How Christianity Became Pagan

[godnotgod]

An interesting discussion on Mat 27:46. One can see with just a Strong's that Lamsa is correct and the English translation is wrong. I've included the verse with Strong's numbers for anyone that wishes to look it up.

Mat 27:46 andG1161 aboutG4012 theG3588 ninthG1766 hourG5610 JesusG2424 criedG310 with a loudG3173 voice,G5456 saying,G3004 Eli,G2241 Eli,G2241 lamaG2982 sabachthani?G4518 that is to say,G5123 MyG3450 God,G2316 myG3450 God,G2316 whyG2444 hast thou forsakenG1459 me?G3165

The problem is that not understanding - they chose the negative of the words. "Lama" is being translated "why" in the negative = why did you forsake me. It should be "why" as in "This is WHY" = for this REASON.

"Sabachthani" is also being shown in the negative -" left" - as in abandoned. It should be "left" as in "PLACED" for a purpose. The added Greek makes this clear -

ινατι με εγκατελιπες


In other words we can see for ourselves that Lamsa is right. It should read something like;

My God, My God For this REASON/event was I placed (born.)


It is stupid to say that he knew what was to happen - and orchestrated the last events to lead to his death - and then when it happens - to suddenly ask why he is being forsaken by God!

Thank you for explaining Lamsa's position the way you did.

As has been pointed out previously, he fully expected to be in heaven on that day in union with his Father. Knowing this fully, why, too, would he express any feelings of being lost or forsaken?

Let's not forget that Yeshu was a human being, and to proclaim that his life led up only to find himself in his current predicament was, in my opinion, an expression about the irony of his fate.

Beyond this, I strongly suspect that words were being put into Yeshu's mouth which echo David's cry in Psalm 22 to make it appear that a prophecy is being fulfilled. To twist things in this way carries with it the idea of lending credibility to Christianity where none is due. But Psalm 22 itself would have to be stretched a bit to make it seem as if it foretold the Crucifixion. What we really have here is a man who has achieved a high level of spiritual maturity as a Jewish mystic of the sect of the Nazarenes, but who is being crucified on the one hand purely for sedition and treason by the Romans, and for blasphemy on the other callled for by the high priests. All the talk about blood sacrifice for sin redemption and all the rest is superimposed myth, as is any idea of a resurrection and ascension into a heavenly realm. What we do have are stories from the East which talk about his having survived the Crucifixion to live out his days in the company of sympathetic Buddhist friends in the Himalayas, who claim to have known him as their beloved St. Issa from his previous travels Eastward during his so-called 'missing years', between the age of 12 and 30.

 

[Ingledsva]

Thank you for explaining Lamsa's position the way you did.

As has been pointed out previously, he fully expected to be in heaven on that day in union with his Father. Knowing this fully, why, too, would he express any feelings of being lost or forsaken?

Let's not forget that Yeshu was a human being, and to proclaim that his life led up only to find himself in his current predicament was, in my opinion, an expression about the irony of his fate.

Beyond this, I strongly suspect that words were being put into Yeshu's mouth which echo David's cry in Psalm 22 to make it appear that a prophecy is being fulfilled. To twist things in this way carries with it the idea of lending credibility to Christianity where none is due. But Psalm 22 itself would have to be stretched a bit to make it seem as if it foretold the Crucifixion. What we really have here is a man who has achieved a high level of spiritual maturity as a Jewish mystic of the sect of the Nazarenes, but who is being crucified on the one hand purely for sedition and treason by the Romans, and for blasphemy on the other callled for by the high priests. All the talk about blood sacrifice for sin redemption and all the rest is superimposed myth, as is any idea of a resurrection and ascension into a heavenly realm. What we do have are stories from the East which talk about his having survived the Crucifixion to live out his days in the company of sympathetic Buddhist friends in the Himalayas, who claim to have known him as their beloved St. Issa from his previous travels Eastward during his so-called 'missing years', between the age of 12 and 30.

Actually it is my opinion after looking at the original languages.

I agree that the "heavenly" aspects are myth. I think, if Iesous actually existed, he decided to take on, or thought he actually was, the Messiah. In Torah Messiah is a man, not a trinity God. He knew the story, and I think he thought he could help to throw off the Roman yoke by acting it out and becoming the Ultimate Sacrifice - a human one in the Old Testament style.

As to the Buddhist ideas - I don't know. However, ancient historians tell us the Hebrew people came from India.

"Megasthenes, who was sent to India by Seleucus Nicator, about three hundred years before Christ says that the Jews 'were an Indian tribe or sect called Kalani...'" (Anacalypsis, by Godfrey Higgins, Vol. I; p. 400.)

"...These Jews are derived from the Indian philosophers; they are named by the Indians Calani." Josephus (37 - 100 A.D.), (Book I:22.)

"The tribe of Ioud or the Brahmin Abraham, left the Maturea of the kingdom of Oude in India and, settling in Goshen, or the house of the Sun or Heliopolis in Egypt, gave it the name of the place which they had left in India, Maturea." (Anacalypsis; Vol. I, p. 405.)


ALSO - The bible states that Ishmael, son of Hagar, and his descendants lived in India. "...Ishmael breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his kin... They dwelt from Havilah (India), by Shur, which is close to Egypt, all the way to Asshur." (Genesis 25:17-18.)

Abrahm & Sarai = Brahma & Sarai-svati

In Hindu mythology, Sarai-Svati is Brahm's sister/wife.

In the Bible Abraham introduced his wife Sarai as his sister, twice. He told Pharaoh and the king of Gerar that Sarai was really his sister.

The names of Isaac and Ishmael are derived from Sanskrit: (Hebrew) Ishaak = (Sanskrit) Ishakhu = "Friend of Shiva." (Hebrew) Ishmael = (Sanskrit) Ish-Mahal = "Great Shiva."


Interesting!

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

My post was primarily in response to your misleading statement that:

"We don't have a Pe****ta or the Pe****ta, but rather manuscripts (some more complete than others), the earliest of which date from the 6th or 7th century CE."

...which leaves out the fact that it is an internally verified copy of a second century original. This represents a complete Pe****ta New Testament of 22 books. Is there a complete Greek NT, either copy or original, that predates the alleged original Khabouris Codex, and which the Khabouris would have been translated from, as Greek NT primacists would maintain?

On what do you base this? Are you aware, for example, that this scam started back in the 50s when Yonan first tried to claim he had a Codex which was not a copy but really was the oldest so-called "Aramaic" gospel, representing the original NT. And while they did get Metzger, one of foremost textual critics of the day to examine the Yonan codex, the Aramaic Bible Foundation and Yonan didn't bother to let him know they just needed his name, not his analysis, because they intended to (and did) ignore what he said and misrepresented him.

After that scandal, Yonan and a collegue went out to find the rest of their codex:
"Mr. Yonan and an associate, Mr. D. MacDougald, committed their energies to the pursuit of a complete version. According to their own reports (which may be exaggerated or even fabricated) they discovered the present manuscript in a small Assyrian monastery on the River Khabor, a tributary of the River Euphrates, and hence gave their discovery the name the Khabouris Codex. They claimed to have enlisted the support and aid of the abbot in deciphering some of the text, and purchased the codex from the monastery and brought it to America. Mr. Yonan interpreted the worn and damaged colophon of the manuscript and a subsequent inscription to date it between 195 AD and 410 AD; making it, as he explained in his press-release, potentially older than the Yonan Codex, the Codex Syriac Sinaiticus, the Cureton Codex and the Jerusalem Codex. However, doubt was raised by a number of scholars after Yonan's death in 1970. Correspondence from 1986 shows that the British Library experts had dated it paleolographically to about the twelfth century, and this has now been confirmed by a research team assembled in America in 1995, as well as by carbon dating by the University of Arizona in 1999 (giving the date range 1000-1190 AD). " from a discussion at pe****ta.org

So, not only is the Khabouris a re-hash of the Yonan scam, only with an added bonus of an colophon which doesn't actually give a date, but has something which Yonan interpreted and "which if Yonan's decipherment is accurate indicates that the manuscript?s ultimate exemplar was written in the period 195-410" (from the link above). Only somehow the online community turned this into an misundestanding.

And finally, as nobody knows the history of the document and it isn't in exactly great shape (you can see the pages yourself, which include unreadablle portions), all we have is a late medieval Syriac which is supposed to be a copy of a manuscript which predates any known Syriac manuscripts, but not necessarily Greek, and certainly not Greek fragments.

There's a reason why this codex is basically absent from collections, catalogues, and scholarship on the Syriac language, textual tradition (including but not limited to the biblical portions) and textual criticism: it was bogus 50 years ago and not much has changed. There are better Syriac texts which don't involve speculations about a colophon which is just about impossible to read and doesn't actually give a date.

But, in order that we not ignore fringe positions, here's an analysis of the codex from a Netzarim site, which I would say fulfills both the fringe and the spiritual "outside rational mind" needs.

 

[godnotgod]

On what do you base this? Are you aware, for example, that this scam started back in the 50s when Yonan first tried to claim he had a Codex which was not a copy but really was the oldest so-called "Aramaic" gospel, representing the original NT. And while they did get Metzger, one of foremost textual critics of the day to examine the Yonan codex, the Aramaic Bible Foundation and Yonan didn't bother to let him know they just needed his name, not his analysis, because they intended to (and did) ignore what he said and misrepresented him.

After that scandal, Yonan and a collegue went out to find the rest of their codex:
"Mr. Yonan and an associate, Mr. D. MacDougald, committed their energies to the pursuit of a complete version. According to their own reports (which may be exaggerated or even fabricated) they discovered the present manuscript in a small Assyrian monastery on the River Khabor, a tributary of the River Euphrates, and hence gave their discovery the name the Khabouris Codex. They claimed to have enlisted the support and aid of the abbot in deciphering some of the text, and purchased the codex from the monastery and brought it to America. Mr. Yonan interpreted the worn and damaged colophon of the manuscript and a subsequent inscription to date it between 195 AD and 410 AD; making it, as he explained in his press-release, potentially older than the Yonan Codex, the Codex Syriac Sinaiticus, the Cureton Codex and the Jerusalem Codex. However, doubt was raised by a number of scholars after Yonan's death in 1970. Correspondence from 1986 shows that the British Library experts had dated it paleolographically to about the twelfth century, and this has now been confirmed by a research team assembled in America in 1995, as well as by carbon dating by the University of Arizona in 1999 (giving the date range 1000-1190 AD). " from a discussion at pe****ta.org

So, not only is the Khabouris a re-hash of the Yonan scam, only with an added bonus of an colophon which doesn't actually give a date, but has something which Yonan interpreted and "which if Yonan's decipherment is accurate indicates that the manuscript?s ultimate exemplar was written in the period 195-410" (from the link above). Only somehow the online community turned this into an misundestanding.

And finally, as nobody knows the history of the document and it isn't in exactly great shape (you can see the pages yourself, which include unreadablle portions), all we have is a late medieval Syriac which is supposed to be a copy of a manuscript which predates any known Syriac manuscripts, but not necessarily Greek, and certainly not Greek fragments.

There's a reason why this codex is basically absent from collections, catalogues, and scholarship on the Syriac language, textual tradition (including but not limited to the biblical portions) and textual criticism: it was bogus 50 years ago and not much has changed. There are better Syriac texts which don't involve speculations about a colophon which is just about impossible to read and doesn't actually give a date.

But, in order that we not ignore fringe positions, here's an analysis of the codex from a Netzarim site, which I would say fulfills both the fringe and the spiritual "outside rational mind" needs.

First of all, the colophon page, it's surface having been damaged by the abrasive action of a burlap wrapping, has been subjected to high resolution UV photographic techniques, revealing it's text:

"According to both Eric and Myers, these UV images may be the most important of all. Not only do they offer detail that full color cannot, UV is a common technique to detect forgery. The UV images will prove the pages’ authenticity. "If there had been more time, I would have captured the entire codex in UV, but I managed to capture those areas that were most damaged before leaving for New York to deliver the codex.”

Myers noted that the codex’s colophon page presented even more challenges. It was the most damaged page in the Khabouris. “Someone had put a burlap-type material on the inside cover, which basically sanded off the colophon page over time,” he said. “To capture a wider range of data in a single image, we tried high-dynamic-range imaging — you set the sensitivity of each CCD row individually. And, we tried colored filters: three to four setups of UV, UV plus visible, infrared, IR plus visible. “We tried combinations, everything to see what would be appropriate,” Myers continued. “We rebuilt the lighting setups four or five times. Finally we got it.”


The Khabouris Codex Reproduction Project


Beyond this, I don't know where we can find the actual full text of the colophon, as revealed by UV photography, in order to see exactly what it does say in terms of any dating. Apparently, there is some confusion regarding a reference to '100 years after the great persecution ' was included in it's text. Paul Younan had stated this:


"I went back and re-read the colophon and I don't find any reference at all to "100 years" - I think somebody is making that part up. It simply refers to the original copy being made during the Great Persecution, which would make the Khabouris an 11th-century copy of a well worn 4th century manuscript, which was most likely a copy of the very original 1st-century manuscripts.

So with the Khabouris we have, I believe, a 3rd-generation text which was very close to the original since only 2...or a maximum or 3 scribes in total had their hands in there. That's why its so valuable. It's only the 3rd link in the chain."


Pe****ta.org • View topic - Kaboris Manuscript


But Stephen Silver, the translator, stated the following in September of this year:


"A little correction if you will. I erred and so have others in dating the [Khabouris] original manuscript to 100 years after the Roman Persecution 165 A.D. when it should be dated to [the] time of Constantine and the persecution of [Persian] King Sappur II. Sorry for the error. The date should be about 100 years before the persecution of Sappur II, putting it at about 225 A.D. So you should be looking at the particular (Bishop Shahlufa) around 225 A.D. If I am not grossly mistaken."


Pe****ta.org • View topic - Name of bishop of nineveh?


He apparently meant to say: "100 years after the Roman Persecution of 65 A.D., dating it to 165 A.D."

 

[godnotgod]

But, in order that we not ignore fringe positions, here's an analysis of the codex from a Netzarim site, which I would say fulfills both the fringe and the spiritual "outside rational mind" needs.

The history of the Khaburis Manuscript is unknown prior to its receipt here in America. It was secured by the Yonan Codex Foundation by gift from two Americans, who are thought to have secured it from the members of an ancient religious sect known to modern scholars as Nestorian. This sect is a surviving remnant of the See of Babylon of the Church of the East. It is thought by some to have been out of the library of a small church atop one of the mountains of Kurdistan. The contents of this library were seized by Turkish authorities in 1966 and now are in Ankara, Turkey, as per announcement in the Istanbul Gazette of June 11, 1966, complete with pictures of the church and some of the documents then in hand.
The language of this small church is the Aramaic as it was spoken by Y'Shua of Nazareth. Their script is Estrangela, long thought to be a dead and unused script since the days of the Islamic conquest. The present condition and welfare of this church and its most reverend members is unknown.

While Aramaic texts of the New Testament have been available in western scholarship since Matthew was first inscribed, all known efforts to translate Aramaic text into English have largely failed to deliver into any western language the full insights that the translator has gained from his reading of the Aramaic. This could well have been due to the fact that all western languages are descendent from the Sanskrit language brought out of the East by the Persians in their first westward conquest. Aramaic was the language of Persian theology and the language by which they would rule their empire. The Aramaic language comprehends psychology so completely, it utilizes a syntax which portrays the working relationship between mind sets, perception, mind structures, reason, judgment, entities of mind (realities), human attitudes, and human behavior. Also, Aramaic does not distinguish verbally between the mental and the physical. The word for "near" in Aramaic includes the mentally near as well as the physically near. Nor does Aramaic verbally distinguish between a cause and its effect. The same word signifies both the cause and its effect. Such thoughts as these did not exist in the Sanskrit, nor do they exist in any of its descendent languages such as Latin, Greek, English or any other western languages.

It would appear that the people of the day, native Aramaic speaking peoples, little understood His words as indicated by His statement in Matthew 13:13-15 (KJV) Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. 14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: 15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Many will try to convince you that the Aramaic imagery carried by Y'Shua's words come through in Greek translations. They simply do not.

Many will attempt to convince you that the original writings were in Greek. Those same scholars will tell, however, that Y'Shua's words from the cross were left in the ORIGINAL ARAMAIC. Obviously, if they were left in the original Aramaic, the original was Aramaic.

A new process was developed to enhance the probability of conveying the Aramaic imagery into the imagery of the derivatives of the Sanskrit without wiping out the psychological understanding implicit in the Aramaic text. To explain this process, a clear understanding of the nature of language is needed.

A language is first spoken before it is written, so that any language may be summarized as an organized grouping of sounds which permit accurate transference of thought and realities between minds. Thus a language is, among other functions, a vehicle for transporting the thoughts, concepts and realities in one mind to another. From psychological studies of the mind, we find that the human mind is peculiarly adept in organizing complex thoughts or concepts so that they are keyed or cued by a particular sound, visual or other sensory symbol. Perception of visual or auditory symbols to which thoughts or concepts have been keyed in a given mind causes that mind to perceive those thoughts or concepts, if the mind set or attitude is proper.

Obviously, if the thoughts and concepts within a receiving mind are not keyed to sounds the same as in the mind, attempting to communicate with it by sound or in writing, there can be no communication, nor can there be any complex joint effort by the bodies controlled by those minds. This point is illustrated in the story of the Tower of Babel.

In translating the Khaburis, scholars were immediately confronted by a fact few scripture translators or preachers would ever admit! Y'Shua was speaking far beyond the wisdom of both His day and this. Though many pretend understanding, the Truth is His thinking and teaching were light years beyond anything in common understanding in either age! The Foundation's scholars discovered that there were many Aramaic concepts, thoughts and intricate thought complexes, which, with their western oriented minds, they simply did not know and had difficulty understanding.

Some of the most important imagery connected to Y'Shua's words presupposed an intricate knowledge of the unconscious which would not be "discovered" in the West for almost two thousand years. He was teaching people a technology based in Love. A way which they to go inside themselves and access previously inaccessible parts of their own minds. This empowered them to clean up what was in their "hearts" - "their unconscious." Those who understood were converted from fear and hostility based minds to Love based minds. They healed. They became healers. They became gentle Beings. The behavior of the vile became civilized and peace loving. War was no longer an option! This was a threat to the Greek fear and hostility based control the political and religious leaders of the day had over people. A war, fear and hostility based language cannot easily carry imagery that teaches people to shift. People in captivity to a fear/hostility based language are not easily freed!
The Foundation's scholars were attempting to directly bring the Aramaic ideas forward with English sound symbols. Symbols which had kept the English world at war almost continuously since its inception. Obviously, this was an impossible task. In addition, each Foundation scholar respected the wisdom of Y'Shua far more than his own. However, each felt he should understand what he wrote down. Thus each scholar was embarrassed to realize that even if he were to understand Y'Shua's Aramaic language, he must, of necessity, filter down Y'Shua's wisdom to a level which could not exceed his own - another contradiction impossible to resolve under standard translation practices.

To overcome these impossibilities, the wisdom of the ages was consulted on how best to determine the truth about that which we do not know and cannot know. In the profession of law, the rules of evidence have evolved for many thousands of years with this very object as their motivation and their goal. Consulting the learned of that profession, Foundation scholars were informed that cross-examination was the only method developed in recorded history to permit those who do not know the truth to test the veracity of a communication. With this in mind, a system was devised to permit Foundation scholars to cross-examine the meaning cued by English symbols which had been substituted for the Aramaic symbols used by Y'Shua in His teachings, in order to ascertain the verity of the resulting English text. Accuracy, in the case of an English equivalent of the teachings of Y'Shua, was assumed to exist when the words of the English text triggered, in the average English trained mind, the same understanding of one reading the Aramaic words.

HEARTLAND ARAMAIC MISSION and THE YONAN CODEX FOUNDATION

Why Is This Happening To Me... AGAIN?! - Khabouris Manuscript


(continued below)

 

[godnotgod]

(continued from above)

It had to be admitted, also, that the Aramaic text of the Khaburis Manuscript may not have presented every verbal symbolization of the thoughts and concepts of Y'Shua of Nazareth exactly as He Himself symbolized them. However, it is a perfect certainty that no other language than Aramaic can symbolize them. Aramaic was the language of His home, of His childhood, of His teachings, of His listeners, and His language from the Cross, the language of Abraham, and of the prophets. Indeed, Aramaic is the lingua-franca of those who best taught the Law behind the Law. A next step in testing the veracity of the English words was to present the resultant ideas to a troubled, violent population and see what result it produced. In a broad based prison population words and concepts faithful to the newly discovered Aramaic reduced recidivism by ninety percent! The teachings simply worked and have changed, in ways not previously dreamed, thousands of lives! Lives thought to be unredeemable.

To throw open the work for cross-examination, the Aramaic text was first transliterated and transposed into phonics, using the English alphabet. By this means anyone could identify the recurrence of a sound symbol whenever it appeared. Underneath each separate sound symbol, the idea, thought or concept triggered in Aramaic was noted as can be seen on the cover of this text. Others, not familiar with Aramaic, connected and reconnected these ideas until the resulting English text was thought by bilingual scholars to trigger the same images and concepts as did the Aramaic.

For cross-examination, a postulate was established that each time an Aramaic word appeared within the same sermon, or parable, it probably symbolized the same thought. Thus if the same thought did not appear in the English text each time an Aramaic word appeared in a given sermon or parable, a lack of textual veracity was suspected and received careful reexamination.

As an example, in Matthew 19:24, the King James version of the Bible states:
"And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

The breakdown of the Aramaic text indicates this imagery is not supported in the Aramaic text. There is no Aramaic word meaning "to go" in the verse. The word gamla is frequently rendered "camel's hair" by some scholars in translating this verse from the Aramaic. The application of the cross-examination technique described above shed doubt upon the accuracy of this rendering. Elsewhere in the gospel John the Baptist is said to have had a coat of camel's hair. The Aramaic word used for camel's hair in that passage is not the same word as gamla. Therefore, gamla apparently does not mean "camel's hair" in this verse. Further exploration of the images keyed by Aramaic words clarifies the apparent meaning of the verse. At the time of Y'Shua, Jerusalem was a walled city with heavy main gates. For night use there was left open a small gate which was so narrow that only one man could pass at a time and through which a camel could not pass without difficulty and, while passing, was severely confined and frustrated. This small night opening, which was shaped like a hole in a sewing needle of the day, was called "kheta," Aramaic for needle. Thus it would appear that the images presented in this verse of the teachings of Y'Shua involved a comparison between the difficulties of a camel confined within the narrow space within the night gate of Jerusalem, then known as "needle." A rich man confined within the narrow boundaries of the pathway into the kingdom of God, rather than presenting the rich with inevitable doom.
Everything taught in the Aramaic makes perfect sense, is usable and frees people from fear and hostility. The fearsome, punishing gods of the Greeks disappears and is replaced with a God that is Love. The command to fear God is replaced with the beneficial idea of removing all fear and hostility from the unconscious and acquiring the capacity to follow the Law that says, "Love God."

In order to empower you to conduct your own cross-examination of the text, a limited first century dictionary of the text is included. While the phonic spelling of Aramaic words does not conform to currently followed scholarship, it is felt to be sufficient for the purpose.

Because of the use of this method and the employment of cross-examination as heretofore described, the resulting text may be said to have been generated, not translated. Images triggered for the Aramaic mind are approximated to a fair degree by the English text presented with the exception of a few where the concept did not exist in western thought or excessive confusion attached to the usual English word. When this difficulty arose, the symbol was left in the Aramaic sound, so as to indicate a new concept must be acquired if understanding is to be achieved.
One cue or word left undisturbed is the Aramaic symbol, "Naphsha," which appears as "life," "soul," and "itself" in English and Greek texts. This word is left in its original sound, for all attempts to change it into English symbolism failed. The word is a philosophy involving life, law, cognition, physical health and the harmony of human actions and affairs with divine origin and active force. There is no word clearly cueing such a thought or concept or idea in western culture, so it is left in its original dignity. An essay considering its apparent meaning appears in the glossary.
Another symbol left in the original Aramaic sound is "Rookha d'Koodsha," not because its literal meaning is not available, but because of the degree of theological conflict on the concept illustrated. This sound triggers the third unit of the Trinity, denial of which "leaves you in unforgiveness" (not the unforgivable sin) (Matthew 12:32). This is the entity which is a part of God and must be worshipped (followed) (John 4:23-24) and all-embracingly loved and trusted. It is this which breaks off the effects of error and causes us to be mindful of the rules by which we should live and think (John 14:26).

With such great importance placed by Jesus upon understanding Rookha d'Koodsha, Foundation scholars felt it advisable to use the original Aramaic symbol. Ancient symbolic pictures from Egypt, South America and elsewhere depict the use or action of four elemental forces in the creation of the universe and all that is therein. Man, augmenting his created sensory equipment with all manner of created devices, has as yet been unable to sense or perceive any of these four forces or major energies which are said to constitute the fundamental energies creative of the physical universe and life. For instance, it is well known that the stars are expanding outward at tremendous velocities from a central point of beginning despite gravitational attraction, each for the other, which contradicts their outward rush. Some immense originating expulsive force or energy initiated their outward journey which still continues despite the contrary tug of gravity for billions of years. Man's created mind, using created constituents, has been unable to locate or contact such an initiating force, but can observe the fact it existed by observing the outward flight of the stars. After this originating expulsive force, the coalescing pressure of the gravity force acted on the originally expulsed material bringing individual units together, ultimately bringing the clouds of primordial hydrogen into the solidity of the stars and their planets. As with the expulsive force, the gravity force cannot be sensed directly by man's mind. All man can do is observe its effect and thus affirm its existence.

(continued below)

 

[godnotgod]

(continued from above)

A third force appears to operate in the physical area untouched by the sensing equipment of man. Something associated with heat appears to prevent the orbiting electron or a free electron from joining the nucleus of the hydrogen atom despite the pull of the opposite electrical charge. Perhaps that same force lifted the electron out of an inert neutron so as to form hydrogen. If so, this force is the creator of chemistry and chemical reactions and the father of plant and animal life. While undetected, there is no doubt as to the existence of this force, for no matter how low we cool hydrogen, or how many electrons we spray upon it, or how much we squeeze it, the center proton refuses to accept an electron and remains hydrogen, the beginning unit of matter as we know it. Again, man cannot directly contact this force, only sense its impact in the material world.

Rookha stands for these three forces and various invisible but material forces such as wind, magnetism, and electricity. As Rookha d'Koodsha, it represents an undetectable and yet tangible force upon the mind of man, a force from God for that divinely intended for man, a fourth force which man cannot contact and as yet cannot fully perceive to exist. The elders of the temple had no idea what Y'Shua was talking about when He informed them of the existence of this elemental.
Another symbol left in the original Aramaic sound is "kenoota," human behavior and judgment which we would describe as just and fair. Justness is a slightly different concept in western thought, being a finite measurable result or symptom, whereas kenoota is not only the result but the cause of the result. It is the judgment and behavior which produces justness, as well as the just judgment and behavior produced.

Another unique symbol in Aramaic is "khooba," the love we are told to have for our enemies (Matthew 5:44). The concept to be cued by khooba did not exist in western thought until psychological advances uncovered the controlling force of a set of the perceptual mind. This love is filter that produces an attitude, a mind set, which includes the desire for All-embracing affection for others and the cue control set which causes what is good about the other to be perceived. The cue control set causes that which is fair and just in the circumstances to come to mind and causes perception of the wholesome desires and objectives of others. Being only a mind set or attitude, khooba does not include reasoning, judgment or action, only the controlling sets which, if sufficiently maintained, fill memory with wholesome information (Matthew 22:35-40).

It is helpful to distinguish the love designated by khooba from the love indicated by the word "rakhma." Rakhma is a condition, a filter over the part of the brain that stores intentions and is the Aramaic word cue for the love for God, neighbor and self upon which all law hangs. It is the love for others which produces being loved (Matthew 5:7). While it is interdependent with khooba and cannot be maintained without the khooba mind set love, the love represented by rakhma includes reason, thoughts, judgment and behavior.

With an understanding of these Loves, the unique fact that Will Rogers never, "met a man he did not like" ceases to be unique and becomes a natural result anyone can reach. If one maintains mind set love, behavioral love, rakhma, for them as his motivation for such achievement will be continuous and his cue controls will fill his memory, perception, reason and judgment with what is good and lovable about the other until All-Embracing Love is established.

Under ancient Aramaic understanding, the mind set, khooba, produces a particular judgment regarding another. Under modern understanding it appears to do so by controlling present perception and stocking memory. On the issue of "How should I feel towards this person?" khooba produces the answer of kenoota, justly and fairly. In response to the question of "How do I work with this person?" khooba produces the answer of humility, cooperate with his good and wholesome desires and objectives.

With the attention directed toward God, as it is in prayer, khooba produces a love of truth and a home in rukha. Thus the mind set, khooba, continuously maintained for neighbor and for God may be considered to produce the admirable qualities of human personality recited in the first five beatitudes.

Another Aramaic symbol not normal to western thought is "koodsha," the Aramaic ancestor of the Hebrew word "kosher." While kosher means proper as delineated by the five books of Moses, koodsha is broader and means proper as determined by the will of God for man, both known and unknown. It represents that which is divinely intended for man.

Two Aramaic words, "khata" and "bisha," are rendered as sin and evil, respectively. However, the concepts cued by these words in the language of Y'Shua are not normal to western thought. Each is an archery term - sin or khata representing "missing the target," and bisha or evil representing "off target," where the arrow went when it missed. Thus in Aramaic these words appear as "not right" as opposed to their normal meaning of positive wrongs. Increasingly, neural research, research into the mechanics of the mind, appears to indicate the fact that the human mind cannot utilize a right-wrong judgment approach. Apparently the mind must follow at any given moment a right-not right or use a wrong-not wrong evaluation system; that the mind's scanning system may be set to pick up what is right or to pick up what is wrong, but cannot be set both ways at the same instant. The Aramaic limitation of sin and evil to "not rights" appear to reflect understanding of this newly discovered facet of the mind's mechanics. Which of these two sets of mind should be maintained is the subject of much of the text to follow.

The limited material from the Khaburis is felt to be of sufficient quantity to add materially to the understandings available in standard texts, particularly in relation to the mind development and mind maintenance instructions of Jesus of Nazareth. The versing is in conformity with the King James version of the Bible. We sincerely hope and pray that these few lines hereafter presented will provide a wider understanding of and respect for the most complete truth ever made known on earth, the teachings of Y'Shua of Nazareth.

HEARTLAND ARAMAIC MISSION and THE YONAN CODEX FOUNDATION

Why Is This Happening To Me... AGAIN?! - Khabouris Manuscript


(end)

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The Khabouris Codex Reproduction Project

I am lucky enough to have access to databases like Proquest, Mergent, LexisNexis, and other news and business databases, in addition to those which provide access academic publications (or both, in the case of Academic Search Complete and Proquest). Heartland, on a page they have about the Khabouris, thank Eric Rivera and provide a link stating "Here is a link to Eric's website". That link is one you used, from Better Light Inc. They are a company who sell imaging equipment. They state that "Eric Rivera is the Director of the California-based Khabouris Institute", not that he has any connection to Better Light Inc. In other words, Heartland provides a link not to "Eric's website", but to an article on Better Light Inc.'s website which is part of their "Application Articles" section which is part of their advertising on the website.

Not only that, but I couldn't find anything on either Mr. Rivera or his "institute" in various searches for which covered hundreds of thousands of documents from media outlets, official releases, press releases, non-profit filings, SEC filings, etc.

So all we know is that he apparently used Better Light Inc. to "work" on the codex, and that Better Light Inc. used this to promote their business.

Beyond this, I don't know where we can find the actual full text of the colophon

The scans of the codex are available for free. More importantly, though:

But Stephen Silver, the translator, stated the following in September of this year:


"A little correction if you will. I erred and so have others in dating the [Khabouris] original manuscript to 100 years after the Roman Persecution 165 A.D. when it should be dated to [the] time of Constantine and the persecution of [Persian] King Sappur II. Sorry for the error. The date should be about 100 years before the persecution of Sappur II, putting it at about 225 A.D. So you should be looking at the particular (Bishop Shahlufa) around 225 A.D. If I am not grossly mistaken."


Pe****ta.org • View topic - Name of bishop of nineveh?


He apparently meant to say: "100 years after the Roman Persecution of 65 A.D., dating it to 165 A.D."

How on earth did you arrive at the last part? Look carefully at Stephen's words in September. He had originally said "100 years after the Roman Persecution of 65 AD" but on Fri Sep 28, 2012 12:04 pm, Stephen Silver posted a correction, in which he admitted his first dating was wrong, and that the codex dates to "about 225 A.D."

In other words, the 3rd century.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The history of the Khaburis Manuscript is unknown prior to its receipt here in America.

1) I wrote a thread on this idea of Aramaic/Pe****ta primacy here
2) The "history" is unknown because the man who owned it had started a scandal with a similer (perhaps the same) document not just by lying about it, but by supporting his (and the Aramaic Bible Foundation) claims about the text with the "opinion" of an expert. Only it wasn't his opinion, it contradicted his opinion, and thus they forced him to ensure that his reputation wasn't ruined because Yonana and the others were so dishonest they couldn't even be trusted to faithfully report what the expert said.
3) When there were enough sources out there correcting the claims Yonan et al. were making, Yonan and another went out and (whatever happened there) came back with another document which they now said wasn't a codex written in the language Jesus spoke and the earliest NT copy. Instead, they claimed it was a copy of such a text, and a colophon showed tihs.
4) The problem is, apart from the claims about this codex on a bunch of websites, it seems nobody is even quite sure what the colophon says, let alone the history of the manuscript or what the chances are that the person responsible for they colophon (if it exists in the way claimed) can be trusted.

5 Most importantly, Jesus didn't speak Syriac. The langauge of the Pe****ta manusciprts are in a dialect of Aramaci which wasn't around during Jesus's day. It belongs to a different period, and a different regional family of dialects.

6)This:

It was secured by the Yonan Codex Foundation by gift from two Americans, who are thought to have secured it from the members of an ancient religious sect known to modern scholars as Nestorian.

is ridiculous. One of those "Americans" was Yonan, and the other was Dan MacDougald, an attorney.

The language of this small church is the Aramaic as it was spoken by Y'Shua of Nazareth.

You talked about "Greek NT" scholars before, as if they were all biased here. However, we can resolve this little problem without reference to a single specialist in NT, Biblical, or early Christian studies. Why? Because we have specialists whose field of expertise is Semitic languages. Some focus on early Aramaic, some on Aramaic throughout the ages, some on other langauges or particular dialects, but what they all have in common is this:

The dialects of Aramaic which were spoken around Jesus' time and region belong to a different period of Aramaic than the Pe****ta does. Additionally, when we get to that period (the one in which we find Syriac dialects like those in the Pe****ta), they are divided by Eastern and Western dialects, and the dialect spoken a few centuries after Jesus (when the Syriac of the Pe****ta exists) in the region he had lived in is Western, while Syriac is Eastern. So even if Jesus lived in the 3rd century or later, which would make it possible for him to know the Syriac of the Pe****ta, he'd have to learn it, because Galilean Aramaic (a dialect in the Late Aramaic period, like the Pe****ta's Syriac) is Western.

This could well have been due to the fact that all western languages are descendent from the Sanskrit language brought out of the East by the Persians in their first westward conquest.

Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, like Greek, Latin, Gothic, and English. Aramaic is Semitic, like Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic. And if your source here doesn't even know that, there's no point in continuing responding to the points made.

 

[godnotgod]

This could well have been due to the fact that all western languages are descendent from the Sanskrit language brought out of the East by the Persians in their first westward conquest.

Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, like Greek, Latin, Gothic, and English. Aramaic is Semitic, like Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic. And if your source here doesn't even know that, there's no point in continuing responding to the points made.

"The Indian Scripts are originated from two early sources – one from the Semitic Languages and the other from the Aryan (Indo-European) Languages. The early scripts of Brahmi originated from the Semitic Languages from the 7th centaury BC while the Kharosti originated from the Indo-European Languages about the same time. It is interesting to note the Sanskrit Script as used today was actually an offshoot of the Semitic influence rather than Aryan. Certainly there must have been mutual influence and interaction during the development. This interaction between the two major ethnic languages can be traced back to the Persian invasion of Israel. Ahasaures, also known as Artexerxes was probably the husband of Queen Esther. From then on the relation between the Aryan and the Semitic people were very cordial. This led to the mutual influence that we see in the script and languages."

Sanskrit

 

[godnotgod]

5 Most importantly, Jesus didn't speak Syriac. The langauge of the Pe****ta manusciprts are in a dialect of Aramaci which wasn't around during Jesus's day. It belongs to a different period, and a different regional family of dialects.

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Aramaic and other languages of the Near East about the time of Jesus Christ[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]More Jewish documents have been found written in Aramaic dating at intervals between the 3rd century BC until the latter half of the 1st century AD. These include Aramaic documents found amongst the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. These finds show that Aramaic was the language that most Jews spoke in their everyday lives before, during and after the time of Jesus. Since Jesus preached to very ordinary people in Judea, Galilee and the regions of southern Syria, it follows that He definitely would have spoken in Aramaic. So Aramaic was the language in which His teachings and sayings were delivered and the language used to record His teachings by those who listened to Him. The fact that Jesus spoke in Aramaic, means that we should try to understand His sayings with reference to the Aramaic language, (not the Greek language) in the context of the Jewish culture of those times and localities, (not Greek or Western culture).
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]About 80 of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written in the vernacular Aramaic of Judea used before during and after the time of Jesus earthly life. This Judean or Palestinian Aramaic is so similar to Syriac that it is readily possible to read the Aramaic scrolls as Syriac written using Hebrew letters. The multitude of Aramaic documents amongst the Sea Scrolls, written 200 BC to 70 AD show the same words and syntax as other extant writings and inscriptions in Aramaic dialects over the same period found in other nearby geographies to the north and east, like the dialects spoken in Samaria, Edessa, Palmyra and Nabatea, [4]. Therefore, because these Aramaic dialects surrounding Galilee were all very similar, it follows that the dialect of Aramaic spoken in Galilee must also have been very similar to those of surrounding areas. Anyway, the similarity of the Galilean Aramaic dialect to those other Aramaic dialects spoken nearby in Judea and Syria is implicitly attested in the gospels. For example:[/FONT]

• [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Jesus had no difficulty engaging a Samaritan women in a very sophisticated conversation at the well near Sycar, (John 4). Therefore, we can safely infer that the Samaritan and Galilean dialects were sufficiently similar to permit such a conversation.[/FONT]

• [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]According to the gospels, Jesus grew up in Galilee. He also engaged in many complex discussions about the meaning of the Old Testament with Jewish people in Jerusalem who spoke the same Aramaic dialect as was used to write the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Firstly, we have noted the similarity of the Aramaic dialects surrounding Galilee and deduced that the Galilean dialect would therefore have been similar to its surroundings. Secondly, it was shown from the gospels that fluent and complex dialogue existed between speakers of the Galilean dialect and speakers of the surrounding Aramaic dialects. Now I would like to quote some remarks by William Cureton the eminent 19th century oriental scholar. Cureton cautiously remarked that insufficient evidence existed at that time for him to be certain, but... [5]:
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]"Generally it may be observed that the language used by our Saviour and his apostles being that ordinarily employed by the Hebrews in Palestine at the time, and called by St. Luke (Acts xxi. 40, xxii. 1), Papias, and Irenaeus, the Hebrew Dialect, is so very similar and closely allied with the Syriac of the New Testament, called the Pe****to, that the two may be considered identical, with the exception, perhaps, of some very slight dialectical peculiarities. These facts are so well known to all who have given attention to this subject, that it is not necessary for me to enter into any proof of them in this place."[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Since Cureton wrote these words, many important Aramaic documents have been discovered amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls that originate from Palestine at the time of Christ. These finds have demonstrated the truth of Cureton's view that the Syriac language of the Pe****ta is very close indeed to the language and idiom spoken by Christ and the apostles. Scholarly remarks within the last two years serve to make the same point based on much greater evidence, (Casey [1], page 254, quoted with permission):
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]"Moreover, the problem of dialect has been much less serious than it seemed previously. Previous attempts to use 'Galilean' Aramaic suffered badly from the late date and corrupt nature of the source material, and invariably used a high proportion of material which was not Galilean at all. Now, however, most of the words in the dead sea scrolls have turned out to be used in other dialects too. This means they are not specific to the dialect of Judea as opposed to anywhere else, and can reasonably be used to reconstruct the Galilean Aramaic of Jesus."[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]As Casey says, there is no real point looking for some strange and different Galilean dialect, since the Dead Sea scrolls and other finds have demonstrated that mutually intelligible Aramaic dialects closely akin to Syriac were in use in the whole region of Judea, Galilee, Syria and Mesopotamia at the time of Jesus.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Other languages were also spoken in Palestine at the time of Jesus. Ancient Hebrew was in decline, but still in use by the priests and the learned elite of Israel, (reversing the linguistic situation current at the earlier time of king Hezekiah). Also, Greek was used by the Hellenized, non-Jewish ruling class connected with Herod I and his descendants, including Herod Antipas who was one of those involved in the trials and crucifixion of Jesus. Although Greek was the language of trade and commerce in the eastern Roman empire at the time of Jesus, it was not the language spoken by ordinary Jews in Palestine. In fact, as I have shown above, Greek has never been used by the ordinary people of Palestine. Greek was the language used by the Herodian dynasty in Judea, (the Herodians mentioned in the New Testament) and the language of collaborators with the hated forces of Roman occupation, as well as a second language studied by some learned Jews, (like Saul, later Paul or Tarsus who studied under the Jewish rabbi Gamaliel I, see Acts 22 v 3). A large Greek inscription, a notice to non-Jews, was placed at the entrance of the inner area of the Temple warning Gentiles not to enter on pain of death. This inscription has been found, demonstrating that Greek was considered as the language of foreigners. In addition to Greek, some members of the Roman administration of Judea and the Roman military stationed there would have spoken Latin, certainly Pontius Pilatus' famous inscription at Caesarae Maritima is written in Latin.[/FONT]

(continued below)

 

[godnotgod]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif](continued from above)[/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]

Where the Syriac and CPA [/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, sans-serif][Christian Palestinian Aramaic[/FONT]] dialects fit into the linguistic landscape[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Mesopotamian Syriac is one of this ancient group of Aramaic dialects which included the Galilean dialect that Jesus spoke. Syriac was spoken in south western Mesopotamia in the small kingdom of Osrhoene with its capital at Edessa. The earliest dated Syriac writings are from this kingdom. They are in the form of inscriptions found at Birecik, (near Edessa) dating from 6 AD, (see [12] pp. 1-2, Maricq 1962, and Pirenne 1963) and another inscription at Serrin dated AD 73 (see [12] pp. 2-3). These early Syriac inscriptions demonstrate that the Syriac language and the Estrangela Syriac script existed just before and just after Jesus' ministry.* Another first century Syriac inscription was found in Jerusalem and dates from about 49 AD, [6] [7]. This demonstrates that Syriac was also known in Palestine in the first century AD. Many second century pagan Syriac inscriptions have also been discovered in Mesopotamia, [6] [7] [12]. Three legal documents have been discovered which were written in the Euphrates valley in the mid third century AD, (see [12] pp. 54-57, Brock 1991). These were written on parchment and dated: 28th December AD 240, 1st September AD 242 and AD 243. We also have the evidence of other early dated manuscripts written in Syriac. The earliest known literary Syriac manuscript was written in Edessa and is dated AD 411 [11]. Many other Syriac manuscripts survive which are dated between AD 411 and the present day. Ancient Syriac continues to be used today in the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Melkite Chalcedonian Church and the Church of the East. Therefore, Syriac is an ancient language which has been used for at least 2000 years, and it is still used today.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Syriac was not only spoken in Mesopotamia, it was also spoken in Antioch and northern Palestine. In fact, Syriac was still spoken by the ordinary people of Palestine many years after the time of Jesus. Several historical data points demonstrate this remarkable fact.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]In about AD 385, a woman called Egeria ([9], pp79 - 80) wrote in her middle-eastern travel diary:
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]"In this province [Palestine] there are some people who know both Greek and Syriac, but others know only one or the other. The bishop may know Syriac, but never uses it. He always speaks in Greek, and has a presbyter beside him who translates the Greek into Syriac, so that everyone can understand what he means. Similarly, the lessons read in church have to be read in Greek, but there is always someone in attendance to translate into Syriac so that the people can understand."[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]This report, (confirmed by another similar one in Eusebius' history of the martyrs of Palestine which was written earlier, at the beginning of the 4th century AD) shows that the Syriac language continued to be used in the areas of northern Palestine where Jesus had actually taught, 300 to 350 years after His ministry.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The remarkable survival of Aramaic in Palestine is reinforced by further historical evidence from much later. The Byzantine emperor Justinian, as part of his strategy to Hellenize the orient, founded a new Syriac speaking catholic sect which was later called Melkite (see [9], p. 213 and [10], p. 77). However, in order to operate effectively, the Melkites found it necessary to translate their Greek scriptures into the local Western Aramaic dialect then used in Palestine. This spawned a large translated literature in Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) which included the bible and many other writings [4] [11]. Enough of this CPA literature survives to demonstrate that between about AD 530 and AD 1118, large numbers of people of Palestine still spoke a Western Aramaic dialect, more than a millennium after Christ.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Conclusion[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Some very important conclusions can be drawn for the study of the New Testament from the linguistic information:[/FONT]

• [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The Syriac versions of the New Testament are written in the language that Jesus actually spoke, (only the dialect is different). [/FONT]

• [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The extant Syriac manuscripts of the New Testament are very old, at least as old as many ancient manuscripts written in Greek. [/FONT]

• [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The sayings of Jesus were spoken in Aramaic. Therefore, the best way to understand them is to read them in Aramaic. [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]From the ancient linguistic evidence, I have demonstrated that Aramaic was the language of Jesus and so it was the language He used to teach. Given that our Lord's followers were ordinary people from the same region as He was, it also follows that the early apostles and disciples spoke, taught and wrote in Aramaic as well. I have also shown that Greek, Hebrew and Latin were languages spoken by those who opposed our Lord during His ministry. The Hellenistic world we live in today in western Europe and in the USA would like to think that our Lord was a westerner too, but I have demonstrated that this is a fantasy. Instead, history tells us that our Lord chose to dwell in an eastern culture and to express Himself in Aramaic.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]http://www.syriac.talktalk.net/syriac_language.html[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]* Remember that the Khabouris Codex was written in this same Estrangela script (!)[/FONT]

 

[godnotgod]

[/color]

I am lucky enough to have access to databases like Proquest, Mergent, LexisNexis, and other news and business databases, in addition to those which provide access academic publications (or both, in the case of Academic Search Complete and Proquest). Heartland, on a page they have about the Khabouris, thank Eric Rivera and provide a link stating "Here is a link to Eric's website". That link is one you used, from Better Light Inc. They are a company who sell imaging equipment. They state that "Eric Rivera is the Director of the California-based Khabouris Institute", not that he has any connection to Better Light Inc. In other words, Heartland provides a link not to "Eric's website", but to an article on Better Light Inc.'s website which is part of their "Application Articles" section which is part of their advertising on the website.

Not only that, but I couldn't find anything on either Mr. Rivera or his "institute" in various searches for which covered hundreds of thousands of documents from media outlets, official releases, press releases, non-profit filings, SEC filings, etc.

So all we know is that he apparently used Better Light Inc. to "work" on the codex, and that Better Light Inc. used this to promote their business.

So what? The point is that the damaged colophon became fully legible via Better Light's photographic technologies.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

You asked about starting a new thread, and perhaps you missed it but I did and provided a link to it in this thread:

1) I wrote a thread on this idea of Aramaic/Pe****ta primacy

Here (again) is the thread: Pe****ta Primacy, Palistinian Prophet, & why Jesus didn't speak Syriac

"The Indian Scripts are originated from two early sources – one from the Semitic Languages and the other from the Aryan (Indo-European) Languages. The early scripts of Brahmi originated from the Semitic Languages from the 7th centaury BC while the Kharosti originated from the Indo-European Languages about the same time. It is interesting to note the Sanskrit Script as used today was actually an offshoot of the Semitic influence rather than Aryan.

The script is irrelevant. English, Italian, Spanish, French, etc., all use what is called the "Latin alphabet" or "Latin script" or some other "Latin X" where "X" refers to the script/letters. Likewise, Linear B and Linear A are probably the same script (certainly they are related) but it turns out that Linear B was an early lettering system for ancient Greek. The later Greek script was based on the Phoenician alphabet, which was also the basis for the Semitic languages including Hebrew and Aramaic.

From then on the relation between the Aryan and the Semitic people were very cordial. This led to the mutual influence that we see in the script and languages.

Although they were not the first to study Indo-European languages and their relations, Rask and Bopp are to IE studies what Newton and Leibniz are to the calculus. Others had come before, but the work of Rask and Bopp was sufficiently distinct and advanced for it to be considered a sort of "founding" of Indo-European comparative linguistics and historical linguistics in general. That was back in the first half of the 19th century. But the relationship between classical languages and Sanskrit goes back to the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier who wrote (in 1544) a letter noting the similarities. By the time (from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th centuries) Brugmann wrote his monumental Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, we knew more about the structure of a language never written or recorded anywhere (Proto-Indo-European) than we did about most languages spoken during that time. That was a century ago.

So this:

This could well have been due to the fact that all western languages are descendent from the Sanskrit language brought out of the East by the Persians in their first westward conquest. Aramaic was the language of Persian theology and the language by which they would rule their empire. The Aramaic language comprehends psychology so completely, it utilizes a syntax which portrays the working relationship between mind sets, perception, mind structures, reason, judgment, entities of mind (realities), human attitudes, and human behavior. Also, Aramaic does not distinguish verbally between the mental and the physical. The word for "near" in Aramaic includes the mentally near as well as the physically near. Nor does Aramaic verbally distinguish between a cause and its effect. The same word signifies both the cause and its effect. Such thoughts as these did not exist in the Sanskrit, nor do they exist in any of its descendent languages such as Latin, Greek, English or any other western languages.

is just error after error. First, there's the specific problem with the word for "near" in Aramaic and how unbelievably this confuses things, but thankfully I addressed this issue of the words for "neighbor" in the Greek NT and in Hebrew already:

The Hebrew word (רָעָה/rayah) in Lev. 19:18 is closer in meaning to the English "friend" or "companion", rather than the "neighbor", whereas the adjective "near" in both Hebrew and Greek was the basis for the word meaning (more or less) "neighbour" (a Germanic word which also reflects a metaphorically extended spatial proximity). This Greek word (πλησίο&#957 was used in the LXX and the NT. Both of these terms (קָרֹב and πλησίο&#957, while literally reflecting "those nearby" usually carry connotations of kinship, as villages and communities in both the Jewish and Greco-Roman world were built around large families living in relatively close proximity. One usually lived near to extended relatives and in-laws.

Basically, nearness and "neighbor" have common roots and/or rely on the same word in English, Gothic, Biblical Hebrew, ancient Greek, Latin, and others. Why? If cognitive scientists and linguistis who believe that cognition is "embodied" are correct (as I think they are), then we know why distinct languages "extend spatial proximity" as well as temporal proximity in both the physical and the abstract, and abstract in ways that are common cross-linguistically (as with near/neighbor above). The reason for this metaphorical extension is that language specifically and cognition in general are fundamentally based on our bodily and sensory experiences of the external world. Metaphorical mappings (i.e., taking words, phrases, and terms about physical reality and metaphorically extending them to talk about abstractions) like the one in your quote about "near" are a basis for language itself. In English, for example, "I'm going to the store" and "I'm going to buy groceries" both use "going", but one is a spatial sense, and the other is a form of what is sometimes called "immediate future" (in French a similar word of motion, venir, is used in a similar way- motion and as a "tense/time" marker).

In other words, there isn't a language we know of in which spatial terms and temporal terms (or, more simply, spatio-temporal terms) are used just to describe space or time. All languages extend concepts about the physical world through metaphor (which is why you can "build/construct a house" or "build/construct an argument, why you can "drive somebody home" or "drive somebody crazy", why you can describe a loved one by saying she or he is "close to you").

Additionally, Aramaic was not "the language of Persian theology", as the Vedas were written in an Indo-European language, not Semitic. Actually, Pollock's book The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India (University of California Press, 2006) which not only shows how this Indo-European language became the language of religion in the Indo-Aryan world, but also that there was no Indian literature until this Indo-European language (incidentally, Pāṇini wrote what is generally acknowledged to be the first reference Grammar, and his work is not only written in Sanskrit, but about it).

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif] Since Jesus preached to very ordinary people in Judea, Galilee and the regions of southern Syria, it follows that He definitely would have spoken in Aramaic. So Aramaic was the language in which His teachings and sayings were delivered and the language used to record His teachings by those who listened to Him. [/FONT]

Wilcox's paper (published in the edited volume The Aramaic Bible:Targums in Their Historical Context vol. 166 of Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series), "The Aramaic Background of the New Testament" closes with a number of conclusions reached, one of which is "it can no longer be maintained that if a saying attributed to Jesus is not in Aramaic, it is not authentic. The fact that Aramaic seems to have been his home-language does not exclude the real possibility that he may have also spoken Hebrew and/or Greek" (p. 378).

I've given my own opinion elsewhere on this forum:

It's almost certain that Jesus spoke Aramaic as a first language. It's also probable he knew Hebrew, as although it was a "dead language" it was still taught through scriptural study and spoken when these texts were discussed. It's possible he knew Greek, or some Greek, but I would say it's pretty unlikely his competence (if he had any) was such that he could teach/preach in Greek, let alone did.

However, even if Jesus knew no Greek whatsoever, the idea that the NT, which is not just a series of Jesus' sayings/teachings but also stories about him, is then necessarily (or even likely) to be in Aramaic is baseless. First, there's the issue of his audience:

But the question is when did this [the translation of Jesus' sayings/teachings into Greek] start? It has been argued (I think convincingly) that this "translation" started immediately. In other words, even though Jesus appears to have deliberately avoided regions heavily populated by gentiles, he clearly interacted with them, and it seems likely that some of those who heard him teaching (or heard of his teachings while he was alive) were not sufficiently familiar with Aramaic. It is likewise very likely that some of his followers were competent in Greek, and began the translation process while Jesus was still living. Thus an early form of the Greek "sayings" (teachings, parables, etc.) of Jesus likely began to be "fixed" while he lived.

Furthermore, just because Jesus spoke Aramaic doesn't mean that his followers, the ones who told stories about him orally before there were any written accounts, did no speak Greek as at least a second language, or that there were not Jewish people who were more comfortable with Greek than any Semitic language (or didn't know any such language at all). Which means that some of the stories told about Jesus were likely in Greek from the start.

Finally, the first generation of "christians" who were around before the term "christian" existed (e.g., Paul) were frequently missionaries seeking to convert not just other Jews, but gentiles. And while some of the different dialects of Aramaic in the first century may not have ever existed in any written form, Greek was used not only as a spoken, "common" language in the Eastern Roman Empire, it was the primary form for literature in general for regions in or around the empire. So if Christian authors sought to set down an account of Jesus which could be transmitted through texts (which don't require a person familiar with the accounts to actually be present and which, unlike oral transmission, can be copied and disseminated throughout the empire) it is probable that they would do so by writing in Greek.

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[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The fact that Jesus spoke in Aramaic, means that we should try to understand His sayings with reference to the Aramaic language, [/FONT]

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1) A large number of Jews even before Jesus was born only knew Greek, which is why the LXX was required in the first place.
2) The Aramaic language of Jesus (which was a dialect we aren't actually sure about) is not necessary to understand Jewish culture in general or Jesus'. Almost all of the what was considered scripture was in Hebrew, not Aramaic. And additionally, in and around Jesus' time, a period in which Jewish texts written in Aramaic appear, we find a wide variety of Jewish literary/religious writings in Greek. Not translated into Greek like the LXX, but composed in Greek. In fact, we even find Aramaic translations of what was originally Greek (e.g., Bel and the Dragon), not to mention the Greek texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls or the works of Philo and Josephus. So we have additions to Jewish literature composed in Greek, a translation widely used by Jews long before Jesus of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, Aramaic translations of Hebrew and Greek texts, and Jewish texts which only survive in Greek.

3) If an understanding of the Aramaic of Jesus is necessary, then why would an English translation be of any use, no matter what it was translated from?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

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[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]About 80 of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written in the vernacular Aramaic of Judea used before during and after the time of Jesus earthly life. This Judean or Palestinian Aramaic is so similar to Syriac that it is readily possible to read the Aramaic scrolls as Syriac written using Hebrew letters.[/FONT]

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[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]1) The "vernacular Aramaic" existed in several dialects.[/FONT]
2) The scrolls (a collection of about 900 documents written over a lengthy period of time) were written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.
3) Just as one example, there is a translation of Genesis (the manuscript is in the Houghton library as Ms. Syr. 7) written in Jewish Neo-Aramaic. In vol. 5(1) of Aramaic Studies, there is a paper by Joshua Ezra Burns on this text. He writes of it, "The idiosyncratic nature of the transcription is evident in its inconsistent orthography. Among its more prominent inconsistencies is the manner in which the transcriber represented the phonetic lengthening or gemination of consonants, which is a characteristic feature of many Neo-Aramaic dialects. Since there is no way to represent this phenomenon in classical Syriac, it is typically represented in Christian Neo-Aramaic transcriptions by simply doubling the consonant" (p. 59).
4) Among the manuscripts in the Dead Sea Scrolls collection were 3 Aramaic fragments of Pseudo-Daniel, a book fraught with difficulties due to the variations of languages in which it survives and variations between texts written in the same language. For example, there are Arabic, Armenian,and Old Church Slavonic versions all of which are translations of a now lost Greek original. We do, however, have several Greek manuscripts of Pseudo-Daniel which were originally composed in Greek, but which don't appear to have a common source. Finally, we have a number of Syriac Pseudo-Danial manuscripts, but none of these are related to the Aramaic of the Qumran texts.

"Old Syriac, the official language of the kingdom of Orshoene, founded by an Arab dynasty in Edessa in 132 B.C. and surviving until 242 A.D., is known from about 80 inscriptions...It differs from the later Middle Syriac in certain conspicous ways" p. 31

"In the 4th century A.D., and probably in connection with the effort to produce an authoritative Syriac text of the Bible (Pe****ta), Syriac orthography was reformed to take accound of some aspects of the changed basis of pronunciation. This so-called Middle Syriac (literary Syriac) became the ecclesiastical language of the eastern Aramaic-speaking Christians." pp43-44

The above quotes come from Beyer's The Aramaic Language: Its Distributions and Subdivisions. We can find the same in pretty much any text on Syriac literature, Grammars of classical Syriac, Grammars of Aramaic, etc. For example, from Muraoko's Classical Syriac: A Basic grammar with a Chrestomathy, 2nd rev. ed. (Porta Linguarum Orientalium Band 19): "Syriac is a language which belongs to the Aramaic branch of the Semitic language family. It is attested in written form by inscriptions which date from the first few centuries of the Christian era and originate from Edessan and its environs. The language of these inscriptions still shows some affinitiy with Aramaic of ealier phases, and is thus distinct from the fully developed literary idiom of subsequent centuries...this developed form of Classical Syriac represents Eastern Aramaic in contradiction to Western Aramaic represented by [here the author lists several, but the really relevant one is] Palestinian Jewish Aramaic." (Chap. 2 Sect. 1; emphasis added).

In other words, the Syriac we know existed in some form or forms before the 3rd century, is not the Syriac of the Pe****ta. In fact, Old or Classical Syriac as whole is distinct from both the general Aramaic dialects of Middle Aramaic, and specifically with the Syriac of that time.

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[FONT=Arial, sans-serif] The multitude of Aramaic documents amongst the Sea Scrolls, written 200 BC to 70 AD show the same words and syntax as other extant writings and inscriptions in Aramaic dialects over the same period found in other nearby geographies to the north and east, like the dialects spoken in Samaria, Edessa, Palmyra and Nabatea[/FONT]

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[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]This is as meaningful as saying that English and French share words and syntax. For starters, all the way back in 1957 Segert (in his paper ""Aramäische Studien II: Zur Verbreitung des Aramäischen in Palästina zur Zeit Jesu.") argued that Qumran Aramaic is properly divided into an "early" and "later" stage, because of the variability between the Qumran Aramaic texts. More recently, Tigchelaar argued in his contribution to the volume Authoritative Scriptures in Ancient Judaism (Brill, 2010) argues:[/FONT]
"Though the general constitution of the Aramaic texts found at Qumran is clearly different from that of the Hebrew texts, the collection of Aramaic texts is not homogeneous. For example, the use of the dicolon in 4Q156 to indicate sense units (verses and half-verses) is unique in the corpus; linguistic analysis suggests that the Targum of Job (4Q157; 11Q10) originated in the East. The Aramaic manuscripts were copied in the time range from the end third century b.c.e. or early second century b.c.e. (for 4Q208) to the first part of the first century c.e. Also, some texts seem to have quite different concerns, and might therefore have been produced in different groups. For those reasons, we cannot in general talk about all the Aramaic texts as one group."

More importantly, even if we follow Fitzmyer here, who argues (in Wandering Aramean: Collected Essays) not only that the Qumran aramaic is more or less representative of the entire period of "Middle Aramaic", including that of Jesus, and (even more contentious) that this literary Aramaic is not very distinct from the spoken form, that still leaves us with a unanimous position among Aramaic specialists: Middle Aramaic is distinct from the dialects which began to appear in the 3rd century, including "classical" Syriac.

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Jesus had no difficulty engaging a Samaritan women in a very sophisticated conversation at the well near Sycar, (John 4). Therefore, we can safely infer that the Samaritan and Galilean dialects were sufficiently similar to permit such a conversation.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]One can use the same method to argue that Jesus knew Latin or Greek, as he had no trouble talking to the Roman officer. Assuming the story of the Samaritan woman is accurate, all we can infer is that they were able to communicate, which could mean they both knew Greek, or that the Samaritan woman knew Jesus' dialect, or that they both knew Hebrew.The last is most plausible, because, as Moshe Florentin (among others) points out, Samaritan Hebrew was likely still common in the first century. As for Samaritan Aramaic, our sources even for its earliest form show it to be rather different from the Aramaic of the Dead Sea Scrolls. More importantly, as documented in Florentin's Late Samaritan Hebrew- A Linguistic Analysis Of Its Different Types (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics):[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]"the Aramaic of Eretz Israel changed even further. The Aramaic of the Palestinian Talmud is different from that of the DSS [Dead Sea Scrolls], and these changes are also evident in the ST manuscripts. After all, SA [Samaritan Aramaic] did not remain stagnant, but progressed along with the other dialects" (sect. 0.2.1.1.2.)[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]By the time we get to the Syriac of the Pe****ta (Late Aramaic), Samaritan Aramaic, like the other "Late" dialects, is not that of Jesus or the Dead Sea Scrolls.[/FONT]


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Scholarly remarks within the last two years serve to make the same point based on much greater evidence, (Casey [1], page 254, quoted with permission):

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[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]What does Casey actually say (i.e., right before your source's quote)? Well, for starters, nothing about Syriac on page 254. Instead he argues that we can use the Qumran texts because "In general, it has been possible to reconstruct Mark's Aramaic sources with Aramaic of the right period, with careful use of earlier and later Aramaic when the Dead Sea scrolls do not have the appropriate words." from p. 254 of Casey's An Aramaic Approach to Mark's Gospel. [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]This misrepresentation of your source's use of Casey doesn't end here, though. As it is from page 254, we can probably assume that your source read p. 2, where Casey states "Those Gospels which survive, however, all of them in the dialects of Aramaic generally known as Syriac, are translations from our present Greek Gospels into Aramaic.".[/FONT]

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[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]As Casey says, there is no real point looking for some strange and different Galilean dialect, since the Dead Sea scrolls and other finds have demonstrated that mutually intelligible Aramaic dialects closely akin to Syriac[/FONT]

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[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Casey says nothing of the sort.[/FONT]

 

[Ingledsva]

You realise that when you put this much material up - most people won't read it - right?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

You realise that when you put this much material up - most people won't read it - right?

I'm going to assume that the "you" here is directed at me, so if it isn't my apologies.

I'm not used to, or very familiar with, what "most people" read and why. I know enough to realize that much of what I read would be considered at best incredibly boring, and at worst incomprehensible.

That said, the fact that "most people" won't read something when there is too much "material" is a shame. Not just because it limits understanding, but because it forces attention on sensationalist claims, many of which are outright blatant lies, but because they are easier to digest they tend to dominate.

Questions about the relationships between languages, manuscript transmissions, and linguistic studies are technical. That's how idiotic claims become commmonly accepted: they are easier to find, easier to digest, and easier to understand. This is a series problemn in any number of fields and the relationship of researchers in those fields with the public's understanding of their research.

Perhaps you would advocate distoritions, lies, manipulations, and so forth for the sake of simplicity. I don't.

 

[godnotgod]

3) If an understanding of the Aramaic of Jesus is necessary, then why would an English translation be of any use, no matter what it was translated from?

But it does matter what it was translated from, which is the point the Pe****ta primacists are making, which is that much of the meanings are lost when translated from Aramaic into Greek, and then into English. A translator who has a command of both Aramaic and English would be in the best position to perform the translations. Victor Alexander claims to be on such person in that position.

Aramaic Bible Translation Project by Victor Alexander

 

[Ingledsva]

I'm going to assume that the "you" here is directed at me, so if it isn't my apologies.

I'm not used to, or very familiar with, what "most people" read and why. I know enough to realize that much of what I read would be considered at best incredibly boring, and at worst incomprehensible.

That said, the fact that "most people" won't read something when there is too much "material" is a shame. Not just because it limits understanding, but because it forces attention on sensationalist claims, many of which are outright blatant lies, but because they are easier to digest they tend to dominate.

Questions about the relationships between languages, manuscript transmissions, and linguistic studies are technical. That's how idiotic claims become commmonly accepted: they are easier to find, easier to digest, and easier to understand. This is a series problemn in any number of fields and the relationship of researchers in those fields with the public's understanding of their research.

Perhaps you would advocate distoritions, lies, manipulations, and so forth for the sake of simplicity. I don't.

I was replying to "godnotgod's" several pages of info. Also - I read it. As to the bible and biblical exegesis - if I don't trust the translation I look it up in the original languages - which is better but can still have problems, obviously, as we are still using altered texts ancient fragments, "tradition," etc.