Original Aramaic Text
"The Jewish Aramaic Bible versions are known to us, first and foremost, as major literary crystallizations."
(Sheki'im mi-targume ha-Mikra ha-Aramiyim, by Moshe Henry Goshen-Gottstein, Rimon Kasher, 1983, Bar-Ilan University).
"Before the Christian era Aramaic had in good part replaced Hebrew in Palestine as the vernacular of the Jews.
It continued as their vernacular for centuries later... Translations of books of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic for
liturgical purposes must have begun before the Christian era... In recent decades there has been increasing interest
among scholars and a larger public in these Targums. A noticeable lacuna, however, has been the absence of a modern
English translation of this body of writing." (The Aramaic Bible, by Philip S. Alexander, 2003)
"The Jewish Aramaic Bible translations came into existence when, and where, Hebrew was no longer fully understood. As
such the earliest Aramaic interpretative literature, found in Qumran, is to be understood... In the diaspora under
Hellenistic influence, the Greek translation of the Septuagint replaced the originl Hebrew text. This situation did not
please the Rabbis, who... keenly appreciated that much was lost in translation... an Aramaic translation under rabbinic
supervision of Torah and Prophets appeared as well. These translations are relatively unique in their structure, and
specifically in their oral-performative setting, which binds them to the original text... " (Extracted from "Playing
Second Fiddle: How the Rabbis Tamed the Jewish Aramaic Bible Translations" by Willem Smelik, University College London,
and Alex Samely, The University of Manchester).
"Jewish Aramaic Bible translations have an uncommon structure in performance and contents... They are
deliberately modelled as a counterpoint to the original text... They are painstakingly literal in a one-to-one fashion
wherever possible, up to the point of copying Hebrew syntax, while freely adding interpretative supplements, or
substituting some lemmata (within the one-to-one mode), for exegetical and theological reasons. While these remarks
apply to all of the Jewish Aramaic translations, they are quite distinct from one another in several ways. While some
translations bear the imprint of rabbinic authority, others reflect the concerns, interests and opinions of educated
laymen. ("The Antiphony of the Hebrew Bible and Its Jewish Aramaic Translations: The Need to Read a Translation in
Concert with the Original", Dr. Willem Smelik, University College London).
While the Aramaic translation of the Peshitta Tanakh reflects the original Hebrew that was used by the Masoretes in producing
a revised, standard version of the Hebrew text, there are books within the Tanakh that were written originally in
Aramaic, and not in Hebrew. For example, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, once a single "book", were originally written
in Aramaic and translated to Hebrew. (See Boundaries of the Ancient Near Eastern World: A Tribute to Cyrus H.
Gordon, by Cyrus Herzl; Biblical Books Translated from the Aramaic, by Frank Zimmermann; The Hebrew Bible Today: An Introduction
to Critical Issues, by Steven L. McKenzie, Matt Patrick Graham; The Collegeville Bible Commentary: Based on the New
American Bible, by Robert J. Karris). It is likely that other books such as Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, Esther, the
Chronicles and Malachi were also originally written in Aramaic and later translated into Hebrew. These texts, including
Ezra and Nehemiah, were written between 530 and 430 B.C.E.
The earlier
Masoretic text was produced out of necessity due to the ancient Hebrew script no longer being used as well as due to the
fact that a standardized edition with full use of vowel points and grammatical tradition was needed for Jews at the
time - this is what we refer to as "Masorah". The currently used Hebrew Bible among Jews and Christians, was edited much
later by Jacob ben Hayim Ibn Adonyahu around 1524 C.E. based on manuscripts that he had available to him at the time,
as will be shown below, those manuscripts had problems of their own.
The Jewish translators of the Aramaic edition of the Tanakh had access to the original (sometimes called
"Vorlage") text of the Hebrew. This is one reason there are discrepancies between the Aramaic and the later revised,
standardized Hebrew edition.
Gillian Greenberg gives some interesting information on his comparisons of the Masoretic and the Syriac/Aramaic
Peshitta Tanakh in his book Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Jeremiah:
"In the earlier literature, Talmon assembles evidence in the rabbinic writings, Hebrew fragments from after 70 CE
such as those from Wadi Murabba`at and Massada, and some subsidiary details from the ancient version, and concludes
that proto-Masoretic Texts were indeed established during the first century CE...Against the background of the
evidence for the date of the standardization of the proto-Masoretic Text, it is historically possible that a MS
which was close to even if not identical with the latter would have been in existence at the time of writing of
the Peshitta, and could have formed the Vorlage....that the translators would have sought out a 'model' text, one
given high status by those involved in Palestine, as the basis of the work of such importance, and that the model
they would have wanted to work from would therefore have been in the line of transmission of the MT....
Jutscher describes some of the biblical scrolls found at Qumran as 'vernacular' copies, deliberately simplified
and otherwise adapted for Hebrew-speaking readers, and circulating in the Holy Land up to the second century CE.
The nature of these MSS, and the question of their suitability for the Vorlage of the Peshitta, is also discussed
by Weitzman. These non-proto-Masoretic Text MSS, which made up such a large proportion of the total, may have been
of great importance during the earlier life of the Qumran community: but their number may give a misleading idea of
their importance during the later stages, the time at which the Peshitta was written, when as Tov suggests a central
stream in Judaism may have been responsible for the copying and circulation of these texts...This evidence of the
text of the Peshitta before the fifth century is found largely in the writings of Aphrahat and also in those of
Ephrem...
'The Judaism of the Peshitta Pentateuch ... is predominantly rabbinic but embodies some non-rabbinic elements. The
religion of the Peshitta Psalter is emphatically different from rabbinic Judaism ... The hypothesis may be ventured
that the Pentateuch was translated while that community was yet Jewish, and the Psalter when its evangelization was
well under way if not complete.' [Quoting Weitzman]...
Weitzman points out that the presence of some Jewish exegesis in the Peshitta is compatible with an origin in a
Christian community if that community had Jewish roots or Jewish contacts, and concludes, overall, that the Peshitta
was the work of non-rabbinic Jews, conscious, at least during the time of translation of all but the last books, of
isolation from Jews elsewhere in the world... For such a community, the production of a biblical text which was
readily accessible in a community where the knowledge of Hebrew was decreasing may have been more important than
literalness." (Extracted from Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Jeremiah by Gillian Greenberg, copyright 2002,
BRILL).
Some who hold to the purity of the Aleppo Codex (another Hebrew Masoretic text) claim that there are thousands of
errors in the commonly accepted Hebrew Bible. "In Venice, circa 1524, a Tunisian scholar named Ya'acov Ben-Hhaim
used the printing press to produce an edition of all 24 books of the canonized Bible, the first of its kind. With
its inclusion of famous Bible commentators such as Rashi and Ibn Ezra, the Mikraot Gedolot Edition, as it became to
be known, was accepted as the definitive and authoritative Torah text. After another printing in Warsaw, it became the
standard for Orthodox communities. There is just one problem: the Mikraot Gedolot is highly inaccurate. Of that
edition, the Five Books of Moses, the Prophets and the Writings together contain several thousands of errors. Not
just of musical cantillations and vowels, but letters as well. Ya'acov Ben-Hhaim [Jacob ben Chaim] carried out his
manuscript comparisons on texts that were within his geographical reach, but they were not accurate themselves.
(It is interesting to note that the printing of the Mikraot Gedolot was executed under the aegis of a Christian
printer, Daniel Bomberg, and Ben-Hhaim, who converted to Christianity. It is not clear, however, whether Ben-Hhaim's
conversion was before or after 1524.)" (Jerusalem Post, "The True Torah?", by Robby Berman)
The Aleppo Codex is attributed to the work of Aaron ben Moses ben Asher (sometimes called "Bar Asher") who "lived in
Tiberius during the first half of the 10th century. His family had been involved in creating and maintaining the
Masorah for either five or six generations. Ben-Asher rapidly gained fame as the most authoritative of the Tiberias
masoretes, and, even after his death, his name continued to hold respect." (Jewish Virtual Library, from Gates to
Jewish Heritage)
"The scholar who added the vowels and accents was Rabbi Aaron Bar Asher, one of the most illustrious experts in the
specialized science of the Biblical text that goes by the name "Masorah." The Masoretes developed elaborate systems
for maintaining the accuracy of the written, consonantal text of the Bible, as well as for recording the vowels and
accents, which had previously been handed down through oral memorization. Though several such systems were devised
during the early medieval era, in the end the one from Tiberias achieved dominance; and Aaron Bar Asher was perhaps
the most distinguished exponent of the Tiberian school of Masorah." (Shepherdstown, West Virginia December 1999,
January 2000. Prime Minister Barak of Israel and Foreign Minister Farouk a-Shara of Syria enter into ill-fated peace
negotiations under American auspices)
Maimonides wrote, "The codex which we used in these works is the codex known in Egypt, which includes 24 books,
which was in Jerusalem ... and was used for editing the books (of the Bible), and everyone relies on it, because
it was edited by Ben-Asher, who studied it carefully for many years and edited it many times ... and I relied on
it in the Torah Scroll which I wrote according to it."
"Which is the accurate version? Because the book is sacred, its text must be agreed upon and accepted unconditionally,
without any discrepancies among the various versions. Yet this is not the case. It is true that there are no
discrepancies that change the basic meaning of the text... However, there are differences between ancient Hebrew
manuscripts of the Bible and, therefore, the same can be said about the printed editions based on these manuscripts.
To enlightened readers, the recent attempts by some scholars to 'find' hidden messages by combining letters in the
Bible seem pathetic, at best." (Hebrew Bibles, from 1488 to a new edition of the Keter Aram Tzova, by Nachuym Ben Zvi)
Not enough research has been done in regards to the Aramaic Tanakh in order to show any major differences between it and
the Aleppo Codex. With this Codex being available at least in part, anyone with a good knowledge of the Syriac/Aramaic
translation of the Tanakh should be able, with ease, to compare the two in order to provide an early analysis.
The Aramaic Peshitta Tanakh, for the most part, is translated directly from the original, pre-Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, thus
providing us with a much more pure text - especially compared to the "Ben Chaim" European edition of the Tanakh which
is most certainly corrupted. This is the same text that almost all English translations of the "Old Testament" are
eventually based upon. Clearly more research in this field needs to be covered, and only time will tell.
"Even to the West of the Euphrates river, in the Holy Land, the main vernacular was Aramaic. The weekly synagogue lections, called sidra or
parashah, with the haphtarah, were accompanied by an oral Aramaic translation, according to fixed traditions. A number
of Targumim in Aramaic were thus eventually committed to writing, some of which are of unofficial character, and of
considerable antiquity. The Gemara of the Jerusalem Talmud was written in Aramaic, and received its definitive form
in the 5th century. The Babylonian Talmud with its commentaries on only 36 of the Mishnah's 63 tractates, is four
times as long as the Jerusalem Talmud. These Gemaroth with much other material were gathered together toward the end
of the 5th century, and are in Aramaic. Since 1947, approximately 500 documents were discovered in eleven caves of
Wadi Qumran near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. In addition to the scrolls and fragments in Hebrew, there
are portions and fragments of scrolls in Aramaic. Hebrew and Aramaic, which are sister languages, have always
remained the most distinctive features marking Jewish and Eastern Christian religious and cultural life, even
to our present time." -- Paul Younan.
"The Peshitta translation of Genesis, and indeed of the Pentateuch as a whole, is particularly rich in links with
contemporary Jewish exegetical tradition, and this makes it likely that these books were translated by Jews rather
than by Christians.... the Peshitta translation of Proverbs is also likely to have been the work of Jews in northern
Mesopotamia; it subsequently came to be taken over by Syriac-speaking Christians and by later Jews (who lightly
modified the dialect)" -- The Bible in the Syriac Tradition, by Sebastian Brock.
This edition of the Pshitta Tanakh transliterates certain names and phrases, such as the Name of God (MarYah, which means
Lord YHWH). The translation does not always follow a prose, or smooth English form and may seem "out of place" for some
readers.
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