|
Aramaic Thoughts Archives - Last week, we introduced the phrase "Son of Man," so well-known from the gospels. In the New Testament, the term occurs in two Greek forms ho huios tou anthropou (the arthrous form, that is, having the definite article), and huios anthropou (the anarthrous form, not having the definite article). The former…
- February 1, 2013
- The title "Son of Man" is of great importance for the identification of Jesus in the New Testament. As such, it has been investigated to death, and it is not my purpose here to add anything new to the investigation. I intend first to lay out the basic facts of its use in the New Testament, look at possible Aramaic background…
- January 25, 2013
- Earlier this week I received two books that I had won in a publisher's drawing at the recent national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. These two books were two of the volumes in the Yale University Press series of the Works of Jonathan Edward, which was nice enough in itself. But these two volumes are the…
- January 18, 2013
- The place to start for Syriac texts is with the New Testament. This is for two reasons. First, the New Testament is familiar to most readers who would want to study Syriac. This makes it easier to make sense out of a passage when the grammar and syntax of the language being learned is strange. Second, Syriac New Testaments…
- January 11, 2013
- There is not much available as far as grammars for Targumic and Talmudic Aramaic literature, as the basic structure of the grammar doesn't change from that of Biblical Aramaic. What the student will need is a more extensive dictionary for those resources, since the Biblical Aramaic vocabulary is so limited. The most useful…
- January 4, 2013
- For the jump to Biblical Aramaic from Biblical Hebrew, my first recommendation would be A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, by Alger Johns. The advantage of this work is that it is relatively cheap (approximately $15.00), and there is an annotated answer key by James Jumper, also about $15.00. This kind of resource…
- December 28, 2012
- It struck me that some of you readers might have an interest in learning Aramaic. If that is the case, you could probably use some guidance in the best way to accomplish that. My primary observation in this area is that the prospective student of Aramaic will need to recognize the necessity of spending a fair amount of…
- December 21, 2012
- It is common knowledge that the Greek New Testament uses four different words for love. The most prominent, and most theologically significant is agape or in its verbal form agapao. This is usually defined as divine love, or human love that has its origin in God. The Abbott-Smith Manual Greek Lexicon of…
- December 14, 2012
- In modern New Testament studies, it is commonly assumed that the Gospel of Mark was written first. Matthew and Luke, according to this view, depended largely on Mark for the general order of events, and used much of Mark's material in their own writing. There are events recorded in Matthew and Luke however that are not…
- December 7, 2012
- The Gospel of Mark has a curious saying of Jesus that is not found in the other gospels. In 9:38-50, John tells Jesus of his attempt to silence an exorcist who was using Jesus' name. John's rationale was that this man was not traveling with them. John's comment provoked a short address from Jesus about discipleship. It…
- November 30, 2012
- Other approaches to the interpretation of this text have been taken. Some have suggested that there is an Aramaic wordplay between camel (gamal) and acts of charity (gemiluth), though if so, it is hard to imagine what can be gained by such a word play. Rather, it would seem to confuse the issue.
Some of…
- November 23, 2012
- Conventional wisdom can be defined as that understanding of things that is broadly received among people. Thus in the 1970's the conventional wisdom was that the earth was about to enter into a new Ice Age. Articles in respected newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post touted this as fact,…
- November 16, 2012
- The arguments from what might have happened with Semitic gospel materials are indecisive, because one plausible explanation can account for the current lack of evidence. However, consider the possibility that New Testament materials were composed in either Hebrew or Aramaic. Given the preservation of New Testament materials…
- November 9, 2012
- It is really necessary to consider two things before concluding that one or more of the gospels (or some or all of the New Testament) was composed originally in Hebrew (or in Aramaic). First it is necessary to ask what kind of evidence exists that might point in that direction. Second, it is necessary to ask what evidence…
- November 2, 2012
- As anyone knows who has read more than one English version of the Bible, there is often more than one way to translate a particular passage from one language into another. This is obviously the case where the translations have differing philosophies of translation, such as the formal equivalence philosophy of the ASV (American…
- October 26, 2012
|
ADVERTISEMENT
|
