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b-hebrew - Re: Eli Eli Lama Azavtany or Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani?

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  • From: "Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Eli Eli Lama Azavtany or Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani?
  • Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 12:55:22 -0700


> On Sat, 19 Jun 1999, Jim West wrote:
> > I dont know about the mandeans- but I do know that they are not the only
> > folk who speak aramaic today. Syrian Christians do to some extent as do
> > others. Syriac texts always use elohey and not alaha or whatever.
> >
> > Dont know about this site either. Dont know who is the originator or what
> > their background or training is. So I really cant say anything about
> > their
> > ideas.
> > I guess you will have to decide- Kohler and Baumgartner or a web site.
>
> Thre should be a common standard answer and not all of this mystery.
>
> Perhaps if you read the website a little further you would learn of the
> originators...
>
> http://www.aramaic.org/lamsa.html
>
> "Dr. George M. Lamsa, The founder of the Aramaic Bible Society in 1943. He
> also translate the Aramaic Bible into an English version called the
> Peshitta.

Uh-huh. In my edition of his New Testament, in the introduction,
he said flatly that Aramaic was the original language in the land of
Shinar before the confusion of tongues at Babel. What a lot of
people don't seem to take into account is the fact that languages,
and especially sound patterns, change over time. So how
somebody pronounces a word today may or may not have any
resemblance to how the word was pronounced 2,000 years ago.
Just look at Greek (or English, for that matter). A speaker of
Hellenistic Greek wouldn't be able to understand one word out of
ten spoken by someone speaking modern Greek. Ever try to read
Chaucer-era English? Or Beowulf? How something is pronounced
in Aramaic today is meaningless for understanding what Jesus
said.

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.




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