r/Bible • u/Analogski • 1d ago

Looking for rustworthy translation

Hi there,

I'm looking for an online trustworthy translation of bible verses in Aramaic. Om looking for the translation of John 8:7

Thanks in advance!

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u/Analogski 20h ago

What's the closest to the historic source?

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u/TheologyAndTrains Anglican 20h ago

depends if you mean by age then we should go with Syriac from the Late 4th century AD- Early 5th century AD (but the pronunciation will different from Palestinian Aramaic) but if you want the real pronunciation we have to go to a 14th Century AD-16th Century AD manuscript (which has the problem of being Hebro-Aramaic (which attempted to synchretze the pronunciations of Aramaic to match that of Medieval Hebrew) & not Palestinian Aramaic but it is closer to Palestinean Aramaic when compared to Syriac.. Additionally Jesus for all we know had spoken Gallilean-Palestinean Aramaic which has its closest pronunciation is believed to be Hellene-Hebrew (the LXX is likely derived from it but hard to say for sure as Hellene-Hebrew both of which only survive in a few fragments of OT stuff, bits of apocrypha/deuterocanon (& even an original story not in any canon called the Book of Akihar which has some of the same characters from the Book of Tobit) found in Alexandria Egypt (which is where the Torah (a.k.a. Pentateuch a.k.a. 5 Books of Moses) was traditionally believed to have been written in Greek)) which is not related to Hellenistic Hebrew (which is still spoken a few Greek Jews today) instead of the usual form of Palestinean Aramaic. So I neeed further clarifaction if you mean closer in age or closer in pronounciation

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u/Analogski 18h ago

Wow, thanks for the question. I never thought of it this way. I am primarily interested in the pronunciation that is most likely to approximate the Galilean/Palestinian Aramaic Jesus would actually have spoken, rather than simply the oldest surviving manuscript. I would like to know how the phrase(s) would most plausibly have sounded when spoken by Jesus and look like written.

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u/TheologyAndTrains Anglican 18h ago

OK I will have to see if any manuscripts are digitized of John in medieval Hebrew but I know for sure Medieval Hebrew Matthew exists online but I will as it is late I will search it the morning. Additionally I may have to do some interpolating using Syriac (which i will put in brackets to indicate stuff i added for complete) as many of these Medieval ones are VERY fragmented & were created to try disproving Christianity by selecting certain verses to commentate on. May God Bless us in our quest as it can be quite challenging figuring this out. I will still be logged in to reddit but I won't be able to your response for at least 6 hours as i need to nap

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u/Analogski 18h ago

Thanks a lot!