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The Book of Acts: Aramaic Translation, Chapter 1 by Joseph Pashka It is with greatful heart and adoration to the Yonan Codex Foundation that the Khaburis can be made available. We have the pages of the Khaburis photographed and available online. The person who took these photographs is Dr. Michael Ryce, his time and efforts are not unnoticed. He has done an incredible service to the human race by making the photos available. The Khaburis is one of the finest examples of our history preserved and is without a doubt awe inspiring when one comtemplates the wonderous gift the words contained within hold. Click here to view the Khaburis photographs (The New Testament) in Aramaic. In reference to the originality of the Peshitta, the words of His Holiness Mar Eshai Shimun, Catholicos Patriarch of the Church of the East, are summarized as follows: "With reference to....the originality of the Peshitta text, as the Patriarch and Head of the Holy Apostolic and Catholic Church of the East, we wish to state, that the Church of the East received the scriptures from the hands of the blessed Apostles themselves in the Aramaic original, the language spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and that the Peshitta is the text of the Church of the East which has come down from the Biblical times without any change or revision." Mar Eshai Shimun |
The Peshitta is the official Bible of the Church of the East and often refered to as the "Aramaic Bible." The name Peshitta in Aramaic means "Straight", in other words, the original and pure New Testament. The Peshitta is the only authentic and pure text which contains the books in the New Testament that were written in Aramaic, the Language of Mshikha (the Messiah) and His Disciples. Aramaic is the ancient language of the Semitic family group, which includes the Assyrians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Arameans, Hebrews, and Arabs. In fact, a large part of the Hebrew and Arabic languages is borrowed from Aramaic, including the Alphabet. The modern Hebrew (square) script is called "Ashuri", "Ashuri" is the Hebrew name for Assyrian, the name being used to signify the ancestor of the Assyrians, Ashur the son of Shem, the son of Noah (Genesis 10:22). Aramaic is quoted in the very first book of the Bible, Berisheth (Genesis) in Chapter 31:47. In fact, many portions of the Old Testament are penned originally in Aramaic, including Daniel chapter 2:4 thru chapter 7 and parts of the book of Ezra, as were some notable Jewish prayers, such as the kaddish. Furthermore, Papias of Hierapolis is quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea as affirming that Evangelist Matthew first "wrote the sayings of Jesus" in Aramaic. The first known inscriptions of Aramaic date to the late tenth or early ninth century B.C. In a phenomenal wave of expansion, Aramaic spread over Palestine and Syria and large tracts of Asia and Egypt, replacing many languages, including Akkadian and Hebrew. For about one thousand years it served as the official and written language of the Near East, officially beginning with the conquests of the Assyrian Empire, which had adopted Aramaic as its official language, replacing Akkadian. During the later Chaldean (Neo-Babylonian) and Persian conquests, Aramaic had become the international medium of exchange. Despite Hellenistic influences, especially in the cities, that followed the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Aramaic remained the vernacular of the conquered peoples in the Holy Land, Syria, Mesopotamia and the adjacent countries. It ceded only to Arabic in the ninth century A.D., two full centuries after the Islamic conquests of Damascus in 633, and Jerusalem in 635. Aramaic has never been totally supplanted by Arabic. Aramaic had been adopted by the deported Israelites of Transjordan, exiled from Bashan and Gilead in 732 B.C. by Tiglath-Pileser III, the tribes of the Northern Kingdom by Sargon II who took Samaria in 721, and the two tribes of the Southern Kingdom of Judah who were taken into captivity to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in 587. Hence, the Jews who returned from the Babylonian Captivity brought Aramaic back with them to the Holy Land, and this continued to be their native tongue throughout the lifetime of Eshoo Mshikha. Aramaic can be dated to five periods, dating from inscriptions that go back to the first millennium B.C.:
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This translation of the Old and New Testaments is based on Peshitta manuscripts
which have comprised the accepted Bible of all those Christians who have used
Syriac as their language of prayer and worship for many centuries. The Church
of the East and some noted Western scholars dispute the belief of modern scholarship
that the originals of the Four Gospels and other parts of the New Testament
were written in Greek. In any case, Aramaic speech is an underlying factor and
New Testament writers drew on documents written in Aramaic. Syriac is the literary
dialect of Aramaic. From the Mediterranean east into India, the Peshitta is
still the Bible of preference among Christians.
George M. Lamsa, the translator, devoted the major part of his life to this work. He was an Assyrian and a native of ancient Bible lands. He and his people retained Biblical customs and Semitic culture, which had perished elsewhere. With this background and his knowledge of the Aramaic (Syriac) language, he has recovered much of the meaning that has been lost in other translations of the Scriptures. There is a section on the problems of translating from the Aramaic to the Greek.
Manuscripts used were the Codex Ambrosianus for the Old Testament and the Mortimer-McCawley manuscript for the New Testament. Comparisons have been made with other Peshitta manuscripts, including the oldest dated manuscript in existence. The term Peshitta means straight, simple, sincere and true, that is, the original. Even the Moslems in the Middle East accept and revere the Peshitta text.
Now anyone can own and enjoy this exceptional work by clicking on the BUY link below.
Here is an excellent book by Christopher Lancaster (free) challenging the concept that the New Testament was written in Greek:
"Was the New Testament Really Written in Greek?"
