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:

The Gospels were written in a predominantly hellenistic environment, and they were written in Greek. But Greek was not the native language of their central Figure, nor of the earliest apostles, if it was not unfamiliar to them. Jesus must have conversed in the Galilean dialect of Aramaic, and His teaching was probably almost entirely in Aramaic. At the basis of the Greek Gospels, therefore, there must lie a Palestinian Aramaic tradition, at any rate of the sayings and teachings of Jesus, and this tradition must at some time have been translated from Aramaic into Greek. Some have thought that the Evangelists themselves were the translators of these Aramaic sources of the Gospels; they certainly must have utilized, if they did not themselves translate, early translation sources. The 'Aramaic problem' of the Gospels is to determine, by internal evidence, to what extent the Greek Gospels were written in or embody 'translation Greek' or how much Aramaic influence can be detected in them.

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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 Aramaic study of the Gospels has been mainly concerned with this problem. But Aramaic, other than Jewish Palestinian, may have influenced the Evangelists' work and the early transmission of the Gospels in Greek. Syriac was widely spoken and written, especially in Antioch, the first great Christian centre, and there is a respectable tradition that St. Luke was a native of that city. If the third Evangelist was a 'Syrian of Antioch', he was probably bi-lingual, with Syriac as his second language. Moreover, Palestinian Jewish Aramaic was a dialect little known outside of Palestine; much of the Palestinian Aramaic Gospel tradition may have passed through the more familiar medium of Syriac before it was finally written down in Greek. The influence of Syriac, therefore, as well as Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, may have contributed to the shape of the Gospel in Greek.

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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:

A Palestinian Aramaic approach to the Gospels has more formidable obstacles to overcome than a study of Syriac influence. In the case of the latter, there is no dearth of Syriac literature, most of it, it is true, later than the first century, but possessing a large scope and sufficient unity and linguistic integrity to make the grammatical, syntactical, and lexicographical problems comparatively simple. It is, moreover, a well-cultivated field of study. Palestinian Aramaic, on the other hand, presents us with a major problem.

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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 literary remains of the Western dialect of Aramaic comprise the Aramaic of the Jewish colony of Elephantine (c. 500-400 B.C.), the Aramaic portions of Ezra (c. 500-450) and Daniel (c. 200 B.C.), the Aramaic of the Jewish Targums or paraphrases of the Pentateuch, Prophets, and Hagiographa, the the Aramaic portions of the Palestinian Talmud and Midrashim, Samaritan Aramaic (a Pentateuch Targum, a liturgy, &c.), and Christian Palestinian Syriac, consisting mainly of versions of parts of the Old and New Testaments. The latter are all much later than the second century A.D.: we possess no Aramaic writing of any extent belonging to the first century. Josephus's Jewish War in its original Aramaic has disappeared along with practically all contemporary Aramaic literature. Aramaic sources from a date after the second century B.C. and before the second century A.D. are known to lie behind some of the Apocalyptic and Pseudepigraphic writings of the Jews, but they no longer exist except in translation. We are dependent, therefore for our ideas of first-century Palestinian Aramaic on sources earlier than the second century B.C. and not all Palestinian, or later than the second century A.D., and mostly translations of Greek or Hebrew.

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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 the almost complete absence of literary Aramaic writings contemporary with the Gospels, the question of the best use of the actual sources of knowledge available becomes important. Where, in extant West Aramaic literature, are we most likely to find the language most nearly representative of the Aramaic of first-century Palestine?

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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:

Several answers have been given to this question. In all of them the value of the older Aramaic so far as it goes is recognized. The chief matter of debate has come to be the comparative value of the later sources, which are so much more extensive than the older literature. Friedrich Shulthess found in Christian Palestinian Syriac the Aramaic dialect most closely akin to the Aramaic of the Gospels, and in this he had the support of two Cambridge scholars, Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson. Their view was rejected by Dalman, who found in the Aramaic of the canonical Jewish Targums to the Pentateuch and the Prophets the best representative of early Palestinian Aramaic.*

*Worte Jesu, p 72. In meeting a contemporary criticism that he was thereby making a rabbinical Schulsprache the model for a living language, Dalman conceded, in his second edition of the Worte Jesu (p. 372), a much greater importance to the Galilean Aramaic portions of the Talmud and Midrashim than to Targum Aramaic.

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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:

Dalman distinguishes two dialects or forms of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, the first represented by Old Testament Aramaic and the Aramaic of the Targums of the Pentateuch and Prophets, the second by the popular Aramaic anecdotes of the Palestinian Talmud, together with parts of the Palestinian commentary on the Old Testament in the older haggadic Midrashim. The first he describes as 'Judean', and detects in it the literary type of Palestinian Aramaic which came from Jerusalem as a cultural centre and was employed in first-century Palestine as universal 'Schriftsprache'. The relevant portions of the Palestinian Talmud and Midrashim dated to a period when the centre of Jewish learning had been removed from Jerusalem to lower Galilee and were consequently composed in the Galilean dialect of Palestinian Aramaic.

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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:

As the literary Aramaic of Judea as well as the dialect of his native Galilee may well have been used by Jesus, Dalman takes account of both 'Judaen' and 'Galilean' dialects in his reconstruction of the Words of Jesus. For his two dialects his literary sources are mainly Targumic and Talmudic Aramaic respectively. But they are not both of equal value or importance. It is the Aramaic of the Targums of Onkelos to the Pentateuch and Jonathan to the Prophets in which Dalman finds the nearest representative of first-century Aramaic. Galilean Aramaic, and the Aramaic of the lesser known Targums, the Pseudo-Jonathan Targum (Jerusalem Targum I) and the Fragment Targum (Jerusalem Targums II and III) to the Pentateuch, and the Targums to the Hagiographa, are all given a secondary place; Palestinian Syriac and Samaritan Aramaic are of still less importance.

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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:

There are two main objections to this high valuation of the Aramaic of Onkelos and Jonathan for the language of Jesus. In the first place, it renders the Hebrew so literally in many places that it becomes 'hebraized' Aramaic. The name 'Onkelos' is itself a hebraization of the Greek name 'Aquila'. And Onkelos is in fact the 'Aquila' of the Aramaic versions, even if the abuse of Aramaic is not so flagrant as Aquila's distortion of Greek idiom. Secondly, it is well known that the Onkelos and Jonathan Targums were for a time in Babylon, and traces of Babylonian Aramaic influence have been left on their language.

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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:

Dalman was well aware of these difficulties. Account had to be taken of 'Hebraisms' and the deflexion of Aramaic idiom by Hebrew usage. Nevertheless, when this had been done, the Aramaic, especially in the free paraphrase where the Hebrew is not closely followed, was still our most reliable guide to the early 'Judean' dialect. The extent of Babylonian influence Dalman did not estimate as large; this East Aramaic element in the language of the Targums does not substantially affect their essential Palestinian character.

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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:

Recent Aramaic discoveries have given greater force to this second objection and shown that Dalman has over-estimated the value of Targumic Aramaic for the Aramaic of the Gospel period, while his judgement of the worth of the language of the lesser known Targums and of Palestinian Syriac and Samaritan Aramaic has been practically reversed, in the case of the last two in favour of the estimate of Schulthess, with perhaps some slight modification.

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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 the same year as the appearance of the second edition of the Worte Jesu, fragments of a new Palestinian Pentateuch Targum were published. The new manuscripts formed the valuable find of Semitic documents made in the now famous Genizah or lumber-room of a synagogue in Old Cairo. They consist of five substantial fragments of a Palestinian Pentateuch Targum, not Onkelos, and differing widely in both text and language from that Targum. The manuscript fragments have been dated to a period roughly from A.D. 700 to 900.

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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 Samaritan Pentateuch Targum provides the only parallel to the type of Targum text we find in the new manuscripts. The new Targum is often a free paraphrase with haggadic additions and occasionally presupposes an underlying Hebrew consonantal text differing from our Massoretic Text. Two of the fragments (D and E) contain a Targum of the same passage from Genesis (D, Gen. xxxviii, 16-26; E, Gen. xxxviii. 16-xxxix. 10), and a comparison of the two texts shows that variants are substantial. Variants of any consequence in the Onkelos Targum are practically unknown. In the new Palestinian Pentateuch Targum, we have to do with a type of Jewish Targum which has never, like the text of Onkelos, been finally edited and brought into conformity with the Massoretic Text, but which has itself been freely altered at different stages in its transmission.

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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 Palestinian Pentateuch Targum fragments are evidence, that is to say, for a stage in the development of the Targum corresponding to the period in the history of the Hebrew text before its standardization as the official Massoretic Text, or to the history of the Qoran text when recensions in use in Basra, Kufah, Homs, and Damascus all differed in various degrees from one another. Onkelos corresponds to the standard text of the Qoran prepared in the Caliphate of Othman. That such a Targum as the new fragments contain ever circulated in Palestine when Onkelos was the official authoritative standard there is quite impossible: but we know that it was used in Palestine till as late as the tenth century; the inference is unavoidable that Onkelos as we know it was completely unknown in Palestine as late as the tenth century A.D.

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[John Reece]

Continued from the last post above ↑

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 Babylonian phase in the history of the Targum of Onkelos is obscure; all that appears to be certain is that the name Onkelos was first given to the Targum in the Babylonian Talmud and that the Babylonian Schools highly esteemed this Targum. In the light of the knowledge obtained by the discovery and valuation of the new Targum that Onkelos cannot have been known or officially used in Palestine as late as the tenth century, the presupposition is that the Onkelos Targum was introduced into Palestine from Babylonia in the ninth or tenth centuries at the earliest and became the official canonical Targum; and that the newly discovered fragments were collected and condemned to oblivion in the Genizah after the event.

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