Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

Resources available for the study of the Aramaic - Part 5

Carmignac’s sixth category of Semitisms in the New Testament he calls "Semitisms of style." Here he briefly surveys a number of characteristics of Semitic prose and poetry that are found in the gospels. The first is the telling of a story by means of short clauses connected with "and" (p. 25). This is certainly characteristic of the Hebrew and Aramaic of the Old Testament, and it is found throughout the gospels. The second is the repetition of words from the same root in a limited context (p.25). A good example that Carmignac uses here is from Luke 8:5: "the sower went out to sow his seed, and while he was sowing." This repetition of terms is prominent in the Hebrew and Aramaic of the Old Testament. It is used frequently to highlight key ideas, and often to direct the reader’s attention to the main point of a section. As Carmignac admits, however, these practices so prominent in the gospels may reflect no more than the practice a typical Semite might adopt even when expressing himself in Greek.

As to the poetry in the gospels, Carmignac notes that the rules of Greek poetry are relatively strict and quite different from the characteristics of Semitic poetry (p.25). Then he makes a startling statement. He says, "If the poems of the gospels had been composed in Greek, they would have had to depend upon the laws of Greek poetry" (p.25). This is nothing but assumption. First, he identifies as poetic a number of passages that have the characteristics of neither Semitic nor Greek poetry, such as the Lord’s Prayer, the Prologue of the Gospel of John, and the High Priestly Prayer of John 17. Second, with regard to the commonly recognized poems of the New Testament (Luke 1:46-55,68-79), Carmignac fails to note that these would have been spoken in Aramaic or Hebrew, and hence that version preserved in Luke would have preserved their Semitic character. Third, he fails to identify any reason why a Jewish or early Christian composition in Greek must have conformed to the standards of classical Greek poetry. He seems to be unaware, for example, that a number of Renaissance attacks on the Bible were provoked primarily by the Bible’s failure to adhere to the styles of the recognized classics of Greek and Latin literature.

The next element, and one that Carmignac thinks certainly points to a Semitic original of the gospels, is the use of the phrase kai egento en to. This phrase occurs regularly in the Septuagint as the translation of the Hebrew vayyehi (and it happened). This he categorizes as a "barbaric turn of phrase" (p.26) and says that it is not found in the New Testament books that were certainly composed in Greek (p. 26). He then notes that the phrase "is found twice in Mark, six times in Matthew and thirty-two times in Luke" (p. 26). It is indeed curious that the phrase is found so often in Luke, because Carmignac himself insists that Luke "clearly composed his Gospel in Greek" (p. 5). How is one to explain the contradiction? First, the phrase is characteristic of Hebrew narrative, but not poetry, nor is it commonly found in the prophets except in those with some extended narrative portions, such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Second, of the New Testament, only the Gospels and Acts are truly narrative in the sense of Semitic narrative works. One would not expect to find the phrase in the epistles or Revelation. Finally, the prominence of the phrase in Luke suggests that Luke composed his gospel in a deliberate copying of the style of the Septuagint, something not done by either Matthew or Mark. Carmignac admits this possibility at the end of his section (p. 26), but clearly unwillingly.

The investigation continues next week.

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