Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Yigal,

that first article said:

(Mr. Gibson's use of Latin, by the way, is deemed a blunder by experts.
He'd have done better with Greek, which was widely spoken in Jesus' day.
"No one in the Mideast spoke Latin," Rabbi Geller said.

HH: I'm not so sure about that. The Romans would have. And apparently some
Jews used latin. The following is a list of some of the manuscript finds,
and it mentions Latin materials. By the way, of course, it also mentions
Hebrew writings, including non-biblical ones:

The Masada Manuscripts
Texts discovered during the excavation of the fortress, including Hebrew
and Aramaic ostraca and fragments of Latin papyri, several biblical texts,
a Hebrew manuscript of Ben Sira, a copy of Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice,
a composition also known from Qumran, many fragments of Hebrew, Aramaic,
Greek and Latin. Not all of the this collection has been published.

The Manuscripts of Wâdi Murabbacat
Includes a 7th Century BCE palimpsest, some Arabic texts, some 1st century
CE remains, and other documents in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin from
the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt. This was all published in DJD II as Les
grottes de Murabbacat by P. Benoit, J. T. Milik, and R. de Vaux

The Manuscripts of Nahal Hever
Discovered during Israeli archaeological campaigns to two caves in 1960 and
1961; the 'Cave of Letters' and the 'Cave of Horror'. The first contained
some biblical fragments and a large quantity of Hebrew, Aramaic, Nabataean
and Greek papyri in two lots: the archive of the family Babata and
additional Bar Kokhba documents. The contents of the second cave are less
abundant and appear to point to this cave as the real source of the
collection, reported by Bedouin as originating, from Wâdi Seiyâl.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard


>
>--------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Feb. 23, 2004
>Linguists hope for Aramaic revival
>By ASSOCIATED PRESS
>"Aramaic is in danger of disappearing," said Moshe Bar-Asher, president of
>the Academy of Hebrew Language in Jerusalem.
>
>Today, Aramaic is spoken at home by about 500,000 people - mainly Syrian
>Orthodox and other Christians - in parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon,
>India, Europe, Australia, and a few cities in the United States, including
>Chicago.
>
>A few thousand Israelis who immigrated from other parts of the Middle East
>still speak the language, but are largely not passing it on to their
>children.
>
>Most Jews who learn the language study it only to read the Talmud and
>other religious texts written in Aramaic. Part of the Kaddish is recited
>in Aramaic, and Jewish marriage and divorce contracts are still often
>written in the language.
>
>In Syria, once the core of indigenous Christian Aramaic speakers, the
>language is still heard in three villages perched on cliff sides north of
>Damascus in the Qalamoun Mountains. About 10,000 people in those villages
>speak the language, said George Rizkallah, a 63-year-old retired Syrian
>teacher. But the numbers are dwindling fast.
>
>Some say spoken Aramaic may vanish in just a few decades.
>
>Linguists hope for a boost from Mel Gibson's new film The Passion of the
>Christ, performed entirely in Aramaic and Latin. The film is set to open
>Wednesday in American theaters.
>
>Aramaic became a common language for much of the Middle East and parts of
>Asia, reaching its widest influence when it was adopted by the Persian
>empire around 500 BCE. It was a relatively simple language, with just 22
>letters, and a community of scribes and intellectuals helped spread it in
>a largely illiterate world, said Bar-Asher.
>
>Aramaic is one of the few languages that has been spoken continuously for
>thousands of years. It first appeared in written records around the 10th
>century BCE, though it was likely already being spoken earlier.
>
>It is a Semitic language and has similarities with Hebrew and Arabic.
>Water is moyeh in Aramaic, mayim in Hebrew, and miye in Arabic.
>
>Carpenter is nagouro in Aramaic, nagar in Hebrew, and najar in Arabic.
>
>The most popular theory on its origin states the language was first spoken
>by nomads called Arameans, who migrated from the barren Arabian peninsula
>to the lush farmlands of Mesopotamia and finally settled around Damascus,
>modern Syria's capital, in the 13th century BCE.
>
>Texts in Aramaic have been found in places as distant from each other as
>in India and Egypt. Jews returning from exile in Babylon around 500 BCE
>helped spread the language to the eastern Mediterranean, where it largely
>supplanted Hebrew.
>
>Scholars think Jesus might have known Hebrew - which by that time was
>reserved mainly for use in synagogues and spoken by upper classes - and
>some Greek, but Aramaic was the language of his native Galilee.
>
>The New Testament records Jesus's last words on the cross in Aramaic:
>"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" St. Mark, most likely writing in Greek,
>adds, "...which means, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" (Mark
>15:34).
>
>Michael Sokoloff, a professor of Hebrew and Semitic languages at Bar-Ilan
>University, said it is believed that parts of the Gospels were originally
>written in Aramaic, but that only Greek writings have ever been found.
>Aramaic was largely replaced by Arabic during the Arab and Islamic
>conquest of the 7th century.
>
>These days, an elder from the Syrian Orthodox Jerusalem congregation
>laments that he's got few people to speak to in Aramaic besides the monks.
>Parts of the liturgy have to be said in Arabic, and a nun who sings the
>Lord's Prayer says the words are just about the only ones she's able to
>recite in Aramaic.
>
>Church services are in Arabic, elderly Aramaic speakers are dying and
>young people are moving away in search of jobs.
>
>Rizkallah has appealed to the Syrian government and international
>organizations to help preserve and spread the language.
>
>Sokoloff is helping write a comprehensive Aramaic dictionary. He said it
>will take years because of the large amounts of literature to comb
>through. He noted that a similar project for another ancient language,
>Akkadian, has been ongoing since the 1920s.
>
>Gibson's film, depicting Jesus's final hours, is shot entirely in Latin
>and Aramaic with subtitles. The entire cast learned some Aramaic,
>according to the movie's Web site.
>
>The script was translated into first century Aramaic for the Jewish
>characters and "street Latin" for the Roman characters by Father William
>Fulco, director of ancient Mediterranean studies at Loyola Marymount
>University in Los Angeles.
>
>Sami Barsoum, 69, a leader of the Syrian Orthodox community in Jerusalem,
>is one of the few who still speaks Aramaic fluently here. The community
>offers Aramaic in summer school, but there's little interest and fewer
>than half the 600 members speak the language.
>
>"Maybe the new generation will wake up and continue," he said. (AP)
>
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