Hebrew =/=Aramaic
Randall Buth
ButhFam at compuserve.com
Thu Aug 29 12:43:20 EDT 2002
CAIRETE
yisge shalmxon
I've just come back to a full mail box. Sorry for bounced messages.
On the question of Hebrew and Aramaic there is a very simple
rule of thumb, usually ignored by NT folk.
EBRAISTI (and cognates) means Hebrew
SYRISTI (and cognates) means Aramaic
The ancients had little trouble keeping them apart, as long as they
knew the languages.
People today get all confused and tied up on the question because two
facts are overlooked.
1. Place-names, proper names in general, float in languages and cross
boundaries that are otherwise maintained. E.g., someone might
call IAN 'beloved' in English, when it is "actually" Scottish, and
etymologically Hebrew.
2. Greek prefered forms with 'a' endings. Not because they were
Aramaic but because they were the more-Greek sounding form.
E.g. In the LXX you will find forms like PASCA for 'passover'.
Did they translate from Aramaic? Of course not. Aristeas specifically
says that they did NOT translate from Aramaic but from a different
language. (i.e. Hebrew). But PASCA was a commonly used form
in Greek for both Hebrew and Aramaic 'passover'. Greek interfaced
with Aramaic all over the MiddleEast, but only interfaced with
Hebrew in Provincia Judea. For a less religious term, consider
sikera 'beer'. This is the LXX transliteration and shows up in
Luke as well. Hebrew is shexar 'beer' but even when translating
from Hebrew, Greek prefers the 'smooth' Aramaic form sikera.
>>Okay, here's what I've come up with on the specific references. This
really
>>isn't my area of expertise, so a lot of this is open to correction. But I
>>don't think I've seen anyone else comment on the specifics so far.
>>
>>BHQZAQA and BHQESDA both appear to be Aramaic, if they've been analyzed
>>correctly (house of olive, house of mercy). I don't know of a way to show
>>that they're Hebrew forms.
They are names and could easily turn up in a Hebrew doc.
(Hebrew names turn up in Aramaic documents of the time and
Aramaic names turn up in Hebrew documents. Which is why
an inscription with only a name doesn't say much about someone's
language. A sentence is usually necessary.)
>>GABBAQA looks Aramaic, although the derivation is
>>uncertain, so I would think it's also possible that it's Hebrew. (The
>>feminine ending in Hebrew would probably be transliterated the same way
that
>>the determining suffix in Aramaic is, especially since Greek has no H,
>>except at the beginning of a word.) GOLGOQA seems to be Aramaic (but see
>>above), although there is a variant GOLGOQ that I think could be Hebrew.
Golgolet is Hebrew.
Again, golgota is a name, an Aramaic form, and probably already in place
from Persian times.
>>ABADDWN is Hebrew. hARMAGEDWN, unless we accept the reading without hAR
>>(Heb. for something like "mountain"), is Hebrew. Even if we take the
shorter
>>reading, it could still be Hebrew, but it could probably be Aramaic as
well.
Aramaic for mountain is Tur, and would show up in transliteration.
MAGEDWN is a name, of course, and could be either, depending on
how the author wanted to relate to it.
>>
>>Now, I would add to all this the thought that, since we're dealing with
>>place-names, the forms they have in Hebrew could very well be originally
>>Aramaic. That doesn't mean that a Hebrew-speaker would refer to them any
>>differently, just as we use place-names today that are derived from other
>>languages. Indeed, the relationship between Jewish Aramaic and Hebrew
gets
>>pretty tightly bound, the further we go, and even at this period I
suspect
>>that words were exchanged back and forth pretty freely.
You're on the right track here.
>>
>>So, I think it would be safe to say that Hebrew most likely means Hebrew
in
>>some of these cases, and that even where the word in question isn't
strictly
>>Hebrew, it's still plausible to think that the writer actually meant
Hebrew
>>when he wrote it.
In fact, there are NO places where "Hebrew=Aramaic" except for place
names! Wherever writers (Aristeas, Josephus, LXX, NT, etc) say Hebrew,
the word is in fact Hebrew, and where they say Aramaic (Syriakos) it
is in fact Aramaic. Nice, neat.
The problem comes when people don't pay
attention to what is actually being said or when a name is being cited.
(e.g., akel damax 'field of blood' is Aramaic, but the text does not say
that it is Hebrew, only "in their language".)
>>As I said before, I know work has already been done on
>>this--I just don't have immediate access to it. (And I notice that the
last
>>couple of times I've posted, my messages have been bounced back from
>>Randall's box, so he's probably unavailable right now.)
>>
>>Trevor Peterson
>>CUA/Semitics
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
> From: Trevor Peterson [mailto:06peterson at cua.edu]
> Sent: Tue, August 27, 2002 3:21 PM
> To: Biblical Greek
> Subject: [b-greek] RE: Hebrew=Aramaic?
>
>
> >===== Original Message From "Theodore H. Mann"
> <theomann at earthlink.net> =====
> >In the NT I count ten instances where terms or sentences are said to be
> >"in Hebrew" (Jn.5:2, 19:13,17,20 / Acts 21:40, 22:2, 26:14 / Phil.3:5 /
> >Rev.9:11, 16:16), but I read here and there (e.g., F.F. Bruce: NIC,
> >regarding Acts 26:14, footnote 18) that at least some of these
references
> >are to Aramaic, not Hebrew. I gather that the Greek translation of an
> >Aramaic term differs from that of a Hebrew term, and that it's
> possible to
> >tell from that which is which. Does the term "Hebrew" in all of
> the above
> >verses refer to Aramaic?
No. Some of the above are not names, so Hebrew is "certainly" Hebrew.
And if it says Hebrew, then the author is treating it as Hebrew, even
if it is a name with a different etymology/history.
> There's actually some debate about this. The usual contention is
> that Greek
> did not distinguish between Hebrew and Aramaic, but some would
> challenge that
> idea and say that Hebrew means Hebrew, not a catch-all for
> Semitic languages.
> The Greek translation doesn't tell us much, but the Greek
> transliteration,
> where the sayings are preserved in the text (in whatever Semitic
> language is
> actually being used), is sometimes close enough for us to tell
> which language
> is being used. In some cases, though (note especially the cry
> from the cross),
> there are textual variants (and variants between Gospels) that
> seem to drift
> toward one side or the other, so that the testimony is mixed. I
> don't have the
> resources or time at this moment to comment specifically on the passages
> you've cited. If no one else does, I'll try to come back to them later.
>
> Trevor Peterson
> CUA/Semitics<
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