An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts

[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Both Burney and Torrey approach the study of the Aramaic of Jesus on the same linguistic assumptions as Dalman, that the Aramaic of the Targums of Onkelos and the Prophets is the best representative of the Aramaic of Jesus.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Two important articles have recently appeared from the pen of the late A. J. Wensinck of Leyden. The second of these, 'The Semitisms of Codex Bezae', represents, in the principles of its approach to the Aramaic of the Gospels, as well as in some of its results, the most important advance in the subject in recent years. Wensinck no longer shared Dalman's view of the importance of Targumic Aramaic; and he extended his investigations to the text of Codex Bezae. Most other Aramaic scholars, in particular Torrey and Burney, have based their investigations either on the text of Westcott and Hort or on that of Tischendorf.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Three main criticisms may be made of this earlier work of Dalman, Torrey, and Burney, and of the studies of their predecessors and contemporaries such as J. T. Marshall or Arnold Meyer. They apply to a less extent to the pioneer work of Wellhausen or Nestle.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

(1) While Dalman's criticism of the inadequacy of the linguistic approach of Wellhausen and Nestle is fully justified, the large claims he makes (accepted without criticism by succeeding workers in the field) for Targum Aramaic as the primary authority for the language of Jesus cannot now be justified. This criticism, together with suggestions for a fresh approach to the language of Jesus, is developed in the following chapters.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

(2) Hitherto most Aramaic scholars of the Gospels have confined themselves almost exclusively to the investigation of Aramaisms in one text only, that of Westcott and Hort or that of Tischendorf. The unexamined assumption of this textual approach to the subject is that no other text has the same claim to the confidence of scholars as the best single representation of the Apostolic autographs. Wensinck, alone among modern scholars, but following the tradition of Wellhausen, Nestle, and Blass, included in his investigations the text of Codex Bezae, and was able to claim, as a result of his comparison of the Bezan text with non-western texts of Luke, not only that there was much more evidence of Aramaic influence in Bezan Luke, but also that the isolation and establishment of Aramaisms in the text contributed substantially to the solution of the great textual problem. For if Aramaic influence is more extensive in one text rather than another, the presumption is that the 'Aramaized' text stands nearer to the kind of Greek which the Apostles wrote. Other great texts had passed through the process of διόρθωσις; their more polished Greek is the work of later editors.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Has the Bezan text any claims to represent a more primitive type of text than that of the Vatican and Sinaitic Codices? If it has, then Wensinck's approach is justified, and the Bezan authority, as the best representative of the 'Western' text, should certainly be included in any investigation of the Aramaic of Jesus and the Gospels, including Luke-Acts. Moreover, in view of such a textual approach, the study of the Aramaic of the Gospels will not concern itself solely with estimating the extent of Aramaic influence, or with questions of source-criticism; it may also contribute to the textual criticism of the Greek Gospels. This textual approach is also discussed more fully in Chapter II.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

(3) The third criticism of earlier work, especially the more recent studies of Torrey and Burney, may be conveniently considered in the present chapter. Both Torrey and Burney attach much importance to conjectured mistranslations of Aramaic as proof of source. Mistranslation of an original is, it is true, the best proof of translation; but it is doubtful if it can ever have scientific value as evidence except in cases where we possess not only the translation but also the original work. Even then demonstrative proof is not always possible: not all Syriac scholars accept Burkitt's view that the Acts of Thomas was an original Syriac work and the Greek a translation, though we possess both Syriac and Greek and Burkitt based his hypothesis largely on alleged misrenderings of the Syriac by the Greek text. What is not always possible in the most favourable of circumstances becomes difficult in the extreme when there is no original with which to compare the 'translation'.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

When a strong case can be made out for the mistranslation of original Aramaic in the Gospels or Acts, such evidence must be stated fully. But there are two demands which we can justifiably make of all such conjectural evidence or proof: the mistranslation must at least be credible; and the conjectured Aramaic must be possible.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Both offenses, incredible 'mistranslations' and impossible Aramaic, are among the worst features of recent work in the Aramaic of the Gospels. Nearly two generations after J. T. Marshall's elaborate failure to prove on internal evidence of 'mistranslation' the existence of 'an Aramaic Gospel', and the considered verdict on such work given by the great Oxford Semitist S. R. Driver, the same kind of mistakes continue to be made. All dialects of the language are ransacked for an expression or usage, however rare and unusual, to explain a difficulty. There are even cases where Aramaic words which do not exist, or are not at any rate found in the lexica or literature, have been invented; and such false coin continues to be circulated by the non-specialist.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

S. R. Driver's judgment of Marshall's work deserves to be quoted in full:

'In composition in a foreign language, it is better, surely, to be cautious of expressions than to be not scrupulous enough; and I cannot understand why Prof. Marshall could have postulated for his original Aramaic Gospel, words of which there could be the slightest doubt that they were properly and correctly used, and that they really and unquestionably bore the meaning which he attributes to them. But doubt attaches: they are not the ordinary and natural words that would be expected; sometimes they are words that do not exist at all; at other times they are either very rare words, the precise meaning of which is not readily determinable, or they are words which do not really express the idea required.'

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

In Mk. vii. 3, C. C. Torrey has suggested that an original Aramaic 'the Jews do not eat at all (לגמר, ligmar) without washing their hands' has been misrendered 'the Jews do not eat without washing their hands πυγμῇ, with the fist (לגמד, ligmodh)'. But לגמד (= πυγμῇ) can only be pointed and read as Hebrew lᵉgomedh; the alleged Aramaic word gumda, 'fist', and from which ligmodh, πυγμῇ is formed occurs in none of the lexica. Moreover, gomedh never means 'fist'; gomedh, Aramaic garmidha, as likewise πυγμῇ when their [sic? ?they're? -JR] equivalent, mean 'cubit', 'ell', the length of the arm from elbow to finger tip.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

The most likely explanation of the unusual πυγμῇ νίψωνται is that given by John Lightfoot, who cited parallels from the Talmud on the ritual hand-washing before meals which is not to go beyond the wrist. Hand-washings were graded according to the degree of ritual pollution. When a strict ritualist came from the market-place, the greater pollution demanded a 'plunging' of the hand to the wrist in special water not less than forty seahs in quantity and contained in a special basin. The 'dipping' of the hand or the pouring of water on the hands for lesser degrees of ritual uncleanness did not require such elaborate precautions or preparations. The Talmudic phrases are 'to plunge to the wrist (ṭᵉbhal ʿadh happereq)' and 'to dip or lustrate to the wrist (nᵉṭal or mᵉshi ʿadh happereq)'. Mark's βαπτίσωνται in verse 4 corresponds to the first phrase, where the reference may be to the first type of ritual washing; πυγμῇ νίψωνται may correspond to the second phrase. We may thus take the Marcan expression as equivalent to the Talmudic phrase and meaning 'to wash the hand in ritual washing'.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

In Mk. xiv. 3 (cf Mt. xxvi. 6), Σίμωνος τοῦ λεπροῦ is said by Torrey to contain a mistranslation of גרבא, garabha, 'a jar-merchant'; the same consonants had been misresd as garba, λεπρός. The noun garba is the usual one for 'leper', and there is another word with the same consonants found in the Targum and meaning 'a wine-skin'. But no noun garabha meaning 'a jar-merchant' appears in any of the lexica.*

*Mt. xxvi. 6 (D) has λεπρωσοῦ; the Aramaic equivalent adjective is garban, a word which might easily be confused with (Talmudic) gardan (Targumic gardai), 'a weaver'.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Torrey's restoration of the Aramaic of Acts ii. 47 has been accepted by a number of scholars; in the Beginnings of Christianity J. de Zwaan speaks of this 'splendid observation of Torrey', and Foakes-Jackson agreed that 'an Aramaic original is at the back of this and other strange expressions'.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of excerpts from the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Torrey rejects the ordinary LXX meaning of ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό, 'together' (Hebrew yaḥdau), and suggests that Luke's Greek phrase misrenders Aramaic laḥda; the adverb is found in the Palestinian Syriac version of Jn. xvii. 23 and in the Syriac versions of Jn xi. 52. In Judean dialects of Aramaic it means 'greatly' (σφόδρα), and is the Targum equivalent of mᵉʾodh: a compound of lᵉ, 'to' and ḥadh, 'one', lahda had been mistranslated ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό. The following was the correct translation: 'And the Lord added greatly day by day to the saved.'

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