The bible in “the original Aramaic”: The Peshitta.

When he lived on earth, Jesus spoke Aramaic.

That’s the language ancient Syrians spoke; the name Aramaic comes from אֲרָם/Arám, a country which later became part of Syria. Through the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, it became the main language of commerce in the middle east… until Alexander of Macedon forced everyone to switch to Greek in the 300s BC. When Israel were taken into captivity by the Assyrians and Babylonians, two generations later they were all speaking Aramaic. When they returned from Persia to re-found Jerusalem, they spoke Aramaic. So did the Samaritans up north. So did the Edomites. So did everyone.

Thing is… the bible was in Hebrew. And now (except for the parts which are actually in Aramaic) it had to be translated into Aramaic so the Aramaic-speaking public could understand it. That’s why the Pharisees came up with targums, Aramaic translations of the Hebrew scriptures which non-Hebrew-speakers could understand. Jesus could read the bible, Lk 4.16-20 and knew it extensively, so it’s obvious he’s fluent in Hebrew too. But whenever he spoke to the common people, to fellow Israelis, he spoke Aramaic. Ac 26.14

Because it’s a Syrian language, sometimes people refer to Aramaic as Syriac. The King James Version definitely does. Da 2.4 Though more recently, linguists identify Syriac as a dialect of Aramaic, if not a whole different language with Aramaic at its root. Syriac doesn’t use the Ashurit alphabet like Hebrew does; it has its own alphabet (with the same names and sounds, but it looks quite different). And while the classical Aramaic of bible times is probably extinct, Syriac is still spoken by people in Germany, India, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Sweden, Syria, and Turkey. And it’s still the language used in the worship services of the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church and other eastern Catholics who use a Syriac rite, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church, the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Assyrian Pentecostal Church, and other ethnic Assyrian Christians.

Naturally there are Syriac translations of the bible. But the most important one is the one which predates nearly most other translations of the bible. Parts predate the Vulgate. Goes so far back, you’re still gonna have a lot of Syriac-speaking Christians who insist this is the original New Testament—not the Greek texts. I’ll get to that.

The most ancient Syriac translation of the bible is called the Peshitta (Aramaic ܡܦܩܬܐ ܦܫܝܛܬܐ/mappaqtá f’šíthta, “ordinary version”). Reference to “the Syriac gospel” in Eusebius’s writings in the 100s indicate it’d been started, at least, in the 100s. We have copies which date since that time, starting in the 400s. The earliest full copies we have of the New Testament, date to the 600s. And while the Vulgate became the bible of the Latin-speaking world, the Peshitta became the bible of eastern Christians outside the Roman Empire: Missionaries brought it to Armenia, Georgia, Arabia, and Persia, where it influenced their bible translations.

What’s in it.

The Peshitta’s New Testament originally didn’t include 2 Peter, 2–3 John, Jude, and Revelation. The church of Antioch didn’t consider these books to be part of the bible till the 500s, so obviously the first Peshitta was translated before that time. Those books were later translated in the Harclensis, or “the Harklean version,” translated in 616 by Syrian bishop Thomas of Harqel in Alexandria, Egypt. That’s why you’ll find ’em in today’s Peshittas.

The Old Testament may have been adapted from Pharisee targums; we don’t really know, because they don’t wholly match the targums we have. But unlike the targums, they include books of the apocrypha. Interestingly, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the Isaiah scroll matched the Peshitta’s translation rather well, impressing scholars who previously weren’t all that sure the Peshitta got it right.

Sometimes you’re gonna find Syriac liturgies which clearly are quoting bible, but not the Peshitta. Sometimes that’s because they’re quoting other ancient Syriac translations of the bible—there were others! Paul of Tella translated Origin’s Hexapla, his 240 analysis of the Septuagint, into Syriac in 617, and this “Syrohexapla version” became popular in some churches. Jacob of Edessa created a Syriac version of the bible around 705, which may be a revision of the Peshitta he did after reading the Hexapla. There’s also a Palestinian Syriac version of unknown origin, which seems to have borrowed some translations from the targums, and was composed before the year 700.

Yes, there are English translations of the Peshitta. Probably the best-known is the Lamsa Bible—properly The Holy Bible: From the Ancient Eastern Text, translated by George Mamishisho Lamsa and published in 1933. Lamsa wasn’t a scholar, but a World War 1 refugee from the Ottoman Empire who relocated to California, who spoke both English and Syriac. He got a lot of pushback from scholars and anti-Catholics (who didn’t know the difference between Catholics and the Assyrian Church of the East, and really didn’t care; bigotry is bigotry), and nowadays his translation is seen as just an interesting footnote in the history of English-language bibles. But it does give you some insight into the way the Peshitta puts things. Wanna read it online? Here you go.

The original bible?

Part of the controversy around Lamsa was his insistence the original bible was written in Syriac. Not Hebrew and Greek. His language.

It’s what the Assyrian Church of the East had taught him as a child. The New Testament, they claimed, was originally written in Jesus’s language, Aramaic, by the Aramaic-speaking apostles. Paul spoke Aramaic too. Yeah, your KJV is gonna say “the Hebrew tongue,” but properly it’s τῇ Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ/ti Evrahídi dialékto, “the Hebrew dialect,” Ac 21.40, 22.2, 26.14 meaning a dialect Hebrews spoke, i.e. Aramaic.

So, they reason, why would the Holy Spirit have all these teachings and letters be composed in Aramaic, translated into Greek, then re-translated back into Aramaic/Syriac? Seems like unnecessary steps. Ones which’d cause confusion; if you’ve ever seen English translated into another language and back, you’ll see obvious errors creep into the language. And they’re pretty sure there are plenty of errors in the Greek New Testament; when they compare the Peshitta to the GNT, they’re pretty sure their bibles are right, and the Greek bibles are wrong.

So, they reason, the Greek bibles are translations of their bibles. Not the other way round. Further, they claim the Hebrew Old Testament is also a translation of their bibles; they claim the Hebrew text was lost at some point in the past, and the rabbis were forced to re-translate it back into Hebrew, and they based it on the Peshitta instead of the Septuagint.

Yep, that’s what Lamsa believed about his bible: It’s a translation of the original bible. Our western bibles, not so much.

Meh; I believe this as much as I believe the King James Only fans who think the KJV is inspired by God, and is just as authoritative as the original. It’s a theory meant to elevate their favorite bible translation which has gone overboard, if not crossed into full-on bibliolatry.

Lamsa was mighty vocal about his beliefs, and that’s why he got so much pushback from bible scholars, who knew he was full of beans. Does it invalidate his bible? Nah. It’s a good enough translation. Especially since it’s really a translation of a translation.

And regardless of those folks who believe their favorite translation is inspired: Any good translation can share the gospel just as effectively as the original. (Sometimes even bad translations! Not that this excuses bad ones. But remember, all we really need is the good Holy Spirit.) We don’t need to add outrageous claims to make our favorite translations sound extra-holy—as if people need to follow the translation instead of the Holy Spirit.

A relevant bible.

Sometimes I bring up the Peshitta, or Jesus’s words as stated in the Peshitta, because it is the language he originally taught in. If you want the exact words he spoke when he taught, we’re never gonna have the exact words, because the gospels aren’t written in the language he originally taught in! And that’s on purpose: More people back then spoke ancient Greek than Aramaic, and the Holy Spirit needed the gospel conveyed in a language that’d reach as many people as possible. Plus, y’know how certain people will overanalyze individual words to the point the words lose all meaning? You’re less likely to do that once you realize you’re reading a translation. (Oh, people still do it anyway. Even so.)

So yeah, if you want a quote which sounds as close as you’re gonna get to the original statements of Jesus, there’s the Peshitta. But for accuracy, look at the Greek New Testament. That’s the original; that’s what I, and every other bible translator, looks at.

Why do scholars care what’s in the Peshitta? Well, same as the Septuagint, it helps us understand words in the Hebrew and Greek which we may not be as familiar with in the 21st century, as people were in the 2nd and 4th. And if a passage in the Peshitta looks too different from a passage we find in the Hebrew scriptures or the Greek New Testament, it’s a sign its translators were looking at a whole different manuscript—one we oughta track down and compare with what we have, because there’s always a chance it might be more accurate than what we have. Or, y’know, less. But we oughta at least look at it!

Lastly we oughta care what’s in it, because sometimes we Christians of different churches struggle to understand one another. Usually that’s because we, or they, or both of us, are being selfish. But yeah, sometimes that’s because we’re interpreting the bible different ways—and sometimes that’s because we’re reading very different bibles. We need to be aware of this factor; they might be earnestly trying to follow what they think the scriptures are telling them, and while we might disagree with their interpretation, we need to respect their earnestness. They wanna follow Jesus! So do we, right? So let’s try to follow him together.