Sacred Christian Scriptures

[marietta]

Has anyone ever taken ancient sacred Christian Scriptures and translated them from Greek back to Jesus’ native Aramaic?

Wondering,

marietta

 

[tobinatorstark]

some of the scripture was written in Aramaic.

 

[marietta]

some of the scripture was written in Aramaic.

I used your link and searched for Scripture in Aramaic and Aramaic Scripture, and was told there was no match.

This is a lot of stuff to wade through for a non-Catholic - you wanna gimme a hint?

marietta

 

[Todd_Easton]

I think the earliest translations of this kind (“Syriac”) were *The Peschitto *and Tatian’s Diatessaron. (source: Catholic Encyclopedia, “Versions of the Bible.”)

 

[patrick457]

some of the scripture was written in Aramaic.

Well, at least one of the NT books that may have been originally written in Hebrew/Aramaic (if we believe Patristic testimony) is the Gospel of Matthew.

Though yes, some parts of the Old Testament, such as the greater portion of the book of Daniel (2:4b–7:28), Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26, Jeremiah 10:11, and Genesis 31:47 are in Biblical Aramaic, which was based on Late Ancient Aramaic or Imperial (Achaemenid) Aramaic.

As for your question as to whether anyone had actually translated the NT back to Jesus’ native Aramaic, I’m afraid that there is as of now, nothing of the sort.

The type of Aramaic used by Jesus and His Galilean followers was Galilean Aramaic, which was a dialect of Judeo-Aramaic, aka Late Old Western Aramaic (the relation of Judeo-Aramaic to standard Aramaic is roughly comparable to the relation of Yiddish to German). This form of Aramaic was influenced by Hebrew; Hebrew words entered Jewish Aramaic while Aramaic words became used in Hebrew (not only Aramaic words like māmmôn ‘wealth’ but Aramaic ways of using words like making Hebrew rā’ûi, ‘seen’ mean ‘worthy’ in the sense of ‘seemly’, which is a loan translation of Aramaic ḥāzê meaning ‘seen’ and ‘worthy’).

We don’t know completely how Judeo-Aramaic and its dialects were like; in some cases, we are usually limited to educated guesses and reconstructions.

It bears noting that the Aramaic used in the Passion of the Christ was not really based from what is known of first-century Aramaic, but was rather a reconstruction from the Aramaic of the book of Daniel (a different dialect of Aramaic entirely), 4th-century Syriac (originally a local Aramaic dialect in northern Mesopotamia) and Hebrew.

However, if you want something close to the real thing, I’d recommend the P’shitto, a 5th-century (literary) Syriac version of the Bible, like ToddEaston did.

 

[Nita]

Has anyone ever taken ancient sacred Christian Scriptures and translated them from Greek back to Jesus’ native Aramaic?

Wondering,

marietta

There’s a paperback (text only 88 pages) written by a biblical scholar who translated the synoptics (Matthew, Mark, Luke) back into Hebrew. It’s been a few years since I read it; I recall that I found it very interesting. Most of his writing I gather is quite scholarly, but this was written for the general public.

Title: The Birth of the Synoptics
Author: Jean Carmignac
Publisher: Franciscan Herald Press, 1434 W. 51st St., Chicago IL 60609

Copyright date is 1987. Don’t know if it’s still available in bookstores.

Edit note: I just noticed you asked whether it was translated back into Jesus’ native Aramaic. I don’t recall if he brings the Aramaic into it or if he only translated and comments on the Hebrew. I’m looking forward to reading the book again now that your post brought it back to my attention. Thanks.

Here’s a review of the book given in This Rock magazine.
catholic.com/thisrock/1990/9003revw.asp
(Got the above by googling the title and the author. There were other hits, but didn’t check them out.)

Nita