Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

Aramaic Epistles - Part 1

The epistles of the New Testament were, so far as anyone can tell at this point, composed in Greek. Further, discussion of these writings as "epistles" seems to have focused on their similarities with contemporary Greek epistles as to the general form and order of the writings. This being said, it might be of some help to consider the form and order of contemporary Aramaic epistles in order to broaden our background knowledge of first-century letter-writing in the eastern part of the Roman world.

The Aramaic letters that we have (for a list complete as of 1974, see J. Fitzmyer, "Aramaic Epistolography," in A Wandering Aramean) are written either on skin or papyrus, or on pieces of clay. These latter are known as ostraca (sing. ostracon) and might be compared to today's memos, due to their necessarily being much shorter than those written on skin or papyrus.

There are different names used in these epistles to identify the type of writing. The first term is egrah, which also appears in the Aramaic of the Old Testament (Ezra 4:8,11; 5:6). In all three cases, the reference is to official correspondence in the context of the Persian empire, specifically raising questions about the activity of the Jews in rebuilding the temple and walls of Jerusalem. This term is the most common term used in referring to the type of writing.

The second term is sephar. It also is used in the Old Testament (Dan 7:10 and a number of times in Ezra). These references are specifically to collections of records, or what we might call files. Thus, Ez 4:15 says, "in order that search may be made in the book (sephar) of the records of your fathers. You will find in the book of the records and learn that this city is a rebellious city." However, in the later Aramaic letters, the term sephar often refers specifically to a letter, rather than to a book or collection.

The third term is nishtevan. It also is used in the Old Testament, specifically in Ezra 4:18,23; 5:5). Again, this term refers to official correspondence in the Persian empire, and seems to be synonymous to egrah. This word is in fact derived from a Persian term (nishtavana) which meant an official decree, or written document. This official overtone is evident in the uses in Ezra, and still appears in the way in which the term is used in the later Aramaic correspondence.

One final term is zikran, which means "memorandum," and is the label given to a document. This word is etymologically related to dikron (Ezra 6:2, translated in the RSV "a record"). The shift from z to d is common in Hebrew-Aramaic transition, and is regularly mentioned in Aramaic grammars.

The interesting thing to note about the use of all these terms, at least as regards their use in the Biblical material, is that they are primarily official documents. These terms may also be used to refer to what we might call "familiar correspondence," but our context doesn't enable us to make that jump.

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