Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

On Learning Aramaic and Syriac - Part 4

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 are not very expensive. A Syriac NT (with Psalms) can be purchased on-line for under $15.00, and a full Peshitta (the whole Bible in Syriac) for about double that. To go along with this text is the Lexicon to the Syriac New Testament, by William Jennings. This is available for under $25.00. It is a useful dictionary. It gives numerous citations of New Testament texts that use the words, in addition to giving definitions.

The Peshitta of the Old Testament is currently kept in print by Wipf & Stock Publishers, but it shares the shortcomings of many reprints. That is, sometime the text is difficult to read, being either smeared or faded. Wipf & Stock also publishes A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, by J. Payne Smith. This has the advantage of being useful for both the Old and New Testaments.

We have now reached the point where it becomes necessary to speak about electronic resources. The reader who has been keeping track of the prices will realize that by this point he has invested several hundred dollars in resources for learning to read Aramaic and Syriac. There is probably no getting around buying the books to learn the grammars of these languages. But once the grammar has been learned, buying the texts can be difficult and sometimes annoying, when the print is hard to read. This is the place at which electronic resources become very valuable. For readers who want to study at this level, there is a choice to make between BibleWorks and Logos Bible Software. Both of them will contain Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Syriac texts, as well as dictionaries. They also contain Hebrew and Greek grammars, but not Aramaic and Syriac grammars. Thus it is necessary to buy hard copies of these resources. Both of them are expensive. BibleWorks 7.0 runs about $350.00. The Scholar's Library edition of Logos runs from $400.00 to $600.00, depending upon which edition of it you buy. The Scholar's edition is necessary in order to get the language capabilities that the student of Aramaic and Syriac will want.

The main difference between BibleWorks and Logos can be described as follows. BibleWorks is primarily a tool for working with the Bible in the original languages. Thus the included resources are heavy on texts, grammars, dictionaries, etc. Logos is primarily a library-building tool. It will have the texts, grammars, and dictionaries, but it is mostly set up to keep adding volumes to your library on computer. In a certain sense, you can think of the difference between the two in terms of the difference between a PC and a Mac. They can both do essentially the same things, but one will do some things better and easier than the other will. I would suggest that the reader interested in pursuing these options visit the websites of the resources (www.bibleworks.com and www.logos.com). There are also reviews of these resources, their strengths and weaknesses, available. Some of these reviews are of older editions of the works, so you have to be careful.

By next week, I plan to have put together a list of some of the more useful product reviews for both BibleWorks and Logos.

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