136. Appendix 1 The Aramaic Background of the Gospel Narratives
Appendix 1 The Aramaic Background of the Gospel Narratives The Claims of the Bible The claims which the Bible makes for itself, the authority with which it speaks, the salvation it announces, the record it presents of God’s revelation of Himself in the person of His Son, focus the attention of the ages upon this book. Man’s desperate need has caused him to investigate the claims of the Bible and to give heed to its instructions. This investigation was as instantaneous as was the revelation. The fact that God’s messengers delivered these revelations in person to their fellows, either orally and then in written form or through the immediate use of writing, caused the most intense examination of the material presented and of the divine authority with which it was clothed. This examination came from two angles. The fact that God’s messengers solemnly condemned the sins of men and announced God’s coming judgment upon the sinner unless he repented, caused a hostile investigation which was as continuous through the centuries as was the revelation of the Old and New Testaments. Those who were steeped in sin and determined to continue in sin sought to find some means to question, cast doubt upon, and deny the validity of the claims and the truth of the messages. This is the reason that the record of the lives of the prophets, of Jesus, and of His apostles is one continuous account of persecution and martyrdom. Here is investigation at the time of delivery moved by the most acute personal animus and with life and death issues at stake. These hostile hearers had every conceivable opportunity to disprove the truth of the claims and the reality of the miracles which were worked in their very presence and in the presence of multitudes for the purpose of proving the divine source and authority of the messages. Then there was another type of examination made from a friendly and fair-minded approach by those who were eager to find some solution to life’s problems some surcease for the misery of sin and death, and who found that God’s messengers actually provided for all of man’s needs and gave indubitable proof of the divine source of the revelations. As generation after generation and century after century have passed by, and uncounted millions have found the message and the evidence God has offered satisfactory, and have added the proof of their redeemed and noble lives in humble testimony, the case for the Bible grows constantly stronger. The fact that the messages delivered had to be presented and accepted at the cost of the greatest personal suffering has caused each generation to seal their testimony with their own blood.
Historical Investigation of the Bible When the modernist comes today insisting with fervent heat that the Bible must be submitted to historical investigation just the same as any other book, there is some truth and justice in his demands. No man can examine and decide for someone else; much less one generation for another. God has given us all freedom of the will and an intellect of our own. When a child grows to the years of accountability, he begins to survey the world of people and things for himself. He of necessity feels that he must make his own investigation and his own decisions. He may long to believe as his father and mother do, but he must assay the evidence for himself. This is only natural for faith comes by hearing and faith is no proxy affair. The Bible is as clear and as emphatic upon this point as possible. When the insistence is made that the Bible must submit to re-examination of its message and claims just the same as any other book, there is this to be said: the Bible is not the same as any other book. No claims, no attacks can obliterate the facts as to what the Bible has accomplished in the lives of man and those facts are so tremendous that they make any re-examination of the Bible a somewhat different matter than is true of any other book in the world. “Tested and proved!” registered by so many generations which have been unable to find anything to add or subtract in the field of religion and morals where the Bible speaks, is a cumulation of evidence which is not easily overlooked. But the modernist protests that other generations were too easily persuaded and that he has new evidence which has never been considered. If such be the case, then man is obligated by the very God-given intelligence which he possesses to consider fairly any actual evidence which may be submitted, but by his incalculable indebtedness to God he is obligated not to take an unfriendly attitude toward the Bible In his investigation.
Attempts to Go Back to the New Testament A two-pronged attack on the Gospel narratives has arisen in late decades. These narratives are the very center of the whole Bible: all the Old Testament looks forward to the coming of Christ; all the rest of the New Testament is based upon the teaching and life of Christ. Those who deny the truth of the New Testament narratives about Jesus have sought desperately to find justification for their unbelief in the accounts themselves, but the narratives are so straightforward, guileless, and impregnable by reason of their very simplicity that they leave no possibility for anyone to deny the fact that they claim Jesus taught He is the Son of God and that they record the proof of this claim. A curious twist in this modern unbelief is that these opponents of the claims and teaching of Jesus resent furiously any suggestion that they are not Christians — followers of Jesus. This immediately shows the weakness of their whole position. Their desire to be known as Christians is a tacit admission of all the Bible’s claims; even as their actual teaching is a complete denial of the Bible’s claims. Now to bridge such a monstrous chasm has been their problem. The solution they offer which is at the same time the “new” evidence which they present, is the effort to go back of the New Testament narratives to earlier “sources” both literary and linguistic. Back of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they attempt to conjure up earlier documents from which these were developed by a process of evolution and from which these differ in that they make out that Jesus was the Son of God, whereas the earlier documents (which exist only in the imagination of the critics) represented Jesus as a simple teacher and healer. Back of the Greek of our Gospel narratives, they attempt to go into the Aramaic background. They argue from the facts that Jesus spoke Aramaic and the documents we possess are written in Greek. They maintain here is room for a new investigation of the teaching and claims recorded therein. A good part of Book One, An Introduction to the Life of Christ is devoted to the consideration of the first of these two attacks: the problem of so-called “sources” of the Gospel narratives. The critics themselves are so completely at war with one another amid their contradictory theories and their utter lack of any concrete evidence that an incoherent Babel of confusion results from their combined efforts. It is not the purpose of this essay to cover again this discussion, but to proceed with the examination of the proposition as to whether any new light is thrown upon the Gospel narratives from the Aramaic background. The Aramaic Dialects The word “Aramaic” comes from the name of the section of Upper Mesopotamia, Aram, where the people lived who spoke the language. The section was called Aram-Naharaim (“Aram of the Two Rivers”), but is better known to us as Padan-aram (“The Plain of Aram”), the place where Jacob went in search of a wife among his own kinspeople of the family of Laban. Two principal dialects of the language arose. A Semitic idiom was used in the north-eastern section of Mesopotamia, which finally developed into Syriac. In early Christian times Edessa was the center of the use of this language and in it many early Christian writings were published. The south-western dialect of Aramaic was sometimes called “Chaldee,” but in the Old Testament it is called Aramaic Ezra 4:8-24; Ezra 5:1-17; Ezra 6:1-18, Ezra 7:12-26, Jeremiah 10:11, and Daniel 2:4-49; Daniel 3:1-30; Daniel 4:1-37; Daniel 5:1-31; Daniel 6:1-28; Daniel 7:1-28 were written in this language, all the remainder of the Old Testament having been written in Hebrew, the language which the Jewish people used exclusively in the early part of their history. Both Hebrew and Aramaic are closely related Semitic languages; the main differences are slight variations in vocabulary and syntax, with the same alphabet and the same general structure of the language prevailing in each. The other main Semitic languages are Assyrian and Babylonian, the Phoenician and the Punic Carthaginian, the Ethiopic, the Samaritan, and the Syriac. The influence of Aramaic began to be felt among the Jewish people very early. Some scholars claim that Northern Aramaic became the language of the Kingdom of Israel as early as 721 b.c. and that it was used by the Jews until 900 a.d. To prove the earlier date they cite 2 Kings 17:1-41 which relates the destruction of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians. How immediate was the change to Aramaic in the confused conditions which prevailed with the destruction and captivity of the Northern Kingdom we cannot be sure, but we do know that at the time of the fall of Samaria the leaders in Jerusalem knew Aramaic, but the people did not: “Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian [Marginal reading is “Aramaean”] language; for we understand it: and speak not with us in the Jews’ language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall” (2 Kings 18:26). Thus an incidental reference to the colloquy between the embassadors of Sennacherib and of Hezekiah gives us insight into the fact that the people of the Southern Kingdom did not know Aramaic in 721 b.c. How much influence it may have had in the Northern Kingdom prior to its fall is not known. The succeeding verses of this text show that since Rabshakeh insolently shouted in Hebrew to the people Sennacherib’s demand to surrender, the educated leaders of both sides knew both of the languages. It also shows that a dialect of Aramaic was used at this time by the near neighbors of Israel to the north, Assyria (and this is also true of the earlier kingdom of Syria with its capital at Damascus). The dialects of Aramaic which displaced the old Assyrian in Assyria and Babylonia prevailed until the Arab conquests in the eighth century a.d., when Arabic became the language of this whole section. Archaeologists have uncovered weights and clay tablets on which the Aramaic is written beside the cuneiform inscriptions in bilingual fashion. These evidently come from an early period of transition when both languages were being used. The Hebrew captives in Babylon began to feel strongly the influence of the Aramaic, and it steadily gained in influence even after the return to Palestine. The short sections of certain Old Testament books written in Aramaic show how strong this influence was even at a very early period. By the time of the Maccabees, Aramaic had completely displaced Hebrew as the language of the common people. In the meantime the conquests of Alexander the Great had spread Greek culture and the Greek language all over the East. The language of the educated classes, especially east of the Jordan, was Greek; the language of the scholars of the Jewish nation was Hebrew; the spoken vernacular was Aramaic. When sections of the Old Testament were read in the synagogue, they had to be translated immediately into Aramaic so that the people could understand. There were dialects of Aramaic in Judaea, Galilee, and especially Samaria. The dialect used in Galilee seems to have had an unusual amount of guttural sounds. It helped to betray Peter’s identity in the hall of the high priest: “Of a truth thou also art one of them; for thy speech maketh thee known” (Matthew 26:73); “Of a truth this man also was with him; for he is a Galilaean” (Luke 22:59). When the Jews began to commit to writing their oral traditions, Aramaic was the language used for the various Targums or paraphrases of the Old Testament. Both the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds were written in Aramaic This is true of other earlier Jewish commentaries. Papyri written in Aramaic have been discovered in Elephantine in Egypt.
Greek Versus Aramaic A great deal of discussion has obtained among scholars as to the relative extent to which Greek and Aramaic were used in Palestine in the time of Christ. The inscriptions on the cross in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek, indicate the prevalence of all three: Latin, the language of official circles; Greek, of educated circles; Aramaic, of the common people. Westcott differentiates them thus: Hebrew — the national dialect; Latin — the official dialect; Greek — the common dialect. Greek was the universal language of the whole civilized world, but just how far it was used in Palestine at this time is debated. Strong evidence for the use of Greek is found in the fact that the inspired documents of the church were written in Greek and that even in the very first days of the Jerusalem church there were two definite groups: the Hellenists or Greek-speaking Jewish Christians; and the Hebrew Christians, who spoke Aramaic (Acts 6:1). It is generally conceded that Jesus spoke Aramaic, although He may have used Hebrew in quoting from the Old Testament on special occasions. Some vigorously deny that Jesus would have spoken Greek. It is not probable that He would have taught His disciples in a foreign language or addressed a strictly Jewish audience in anything but the vernacular, although in evangelizing such sections as the Decapolis where the Greek influence was very strong, He may have used Greek.
Aramaic Words of Jesus
Exact words used by Jesus and quoted in the Gospels afford clear proof that Jesus was speaking Aramaic Cephas or Kephas (John 1:42); Talitha Cumi (Mark 5:41); Ephphatha (Mark 7:34); BaṙJonah (Matthew 16:17). Jesus seems to have been speaking Aramaic in the cry on the cross: “Elî Elî lama sabachthani” (Matthew 27:46); “Eloî Eloî lama sabachthani” (Mark 15:34); although the fact that He was quoting the first verse of the twenty-second Psalm raises the question as to whether He was quoting the exact Hebrew or speaking the current dialect. The difference in the forms Eli (Matt.) and Eloi (Mark) is that the former is Hebrew; the latter, Aramaic Bystanders who thought He was crying for Elijah probably did not hear Him very distinctly. Lama is Hebrew; the Aramaic form is lema, which some manuscripts carry. If Jesus quoted the Hebrew, then the Aramaicizing in varying degrees by Matthew and Mark was probably done, independent of each other, to make the words more understandable for any Jewish readers. If Jesus spoke the words in Aramaic, then the Hebraizing of the forms may have been done to bring out more clearly the fact that Jesus was quoting the twenty-second Psalm or (in the case of Matthew) to make clearer to any non-Jewish readers why the bystanders thought He called for Elijah (Eli suggests this more than the Aramaic form Eloi). Both Matthew and Mark had doubtless preached on this many times and had found it necessary to interpret and explain the words. The words are immediately translated into Greek in both narratives, and the finely drawn distinctions between the words of Jesus as they are quoted have no doctrinal importance except to give further indication that the two wrote independent of each other. When Jesus read from the book of Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth, He evidently read first the Hebrew text and then translated it into Aramaic for the benefit of the audience before beginning to speak upon it. The Record in Greek of What Jesus Said in Aramaic The question naturally arises that if Jesus spoke Aramaic and the Gospel narratives are written in Greek, how about the accuracy of the report in Greek of what was spoken in another language. This gives radical critics the opportunity to argue that the Aramaic background of the Gospels holds the secret of the development of the worship of Jesus from the early traditions, which they suppose, to the full proposition of the Gospels as we have them, that Jesus is the Son of God. The old adage that three moves are equal to a fire because something always gets lost, strayed, or broken in a move, gives some color to the proposition that in translating from one language to another it is very difficult to avoid changes of meaning — losing or adding here and there a shade of meaning. The differences in the Authorized and American Standard Versions show something of this difficulty. One of the points of superiority of the Protestant Bible to the Roman Catholic edition is that the Protestant Bible is translated directly from the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament into the English whereas the Roman Catholic Bible comes through the Hebrew into Greek (of the Septuagint) into Latin (of the Vulgate) into English for the Old Testament; and from Greek into Latin into English for the New Testament. The Inspiration of the Gospel Accounts The problem as to whether the New Testament, written in Greek, gives us an accurate report of what Jesus said and did, when He used Aramaic, takes us back to the opening paragraphs of this essay. The solemn promises of Jesus to His apostles was that they should be given miraculous power by the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit would bring to their remembrance all the things that He had said (John 14:26). “But when they deliver you up, be not anxious how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you” (Matthew 10:19, Matthew 10:20). It follows immediately that if the Holy Spirit guided them directly when “before governors and kings” on trial for their lives and when preaching the gospel to their own generation, He also guided them when writing for the ages. Repeatedly various writers of the New Testament make specific claim that they wrote by divine inspiration. This settles the question as to whether the Gospels as we possess them in Greek carry a true and faithful account of what Jesus actually said and did. It settles it for anyone who believes the teaching of the New Testament. Of what avail is an inspired origin. the critics ask, if the translations made into every language on earth lose something in the translating? But the original is still there and can be consulted for correcting and elucidating the translations. Of what avail is it, they ask, when scribal errors have crept into the oldest copies of the Bible we possess? But the original back of all the copies challenges us to the painstaking and unremitting toil in seeking to regain the infallible original. The relatively small number and slight importance of the differences in manuscript readings confirm our conviction that we have practically regained the original. Did Matthew Write First in Aramaic
If the Gospel narratives were written first and then translated into the Greek text in Aramaic? which we possess, then we have a more difficult problem. Papias, who lived from about a.d. 70-150 and was leader of the church at Hierapolis in Asia Minor and an associate of Polycarp and others who had been trained by apostles says: “Matthew composed the Oracles (ta Logia) in the Hebrew dialect, and everyone translated it as he was able” (Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History III. 39). Modernists seize upon this statement and urge that here is evidence of an earlier, shorter document in Aramaic from which our Gospel developed. But Papias plainly implies that he is speaking of the Gospel of Matthew and that the difficulty which obtained at first in translating it into Greek did not exist at the time that Papias wrote: “everyone translated.” His statement implies that the Aramaic Gospel of Matthew was not in circulation in the time of Papias for he would not then have had any necessity of telling them that such a work did exist at first. If Matthew himself translated his work from Aramaic to Greek then our problem resolves itself. Our Gospel of Matthew if published in Greek by the author himself, is not a translation, but a product of the original author. This, also, would explain the early and complete disappearance of the Aramaic Gospel of Matthew from circulation, since the church rapidly grew in its world-wide proportions and background and, possessing the Gospel of Matthew in Greek, would have no need or purpose in preserving the Aramaic facsimile.
Search of the Critics for Aramaicisms
It is exceedingly interesting to read the declarations of Professor James Hardy Ropes of Harvard in his posthumous book, The Synoptic Gospels, to the effect that the search of scholars for some kind of impressive evidence out of the structure, grammar, style, or vocabulary of the Gospel narratives themselves proving them to be translations out of an Aramaic original or source has been utterly elusive and futile. He says: “Among the several Gospels, Mark is the one regarding which the claim of a direct Aramaic original has made the most appeal to scholars” (p. 97). Thus the lone statement of Papias, which is all the external evidence anyone can produce, and the feeling of the scholars as to the internal evidence are at complete cross-purposes: the former pointing to Matthew; the latter, to Mark. According to the miniature theory of evolution by which they attempt to evolve our Gospels from earlier sources, Mark was the first to be written and “the claim of a direct Aramaic original” for Mark naturally makes “the most appeal to scholars.” But the external evidence points in the other direction and the internal evidence is very indefinite. Moreover, if Mark has made the most appeal to scholars, then we can be certain that there is no decisive internal evidence of any kind for an Aramaic original, simply because the internal evidence to the contrary is so plain in Mark that he who runs may read. Mark 15:22 should be a sufficient citation: “And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is being interpreted, The place of a skull.” “Golgotha” is an Aramaic word and the very fact that the author interprets it for his readers shows that his readers are outside of Palestine and do not have the Palestinian background. Matthew also carries a somewhat similar statement explaining the meaning of Golgotha which is again powerful evidence that the book was written in Greek. Since Matthew cites so many Old Testament prophecies as fulfilled in the life of Christ, it is customary to say that his account was written for the Jews, but such translations of the meaning of an Aramaic word for the benefit of his readers shows that Matthew was at least not writing exclusively for such an audience.
Recent Trends The chief protagonist of the theory that the four Gospel narratives are translations into Greek from Aramaic originals, has been Professor C. C. Torrey of Yale. In this he has carried forward the earlier speculations of Wellhausen, Nestle, and Gustaf Dalman. The most scholarly recent works in this field have come from Matthew Black and C. F. Burney. Torrey’s work: The Four Gospels; A New Translation (1933) consists exclusively of his translation of the Greek text, in which he inserts his guesses as to what was in an imaginary Aramaic original. Three pages and a half of explanation and defense are offered in his preface. This defense rests on reaffirmation of mythical “sources” such as “Q,” as he builds his imaginary structure of Aramaic originals upon the phantom foundation: the Two-source Theory and Form Criticism. His second work, Our Translated Gospels, Some of the Evidence (1936), offers excellent illustration of what a paradise of speculation the radicals have discovered in this fanciful hinterland of Aramaic originals. The process usually is to suppose that the Gospel writer made a mistake; then to imagine that the mistake was in translating an invented Aramaic original; on this foundation of suppositions, they propose to rear the structure of a new reading. This is not merely making bricks without straw, it is playing tiddlywinks with visionary bricks created out of thin air. Even the erudite work, The Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (1954) by Matthew Black, who is friendly to the Aramaic presupposition, frankly admits the speculative nature of Torrey’s work: “Torrey goes so far as to claim in his first larger work that Aramaic originals lie behind all four Gospels and on the basis of this view and of numerous conjectural reconstructions of Aramaic, has produced a new translation” (p. 4). Wellhausen had argued that Mark’s Gospel, in spite of the utter simplicity of his Greek style, is also a translation from an Aramaic document. Torrey goes much farther than either of these positions. Black sets forth in the preceding criticism that Torrey has as the foundation of his work, two phantom pillars — his theory and his conjectures. He discusses “One of Burney’s most valuable observations of this kind,” which is to explain the assertion of the deity of Christ in John 1:18 as found in some manuscripts, “The only begotten God” (both the a.v. and the a.s.v. follow the manuscripts which read “The only begot. ten Son”), as a mistranslation of an Aramaic original. Black remarks: “It has an attractive simplicity, is free from philological difficulties, and the Greek reading is unusual. Equally remarkable, however, would be the ignorance of the translator who made the blunder, unless we look on his ‘version’ as a deliberate theological interpretation of the Aramaic” (The Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (1954), p. 10).
Criticisms of Torrey’s Position
Black declares that the same sort of objections “mainly philological, may be made to most of the examples of ‘mistranslation’ of original Aramaic which have been adduced by Torrey and Burney.” Black quotes Moulton, the famous Greek Grammarian, (Gramm. 11, p. 16) as saying: “The fascinating pursuit of Aramaic originals may lead to a good percentage of successful guesses; but they are mere guesses still, except when a decided failure in the Greek can be cleared up by an Aramaic which explains the error, and this acts as corroboration” (The Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (1954), p. 11). Black says of Torrey’s translation: “He bases his conclusions mainly on examples of mistranslation of Aramaic originals. Most of his examples of mistranslation, however, and several of Burney’s, are open to grave objection.” He criticizes Torrey’s attempt to publish a new translation of the Gospels “before any adequate presentation of the philological evidence” was available. He says that Torrey’s “second larger study, in which the evidence of language is presented more fully, would have been of greater value had it been undertaken for the Aramaic scholar, and not for ‘popular reading’ by those who are unacquainted with Aramaic...” (The Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (1954), p. 4). Black notes that both Burney and Torrey follow the assumption of Dalman that the Targums of Onkelos (whom Black identifies as Aquila) and the Prophets furnish the closest parallel to the Aramaic of Jesus (The Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (1954), p. 5). He says: “In the almost complete absence of literary Aramaic writings contemporary with the Gospels, the question of the best use of the actual sources of knowledge available becomes important” (The Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (1954), p. 26). The Palestinian Pentateuch Targum is thought by Black to be first-century Palestinian Aramaic (The Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (1954), pp. 17-25). Black offers three criticisms of preceding work in this field of speculation. (1) Dalman was correct in criticizing “the inadequacy of the linguistic approach of Wellhausen and Nestle, but was mistaken in the larger claims he makes...for Targumic Aramaic as the primary authority for the language of Jesus.” (2) The preceding investigation had been limited to the Greek text of Westcott and Hort or that of Tischendorf. Wensick’s extension of the investigation to Codex Bezae is especially commended. (3) The efforts of Torrey and Burney are criticized because they “attach much importance to the conjectural mistranslations of Aramaic as proof of source. Mistranslation of an original is, it is true, the best proof of translation; but it is doubtful if it can ever have scientific value as evidence except in cases where we possess not only the translation but also the original work. Even then demonstrative proof is not always possible” (The Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (1954), pp. 6, 7).
Torrey’s Attack on Luke
After such searching criticisms of the efforts to draw Aramaic originals out of a magician’s hat, it is of interest to investigate Black’s methods and conclusions. First, let us examine one of the charges of mistranslation by Luke of a supposed Aramaic original as cited by Torrey. This case is not selected at random. It is chosen because Black heartily concurs in Torrey’s argument and conclusions. Thus we can estimate both Torrey and Black at once. Further, Black selects this case as an outstanding example of a clear and convincing passage in Torrey’s translation. He says: “The following two examples from the work of Torrey merit the description ‘brilliant,’ and deserve to rank with Wellhausen’s observation on Matthew 23:26 (Luke 11:41)” (The Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (1954), p. 11). Torrey’s Our Translated Gospels offers the following argument on Luke 1:39 (p. 84). This is the first of the two illustrations Black selects. Torrey insists that the Greek text must be translated: “In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to the city Judah.” He comments: “There was no ‘city Judah,’ and the rendering ‘a city of Judah’” (English R.V.) is grammatically impossible; for in order to express this, the genitive case of the proper name must be shown, as in Luke 1:65, John 4:5, etc. Luke regarded ‘Judah’ as the name of a city, as is quite evident from his Greek in Luke 2:4.” (p. 85).
Torrey declares that he is the person who discovered “the obvious explanation of Luke’s mistake.” The first matter worthy of note is the blasé manner in which the Yale professor some nineteen hundred years after the time of writing presumes to charge Luke, the master-historian (not to mention Luke’s divine inspiration), with the most incessant, stupid blunders, linguistic, geographical, and historical. A glance at Luke 2:4 shows that Luke names the city of Judah concerning which he speaks — “Bethlehem.” Torrey claims that Luke, being a Gentile, misunderstood the meaning of the Aramaic word in the supposed document from which he was copying and translated “city” when he should have read “province” : “to the province of Judaea.” The sole fact on which Torrey’s entire attack upon Luke’s accuracy at this point is based is that the Greek word “Judah” (louda) is not in the genitive case and cannot be rendered “[of] Judah.” He brushes aside the English Revised translation which had the leadership of such giants as Westcott and Lightfoot. But the Authorized Version and the American Standard Version also render it “of Judah.” Torrey does not mention this. Thayer’s Lexicon lists louda as an indeclinable proper noun. In such a noun all the cases have the same ending: it is not declined. The structure and content of the sentence determines if such a word is in the genitive case, not the ending. Torrey does not mention this. It is very common for Greek proper nouns to be indeclinable and for the name of a city to be spelled in two ways, one of the names being declinable and the other indeclinable. The two names for Jerusalem offer ready example: hierosoluma and hierousalem. The same authors sometimes use one or the other, the declinable or the indeclinable form. Thayer says: “both forms are used promiscuously (yet with a marked preference for the indeclinable form)” (p. 299). Thus we see that Luke uses either the declinable form of Judah (Ioudas) or the indeclinable form (Iouda). Torrey does not mention this mass of evidence. Thayer establishes the fact that Iouda is an indeclinable Greek proper name by citing two instances of its use by Matthew (Matthew 2:6) “land of Judah”; “princes of Judah.” He further cites two cases of its use in the Septuagint: Judges 17:8 where the usage is precisely that of Luke 1:39 — “city of Judah”; and Joshua 21:11 — “in the hill-country of Judah.” Torrey does not mention any of this evidence. Did the 72 Jewish scholars who translated the Old Testament into Greek also make two such mistakes in separate books in translating the Hebrew? They were not Gentiles stumbling over Hebrew books. Did Matthew also make two mistakes in quick succession in writing Iouda as an indeclinable genitive? Torrey does not mention any of this. He reminds one of the recruit in the parade who found all the soldiers out of step, except himself. Nathan Black is also out of step.
Black’s Position Examined A good example of the flimsy and far-fetched citations of Aramaic background by Black is found in John 1:15 : “After me cometh a man who is become before me; for he was before me.” Black bases his objection to this text upon his radical theological ideas as to what John would probably have said. He translates (correcting John’s mistaken translation of a supposed Aramaic original): “He that cometh after me is superior to me.” Black says: “This distinction between priority in time and priority in rank can only be maintained in the context of the Prologue. It could not come from John the Baptist himself, for John had no theology of the pre-existent Logos and could hardly claim that his great contemporary (and his junior in years) had existed before him” (The Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (1954), p. 108). Again we find Luke in hot controversy with the Aramaic specialists of the twentieth century. It is not only John who is assailed by Matthew Black, but Luke. Luke declares the historic fact that the angel Gabriel made the prediction to Zacharias concerning the child, John, who is to be born to the aged couple: “He shall be filled with the Holy Spirit. even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15). Jesus Himself declared that John was inspired of God: the baptism of John was not from men, but from God (Matthew 21:24-27). John the Baptist made the solemn declaration: “And I have seen, and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (John 1:34). But Matthew Black denies that John the Baptist could have had divine inspiration to know the deity of Christ. And on the basis of his skepticism he conjures up an imaginary Aramaic document which he declares is mistranslated by John.
Torrey Versus Goodspeed
Thomas Kepler’s Contemporary Thinking About Jesus (1944), which offers a symposium of radical views, publishes in successive chapters articles by C. C. Torrey and Edgar J. Goodspeed. They might be called “Aramaic vs. Greek.” They are entitled: “The Origin of the Gospels” (Torrey) and “The Original Language of the Gospels” (Goodspeed). Commenting on the discovery of the vast number of Greek papyri which parallel the Greek of the New Testament — the koine, Goodspeed declares that they have rendered of small importance the efforts to explain unusual constructions of New Testament Greek as due to “Semitism — that is, due to imitation of Hebrew or Aramaic idioms.” He says that in the presence of the Greek papyri these Aramaic idioms “have rapidly dwindled until they have lost any possible literary significance He declares that the Gospels were not composed “in muddy Greek or an awkward patois,” but were “master-pieces of popular literature.” He argues for their kinship with vernacular Greek of the papyrus letters and documents. “It is an amazing fact that we now have definitely dated papyrus documents from every single year of the first century; not late copies, but the actual originals. If we possessed one single Aramaic text from anywhere in that century, or even a copy of one, in the language of Palestine, we should be fortunate. But none has ever been found” (pp. 62, 63).
Torrey laments his inability to produce a copy of one of the Aramaic originals of the Gospels which he supposes once existed. He admits that the advocate of an original Semitic text of these Gospels knows a great barrier is before him. While he has the Greek, the Aramaic original he postulates is gone forever. “He is inclined to say to himself that the only evidence that could make any impression on his colleagues of the Greek persuasion would be the resurrection of one of the Aramaic or Hebrew texts, say in Egypt. But on second thought he will add, doubtfully: “If they hear not my reconstructed text, neither will they be persuaded if one rise from the dead” (The Four Gospels; A New Translation (1933), pp. 56, 57). The Dead Sea Scrolls
Rising from the dead out of the caves along the wild, barren mountains of the Dead Sea in one of the most dramatic episodes of the long history of archaeology, numerous Aramaic documents out of the days of the beginning of Christianity have come forth in company with the more famous Dead Sea Scrolls. Goodspeed’s assertion: “But none has ever been found” is now gone with the wind in these reconstruction days of radical theories. Of course, Torrey’s vain wish is still unanswered. He desires more than a resurrection; he desires that a copy of “Q” or “Ur-Mark” in Aramaic be found. This would require an act of creation — producing something out of nothing. These “sources” have never been shown to exist in any place except the heated imagination of critics hostile to the claims of Christ and the Scriptures.
Eight languages are represented among the scrolls and fragments found in the caves along the Dead Sea area: Biblical Hebrew; Mishnaic Hebrew, Palestinian Aramaic, Nabatean, Palestinian-Christian Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and Arabic. Milik is cited by Burrows, More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls (p. 183), as affirming that the last five of these languages are seen only in the texts of Khirbet Mird from the Byzantine Period. Burrows says that the other three may be reduced to two, Hebrew and Aramaic, which were used together in the Qumran community and also by the Bar Cochebas revolutionaries of the second century a.d. as shown by their manuscripts from Wady Murabbaat. He says that while Aramaic had been the language generally spoken by the Jews in Palestine for some two or three centuries, Hebrew was remembered and, in the religious enthusiasm of the Maccabean revolt in the second century b.c., it had been brought into more general use, especially in the case of documents of a formal or official nature.
Burrows’ Conclusions
Burrows affirms that, excluding the Biblical manuscripts and those written in Aramaic, the majority of the Qumran texts are written in “what has been called a neo-classical Hebrew. The writers tried to use a biblical style, imitating especially the Deuteronomic writings, but they did not realize how much their language differed from that of their models.” The famous copper scroll, however, “is written in Mishnaic Hebrew, the dialect of the rabbis whose sayings are recorded in the Mishnah” (Burrows, More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 183, 184). The Aramaic texts of the Qumran and Murabbaat caves are said by Burrows to fill a great gap in the sources for our knowledge of Palestinian Aramaic in the Greek and Roman periods. He cites brief inscriptions, especially those of the Palmyrenes and Nabateans, as the only previously known Aramaic texts from that period. We had examples of the literary Aramaic of the Persian and Greek periods in the books of Ezra and Daniel and from papyrus documents found in Egypt, “but the common spoken Aramaic of the Roman period in Palestine had no direct attestation.” (More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 184).
Wild Theories
Seldom has there been seen such a wild jamboree of fantastic theories and conflicting suppositions and conclusions as has been caused by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The guesses as to character and convictions of the community at Qumran run the full gamut of the extremes from Essenes to Zealots. Radical critics have seized every straw and attempted to convert it into a weapon to be used against the New Testament. When a teacher is mentioned in the scrolls, (what community does not have a teacher?), the weird assertion is made by the critics that here is the teacher from whom Jesus of Nazareth learned the wisdom which has enthralled mankind for two thousand years! Artificial pools have been unearthed at Qumran (what people can be found who do not need water for drinking, cooking, and washing?) and forthwith the excited imagination of those who would deny the divine origin of the Gospel attempt to picture not ceremonial cleansings of the Old Testament, but an imagined “baptism” from which we are told John the Baptist copied his ordinance, while claiming it was directly inspired of God. In the swirl of radical theories there is no general agreement among the critics as every man’s hand appears raised against his neighbor. Until the dust settles over such fantastic theorizing, one can hardly expect the more sober work of a detailed nature on the vocabulary and syntax of the Aramaic documents. This whole field of inquiry has been vastly stimulated, and a great amount of work is sure to be devoted by the experts to the Aramaic texts recovered from the Dead Sea caves. Professor Burrows has steadily resisted the fantastic theories of dependence of Christian origins upon the sect which stored the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Professor Burrows does attempt to relate the Dead Sea Scrolls to various radical theories about the contents of Daniel and declares that the discovery of these fragments and documents will have no importance for those who believe that the book of Daniel is history (More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 169). This greatly underestimates the interest in scholarly research among men of faith. It is not necessary that a man should hold that Daniel is a concoction of myths and fables by an anonymous forger who tried to pretend he was Daniel in order for these Dead Sea Scrolls to excite profound interest. The very fact that a Christian believes that the books of the Bible are divinely inspired documents should give him the most vital interest in every possible discovery which will help in the recovery of the inspired originals. Professor Burrows sets forth in sober fashion the slow, tedious task of deciphering and translating the scrolls and fragments and of adding up the various minute details of Palestinian Aramaic of the first century and the profit which we may expect to accrue for our understanding of the New Testament.
Aside from interest in the technical details, the man of faith gives an enormous importance to the admissions of radical scholars that these fragments of Daniel found in the Dead Sea caves actually date back to within fifty years of the time of the composition of their supposed “late Daniel” (More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 35). This comes so close to the complete collapse of their entire radical theory about Daniel that it is of the utmost importance.
Claims of Lamsa
Some of the points raised in interpretation of the Gospel accounts out of the Aramaic background have been broadcast in syndicated news articles. G. M. Lamsa, a scholar of Syria, has recently gained much publicity through his bizarre writings on this theme. He claims that the Gospels were all written originally in Aramaic, and that the Peshitta-Syriac manuscript was an early Aramaic document and not a translation from the Greek. He claims that the Aramaic of Christ’s time with only slight changes is still spoken by Assyrians and Chaldeans and is used in liturgy by Syrians of the Maronite and Jacobite sects. These constitute nearly one-half million people who live not far from Galilee.
Black discusses this type of Aramaic. He says: “Friedrick Schulthess found in Christian Palestinian Syriac the Aramaic dialect most closely akin to the Aramaic of the Gospels, and in this he had the support of two Cambridge scholars, Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlap Gibson” (The Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (1954) ) p. 16).
Torrey also makes mention of this dialect. “The Old Syriac (Lewis) Gospels can occasionally give a suggestion here, for there is evidence that they were translated by Palestinian Christians who had migrated, or fled, to the neighborhood of Antioch. Very many traces of their native dialect appear in the Syriac; which, however, rarely has any great value for critical purposes” (Torrey in Kepler, The Four Gospels; A New Translation (1933), p. 56). Lamsa even claims that no traces of Greeks, or Greek language, literature, or culture are to be found in Syria, Palestine, or Mesopotamia! This last is such a complete contradiction of the actual discoveries of archaeologists, especially in the Trans-Jordan area and of the ruins of Graeco-Roman civilization which have been familiar to all travelers in this section for ages, that it hardly needs refutation. Lamsa argues for the New Testament’s being written originally in Aramaic on the basis that an Aramaic speaking people would not write their sacred literature in a foreign language which was not known in these parts and would not have been understood. A curious monstrosity this, with that inscription in Greek at the top of the cross of Christ staring Lamsa in the face. Not only was the country of Palestine bilingual and the New Testament written in Greek from the Christian side, but from the Jewish side, here are the writings of Philo and Josephus. The books of the Apocrypha also were nearly all written in Greek.
Both Torrey and Black cite the fact that Josephus first wrote his works in his native Aramaic for his own people and then published them abroad to the Roman world in Greek. While this would offer some support to Papias’ statement that Matthew first wrote his Gospel in Aramaic (with the implication that Matthew then published his work in Greek), it would not match the radical theory of copying from Aramaic sources which the Gospel writers misunderstood and mistranslated. For any wide reading Josephus had to publish his works in Greek. The church became world-wide in scope and encompassed both Jews and Gentiles very early. Its objective from the beginning was the winning of all the world. The Greek language was the necessary vehicle.
Over all the civilized world Greek was the universal language. Lamsa’s argument presupposes that the New Testament was written for circulation in Palestine and that Greek was unknown in Palestine. Both assumptions are in self-evident contradiction to the known facts. Lamsa argues further that Christianity was firmly established in Palestine before Greeks and other non-Semites adopted this religion. It is true that a great church was established first in Jerusalem, but even a child’s knowledge of the book of Acts would give the rebuttal as to how soon the church was scattered abroad and began to preach to the Gentiles. No books of the New Testament were written until Christianity began to reach far out into the Graeco-Roman world, with the possible exception of the Epistle of James. Lamsa reluctantly admits that Paul did travel in Greece and Italy, but claims that even here he usually spoke in the Jewish synagogues and that the work among the Gentiles followed later. But even a tyro in the study of Acts knows that the work among the Gentiles followed immediately after his preaching and rejection in the synagogue in each city: he did not cover the Roman world preaching to Jews and then start over the same Roman world preaching to Gentiles; the work among both was carried on in each city before he went to the next.
Lamsa even goes to the extreme of arguing that Paul wrote his letters to churches in Greece and Rome in the Aramaic language, using the illustration that an American Presbyterian missionary would today write to churches in India in English, not in the languages of India. This illustration, which might or might not be true according to the purposes and situation of the writer and readers, completely contradicts his absurd arguments, for Greek was the universal language and Aramaic the language of a section, just as English is world-wide and the languages of India local. He admits that Paul may have been able to converse in Greek, but would not have been able to write in Greek and claims that his defenses in Jerusalem and Caesarea were made in Aramaic because he could in this language best express himself to be understood. The assertion that Paul’s defenses at Caesarea were made in Aramaic is entirely without foundation and contradictory to the whole circumstances of a prisoner, who was such a master of Greek that he could address most eloquently in Greek the very elite of Athens itself from Mars Hill — such a prisoner being tried in a Roman court where Greek and Latin prevailed and having to use his native Aramaic! The reason for Paul’s use of Aramaic in addressing the mob in Jerusalem is made apparent in Acts 22:2. It was not because Paul was illiterate and not able to use the universal language, but he desired to overcome the Jewish prejudice of the mob, to get them to hear him, and to make sure even the uneducated understood. Lamsa further claims that the New Testament is full of Aramaic idioms and style of speech.
Review of His Position The whole line of argument Lamsa advances is so manifestly contrary to the facts that it would hardly deserve any reply were it not for the fact that his writings have been widely publicized in the newspapers of America, and a great many people have been set to talking about the Aramaic background and the marvelous new light which is being thrown on the New Testament from the Aramaic Just what light has been thrown on the New Testament? When Lamsa tries to show Aramaic idioms which he thinks he sees in the Greek New Testament just what does he cite? One of the points he emphasized particularly was that the mastery of Aramaic which he possessed had given him insight into the idiom which made so difficult the passage about the saving of a rich man being as difficult as a camel’s going through a needle’s eye. He said the Aramaic idiom showed that the original word here was not camelos (camel), but camilos (cable). This immediately raises the suspicion that instead of Lamsa’s being indebted to any mysterious mastery of Aramaic for this suggestion, he simply saw that in the Greek text of Matthew 19:24 and of Luke 18:25 there is a variant reading in some manuscripts which carry the Greek word camilos instead of camelos, and seeing the variation, emitted the wild guess that this may have come from an Aramaic background. A study of the passages will show that not one single early or important manuscript carries this reading (camilos) and that the few late manuscripts which do carry this variation are so unimportant they are not even listed for this passage in any ordinary critical apparatus of a Greek New Testament. Furthermore, this confirms the suspicion that Lamsa does not know too much about the interpretation of the New Testament and that the people who are rushing off to follow him are proceeding down a blind alley. For when Lamsa arbitrarily announced that the original reading of the passage was a cable through the eye of a needle (which is quite possible for man) and not a camel through the eye of a needle, then he missed the very point of the passage for Jesus said he was talking of something which was impossible for man, but possible for God. The very extreme character of the illustration enforced the impact of the passage. The faux-pas to be anticipated was reached when Lamsa finally published a syndicated article in American newspapers announcing his marvelous discovery from the Aramaic background that the original text did not really affirm that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, but that “he had the whale of a time”! Not even the fact the book of Jonah was written in Hebrew seemed to deter him from his attempt to rewrite the narrative in this fantastic manner.
Professor Moore onMatthew 28:1 A much more sober character is seen in the declaration of Professor George Foote Moore of Harvard that the reason for the difficulty in rendering the first verse of Matthew 28:1-20 is that an Aramaic idiom lies back of it, an idiom which meant very early on the first day of the week after the passing of the Sabbath day. When, however, it is seen that the Greek word opse can be translated “after” as well as “late,” the difficulty of the translation disappears, and with it the necessity for referring to a hidden, possible Aramaic background.
Wellhaasen on “Son of Man” The extremely radical efforts of Wellhausen to argue from the content of the Aramaic phrase “Son of man” that it meant merely “man” and did not mean Messiah and was not so used by Jesus or so understood by the people, give further illustration to the intemperate efforts of critics to use the Aramaic background against the plain meaning of the Greek text. A study of the Old Testament shows that the title “Son of man” is used both in the Psalms and in Ezekiel to mean merely “man,” but a new content was put into the title even before the close of the Old Testament, when Daniel began to predict the Messianic glory of the day in which the Son of man would come on the clouds of heaven to judge the world. Jesus further strengthened and clarified this application of the title to the Messiah, quoting this passage from Daniel before the high priest at the time of His trial and using the title constantly in His teaching in such a way that no one could deny that He used the title as meaning the Messiah and as referring to Himself — at least no one except one whose prejudice led him to tear the Gospel narratives to shreds in order to maintain his skeptical theory. No appeal to a hazy Aramaic background can afford sufficient smoke screen for such an attack on the New Testament and upon Jesus.
Petros and Petra A most interesting point of interpretation has been raised in regard to the meaning of Matthew 16:18 in the light of its probable Aramaic background. There is general agreement that Jesus spoke Aramaic on such occasions as this when He was teaching His disciples in private. Not even the strongest advocates of the theory that He preached in Greek would extend the claim to such ordinary occasions as private instruction of His disciples. Since Jesus was speaking in Aramaic and the conversation is reported to us in Greek by Matthew, what are we to conclude about the assurance of any argument based on the difference in gender between petros and petra? The Roman Catholics have always insisted that Jesus named Peter as the foundation of the church; the Protestants have pointed out, among many other things, the fact that different words are used here in the Greek — “Thou art Petros (masculine gender), and upon this petra (feminine gender).” Petros is a stone — a piece broken off of a great mass of rock. The use of the word in classical literature shows it can mean a pebble such as was thrown in a sling-shot or it can mean a stone set up as a boundary line. Petra means a vast mass of virgin rock.
Certain radical scholars have arisen among the Protestants who say that the Roman Catholic interpretation is correct and attempt to explain away the difference in the Greek words on the basis of the Aramaic background. It should be remembered that the interpretation of the passage does not rest merely upon this discussion, for Peter on the day of Pentecost and in the following sermons did not announce himself as the foundation of the church, but referred his hearer to the Stone which the builders had rejected, even Jesus. A multitude of passages confirm the proposition that the Greek word petros points to the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. “Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11). There is undoubtedly a play on the Greek words Petros and petra, but there is also a difference in the words used. Peter cannot be taken out of the passage, but he cannot be made the foundation of the church.
Hellenized Names The Interpreter’s Bible says: “In Aramaic there would be no separate form to indicate the masculine gender: ‘You are Kepha, and on this Kepha I will build’” (Vol. VII, p. 451). Such a dogmatic declaration as this needs to be placed alongside the repeated admissions that practically no remains of Palestinian Aramaic of this period are extant. As in the attempts of radical scholar to charge the Gospel writers with mistakes in translating supposed Aramaic documents, so here there is the charge that Matthew made a mistake in reporting what Jesus said. The Interpreter’s Bible declares: “It is more than likely that the present form of the sentence, and much of the whole passage, has been changed and colored by the author of the Gospel in his understandable and not unworthy purpose to exalt the leadership of Peter” (The Interpreter’s Bible Vol. VII., p. 450). In other words, it is a deliberate falsification of what Jesus said.
Inasmuch as Palestine was bilingual in the first century, the language must have been in a state of flux. The earliest and readiest infiltration of one language into another is in the formation of proper names. The varied spelling of proper names from the Hebrew into the Greek illustrates not merely necessary changes because of difference in alphabets, but also deliberate changes in coined words with varied meaning. John 1:42 shows that Jesus gave Peter the name Kephas (not Kepha). Thus the same difference seen in Matthew’s report (Petros and Petra) was in the Aramaic (Kephas and Kepha). It is probable that Kephas is a Hellenized form of the Aramaic Kepha. Jesus could readily have coined such a name with the shade of meaning which He stated it should carry. Simon Peter’s brother, Andrew, already had a Greek name, as did Philip. The Interpreter’s Bible, itself, says of the name Thomas: “the name may be a Hellenized form of the Aramaic word for twin” (The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol VII, p. 364). It also suggests that “Cananaean” and “Kerioth” may be the Greek for particular Aramaic equivalents.
Positions of Ryder and Allen A brief but clear statement of the radical position on the Aramaic background of this passage comes from Professor Ryder of Andover Seminary: “No stress can be laid on the change in gender. Christ spoke Aramaic as ‘Bar Jonah’ helps to show. In Greek you could not have petra in both cases for Peter was a man. Nor could you have petros because the meaning rock rather than stone was required. The Aramaic would have used Kepha in both places and it means either rock or stone “All efforts to explain the rock in any other way than as referring to Peter have ignominiously failed.” The English scholar, W. H. Allen of Oxford University, in the International Critical Commentary on Matthew does not discuss the problem of the Aramaic background of the passage except to remark: “There is no difficulty in supposing that Christ used some Aramaic phrase or word which would signify the community or society of His disciples, knit together by their belief in His divine Sonship, and pledged to the work of propagating His teaching” (p. 176). On the interpretation of the passage he affirms vigorously: “The petra is equivalent to the object of apekalupse (did reveal) in John 1:17 ‘Flesh and blood did not reveal it,’ i.e., the Messiahship and divine Sonship of Christ. ‘Upon this rock of revealed truth I will build my church.’ The play upon Petros and petra means, ‘You have given expression to a revealed truth, and your name Petros suggests a metaphorical name for it. It shall be the petra or rock upon which the church shall stand. In other words, it shall be the center of the Church’s teaching.”
Kephas and Kepha
Ryder claims that the Aramaic would have used Kepha in both places, but we find that Bernard in his International Critical Commentary on John, Vol 2, p. 20, discusses the fact that the equivalent of Petros in the Aramaic is Kephas as may be seen in the clear declaration of John 1:42, “Thou art Simon the son of John, thou shalt be called Cephas (which is by interpretation Peter)” and 1 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 3:22. Moffatt in his Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament gives the Aramaic word for petra as Kepha (p 252). The Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, by Taylor, and a work by Bruston are also cited. Although Moffatt’s discussion is full of his wild attempt to cast doubt upon the historical value of Matthew 16:17-20 and to argue that it is a development of a rabbinical saying, the fact is incidentally brought Out that the Aramaic word for petra was kepha.
Bernard offers an interesting observation that the Aramaic for Cephas and Caiaphas may have been the same: “The Aramaic name Kephas (perhaps the same as Kaiaphas) is familiar in Paul who uses it to designate Simon” (Commentary on John, p. 60). The fact that we have such very scant remains of Aramaic of the period shows itself in various opinions of scholars like this and limits the force of any conclusions based upon such slight evidence. The gap is quite significant between Ryder’s assurance of the exact form of the Aramaic and Bernard’s suggestion that Kephas may have been the same as Kaiaphas in Aramaic The same difference of opinion shows itself in Diessmann’s positive assertion of the Aramaic word back of Boanerges (Bible Studies, p. 162, 163) and the declaration of Bernard (Commentary on John) that we cannot be sure what the Aramaic was back of Boanerges. Of further interest is the statement in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (p 256) following a summary of the uses of the Hebrew word for “rock” or “stone” in the Targums, Talmud, and Midrashim: “There seems to be no evidence that the word (Cephas) was in any other case used as a name; it has no connection with the name Caiaphas (Nestle in Expository Times X. p. 185).” Again the scholars are in disagreement and the obscure character of the evidence is emphasized. The question naturally rises out of such disagreement among the scholars who have spent the most time studying the remains of Aramaic Does the slight evidence in our possession as to the form and meaning of Aramaic words which Jesus actually used justify such dogmatic assertions as Ryder makes, especially in the light of the fact that one of the words was a proper name which Jesus might have coined for the occasion? Since we have no clear evidence that the word Kephas was used in any other case as the name of an individual, this question becomes all the more pertinent.
Matthew’s Discrimination in Words In contrast with this obscurity and confusion of opinions as to the probable nature of the Aramaic background of the statement Jesus made to Peter at Caesarea Philippi, there is the plain, clear statement of the Gospel of Matthew with its discrimination between the Greek words Petros and petra Why did he make such a distinction? Ryder says he had to use Petros (masculine gender), for Peter was a man Granted. But just analyze Ryder’s next statement that Matthew could not have used Petros in both cases “because the meaning rock rather than stone was required.” To probe this statement is to cause his whole argument in regard to the Greek to crash, for he admits that a different meaning was required to express the idea of Christ. Why not use Petro (dative case) instead of petra (“on this rock”) when He talked about the foundation of the church? Because a mere “stone” would not be a suitable word to describe the foundation of a building; it needed the word “rock” suggesting a larger mass? This is partly true, but in a much deeper and larger sense, a word which was the name of a mere man, would not be suitable for the foundation of the church of the Living God which was to be founded upon Christ Jesus, the Lord. The fact remains that Petros might have been used in both cases if Jesus had wanted to say that Peter was to be the foundation of the church. Whether the figure would have been entirely appropriate becomes a matter of little moment, for under such a usage from Jesus, the word Petros would have taken on a new and larger significance, even as the whole New Testament would have to be rewritten to give Peter a vastly different place as the foundation of the church. The Solid Foundation of the Gospel The solid ground on which we stand is that Matthew heard what Jesus said and was divinely inspired to report to us what Jesus said. Even if he had not been present or if Mark or Luke, who were not present, had been the one to report this conversation, we should still have the same solid foundation of inspiration promised by Christ and proved by the miracles of the apostles. The question as to the exact form of the Aramaic words used remains entirely secondary and of relative unimportance. Matthew heard, knew, and reported that there was a shading of meaning in this play on words which used a similar word and yet a different word. Even if the Aramaic words had not yet shown this different shade of meaning, the very pronunciation of the words, the emphasis with which they were uttered, or a significant gesture could have made it perfectly clear to the apostles that He was introducing a figure suggested by Peter’s name and his wonderful, ringing confession of his faith, but that in this figure He made clear the foundation was not to be any mere man, it was to be the sublime truth which had been uttered — a truth, which when examined, finds us looking at Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God as the true and only Foundation of the church. As in so many investigations which the zeal or animus of scholars has initiated, we find that we return from a brief survey of the field of the Aramaic background with a deeper respect for the unique character of the New Testament. We have a stronger realization that the entire gospel of Christ rests upon His divine character and that the reliability and inspiration of the New Testament become more assured with every new investigation.