Catholicism

6 Entonces Josué y los ancianos de Israel rasgaron sus ropas en señal de aflicción, se echaron polvo sobre la cabeza y se inclinaron rostro en tierra ante el arca del Señor hasta que cayó la tarde. 7 Entonces Josué clamó:

—Oh Señor Soberano, ¿por qué nos hiciste cruzar el río Jordán si vas a dejar que los amorreos nos maten? ¡Si tan solo nos hubiéramos conformado con quedarnos del otro lado! 8 Señor, ¿qué puedo decir ahora que Israel tuvo que huir de sus enemigos? 9 Pues cuando los cananeos y todos los demás pueblos de la región oigan lo que pasó, nos rodearán y borrarán nuestro nombre de la faz de la tierra. Y entonces, ¿qué pasará con la honra de tu gran nombre?

10 Pero el Señor le dijo a Josué:

—¡Levántate! ¿Por qué estás ahí con tu rostro en tierra? 11 ¡Israel ha pecado y ha roto mi pacto! Robaron de lo que les ordené que apartaran para mí. Y no solo robaron, sino que además mintieron y escondieron los objetos robados entre sus pertenencias. 12 Por esa razón, los israelitas huyen derrotados de sus enemigos. Ahora Israel mismo será apartado para destrucción. No seguiré más con ustedes a menos que destruyan esas cosas que guardaron y que estaban destinadas para ser destruidas.

–

LO QUE MUESTRAN ESOS PASAJES ES QUE INCLUSO, SIENDO LOS UTELCILIOS QUE DIOS SI MANDO A CONSTRUIR PARA EL SERVICIO AL TEMPLO, ESTO NO SERVIA DE VINCULO CON DIOS SI NO EL ARREPENTIMIENTO GENUINO Y LA DESTRUCCION DE LA IDOLATRIA:

• 19 Entonces Josué le dijo a Acán:

—Hijo mío, da gloria al Señor, Dios de Israel, y di la verdad. Confiesa y dime lo que has hecho. No me lo escondas.

20 Acán respondió:

—¡Es cierto! He pecado contra el Señor, Dios de Israel. 21 Entre el botín, vi un hermoso manto de Babilonia,[d] doscientas monedas de plata[e] y una barra de oro que pesaba más de medio kilo.[f] Los deseaba tanto que los tomé. Está todo enterrado debajo de mi carpa; la plata la enterré aún más profundo que el resto de las cosas.

The Syriac language (/ˈsɪriæk/SIH-ree-ak; Classical Syriac: ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, romanized: Leššānā Sūryāyā, Leshono Suryoyo),^[a] also known as Syriac Aramaic (Syrian Aramaic, Syro-Aramaic) and Classical Syriac ܠܫܢܐ ܥܬܝܩܐ (in its literary and liturgical form), is an Aramaic dialect that emerged during the first century AD from a local Aramaic dialect that was spoken in the ancient region of Osroene, centered in the city of Edessa. During the Early Christian period, it became the main literary language of various Aramaic-speaking Christian communities in the historical region of Ancient Syria and throughout the Near East. As a liturgical language of Syriac Christianity, it gained a prominent role among Eastern Christian communities that used both Eastern Syriac and Western Syriac rites. Following the spread of Syriac Christianity, it also became a liturgical language of eastern Christian communities as far as India and China. It flourished from the 4th to the 8th century, and continued to have an important role during the next centuries, but by the end of the Middle Ages it was gradually reduced to liturgical use, since the role of vernacular language among its native speakers was overtaken by several emerging Neo-Aramaic dialects.^{[4][5][2][6][7]}

Classical Syriac is written in the Syriac alphabet, a derivation of the Aramaic alphabet. The language is preserved in a large body of Syriac literature, that comprises roughly 90% of the extant Aramaic literature.^[8] Along with Greek and Latin, Syriac became one of the three most important languages of Early Christianity.^[9] Already from the first and second centuries AD, the inhabitants of the region of Osroene began to embrace Christianity, and by the third and fourth centuries, local Edessan Aramaic language became the vehicle of the specific Christian culture that came to be known as the Syriac Christianity. Because of theological differences, Syriac-speaking Christians diverged during the 5th century into the Church of the East that followed the East Syriac Rite under the Persian rule, and the Syriac Orthodox Church that followed the West Syriac Rite under the Byzantine rule.^[10]

As a liturgical language of Syriac Christianity, Classical Syriac language spread throughout Asia as far as the South Indian Malabar Coast,^[11] and Eastern China,^[12] and became the medium of communication and cultural dissemination for the later Arabs, and (to a lesser extent) the other peoples of Parthian and Sasanian empires. Primarily a Christian medium of expression, Syriac had a fundamental cultural and literary influence on the development of Arabic,^[13] which largely replaced it during the later medieval period.^[14]

Syriac remains the sacred language of Syriac Christianity to this day.^[15] It is used as liturgical language of several denominations, like those who follow the East Syriac Rite, including the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, and the Assyrian Pentecostal Church, and also those who follow the West Syriac Rite, including: Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Maronite Catholic Church, the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. In its contemporary spoken forms, it is known as leshono kthobonoyo (lit. ’the written language’) or simply kthobonoyo or ktovonoyo.^[16][17] Classical Syriac was originally the liturgical language of the Syriac Melkites within the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch in Antioch and parts of ancient Syria. The Syriac Melkites changed their church’s West Syriac Rite to that of Constantinople in the 9th-11th centuries, necessitating new translations of all their Syriac liturgical books.^{[18][19][20][21]}

1. Mario Kozah; Abdulrahim Abu-Husayn; Saif Shaheen Al-Murikhi; Haya Al Thani (9 December 2014). The Syriac Writers of Qatar in the Seventh Century. Gorgias Press. p. 298. ISBN 9781463236649. The Syriac writers of Qatar themselves produced some of the best and most sophisticated writing to be found in all Syriac literature of the seventh century, but they have not received the scholarly attention that they deserve in the last half century. This volume seeks to redress this underdevelopment by setting the standard for further research in the sub-field of Beth Qatraye studies.
2. ^ Jump up to:^a b Healey 2012, p. 637-652.
3. ^ Healey 2012, p. 637, 649.
4. ^ Brock 1998, p. 708-719.
5. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e} Butts 2011, p. 390-391.
6. ^ Butts 2018, p. 137-165.
7. ^ Butts 2019, p. 222-242.
8. ^ Brock 1989a, p. 11–23.
9. ^ Brock 2005, p. 5-20.
10. ^ Beyer 1986, p. 44.
11. ^ Jump up to:^a b Neill 2004, p. 38.
12. ^ Briquel-Chatonnet 2012, p. 652–659.
13. ^ Jump up to:^a b Weninger 2012, p. 747–755.
14. ^ Healey 2012, p. 643.
15. ^ Brock 1992b.
16. ^ Kiraz, George A. (4 March 2020). “Kthobonoyo Syriac: Some Observations and Remarks”. Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 10: 113–124. doi:10.31826/hug-2011-100113. S2CID 188192926. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
17. ^ Iskandar, Amine (27 February 2022). “About the origin of the Lebanese language (I)”. syriacpress.com. Syriacpress.
18. ^ CLASSICAL SYRIAC. Gorgias Handbooks. p. 14. In contrast to “Nestorians” and “Jacobites”, a small group of Syriacs accepted the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon. Non-Chalcedonian Syriacs called them “Melkites” (from Aramaic malka “king”), thereby connecting them to the Byzantine Emperor’s denomination. Melkite Syriacs were mostly concentrated around Antioch and adjacent regions of northern Syria and used Syriac as their literary and liturgical language. The Melkite community also included the Aramaic-speaking Jewish converts to Christianity in Palestine and the Orthodox Christians of Transjordan. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary work (mainly translation) in Palestinian Christian Aramaic, a Western Aramaic dialect, using a script closely resembling the Estrangela cursive of Osrhoene.
19. ^ “JACOB BARCLAY, Melkite Orthodox Syro-Byzantine Manuscripts in Syriac and Palestinian Aramaic” quote from the German book Internationale Zeitschriftenschau für Bibelwissenschaft und Grenzgebiete, p. 291
20. ^ “The west Syriac tradition covers the Syriac Orthodox, Maronite, and Melkite churches, though the Melkites changed their Church’s rite to that of Constantinople in the 9th-11th centuries, which required new translations of all its liturgical books.”, quote from the book The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, p.917
21. ^ Arman Akopian (11 December 2017). “Other branches of Syriac Christianity: Melkites and Maronites”. Introduction to Aramean and Syriac Studies. Gorgias Press. p. 573. ISBN 9781463238933. The main center of Aramaic-speaking Melkites was Palestine. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary, mainly translation work in the local Western Aramaic dialect, known as “Palestinian Christian Aramaic”, using a script closely resembling the cursive Estrangela of Osrhoene. Palestinian Melkites were mostly Jewish converts to Christianity, who had a long tradition of using Palestinian Aramaic dialects as literary languages. Closely associated with the Palestinian Melkites were the Melkites of Transjordan, who also used Palestinian Christian Aramaic. Another community of Aramaic-speaking Melkites existed in the vicinity of Antioch and parts of Syria. These Melkites used Classical Syriac as a written language, the common literary language of the overwhelming majority of Christian Arameans.

memradya Junior Member

Posts: 31
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11-02-2013, 02:59 PM

Shalam lakon

Everybody knows Jesus’ last words on the cross are “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me” or as Younan said “why have you spared me” (there?s a third possible translation as we will see later). But how did Jesus say that in Aramaic?

We can read in our Bible:”eli eli lema sabachtani” as well as “eloi eloi lama sabaktani”. But it exists the reading of the Peshitta too ” eil eil lmana shvaqtan” and even a Hebrew reading (D 05 Codex): “elei elei lama zaphtanei” (both in Matthew and Mark).

So what? What did he say on the cross ? Let’s find it !

First the linguistic point. We must keep in mind that the language which Jesus spoke is not the Targumins’ one nor the biblical one. Why is it important? Even if the consonantic structure is old, the traditions about the pronunciation date from 7 century AD. It’s not because l-m-h (why) is written lema in massoretic Aramaic, that it was pronounced lema in first century AD. (We have some Aramaic transcription from 2nd century BC in Ugaritic script which give us the pronunciation of Aramaic). “Lama” isn’t also necessarily Hebrew.

Then we can analyze our texts. The D05 (Codex Bezae) reads the sentence in Hebrew. It’s not a possible “Ipsima Verbatim” . Everywhere in the NT, the Aramaic letter “b” is transcribed b, even if it was pronounced “v”. Here, our spirant b is transcribed ph (with a phi), what I think, is not consistent with the gospel’s manner of transcribing. So It was a latter scribe who created this sentence. But why ? Because he read “eli eli lama” which he thought to be Hebrew and “corrected” the “wrong” Aramaic sabachtani in correct Hebrew “zaphtani”

The D 05 has old features known by church father Irenaus, which means that its text is quite old. To support that its reading “eli eli lama” is old too (oldest than the D 05 Codex), I found a interesting lectio in an apocrypha Gospel : the Gospel of Peter. We read: ” My power, my power, thou hast forsaken me”.
How “my God” became “my power” ? Simply because ‘el means God/god but also power as we can see it in Genesis. The scribe reading “eli” understood my power instead of my God.

So,

– “Eli” is Hebrew, but also Aramaic, as this word appears in the Qumran Aramaic text called the Genesis Apocriphon.
– “Lama” is Hebrew, but as the vowel reduction had not yet been completed in First Century the latter distinction with the Aramaic “lema” had not yet existed (= it was pronounced lama in Aramaic, as we see a parallel in a Greek transcription where “for whoever” is written “laman” instead of the well known leman)
– “Sabaktani” is Aramaic, (the s transcribes the “sh” sound and the b the bilabial “v” sound), there’s no problem with that.

Jesus said on the cross: ELI ELI LAMA SHAVAQTANI !!!

But why do we have “eloi” in some gospel? The Peshitta gives us the answer: this sentence was “translated” in an other dialect: eil eil lmana shvaqtan (which means) alah alah lmana shvaqtan. There was confusion between the Jesus’ words and its gloss in the greek text. Eloi is the retranscription of elohi which is a Hebraized form of elahi. For its part, the Peshitta kept in record of this gloss (unlike the old syriac following the greek texts) despite of having written in eastern dialect (which explains the difference of pronunciation).
This gloss was necessary, because of the polysemy of ‘eli (As we saw in the Gospel of Peter).

Last thing, we’ve said that Jesus’ last words on the cross “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me /have you spared me”. There’s a third possible translation:
Eli eli la-ma shavaqtani : “My God, my God, for that (with this purpose i.e. the crucifixion) you have left me”. Instead of lama -( why ?), we can read la ma (l+ma) for that, and no longer have a question where God was asked why he did something, but the last testimony of Jesus about his mission.

I hope you will agree ^^

Salut

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