Shlama Akhi Michael,
judge Wrote:In another place it has been suggested that Aramaic words in the NT are not Aramaic at all but hebrew or of Hebrew origin. Any comments from anyone who understands Aramaic?
It's helpful to keep in mind here the relationship between Akkadian, Aramaic and Hebrew:
Akkadian -> Aramaic -> Hebrew & Arabic
Abraham was an Akkadian~Aramaic speaking Mesopotamian. His son's and grandson's wives were all brought back from Mesopotamia.
judge Wrote:1. "Corban" is a technical term of Hebrew origin.
Actually, the word is even older than both Aramaic and Hebrew. Long before Abraham was born, the Akkadians (Babylonians and Assyrians) offered "qurbanu" on their pagan altars. ("State Archives of Assyria, Volume III: Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea", by Alasdair Livingstone, Helsinki University Press.)
It comes from the ancient Akkadian root "qrb", which means "to approach" referring to the priest being entitled to approach the altar and give an offering. (other variations of the term are found here
http://www.angelfire.com/tx/tintirbabylo...cewen.html)
Akkadian "Qurbanu" -> Aramaic "Qurban" -> Hebrew "Qurban" -> Arabic "Qurban"
judge Wrote:2. "Wai", an exclamation, is a really meaningful word to leave in Aramaic if translated from Aramaic, wouldn't you say??
I don't understand this argument. The Aramaic "Wai!" is used even today by old women beating themselves at funerals. The Jews use the same word - perhaps you've heard the Jewish expression "oy
vey!" (They pronounce the Waw as Vav.)
judge Wrote:3. "Libanos" is simply not an Aramaic term. "Lebonthah" is from the same source, but you might like to wonder why Euripides is using the term in his Bacchae, if you think the nt borrowed it from Aramaic.
Actually, the Greek word is based on the Aramaic root for "white": the purest frankincense is white in color. (See William Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, tr. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1957), p. 429.)
Also see
http://www.studybibleforum.com/htm_php.p...&c=18&v=13 (The Greek "Libanos" is of Semitic origin)
judge Wrote:4. "Rabbi" is Hebrew
Actually:
Akkadian "Rabu" -> Aramaic -> "Rabba" - > Hebrew "Ha-Rabb"
As you can see, the word is present in all Semitic languages...including languages far older than Hebrew.
You can find the Akkadian cuneiform sign for it here (under #149)
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/bxpoma/akkadeng/list7.htm
Babylonian and Assyrian teachers were called "rabbi" a thousand years before Jews even existed, let alone the Hebrew language.
Incidentally, in the speech by Lord Stephen Pound's speech at the British Parliament I posted on the CoE forum, you can see the word used in the title of the flight lieutenant in the Assyrian commander of the British Levies in Iraq.
judge Wrote:5. "Kuminon" is another word which has been in the Greek world for centuries before the gospels were written. Like Libanos it was a traded commodity.
Again, it was an Aramaic word before it was a Greek word. If the person is claiming that the Aramaic loan-word was present before the Gospels were written, of course that is true. But again, the reverse is also true...where Greek loan-words were present in Aramaic before the Gospels were written.
Both languages borrowed from each other (and other languages.) The point of my post was in response to people claiming that the presence of Greek loan-words in the Aramaic NT proved it was translated from Greek. That can just as easily be argued the other way, that the presence of Aramaic loan-words in the Greek NT (which far outnumber the reverse) could be evidence that the Greek NT was translated from Aramaic.
My point was that this type of "evidence" is not proof at all, either way. How many people have we had come on this forum and say "Well, how about Mark 1:1? Why does the Aramaic contain the Greek word "Evangelion?" Doesn't that prove that the Aramaic was translated from the Greek??
Uhhhh....no!
judge Wrote:6. "Raca" again from a Hebrew word (See 1K22:16 where RQ means "nothing".)
"Nothing" is not an insult. And the word isn't RQ. It's Raqa, containing the Emphatic form used in Aramaic, but not in Hebew where it would be "Haraq."
This person obviously has no clue about the finer points of Semitic grammatical forms that can be used to identify common words from two languages as closely related as Aramaic and Hebrew are.
judge Wrote:7. "Koros" again from a Hebrew word (1K4:22 etc.)
See above.
judge Wrote:8. "Zizanion" is a weed originally from Sumerian. It made it into Aramaic as well, eh?
Yes, but Sumer is in southern Iraq (Babylonia.) That it made it into Aramaic and Hebrew is understandable...since Sumerian and Akkadian were their ancestors. How did it make it into Greek? That's the question that's being sidestepped by this person.
judge Wrote:9. "Boanerges"? The claim that this is from Aramaic forgets the fact that the Aramaic word for son is "bar", not the Hebrew "ben" as implied here.[/b]
Again, this person doesn't know Aramaic and Hebrew from Chinese and Japanese. In Aramaic, the singular is "bar" while the plural is "bnai" - the form shared in common with Hebrew. The name is compounded from the two Aramaic words "bnai regesh", meaning "sons of thunder."
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