koilias said:
Hi Thadman...I been following your ideas on this and other threads and I must say I'm quite struck by many of your comments. I never heard of this Trimm fellow, but I must say he sounds especially intriguing!
I'm glad that you have such an interest
My only question is: why do you insist on Aramaic being the main spoken language of Jesus.
Couldn't he have spoken it as well as Hebrew just like all the Rabbis did even well into the 4th century?
There are many reasons as I will elaborate on further in my response that show much evidence that Hebrew was not as likely, and in some places, impossible.
I'm really interested in what you (or Trimm) might have to say about the following points:
(1) Many Rabbis were tri-lingual and all were bilingual.
This is a common misconception, as the historian Josephus points out:
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For those of my own nation freely acknowledge that I far exceed them in the learning belonging to Jews; I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods;
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Being tri-lingual would be VERY rare. Rabbis would need to know the language in the Synagogue (Hebrew) and the language of the people (Aramaic).
(2) Nearly all the Rabbinic parables in Rabbinic literature are extant only in Hebrew. This suggests that the teaching language was Hebrew.
Many major rabbinic works were put together in Aramaic, such as the Talmud. Also, VERY popular in the times of Jesus were the Aramaic translations of the Tanakh, called the Targums. They were required to be read, as many Jews started to lose their knowledge of Hebrew.
I know all the above say nothing about the Hebrew/Aramaic state of the original gospels, and I do think that you might be on to something (especially with respect to Matthew), but it does definitely suggest anyway that it would have been strange for Jesus to teach in Aramaic and not in Hebrew. Especially when he told parables. Between Jews, Hebrew was the spoken language of Eretz Israel in the time of Jesus. On that argument, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the documents from the Judean desert have put the nail on the coffin.
The fact of the matter is that the average Joe in the 1st Century wouldn't know as much Hebrew as Aramaic. Many of Jesus' parables rhyme only in Aramaic, and there are wordplays only possible in Aramaic. He also uses Aramaic words as opposed to Hebrew ones quoted in the Greek (shvaq being one of those that is blatantly obvious) along with "ttalitho" (from "talitha kumi"), even his name as recorded in Hebrew texts is the Aramaic form of Yahoshua, "Yeshua`", among others.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, however mostly written in Hebrew, contain a LOT of Aramaic spellings, grammar, and other quirks, showing that the people who composed them did not have their first language as Hebrew.
Taken from:
http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/qum-intr.htm
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Goyiym is consistently spelled with an aleph after waw.
Clear indication of an Aramaic environment among the Q scribes is the inclusion of some words which have Aramaic spelling or pronunciation. A list of these words here is helpful and we have listed several and their location in the text. There is Aramaic spelling of 2 words on page 1. See the last word on line 18 and the first word on line 19, both of which have Aramaic spelling. On page 40 in the 1st word on line 23 an Aramaic word seems to be substituted as a different word than that which appears in M. It may be from a Chaldean root "hdr" meaning crooked paths. On page 51 a totally Aramaic word is substituted for the reading in M. See notes under line 29 on the Aramaic word "yinaqu." For another instance you will find the Aramaic form of the word "lion" on page 53 line 8: 4th word which differs from the form found in M.
There is an Aramaic peculiarity in the Masoretic text that is not Aramaic in the Qumran Scroll in Isa. 63:3. See further comment on this in the 2nd comment on Isa. 63:3 in my commentary., where it is made clear that the Aramaic in the Masoretic text is a mistake and is not evidence of a "deutero-Isaiah" as some mistakenly conclude. Click the back key to return to this page.
To see the Hebrew form without the Aramaic preformative on the last line on page 50 and the last word in verse 63:3 in Q go to page 50. The word "ga'altiy" is marked with a red star. Follow the link there to the explanation as to the importance of this word in refuting a Dutero-Isaiah theory. Click the back button to return to this page.
See {the Great Isaiah} scroll page 44 line 24 where the Q scribe makes the same mistake of substituting a 5th stem preformative "alep" insted of the required Hebrew 5th stem preformative "he."
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The author continues:
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Some words are consistently misspelled for a number of pages and then the spelling alternates to a correct form. The initial portion of the book spells particles and conjunctions and prepositions like "lo, kiy, miy, biy, etc. in the same way as M but there is an alternation of leaving off this normal spelling to consistently adding aleph to the end of each of these forms.
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This is ARAMAIC grammar, not Hebrew.
Also, I'm reminded of one wordplay in the gospels that makes sense only in Hebrew. John the Baptist says in Luke 3 "sons will come out from these stones", i.e. "min-ebanim banim", (perhaps also behind 'stones would cry out' in Luke 19.39-40). This is also behind the quotation of Psalm 118, "the stone (Eben) the builders rejected has become the head of the corner" which closes the parable of the Vineyard, Tenants and the Son (Ben) (Mt 21.33-46, Mk 12.1-2, Lk 20.9-19, also Gospel of Thomas logions 65 & 66). Aramaic does not offer an equivalent option ("bar" does not sound like "eben" from the Hebrew Psalm or like "kepha" ["stone"] from the Old Syriac and Peshitta translations).
This is interesting
I'll have to look deeper into it.
Whether or not the gospels were written in Aramaic or not...Jesus definitely taught his disciples in Hebrew!
The evidence is pretty stacked against it, although you showed something interesting to look into concerning John the Baptist that I'll look into.
The Lord's Prayer rhymes in Aramaic, the Beatitudes rhyme in Aramaic, Jesus puns concerning the dual meanings of many Aramaic words (shvaq is a good example of this that is well known), the culture was Aramaic losing it's fluent knowledge of Hebrew, Jesus replies in Aramaic verse when he talks to the official whose son was ill in John, and much of the Sermon on the mount puns and rhymes only in Aramaic
Give my website a look, and you will see all of the examples I've put together over the years
http://www.AramaicNT.org
Shlomo,
(Peace!)
--
Steve Caruso
(a.k.a. "The Thadman")
Webmaster & Author, AramaicNT.org
(
http://www.AramaicNT.org)
Lead Programmer, eBethArké
(
http://www.BethMardutho.org/eBethArke/)
Assistant to the Livingston College Dean of First Year Students
Rutgers University, NJ
(
http://livingston.Rutgers.edu)
"The only thing that should be utterly liberal is cooking. To make a meal, you 'throw together whatever you can, because you can.' It's when this paradigm is applied to other things, --oh... such as government or sex-- that I cringe." - Steve-o
