came across this on amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...761040-7026830

Aramaic was the lingua franca throughout the ancient Middle East area (from 975 BC). We know that Jesus, his disciples and contemporaries spoke and wrote in Aramaic.

George Lamsa's translation of the Bible is a direct translation into English of the ancient scriptures in Aramaic, which are the most reliable source because they are isolated from outside influences (e.g., Greece for the Greek translation and Rome for the Latin translation).
This direct translation has helped to eliminate the confusion and misunderstandings which have occurred from the secondhand translations of the Holy Scriptures (i.e., from Aramaic to Greek/Latin and then to English).
Written in clear and concise English, this version of the Holy Scriptures is more easily understandable than other versions (King James Version, New International Version, etc.)

For example, compare these different versions of Mark 15:34:
KJV
...My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

NIV
...My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Lamsa Version
...My God, my God, for this I was spared!

In the Lamsa version, it is clear that God did not forsake Jesus, as God would never forsake His Son. In other versions, however, it seems as if Jesus felt that God had forsaken Him, which is not true because God never forsook His Son.
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this gives a COMPLETLY different meaning to Jesus' last words.
do any of you study the Aramaic bible?

bump

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i would like to hear a few comments on this

what do christians think?

Student:

Salaams bro..

No need to tell Christians how important wording is in the bible, their leaders have been using ignorance and mistranslation todeceive and keep control ofthe masses since the Roman Empire.

Jesus and the other Jews of his time spoke Aramaic/Hebrew but we can't find any New Testament books outside of the ones originally written in Greek.

Most of the original books by the TRUE disciples of Jesus were destroyed upon orders from the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.

"While the Lamsa Bible is said to be a translation of the Aramaic, it is important to remember that all of the books of the New Testament originally were written in Greek. The Lamsa Bible was translated from the Peshitta, and the Peshitta itself was translated into Syriac* in the fifth century from the Hebrew Old Testament and from 22 of the 27 Greek New Testament writings. The earliest texts of the New Testament that have been found were written in Greek at the end of the first century or the beginning of the second century, which is more than three centuries earlier than the Syria Peshitta.


The earliest known edition of New Testament writings that included Syriac texts was the Diatessaron (around 170 A.D) by Tatian (120-173 A.D.), a Syrian convert to Christianity. Though no Syriac manuscripts of it have ever been found, some of the Syriac text of the Diatessaron survived in a commentary by Ephraem (310-373 A.D.). In order to create the Diatessaron, Tatian combined the four canonical Greek gospels to form one interwoven continuous narrative translated into Syriac. (It is uncertain whether Tatian originally compiled it in Greek and then translated it into Syriac, or whether he translated it directly, bit-by-bit, from the Greek gospels into Syriac.) With the popularity of Ephraem's commentary and the general absence of other Syriac New Testament texts, the Diatessaron in its many revised editions became the standard text for Syriac speaking countries until the creation of the Peshitta in the fifth century. It was also translated into Latin, Old German, Old Dutch, Persian, Arabic, Old Italian, Middle English, and other languages.


Around 300 A.D. the four gospels, Acts, and fourteen letters attributed to Paul were translated from Greek into Old Syriac, most notably the Syriac Sinaiticus and the Syriac Curetonianus, which may have been a revision of the Sinaiticus. Both of these Old Syriac editions reflect the translation influence of the Diatessaron as well as the textual basis of the Greek Western texts.


The original Peshitta did not include the Old Testament Apocrypha writings that were in the Greek Septuagint, nor did it include 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. All of these books were added to later revisions of the Peshita.



* Note: Syriac is a branch of Aramaic that anciently was spoken in and around the ancient city of Edessa, which at that time was the capital of the independent kingdom of Osroene. Edessa was on the site of what is now modern Urfa, Turkey, and was about 275 kilometers (or 170) miles northeast of ancient Antioch and 725 kilometers or (450 miles) north of Jerusalem. Within the first 200 years of Christianity, Osroene's King Abgar IX (179-214 A.D.) converted to Christianity along with the rest of his kingdom. Edessa later became a center for Nestorian Christianity.



The Peshitta's Syriac text of the New Testament is generally an accurate representation in Syriac of the original Greek text, but it could never be as reliable as the original Greek text. The Lamsa translation does reveal a few of the same textual errors in the Syriac text that are found in the King James Version; thus, the Syriac texts from which Lamsa did his translation unfortunately coincide with some of the mistakes in the Greek texts produced by Erasmus, whose New Testament Greek text was the basis for the KJV's New Testament. The Syriac Peshitta that Lamsa translated into English therefore shared some of the same corrupting textual-transmission traditions as Erasmus' Greek sources that resulted in errors in the KJV. The following are a few examples of verses that have the same textual errors in both the KJV and Lamsa's Bible: Mat 12:24,27; Mar 3:22; Mar 5:1; Mar 9:29; Luk 1:28; Luk 2:14,33,43; Luk 4:41; Luk 7:19; Joh 5:2; Joh 9:35"

Just another point of view taken from www.bibletexts.com/qa/qa023.htm

Ahmaad wrote:

[

Jesus and the other Jews of his time spoke Aramaic/Hebrew but we can't find any New Testament books outside of the ones originally written in Greek.




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Actually Jews of the time didn't only speak in Aramaic/Hebrew. Jesus grew up in Galilee. In the north, Galilee was called, "Galilee of the Gentiles." Many gentiles living in Galilee -- many more in proportion to Jewish people than in Jerusalem. It makes sense that Jewish people living in Galilee would be bilingual for business reasons. Its possible that Jesus was bilingual, and on some occasions would also speak in Greek.

Jane

Some of the most educated Jews spoke Greek also as it was the "language of business and trade" like English is today through out most of the world.

Let me ask you....

You seem to be pretty knowledgable on Biblical matters, so when you read of the Pharisees in the Bible....do you know who they really are?

Ahmaad

As far as I know they were Jews (well a sect of them), they are now know as Rabbinic Jews. Why ask me that?

Jane:

As far as I know they were Jews (well a sect of them), they are now know as Rabbinic Jews. Why ask me that?

Because since language is important, you should know that the Pharisees were infact a sect of Persians and Persian influenced Hebrews who spoke FARSI (Persian) and actually formed and oversaw theform of Judaism we know today.

They called themselves the "Farsim" because they spoke Persian as a secret and sacred language.

Rather than explain it fully here...I decided to do a thread on it:


http://www.blackchat.co.uk/theblackf...m26/10450.html

one zero seven,
i agree with you on this.

the fact is these english speaking christians have no choice but to believe every word of the king james or which ever bible they follow. their faith depends on it. even though logically , no translation, no matter how accurate, is going to be 100% accurate. it cant happen. different languages work in different ways and a lot of the time you cant just substitute one word for the other.

now accepting that the king james bible was translated from greek, as we know jesus spoke hebrew and aramaic, so at the supposedly original source we already have space for error in the first aramaic/hebrew to greek translation.

Agreed.

The question this brings to my mind, now, is "how can these inevitable errors or discrepancies in translation be compensated for?"

The English language is very crude and lacks the power to inspire deep thought "in a word or two". By that, I mean there may be a word in one of the ancient languages which carries deep philosophical meaning, but when translated into English, requires lengthy commentary. So it's almost as if the English language has a limiting effect on the Consciousness.

How can this be compensated for, so that those who speak only English can get the most out of the translation they have?

(For discussion's sake, I mean without having to learn the original language itself)

What do you all think?

RM

the same way those that dont speak Arabic learn the meaning of the Quran. you need to read from multiple translations and tafseers.

but most christians are too blinkered to know this

One Zero Seven wrote:
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@onzeroseven and student

The Gospel according to St. Matthew
The Gospel according to St. Mark
The Gospel according to St. Luke
The Gospel according to St. John

In your other post you have said the English language is very crude, maybe to you, butl it is very clear cut. Jesus didn't write the New Testament and I don't know anyone who ever said he did.

offtopic.gif
How probable is it that Jesus spoke another language?
When the Syrophenician woman came to Jesus from outside of Palestine, she would use Greek. Did he speak back to her in A