Where did Jesus Christ live and what language did he speak? Sermons in Aramaic

The Promised Land, where Jesus Christ lived

Each person is connected by invisible bonds to the place where he saw the earthly light. There is some higher law in order to be born in one place and not another. It was also natural that the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Savior of all people, took place on the land of Palestine, among the Jewish people.

The God of Hosts promised this land to Abraham and his descendants for their loyalty to Him. Obeying God, Abraham left his native Babylonian lands and settled here, in an area foreign to him. The “Children of Abraham” had a difficult history: famine brought them to Egypt, Moses led them through the desert for 40 years to return, Joshua conquered the Promised Land from the Canaanite tribes. 12 Jewish families settled here.

For a thousand years, Jews lived in this territory, experienced the Babylonian captivity, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the loss of the Ark of the Covenant. They returned here again, restored the Temple and continued to pray - the small people in the pagan sea of neighbors retained the worship of the One Invisible God. The entire Old Testament history of the Jewish people is a preparation for the Incarnation of God to occur in their midst.

Jesus Christ spoke only once about speaking in tongues

This passage can be found at the end of the Gospel of Mark and it says the following:

Finally, he appeared to the eleven themselves, who were reclining at the supper, and reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who saw Him risen. And he said to them: Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; and whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new languages ; they will take snakes; and if they drink anything deadly, it will not harm them; They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. And so the Lord, after talking with them, ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went and preached everywhere, with the Lord’s assistance and strengthening the word with subsequent signs. Amen. (Gospel of Mark 16:14-20)

The Birth of Christ - Pandemonium of Babel

Half a century before the birth of Christ, Palestine was captured by Rome, which exercised world domination. The Jewish state was no longer united. Judea in the south was inhabited by the most orthodox part of the people, in the middle part - in Samaria - the inhabitants mixed with eastern settlers and became almost pagans, so the Jews did not communicate with them. In the north of the country there was Galilee, where representatives of the Greek diaspora, immigrants from Phenicia and Syria, and Arabs lived next to the Jews. The toleration of the Galileans towards their neighbors was condemned by the inhabitants of Judea; they considered their northern relatives to be inferior people, but still communicated with them.

Herod the Great

Power in Judea at this time was usurped by Herod the Great. He was a great villain and lawless man. Fearing to lose power, he executed all his relatives, his wife, and sons. The massacre of 14 thousand Bethlehem children was also his doing. And the Holy Family, saving the Divine Infant, was forced to hide in Egypt.

After Herod the Great there were no more kings in Judea. His son, the depraved Herod Antipas, mentioned in the Gospel as the murderer of John the Baptist, ruled only Galilee and was subordinate to the Roman governor, procurator Pontius Pilate.

The Jews had only spiritual leaders left: the scribes-teachers of the Law of God, the Pharisees and Sadducees - religious aristocratic parties. Striving for power and wealth, they hated Roman rule and dreamed of a Messiah - a savior who would free them from foreigners. They did not expect the suffering Christ, the redeemer of their sins.

Conception: virgin or illegitimate?

Who are the mother and father of Jesus Christ? There is no use in the endless search for evidence of the virgin birth, the exact date of the Birth of Christ, and other facts confirming church dogmas. This is a matter of faith, which does not require proof, but is accepted by the heart as the truth necessary for it. “Behold, the Virgin will receive with child...” Translating these words of the prophet Isaiah into Greek, righteous Simeon the God-Receiver wanted to write: “young woman.” Church tradition says that he lived 360 years to see the Virgin Born. But in the Greek translation it remains: “Parthenos”, i.e. Virgo!

God the Word incarnates on Earth as He should - in a miraculous way. Not everything can be accommodated by the human mind, because it is not equal to the Divine. This requires humility. Anyone who does not want to humble himself, let him repeat, after the Jews who betrayed Christ, the gossip about the “illegitimate son of a married woman.” By the way, according to the law of Moses, Joseph had to stone Mary to death if the child was illegitimate. His own son would have remained in history as “Jesus, the son of Joseph,” and not “Jesus, the son of Mary,” as the two holy books testify - the Gospel and the Koran.

Notes

[lebed.com/2008/art5311.htm JESUS OF ARAMEIAN]
[www.bbc.co.uk/russian/society/2012/07/120709_aramaic_revival.shtml Aramaic people want to resurrect the language of the times of Christ]
[www.answering-islam.org/russian/authors/register/nt-language.html Language of the New Testament]
[www.alexandrmen.ru/books/son_max/son_10.html about. Alexander Men. Son of Man. Ch.10]
[www.lio.ru/archive/vera/76/08/article20.html Cancer]
[halkidon2006.orthodoxy.ru/do/bogoslovie_1/880_Strasti_Hristovy.htm “Release Barabbas to us”]
[www.vestnik57.ru/page/pervye-posle-boga First after God]
[messianicministry.info/Beth-Chesdah.htm Bethesda]

Pedigree of Mary

Mary's parents, according to the Gospel of Luke, lived in Nazareth of Galilee and were devout Jews. At the age of three, the girl was sent to the Jerusalem Temple, the high priest accepted her as a representative of the Davidic family and brought her into the Holy of Holies - a place where the priests themselves enter once a year. After conception, Mary stayed in Jerusalem for three months with her relative, the mother of John the Baptist. Elizabeth came from the family of Aaron, the first Jewish priest. So, the future Mother of God was one hundred percent Jewish and was related to the high priest Aaron and King David.

Husband, guardian, betrothed?

The Law of Moses did not allow adult girls to be left at the Temple. They were given back to their parents or married off. Maria's elderly parents had died by that time, and she categorically refused to get married. Then the orphan girl was betrothed to the elderly and poor carpenter Joseph, 80 years old, from her hometown of Nazareth. They were distant relatives. The genealogy of Joseph the Betrothed went back to King David. For the census announced by Emperor Tiberius, he came to the city of David - Bethlehem, where Christ was born.

Joseph's life's feat began after the Annunciation, when he began to notice that Mary was pregnant. A storm of internal thoughts offered different ways out of the situation: stone them, let them go, recognize the unborn child as their son and cover up the shame...

The fact remains that he did not recognize Christ as his son, was not his father in the flesh, but did not leave Mary either in the Nativity den, or during the flight to Egypt, or during his life in a foreign land, when the Virgin Mary and Child were especially defenseless.

Mova of Christ. Aramaic linguistic secrets

After a long break, I decided to resume our linguistic journey around the world. But today it will be of an unusual nature. Our path today lies not so much in a new stop on our path as it is temporary. For several years now I have been planning to watch a mystical thriller on this topic, called “Stigmata,” but I just can’t make up my mind. Perhaps its description as a horror film is stopping me, and I don't really welcome horror. Although I admit honestly that I like mysticism much more than horror; at least after mysticism you don’t fall into depression. Perhaps for me this is the line that I try not to cross. 10 years ago, one day at work I watched two horror films in a row, I even remember their names: “Reincarnation” by Takashi Miike and “Final Destination 3.” From time to time I often had to jump up from my seat due to certain scenes. This is despite the fact that I didn’t watch them from the very beginning. As a result, by the end of the working day my face was linen. Since then, I not only don’t watch horror films at all, I don’t even go to the cinema to see their premieres; one single time, caused by ordinary curiosity, was quite enough, and I am an impressionable person by nature, and horror is strictly contraindicated for impressionable people. So the point here is not so much about medical (psychiatric) recommendations, but about ordinary common sense. Agree, you, for example, would not leave an infant in a dark room to watch a movie about Slenderman or, worse, about Jason Voorhees from “Friday the 13th” (or about Norman Bates from Hitchcock’s “Psycho”)! If you watch a horror movie all alone, the effect of watching it can affect your inner balance much more. In addition, if your room is darkened, it is akin to a thermonuclear/hydrogen bomb exploding in your nervous system. Looks like I really intimidated some of you with this? Maybe. I’ll try to defuse the heat of passion a little and move directly to the topic. Why did I suddenly mention the painting “Stigmata”? If any of you have watched Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ", you will have noticed that it is staged not in English, but in Latin and Aramaic. And in the film “Stigmata,” the heroine of Patricia Arquette (hairdresser Frankie Page) begins to speak ancient Aramaic during the film; This happens somewhere after half an hour to forty minutes of viewing (I don’t know exactly). Wounds appear on her body that Christ had when he was crucified, and a crown of thorns appears on her head. The culprit is ordinary monastic rosary, which she bought in Brazil, and which turned out to be cursed. Her mission becomes fatal: she is obliged to convey in this language a prophecy that will shake the foundations of the Catholic Church.

What was the Aramaic language?
In general, it should be said that there is no unified Aramaic language. All Aramaic languages can be divided into two large groups: western (Palestine, Damascus) and eastern (central Syria and Mesopotamia). The largest number of written monuments of both groups has been preserved in Jewish sources: the Targums, the Jerusalem Talmud (western group), the Babylonian Talmud (eastern group). In addition to these large texts, there are a huge number of smaller documents of various genres, as well as glosses (Aramaic words interspersed in texts in other languages). Lexical units of Aramaic origin are also noticeable in the vocabulary of the modern Yiddish language (it is assumed that the Hebrew-Aramaic languages were the main means of communication of Jews from the first centuries AD until the widespread use of the Yiddish language). Originally the language of the Aramean nomads of the 3rd - 2nd millennium BC, it later became the language of interethnic communication in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Assyrian language (a descendant of Aramaic) is still alive and spoken today. Initially (the first half of the 2nd millennium BC), the Aramaic tribes roamed north of the Arabian Peninsula in Mesopotamia and Syria, where they later established themselves. There was no single Aramaic language at that time. The tribes spoke different, similar dialects. The massive invasion of the South Aramaic tribes (Chaldeans) and the Aramaic tribes living west of the Euphrates began at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. From about the 9th century. BC. The Aramaic language began to spread more and more in Syria and Mesopotamia. Gradually, it replaced the Akkadian language in Mesopotamia, which, starting from the period of the Neo-Babylonian state (XII - VI centuries BC), became the language of writing. During the Achaemenid era (VI - IV centuries BC), the Aramaic language spread throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. The most ancient inscriptions in Aramaic are: the Bar-Rekaba inscription (mid-8th century BC), the Panammu inscription (late 9th - early 8th centuries BC). On the island of Elephantine on the Nile, an archive with papyri written in Aramaic (business documents) (5th century BC) was found. Some chapters of the Bible were also written in Aramaic (part of the book of Ezra (5th century BC), part of the book of the prophet Daniel (2nd century BC). Palmyraan (2nd century) and Nabataean inscriptions are also known (III BC - 1st century).Starting from the first centuries A.D., numerous literature in Aramaic has reached us.The dialects in which it is written differ into two dialects: Western Aramaic (Syria, Palestine) and Eastern Aramaic or Babylonian (Mesopotamia). There are minor grammatical and lexical differences between the dialects. Literary monuments in Western Aramaic: translations of biblical books (Targum Onkelos of the 2nd century, Targum of Jonathan of the 4th century). Aramaic parts of the Jerusalem Talmud and Midrash were written in Western Aramaic. Among the Samaritans , who spoke the Aramaic dialect, have their own translation of the Pentateuch (IV century) and other texts.Literary monuments in the Eastern Aramaic dialect: Aramaic parts of the Babylonian Talmud (V century), works written by the Jews of Babylonia (before the 10th century), the first Karaite works , texts of the Mandaean sect (VII - IX centuries). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Aramaic_alphabet.jpg?uselang=en Syriac alphabet Syriac is the literary language of the Aramaic Christians, in which numerous literary works were written. The Syriac language became a literary and ecclesiastical language for Aramaic-speaking Christians, who began to call it Syriac. The word “Aramaic” began to mean “pagan” among them. In the II century. All the books of the Old and New Testaments were translated into Syriac. In the III - VII centuries. Numerous religious works, original and translated from Greek, were created in Syriac. Works of Greek philosophy (Aristotle and others) were also translated into this language. The most famous author of that period was Ephraim the Syrian (III century). After the Muslim conquests, the Syriac language began to be replaced by Arabic and by the 11th century. ceased to be colloquial, remaining literary and ecclesiastical. In post-biblical times, Aramaic, along with Hebrew, became the language of Judaism. Part of the Old Testament and a large share of Talmudic literature were written in Aramaic; Christianity also arose in the Aramaic language environment. Jesus Christ delivered his sermons in Aramaic. Asian churches such as the Nestorian, Chaldean and Maronite used the Syriac language in their books and services, i.e. Christian Aramaic language. Pagan cults continued to exist in the Aramaic language environment; Thus, the religious sect of the Mandaeans, which still exists today (modern Iran and Iraq; several hundred Mandaeans also live in the USA and Australia), have preserved sacred books written in the Mandaean dialect of the Aramaic language; this dialect is also used as a language of worship, and its more modern form , according to some data, is used in everyday communication by approximately 1 thousand people in Iran; other Iranian Mandaeans speak Farsi, and Iraqi Mandaeans speak Arabic. If we adhere to the logic of the modern world, then Jesus Christ, born in Judea, was a Jew and spoke Hebrew. If we adhere to church logic, then Jesus, the Son of Man, could speak any language at all, since, like his Heavenly Father, he understood any human language. Moreover, “speaking in tongues” was considered in those centuries a sign of the prophetic gift. So what language did Jesus speak? From the Gospels we know that Jesus came from the family of David, the mother of Jesus was Mary from Galilee, and the father was God himself, although old Joseph was considered the boy’s earthly father. In those distant times, such a genealogy did not bother people, but even then it suggested some bad thoughts: in Jerusalem, when Jesus appeared there, rumors persistently circulated about his illegitimacy. And although Jewish genealogy is calculated through the mother, for Orthodox Jews Jesus was in no way a Jew. Maybe because of such a piquant detail of the genealogy, it was necessary to urgently give the maiden Mary, dedicated to the temple, to the old man Joseph. If some Jewish youth had been the father of the unborn child, he would have been forced to marry the girl to cover his sin. But even if the rumors had an obvious basis, for Jesus himself this origin from a non-Jew, that is, from a goy, did not matter. And who the alleged father was by origin - Latin or Greek - is completely unimportant: Jesus did not know his father and was not raised by him. Joseph took over the upbringing and urgently took his Mary from dangerous Judea to Egypt, out of reach of King Herod. And young Jesus stayed in that Egypt for quite a long time, since in Jerusalem we see him in the Gospels only twelve years later. The Aramaic alphabet was developed around the late 10th to early 9th centuries BC. and replaced Assyrian cuneiform as the main writing system of the Assyrian empire. The Aramaic alphabet, as well as the Kharoshtha alphabet, became the ancestor of the alphabets of a number of Semitic languages. In the third millennium BC. The Aramaic alphabet gave rise to a number of other alphabets: Syriac, Nabataean, Palmyrene and the Hebrew alphabet. The Aramaic alphabet itself comes from the Phoenician alphabet, which was the main one in the Middle East and Asia at the end of the Assyrian Empire from 1000 to 600 BC. The Aramaic alphabet contains only consonant letters. Writing direction: from right to left. At the phonological level, the Aramaic language is characterized by features in the transmission of proto-Semitic consonants, which make it possible to note clear and stable correspondences between the consonantal systems of both languages. At the morphological level, the Aramaic language is characterized by the so-called emphatic state of names and a number of features in the verbal system. At the level of syntax, the Aramaic language is characterized by a relatively wide development of analytical constructions. The following historical forms of the Aramaic language are distinguished: - Old Aramaic (from the end of the 2nd millennium to 700 BC); - Imperial Aramaic language (700–300 BC); - Middle Aramaic language (300 BC - first centuries AD); - Late Aramaic dialects (through the 14th–15th centuries AD); - New Aramaic dialects. https://i2.wp.com/linguapedia.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/aramaicimp.gif?resize=572%2C210 Imperial Aramaic alphabet The name Imperial Aramaic was assigned to one of the forms of the Aramaic language used in as the official language of business in the Iranian Achaemenid Empire, which stretched from Northwestern India to Egypt. During this period, the Aramaic language begins to displace Hebrew among some Jews, first outside the borders, and then into Eretz Israel. Aramaic monuments from this period include documents from the Jewish colony at Elephantine; the fragmented text of the story about Ahikar discovered with them (see Ahikar book); Aramaic portions of the books of Ezra (4:8–6:18; 7:12–26) and Daniel (2:4–7:28). The Middle Aramaic language most likely originated in Eretz Israel and is represented mainly by monuments of the Jewish cultural area, among which are o (Aramaic translation of the Bible) and “Targum Jonathan” (Aramaic translation of the book of the Prophets; see Bible. Editions and translations; Targum; Onkelos and Aquila); Aramaic manuscripts from the Dead Sea area (see Dead Sea Scrolls) and letters of Bar Kochba. https://i2.wp.com/linguapedia.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/aramaic2.gif?resize=599%2C198 Square script of the Aramaic language During this period, intensive displacement of Hebrew continued as the spoken language of the Jews of Eretz- Israel is Aramaic, and the latter becomes the spoken language of the main part of the Jewish population. Aramaic was used as a literary language by the Nabateans during this period. Inscriptions in Aramaic are recorded in the area where it acted as a language of constant communication (Dura-Europos, Palmyra, Hatra in modern Iraq), as well as outside this area (Northern India, Afghanistan, Iran, Central Asia, the Caucasus). Late Aramaic dialects are divided into two groups: the western, which includes Galilean Aramaic, Palestinian Christian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic, and the eastern, which includes Babylonian Hebrew Aramaic, Syriac Christian Aramaic and Mandaean. The Aramaic dialect of Galilee is the language of the Aramaic portions of the Jerusalem Talmud. It also contains aggadic midrashim, Palestinian business documents, Aramaic documents from the Gaonic period found in the Cairo Geniza, and inscriptions from synagogues discovered during archaeological excavations in Eretz Israel. These monuments cover the period from the 3rd century. n. e. until the beginning of the 2nd millennium. Obviously, already at the beginning of this period, the Aramaic language completely replaced Hebrew as the spoken language of the Jewish population of Eretz Israel. The speakers of the Palestinian Christian-Aramaic dialect were, obviously, the Jews of Judea who converted to Christianity. All texts discovered so far in this language, written in one of the types of the Syriac alphabet, are translations from Greek. Samaritan-Aramaic was the spoken language of the Samaritans, apparently until the turn of the 1st millennium AD. e., but even after the fall of its colloquial function, it retained the importance of a literary language for them. Babylonian Hebrew-Aramaic is the language of the Aramaic portions of the Babylonian Talmud (hence the name "Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud" often attached to it). It also contains texts originating from Babylonia during the Gaonic period, the writings of Anan ben David, etc. Apparently, it continued to be spoken by at least some of the Jews of Babylonia until the end of the Gaonic period (mid-11th century). The influence he had on Hebrew as a written language of the Middle Ages and modern times is very significant. Significant layers of modern Hebrew vocabulary go back to the Aramaic language of the Babylonian Talmud. Syriac Christian-Aramaic (also called the Syriac language) continued to be the literary language of some Christian churches in the Middle East even after it was replaced as a spoken Arabic (for a significant part of its speakers this process was basically completed, apparently already by the end of the 1st century). millennium AD); it remains the cult language of these churches to this day. Mandaean is the language of the sacred books of a specific Gnostic sect, small adherents of which remain to this day in a number of areas in southeastern Iraq and southwestern Iran. New Aramaic dialects are represented by three groups: dialects of the Muslim and Christian population of three villages in the Malula region (Northern Syria); dialects of the Christian population of the Tur Abdin region (Southern Türkiye); Aramaic dialects of Kurdistan and a number of adjacent areas, spoken by Christians and Jews (the modern spoken language of the Mandaeans also belongs to this group). Christians who speak dialects of this group call themselves Assyrians (Athurai). Some of them fled to Russia during the First World War, where they are often referred to as “Aisors,” which they themselves consider offensive. On the basis of one of the dialects of this group, the modern literary language of Christian Assyrians (Assyrian or New Assyrian language) developed. The overwhelming majority of Jews - speakers of dialects of this group (about 20 thousand people) now live in Israel. The opinion that the New Aramaic dialects they speak are a direct development of the Aramaic language of the Babylonian Talmud has recently undergone significant revision: apparently, these are the dialects adopted by the Jews of the population in whose midst they lived. The main characteristic features of A. i. Among others, Semitic. languages, in particular among the languages of the North-West. groups, Aram. distinguished by the following features: according to the composition of consonant phonemes, the so-called. classic aram. different from the ancient Hebrew. the absence and other origin of certain consonants; reduction of an unstressed short vowel in an open syllable. The definite state of a name is expressed by an article attached to the end of the word. Aramaisms . The following common nouns and proper names, as well as sentences, are considered lexical Aramaisms (some of the Aramaisms listed below can be considered as Hebraisms, since it cannot be excluded that among the spoken languages of Palestine in the New Testament period there was Heb. ): Abba (Mk 14.36; Rom 8.15; Gal 4.6) - Greek. ἀββά; Akeldama (Acts 1.19) - Greek. ̓Αχελδαμάχ. ; Barabbas (Mt 27.16; Mk 15.7; Lk 23.19; Jn 18.40) - Greek. Βαραββᾶς (son of Abba); Bartholomew (Mt 10.3; Mk 3.18; Lk 6.14; Acts 1.13) - Greek. Βαρθολομαῖος (son of Talmai); Variisus (Acts 13.6) - Greek. Βαριησοῦς (son of Jesus); Barnabas (Acts 4.36; 9.27; 11.2, 30, etc.) - Greek. Βαρναβᾶς (son of Nabu); Barsabas (Acts 1.23; 15.22) - Greek. Βαρσαβ(β)ᾶς (son of the elder) or (son of the Sabbath); Bartimaeus (Mk 10.46) - Greek. Βαρτιμαῖος (son of Timaeus); Beelzebub (Mt 10.25; 12.24; Lk 11.18 ff.; Mk 3.22) - Greek. Βεελζεβούλ; from Matthew 10.25 it is clear that this name is interpreted as “master of the house” (Greek οἰκοδεσπότης) - the owner of the (heavenly) dwelling, cf.: 1 Samuel 8.13; Isa 63.15; Hab 3.11; Ps 49.15; Bethsaida (Mt 11.21; Mk 6.45; 8.22; Lk 9.10; Jn 1.44; 12.21) - Greek. Βηθσαιδά - house of hunting (fishing); Boanerges (Mk 3.17) - Greek. Βοανηργές is rendered as “sons of thunder” (Greek υἱοὶ βροντῆς) - sons of thunder; gavvafa (John 19.13) - Greek. Γαββαθά presumably - a dish or elevation; Gehenna (Mt 5.28; Mk 9.45; Lk 12.5, etc.) - Greek. γέεννα - the valley of Ginnom, as well as Gehenna, hell; Golgotha - Greek Γολγοθᾶ in Matthew 27.33 and Mark 15.22 is rendered as “place of the forehead”, lit. “place of the skull” (Greek Κρανίου Τόπος), in Luke 23.33 as “skull” (Greek Κρανίον) - skull; Ephphatha (Mk 7.34) - Greek. ἐφφαθά rendered as διανοίχθητι - open; Kananit - Greek. Κανανίτης (Mt 10.4; Mk 3.18); in Luke 6.15; Acts 1.13 and in the “Gospel of the Ebionites” it is replaced by ςηλωτής - zealot, zealot; Cephas (1 Cor 1. 12; 3. 22; 9. 5; Gal 1. 18; 2. 9, 14) - Greek. Κηφᾶς, in John 1.42 rendered as Πέτρος - rock; corvan (Mt 27.6) - Greek. κορβᾶν; in Mark 7.11 it is rendered as δῶρον - sacrifice; mammon (Mt 6.24; Lk 16.13) - Greek. μαμωνᾶς - property, money; maran-afa (1 Cor 16.22) - Greek. μαράνα θά - Our Lord has come or - Our Lord, come; Martha (Luke 10.38, 40 ff.; John 11.1, 5, 19-39; 12.2) - Greek. Μάρθα - lady; Messiah (John 1.41; 4.25) - Greek. Μεσσίας, both times rendered as Χριστός - anointed, messiah; measure (Mt 13.33; Lk 13.21) - Greek. σάτον - measure; Easter (Mt 26.2; Mk 14.1; Lk 2.41, etc.) - Greek. πάσχα - Easter holiday, Easter meal, Easter sacrifice; rabbi (Mk 10.51; John 20.16) - Greek. ῥαββουνί, in parallel places - Matthew 20.33; Luke 18.41 is replaced by κύριε, in John 20.16 it is rendered as διδάσκαλε - my Master, Lord; cancer (Matt 5.22) - Greek. ῥακά - empty, worthless person; Saturday (Mt 12.1 ff.; Mk 1.21; Lk 13.14, etc.) - Greek. σάββατα - Saturday; Sapphira (Acts 5.1) - Greek. Σάπφιρα - beauty; Satan (Mt 4.10; Mk 1.13; Lk 10.18, etc.) - Greek. σατανᾶς, in Matthew 13.19 replaced by ὁ πονερός - villain, in Luke 4.2; 8. 12 - on ὁ διάβολος - devil - contradictory, Satan; strong drink (Luke 1.15) - Greek. σίκερα - beer, alcoholic drink; Strength (Acts 15.22, 27, 32, 40, etc.) - Greek. Σιλᾶς - begged; Tabitha (Acts 9.36, 40) - Greek. Ταβιθά is interpreted as Δορκάς - gazelle; "Talitha kumi" - Greek. “ταλιθὰ κουμ(ι)” in Mark 5.41 is rendered as “τὸ κοράσιον… ἔγειρε” - girl, stand up, in Luke 8. 54 “ἡ παῖς, ἔγειρε” - child, stand up - maiden, stand up; Thomas - Greek Θωμᾶς (Mt 10.3; Mk 3.18; Lk 6.15; in John 11.16; 20.24; 21.2 with the addition of ὁ λεγόμενος Δίδυμος - called the Twin) - twin; church treasury (Matthew 27.6) - Greek. κορβανᾶς - offering; Joseph Flavius so calls the treasury of the temple (Judus. War II 9. 4); “Eloi! Eloi! lamma sabachthani? (MK 15. 34; see also Matthew 27. 46) - Greek. “Ἐλωῒ ἐλωῒ λαμὰ σαβαβάνι” is transmitted as “ὁ θεός μου, ὁ θεός μου, εἰς τί μέλιπές με” = aram. “My God, my God, why did you leave me?” The Aramaic tribes of their state never created, that is, Aramaic has never been a state language anywhere. But starting from the 1st millennium BC. e. This language (more precisely, its numerous dialects) replaced the Akkadian language prevailing in this territory, performing the same function - interethnic communication. Aramaic languages belong to the group of Semitic languages, and numerous tribes that inhabited Syria in ancient times spoke these languages. Moreover, each tribe had its own dialect. The differences in pronunciation were leveled only to the era of Jesus, when one of the dialects of Aramaic became the dominant and even called the imperial Aramaic language. Even in the heart of Judaism, Jerusalem, merchants spoke Aramaic, since they had to trade not only with the Hellenized World, where Greek was more, but also with wild margins, where they did not know Greek. But ordinary residents of Jerusalem Aramaic did not speak poorly, the games of words on this, they did not understand the language alien to them. This explains that the students from the Jewish environment asked their teacher explanations, losing the meaning of what was said by him. And the students who came from remote occupying zones, where the Greek language was also received. It is true that only the inhabitants of Galilee could understand Jesus. And it is no accident that Jesus brought closer to himself and loved those who understood him the most - his brothers, his compatriots. The inhabitants of the Jews did not belong to these elected ones. So, most likely, although Jesus knew Greek and Latin, he used these languages to obtain information and conduct disputes with opponents. On Greek, he was forced to speak with those of his students who were not Judaists. Hebrew as a sacred language was used for religious purposes. On it, Jesus read and interpreted sacred texts. Jesus prayed on it. But the native language was Aramaic for him. True, what kind of Aramaic dialect - none of the researchers knows this. Of course, not the imperial Aramaic, which was a language unified to the needs of interethnic communication. And a living dialect that his family spoke in. One we know for sure - this is the dialect of Aramaic from Galilee. And it was in his native language that Jesus called heavenly to his father when he was tied to the cross and left to die. "Eloi, Eloi, Lamma Savakhfani!" He told his God from the cross. The ordinary Jerusalem people did not understand him, they decided that he was crying for the prophet Elijah. And he only shouted to the sky: "My God, my God, why did you leave me?" In the native Aramaic dialect. Today, the number of native speakers of the Aramaic (New Assyrian) language is 2.5 million people, and Wikipedia contains a section in this language. ܘܝܩܝܦܕܝܐ ܕܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ! Prayer "Our Father" on Aramaic: Avvon D-Bish-Maiya, Nith-Qaddash Shim-Mukh. Tih-teh mal-chootukh. NIH-WEH çiw-yanukh: ei-chana d'a-maiya: ap b'ar-ah. Haw Lan Lakh-Ma d'Oonqa-Nan Yoo-Mana. O'SHWOOQ LAN KHO-BEIN: EI-CHANA D'NAN SHWIQ-QAN L'AYA-WEEN. OO'LA TE-ELAN L'NISS-IOONA: Il-la Paç-Can Min Beesha. MID-TIL DE-Di-LUKH HAI MAL-ChOOOOTA OO Khai-la oo tush-nowokh-ta l'alm al -mein. Aa-meen. Used sources: Wikipedia, Lingvisto.org, NLR.ru, Pravenc.ru, Eleven.co.il, Linguapedia.info, X- Files.org.ua

Who is My Mother? And who are my brothers? (Matt. 12:46)

The biographical details of Christ are described in the Bible. It says that the Baby born in the Bethlehem cave was circumcised on the eighth day according to Jewish custom and received the name Jesus, which translates as “savior.” He was raised by his parents in the Jewish faith, and there is no reason to deny his belonging to this society. And he himself, in a conversation with a Samaritan woman, said: “We know what we worship, for salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22).

What is the nationality of Jesus Christ? He incarnated and lived among the Jews, and this is their glory: they raised in their midst the only one worthy of being the Mother of God. But according to the laws of levirate, a person’s genealogy is traced through the paternal line. The father passes on the properties of the family by inheritance. Christ's mother was and remained a Virgin; he had no earthly father. Therefore, He does not fit into the narrow framework of Jewish chosenness and isolation, and breaks the ties of blood relationship. When his mother and brothers stood at the door to take him home, he replied that those who do the will of the Heavenly Father are his relatives. This means that the nationality of Jesus Christ is not determined. There is no Greek, no Jew, no barbarian, no Scythian in Him; He incarnated to unite all peoples into a new – spiritual – community. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

Speaking in tongues is not a necessary sign for all Christians and for all situations

Nowhere does it say that these signs are to follow all Christians in all situations. Even more, throughout the New Testament we see that the apostles never sought to impress anyone with this sign, and many times it happened without them seeking or asking for it. Here is an example from the Holy Scriptures.

When the Apostle Paul was being taken to Rome, their ship was shipwrecked and those who escaped were able to swim to the shore of the island of Malta. I once had the opportunity to teach at a theological school in Malta and was right on the shore where people say Paul and others sailed. When we reached the shore, this is what happened:

When Paul gathered a lot of brushwood and put it on the fire, then a viper came out from the heat and hung on his hand. The foreigners, when they saw a snake hanging on his hand (proof that he had been bitten and the snake was holding him with poisonous teeth), said to each other: surely this man is a murderer (there were some of them on this ship with Paul), when he Those saved from the sea are not allowed to live by God's judgment. (Acts of the Apostles 28:3-4)

These were normal human thoughts. They did not know how much Paul loved the Lord and what message Paul came to them with. God, from the moment Paul set foot on this island, began to prepare the context and draw people to Paul, who was to carry the gospel message. The snake was sent by God and was a sign for the people to pay attention to Paul's message and see that God was with Paul. Let's see what it says next:

But he, having shaken the snake into the fire, did not suffer any harm. (I seemed to imagine how everyone took their breath away from what they saw...) They expected that he would have inflammation, or that he would suddenly fall dead; but, having waited a long time and seeing that no trouble had happened to him, they changed their minds and said that he was God. (Acts of the Apostles 28:5-6)

There Paul was healed in front of many people. Although Scripture does not specifically say how he preached or what the result of his preaching was, from the context of the entire book of Acts, we know with certainty that this is what he did in the first place. And then, the proof may be that today Malta, although not a large island, has a lot of churches. What impressed me most was that on any day of the week and at any time, when I entered the church, I found people there praying and praising God.

Do you want to know how speaking in new tongues that Jesus Christ spoke about manifests itself? The book of Acts of the Apostles presents three specific instances where this sign was manifested. I invite you to visit this portal and read about it in the article that will be published soon.

Translation: Moses Natalya

The language spoken by Jesus Christ

What language did Jesus Christ speak? “Of course, in Hebrew,” the answer immediately suggests itself. But we must not forget that there was no longer a single Jewish state as such at the time of Jesus Christ. And the Hebrew language itself has undergone great changes.

The language of the Old Testament, Hebrew, was widespread in Judea: they prayed in it, had theological conversations, and communicated.

So what language did Jesus Christ speak? In Galilee, where the Son of God lived most of his earthly life, the language spoken was Aramaic: a kind of colloquial Hebrew that was heavily influenced by the Semitic language of the Aramaic nomads. This language was livelier and richer than the prim Hebrew, like life in Galilee itself.

In all the territories conquered by Alexander the Great, including Palestine, the population spoke Koine Greek, which allowed people of different nationalities to understand each other.

And finally, Judea became part of the Roman state, where the official language was Latin.

Aramaic as the mother tongue of Jesus of Nazareth

We continue the publication of essays by Sergei Lezov 1, professor at the Institute of Classical Oriental and Antiquity at the Higher School of Economics, dedicated to the study and documentation of Aramaic languages. See previous notes in the series: [, , , , ]. By tradition, we preserve the author's punctuation.

Christ Pantocrator from the Sinai Monastery (VI century)

Now Nazareth of Galilee is a city in Israel inhabited predominantly by Arabs, that is, the native language of the majority of its residents is Palestinian Arabic. This is where Jesus was born and where he probably spent most of his life. In the time of Jesus, Nazareth was an Aramaic village, similar to the Aramaic villages of Turabdin where I work with Turoyo speakers. (Until recently, almost everything in the material culture of these villages was like in the Early Iron Age.)

How did it happen that in Galilee, the homeland of Jesus, they began to speak Aramaic? To answer this question, I will have to start from afar. In Palestine and Transjordan (Ammon, Moab, Edom) around 1000 BC. e. spoke dialects of the Canaanite group. The Canaanite languages are a subgroup of the Semitic languages, "sister" to the Aramaic subgroup. One of the Canaanite dialects became the basis of the Hebrew literary language in which the Hebrew Bible was written. The ancient Canaanite languages also include Phoenician (on the Mediterranean coast north of Palestine) and, probably, Ugaritic (even further north on the same coast). The rest of the Levant already around 1000 BC. e. spoke Aramaic dialects.

In the book of Genesis (31:47)2 the boundary between the Hebrew language (to the south) and the Aramaic language (to the north) is drawn in Transjordan along “Mount Gilead” (har hag-gilʕāḏ). There Laban and his nephew Jacob set up a boundary mark. Laban called this boundary mark in Aramaic yġar ŝāhḏūṯā “mound of testimony” (Aramaic *ŝāhiḏ “witness” is a word with the same root as the Arabic šahīd “witness”, “martyr for the faith”, that is, “martyr”), but Jacob called it by -Hebrew gal-ʕeḏ (‛mound of the witness'). This is an episode oversaturated with political meaning: the closest relatives, nephew and uncle, are no longer “one people.” As it turns out, they speak different, albeit related, languages.

In 2 Kings 18:26 and in the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 36:11), officials of King Hezekiah of Judah engage in public dialogue with the general of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. It was around 700 BC. e., when the Assyrian army besieged Jerusalem. The Jewish dignitaries ask the Assyrian commander to speak Aramaic (ʔărāmīṯ), the international language spoken by the elites of both sides, rather than Hebrew (yhūḏīṯ) so that “the men on the [Jerusalem] wall,” i.e., the Jewish soldiers and militias, could not follow the content of the negotiations. Therefore, at that time the native language of the inhabitants of Judea was the local Canaanite dialect, and they did not know Aramaic.

The inhabitants of Galilee then also had Hebrew as their native language. The change in the linguistic situation in the northern part of Palestine is explained by the fact that Israel (or the "Northern Kingdom", the historical regions of Samaria and Galilee ) was in 722 BC. e. conquered by the Assyrian Empire. After this, part of the Jewish population of Israel was deported from Palestine. According to 2 Kings 17:24, the “king of Assyria” brought people from various areas of the Assyrian Empire Samaria Indeed, the annals of Sargon II mention forced population transfers to Samaria. It is possible that some of the deportees spoke Aramaic dialects. Thus, in 2 Kings 17:24, immigrants from Hamath are mentioned: probably we are talking about a well-known city on the Orontes River in Western Syria, captured by the Assyrians in 738 BC. e. Its inhabitants, speakers of the Western Aramaic dialect, were deported from their ancestral territory to Samaria. As a result, Western Aramaic dialects became the native languages of almost the entire population of Samaria.

In Judea, Hebrew began to decline after it was introduced in 586 BC. e. Jerusalem was taken and destroyed by the Babylonians, and part of the population was deported to Babylonia. About 50 years later, the Babylonian Empire fell, and Mesopotamia and Palestine became part of the Iranian Achaemenid Empire. Soon after this, the repatriation of Jews from Babylonia began to the Achaemenid administrative region of Judea, the center of which was Jerusalem. The native language of the repatriates is unknown; it could be the Eastern Aramaic Babylonian dialect or Hebrew. It can be assumed that some groups of immigrants spoke Hebrew, while others spoke Aramaic. The Hebrew Bible (1 Ezra 4:2) mentions that the first wave of repatriates found in the vicinity of Jerusalem a population whose ancestors had been resettled to Palestine by the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (ruled 680–669 BC). 1 Ezra 9:2 says that in the 5th century B.C. e. the descendants of the repatriates married women belonging, in particular, to the “Canaanites,” “Hittites,” and “Amorites.” Since in the Persian era there were no such peoples in Palestine for a long time, this message should be understood as a well-known cliché from the Hebrew Bible, in context pointing to non-Jewish ethnic groups that, in all likelihood, appeared in Judea relatively shortly before the events described in the book of Ezra . In Nehemiah 13:24, the Jewish nationalist leader Nehemiah complains that half of the children of immigrants from mixed marriages “cannot speak Hebrew (yhūḏīṯ),” but they speak “Ashdod” and “the languages of other nations,” of which their mothers come from.

About the fact that in the 5th century BC. e. Some of the inhabitants of Judea (or recent immigrants from it) had Aramaic as their native language, as evidenced by the Imperial Aramaic archive from Elephantine in Egypt, where the same person was sometimes designated as yhwdy “Judean” (originating from Judea) and ʔrmy “Aramaic” .

As for Galilee , its ethnolinguistic history between the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC. e. and the Hasmonean conquest of these places at the turn of the 2nd–1st centuries BC. e. poorly traceable. Archaeological research in recent decades indicates the de-urbanization of Galilee after it was conquered by Assyria, and also that, from the end of the Persian period, Semitic population groups whose native languages may have been Phoenician and Aramaic moved into Galilee from the north. The situation became relatively clear only from the end of the 2nd century BC. e., i.e. from the Hasmonean conquest of Galilee. According to archeology, during the Hasmonean period, the colonization of Galilee from the south began, that is, its settlement by immigrants from Judea, and it continued until the end of the 1st century AD. e.3

Thus, Aramaic dialects were probably the native languages of the majority of Jews throughout Palestine during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods.

Among other things, this assumption is confirmed by the following facts:

Most of the book of Daniel, probably the latest book to be included in the Jewish canon of Scripture (its content dates back to the mid-2nd century BC), is written in Imperial Aramaic. It is natural to assume that the target audience of this work (most likely the Jews of Palestine) was fluent in one of the Western Aramaic dialects, close to the literary “imperial” one.

In the Hasmonean state (142–37 BC), despite its conservative religious-nationalist ideology, the written language was not Hebrew, but the Jerusalem variant of Imperial Aramaic. (I hope to write a separate post about this language.)

Non-literary epigraphic texts from Second Temple-era Palestine are written primarily in Aramaic (with the beginning of the Roman period, the number of inscriptions in Greek increases). In order to determine the functional relationship between the Hebrew and Aramaic languages in this era, the most interesting is the epigraphic evidence of the period after 37 BC. e., since Aramaic at that time lost its status as an official language in Palestine in favor of Greek. Many epitaphs from that period are written in Aramaic. Here is a popular Aramaic warning to would-be tomb robbers: lʔ lmptḥ /lā limeptaḥ / “Do not open!”

Written monuments of 66–73 AD. e. (that is, the era of the “Jewish War”, or “great rebellion”) from Masada, a fortress at the southern tip of the Dead Sea, which in those years was a stronghold of the Zealots (radical Jewish nationalists), are also written mainly in Aramaic.

During the years of the Jewish War (67–70 AD), the final edition of the Mourning Scroll (mġillaṯ taʕnīṯ) was created; This calendar text lists national holidays on which public mourning is prohibited. The joyful events that the Scroll recalls are mainly victories in the Maccabean Wars, that is, during the early Hasmonean period. The fact that around 70 AD e. the normative religious document was written (as opposed to later practice) in Aramaic rather than Hebrew, suggesting that Aramaic was the most natural means of communication between the Scroll's compilers and its recipients.

Palestine (40 BC–70 AD). From Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (TAVO), BV 17. Tübingen, 1993

Against this background, what can be said about the language of Jesus? The question splits in two.

Firstly , what languages and to what extent could or should he speak in the first half of the 1st century AD? e. a Jew who lived in Nazareth and whose occupation was a craftsman, for example a carpenter? (From Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3 it follows that Jesus inherited the profession of τέκτων from his father, as was the case in traditional society.) Today's ideas about Galilee of the 1st century AD. e. and the evidence of the Gospels allows us to conclude that the native language of such a person was Galilean Aramaic - a language known to us from epigraphy and literary monuments of the 2nd-5th centuries AD. e. There is a difficulty here that I don't know how to solve or get around. Archaeological evidence of the colonization of Galilee from Judea suggests that at the time of Jesus and his parents, the Jews of Galilee may have spoken an Aramaic dialect imported from Judea by settlers of the late Hasmonean and Herodian periods. However, philological evidence indicates that already by the 3rd century AD. e. Galilee had its own Aramaic dialect, which could hardly have grown out of the dialect of Judea, that is, the dialect of the Jews who moved (according to archaeological data) to Galilee from the end of the 2nd century BC. e. Klaus Bayer (1929–2014), in my opinion the most profound researcher of the Aramaic of the “intertestamental” era, identifies (based on the spelling of epigraphic monuments) a number of isoglosses contrasting the Galilean Aramaic with the Aramaic dialect of Judea4. I would think, contrary to archaeological data (they may, to some extent, indicate the origin of the inhabitants of certain places, but not their language), that Galilean Aramaic of the first centuries AD. e. continues the Hellenistic Aramaic vernacular (i.e., the native language of part of the population) of Galilee, whose speakers were partly “pagans”.

Here it is appropriate to mention the data of the synoptic tradition.5 In Matthew 26:73 we read that the servants of the high priest say to Peter, ь and your speech betrays you/is similar (to the Galilean speech of Jesus)'6. It is unlikely that the conversation took place in different languages: the servants of the high priest - in Hebrew, and Peter (who most likely did not know Hebrew) - in Galilean Aramaic. I think that we have here, precious for a dialectologist (and so rare in sources!), synchronic evidence of noticeable differences between the Aramaic dialects of Judea and Galilee.

It must be said that the carpenter could not provide himself with orders in his own village, this was not expected. (These are exactly the same working conditions for a craftsman that existed in the Aramaic villages of Turabdin back in the 1950s–1960s of the last century. Thus, my elderly informant from the village of Kfarze Ḥanna Dewo in his youth was a tinker, mbayḏ̣ono, and in this capacity he walked around the entire Upper Mesopotamia.) It is highly likely that Jesus worked, in particular, in Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee. This city was only six kilometers from Nazareth. As I already mentioned, the official language of all Palestine after 37 BC. e. was Greek, and Galilee was strongly Hellenized at that time; this topic has been well developed in the literature of recent decades. For us this means this: the Jewish population of the cities was well acquainted with Greek. It is possible that some Jews had Greek as their native language, like the Jews of the Diaspora. So it is likely that in Hellenistic Sepphoris and other cities of Galilee, Jesus also dealt with the Greek-speaking Jewish environment and, therefore, was familiar with the Greek language. But I don’t dare say anything more clear about this, since the New Testament does not provide support for further reasoning here.

A carpenter (τέκτων) is a highly professional person; he could earn good money. It is likely that in such families the children received a traditional education, they were taught to read the Hebrew Bible in the original. (In the literature, the question of the status of the Hebrew language as a vernacular in that era remains controversial. I was inclined to think about its early “death”, but now - in the course of work in Turabdin - I see that in neighboring villages members of the same religious communities speak different languages with common other elements of culture, and this reconciled me with the possibility that Aramaic and Hebrew, as vernaculars, could coexist at that time.)

Looking ahead to the second half of the question, I will say that, in my opinion, the New Testament does not provide information about whether Jesus could speak “proto-Mishnaite” Hebrew, presumably the native language of a minority of the Jews of Judea. However, I see no reason to doubt the testimony of the Gospels that Jesus “taught” in the synagogues (cf. Mark 1:21) and read the Scriptures there (Luke 4:16 ff.), undoubtedly in the original. (We’ll talk about the Aramaic targums of that era another time.) If I am required to nuance my understanding of Luke 4:16 ff., then I would say this: that in the evangelist Luke Jesus reads a passage from Isaiah and interprets it as a prophecy about himself , rather fits into the early Christian cultural (mis)appropriation of the Jewish Scriptures as prophecies about Jesus - the Messiah and the Son of God, but the reliability of the reports that Jesus read the Scriptures in the synagogue does not raise any doubts in my mind. As for preaching, in Galilee it was natural to preach in the native language of the speaker and listeners, that is, in Galilean Aramaic.

Secondly , how to evaluate the evidence of the Gospels on our topic? Apparently, their authors proceeded from the assumption that Jesus' native language was Aramaic. This is evidenced, in particular, by the sayings (i.e. sentences with personal forms of the verb) in Aramaic, put into the mouth of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, the oldest of the canonical Gospels: ταλιθα κουμ /ṭalīṯā qūm/ ‛girl, get up!' (Mark 5:41), εφφαθα /eppaṯáḥ/ ‛open!' (Mk 7: 34), λαμα σαβακτανι7 /lamā́ šaḇaqtanī́/ ‛why have you forsaken me?' (Mark 15:34). It is interesting that the entry κουμ conveys a relatively late form of the Aramaic feminine imperative with the apocope of the historical stressed /ī/: *qūmī > qūm; in part of the manuscript tradition of Mk this form is corrected to κουμι under the influence of Hebrew or Biblical Aramaic. In John 1:42, Jesus gives his follower Simon (šemʕōn) the overtly Aramaic nickname Κηφᾶς (= kēp̄ā́); the author explains that this word means πέτρος (“rock; stone”). The religious formula μαραναθα /mārán ʔăṯā́/ “Our lord, come!”, cited by Paul (1 Cor 16:22) and the author of the “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” (Died 10:6), also points to Aramaic as the language of one of the early communities of Jesus’ followers.

The reader of the Gospel of Mark cannot help but notice that there are only three Aramaic sayings of Jesus, and they appear in very “rich” contexts. Twice is healing. Notice how Jesus heals the deaf-mute in Mark 7:32-34: He put his fingers in the deaf-mute's ears, spat on his tongue, and spoke a command, which the author renders in Aramaic, which is the original. It is likely that behind this use of Aramaic imperatives are Mark's "magical" ideas or traditions about how miraculous healings and exorcisms worked. Many typological parallels can be cited here, but I will not be able to say something definite and close the question. In many cultures, sacramental words must be spoken in a non-everyday language that has connotations of “sacredness.” Is it true that for the Evangelist Mark and his readers, spoken Aramaic was no longer a vulgar language (in contrast to Hebrew), but, on the contrary, an attribute of Jesus as a miracle worker? I don't know.

Thinking about the Aramaic words of Jesus on the Cross (which is a literal translation of the Hebrew text Ps 22:2 ʔēlī ʔēlī lāmā ʕăzaḇtānī), I keep remembering how the German biblical scholar Wilhelm Dibelius (1876–1931) once called the work of Mark “the book of secret epiphanies.”8 In the first of them - this is the scene of the revelation to Jesus while washing in the Jordan - Mark writes : “[Jesus] saw the heavens torn apart ...” And at the end of the long description of the execution of Jesus, the last of the secret epiphanies of this book, he writes: "and then the veil of the Temple was torn in two" (1 5:38). That is, Mark, subtly working with the word, rings his story with media-passive forms of the verb σχίζω 'to tear, to separate'. I would say that the Aramaic exclamation of Jesus, “My God, why have you forsaken me,” fits, according to Mark’s plan, into this series as an “anti-epiphany,” but here I am already invading the area of intellectual history, which is contraindicated for a philologist.

So, my conclusion is this: Jesus’ native language was Galilean Aramaic, akin to Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, whose monuments are recorded primarily in Galilee in the 3rd–5th centuries AD. e. Jesus was familiar with the Hebrew text of Scripture, but hardly spoke “proto-Mishnaic” Hebrew. It is possible that during his time as his father's apprentice in the Hellenized cities of Palestine, Jesus was exposed to Greek from a very young age and learned to speak it.

Here I think about the Aramaic teenagers from the village of Kfarze, who perfectly master Kurmanji, playing in the streets with their Kurdish peers, with all the carefully cultivated Christian hostility towards aṭ-ṭaye, non-Muslims.

Previous posts in the series:

trv-science.ru/2020/04/21/istoki-i-podlinnoe/
trv-science.ru/2020/05/19/aramejskij-yazyk-bez-armii-i-flota/
trv-science.ru/2020/06/16/o-leksike-turojo/
trv-science.ru/2020/07/28/klyuchi-k-istorii-aramejskogo-glagola/

1 It is my pleasant duty to thank my comrades Evgeny Barsky, Alexey Lyavdansky, Konstantin Neklyudov, Alexander Tkachenko, Mikhail Tuval and Steve Fasberg, who shared their thoughts with me as I considered the contents of this note.

2 Here and below, references to the names of the books of the Bible are given according to the Russian Synodal edition.

3 From the extensive literature on the subject, we can recommend, for example, Leibner U. Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee. Tubingen, 2009.

4 See Klaus Beyer. Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer, 54. Göttingen, 1984.

5 On this, see my book “History and Hermeneutics in the Study of the New Testament” (publications.hse.ru/books/211096542), where an outline of the study of the Synoptic Gospels is given.

6 In Mark 14:70 the words καὶ ἡ λαλιά σου ὁμοιάζει are absent from most uncials, they appear in the “Byzantine” text in harmonization with Matt.

7 There is variation in the manuscript tradition of this Greek record. I chose the option that, in my opinion, most accurately conveys the Galilean dialect of that time: with postvocalic spirantization of noisy stops, but without syncopation of short vowels in open unstressed syllables.

8 Dibelius M. Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums. Tübingen, 1919.

9 This article uses materials from my work “Aramaic Languages” (publications.hse.ru/chapters/211096030)

If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl+Enter.

Evidence from the Qumran manuscripts

More than 60 years ago, caves containing a huge number of religious texts were found in the desert near the Dead Sea. Scientists have now established that the scrolls were a library taken from Jerusalem during the war with Rome. The study of the manuscripts made it possible to establish: during the time of Jesus Christ, services were held in Hebrew in the synagogues. Jews in exile (for example, in Egypt) prayed in Greek. The interpretation of Scripture and sermons were conducted in Aramaic, which was understandable to the common people.

Aramaic Origins of the Gospel

In addition to the importance of understanding the meaning of the gospels, back-translating the traditions from Aramaic into Greek helps distinguish the original traditions from later ones

The Gospels are written in Greek, but they partially go back to the most ancient, initial traditions in Aramaic. In some Gospel passages, Aramaic words are transliterated into Greek letters, with the Greek translation next to them. For example, the story about the resurrection of a girl (Mark 5).

Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue, approaches Jesus and asks him to heal his terminally ill daughter. Jesus is ready to help, but does not have time, the girl dies, but the death of Jairus’ daughter does not stop the healer. Jesus comes to the house, leaves the deceased girl’s parents in the room, takes “the girl by the hand” and says in Aramaic: “ Talifah kumi!” “Therefore, the evangelist translates it: “maiden, I tell you, get up” (Mark 5:41). Apparently this story was originally written down or transmitted orally in Aramaic. The Greek translator leaves an important, sacred phrase in Aramaic, which he translated for Greek-speaking readers. Also at the end of the gospel narrative, Jesus exclaims on the cross in Aramaic: “ Eloi!” Eloi! lamma sabachthani? "(Mark 15:34). Mark explains the meaning of the phrase: “which means: My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?

Mark is not the only evangelist to use this technique. The Gospel of John, which has a completely different source from the synoptic gospels, contains Aramaic words. In just one passage of John. 1:35–52 there are three cases.

Having learned from John the Encompasser (the Baptist) that Jesus is the messenger of God, two disciples turn to him: “ Rabbi !” The Evangelist translates this Aramaic word: “which means: teacher.” When Andrew, one of the two disciples, becomes convinced of Jesus' superpowers, he goes to his brother Simon and says: "We have found the Messiah ." John again explains this Aramaic word: “which means: Christ.” Jesus then talks to Simon and says, “You will be called Cephas .” The evangelist gives a decoding of this Aramaic word: “which means: stone (Peter).” It turns out that a number of gospel stories were originally transmitted in Aramaic, which means their origin was in Eretz Israel, and not Rome.

There is further evidence: some passages from the gospels do not contain Aramaic words, but only make sense when the Greek words and phrases are translated back into Aramaic. This means that these materials also go back to Aramaic legends, which later began to spread in Greek. One such example is found in Mark. 2:27–28.

The disciples of Jesus walk through a wheat field on Shabbat, and, hungry, begin to pick the ears of corn. Seeing this, the Pharisees are indignant: from their point of view, the disciples violated the Sabbath. Jesus explains that there are things (saving a life, healing a disease, a famine) that are more important than keeping the Sabbath according to the Pharisees. Therefore he answers: “The Sabbath is for man, and not man for the Sabbath; therefore the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” The phrase is not entirely clear. In the gospels, Jesus is called the Son of Man. But even if he is the “Lord of the Sabbath,” how does this justify the actions of the disciples who violated the prohibition? The Pharisees blame the disciples, not Jesus. And the phrase is not entirely logical: how does the second part (Jesus is “Lord of the Sabbath”) follow from the first part (“the Sabbath for man”)? Difficulties of understanding are removed if you do a reverse translation into Aramaic.

In Aramaic, one word meant both "man" and "son of man": " bar-enosh ". It turns out that the original phrase read: “Shabbat is for bar-enosh, not bar-enosh for Shabbat. Therefore, bar-enosh is the master of Saturday.” Then everything falls into place. Men have dominion over the Sabbath, for the Sabbath was made for them, and not they for the Sabbath. It turns out that this story was originally circulated in Aramaic. When it was translated into Greek, the translator decided to include a thesis not only about the disciples, but also about Jesus. Therefore, in the first case he translated “bar-enosh” as “man,” and in the second as “Son of Man.” As a result, the Greek text contains a problem that was missing in the Aramaic.

In addition to the importance of understanding the meaning of the gospels, back-translating the traditions from Aramaic into Greek helps distinguish the original traditions from the later ones.

We see that some phrases attributed to Jesus cannot in principle be translated into Aramaic. And since Jesus spoke Aramaic, this means that these statements did not belong to him.

For example, John cites Jesus' conversation with Rabbi Nakdimon (Nicodemus): Nicodemus comes to visit Jesus and speaks with him. Jesus explains to the teacher of the law: “Unless one is born anoten (again), he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). " anoten " has two meanings: "again" and "above". Nicodemus understands it in the second sense and is amazed: “How can a man another time enter his mother’s womb and be born?” However, Jesus meant “from above,” not “again.” This is precisely the meaning of the word “anoten” found elsewhere in the Gospel of John. Jesus corrects Nicodemus and explains in detail that a person must be “born of the Spirit” (coming from above) if he wants to enter the Kingdom of God. Thus, the Greek text contains a play on words: Nicodemus understands anoten in one sense, and Jesus in another. If you don’t know about the double meaning of “anoten”, the conversation becomes not entirely clear. However, the Aramaic language does not allow such wordplay. In Aramaic, one word means “from above,” and a completely different word means “again.” It turns out that this conversation could not have taken place in Aramaic. Even if we assume that Jesus knew Greek, he would hardly have spoken Greek to a Jewish rabbi in Jerusalem. At the same time, many gospel traditions clearly go back to the Aramaic original. This is of great importance to us. Aramaic-speaking Jews in Jesus' homeland were talking about him even before the Apostle Paul wrote his letters in the 50s.

This means that just a few years after the traditional date of the crucifixion, stories about Jesus were already in circulation. Why is this so important? Most mythologists develop the following hypothesis: the New Testament epistles (especially Paul's), written before the Gospels, speak not of Jesus, but of the mythical Christ, who, like the pagan gods, died and rose again. However, this theory is wrong. Firstly, it is not a fact that there was a common mythology of dying and resurrecting gods. Secondly, if it existed, it had no relation to the Jewish world in which Jesus' first disciples lived. Thirdly, there is every reason to believe that the Apostle Paul spoke about the historical Jesus and even quoted him. Yes, Paul believed that Jesus had achieved the level of divinity, but Paul's concept was profoundly different from the (hypothetical) pagan belief in dying and rising gods.

“Eloi, eloi, lamma sabachthani?” (Matt. 27:46), (Mark 15:34)

The Aramaic language of Jesus Christ was not the only one He spoke. Since the family of Jesus lived for some time in Egypt, where communication took place in Greek, there is no doubt that He was fluent in it. His disciples - Peter, Andrew, Luke, Philip - bore Greek names, it is likely that communication with them, as well as with foreigners, was conducted in Greek.

What language did Jesus Christ speak? At the age of 12, Jesus first made his parents worry about himself: he got lost on the road from Jerusalem to Nazareth. Mary and Joseph found him in the temple talking with the Pharisees on theological topics. Of course, the conversation was in Hebrew, the language of prayer and theology.

The interrogation of Pontius Pilate on the last day of His earthly life took place without translators (not a single source mentions them). It is difficult to believe that the Roman procurator learned their language in order to communicate with the enslaved people. In all likelihood, Jesus of Nazareth answered him in Latin.

But his native language was still Aramaic. He used it to deliver his sermons in Galilee and talk with his disciples. The last words of Christ were also spoken in Aramaic: “God, God, why have you forsaken me?”

Now the native Aramaic language of Jesus Christ is disappearing, spoken by a handful of people in Syrian villages.

Languages Jesus spoke

The linguistic environment of first-century Palestine is of more than just academic interest to readers of the Gospels. Directly related to this is the question of what languages Jesus spoke, which, in turn, may indirectly affect our attitude towards the origin and historical accuracy of the Gospels. For example, starting from the assumption that Christ spoke primarily (if not exclusively) in Aramaic, many have argued that the more the language of a Gospel passage reflects the stylistic features of Aramaic, the more likely it is that the passage is genuine. Conversely, the absence of Semitisms in the language of the Gospels has often been used as an argument against their authenticity.

At what stage was this dispute until recently? It is safe to say that Latin was not widely used in Palestine, for the triumph of the Roman armies did not yet mean the triumph of the Latin language. Since the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC and the subsequent Hellenization of the entire Near East, the Greek language came into general use, and the Roman conquests did not have a significant impact on this process. What role did the Greek language play in Palestine at the time of Christ? Was it the language of cultural communication and commercial transactions for the enlightened elite, or was it also used by commoners? And if it was not just used by the elite, how widely was it used? Or did the Aramaic language predominate among the masses? In the Middle Ages, the opinion was firmly established that after the Babylonian captivity, the Hebrew language went out of use and Aramaic became the language of everyday communication among the Jews. But did the Hebrew language really become dead and survive only as the language of religious dialogue among Jewish scholars? Thus, three theories emerged, advocating the dominance of either Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew. Each of the three theories had no shortage of advocates, and, in fact, quite convincing arguments were made in favor of the fact that all three languages were in use among the Palestinian Jews of the first century.

Apparently, this fact in itself should have led defenders of different points of view to think that all three languages were actually used in everyday life. This idea was convincingly argued by Robert Gundry, and his work was later supplemented by the research of Philip Edgecumbe Hughes.

Recently, some progress has been made in solving this problem thanks to new archaeological discoveries, in particular through the study of funeral crypts. Inscriptions are often found in ancient crypts, and it is logical to assume that in the face of death, people wrote in the languages in which they were accustomed to think and speak. Gundry briefly reviews the inscriptions found in Palestinian tombs of the period in which we are interested, and concludes that all three languages are found in approximately equal proportions.

This evidence is supported by findings from excavations of caves in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. During his two expeditions to the “Cave of Letters,” Yigael Yadin and his colleagues discovered about fifteen letters and more than forty other papyrus documents, in particular, contracts and payment receipts. All papyri found date from the end of the first century to the Bar Kokhba revolt, which occurred in 132-135. according to R.H. Apparently, the cave served as a shelter for the rebels, and the documents found in it represent routine correspondence on everyday and military issues. So, all three languages are represented in these documents: Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. The rebels led by Bar Kochba were not highly educated people, and the fact that they understood these languages and used them for correspondence leads us to the conclusion that all three languages were common in the rest of Palestine at that time. It seems that the Hebrew language was popular not only among a small circle of Jewish scholars, and the use of the Greek language was not limited to the spheres of trade and culture. Both Hebrew and Greek were in wide circulation along with Aramaic, so Jesus Christ could have used any of these three languages.

If we look at the Gospels with an open mind, we will certainly be convinced that the linguistic environment in Palestine was exactly like this. Based on extensive research into Old Testament quotations in Matthew and other Synoptics, Robert Gundry concludes that the mode of citation in these Gospels reflects the trilingual environment evidenced by archaeological finds. The presence of Semiticisms in the Gospels does not necessarily indicate that a Semitic language (Aramaic or Hebrew) was the only language in first-century Palestine. In a multilingual culture, languages tend to interpenetrate, borrowing vocabulary and grammatical structures from each other. The Septuagint, for example, is full of Semitic forms. The widespread use of several languages undoubtedly influenced the purity of Palestinian Greek. In addition to this, the Greek language in Palestine fell into a soil where Semitic languages originally reigned. In such a situation, it would be expected that Palestinian Greek would reflect a Semitic style of speech and way of thinking.

But the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles provide more definite evidence that Greek was in common use among Christ's hearers. Two of the twelve disciples, Andrew and Philip, bore Greek names. From the Gospel of John (John 12.20-23) we can conclude that Philip, Andrew and Jesus understood Greek and could speak it. Peter, the most prominent of the twelve apostles, bore not only a Hebrew name (Simon), but also an Aramaic name (Cephas) and a Greek name (Peter). It is very likely that the same Peter spoke Greek in the house of Cornelius (Acts 10.1) and wrote two letters in Greek that bear his name. If the Galilean fisherman bore a Greek name, spoke fluently and wrote in Greek, then the conclusion arises that even the less highly educated inhabitants of Palestine were quite fluent in this language. In the Greek text of John 21, Christ uses two different verbs meaning love and two different verbs meaning shepherd, and Peter uses two different words meaning know. However, none of these synonymous pairs could be rendered in Hebrew or Aramaic. It is clear that this dialogue took place in Greek. Likewise, the play on words between petra and petros in the Gospel of Matthew (Mt 16:18) cannot be reproduced in Hebrew or Aramaic. It is logical to assume that this conversation initially took place in Greek. Most likely, Christ’s conversations with the Canaanite woman, the Roman centurion and Pilate also took place in Greek. Stephen (Acts 7.1) and James (Acts 15.1) quote the Old Testament according to the Septuagint, therefore, they also widely used the Greek language.

The fact that the Aramaic language was popular among Palestinian residents in the first century is evidenced by both biblical and secular sources, so there is no point in even focusing on this. Some found such impressive confirmation of this fact that they even went to the other extreme, arguing that long before the time of Christ, Aramaic became the spoken language of the Jewish people in all regions of Palestine. As evidence, they usually cite the presence of Semitism in the Gospels and the Semitic way of thinking of the evangelists. In particular, they often point to the abundance of Aramaic terms and names in the Gospels. The idea that Aramaic was the only commonly spoken language in Palestine of that period was so firmly established in the mind that even direct references to the Hebrew language in the writings of Josephus, in the Bible (John 19.20; Acts 21.40; Acts 22.2; Acts 26.14) and Church Fathers were perceived as inaccurate. It was believed that the Aramaic language was actually meant.

However, evidence of the widespread use of Aramaic in the Gospels, however obvious, does not yet prove that Aramaic was the only spoken language of the Palestinian population. Moreover, the results of recent linguistic research cast doubt on whether all transliterated Semitic terms in the Greek text of the Gospels are truly Aramaic, as previously assumed (for example, see: Mt 27.46; Mk 5.41; Mk 7.34; Mk 14.36; Mk 15.34). It is now argued that some of these transliterations are in fact Hebrew, and that when Josephus, the biblical writers, and the Church Fathers referred to Hebrew, they really meant Hebrew, and not its cognate Aramaic. This is also confirmed by the fact that the Hebrew language, in which Jewish scholars wrote their works, was not dead. He had all the signs of a living spoken language: new words appeared in him, his vocabulary covered all everyday situations, he was simple and not ornate. Rabbinic literature describes dialogues in Hebrew, and their content was not limited to scientific issues, but included details from everyday life. Additionally, some of the Qumran documents were written in Hebrew. Again, the issues discussed in them are not limited to scientific refinements, and it is clear that they were understandable to ordinary members of the Qumran community. The opinion was voiced that the Aramaic language could not quickly and completely displace Hebrew from the speech of ordinary people. Initially, Aramaic began to be used in commercial and government circles of Jewish society. And only gradually, over time, it began to become the oral and written language of the lower classes of the population, the poorly educated rabble. The Hebrew language remained for a long time the language of the common people; The final blow to it as a spoken language was dealt by the wars of 132-135. according to R.H., in which the Jewish revolutionaries suffered a crushing defeat.

So, both Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic were in use among the Palestinian Jews in the days of Jesus Christ. It is not possible to determine exactly in what proportion they were present and in what areas they were used. It is likely that one language predominated in one area of Palestine, and another in other areas. But in any case, the language environment was mixed. Most likely, Jesus Christ spoke all three languages, and indications of this are found in the Gospels themselves.

Bibliography: Gundry, Robert H. The Language Milieu of First-Century Palestine // Journal of Biblical Literature.
No. 83. 1964. 404-408. Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe. The Languages Spoken by Jesus // New Dimensions in New Testament Study / Eds. Richard N. Longenecker, Merrill C. Tenney. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974. 125-143.

Logies of Christ

Two centuries ago, biblical scholars, comparing the Synoptic Gospels, established that they have some kind of early source, which they designated as Gospel Q. This is a collection of lifetime sayings of Jesus Christ, which included the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer, the story of John Forerunner, some parables. All sermons of Jesus Christ to his disciples and listeners are a call to take the path of salvation. This path is always narrow, full of suffering and self-denial. But this is the path to finding the Kingdom of God within us. Woe to him who in his life chooses the broad path of self-indulgence, which leads to destruction.

He who saves his life for himself will lose it. Whoever loses his soul for Christ's sake will save it.

The Word of Christ, read in spirit and truth (with a pure heart and without earthly gain), is understandable to people of all nationalities.