Thread: Hebrew or Aramaic? Board: Kerygmania / Ship of Fools.


To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=002348

---

Posted by peter damian (# 18584) on :
 
I have been searching for all the cases where the New Testament uses Aramaic and then immediately translates into Greek. The puzzle is that Aramaic is always referred to as ‘Hebrew’. E.g. John 5:2 ‘There is a pool in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate, called in Hebrew Bethsaida, with five porches.’ ‘Hebrew’ translates the Greek Ἑβραϊστὶ. There are many examples of this. Paul hears a voice speaking to him ‘in the Hebrew language’ (Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ). Some English translations render it as ‘Aramaic’, but the Greek is always ‘Hebrew’, never ‘Aramaic’.

How do we explain this? Is it that ‘Hebrew’ then meant Aramaic? But then how did they square that with Aramaic being a universal language across the Middle East at that time? Why specifically ‘Hebrew’, which connotes being Jewish? Or where the writers so thoroughly Hellenised, that Aramaic seemed an exotic foreign ‘Jewish’ tongue?

Note there are references to other languages in the OT, e.g. 2 Kings 18:26 ‘My lord, pray talk to us in Syriac; we know it well. Do not talk to us in the Hebrew language’. The word translated by ‘Syriac’ is Συριστί in the Greek, and ’ă-rā-mîṯ in the (ancient) Hebrew, and ‘Hebrew language’ translates ‘yə-hū-ḏîṯ’ or ‘Judean language’.
 

---

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
I heard it was two words for the same thing, and the distinction between what we call Aramaic and what we call Hebrew is somewhat artificial. But I stand correction from better-informed sources. I call Lamb Chopped to the stand.
 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Oy. Thanks, I think.

First of all, "Hebrew" can be defined either as the language itself, proper, or simply as "What the Hebrew people speak," which might be Aramaic at that particular point in space/time. So you'd have to somehow get a handle on which exactly the speaker meant. The first seems to me more likely in all the cases cited, because only academics are likely to care about the other distinction--at least at that point in time.

Second problem is that Aramaic is derived from Hebrew (that is, from the Hebrew-of-the-sacred-text-version), and figuring out exactly where it crosses the line into being a new language is ... difficult. (Go get a Scots speaker and an English speaker to tell you whether Scots is a language or just a dialect. Stand safely out of range. )

Add to all this the fact that what we today call "first century Aramaic" was sufficiently identical to what we call "biblical Hebrew) that the ordinary people could understand the biblical text read to them in the synagogues--AND the fact that ordinary poor schlemiels like me got basically a weeks's worth of "here's how Aramaic differs from Hebrew, okay, you're now good to go"--well, you can see the difference isn't that great, right?

As for the fact that the Greek word used for ... whatever-it-is... is Ἑβραϊστὶ, well, I would put good money on first century Greek not having a separate term for what we call first-century Aramaic. I suspect they didn't see any real difference.
 

---

Posted by peter damian (# 18584) on :
 
Do you have a reference for Aramaic being derived from (ancient) Hebrew?

This still leaves the puzzle of Kings 18:26: ‘My lord, pray talk to us in Syriac (Συριστί, ’ă-rā-mîṯ); we know it well. Do not talk to us in the Hebrew language’ (‘yə-hū-ḏîṯ’). This suggests (1) there was a Greek word for aramaic, namely ‘what the Syrians speak’ (2) there was an ancient Hebrew word for the same (’ă-rā-mîṯ), (3) Hebrews distinguished their own language (yə-hū-ḏîṯ) from what the Syrians spoke. Of course Kings was probably written 6th century BC, but the Septuagint was translated around 2nd century BC.
 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Okay, let me pull back on this one a bit, and forgive my babbling, as I am in the depths of flu right now.


I shouldn't be saying Aramaic derived from Hebrew, but rather that the two are very closely related and that one eventually replaced the other as a speech of everyday life for the Jews. That much is clear.

Now, the language situation in the ancient Middle East was pretty murky if I understand it correctly. There was a whole sheaf of languages/dialects being used across the region, and they cross fertilized. Hebrew is one of those. OT Aramaic would be another. Syriac I believe is a third, though I haven't studied it and can give you no information. Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic are sufficiently similar that professors can point out a few general issues ("whenever you see this Aramaic verb form, it corresponds to this Hebrew form") and then basically let it go. (I mean for students who are future pastors etc.--people wanting a PhD in Aramaic are naturally going to go much more in depth.)

Keep in mind that lots of people were multilingual in those days, particularly in the Middle East, with armies and trade routes coming and going right through the middle of everything. That's going to make it far easier for languages to combine and recombine into strange new forms (and why do I have viruses on the brain today? ) So already you have blurring of language boundaries.

Another thing to think about is that languages don't have bright-line boundaries between them, either in space or in time. At what point does Syriac cease being a form of Aramaic and become a language in its own right? Do we put the dividing point in this village, or in the one to the left of it, or further over...? Similarly, the Aramaic referred to in Kings is bound to be different from that of Jesus' day. Hundreds of years make a difference. (For an English example, take Chaucer, Shakespeare, and your daily newspaper--we call all of these "English," though the first at least is almost unintelligible to anybody but scholars and nerds, and the second is understood only with difficulty by the average English speaker of today.)

So your project is a bit shaky from the beginning, as the various writers and translators of the OT and NT passages may not all be referring to the same thing.

As for the Kings passage, about the only thing we can be sure of is that the military officials who were shouting back and forth over the wall possessed a shared language or dialect that was sufficiently different from that spoken by the common people at Jerusalem that they thought the common people wouldn't be able to make it out. Was it the same Aramaic as that Jesus spoke? I rather doubt it, given the time lapse if nothing else.

Keep in mind that if you are working with the Bible texts you are dealing with many different authors and translators, and their criteria for using terms like "aramit" or "ebraisti" are not likely to be the same.

Forgive me for an already way-too-long post, but can I say that I fear part of the problem is that in modern Western countries we are far too used to languages which DO have clear-bright-line divisions? Largely as a result of colonialism, I think. For example, I grew up between English and Spanish, which are not closely related, and I naturally assumed (for a while) that all languages were like that--distinct and easily identified. But I'm pretty sure that's not how it was in the ancient Middle East. "What the Jews are speaking" and "what the Syrians are speaking" might be your most accurate translation.
 

---

Posted by peter damian (# 18584) on :
 
Thanks, and yes.
 

---

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
To add a twist. When Jesus shouted from the cross, Eloi Eloi lamah sabachthani? the passers-by thought he was calling for Elijah. Did they not speak the same language as Jesus? Was it his northern accent? Was his speech slurred from his ordeal? The interesting possibility, in terms of this conversation, is of course the first one. If they were speaking two different but closely-related languages, what were they? And which spoke which?
 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I thought it was a Roman (basically because of having that wine available to him, plus no soldiers stopping him when he decided to give Jesus a drink).
 

---

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Well, in Matt 27, you get:

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

So it's not just the soldier who misinterprets his words, it's bystanders plural. I can't help but think these were locals and not Roman soldiers, who had presumably seen more crucifixions than you can count.

And the person with the wine/vinegar was a bystander, which to me says not a soldier. YMMV.
 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Yeah, it's confusing. I wonder if the Greek word for bystanders covers exactly the same semantic range as ours. If it were a shade more literal, for instance, it would refer to all those literally standing by, whether they had an official function or not (English "bystanders" rules that out, but Greek might not). But you'd have to do a massive word study to find out, I bet. There have to be a zillion occurrences of this verb "to stand" in ancient Greek, and it's not adorned with any helpful limiting prefixes to cut down the number. Somebody's dissertation topic right there--come and get it!
 

---

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
The Greek just says, '...some who were standing there...'.

Moo

[ 29. March 2017, 11:36: Message edited by: Moo ]
 

---

Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :
 
A better reason for assuming not a Roman (or at least the author intending it not to be a Roman) is that the bystanders knew who Elijah was. This is something that would be known to Jews and Samaritans but not to most others.

Linguists classify Hebrew and Aramaic as fairly close siblings while Arabic is a bit further apart. A Greek or Latin speaker would likely assume that Hebrew was just a dialect of Aramaic (Greek after all had a wide variety of dialects).
 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I agree that a Roman would be less likely to recognize the Elijah character, but on the other hand, it was Passover, and Elijah had long been looked for as a fore-runner of the Messiah (aka huge headache to occupying Roman forces trying to keep the peace) so I could see how the name might have filtered into briefings. There's also a fascinating coincidence with the offering of wine to someone at the same time as "Maybe Elijah will come and take him down"--did they at that time have the idea of keeping a cup/chair at the Seder open for Elijah, should he show up?

The reason I'm plumping for a foreigner of some sort is that I have a hard time imagining a Jew not understanding what he said--particularly if he in fact when on to quote some or all of the rest of Psalm 22.
 

---

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
It is Passover, Jews from all over the world came up to Jerusalem and there are among them Greek-speaking Jews. We do not need to debate here whether these are diaspora Jews or converts all that matters I suspect is that they are Jews whose first language was Greek rather than Aramaic.

Jengie
 

---

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Jengie Jon, your theory makes sense. Although they would be familiar with the Greek forms of the names of the prophets -- in this case Elias. Do "Elias" and "Eli" ("Eloi") sound enough alike to engender the confusion? Probably so.
 

---

Posted by Callan (# 525) on :
 
History's first recorded appearance of Lady Mondegreen.
 

---

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
Jengie Jon, your theory makes sense. Although they would be familiar with the Greek forms of the names of the prophets -- in this case Elias. Do "Elias" and "Eli" ("Eloi") sound enough alike to engender the confusion? Probably so.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Callan:
History's first recorded appearance of Lady Mondegreen.

---

 

---

© Ship of Fools 2016


UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0