Heb/Aram NT origin Part 1

Proof of the Hebrew/Aramaic Origin of the New Testament

By

James Scott Trimm

Part 1: The Language of First Century Israel




The Middle East, through all of its political turmoil, has in fact been dominated by a single master from the earliest ages until the present day. The Semitic tongue has been that single master. Aramaic dominated the three great Empires, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian. It endured until the seventh century, when under the Islamic nation it was displaced by a cognate Semitic language, Arabic. Even today some few Syrians, Assyrians and Chaldeans speak Aramaic as their native tongue, including three villages north of Damascus. The Jewish people, through all of their persecutions, sufferings and wanderings have never lost sight of their Semitic heritage, nor their Semitic tongue. Hebrew, a Semitic tongue closely related to Aramaic, served as their language until the great dispersion when a cognate language, Aramaic, began to replace it. Hebrew, however continued to be used for religious literature, and is today the spoken language in Israel.


The Babylonian Exile

Some scholars have proposed that the Jews lost their Hebrew language, replacing it with Aramaic during the Babylonian captivity. The error of this position becomes obvious. The Jewish people had spent 400 years in captivity in Egypt yet they did not stop speaking Hebrew and begin speaking Egyptian, why should they exchange Hebrew for Aramaic after only seventy years in Babylonian captivity? Upon return from the Babylonian captivity it was realized that a small minority could not speak "the
language of Judah" so drastic measures were taken to abolish these marriages and maintain the purity of the Jewish people and language. One final evidence rests in the fact that the post-captivity books (Zech., Hag., Mal., Neh., Ezra, and Ester) are written in Hebrew rather than Aramaic.

Hellenization

Some scholars have also suggested that under the Hellene Empire Jews lost their Semitic language and in their rush to hellenize, began speaking Greek. The books of the Maccabees do record an attempt by Antiochus Epiphanes to forcibly Hellenize the Jewish people. In response, the Jews formed an army led by Judas Maccabee This army defeated the Greeks and eradicated Hellenism. This military victory is still celebrated today as Chanukkah, the feast of the dedication of the Temple a holiday that even Yeshua seems to have observed at the Temple at Jerusalem in the first century . Those who claim that the Jews were Hellenized and
began speaking Greek at this time seem to deny the historical fact of the Maccabean success. During the first century, Hebrew remained the language of the Jews living in Judah and to a lesser extent in Galilee. Aramaic remained a secondary language and the language of commerce. Jews at this time did not speak Greek, in fact one tradition had it that it was better to feed ones children swine than to teach them the Greek language. It was only with the permission of authorities that a young official could learn Greek, and then, solely for the purpose of political discourse on the National level. The Greek language was completely inaccessible and undesirable to the vast majority of Jews in Israel in the 1st century.70a Any gauge of Greek language outside of Israel cannot, nor can any evidence hundreds of years removed from the 1st century, alter the fact that the Jews of Israel in the 1st century did not know Greek.


The Testimony of Josephus

The first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37-c.100 C.E.) testifies to the fact that Hebrew was the language of first century
Jews. Moreover, he testifies that Hebrew, and not Greek, was the language of his place and time. Josephus gives us the only first hand account of the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. According to Josephus, the Romans had to have him translate the call to the Jews to surrender into "their own language" . Josephus gives us a point-blank statement regarding the language of his people during his time:

I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning
of the Greeks, and understanding the elements of the Greek
language although I have so long accustomed myself to speak
our own language, that I cannot pronounce Greek with
sufficient exactness: for our nation does not encourage those
that learn the languages of many nations.

Thus, Josephus makes it clear that first century Jews could not even speak or understand Greek, but spoke "their own language."

Archaeology

Confirmation of Josephus's claims has been found by Archaeologists. The Bar Kokhba coins are one example. These coins were
struck by Jews during the Bar Kokhba revolt (c. 132 C.E.). All of these coins bear only Hebrew inscriptions. Countless other inscriptions found at excavations of the Temple Mount, Masada and various Jewish tombs, have revealed first century Hebrew inscriptions. Even more profound evidence that Hebrew was a living language during the first century may be found in ancient Documents from about that time, which have been discovered in Israel. These include the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Bar Kokhba letters. The Dead Sea Scolls consist of over 40,000 fragments of more than 500 scrolls dating from 250 B.C.E . to 70 C.E.. These Scrolls are primarily in Hebrew and Aramaic. A large number of the "secular scrolls" (those which are not Bible manuscripts) are in Hebrew. The Bar Kokhba letters are letters beteween Simon Bar Kokhba and his army, written during the Jewish revolt of 132 C.E.. These letters were discovered by Yigdale Yadin in 1961 and are almost all written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Two of the letters are written in Greek, both were written by men with Greek names to Bar Kokhba. One of the two Greek letters actually apologizes for writing to Bar Kokhba in Greek, saying "the letter is written in Greek, as we have no one who knows Hebrew here." The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bar Kokhba letters not only include first and second century Hebrew documents, but give an even more significant evidence in the dialect of that Hebrew. The dialect of these documents was not the Biblical Hebrew of the Tenach (Old Testament), nor was it the Mishnaic Hebrew of the Mishna (c. 220 C.E.). The Hebrew of these documents is colloquial, it is a fluid living language in a state of flux somewhere in the evolutionary process from Biblical to Mishnaic Hebrew. Moreover, the Hebrew of the Bar Kokhba letters represents Galilean Hebrew (Bar Kokhba was a Galilean) , while the Dead Sea Scrolls give us an example of Judean Hebrew. Comparing the documents shows a living distinction of geographic dialect as well, a sure sign that Hebrew was not a dead language.
Final evidence that first century Jews conversed in Hebrew and Aramaic can be found in other documents of the period, and even
later. These include: the Roll Concerning Fasts in Aramaic (66-70 C.E.), The Letter of Gamaliel in Aramaic (c. 30 - 110 C.E.), Wars of the Jews by Josephus in Hebrew (c. 75 C.E.), the Mishna in Hebrew (c. 220 C.E.) and the Gemara in Aramaic (c. 500 C.E.)


(To be continued in part 2)

James Trimm

Proof of the Hebrew/Aramaic Origin of the New Testament

By

James Scott Timm

Part 2: Scholars on the Language of the New Testament





Having thus demonstrated that Hebrew and Aramaic were languages of Jews living in Israel in the first century, we shall now go on to
demonstrate that the New Testament was first written in these languages. A number of noted scholars have argued that at least portions of the New Testament were originally penned in a Semitic tongue. This argument has been asserted of the four Gospels, Acts, and Revelation.

The following is just some of what these scholars have written on the topic:

When we turn to the New Testament we find that
there are reasons for suspecting a Hebrew or Aramaic
original for the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, John
and for the apocalypse.
- Hugh J. Schonfield; An Old Hebrew Text
of St. Matthew's Gospel; 1927; p. vii


The material of our Four Gospels is all Palestinian,
and the language in which it was originally written
is Aramaic, then the principle language of the land...
-C. C. Torrey; Our Translated Gospels; 1936 p. ix


The pioneer in this study of Aramaic and Greek relationships was
Charles Cutler Torrey (1863-1956),... His work however fell short
of completeness; as a pioneering effort, in the nature of the case,
some of his work has to be revised and supplemented. His main
contention of translation, however, is undeniably correct. ...

The translation into Greek from Aramaic must have been made from
a written record, including the Fourth Gospel. The language was
Eastern Aramaic, as the material itself revealed, most strikingly
through a comparison of parallel passages. ...

One group [of scholars], which originated in the nineteenth century
and persists to the present day [1979], contends that the Gospels
were written in Greek...

Another group of scholars, among them C. C. Torrey ... comes out flatly
with the proposition that the Four Gospels... including Acts up to 15:35
are translated directly from Aramaic and from a written Aramaic
text....

My own researches have led me to consider Torrey's position
valid and convincing that the Gospels as a whole were translated
from Aramaic into Greek.
- Frank Zimmerman; The Aramaic Origin
of the Four Gospels; KTAV; 1979

Thus it was that the writer turned seriously to tackle
the question of the original language of the Fourth Gospel;
and quickly convincing himself that the theory of an
original Aramaic document was no chimera, but a fact
which was capale of the fullest verification...
- Charles Fox Burney; The Aramaic Origin
of the Fourth Gospel; 1922; p. 3

...this [Old Syriac] Gospel of St. Matthew appears at least
to be built upon the orginal Aramaic text which was the work
of the Apostle himself.
- William Cureton; Remains of a Very
Ancient Recension of the Four Gospels
in Syriac; 1858; p. vi)

...the Book of Revelation was written in a Semitic language,
and that the Greek translation... is a remarkably close
rendering of the original."
- C. C. Torrey; Documents of the Primitive Church
1941; p. 160

We come to the conclusion, therefore that the Apocalypse
as a whole is a translation from Hebrew or Aramaic...
- RBY Scott; The Original Language of the Apocalypse
1928; p. 6


The question of the Luke/Acts tradition holds particular interest to us. This is because the common wisdom has been to portray Luke as a Greek speaking, Greek writing Gentile who wrote his account to the Gentiles. The reality of the matter is (whether Luke himself knew Greek or not) that Luke was most certainly written in a Semitic language. as Charles Cutler Torrey states:

In regard to Lk. it remains to be said, that of all the
Four Gospels it is the one which gives by far the plainest
and most constant evidence of being a translation.
- C.C. Torrey; Our Translated Gospels p. lix




(To be continued in part 3)

James Trimm

Proof of the Hebrew/Aramaic Origin of the New Testament

By

James Scott Timm

Part 3: The Testimony of the "Church Fathers" and Talmudic Rabbis




TESTIMONY OF THE "CHURCH FATHERS"

All of the "Church Fathers", both East and West, testified to the Semitic origin of at least the Book of Matthew, as the following quotes demonstrate:

Papias (150-170 C.E.)
Matthew composed the words in the Hebrew dialect, and each
translated as he was able.

Ireneus (170 C.E.)
Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in
their own dialect.

Origen (c. 210 C.E.)
The first <center>
is written according to Matthew, the same
that was once a tax collector, but afterwards an emissary of
Yeshua the Messiah, who having published it for the Jewish
believers, wrote it in Hebrew.

Eusebius (c. 315 C.E.)
Matthew also, having first proclaimed the Gospel in Hebrew,
when on the point of going also to the other nations, committed
it to writing in his native tongue, and thus supplied the want of
his presence to them by his writings.

Pantaenus... penetrated as far as India, where it is reported
that he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had been
delivered before his arrival to some who had the knowledge of
Messiah, to whom Bartholomew, one of the emissaries, as it is
said, had proclaimed, and left them the writing of Matthew in
Hebrew letters.

Epiphanius (370 C.E.)
They [the Nazarenes] have the Gospel according to Matthew
quite complete in Hebrew, for this Gospel is certainly still
preserved among them as it was first written, in Hebrew letters.


Jerome (382 C.E.)
"Matthew, who is also Levi, and from a tax collector came to be
an emissary first of all evangelists composed a Gospel of
Messiah in Judea in the Hebrew language and letters, for the
benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed, who
translated it into Greek is not sufficiently ascertained.
Furthermore, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the
library at Caesarea, which the martyr Pamphilus so diligently
collected. I also was allowed by the Nazarenes who use this
volume in the Syrian city of Borea to copy it. In which is to be
remarked that, wherever the evangelist... makes use of the
testimonies of the Old Scripture, he does not follow the
authority of the seventy translators [the Greek Septuagint], but
that of the Hebrew."39

"Pantaenus found that Bartholomew, one of the twelve
emissaries, had there [India] preached the advent of our Lord
Yeshua the Messiah according to the Gospel of Matthew, which
was written in Hebrew letters, and which, on returning to
Alexandria, he brought with him."39


Isho'dad (850 C.E.)
His [Matthew's] book was in existence in Caesarea of Palestine,
and everyone acknowledges that he wrote it with his hands in Hebrew...

Other "church fathers" have testified to the Semitic origin of at least one of Paul's epistles. These "church fathers" claim that Paul's
Epistle to the Hebrews was translated into Greek from a Hebrew original, as the following quotes demonstrate:

Clement of Alexandria (150 - 212 C.E.)
In the work called Hypotyposes, to sum up the matter briefly
he [Clement of Alexandria] has given us abridged accounts of
all the canonical Scriptures,... the Epistle to the Hebrews he
asserts was written by Paul, to the Hebrews, in the Hebrew
tongue; but that it was carefully translated by Luke, and
published among the Greeks.

Eusebius (315 C.E.)
For as Paul had addressed the Hebrews in the language of his
country; some say that the evangelist Luke, others that
Clement, translated the epistle.

Jerome (382)
"He (Paul) being a Hebrew wrote in Hebrew, that is, his own
tongue and most fluently while things which were eloquently
written in Hebrew were more eloquently turned into Greek

It should be noted that these church fathers did not always agree that the other books of the New Testament were written in
Hebrew. Epiphanius for example, believed "that only Matthew put the setting forth of the preaching of the Gospel into the New Testament in the Hebrew language and letters." Epiphanius does, however, tell us that the Jewish believers would disagree with him, and point out the existence of Hebrew copies of John and Acts in a "Gaza" or "treasury" [Genizah?] in Tiberias, Israel. Epiphanius believed these versions to be mere "translations" but admitted that the Jewish believers would disagree with him. The truth in this matter is clear, if Greek had replaced Hebrew as the language of Jews as early as the first century, then why would fourth century Jews have any need for Hebrew translations. The very existence of Hebrew manuscripts of these books in fourth century Israel testifies to their originality, not to mention the fact that the Jewish believers regarded them as authentic.


TESTIMONY OF THE TALMUDIC RABBIS

In addition to the statements made by the early Christian church fathers, the ancient Jewish Rabbis also hint of a Hebrew original for the Gospels. Both the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds and the Tosefta relate a debate among Rabbinic Jews over the method of destruction of manuscripts of New Testament books . Specifically mentioned is a book called by them as <HEBREW FONT OMITTED> (or "Gospels"). The question which arose was how to handle the destruction of these manuscripts since they contained the actual name of God. It is of course, well known that the Greek New Testament manuscripts do not contain the Name but use the Greek titles "God" and "Lord" as substitutes. This is because the Name is not traditionally translated into other languages, but instead is (unfortunately) translated "Lord", just as we have it in most English Bibles today, and just as we find in our late manuscripts of the Septuagint . The manuscripts these Rabbi's were discussing must have represented the original Hebrew text from which the Greek was translated.


(To be continued in part 4)

James Trimm

Proof of the Hebrew/Aramaic Origin of the New Testament

By

James Scott Timm

Part 4: History of the Movement



That the New Testament, like the Old Testament, was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic is further verified by the history of the
early believers in Yeshua as the Messiah. The first believers in Yeshua were a Jewish sect known as "Nazarenes" . Sometime later the first Gentile believers in Yeshua called "Christians" appeared . This first congregation of Gentile Christians formed in Antioch, the capital of Syria, where some of the people spoke Greek and almost all spoke Aramaic, which is also called "Syriac". Then in 70 C.E., there was a mass exodus of the Nazarenes from their center at Jerusalem to Pella. Eventually, they established
communities in Beroea, Decapolis and Bashanitis. These Nazarenes used Hebrew Scriptures and in the fourth century Jerome traveled to Borea to copy their Hebrew Matthew. As a result, while at least the book of Matthew was first written in Hebrew, very early on Aramaic and Greek New Testament books were needed.


The Eastward Spread

In addition to these factors we must also consider the Eastern spread of Christianity. We have heard much about the so called "Westward spread of Christianity" but little is written of the equally profound Eastward movement. While Paul made missionary journeys from his headquarters in Antioch Syria, into the Western world, most of the emissaries (apostles) traveled eastward. Bartholomew traveled eastward through Assyria into Armenia, then back down through Assyria, Babylon, Parthia (Persia) and down into India where he was flayed alive with knives. Thaddeus taught in Edessa (a city of northern Syria) Assyria and Persia,
dying a martyr by arrows either in Persia or at Ararat. Thomas taught in Parthia, Persia and India. He was martyred with a spear at Mt. St. Thomas near Madras in India. To this very day a group of Christians in India are called "St. Thomas Christians. Finally Kefa (Peter) traveled to Babylon and even wrote one of his letters from there . That the emissaries brought Semitic New Testament Scriptures eastward with them is affirmed to us by the Church fathers. Eusebius writes:

Pantaenus... penetrated as far as India, where it is reported
that he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had been
delivered before his arrival to some who had the knowledge of
Messiah, to whom Bartholomew one of the emissaries,
as it is said, had preached, and left them the writing of Matthew
in Hebrew letters.

And as Jerome writes:

Pantaenus found that Bartholomew, one of the twelve
emissaries, had there [in India] preached the advent of our
Lord Yeshua the Messiah according to the Gospel of Matthew,
which was written in Hebrew letters...

This entire region of the Near East stretching from Israel through Syria, Assyria, Babylon, Persia (Parthia) and down into India, became known as the "Church of the East." At its high point the Church of the East stretched as far east as China! Today, the Syrian and Assyrian Christians have been split into various groups: Nestorians, Jacobites, Chaldean Roman Catholics, and Maronites. All of whom continue to use an Aramaic New Testament text.

When the Roman Catholic Portuguese invaded India in 1498 they encountered over a hundred churches belonging to the St. Thomas Christians along the coast of Malabar. These St. Thomas Christians, according to tradition, had been there since the first century. They had married clergymen, did not adore images or pray to or through saints, nor did they believe in purgatory. Most importantly they maintained use of the Aramaic New Testament which they claimed had been in use at Antioch.


The Westward Spread

Now while many of the emissaries were spreading the Messianic movement eastward, Paul was taking the movement into the Western world. From his headquarters at Antioch, the capitol of Syria, Paul conducted several missionary journeys into Europe. At this time there came a need for Greek versions of New Testament books. As time progressed several events occurred which resulted in a great rise of anti-Semitism in the West. This began when the Jews revolted against the Roman Empire in 70 C.E.. A second revolt by Jews in Egypt occured in 116 C.E.. Things were further complicated by the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132 C.E.. In the Roman Empire anti-Semitism became very popular, and even patriotic. In the West, Gentile Christianity sought to distance
itself from Judaism and Jewish customs. The Greek text began to be favored over the Semitic text and many Semitic writings were subsequently destroyed.

By 325 C.E. anti-Semitism and the priority given in the West to the Greek Scriptures had solidified. Constantine invaded Rome, making himself emporer. Constantine proclaimed Christianity to be the Catholic (universal) religion, thus making Christianity the enforced state religion of the Roman Empire. Before this occurred one could be killed for being a Christian, afterwards one could be killed for not being a "Christian." Constantine, who was an anti-Semite, called the council of Nicea in 325 C.E. to standardize Christianity. Jews were excluded from the meeting. Jewish practices were officially banned and the Greek translations officially replaced the original Semitic Scriptures. Having alienated the Jewish Nazarenes in 325 at the Council of Nicea, subsequent councils alienated the Assyrians and Syrians over Christological debates. The Nestorian Assyrians were alienated in 431 C.E.
at the Council of Ephesus while the Jacobite Syrians were alienated in 451 C.E. at the Council of Chalcedon. The division between the Semitic peoples of the Near East, and the Roman Catholic Church grew ever steeper. With the rise of Islam in the Near East the Near Eastern Christians were even further separated from their European counterparts in the West. Relations between the Christian West and the Islamic Near East were non-existent.

As time progressed, in the West the Roman Catholic Church began to suppress the Scriptures in Europe. Those who would try to make the Scriptures available to the common man were often burned alive. Such suppression was impossible in the Near East, where the Scriptures were already in Aramaic, the common language of the people. When the Protestant reformation emerged, claiming the Greek New Testament as the original, it was a time when most Europeans were not even aware that an Aramaic version existed.

In was in this atmosphere, in 1516 that the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament was published in Europe. This edition,
published by Erasmus, would become known as the Textus Receptus, and serve as the standard Greek text until the 19th Century. The first edition of this work was based solely on six manuscripts, while later editions used only ten. None of these manuscripts were complete, and only one was even particularly old, dating to the tenth century. Since none of his manuscripts were complete, Erasmus was forced to invent many of his Greek portions of Revelation by translating from the Latin Vulgate into Greek. It was this poor edition which served as the evidence by which the West would embrace the Greek as the original. This edition would later
serve as the basis for the King James Version.

(To be continued in part 5)

James Trimm

Proof of the Hebrew/Aramaic Origin of the New Testament

By

James Scott Timm

Part 5: Better Understanding the New Testament


In the Introduction to the Jewish New Testament David Stern writes:

...a number of scholars... believe that portions
of the New Testament were written in Hebrew or
Aramaic... this case has been made for all four
Gospels, Acts, Revelation and several of the
General Letters... some phrases in the New Testament
manuscripts make no sense unless one reaches through
the Greek to the underlying Hebrew expressions.
(JNT; Introduction p. xvii )


There are some passages in the NT which do not make sense at all in Greek, but only begin to make sense when we look at them in Hebrew and Aramaic:


Acts 11:27-30

And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch. Then one
of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there
was going to be a great famine throughout all THE WORLD, which also
happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the talmidim, each
according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brothers
dwelling IN JUDEA. This they also did, and sent it to the elders by
the hands of Barnabas and Saul.


Now this doesn't make sense at all, why would those in Antioch send relief to those dwelling IN JUDEA if the famine was to strike all
THE WORLD. They would be facing famine themselves. The solution lies in the fact that the word for "WORLD" in the Aramaic
manuscripts is `ERA (Strong's #772) the Aramaic form of the Hebrew word ERETZ (Strong's 776). This word can mean "world"
(as in Prov. 19:4) "earth" (as in Dan. 2:35) or "land" (as in Dan. 9:15) and is often used as a euphemism for "The Land of Israel" (as
in Dan. 9:6). Certainly the word here is not meant to mean "world" but "land of Israel."


Mt. 26:9 = Mk. 14:3

And when Y'shua was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper,...


As any Bible student knows, lepers were not permitted to live in the city (see Lev. 13:46). Since ancient Hebrew and Aramaic were written without vowels, there was no distinction between the Aramaic words GAR'BA (leper) and GARABA (jar maker or jar merchant). Since in this story a woman pours oil from a jar it is apparent that Simon was a jar merchant or jar maker and not a leper.


Mt. 19:12 & Acts 8:26f

....there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the
Kingdom of Heaven's sake....
--Mt. 19:12 NKJV

So he [Phillip] arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a
eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians,
who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to
worship.
--Acts 8:27 NKJV


The man in Acts 8:27 appears to be a proselyte to Judaism since he seems to be making the Torah-required pilgrimage to Jerusalem (Dt. 16:16). The Torah, however, forbids a eunuch both from becoming a proselyte Jew, and from worshiping at the Temple (Dt. 23:1f). This also raises the question of why one would become a eunuch (be castrated) for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. After all eunuchs are excluded from the assembly of Israel. The word for "eunuch" in the Aramaic manuscripts of both of theses passages is M'HAIMNA which can mean "eunuch" but can also mean "believer" or "faithful one" as it clearly means here.


Mt. 19:24 = Mk. 10:25 = Lk. 18:25

...it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.


The word for "camel" in the Aramaic manuscripts is GAMLA which can mean "camel" but can also refer to a "large rope," which is
certainly the meaning here.


Jn. 12:11 & 15:16

One word that the Greek translators often misunderstood was the Aramaic word `EZAL which normally means "to go" or "to depart" but is used idiomatically in Aramaic to mean that some action goes forward and that something progresses "more and more".

One case where the Greek translator misunderstood this word and translated to literally is in Jn. 12:11:


Because that by reason of him many of the Jews
went away (!?!?!?!?), and believed on Jesus. (KJV)


Now I have translated the Aramaic of this passage as follows:

because many of the Judeans, on account of him,
were trusting more and more (`EZAL) in Yeshua.


And Jn. 15:16:


...that ye should go and bring forth fruit...
KJV


I have translated from the Aramaic:


...that you also should bear fruit more and more (`EZAL)...


The HRV "New Testament" text is taken from ancient Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts.
(Shem Tob, DuTillet and Muster Hebrew Matthew; Munster Hebrew Hebrews; The Old Syriac Aramaic Gospels; The Aramaic Peshitta NT and the Crawford Aramaic Revelation.)

Unlike most translations this edition is not rooted in a Greek Hellenistic text. Instead this translation seeks to understand the
text of the New Testament from the languages in which it was originally written. This is important because


For more information on the Hebrew and Aramaic origin of the New Testament you may wish to see the following website:

Semitic NT Textual Criticism
http://www.nazarene.net/hantri/FreeBook/AramaicTextualCriticism.htm

Yes I am the "real" James Trimm

They have attempted to &#8220;prove&#8221; this allegation of plagiarism by comparing verses of the HRV NT to verses from a literal translation of the Peshitta NT.

Let me be clear:

No the HRV NT was not plagiarized from other translations. The HRV NT was translated directly from the original Hebrew and Aramaic texts. The HRV is a literal translation, which follows the Hebrew and/or Aramaic sentence structure closely. As such it will have close agreements with other translations that do the same. Moreover a translator cannot avoid being influenced by other translations with which he is familiar. I can point to many elements in the HRV NT translation which differ from any translation published to date, and which could only be derived directly from the Hebrew and Aramaic texts. The extensive footnotes to the HRV NT are a strong evidence of this fact.

There are passages in which the HRV translates words which other translations leave untranslated (for example in Mark 1:13 the HRV translates the Aramaic word KAD (&#8220;while&#8221 but no other translation from the Aramaic translates this word.) Thus the HRV has &#8220;while being tempted&#8221; but other translations have only &#8220;being tempted&#8221; or &#8220;being tested&#8221;. The HRV could not have derived this from any of the English translations of the Peshitta because they all omit the word in their translations. There are also many passages in which the HRV translates ambiguous Aramaic words in ways that are substantively different from any other translations from the Aramaic. There are many passages in which the HRV translates ambiguous Aramaic words differently but in ways that are NOT substantively different from any other translations from the Aramaic (do not change the meaning.) And there also are many passages in which the HRV follows the Aramaic text of the Old Syriac while other translations from the Aramaic follow the Aramaic Peshitta in those passages. These differences can also only result from working directly from the Aramaic source documents.

Finally the HRV NT contains over 1,700 footnotes, hundreds of which give special insights into specific Aramaic words and phases, offer alternate renderings from other various Hebrew and Aramaic source texts or offer alternate renderings to ambiguous Aramaic words. No other translation has these footnotes. These footnotes demonstrate clearly that the HRV had to have been translated directly from the original Aramaic and could not have been simply plagiarized from other translations.

The HRV text of Matthew can be seen complete with approximately 400 such footnotes at http://www.nazarene.net/hrv/Matthew.pdf . Any reader can see that these footnotes can only be the result of an actual translation process and consultation of various Hebrew and Aramaic source texts in the original Hebrew and Aramaic.

The following is a comparison of five literal translations of Greek Mark. I have given only the first five verses so as to stay within the realm of &#8220;fair usage&#8221; and not violate Copyright Laws by reproducing large portions of these versions.

This comparison shows clearly that very literal translations will tend to agree closely with each other. Obviously the KJV and NKJV should not be compared directly to each other, they have both been given so that the other translations could be easily and quickly compared to each of them. The HRV has no greater agreement with other literal translations from the Aramaic than these literal translations from the Greek have with each other (and probably less).



COMPARISON OF LITERAL TRANSLATIONS OF GREEK MARK 1:1-5



KJV 1: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;

NKJV: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Roth: 1 The beginning of the good news of Yeshua ha Mashiach, the Son of God;

NAS: 1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

ISR: 1 The beginning of the Good News of Yahushua Messiah, the Son of Elohim.



KJV 2: As it is written in the prophets,

NKJV 2: As it is written in the Prophets:

Roth 2: As it is written in the prophets,

NAS 2: As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

ISR: 2: As it has been written in the Prophets,



KJV Behold, I send my messenger before thy face,

NKJV "Behold, I send My messenger before Your face,

Roth Behold, I send my messenger before your face,

NAS Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you,

ISR: &#8220;See, I send My messenger before Your face,





KJV which shall prepare thy way before thee.

NKJV Who will prepare Your way before You."

Roth who will prepare Your way before you

NAS who will prepare Your way

ISR who shall prepare Your way before You,



KJV 3: The voice of one crying in the wilderness,

NKJV 3: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

Roth 3: The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

NAS 3: The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

ISR: 3: a voice of one crying in the wilderness,



KJV Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

NKJV: 'Prepare the way of the LORD; Make His paths straight.' "

Roth: Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.

NAS: Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.

ISR: &#8216;Prepare the way of YHWH, make His paths straight.&#8217; &#8221;



KJV 4: John did baptize in the wilderness,

NKJV 4: John came baptizing in the wilderness

Roth: 4: John came immersing in the wilderness,

NAS 4: John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness

ISR: 4Yohanan came immersing in the wilderness



KJV: and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

NKJV: and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

Roth: and preaching the immersion of repentance for the remission of sins.

NAS: preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins

ISR: and proclaiming an immersion of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.



KJV 5: And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem,

NKJV 5: Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him

Roth 5: And all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, went out to him,

NAS 5: And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem;

ISR: 5 And all the country of Yehudah, and those of Yerushalayim, went out to him



KJV: and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins.

NKJV: and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

Roth: and were all immersed by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

NAS: and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

ISR: and were all immersed by him in the Yarden River, confessing their sins.



KEY:



KJV = King James Version



NKJV= New King James Version



Roth = Book of Life Version from Messianic Vision (Sid Roth)



NAS = New American Standard



ISR = &#8220;The Scriptures&#8221; version from the Institute for Scripture Research in South Africa

(In the case of this version I have resolved sacred names, which this version retains in a Hebrew font)