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LEHRE UNO WEHRE
MAGAZIN FUER EV.-LUTH. HOMILBllK
THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY. THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY
Vol. V July, 1934 No.7
CONTENTS
Zur Lehre von der Reue. Th. E ngelder . •••.•••.•.•.••.•. " 497
Christian Burial. J. A. Petersen .••••.•.......•••...••.• " 509
Die rechte Mitte in der Liturgie und Ordnung des Gottes·
dienstes. L. Fuerbrinr:er. • • • • • • • • • • • . . • • . . . . • . . • • • . • •• 520
The Question of Aramaic Originals. P. E. Kretr 1IlUl-o~ nicht aUein t('rv/'l4 . L i .. ( ".·ill Bing. ua' die Leute mt:hr
al~(l da ..... cr diE' Schnfc uuwn,l'iiOil't \vic ""i de-T Kirch£' 1I4'iuu·1t dtnn di .. gute
.., i e r t.'l'htc Chribtel'l soll('n 'l'ill.. nude-rn l'lf·.li~t. .1pol o!lzj • • \rt . .!-~ .
• luch danelJ..·n d('n\\ oclft n wthn'n. dat-·
ie dit' Schl1f~ niehl. nngreiff'n lIm} mit Ii the trumpet. gin~ an un("~rtain !«lWld,
ral.pher Lehre "erfuehr('Tl lind lrrtum ein "h" .• hall pr~pa" hhll,elf to the battle?
fuehn·n L",II,..,. 1 Cor. Lf. S.
Published for the
Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States
OONOORDIA. PUBLISHING HOUSE, St. Louis, Mo.
ARCHIV
530 The Question of Aramaic Originals.
tuitflid)et 6d)mud bei bem gemeinfamen mtaud) bet ®nabenmit±er unb
im gemeinf amen mefennmi§: unb 200 bes m:Uetfjod)f±en etf d)eine.' 119)
linb roit fd)fieten mit bem oefann±en )!Bori Eutfjet,S, bas er fagte, ag
Q:atIftabt bas ~ragen bon 115tief±erHeibern gana betbie±en unb fUt fiinb"
fjaf± etlfiiten llJorrte: ,,)!Bir gefjen aUf bet WHtielliafjn UnD fagen, es
girt roebet ®ebie±en§ nod) ~etbietens, roeber aur 91ed)ten nod) aur
Einfen; tuit finb roebet papiftifd) nod) catIf±abtifd), fOnD'etn frei unb
d)tiftriclj." (XX, 185.) E. ~ .
• • •
The Question of Aramaic Originals.
Possibly this question requires some explanation. It is by no
means a mere academic question, as some are inclined to think, just
as little as the claim made for the authenticity of the Vulgate is
a mere academic question. If the Greek New Testament, in the
form in which it is substantially before us to-day, either as a whole
or in any of its books, is a translation, then it is, to that extent, not
authentic. If that could be proved or would be established, then we
should be obliged, in the interest of the full and exact truth, to make
that original language our terminus a quo, thereafter using the Greek
text in the same way as we use any other translation or version of
the Bible, the chief value, for exegetical purposes, lying in the genius
of each language to express in its own idiom the thought which the
Holy Ghost originally set forth in the tongue or lunguage in which
He actually had the inspired writers put down His message to men.
In this particular investigation we are concerned with the gosp'els,
specifically with those of Luke, John, and Matthew, the arrangement
being given in the order of their relative importance in the discussion.
Mark's gospel will have to be included, at least in an incidental
fashion, chiefly on account of the most recent developments, which
caused the inclusion of this book in the number of those for which
an Aramaic original is alleged.
Let us emphasize even in these introductory remarks that the
question before us is not whether the words of Jesus and of His
disciples as originally spoken were uttered in the Aramaic tongue.
This fact is now universally acknowledged, especially since the in-
vestigations by Meyer (Jesu Muttersprache) and Dalman (Jesus-
Jeshua). Nor are we unconscious of the fact that this point plays
a fairly important role in understanding the arguments in favor of
an Aramaic original of the gospels. It is necessary, however, at the
very outset, to emphasize that our argument is not concerned with
this fact, but with the question whether the gospels as given by in-
spiration of the Holy Ghost were given to the holy writers in Greek
9) ,\Je~re unb ill\elJre, 42, 143.
The Question of .Aramaic Originals. 531
or in some other tongue, specifically Aramaic (first- and second-
century Syriac) 01' possibly Hebrew.
Let us present the statements and the arguments for the Aramaic
(or Hebrew) original first as found in various text-books on Biblical
introduction. Here the Gospel according to Matthew looms up very
large. The strongest champion of the alleged Hebrew (or Aramaic)
original of Matthew is Theo. Zahn (Einleitung in das Neue Testa-
ment, II, 261 ff.). In the chapter on Die U eb61'lieferung ueber Mat-
thaeus und scin Evangelium he offers a long discussion of the ancient
tradition, and his first conclusion is: "Es ist unanfechtbar, dass das
Hebraeische {oder Aramaeische} die Orig1:nalsprache des fraglichen
Buches gewesen ist und dass es damals keine griechische U ebersetzung
oder Bearbeitung desselben gegeben hat." And in keeping with this
chief conclusion he states a little farther on: "Es darf demnach als
sehr wahrscheinlich gelten, dass der griechische Matthaeus noch vor
dem letzten Ende des 1. J ahrhunderts - in Anbetracht der angefuehr-
ten Zeugnisse koennen wir sagen, eher vor dem Jahl/'e 90 als nach dem
Jahre 100 - in der Provinz Asien entstanden ist und von dart aus
sich verbreitet hat.'" For some years the position and the learning of
Zahn caused his theory to be considered with a good deal of respect
both in Germany and in this country. Thus Reu's Book of Books
(Part II, p. 8) has the statement: "According to the same tradition
Matthew did not write his gospel in the Greek language originally,
but in the Aramaic, i. e., in the language spoken by the Jews at that
time. Our gospel is a translation made about 80-90 A. D. for the
benefit of the Greek-speaking congregations." In his Einleitung in
das Neue Testament F.Barth is much more careful when he states:
"80mit duerfen 'wir annehmen, dass der Apos,tel Levi-Matthaeus EINE
SOHRIFT in aramaeischer 8prache geschrieben hat." (P. 214 f.) Paren-
thetically - by the way, an interesting factor to Bible students - we
may remark that Franz Delitzsch, who in his earlier years believed
that Ammaic was the original tongue of Matthew's gospel, later de-
cided in favor of Hebrew. (The Hebrew New Testament, 30.)
We next ask: What is the patristic testimony that has caused all
the difficulty? In the final analysis the whole controversy was started
by a rather obscure passage in Papias. Since this is of such great
importance in our entire discussion, we offer it in its original form,
as given in Eusebius (Church History, III, 39,16): Jl-[ru:{}ulo. fl.!:v oiiv
'EfJeutfjt ~tUU"Tq.> Ta Mrta avv6Hi~ut:o, ~eft~v6VaB ~'Ut)1:a W. ijv ~VVUTO"
;"«OTO" which is to say, in a literal translation: Matthew now, in
a Hebrew dialect, compiled the words, but everyone translated them
(or: interpreted them) as he was able to. It was evidently this state-
ment of Papias which caused Eusebius to form his conclusion con-
cerning the original language of Matthew's gospel, for he practically
quotes Papias in V, 8, 2, as does Irenaeus in his Adversus Haereses,
532 The Question of Aramaic Originals.
II, 1, 1. (Op. Zahn, l. c., 184.272.) The view thus established is then
found in Origen, later in Ohrysostom, and especially in Jerome, who
writes, e. g., Matthaeum evangelium Hebraeis litteris edidisse, quod
non poterant legere, nisi hi, qui ex H ebraeis erant; and again: Evan-
gelium Ohristi Hebraeis litteris verbisque composuit; quod quis postea
in Graecum transtulerit, non satis certum est. As to the last, however,
as Zahn frankly states, Jerome made the mistake of regarding the
Gospel of the N azarites as the original of Matthew. (L. c., 275.)
But the view concerning a Hebrew or an Aramaic original of
Matthew's gospel has persisted, so that it has lately resulted in the
publication of two interesting books. The first of these is entitled
An Old Hebrew Text of Matthew's Gospel and was published by Hugh
J. Schonfield in 1927. And the second, entitled The Four Gospels ac-
cording to the Eastern Version, translated from the Aramaic by
George M. Lamsa, was issued in 1933. Some of the claims made by
Schonfield, in his preface, are : "We have advanced far beyond [?]
the meager information possessed by those who prepared the Author-
ized Version .. " There is still another eventuality to be taken into
consideration: the supposed originals of certain books of the Bible
may themselves be translations. . . . We can by no means be sure
that some of the earlier narratives of the Bible were not written in
ancient Babylonian or Egyptian. When we turn to the New Testa-
ment, we find that there are reasons for suspecting a Hebrew or Ara-
maic original for the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John and for the
Apocalypse." These are bold words, and one only wonders why the
author did not include Luke in his suppositions. But he continues:
"Good results have already been obtained in the case of certain ob-
scure passages in some of the Jewish apocalyptic writings preserved
in Greek, whose Hebrew or Aramaic original was suspected, by re-
translation into these languages. This has often not only revealed the
source of errol', but at the same time confirmed [~] the theory of
translation. The early Hebrew manuscript of the Gospel of Matthew
translated in the present work enables us to apply this test more or
less effectively to the Greek text of this gospel, and the results ob-
tained prove to my mind conclusively the existence of an underlying
Hebrew original." So Schonfield, like Delitzsch, holds that the
original version of Matthew's gospel was Hebrew.
It seems strange that Lamsa is just as emphatic in his contention
concerning the Aramaic Ol'iginal of the gospels, an original which he
identifies with the ancient Syriac version known for many years as
the Peshito. In his Introduction to the translation of the foul' gospels
which Lamsa has published he tries to establish the authenticity of
the Peshito text as the original or inspired text. He writes, for
example: "The original language of the gospels is the native Galilean
Aramaic, the vernacular of Northern Palestine, and not the Ohaldean
The Question of Aramaic Originals. 533
Aramaic which was spoken in Southern Palestine." (P. XIX.) "Even
so far back as the seventh century B. 0., Aramaic was the language of
communication for commerce and diplomacy between the nations in
Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Palestine (cf. 2 Kings 18, 26). The
Greeks referred to this language as Syriac, because they confused
Syria, which is in the north of Palestine, with Assyria, which is a
totally different country between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, east
of Syria." (P. xv.) Hence we are to understand that Lamsa holds this
Galilean Aramaic, now commonly known as Syriac, to be the tongue
in which the inspired writers of the gospels put down the thoughts of
the Holy Ghost. The present writer must confess that the distinction'
is not quite clear from the introductory paragraphs, since on the same
page the author remarks that the books of Daniel and the Psalter were
written in part in Aramaic, and we certainly cannot identify the
Aramaic of certain passages in the Old Testament with the language
of the Peshito.
Where does Lamsa suppose the gospels to have originated? Here
again he is not nearly as clear as one should like to have him be, for
there is little of chronological or logical sequence in his statements.
But there is one sentence that is notable, when he writes: "It is im-
portant to know that the Eastern version, the first compilation of the
New Testament Scriptures, was made in Edessa." (P. XVII.) The
only apparent proof which he offers is contained in the statement:
"The church in Edessa was founded by Addai or Thaddeus, one of the
Twelve, who was sent to that city as a missionary; and St. Thomas,
another of the apostles of our Lord, later went through that region."
He strongly opposes the view which associates the Peshito with Rab-
bulas, Bishop of Edessa in 435 A. D., saying that there were many
bishops in Edessa and in Persia at large before the days of Rabbulas.
All of which may be true enough, but what proof does it offer for the
declaration that the gospels (all four of them) were originally written
in Aramaic-Syriac? Lamsa alleges that the writers of the gospels
were Jews, writing at an early date, but he does not distinguish be-
tween the various gospels with their obvious differences as regards
references to topography, Jewish customs, etc. But his conclusion at
this point is once more: "The evidence therefore is convincing and
conclusive for an Aramaic original, and this is none other than the
Peshito." (P. XXI.) To which we answer in an emphatic: Non
sequitur.
But why are we obliged to disagree so emphatically with the
contention of Lamsa? Not only on account of the general inadequacy
of his argumentation, but also on account of some specific flaws in his
logic. He may know enough about the present-day customs in Syria,
but he certainly is not well versed in the customs of either the Jews
or the Greeks in the days of Ohrist. He states, for example, that the
534 The Question of Aramaic Originals.
Last Supper was eaten by the little company of Jesus "sitting on the
floor with their legs folded under them, their hats on their heads, their
shoes removed, and a large tray containing two dishes, a few spoons,
and a jar of wine in front of them." (P. VI.) But a reference to
practically any book on archeology of Bible lands will show that the
Greeks had used tables for their meals for centuries, and the Romans
certainly did. Moreover, the children of Israel, even before the Exile,
used tables, for the word InStj, while used in some cases of the spread
of a meal on the ground ;~ '·floor, is used in most instances of some
kind of table, also for the purpose of serving meals. Of. Deut. 11, 27;
1 Sam. 20, 29; 1 Kings 13, 20; Provo 9, 2. The Lord's Supper was
clearly not instituted in the home of some poor man, but in the upper
room of a house of wealth, and we may well assume, on account of the
reference to the sofas and pillows, such as were used in the homes of
the well-to-do, that Jesus and His disciples reclined on the customary
dining-sofas, surrounding a small circular or rectangular table, such
as that pictured by Tucker (Life in the Roman World of N era and
St. Paul). As a matter of fact the work of archeologists in recent
decades has done more to give us a correct picture of Oriental customs
in the days of Ohrist than any study of the present habits of the
natives. It is true that many of theiT customs have been retained for
millenniums, but it is likewise true that many observances of former
days, especially those of their conquerors in the periods of the great
empires, are no longer in use. To argue from present-day customs of
the descendants of the ancient Syrians alone is to present an ex parte,
and therefore an inadequate, argument.
In the second place, One becomes suspicious of Lamsa's argu-
ments on account of his evident yielding to modernistic influences.
Thus he denies the fact of demoniac possession and insists upon trans-
lating "insane," his contention being : "We are grateful to science and
truth [1] for demonstrating that diseases are due to physical and
nervous causes, delusions, and fears and have nothing to do with
demons and evil spirits." (P. XIII.) Because of this position, Lamsa
also insists that not the demons, but the lunatics attacked the swine
in the well-known story, 1>fatt. 8, 31. The words "He breathed on
them" in John 20, 22 are simply to signify that Jesus stimulated the
courage of His disciples, although his own translation of the last
words of the verse reads: "Receive the Holy Spirit." In these and
other instances the arguments of the author frequently are a strange
conglomeration of misapplied truth and of half-information.
But what about the contention of Lamsa that the Aramaic-Syriac
frequently has a better meaning than the Greek and its translations?
He offers some interesting and, in part, appealing material. Thus he
refers to the fact that the Aramaic word gamla is the same word for
"camel" and for "a large rope," whence, he insists, Matt. 19, 24 should
The Question of Aramaic Originals. 535
read, "It is easier for a rope to go through a needle's eye," forgetting,
at the same time, that the Arabs use the proverbial saying of a camel's
passing through a needle's eye to this day. He states that the word
kakra may mean "talent" or "province," depending upon where the
mark, or accent, is placed, and he desires to change Luke 19, 13.17. 24
accordingly; but his reasoning is not very convincing. Particularly
strange is this sentence: "Some Aramaic words were not translated
into Greek because they were not clearly understood; such words are
ra7cah, to spit; mammon, wealth; ethpatakh, be opened." (P. XII.)
But mammon is originally a Punic word and came into Aramaic (and
Hebrew) only by semantic borrowing; and the word ephphatha is
clearly rendered in Mark 7, 34.
Any student of the New Testament can do more than what Lamsa
offers, for we have some passages that differ in the Greek text, though
they seem to refer to the same incident. In the account of the ad-
monition given by John the Baptist, Matt. 3, 9, his words are given:
"And think not to say within yourselves," the verb being d6;1Ju. In
Luke 3, 8 we have the words: "And begin not to say within your-
selv.es," the verb here being ae;1Ja{}s. In the former instance the
Aramaic word would be tishrun, in the latter tesharun. Or, to take
another instance, in Matt. 11, 19 and Luke 7, 35 both the Authorized
Version and the translation of Luther have: "Wisdom is justified
of her children." But the Greek text of Matthew has ano U»Y Berrov
atrrij;;, while that of Luke has anD TWV TBXVWV.* In the Aramaic we
might have ab'daha, doers of wisdom, abdaha, servants or children of
wisdom, and then obadaha and bidataha, works of wisdom. Yet the
difficulty does not overwhelm us. In fact, the answer is easy to one
who believes in the inspiration of the New Testament. Whether the
text transmitted during the first decades by word of mouth was the
one or the other Aramaic word, the Holy Ghost chose to use both
versions in the G1"eek, as the inspired writers were moved to preserve
the Lord's words in writing. Similar difficulties are well known to
every painstaking Bible student, as in comparing Gen. 47, 31 with
Heb. 11,21. The Holy Ghost, as the true Author of Scripture, cer-
tainly has the right to relate events in His own way, especially if
a combination of the two apparently differing accounts will miake
excellent sense or if they are supplementary to each other. Thus
Jesus doubtless used similar admonitions frequently, His accent in
one instance being placed one way and then again in another. What
we have in the Greek documents as penned by the men of God is the
record which He wants us to use and to study as the original text. -
* Allen remarks: "If TBHVWV is original in Matthew, BerWV is due not
to an Aramaic original, but to a Greek copyist, who substituted it as eD,sier
than 'rEHVWV,"
536 The Question of Aramaic Originals.
The gist of these arguments may also be used with reference to Schon-
field, although he does not urge the authenticity of the particular
Hebrew text which he translated.
But there is more to be said concerning the alleged priority of
Aramaic or Aramaic-Syriac texts. As for Matthew's gospel in par-
ticular, it clearly appears that the chief considerations of the theory,
such as Zahn offers, base practically their entire argument on the pas-
sage in Papias quoted above. But a careful examination of the Papias
passage shows that the allegation has no basis in fact. This is shown
most conclusively by Appel in his Einleitung in das Neue Testament,
p. 159, when he writes: "Zunaechst ist die Annahme ausgeschlossen,
dass UNSER MATTHAEUSEVANGELIUM gemeint sei. Mit Til AOrta avvETa~aTo
wird auf die W orte wa:n:se avvTa~lV nov xve1w,,6)v :n:OtOVfUI'O' AOrWI' in der
vorhergehenden A ussage ueber ]{arlcus zurueckverwiesen, und es ist
nicht richtig, dass hier durch AOrta der gesamte InhaZt des Evange-
liums zusammengefasst wuerde. Dieser ist kurz vorher durch Til u:n:o
XelaTov 1} Asx{}ivTa 1} :n:eax{}ivTa wiedergegeben, und es waere schon
sonderbar, wenn nun gleich darauf beides, Worte und Werke, durch
einen Ausdruck zusammengefasst werden sollte, der nur an EINES
der beiden Inhaltsstuecke erinnert. . .. Des weiteren aber ergibt sich,
dass die Aussage Vers 16 sich NIOHT auf die in unserm Matthaeus-
evangelium mitgeteilten REDEN als INTEGRIERENDEN BESTANDTEIL des-
selben bezieht, sondern auf eine EIGENE SOHRIFT, die nur AOrta ent-
hielt. Schon das aVVETti~aTO fuehrt darauf." Regardless of whether
a person shares the opinion held by Appel that there was some collec-
tion of Sayings of Jesus in Aramaic or not, he certainly has proved
his point with regard to the untenability of the theory held by Zahn
and others on the basis of Papias. But other scholars, independently
of Appel, have reached the same conclusions, partly at the suggestion
of other factors. Thus Feine writes: "Unser Matthaeus macht den
Eindruck einer original-griechischen Schrift, nicht den einer U eber-
setzung aus dem Hebraeischen. Sein Griechisch ist nicht ungewandt,
besser als das des Markus." (Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 45.)
And in the Oxford Studies in the Synoptic Problem, edited by San-
day, we are told: "Of the original language of the first gospel much
has been written, but the investigations of the last century of criti-
cism seem to have proved beyond reasonable doubt that the gospel was
written in Greek." (P.293.)
By way of summarizing the arguments and presenting positive
evidence excluding an Aramaic original of Matthew we offer the fol-
lowing points: 1. The claims made by Schonfield and Lamsa lack
actual proof. 2. None of the Ohurch Fathers who refer to a Hebrew
or Aramaic original of Matthew actually saw a copy of the alleged
The Question of .Aramaic Originals. 537
document, except Jerome, who does not come into consideration until
the end of the fourth century and who undoubtedly confused the
Gospel of Matthew with the Gospel of the Hebrews or of the N azarites.
3. Papias, who is really the only early witness, is by no means trust-
worthy, and even his words can hardly be said to refer to the Gospel
of Matthew. 4. The Greek gospel as we now have it bears the stamp
of originality, for we clearly have a play on words in 6,16; 21,41;
24, 30. 5. The quotations from the Old Testament are given in
various forms, some agreeing with the LXX, some being translated
exactly according to the Hebrew, and still others offering a free trans-
~ation, a fact which could not be accounted for if we were to assume
the Aramaic or Hebrew to be the original. 6. Hebrew words and
phrases are repeatedly translated and explained, chap. 1, 23; 27, 33. 46,
which, again, would be excluded in a Hebrew or Aramaic original.
7. The last chapter oE the Didache, which is placed at the end of the
first or the beginning of the second century, is, in effect, a hortatory
commentary on the apocalyptic discourse in Matt. 24, using the same
Greek text.
But what about the gospels of Mark, of Luke, and of John? Our
answer is that in the case of these writings every consideration of
internal and external evidence denies Aramaic priority. As for Mark,
far from having been written with an Aramaic background, the num-
ber of Latinisms alone, as shown by Robertson (Studies in Mark's
Gospel, 127) favors Rome as the place of writing and Greek as the
language; for his conclusion is: "Mark wrote in the vernacular Greek
of the period, the kaine, but was undoubtedly at home in the Aramaic
and probably had an acquaintance with the official Latin." - In the
case of Luke the circumstances are so clear that even Allen (in San-
day, 292) is constrained to write: "The case of Luke is easiest and
may be taken first. It is written in Greek and is largely based on
Greek sources." - And as for the Gospel of John, the storm-center of
adverse criticism for more than a century, the evidence of the book
itself as well as that of the most prominent teachers of the Ohurch
from Justin and Irenaeus through the following centuries are suf-
ncient to establish the authenticity of the Greek text as the original.
We may say, with Addis (in Sanday, 386): "We have in the gospels
to recognize the probability of an Aramaic background, so that the
words of the Lord are accessible to us only in a translation," but it
was this translation that the Holy Ghost furnished in the words
which are now before us in the Greek text of the four gospels.
P. E. KRETZMANN.