Wisdom and Translation (General)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, December 11, 2011, 19:06 (4731 days ago) @ dhw

You and Tony raise a point I'm reminded of constantly. There is a very quiet "fight" if you will, over the Syriac Bible. Interestingly... the Eastern Orthodox church never condemned the Syriac Bible. The claim of Syriac Christians, is that their Bible is in Aramaic, and anyone remotely familiar with the discussion of Christ, understands that this was the native tongue of Jesus.

Now, the shocking part for me... is in this particular phrase:

"Why hast thou forsaken me or why have you spared me? – Matthew 27:46 / Mark
15:34 referring to the phrase (preserved in aramaic) "Eloi, Eloi,
lama sabachthani?"

I am copying an explanation here from a Syriac researcher's work, Raphael Lataster.

"The simple solution, from the Aramaic, is that Jesus did not imply that Alaha forsook Him at all! The
Aramaic “sabachthani” does not have to mean forsaken. It can mean many things, among them,
“spared”. Now “lemana” (written as “lama” in the Greek copies) denotes a question, so a fairly accurate
translation would be:
“My God, My God, Why have you spared me?” (i.e., let's finish this, let's get this over with!)"

How much erroneous dogma could have been avoided over the last few centuries, because of the defense of this translation?

Lets take another, pretty obvious mistranslation:

The KJV says (Mark 10:25): “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.”

From the researcher again:

"The Greek, reads "καμηλον" (kamélon) which is the accusative form of "καμηλος" (kamélos). This word, in Greek, only means "camel" and sometimes can mean "pack animal" however, if we take a look at it's Aramaic equivalent, we find the word 'gamlo'...

...However, 'gamlo', has a double meaning. As Aramaic evolved separately from Hebrew, it picked up new
idioms and meanings to it's vocabulary. gamlo' is a perfect example, for Aramaic speaking peoples
fashioned a rough, thick rope from camel's hair that had a very decent tensile strength, and after a while,
it became to be known as, you guessed it, gamlo'."

Sorry... these twon instances are probably non-sequitur, but I don't think I've ever shared this part of my Bible study with the group.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"