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Ethpathakh versus Ephphatha
#1
Shlama,

I thought it was curious that the Greek has EPHPHATHA instead of ETHPATHAKH for "Be thou opened!" The Greeks could have used EPSILON-THETA-PI-ALPHA-THETA-ALPHA-CHI to get these same sounds that are in the Aramaic word but instead used EPSILON-PHI-PHI-ALPHA-THETA-ALPHA...kinda weird!!! <!-- sHuh --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/huh.gif" alt="Huh" title="Huh" /><!-- sHuh -->
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#2
It's actually quite accurate to the Galilean dialect of Aramaic that Jesus spoke. Quite often the tau was elided, and gutterals (like het) were reduced, so the transliterated "ephphatha" is pretty close.

Peace,
-Steve
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#3
LawrenceRaymond Wrote:Shlama,

I thought it was curious that the Greek has EPHPHATHA instead of ETHPATHAKH for "Be thou opened!" The Greeks could have used EPSILON-THETA-PI-ALPHA-THETA-ALPHA-CHI to get these same sounds that are in the Aramaic word but instead used EPSILON-PHI-PHI-ALPHA-THETA-ALPHA...kinda weird!!! <!-- sHuh --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/huh.gif" alt="Huh" title="Huh" /><!-- sHuh -->

Shlama Lawrence,

The Greek text did the same with "Khaqel Dama" (Acts 1:19) and "Beth-Khesda" (John 5:2), they however substitute a CHI for the Qoph in the last words on the Cross (oddly enough). Translations are funny.

Incidentally, the lack of the substitution of CHI for Khet is also a noted feature in the Septuagint (speaking of translations), for instance see Joshua 6:25 (Raab instead of Rakhab, cf. Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25).

+Shamasha
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#4
Shlama akhay Steve & Paul,

Couldn't they do any better than Boanerges for B'nai Ragshee?!?!? <!-- s:mad: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/mad.gif" alt=":mad:" title="Mad" /><!-- s:mad: -->
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#5
Ragash in Jewish dialects of Aramaic contemporary to Jesus and his peers meant "to percieve" not "thunder" or "tumult," so I'm not quite sure that what is found in the Peshitta is the original epithet.

One would also think that "Sons of Thunder" translated literally would have come out to b'ney ra'am, but ra'am is not attested in Western dialects, and seems (like other common Eastern Aramaic words like som "to put/place") to be completely absent.

What I've found is that the word for "to rage" or "to bellow" (like thunder) in Galilean and other Western dialects was r'gaz.

A common word from that root is ragoz (rest-gamal-waw-zain) or "wrath." What is interesting is that out of the 5 places it is found in Galilean texts, a majority of those times (3, perhaps 4 as once it is spelled defective) it is found as r'geyz (resh-gamal-yod-zai).

Thus, "boanereges" would have probably been b'ney r'geyz due to quirks of Jesus' dialect (which is fairly close).

Peace,
-Steve
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#6
SteveCaruso Wrote:Ragash in Jewish dialects of Aramaic contemporary to Jesus and his peers meant "to percieve" not "thunder" or "tumult," so I'm not quite sure that what is found in the Peshitta is the original epithet.

Shlama Akhi Steve,

Please reference Psalm 2:1 and Acts 4:25 for an attestation of r-g-sh where "rage" is the meaning. The root in Hebrew OT and Aramaic NT is the same.

This is also supported by the Aramaic Targums (and Peshitta translation) of Psalms 2:1.

+Shamasha
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#7
SteveCaruso Wrote:One would also think that "Sons of Thunder" translated literally would have come out to b'ney ra'am, but ra'am is not attested in Western dialects, and seems (like other common Eastern Aramaic words like som "to put/place") to be completely absent.

Shlama again Akhi Steve,

"Ra'am" (thunder/tumult/trembling/roaring) is also a common Hebrew and Aramaic root (cf. Psalm 96:11, Isaiah 29:6, etc. (Hebrew, Aramaic Targums and Peshitta as primary texts))

+Shamasha
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#8
Paul Younan Wrote:Shlama Akhi Steve,

Please reference Psalm 2:1 and Acts 4:25 for an attestation of r-g-sh where "rage" is the meaning. The root in Hebrew OT and Aramaic NT is the same.

This is also supported by the Aramaic Targums (and Peshitta translation) of Psalms 2:1.

Shlama Akhi Paul. Long time no see. :-)

R-G-Sh appears in Targum Onqelos (predominantly an Eastern dialect) exclusively in Aphel as a minority reading.

In the Palestinian Targums (Western) it appears exclusively in Ethpe'el as "to perceive" or "to feel" (as in other Western dialects, which also use Aphel for the same meaning :: w-la argesh beh == "and he wasn't aware of him").

Paul Younan Wrote:"Ra'am" (thunder/tumult/trembling/roaring) is also a common Hebrew and Aramaic root (cf. Psalm 96:11, Isaiah 29:6, etc. (Hebrew, Aramaic Targums and Peshitta as primary texts))

Aye it was common in Hebrew and some Eastern Aramaic dialects (Syriac [where it is *very* strongly attested], Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Mandaic [a few times], etc.), but it was not used in Western Aramaic dialects (Galilean, Samaritan, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, etc.) at all. It is simply absent from the corpus. What's more is that various words were used in Western dialects for "thunder," even when considerable exposure to other dialects happened. Christian Palestinian Aramaic, for example, despite all of the influence of Syriac, uses ra`ad exclusively.

All of this in mind, it would be even odder to hear a Galilean use the word ra'am to mean "thunder" or ragash as "rage" than it would be to hear an American from Texas say "boot" to refer to the trunk of their car. It simply doesn't really happen... but when it does, you know right off the bat that something is odd. :-)

Peace,
-Steve
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#9
Shlama Akhi Steve.

It's good to see you too.

I think you're missing my point. The meanings of the roots in question are attested to in both Hebrew and Aramaic texts (they are in fact primitive Semitic roots), from before Christ's time and after Christ's time. Certainly, any "Galilean" or "Samaritan" Aramaic speaking person would know what ra'am and ragesh meant, and would have used the words, especially if they also knew their Hebrew scripture.

The majority reading of r-g-sh in the Peshitta NT is also "perceive/feel", instead of "rage". It is because of this very ambiguity that the gloss exists in Mark 3:17. When a word can have an A/B reading, it becomes necessary for a clarification. Otherwise, the reader might be left with the incorrect impression that they were given the name "Sons of Feeling." The Greek translator chose to transliterate the name (as best he could) into Greek characters, and he retained the convenient gloss.

Your argument is that they are missing from a very small corpus you consider to be representative of the Aramaic of Jesus' time and locale. I don't agree with that assumption at all. I've heard it trumpeted way before you took interest in Aramaic, so this is not meant to be a criticism of your work. Prof. Fulco holds the same viewpoint, which is partly why the language of the movie "Passion of the Christ" is such a horrible patchwork of personal opinion, and would most definitively not be understood by anyone in the 1st century. It is the result of pure speculation on his part, based on scanty evidence and terrible presumption.

The main reason I reject it is because any absence you notice in a relatively small corpus (and the sampling we have of "Galilean" and "Samaritan" Aramaic is very, very tiny) is probably purely coincidental. I can tell you from living it that dialects vary wildly from village to village. The assumption is based on a highly reconstructionalist view.

I wouldn't be considering C.P.A. at all in this discussion, as that is a very late dialect and is very heavily influenced by Greek. ("Yeshua" is missing from that Corpus, replaced by "Yesus".)

+Shamasha
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#10
Paul Younan Wrote:I think you're missing my point. The roots in question are attested to in both Hebrew and Aramaic texts (they are in fact primitive Semitic roots), from before Christ's time and after Christ's time. Any "Galilean" or "Samaritan" Aramaic speaking person would know what ra'am and ragesh meant, and would have used the words, especially if they also knew their Hebrew scripture.

At the same time, Jesus could have said `azabthani on the cross as he would have known it, and yet we have shabaqthani. :-)

I do not think he would have chosen a word outside of his mother dialect such as ragash (as "tumult/rage") to use as a nickname for some of his closest followers, especially given that in his own dialect it had a very different meaning (as in my "boot" example). It would be like a Syriac speaker using khesda in place of taibutha, in other words, very unlikely.

Quote:Any absence you notice in a relatively small corpus (and the sampling you have of "Galilean" and "Samaritan" Aramaic is tiny) is probably purely coincidental. I think your sampling size is way too small, and you put way too much emphasis on a tiny data set.

I was merely looking at the appropriate Targums with my two examples as you had brought them up. Overall, ra`am is missing from the entirety of the Galilean and Samaritan corpi, which is quite sizable (as they include Talmud Yerushalemi, the various Rabbah commentaries and a plethora of other Rabbinic works which all have passages where such words would be readily used), and all uses of ragash fall under "to perceive" or "to be aware." It's simply an Eastern/Western split, and where all Eastern texts attest a very common word, and all Western texts do not mention it once even in the same contexts with ample opportunity, it's quite significant.

This is like what I mentioned about som; it just doesn't occur in Western dialects. Every occasion where (for example) Syriac or Jewish Babylonian Aramaic would use som (as in phrases like Abba, b-idaikh sa'em 'na rukhi) we find in the Galilean corpus either nathan or yahab. Som doesn't occur once in Galilean or Samaritan.

Quote:The fact that Christ spoke to people from Galilee, Judea, Samaria and Syria shows that He spoke in several dialects, much like modern speakers of Neo-Aramaic do today.

All dialects of the day were certainly intelligible to some degree; however, Jesus and his early companions were very well known to be Galileans simply from their speech, which was markedly different. (Mark 14:70 et al.) Rabbis in Talmud Bavli even tease and deride Galileans for being "sloppy" with their speech to JBA standards (but, of course, was perfectly fine for JPA standards).

Also, modern Neo-Aramaic dialects are far, far more fragmented than they were back in Jesus' time (and far, far more mutually unintelligible) which is what necessitates learning more than one. Someone who speaks Kfarze Turoyo cannot readily understand someone speaking Jub'addin Ma'loula, nor can someone who speaks Sandu Barzani understand Urmi Assyrian (which are even more closely related). Heck, both Lishana Deni speakers and Assyrian speakers can pretty much understand Chaldean speakers, but they have some difficulty understanding each other! :-)

In Jesus' day it wasn't nearly that disjoint, but each dialect did have it's very distinct quirks that left other dialects' speakers either laughing at the other's "poor form" or scratching their chin. The worst case scenario that I've found is that some early Rabbis forbade Galileans from reciting in the Synagogues for fear that they misspeak or mispronounce something and offend God, himself. So aye, there were (pardon the pun) pronounced differences that their speakers stuck to. :-)

Quote:Finally, I wouldn't be considering C.P.A. at all in this discussion, as that is a very late dialect and is very heavily influenced by Greek.

Indeed, it is a later dialect. I was merely using it as an illustration of how where ra`am was (for example) more common among other contemporary dialects, especially those with direct influence, and despite that CPA still opted for its own dialectical form rather than use the far more common (and at that point more universal) Eastern Aramaic word.

(And as a point of order, Syriac has plenty of Greek in it too... but then again, nearly every language that came in contact with Greek ended up with plenty of Greek in it, and fast. Rome may have conquered Greece... :-) )

Peace,
-Steve
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#11
SteveCaruso Wrote:At the same time, Jesus could have said `azabthani on the cross as he would have known it, and yet we have shabaqthani. :-)

Azabthani is Hebrew, not Aramaic. If the rest of the phrase was uttered in Hebrew, I would've expected the Azabthani as well.

SteveCaruso Wrote:I do not think he would have chosen a word outside of his mother dialect such as ragash (as "tumult/rage") to use as a nickname for some of his closest followers, especially given that in his own dialect it had a very different meaning (as in my "boot" example). It would be like a Syriac speaker using khesda in place of taibutha, in other words, very unlikely.

But again, it wasn't different in His mother dialect. The root is a primitive Semitic root (Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, etc.) with the attested meaning, in the Hebrew scripture. Again, see Psalm 2:1, or Isaiah 17:12. I don't understand why you think r-g-sh is a foreign root to "His mother dialect", when in fact it existed prior in Hebrew and Aramaic. Your presumption (again, drawn from a tiny corpus) is flawed.

SteveCaruso Wrote:I was merely looking at the appropriate Targums with my two examples as you had brought them up. Overall, ra`am is missing from the entirety of the Galilean and Samaritan corpi, which is quite sizable (as they include Talmud Yerushalemi, the various Rabbah commentaries and a plethora of other Rabbinic works which all have passages where such words would be readily used), and all uses of ragash fall under "to perceive" or "to be aware." It's simply an Eastern/Western split, and where all Eastern texts attest a very common word, and all Western texts do not mention it once even in the same contexts with ample opportunity, it's quite significant.

Firstly, The Jerusalem Talmud is written in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, not "Galilean" Aramaic. It is a reconstructionalist viewpoint again that is equating the two.

Secondly, again, ra'am is attested to in Hebrew in:

1 Chronicles 16:32
Ezekiel 27:35
Isaiah 29:6
Psalm 81:8
Psalm 77:19
Psalm 104:7
Job 26:14
Job 39:25

And plenty of other places in the Hebrew scripture and later, the Aramaic NT. To use the Talmud or other rabbinical writings from centuries after the fact to reconstruct what you view as "Galilean" Aramaic, is nothing more than an argument from silence..... a conclusion drawn based on the absence of evidence.

SteveCaruso Wrote:This is like what I mentioned about som; it just doesn't occur in Western dialects. Every occasion where (for example) Syriac or Jewish Babylonian Aramaic would use som (as in phrases like Abba, b-idaikh sa'em 'na rukhi) we find in the Galilean corpus either nathan or yahab. Som doesn't occur once in Galilean or Samaritan.

It's a different example, but again the text is late and that is also an argument from silence.

SteveCaruso Wrote:
Quote:The fact that Christ spoke to people from Galilee, Judea, Samaria and Syria shows that He spoke in several dialects, much like modern speakers of Neo-Aramaic do today.

All dialects of the day were certainly intelligible to some degree; however, Jesus and his early companions were very well known to be Galileans simply from their speech, which was markedly different. (Mark 14:70 et al.) Rabbis in Talmud Bavli even tease and deride Galileans for being "sloppy" with their speech to JBA standards (but, of course, was perfectly fine for JPA standards).

Of course, but that is my point. Differences with speech or an accent are one thing, the lack of a root heavily attested to in both classical Hebrew and Aramaic is another thing altogether.

SteveCaruso Wrote:Also, modern Neo-Aramaic dialects are far, far more fragmented than they were back in Jesus' time (and far, far more mutually unintelligible) which is what necessitates learning more than one. Someone who speaks Kfarze Turoyo cannot readily understand someone speaking Jub'addin Ma'loula, nor can someone who speaks Sandu Barzani understand Urmi Assyrian (which are even more closely related). Heck, both Lishana Deni speakers and Assyrian speakers can pretty much understand Chaldean speakers, but they have some difficulty understanding each other! :-)

How can you possibly know how fragmented they were back in Jesus' time? The conditions were the same (an occupation by a foreign force, religious and cultural differences, etc.)

SteveCaruso Wrote:In Jesus' day it wasn't nearly that disjoint, but each dialect did have it's very distinct quirks that left other dialects' speakers either laughing at the other's "poor form" or scratching their chin. The worst case scenario that I've found is that some early Rabbis forbade Galileans from reciting in the Synagogues for fear that they misspeak or mispronounce something and offend God, himself. So aye, there were (pardon the pun) pronounced differences that their speakers stuck to. :-)

Another presumption, but yes they were different enough so we can agree. The fact is demonstrated by Peter's speech, so there's no need to consult the later rabbis. <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->

SteveCaruso Wrote:
Quote:Finally, I wouldn't be considering C.P.A. at all in this discussion, as that is a very late dialect and is very heavily influenced by Greek.

Indeed, it is a later dialect. I was merely using it as an illustration of how where ra`am was (for example) more common among other contemporary dialects, especially those with direct influence, and despite that CPA still opted for its own dialectical form rather than use the far more common (and at that point more universal) Eastern Aramaic word.

(And as a point of order, Syriac has plenty of Greek in it too... but then again, nearly every language that came in contact with Greek ended up with plenty of Greek in it, and fast. Rome may have conquered Greece... :-) )

Peace,
-Steve

It is NOT an eastern Aramaic word: it is a word in both Hebrew and Aramaic. See the above quotes from the Old Testament, which was not written in Eastern Aramaic.

It (ra'am) is a primitive Semitic root, predating both Hebrew and Aramaic.

Take care,
+Shamasha
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#12
Quote:Azabthani is Hebrew, not Aramaic.

That was my point. :-)

Quote:But again, it wasn't different in His mother dialect. The root is a primitive Semitic root (Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, etc.) with the attested meaning, in the Hebrew scripture. Again, see Psalm 2:1, or Isaiah 17:12. I don't understand why you think r-g-sh is a foreign root to "His mother dialect", when in fact it existed prior in Hebrew and Aramaic. Your presumption (again, drawn from a tiny corpus) is flawed.

Not all Aramaic is derived from the same vocabulary base. For example, although the so-called "Neo-Syriac" dialects (Chaldean, Assyrian, etc.) are all related to Syriac they are not descended from Syriac and have each followed different paths with acquiring new vocabulary and extending meaning. The Eastern/Western split goes very far back.

Again, look at the "boot" example. (Honestly.) When was the last time you referred to the "trunk" of your car as a "boot"? However, "boot" is most common in British English (to the absence of "trunk" nearly altogether). In the UK if you say "trunk" instead of "boot" or "apartment" instead of "flat" or "bathroom" instead of "loo" or "W.C." you're pegged by such shibboleths immediately, as they're simply not in your dialect of English -- or rather they're mostly there, but they mean completely different things, and in some contexts they are absent altogether. Same principle.

Quote:Firstly, The Jerusalem Talmud is written in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, not "Galilean" Aramaic. It is a reconstructionalist viewpoint again that is equating the two.

It's not a matter of reconstrucionalism, it's a matter of actual reconstruction only when such reconstruction is needed..

As a point of order, earlier on in Aramaic nomenclature "Galilean" and "Jewish Palestinian" were synonyms. In modern day, "Galilean" is a subset of the greater "Jewish Palestinian Aramaic" the former indicating the earlier portion of the language, the latter as late as the Byzantine era. Both corpi are large enough to draw reasonable conclusions about vocabulary choices for exceedingly common words from the earlier portions of writing simply due to distributions of frequency. The dialects do not change so quickly to see large sets of everyday, common words that the average speaker would use dozens to hundreds of times a week in normal conversation and writing drop out completely without a trace. This is why equivalent phrases are employed to determine common idiom, and it is not an argument to silence, it's a demonstration of actual differences.

Quote:Of course, but that is my point. Differences with speech or an accent are one thing, the lack of a root heavily attested to in both classical Hebrew and Aramaic is another thing altogether.

But that's what we see. :-) Ample examples of equivalent phrases where other words are chosen in place of what would commonly and consistently be expected vis a vis Eastern Aramaic dialects. If it happens once or twice it's nothing. When it happens in every recorded instance, there is significance, especially when such differences are shared among closely related dialects of one basic group. :-)

Quote:How can you possibly know how fragmented they were back in Jesus' time? The conditions were the same (an occupation by a foreign force, religious and cultural differences, etc.)

It's a widely accepted, educated guess based upon what we know about Neo Aramaic dialects and the processes that got them where they are today compared to earlier dialects. It employs the same processes and principles that linguists use to understand the evolution of modern English and other languages.

Quote:The fact is demonstrated by Peter's speech, so there's no need to consult the later rabbis. <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->

I'll err on consulting all the sources that are available. Think about it: If the Rabbis *agree* on it (which never happens), then it must be true! ;-)

Quote:It is NOT an eastern Aramaic word: it is a word in both Hebrew and Aramaic. See the above quotes from the Old Testament, which was not written in Eastern Aramaic.

It (ra'am) is a primitive Semitic root, predating both Hebrew and Aramaic.

I'm talking about semantic change. It doesn't matter if it's a primitive root, if it's meaning shifts between dialects one cannot draw conclusions that it was "understood" the same way at all. (To do so is the Etymological Fallacy.)

In English there are plenty of roots and derived that express this problem. The Greek baino was inducted into English as the prefix basi- where we get "basic" "basis" "base" things that indicate a strong bottom or level. Baino means "to march".

The word "camera" in English means a device to take pictures. In Latin (where it is derived from) "camera" means "vault." It's well attested in both Latin and English, but the meaning has changed.

"Egregious" is from the Latin for "select" or "choice" as in "the finest," but today it's meaning is the exact opposite.

"Agony" comes from a Greek word that means "competition," but when someone says "I'm in agony!" they mean they're in a lot of pain. :-)

Primitive roots do not dictate actual usage of the words derived from them. How they are used in context dictates their meaning, and we have examples of this kind of disparity in use. :-)

Peace,
-Steve
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#13
Shlama Akhi Steve,

Let's get a bit more basic here as this conversation has strayed way off base. Back to the original question that Lawrence had.

Firstly, you have claimed (and I'm paraphrasing) that Jesus' "Galilean Aramaic" is attested to well enough in a vast corpus of text....so much so that you are able to definitively know that He could not have used the root "r-g-sh" as a nickname for dear friends, because no one would have understood it (despite the fact that is is a primitive Semitic root used both in the OT and widely in Aramaic texts.)

Your argument boils down to this: despite the fact that Moses, King David, Isaiah, Ezekiel all knew and frequently used both of these roots with the very meaning we are talking about...that Jesus couldn't have, despite the fact that even later Hebrew and Aramaic texts still use the words. You base this bold assumption on an argument from silence rooted in a handful of selected sources.

Then, when pressed on exactly what you meant by "Galilean Aramaic", you point as your primary sources such a wide variety as SA, CPA, JPA. I think we ruled out CPA and SA as preposterous, but please correct me if you still feel either of these two meet your criteria.

JPA - now you went on in the last post to suggest that "Galilean" is considered to be a subset of this dialect. But JPA sources are late and represent a wide spectrum of geography.

I'd like an exact list, please, of the corpi you are claiming to be representative of 1st-century "Galilean Aramaic" exactly as Jesus would have spoke.

I'm going to press you on this, not because I'm trying to be difficult, but because I strongly feel that your position exemplifies precisely what is wrong about modern day reconstructionalism.

Thanks!
+Shamasha
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#14
Paul Younan Wrote:Let's get a bit more basic here as this conversation has strayed way off base. Back to the original question that Lawrence had.

I agree. The OP is about Greek transliteration and we've gone all over the place. :-)

Quote:Firstly, you have claimed (and I'm paraphrasing) that Jesus' "Galilean Aramaic" is attested to well enough in a vast corpus of text....so much so that you are able to definitively know that He could not have used the root "r-g-sh" as a nickname for dear friends, because no one would have understood it (despite the fact that is is a primitive Semitic root used both in the OT and widely in Aramaic texts.)

Steve Caruso Wrote:I do not think he would have chosen a word outside of his mother dialect such as ragash (as "tumult/rage") to use as a nickname for some of his closest followers, especially given that in his own dialect it had a very different meaning (as in my "boot" example). It would be like a Syriac speaker using khesda in place of taibutha, in other words, very unlikely.

Quote:Your argument boils down to this: despite the fact that Moses, King David, Isaiah, Ezekiel all knew and frequently used both of these roots with the very meaning we are talking about...that Jesus couldn't have, despite the fact that even later Hebrew and Aramaic texts still use the words. You base this bold assumption on an argument from silence rooted in a handful of selected sources.

I believe that characterization of my argument isn't accurate. This, categorically, isn't an argument from silence. If this was an argument from silence, it would be "these words don't exist simply because we do not see them." My argument is "these words were not used because we consistently see other words used in their normal places."

I brought up as examples of the same phenomenon:

- Som, which is ubiquitous in Syriac for "to put" or "to place" (it occurs about ~200 times in the Peshitta NT alone), found in the Babylonian Talmud (even the oldest portions), and Mandaic texts (all Eastern dialects), but is not found anywhere in Galilean. Not once. However, when we look over Galilean texts, where we would expect to see som, we find nathan and yahab instead and used in the same ubiquitous manner (with some differentiation between them depending on context, but that's not for this discussion). This is positive evidence for the use of those words over their counterparts by dialect, not an argument from silence.

- Various English shibboleths, such as "boot"/"trunk", "flat"/"apartment" etc. Looking over British media vs American media we find "boot" used in the same place as "trunk" ubiquitously. This is positive evidence for the use of those words over their counterparts depending on what side of the pond you are, not an argument from silence.

To re-iterate: These are not simply lacking in references (which is what an argumentum e silentio requires), but are instead rife with counterexamples in common use.

In other words: Could they have known about these words? Certainly. Did they use them when given the ample opportunity? 0% out of all extant examples (of the words in question).

Quote:Then, when pressed on exactly what you meant by "Galilean Aramaic", you point as your primary sources such a wide variety as SA, CPA, JPA. I think we ruled out CPA and SA as preposterous, but please correct me if you still feel either of these two meet your criteria.

JPA - now you went on in the last post to suggest that "Galilean" is considered to be a subset of this dialect. But JPA sources are late and represent a wide spectrum of geography.

CPA is not "preposterous," but is late. SA is closer to contemporary and an important piece of the puzzle. These two vis a vis Galilean/JPA are important to note because they all share a number of vocabulary, grammatical and phonological choices that other dialects outside of their family lack.

In truth, there is no one monolithic Galilean dialect that everyone spoke just as much as there is no one monolithic Syriac dialect that everyone spoke. These are both designations of smaller spectra of the whole of Aramaic languages that share enough attributes to be grouped together for convenience sake. Where many of those attributes are the same and shared by all Aramaic dialects, we group them this way due to significantly shared differences. Because of that, there is no word-for-word corpus of Jesus' dialect. He, himself, did not write anything that has survived to date, nor was he directly transcribed.

What we do know is that they didn't speak Syriac in Galilee, and we have documents written in Aramaic from Galilee that are a bit younger than he is. Looking at the earliest portions of the greater Jewish Palestinian Aramaic corpus first, and relying on the later portions only for comparison sake, we can start with parts of the Talmud Yerushalemi, Targum Yerushalemi, things like Maasim il-bne Erez Israel, inscriptions directly from Palestine (although they are few), and uncorrected manuscripts of Bereshit Rabba, etc.. This yields an amazing amount of information about trends in the dialect of Galilee, and therefore what Jesus would have likely used. This cannot simply be brushed off as irrelevant. :-)

Quote:I'm going to press you on this, not because I'm trying to be difficult, but because I strongly feel that your position exemplifies precisely what is wrong about modern day reconstructionalism.

I don't think you're trying to be difficult, and I'm simply trying to ensure that I'm being articulate. :-)

Even though I do work with reconstruction it's not really a matter of "reconstructionalism" (or do you mean "reconstructionism"?). If a dialect family is known to have a number of demonstrable features in common, then we should be using those features in our assessments. Will we attain certainty? Never. But will we will get closer than we would have otherwise, sometimes very close with only a few details left to speculate upon.

So, going back to the OP with some more detailed analysis about this particular epithet:

The Koine of the Greek NT has boanerges which likely represents buh-ney r'ges or buh-ney r'gez.
(It's well established by Greek scholars that sigma followed a similar voicing pattern to "s" in English [ex. "goes" "Jesus", etc.] where zeta was for geminate "z." How they figured this out, you'll have to ask them, but it's in all the literature.)

The Peshitta has b-n-y r-g-sh-y -- b'nai r'gesh(i) -- b'nai r'geh-sh(ee).
There is a diphthong, a substitution (s->sh), and a different ending.

From what we see exists in Galilean phonology and available, common words, we get b-n-y r-g-y-z -- b'ne r'gez -- b'ney r'geyz, a very snug fit.

Peace,
-Steve

(Yikes... looking back at the growing size and scope of each post, we may wish to break this down into smaller threads if we want to continue the conversation on separate topics.)
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#15
Shlama Akhi Steve,

OK, that post is a bit more reasonable. Speculation is fine, especially where the evidence is scanty (as you stated.) As long as it is understood that you are speculating.

Quote:What I've found is that the word for "to rage" or "to bellow" (like thunder) in Galilean and other Western dialects was r'gaz.

A common word from that root is ragoz (rest-gamal-waw-zain) or "wrath." What is interesting is that out of the 5 places it is found in Galilean texts, a majority of those times (3, perhaps 4 as once it is spelled defective) it is found as r'geyz (resh-gamal-yod-zai).

r-g-z is synonymous with r-g-sh (minority reading), and is not solely Galilean. It's use is also in Chaldean Aramaic (cf., the original Aramaic of Daniel 3:13) - a very eastern dialect, centuries before Galilean Aramaic formed.

Attempting to reconstitute the Galilean Aramaic of Jesus (one of many dialects He was no doubt fluent in) based on the Jerusalem Talmud, in my opinion, is a recipe for disaster. Firstly because there is serious doubt as to whether the language of the Talmud was a true vernacular tongue, or merely a literary language. Secondly, it is a late and dubious source for the topic at hand. Even worse is the evaluation of Targum Neofiti (I'm assuming that's what you meant by "Western Targum.") It exists in one manuscript dated by colophon to the 16th century.

Syriac could have been spoken in 1st-century Palestine for the same reasons it is spoken today in Israel, via emigration from populations in Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. In fact, a contemporary of Jesus was Queen Helena of Adiabene, who is buried in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and whose sarcophagus bears Syriac inscription. Syriac was a living dialect in the 1st Century. Galilee and Samaria were more heavily Assyrian than Judea, which was Babylonian. The Samaritans themselves are ethnically Assyrian.

The important thing to me is that both the Peshitta and Greek agree on Mark 3:17, and most importantly it is a proof of Aramaic Primacy. There is a compelling reason why the gloss exists in the Aramaic text, for precisely the reasons you bring up. The author wanted to make sure the reader understood that the intended meaning of r-g-sh was the minority reading of "rage", as "ra'am" clearly shows. If this passage was originally written in Greek, the author could have easily translated the name into "Sons of Thunder" and have been done with it. Other names (like bar-Tulmay) aren't glossed in the Greek text, so there would have been no compelling reason for a Greek author to do this. The more simple explanation is an underlying Aramaic source.

+Shamasha
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