Language Studies

The use of "son of man" in the Jewish Aramaic sources (Targums, Midrash, Talmud) require some explanation of sources to begin with. The Targums are Aramaic translations/paraphrases of Biblical material. These perhaps originated as oral performances after the manner described in Neh 8:8. There, Ezra reads the Law and the…

The use of the phrase bar enosh (Aram. "son of man") in Daniel 7:13 is problematic partly because it is clearly a theologically significant passage, and partly because the Aramaic portion of the Old Testament is very small, and this is the only place the phrase is used. In other words, we have nothing with which…

Last week, we introduced the phrase "Son of Man," so well-known from the gospels. In the New Testament, the term occurs in two Greek forms ho huios tou anthropou (the arthrous form, that is, having the definite article), and huios anthropou (the anarthrous form, not having the definite article). The former…

The title "Son of Man" is of great importance for the identification of Jesus in the New Testament. As such, it has been investigated to death, and it is not my purpose here to add anything new to the investigation. I intend first to lay out the basic facts of its use in the New Testament, look at possible Aramaic background…

Earlier this week I received two books that I had won in a publisher's drawing at the recent national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. These two books were two of the volumes in the Yale University Press series of the Works of Jonathan Edward, which was nice enough in itself. But these two volumes are the…

The place to start for Syriac texts is with the New Testament. This is for two reasons. First, the New Testament is familiar to most readers who would want to study Syriac. This makes it easier to make sense out of a passage when the grammar and syntax of the language being learned is strange. Second, Syriac New Testaments…

There is not much available as far as grammars for Targumic and Talmudic Aramaic literature, as the basic structure of the grammar doesn't change from that of Biblical Aramaic. What the student will need is a more extensive dictionary for those resources, since the Biblical Aramaic vocabulary is so limited. The most useful…

For the jump to Biblical Aramaic from Biblical Hebrew, my first recommendation would be A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, by Alger Johns. The advantage of this work is that it is relatively cheap (approximately $15.00), and there is an annotated answer key by James Jumper, also about $15.00. This kind of resource…

It struck me that some of you readers might have an interest in learning Aramaic. If that is the case, you could probably use some guidance in the best way to accomplish that. My primary observation in this area is that the prospective student of Aramaic will need to recognize the necessity of spending a fair amount of…

It is common knowledge that the Greek New Testament uses four different words for love. The most prominent, and most theologically significant is agape or in its verbal form agapao. This is usually defined as divine love, or human love that has its origin in God. The Abbott-Smith Manual Greek Lexicon of…