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Re: The Language Question
>I would
really like to hear an opinion from somebody with more basis in NT] I do not
see that any of those quotes are more obviously Aramaic than Hebrew - but
perhaps there are examples I do not know about.<
One need not be a NT expert (I am not) to see that the occasional phrases that
were left untranslated into Greek but merely transliterated, have a distinctly
Aramaic flavor. One obvious one is Talitha Kumi, "Little girl, get up!"
Another is the quotation from Ps. 22:2, in Mt. 27:46 and repeated in Mark 15:34
Eli, Eli Lema sabachthani, "My God! My God! why have you abandoned me?"
(where the verb is a transliteration of Aramaic shevaqtani, which in turn seems
to be an Aramaic rendering of the Hebrew original (especially since the Mark
version gives it as *eloi* rather than *eli*).
Two other words, *abba* (Mk. 14:36)and *ephphatha* (Mk. 7:34) also look more
Aramaic than Hebrew, though perhaps this is equivocal.
Judith Romney Wegner, Providence