| 1996. Irenaeus of Lyon, Proof of Apostolic Preaching, J.P. Smith (trans.), Westminster MD 1952. Ishodad of Merv, Commentaire sur l’Ancien Testament, J.-M. Vostee (ed.) - C. van den Eyden (trans.), (CSCO 156 – script. syr. 75), Louvain 1955. Jastrow, M., A Dictionary of the Targumim, The Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, New York 1996. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, H.St.J. Thackeray (trans.), Cambridge MA 1967. Justin Martyr, Justini Martyri Dialogus cum Tryphone, M. Marcovich (ed.), Berlin-New York 1997. Kessler, E., Bound by the Bible: Jews, Christians and the Sacrifice of Isaac, Cambridge 2004. Loader, J.A., A tale of two cities: Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, early Jewish and early Christian traditions, Kampen 1990. Midrash Bereshit Rabba , J. Theodor – Ch. Albeck (eds), Jerusalem 1965. Midrasch Tanchuma , S. Buber (ed.), Wilna 1885. Miller, W.T., Mysterious Encounters at Mamre and Jabbock, Chico 1984. Origen, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus , R.E. Heine (trans.), (Fathers of the Church 71), Washington D.C. 1982. Reuling, H., After Eden: Church Fathers and Rabbis on Genesis 3:16-21, Leiden 2006. Stemberger, G., ‘Exegetical Contacts between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire’, in: M. Sæbo, et al. (eds), Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The History of Its Interpretation: From the beginnings to the Middle Ages (until 1300). Part I, Antiquity, 569-586, Gottingen 1996. -- , Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, M. Bockmuehl (trans.), Edinburgh 19962. Stuckenbruck, L.T., Angel Veneration and Christology: a study in early Judaism and in the Christology of the Apocalypse of John, Tubingen 1995. Sullivan, K.P., Wrestling with Angels: a study of the relationship between angels and humans in ancient Jewish literature and the New Testament, Leiden 2004. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, M. Maher (trans.), (The Aramaic Bible 1B), Edinburgh 1992. Targum Neofiti I, Genesis, M. McNamara (trans.), (The Aramaic Bible 1A), Edinburgh 1992. Thunberg, L., 1966, ‘Early Christian Interpretations of the Three Angels in Gen 18’, Studia Patristica 8: 560-570. |
| Feodorit, bishop Kirskiy. Iz”yasneniya trudnykh mest Bozhestvennogo Pisaniya [St. Theodoret of Cyrus. The Questions on the Octateuch]. Moscow, 2003, 440 p. (Russian translation). 6 . Holladay (2000) – Holladay W. L. A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Leiden, 2000, 425 p. 7 . Ieronim (1880) – St. Ieronim Stridonskiy. Tvoreniya. [St. Jerome, presb. of Stridon. Works]. Kiev, 1880, vol. 4, 365 p. (Russian translation). 8 . Ioann Zlatoust (1898) – St. Ioann Zlatoust. Besedy na knigu Bytiya. [St. John Chrysostom. Homilies on Genesis]. Tvoreniya v russkom perevode [Works in Russian translation]. Saint Petersburg, 1898, vol. IV, 923 p. (Russian translation) 9 . Kidner (1967) – Kidner D. Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary. London: Tyndale P., 1967, vol. 1, 224 p. 10 . Klassicheskiye kommentarii (2010) – Klassicheskiye bibleyskiye kommentarii. Kniga Bytiya [Classical biblical commentaries. Genesis]. Moscow: Olimp, 2010, 700 p. (Russian translation). 11 . Mathews (2001) – Mathews K. A. Genesis 1–11:26 . The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001, vol. 1A, 500 p. 12 . Midrash raba (2012) – Midrash raba (Velikiy midrash). Bereshit raba [Midrash raba (Great midrash). Bereshit raba]. Moscow: Knizhniki, 2012, vol. 1, 880 p. (Russian translation). 13 . Rashi (2006) – Pyatiknizhie s tolkovaniem Rashi. V nachale (Bereshit) [Pentateuch with commentary of Rashi. In the beginning (Bereshit)]. Transl. by Frima Gurfinkel’. Jerusalem: Shvut ami, 2006, 573 p. (Russian translation). 14 . Sarna (1989) – Sarna N. M. Genesis=Be-reshit. English and Hebrew; commentary in English. The JPS Torah commentary. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989, 411 p. 15 . Swaggart (2003) – Swaggart J. Jimmy Swaggart Bible Commentary: Genesis. Baton Rouge, LA: World Evangelism Press, 2003, 639 p. 16 . Vasiliy Velikiy (2008) – St. Vasiliy Velikiy. Tvoreniya: v 2 t. T. 1: Dogmatiko-polemicheskie tvoreniya. Ekzegeticheskie sochineniya. Besedy [St. Basil the Great. |
| В начале (Берешит)/Пер. Фримы Гурфинкель. Иерусалим: Швут ами, 2006. 573 с. 11 . Феодорит (2003) – Феодорит, еп. Кирский, блж. Творения. Т. 1: Изъяснения трудных мест Божественного Писания. М., 2003. 440 с. 12 . Яаков Ашкенази (2012) – Яаков бен Ицхак Ашкенази. Цэна у-Рэна. Пять книг Торы с комментариями. Берешит/Общ. ред. Бер Борис Котлерман. Москва: Книжники, 2012. 474 с. 13 . Holladay (2000) – Holladay W. L. A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Leiden, 2000. 425 p. 14 . Kidner (1967) – Kidner D. Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary. Vol. 1. London: Tyndale P., 1967. 224 p. 15 . Mathews (2001) – Mathews K. A. Genesis 1–11:26 //The New American Commentary. Vol. 1A. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001. 500 p. 16 . Sarna (1989) – Sarna N. M. Genesis=Be-reshit. English and Hebrew; commentary in English//The JPS Torah commentary. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989. 411 p. 17 . Swaggart (2003) – Swaggart J. Jimmy Swaggart Bible Commentary: Genesis. Baton Rouge, LA: World Evangelism Press, 2003. 639 p. 18 . Wenham (2002) – Wenham, G. J. Genesis 1–15 //Word Biblical Commentary. Vol. 1. Dallas: Word Inc., 2002. 335 p. 19 . Westermann (1994) – Westermann C. A Continental Commentary: Genesis 1–11 . Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994. 657 p. Aleksey Kashkin . Noah and his Sons: The Origin of Grape Growing and Winemaking, the Drunkenness and the Nakedness of the Patriarch (commentary of Gen. 9:18–21 ). Abstract: There is an interesting fragment in the Book of Genesis – 9:18–27, concerning Noah’s drunkenness, his sons’ actions and the subsequent curse and blessings which Noah pronounced on his children, having predetermined the destiny of their descendants. This episode remains puzzling, at the same time there is still no detailed Orthodox commentary in Russian, which would address all of the issues associated with the interpretation of the given episode. A cycle of three articles considering the specified fragment is submitted to a reader’s attention. |
| That is also why there is no reason not to recognize the existence of these Aramean groups, which have unique linguistic and religious definition as well as their own folklore. In 1942 Dr. Edmond Mayer wrote a paper on the Lebanese and Assyrian Marronites in which he clearly stated that they were descendants of Syriac-Aramean peoples who lived in the area during the seventh century Muslim conquest. In 2005 Al Azhar University published a research project by Dr. Ahmad Makhmad Ali al Jamal in which he speaks of the Syriac-Aramean people as an existing fact in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Neighboring countries have Christian communities where the spoken language, and not only the liturgic one, is Aramaic. In Syria, there are Maalula, Bakhia, Hassake, Qamishli. In Turkey, Tur-Abdin, Mardin. In northern Iraq, Qaraqoush, Alqosh, Irbil (the Kurdish capital), Ankawa. There is evidence that until the late 10th century, the towns of Basri, Zarta, and their environs in the high Lebanese mountain area spoke Aramaic. In an article broadcast on the Russia Today channel in 2008 about the Aramaic community of Maalula, a school for studying Aramaic was seen, and the writing on the blackboard was Assyrian square script, identical to the script introduced to the Jews by Ezra the Scribe in the early days of the Second Temple that replaced the ancient Canaanite script they had used until then. Spoken Arabic in the Christian communities of the Levant differs from that of the Muslim, Druze and Alawite communities and emphasizes the cultural segregation of the Christian communities wishing to preserve their cultural autonomy as they managed to do throughout the period of Arab-Islamic rule in the region. These cultural attributes have given rise to the name “Syriac-Aramaic” or Syriac for short. The most famous of the Syriac groups are the Maronites, most of whom live in Lebanon. Some of their prayer texts are in Aramaic. The Civil Sphere in the Fertile Crescent Syriac-Aramaic communities are to be found today in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and northern Israel. What they have in common is the combination of the Christian religion and the Aramaic language, the latter used mostly for prayer, and the recognition as an official, definitive group. |
| 680 It may ground authority in Jesus himself, in contrastic to a prophetic, «Thus says the Lord» (cf. the latter formula applied to Jesus in Rev 2–3); see Aune, Prophecy, 164–65; Witherington, Christology, 186–88; Marshall, Origins, 43–44. 682 Horsley, Galilee, 247–49. Some hold that Aramaic prevailed in Upper Galilee, Greek in Lower Galilee (Goodman, State, 66–67; cf. also Meyers, «Judaism and Christianity,» 74); some others that Aramaic remained predominant throughout Palestine (Mussies, «Greek in Palestine,» 1060–64). Cf. the Targumim, and the Aramaic Qumran texts; even Josephus claims Aramaic, not Greek, as his tongue in War 1.3; cf. Ant. 1.7; 20.263–264. 683 Most (e.g., Dalman, Jesus-Jeshua; Black, Approach; idem, «Recovery»; Deissmann, Light, 64; Draper, «Greek»; Jeremias, Theology, 4; Sevenster, Greek, 37; Dibelius, Jesus, 25; Meier, Marginal Jew, 1:255–68) have supported Jesus» use of Aramaic (some contending that he spoke Aramaic exclusively, others that it was his common language in rural Galilee), even using it as a criterion of authenticity (e.g., Barrett, Jesus, 6; Burkitt, Sources, 20; contrast Dibelius, Tradition, 34–35). Some «Semitisms» may stem from an Aramaized Greek in the eastern Mediterranean, though note the case against «Jewish Greek» in Horsley, Documents, 5:5–40. 686 Argyle, «Semitism»; idem, «Greek»; Mussies, «Vehicle»; Freyne, Galilee, 171–72; Stauffer, Jesus, 60. Especially the better off and educated knew Greek (educated Romans also sought fluency in both: e.g., Quintilian 1.1.12, 14), but others were undoubtedly acquainted with it, especially in urban areas. 687 Cf. Goodman, State, 64; Sevenster, Greek, passim; Dalman, Jesus-Jeshua, 3–4; in a later period, cf. p. Sotah 7:1, §4; Goodenough, Symbols, 12:185; Cohen, Maccabees, 40; the evidence of Schwank, «Grabungen,» applies only to an urban area. Palestinian Jewish burial inscriptions, which are the safest indicators of the common language, are often in Greek (Leon, Jews, 75), though for the poorer majority of Jerusalem Aramaic probably remained the dominant language (cf. Levine, Hellenism, 80–84). |
| There, priests have taught the language to their 320 students for the past five years. Some 360 families in the area descend from Aramaic-speaking refugees who in the 1920s fled the Tur Abdin region of what is now Turkey. Priest Butros Nimeh said elders still speak the language but that it vanished among younger generations. Nimeh said they hoped teaching the language would help the children appreciate their roots. Although both the Syrian Orthodox and Maronite church worship in Aramaic, they are distinctly different sects. The Maronites are the dominant Christian church in neighboring Lebanon but make up only a few thousand of the Holy Land’s 210,000 Christians. Likewise, Syrian Orthodox Christians number no more than 2,000 in the Holy Land, said Nimeh. Overall, some 150,000 Christians live in Israel and another 60,000 live in the West Bank. Both schools found inspiration and assistance in an unlikely place: Sweden. There, Aramaic-speaking communities who descended from the Middle East have sought to keep their language alive. They publish a newspaper, “Bahro Suryoyo,” pamphlets and children’s books, including “The Little Prince,” and maintain a satellite television station, “Soryoyosat,” said Arzu Alan, chairwoman of the Syriac Aramaic Federation of Sweden. There’s also an Aramaic soccer team, “Syrianska FC” in the Swedish top division from the town of Sodertalje. Officials estimate the Aramaic-speaking population at anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000 people. For many Maronites and Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land, the television station, in particular, was the first time they heard the language outside church in decades. Hearing it in a modern context inspired them to try revive the language among their communities. “When you hear (the language), you can speak it,” said Issa, the teacher. Aramaic dialects were the region’s vernacular from 2,500 years ago until the sixth century, when Arabic, the language of conquering Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula, became dominant, according to Fassberg. |
| The Amplified Bible (1954) is a literal translation with multiple expression using associated words to convey the original thought. This version is intended to supplement other translations. The Jerusalem Bible (1966) is a translation form the Hebrew Masoretic text, the Greek Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and accepted Greek and Aramaic New Testament texts. In making the New American Bible (1970), a Catholic translation, all the basic texts were consulted, and the work was 26 years in the making. The Living Bible (1971) is a popular paraphrase edition and is the work of a single translator, Kenneth L. Taylor. The New American Standard Bible (1971) was translated by an editorial board of 54 Greek and Hebrew scholars and required nearly 11 years to complete. The New King James Bible (1979–82) is a version in conformity with the thought flow of the 1611 King James Bible. It is based on the Greek text used by Greek speaking churches for many centuries, known presently as the Textus Receptus or Received Text. There are more than a dozen English Bible translations available today, each with its merits and its weaknesses. Some of them are more literal and, consequently, more difficult to understand; while others are much more readable and understandable, but less accurate. A serious Bible student might want to compare several of these translations in order to get a better understanding of the original text. The great variability among modern Bible versions testifies to the fact that translating is essentially interpreting . In other words, to do a good job, the translator must know both the original and the language being translated into quite well. The translator must understand the subject, and, what is extremely important, grasp the idea the author intended to convey and the sense in which he intended it to be conveyed. And since the ultimate author of Sacred Scripture is the Holy Spirit, the translator needs His illumination and inspiration to correctly convey His message. St. Peter pointed to this requirement when he wrote: “No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” ( 2Pet 1:20–21 ). And here lies the main problem with of some of the modern Bible translations. The scientists who did them, with all their knowledge of ancient languages and sincere efforts to do the best job, were often far from the Church and hence never understood its teaching. So at the present time, the King James Bible and its more contemporary version, the New King James Bible, although neither is perfect, seem to convey most accurately the original meaning of the Bible as it was always understood by the Church. Time of Writing |
| “We want to speak the language that Jesus spoke,” said Carla Hadad, a 10-year-old Jish girl who frequently waved her arms to answer questions in Aramaic from school teacher Mona Issa during a recent lesson. “We used to speak it a long time ago,” she added, referring to her ancestors. During the lesson, a dozen children lisped out a Christian prayer in Aramaic. They learned the words for “elephant,” “how are you?” and “mountain.” Some children carefully drew sharp-angled Aramaic letters. Others fiddled with their pencil cases, which sported images of popular soccer teams. The dialect taught in Jish and Beit Jala is “Syriac,” which was spoken by their Christian forefathers and resembles the Galilean dialect that Jesus would have used, according to Steven Fassberg, an Aramaic expert at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. “They probably would have understood each other,” Fassberg said. In Jish, about 80 children in grades one through five study Aramaic as a voluntary subject for two hours a week. Israel’s education ministry provided funds to add classes until the eighth grade, said principal Reem Khatieb-Zuabi. Several Jish residents lobbied for Aramaic studies several years ago, said Khatieb-Zuabi, but the idea faced resistance: Jish’s Muslims worried it was a covert attempt to entice their children to Christianity. Some Christians objected, saying the emphasis on their ancestral language was being used to strip them of their Arab identity. The issue is sensitive to many Arab Muslims and Christians in Israel, who prefer to be identified by their ethnicity, not their faith. Ultimately, Khatieb-Zuabi, a secular Muslim from an outside village, overruled them. “This is our collective heritage and culture. We should celebrate and study it,” the principal said. And so the Jish Elementary School become the only Israeli public school teaching Aramaic, according to the education ministry. Their efforts are mirrored in Beit Jala’s Mar Afram school run by the Syrian Orthodox church and located just a few miles (kilometers) from Bethlehem’s Manger Square. |
| 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. |
| Darbelnet J., Vinay J.-P. (1958). Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais. Paris – Montréal: Didier – Beauchemin. de Blois K. (1994). Functional Equivalence in the Nineties: Tendencies in the Application of Functional Equivalence principles in Different Parts of the World//B. Rebera (ed.), Current Trends in Scripture Translation. UBS Bulletin 170/171, P. 24–36. Reading: UBS. de Regt L.J. (2002). Otherness and Equivalence in Bible Translation//A. Brenner, J.W. van Henten (eds.), Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty- First Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion, P. 50–52. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. de Vries L. (2001). Bible Translations: Forms and Functions//The Bible Translator, 52(3), P.306–319. de Vries L. (2008). Biblical Scholars, Translators and Bible Translations//Scripture and Interpretation, 2(2), P. 141–159. Dube M.W. (1999). Consuming a Colonial Cultural Bomb: Translating Badimo Into «Demons» in the Setswana Bible (Matthew 8.28–34; 15.22; 10.8)//Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 73, P. 33–59. Ellingworth P. (1982). Exegetical Presuppositions in Translation//The Bible Translator, 33, P. 317–323. Ellingworth P. (2002). Theology and Translation//The Bible Translator, 53, P. 302–307. Ellingworth P. (2007). Translation Techniques in Modern Bible Translation//P.A. Noss (ed.), A History of Bible Translation, P. 307–334. Roma: Edizioni di storia e litteratura. Fee G.D., Strauss M.L. (2007). How to Choose a Translation for all its Worth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. Floor S.J. (2007). Four Bible Translation Types and Some Criteria to Distinguish Them//Journal of Translation, 3(2), P. 1–22. Franklin K.J. (2011). Adapting the West Kewa NT to the East Kewa//The Bible Translator, 62(2), P. 123–127. Frishman J. (2002). Why a Translation of the Bible Can’t Be Authoritative: A Response to John Rogerson//A. Brenner, J.W. van Henten (eds.), Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion, P. 31–35. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. |
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