Aramaic Primacy in the East

[Luc Lefebvre]

I have come to the conclusion with no education in this field but common sense and much reading that there is/was no Aramaic Primacy. There were Greek Scriptures which were taken into Syriac lands and communities and these Greek Scriptures were revised to meet the needs of these communities due to their culture and language. There is nothng wrong with that approach at that time.  After much searching on the Internet and money spent trying to find the legitimacy of this ongoing argument it has come to an end. Most of all I have to thank the Introduction in the Syriac Peshitta Bible with English Translation of Mark put out by Gorgias Press which put the finality on this for me.

Good-bye to everyone here on this forum and thank you to everyone who helped me with their many questions and insights posted here. Do take care.

TruthFinder, over and out.

The biggest issues I have with the Peshitta is that the Eastern and Western texts reflect the Christology of the regions (mainly, one nature VS two nature) in their unique readings from the Greek. This is, like you say, revisions to meet the needs of these communities. Nonetheless, I find them to be extremely reliable witnesses to a text used by the church since some of the earliest beginnings. 

The text of Gorgias Press is valuable academically, but I worry that, like the RSV, it suffers from theological liberalism and thus approaches the text with doubt and a critical eye. I will still likely buy the completed OT and NT copy, especially for the sake of having the extended Canon of the OT that is missing from Lamsa and Bauscher, but we nonetheless will need an edition put out by the Assyrian Church of the East that reflects the Orthodox, Apostolic faith of the Church.

As for the original discussion that began a decade ago now, the following is a relevant article showing some of the strongest Aramaic primacy in the East within the modern era,

"What Language Did God Speak?

Christians, Hebrews and Moslems alike hold the Bible to be the Word of God. In what language was this word spoken?

The question is vital. No one language can be translated exactly into any other. Some shade of meaning invariably is lost. Since God spoke, we should know the language in which He spoke, that we may get the full significance of His Word. All Bible-based faiths -- Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- believe this revelation began with Abraham. In speaking to Abraham, God must have used a language Abraham understood. What was that language?

On this point, there is no shadow of doubt. Abraham spoke Aramaic -- the language of Aram. Aram is that land now referred to as Iraq and Syria. The Hebrew calls it by two names -- Aram-Naharaim, or Aram of the Rivers, and Padan-Aram, or the Plain of Aram. In Greek, Abraham's birthplace is called Mesopotamia -- Between the Rivers referring to the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. All over that valley, the language was Aramaic. Abraham spoke Aramaic. Since he understood what God said, God must also have spoken Aramaic.

Abraham had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. In their own tent, his family must have spoken in the native language. Isaac married Rebekah, who also came from Aram and therefore spoke Aramaic. Their sons, Jacob and Esau also spoke that language.
When Jacob sought a wife, he went back to Aram and married two cousins -- Leah and Rachel. All his sons, with the exception of Benjamin, were born in Aram, in the midst of a population that spoke only Aramaic. Therefore the sons of Jacob the "children of Israel" - also spoke Aramaic. Even in our English bibles, there are fragments of this language -- like "Jegar Sahadutha", the Pile of Witness, referring to the heap of stones Laban and Jacob made to seal their covenant of peace.


These descendants of Jacob moved into Egypt and lived there for 430 years. All this time they were in constant communication with Aram, for the province of Goshen, where they lived, is the region where caravans from Babylon entered Egypt. Their Aramaic was mixed with some Egyptian words. Undoubtedly when they wandered in the desert, they intermarried with Arabian tribes. Their Aramaic was corrupted into Hebrew. But when the Hebrews were carried into captivity into Aram, they went back to therefore the speech of their forefathers. The later prophets spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew. At the time of Jesus, the common people understood only Aramaic. The Hebrew of the scriptures had to be interpreted into that common dialect.. Aramaic was the common language of the trade of the world. Merchants in Babylon and in Egypt used it for their bills of lading and their statements of accounts. The camel drivers spoke it. In every village along their routes, the people spoke it as well, in Nazareth, too. In that language, Jesus and his apostles spoke. It is written, "The Common People heard him gladly." Therefore He spoke Aramaic, for that was the only language the common people understood.

For a long time, scholars thought the New Testament was written in Greek. That has been shown to be an absurd error. The Hebrews of the age of Jesus hated and despised the Greeks. They wrote to one another in the language they all understood, the language of Abraham and of Jesus - Aramaic. When the Roman emperors found the Christian church was the dominant force in their empire, they took it over and ordered the Gospels to be translated into Greek, Translation from one language into another is never quite accurate. Therefore to know what God's words implied it is necessary to know that glorious language -- Aramaic. That is the task of the Church of the East. We must revive the knowledge of Aramaic, God's language. In every church and community, there must be schools to study the Lord's Language. Let that be our goal for 1951.

Article was written by the late Mar Shimun XXIII Eshai in the book "The light of the East" "