documents) quoted seem to be divergent with each other, it is now thought by some scholars that what they quoted were actually gospels used by different Jewish Christian groups (which could very well be expanded or modified versions of Matthew), which they probably mistook for the one that Papias talked about.

 

[Ramon_Pedrosa]

To be more precise, the 2nd-century writer Papias says that Matthew wrote down (syntatexo; could also mean ‘arranged’ or ‘compiled’) the logia (‘words’, ‘sayings’, ‘oracles’) of Jesus in the Hebraidi dialekto (either ‘in the ‘Hebrew’ language’ or ‘in Hebrew style’) and that “each one interpreted them as he was able.” Papias’ statement seems to have given rise to the patristic idea that Matthew originally wrote a ‘Hebrew’ gospel: in fact when many earlier Fathers speak of Matthew being the first of the four to write a gospel they almost always meant by it what some called “the gospel according to the Hebrews,” with the canonical Greek Matthew being a (later) translation.

Some Fathers also believed that this ‘Hebrew’ logia was preserved down to their own day and quoted snippets from what they believed to be the fabled gospel. However, since the document (or rather, documents) quoted seem to be divergent with each other, it is now thought by some scholars that what they quoted were actually gospels used by different Jewish Christian groups (which could very well be expanded or modified versions of Matthew), which they probably mistook for the one that Papias talked about.

 

[Ramon_Pedrosa]

It was, truth to tell, a stab in the dark that somehow somewhere somehow some nation or tribe or cave might have the original Galilean Aramaic stashed or hidden or as in the Ma’aloula mountains spoken or celebrated. Really I do not know how to say it but I am unhappy that even old St Jerome as early as then was himself unsure of the aramaic meaning of the Greek epiousion in the Paternoster. If Origen could do a collosal hexaplex of the Old Testament might he or some one else some how not have a similar parallelization of the Gospels from the verbal Galilean into Hebrew into Greek into Latin. As I said a stab in the dark