| The New English Translation Bible (http://net.bible.org). Самаритянское Пятикнижие Der Hebräische Pentateuch der Samaritaner/Hrsg. A.E von Gall. Giessen: Töpelmann, 1918. Древние переводы иудейского textus receptus и зависимые от него версии Таргумы Pseudo-Jonathan (Targum Jonathan ben Usiel zum Pentateuch): Nach d. Londoner Handschr./Ed. M. Ginsburger. Berlin: Hildesheim, 1903. Targum Onkelos/Hrsg. von A. Berliner. T. 1–2. Berlin: Gorzelanczyk, 1884. The Targum to ‘The Songs of Songs’; The Book of the Apple; The Ten Jewish Martyrs; A Dialogue on Games of Chance/Transl. from the Hebrew and Aramaic by H. Gollancz. London: Luzac & Co., 1908. Гекзаплы Оригена Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt, sive Veterum interpretum graecorum in totum Vetus Testamentum fragmenta/Ed. F. Field. T. 1–2. Oxford: Clarendon, 1875. Вульгата Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem. 4e Aufl. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994. Пешитта Aramaic Old Testament: Commonly known as ‘Peshitta Tanakh’. Trinitarian Byble Society, 1954. Syriac Bible. United Bible Societies, 1979. A Translation of the Syriac Peshito Version of the Psalms of David; with Notes Critical and Explanatory/By A. Oliver. Boston: Dutton and Company, 1861. Кумранские рукописи Тексты Кумрана. Вып. 1/Пер. с древнееврейского и арамейского, введ. и коммент. И.Д. Амусина. М.: Наука, 1971. Тексты Кумрана. Вып. 2. 2-е изд./Введ., пер. с древнееврейского и арамейского и коммент. A.M. Газова-Гинзберга, М.М. Елизаровой и К.Б. Старковой. СПб.: Петербургское востоковедение, 2009. The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible/Transl. Martin Abegg et al. New York: Harper, 1999. The Dead Sea Scrolls. Study Edition/Ed. by F. García Martínez & E.J.C. Tigchelaar. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Vermes G. The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. Revised Edition. London: Penguin Books, 2004. Апокрифы и псевдоэпиграфы Ветхозаветные апокрифы: Книга Еноха; Книга Юбилеев, или Малое Бытие; Заветы двенадцати патриархов; Псалмы Соломона. СПб.: Амфора, 2001. Книги Еноха. Сефер Йецира. Книга Созидания/Пер. И.Р. Тантлевского. М.: Мосты культуры, 2002. |
| Fokkelman, J.P. Reading Biblical Narrative: An Introductory Guide. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1999; Fox, Michael V. Character and Ideology in the Book of Esther. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991; Freedman, David Noel ed. «Narrative, Hebrew.» ABD, 4:1023–1027. New York: Doubleday, 1992: Gitin, Seymour. «Ekron of the Philistines: Part II: Olive-Oil Suppliers to the World.» BAR 16 (1990): 3242, 59; Gitin, Seymour. «Tel Miqne-Ekron: A Type-Site for the Inner Coastal Plain in the Iron Age II Period.» Recent Excavations in Israel: Studies in Iron Age Archaeology, pp. 2358. Ed. by S. Gitin and WG. Dever. A AS OR 49. Winona Lake, IN: ASOR, 1989; Green, William Henry. General Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon. Reprint. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980; Gunncwcg, Jan, Isadore Perlman, and Zeev Meshel. «The Origin of the Pottery of Kuntillet Ajrud. "/£/35 (1985): 270283; Guthrie, Donald. The Pastoral Epistles. TNTC. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978; Harrington, Daniel J., and AnthonyJ. Saldarini. TargumJonathan of the Former Prophets. The Aramaic Bible, vol. 10. Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1987; Harris, R. Laird. Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969; Harrison, R.K. «Old Testament and New Testament Apocrypha.» In The Origin of the Bible. Ed. by Philip Wesley Comfort. Grand Rapids: Tyndale House, 1992; Hays, J. Daniel. «Has the Narrator Come to Praise Solomon or to Bury Him? Narrative Subtlety in I Kings (2003): 149174; Holladay, William L. Long Ago God Spoke. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995; Joscphus. The Life; AgainstApion. Vol. 1. LCL. Ed. by H. St. J. Thackeray. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976; King, Philip J. American Archaeology in the Mideast: A History ofthe American Schools of Oriental Research. Philadelphia: ASOR, 1983; Lake, Kirsopp. Eusebius I. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959; Leiman, Sid Z. The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture: The Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence. The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. Hamdcn, CT: Archon Books, 1976; |
| Christ the Savior in the Sermon on the Mount quotes, though without any references, the words from the book of Tobit (compare Tob. 4with Math. 7:12 and Luke 4:31, Tob. 4with Luke 14:13), from the book of Sirach (comp. 28with Math. 6and Mark 2:25 ), from the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon (comp. 3with Math. 13:43). The Apostle John in his Revelations takes the words and images from the book of Tobit (comp. Rev. 21:11–24 with Tob. 13:11–18). In Apostle Paul’s Epistles to the Romans (1:21), to the Corinthians ( 1Cor. 1:20–27; 2:78 ), to Timothy ( 1Tim. 1:15 ), we find the words of the Prophet Baruch. Apostle James has many phrases in common with the book of Jesus, Son of Sirach. The Epistles to the Hebrews of the Apostle Paul and the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon are so similar, that some moderately negative critics considered them to be the works of one and the same author. All the countless legions of the Christian martyrs of the first centuries were inspired for their exploit by the holiest example of the Maccabees’ martyrs, which is described in the second book of Maccabees. Metropolitan Anthony absolutely precisely determines: «The holy books of the Old Testament are divided into canonical, which are recognized by Christians and Jews, and non-canonical, which only the Christians recognize, but which the Jews have lost» (The Experience of the Christian Orthodox Catechism, page 16) All this unquestionably testifies to the high authority and Divine inspiration of the holy books of the Bible, which are incorrectly, or to be more precise, ambiguously called non-canonical. We discussed this question in detail, because Protestantism obediently following the Judean canon, rejects all the books, rejected by the Jews. The Language of the Bible The Holy Scripture was originally written in 3 languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The greater part of the Old Testament is written in Hebrew. The following were written in Aramaic: in the Old Testament, chapters 2–8 of the book of the Prophet Daniel, chapters 4–8 of the 1 st book of Ezra and the book of Sirach; and in the New Testament, the Gospel of St. Matthew. |
| Wiping Out the Christians of Syria and Iraq to Remap the Middle East: Prerequisite to a Clash of Civilizations? Part 1 Source: GlobalResearch.ca Church destroyed Historically, the Levant is the birthplace of Christianity and the oldest Christian communities have lived in it and the entire Fertile Crescent since the start of Christian history. Early Christians called themselves followers or people of " the Way " before they adopted the term Christian; in Arabic their antiquated name would be " Ahl Al-Deen " . Traces of this original name are also available in the New Testament of the Bible and can be read in John 14:5-7, Acts 9:1-2, Acts 24:4 and 14. From the Fertile Crescent these Christian communities spread across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Since that time the ancient communities of Christians, many of which still use the Syriac dialects of Aramaic in their churches, have been an integral and important part of the social fabrics of the pluralistic societies of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. Nevertheless, the Christians of the Levant and Iraq are now in the cross-hairs. Deceit and mischief has been at play. It is no coincidence that Egyptian Christians were attacked at the same time as the South Sudan Referendum, which was supposed to signal a split between the Muslims in Khartoum and the Christians and animists in Juba. Nor is it an accident that Iraq’s Christians, one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, began to face a modern exodus, leaving their homes and ancestral homeland in Iraq in 2003. Mysterious groups targeted both them and Palestinian refugees… Coinciding with the exodus of Iraqi Christians, which occurred under the watchful eyes of US and British military forces, the neighborhoods in Baghdad became sectarian as Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims were forced by violence and death squads to form sectarian enclaves. This is all tied to a US and Israeli project of redrawing the map. The Christian communities of the Levant and Iraq have long distrusted the US government for its support of Israel, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and fanatical militants with anti-Christian leanings. Lebanon’s Christians have also been weary of US support for Israeli expansion and ideas about resettling Palestinians into Lebanon. There is also a widely held belief that the US and Israel have been involved in a policy to remove or " purge " the Christians from Iraq and the Levant in some type of Zionist-linked resettlement plan. Since the US-supported anti-government fighters started targeting Christian Syrians, there has been renewed talk about a Christian exodus in the Middle East centering on Washington’s war on Syria. |
| Glossary A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Z ABBA The Aramaic term of intimacy used in addressing one’s father, somewhat to the English " Daddy. " Christ uses Abba in addressing God the Father. St. Paul tells believers that their relationship with God through the Holy Spirit is so personal that they too may speak to Him as intimately as to their own father (Mark 14:36; Rom. 8:15). ABSOLUTION The prayer offered by a bishop or presbyter for the forgiveness of sins. Following His glorious Resurrection, Christ breathed on His Apostles and said, " Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained " (John 20:22, 23). This gift of proclaiming God’s forgiveness of sins remains forever in the Church. It is exercised in the sacraments of baptism and confession—the reconciliation to the Church of Christian believers who have sinned and repented. The priest or bishop is the witness who bears testimony to the repentance; only God forgives sins. ADVENT A forty-day period of prayer, repentance, and fasting in preparation for Christmas. The word stems from the Latin word for " coming " ; during the fast the faithful prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas. See also FASTING . AGAPE Greek for the unconditional love which God extends to His people. Agape also designates a communal meal connected to the Eucharist which was a practice of the early Church (1 Cor. 11:20-34). ALLEGORY A story filled with symbolism illustrating a spiritual reality beyond the actual historical event being described. In the ancient Church, scholars of the School of Alexandria tended to consider many incidents in the Bible as allegorical, whereas the School of Antioch practiced a more historical approach to Scripture. Although contains some pure allegory (some parables of Christ, portions of Revelation), overemphasis on allegory may tend to de-emphasize or even deny the historicity of Holy Scripture. On the other hand, a denial of allegory robs the Scriptures of their deeper meaning. It is possible for a story to be both historical and allegorical. The majority of Church Fathers combined both elements in interpreting the Bible. See Luke 15:4-7; Gal. 4:21-26. See also TYPE . |
| New church a haven for Abu Dhabi’s Armenian population January 6, 2015 Deep inside the alleys of Mussaffah stands the long-awaited Armenian Church, which opened its doors three weeks ago. About 1,000 Armenians living in Abu Dhabi are thrilled to have their own church, and it is one that has been designed according to their traditions and architectural style, reads an article by Haneen Dajani published by The National. The 2,475-square-metre building has three main structures placed in a U-shape. The main church building stands on the right and next to it in the centre stands the archbishopric. On the left is a building partially constructed of glass and decorated with the Armenian alphabet. A statue of Mesrob Mashdots, the theologist and linguist who founded the Armenian alphabet, lies ahead. “Since the letters were founded in 405 they did not change, only two letters were added, the O and the F,” said Raffi Simonian, secretary of the council of the Armenian community of Abu Dhabi. “It (the alphabet) is very important for the Armenian identity. Even the Armenian translation of the bible from Aramaic is considered the queen translation in the Christian world. When there are any doubts they go back to the Armenian copy.” The translation was begun in 406 and took Mashdots and a student three years to finish. Mr Simonian said that the support of governments in the Middle East in general, dating back to the days of Salah Al Deen when he entered Al Quds, helped. “They gave us the best in everything. Arabs and Muslims protected us and gave us support.” When the first Armenians arrived in the capital in 1976, they established the Armenian Sunday school to teach youngsters their language and to keep the community together. In 1980, the Armenian pope in Lebanon established a council, “and since then until 2005, we were trying to have a piece of land from the government [to build a church] but we had a problem; the members were not fixed and they kept coming and going, so the Sunday school was OK for the time being”. |
| When, after many centuries of separate existence in different and, in addition, deadly warring surroundings, in the Greek and Aramaic translations of the Holy Scripture and in the translations from Greek and Aramaic on one side and the Jewish original on the other, when they all were brought together for comparison, it turned out, that in all the least-bit important things they, with rare exceptions, are identical . This unanimity is a testimony to how carefully the holy text of the Divine words was preserved, how triumphantly mankind justified the Divine confidence, which had entrusted the absolute truth to the infirm and limited human powers. But if the texts coincide so well in all the main details, then why does the Greek translation remain more authoritative for Orthodox Christians than the Hebrew original? – Because it was kept by Divine grace in the Church of Christ from Apostolic times. When the lines of the Bible were copied by Christian writers, then the writer himself, being a child of the Church, a participant of the Godly Church life, knowing the Truth, did not make grave mistakes in the text being re-written, and the listeners of that text, to whom he passed the copied book, could not ignore anything distorting the significance of the holy words, to which the Church was always so attentive. The Targums and Other Translations of the Scripture. Besides the ancient translations of the Scripture, there exist more or less loose interpretations of it in Aramaic, the so called targums, i.e. interpretations. When the Judeans replaced the ancient Hebrew with Aramaic, the rabbis had to use this language specifically to interpret the Scripture in the synagogues. But they did not want to completely abandon the precious legacy of their fathers – the original of the Divine Law – and therefore, instead of a direct translation, introduced explanatory interpretations in Aramaic. These interpretations are called targums. The most ancient and famous of the targums are the Babylonian Targum on all the Holy Scripture, which was compiled in the 1 st century BC by one rabbi Onkelos, and the Jerusalem targum, written somewhat later, attributed to Joathan ben Uzziel, compiled only on the Torah. Several more, later targums, also exist. Though both of the oldest ones appeared before the Massorite reform, the text, interpreted by them, coincides almost exactly with the Massorite one, first of all, because the targums came out of the same rabbinical milieu, from which the Massorites originated, and secondly, because the text of the targums (which reached us only in the latest rewritings) was subjected to editing by the Massorites. |
| So what about the “seven times”? Do they necessarily refer to years, as is often held? Actually, the word for “times” in the original Aramaic text of Daniel (sing, ‘iddan) commonly means “time, period, season” and may refer to any fixed and definite period of time. 404 Admittedly, the view that at Daniel chapter four, verses 16 25 restricted to the Watch Tower Society. This understanding can be found in ancient sources. Thus, the Septuagint (LXX) version of Daniel translated the word as “years,” and so does Josephus in Antiquities X:x,6. But the LXX text of Daniel was rejected by early Christians in preference of the Greek version of Theodotion (usually dated to about 180 C.E.) which says “times” (Greek kairoi), not “years” in Daniel chapter four. 405 Events References N, on the throne Years B.C.E. Battle at Carchemish. Invasion Testament, Vol. 4:1 (NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1973.) Testament, Vol. 4:1 (NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1973.) Documented activity of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule That some Jews at an early stage interpreted the “times” of Daniel chapter four as “years” can also be seen in the socalled “Prayer of Nabonidus,” a fragmentary Aramaic document found among the Dead Sea scrolls at Qumran, Cave 4, and dating from ca. 7550 B.C.E. This document says that Nabonidus was stricken with a “pernicious inflammation ... for seven years” in the Teman oasis. 406 What are the other alternatives? Realizing that the literal meaning of the Aramaic word iddan is not “year” but “period” or “season,” Hippolytus of the third century says that some viewed a “time” as one of the four seasons of the year. Hence “seven seasons” would be less than two years. Bishop Theodoret of the fifth century, however, noted that people of ancient times, such as the Babylonians and Persians, spoke of only two seasons a year, summer and winter, the rainless and the rainy seasons. 407 among the Hebrews. In the Bible there are no references to spring and autumn, only to the summer and winter seasons. |
| Linguistic pitfalls In this chapter, Furuli says little about chronology. He starts by describing some of the basic features of the Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Sumerian languages, with a view to discussing “to which extent the signs and peculiarities of a language may be the cause of some of the contradictory chronological evidence that we find.” (p. 47) He gives Akkadian the most space and gives the other three languages just a few paragraphs. On pages 4956, Furuli provides general information about Akkadian signs for words, syllables, and numbers. In the middle of this discussion, on pages 5254, he attempts to identify Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, as a deification of Nimrod. This is an old theory suggested by Julius Wellhausen in the late 19th century and subsequently picked up by many others, including Alexander Hislop in The Two Babylons (1916, 2nd ed. 1959, footnote on p. 44). It was adopted for some time by the Watchtower Society, which presented it in the book “Babylon the Great Has Fallen!” God’s Kingdom Bules! (1963, pp. 33, 34) with arguments similar to those Furuli quotes from The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Jewish Enyclopedia, and The Two Babylons. The theory was included in the Watchtower Society’s Bible dictionary Aid to Bible Understanding (1971, p. 668) but was dropped in the revised 1988 edition, Insight on the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 974). It was still briefly mentioned in The Watchtower magazine of April 1, 1999, on page 11. On the modern reading and understanding of Akkadian, Furuli feels that, although, generally speaking, “we can have confidence in the translations of cuneiform tablets that have been published in English, German, French and other languages ... it is important to be aware of the pitfalls” (p. 56). The pitfalls Furuli lists are: (1) the difficulty of piecing together broken tablets, (2) the reconstruction of only partially legible signs, (3) the changed meaning of some signs through time, (4) the confusion of similar signs, and (5) the difficulty of correctly reading very small single signs, (p. 58) |
| Jerus., 1991; idem. Obodas the God in a Nabatean-Arabic Inscription from the Vicinity of Oboda and a Review of Other Nabatean Inscriptions//The Nabateans in the Negev/Ed. R. Rosenthal-Heginbottom. Haifa, 2003. P. 101-105; Starcky J. Petra et la Nabatene//Supplement au Dictionnaire de la Bible. P., 1966. Vol. 7. Col. 886-1017; Miller J. I. The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire, 29 B. C. to A. D. 641. Oxf., 1969; Parr P. J. The Nabataeans and North-West Arabia//Bull. of the Institute of Archaeology of the University of London. 1970. Vol. 8/9. P. 193-242; Winnett F. V., Reed W. L. Ancient Records from North Arabia. Toronto, 1970; Meshorer Y. Nabataean Coins. Jerus., 1975; Milik J. T. Origines des Nabateens//Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan/Ed. A. Hadidi. Amman, 1982. Vol. 1. P. 261-265; Charbel A. Matteo 2, 1-12: I Magi nella Cornice del Regno nabateo//Studia Patavina. 1985. Vol. 32. P. 81-88; Knauf E. A. Die Herkunft der Nabataer//Petra: Neue Ausgrabungen und Entdeckungen/Hrsg. M. Linder. Münch., 1986. S. 74-86; Graf D. E. Qura " Arabiyya and Provincia Arabia. P., 1988. P. 171-211; idem. Rome and the Saracens: Reassassing the Nomadic Menace. Leiden, 1989. P. 341-400; idem. The Origin of the Nabataeans//Aram. 1990. Vol. 2. P. 45-75; idem. Nabateans//ABD. Vol. 4. P. 970-973; The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters. Jerus., 1989. Vol. 2: Greek Papyri, with Aramaic and Nabatean signatures and subscriptions/Ed. N. Lewis; 2002. Vol. 3. [Pt. 1]: Hebrew, Aramaic and Nabatean-Aramaic Papyri/Ed. Y.Yadin, J. C. Greenfield, A. Yardeni, B. Levine; Wenning R. Das Ende des nabataischen Konigreichs//Arabia Antiqua: Hellenistic Centres around Arabia/Ed. A. Invernizzi, J.-F. Salles. R., 1993. P. 81-103; Bowersock G. W. Roman Arabia. New ed. Camb. (Mass.), 1994; Tantlevskij I. R. The Two Wicked Priests in the Qumran Commentary on Habakkuk. Kraków, 1995; idem. The Historical Background of the Qumran Commentary on Nahum//Hellenismus: Beitr. zur Erforschung von Akkulturation und politische Ordnung in den Staaten des hellenistischen Zeitalters/Hrsg. |
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