Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

Resources available for the study of the Aramaic - Part 6

The seventh type of Semitism that Carmignac finds in the gospels he labels “Semitisms of Composition.” The best way of determining what Carmignac means is by looking at his examples. The first he draws from the opening verses of Mark. The citation given from Isaiah is actually a collation of material from Exodus 23:20; Isaiah 40:3, and Malachi 3:1. The interpretation that Carmignac puts on this combined citation is that the combination is justified only if Mark were written originally in Hebrew. That is hardly the case. First, a combination of verses from different places in the Old Testament is common in New Testament citations, as appears, for example, in Paul’s proof of the sinfulness of mankind in Romans 3:9-18, where Paul combines passages from Psalms, Proverbs, and Isaiah in order to make his point. There is also the well-known passage in Matthew 27:9, which combines a direct quote from Zechariah with a context from Jeremiah under the rubric: “Then the saying of Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled.” It is tantalizing to back-translate, as Carmignac does to try to arrive at what Mark’s “original Hebrew” text “must” have been, but back translation proves nothing.

Let me offer an example. When I was doing my graduate studies, one assignment given to us was to take a Bible passage in English, and translate it back into Hebrew. We were all given the same passage and the same English version to start from. What was amazing to us all was not only how our back-translations differed from the original Hebrew, but how they differed from one another. Yet all were perfectly defensible translations of the passage from English into Hebrew.

Carmignac’s second example is from Zacharias’s prophetic song in Luke 1:68-79. He makes the point that there are allusions in the song to Zacharias, to Elizabeth, and to John, allusions that work in Hebrew, but not in Greek. For Carmignac, this proves that the passage must have been written in Hebrew (incidentally the allusion to Zacharias works in Hebrew but not in Aramaic). Actually, all it proves is that the song was originally uttered in Hebrew, which clearly appears to be the case from the text. Luke offers us then, as part of his Greek original (see the discussion of Luke’s original in last week’s column), a Greek translation of an utterance originally made in Hebrew. That much is proven, and nothing more. To argue for more is to go beyond the evidence.

The remaining examples offered by Carmignac are similar. All admit that those characters we meet in the gospels certainly spoke Aramaic, probably spoke Hebrew, and likely spoke Greek. Hence, when their statements or conversations are presented in the gospels, they have the appearance of Greek translations of Hebrew or Aramaic originals. That is because, in a very real sense, they are. It does not, however, prove that the gospels were originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic. It proves rather that the testimony of the gospels themselves is true—that they are reporting actual conversations and actual events.

We will continue the evaluation of Carmignac’s arguments next week.

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