[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Some tentative conclusions, and questions, from exploring the website of the publisher:
- The Bible is published by the Congregation of Yahweh, which seems to adhere to Messianic Judaism.
- The website says that "The original New Testament was not written in Greek, but Aramaic. This is a literal translation and we believe to be the closest bible to the original language that was written thousands of years ago - the bible as it was!"

The statements above can cause people to reach the wrong conclusions--namely, that this Bible is a translation from Aramaic. True, scholars say that the New Testament was written in Aramaic, but we have copies only written in Greek.

It's a little messier than that.

First, the terms are a bit confusing. Aramaic is a family of languages that includes Syriac, so all Syriac is Aramaic, but not all Aramaic is Syriac. As the terms are generally used, "Aramaic" usually refers to the "language of Jesus" (Old or Western Syriac) and is the dialect that was spoken/written in Palestine during the first century AD. Without a modifier, "Syriac" usually means a later (third century) dialect associated with the eastward expansion of Syriac Christianity. That's the "Eastern" in Lamsa's subtitle, "From the Ancient Eastern Text".

We have early copies of the New Testament in both Greek and Syriac (as well as several other languages like Coptic, Ethiopic, Slavic, etc.). There are extant, complete copies of the Peshitta in Eastern Syriac that date to the fifth century, fragmentary Old Syriac ("language of Jesus") manuscripts that date to the third century, and evidence that Old Syriac translations were made of the Gospels (the Diatesseron) in the mid-to-late second century.

The argument made by the "Aramaic originals" crowd is that the New Testament was actually written in Old Syriac and then translated into Greek during the second century. They claim that the Eastern Syriac Peshitta is a minor revision of the Old Syriac and that certain features of the Peshitta are strong evidence that the New Testament was composed in Old Syriac. I don't find the arguments compelling, but I would recommend this website to anyone that wants to explore them. It offers the Greek text, various ways of displaying the Syriac text ("square" Hebrew if you don't read Syriac script, for example, or transliteration if you don't read either one), and several English translations of both.

Now, the Hebrew Roots Bible is an entirely different thing. Despite the claims of the author, it is not a "literal translation", nor is it even a primary translation at all. For the New Testament, the author compared several translations in English and selected readings that he thought sounded more original. As an effort, I find the results as interesting as actual translation, but I think the process is more similar to the production of The Clear Word. James Blanco, the author of The Clear Word, referred to it as a "devotional exercise."

Now, the whole reason that I came to Mobileread today was to post a free book.

Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership by Ally Kateusz is Open Access and available under a Creative Commons license (give it away to whomever you want, but you can't sell or modify it). It can be downloaded as epub or PDF from SpringerLink or for Kindle at Amazon.

This book reveals exciting early Christian evidence that Mary was remembered as a powerful role model for women leaders—women apostles, baptizers, and presiders at the ritual meal. Early Christian art portrays Mary and other women clergy serving as deacon, presbyter/priest, and bishop. In addition, the two oldest surviving artifacts to depict people at an altar table inside a real church depict women and men in a gender-parallel liturgy inside two of the most important churches in Christendom—Old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome and the second Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Dr. Kateusz’s research brings to light centuries of censorship, both ancient and modern, and debunks the modern imagination that from the beginning only men were apostles and clergy.

Edit: I just reread your post where you said that "...scholars say that the New Testament was written in Aramaic..." and I think you're referring to the idea that Matthew initially wrote his Gospel in Aramaic. That's a claim attributed by Eusebius to Papias and is often repeated in evangelical commentaries. Matthew as we have it is pretty much certain to have been composed in Greek, but there is some conjecture (and only conjecture) that Matthew wrote a separate collection of "logia" in Aramaic.