Schools try to revive Aramaic

The Washington Times ^ | Tuesday, June 5, 2012 | Diaa Hadid

[TBP]

In the Palestinian village of Beit Jala, an older generation of Aramaic speakers is trying to share the language with their grandchildren. Beit Jala sits next to Bethlehem, where the New Testament says Jesus was born.

And in the Arab-Israeli village of Jish, nestled in the Galilean hills where Jesus lived and preached, elementary school children now are being instructed in Aramaic. The children belong mostly to the Maronite Christian community, where members still chant their liturgy in Aramaic, though few understand the prayers.

“We want to speak the language that Jesus spoke,” said Carla Hadad, a 10-year-old Jish girl who frequently waved her arms to answer questions in Aramaic from school teacher Mona Issa during a recent lesson.

[TBP]

Reviving the language of Jesus. The Noohra Foundation has been looking at this for years.

[wideawake]

Noohra and its impresario, Rocco Errico, love to spread the Lamsa story about the Syriac dialect of the Maronites being the same language as the Galilean dialect of Western Aramaic that the Lord would have grown up speaking.

They are not the same language, any more than Italian and French are. They are related languages, but not the same language.

[cotton1706]

Could happen. Ben Yehuda brought back Hebrew almost single-handedly.

[iowamark]

Interesting story.

[HenpeckedCon]

Every movie I ever saw Jesus was speaking English.

[NYer]

Thanks for the ping. Aramaic is the liturgical language of the Maronite Catholic and the Syro-Malabar Catholic Churches. To hear it chanted during the Consecration is as close as one can come to being at the Last Supper.

[Oztrich Boy]

Is this what they speak in Amercia?

[TBP]

Quoting the article:

“The dialect taught in Jish and Beit Jala is “Syriac,” which was spoken by their Christian forefathers and resembles the Galilean dialect that Jesus would have used, according to Steven Fassberg, an Aramaic specialist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

“They probably would have understood each other,” Mr. Fassberg said.”

[TBP]

The Syriac dialect of Aramaic, which is very similar to the language Jesus most likely spoke, was the language of Dr. George Lamsa, the Bible scholar who gave us the Lamsa Bible.

[TBP]

The Syriac dialect of Aramaic, which is very similar to the language Jesus most likely spoke, was the language of Dr. George Lamsa, the Bible scholar who gave us the Lamsa Bible.

[TBP]

Rocco Errico was Dr. Lamsa's student. He is carrying on Dr. Lamsa's work through the Noohra Foundation and his column in Science of Mind Magazine, "Light From the Language of Jesus."

[TBP]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocco_A._Errico

Dr. Rocco A. Errico is an ordained minister, international lecturer and author, spiritual counselor, and a Biblical scholar working with the Syriac-language Peshitta text of the Bible. For ten years he studied intensively with Dr. George M. Lamsa, Th.D., (1890-1975), Assyrian biblical scholar and translator of the Holy Bible from the Ancient Eastern Text. He began his practice as an ordained minister and pastoral counselor in the mid-1950s and during the next three decades served in churches and missions in Missouri, Texas, Mexico, and California. Dr. Errico is proficient in Aramaic and Hebrew exegesis and the recipient of numerous awards and academic degrees, including a Doctorate in Philosophy from the School of Christianity in Los Angeles; a Doctorate in Divinity from St. Ephrem’s Institute in Sweden; and a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the School of Christianity in Los Angeles. In 1993, the American Apostolic University College of Seminarians awarded him a Doctorate of Letters. He also holds a special title of Teacher, Prime Exegete, Maplana d’miltha dalaha, among the Federation of St. Thomas Christians of the order of Antioch. Dr. Errico speaks at conferences, symposia, and seminars throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe and has been a contributor for over 23 years to Science of Mind Magazine. Dr. Errico has stressed the nonsectarian, open interpretation of Biblical spirituality.[3]

In 1970, Dr. Errico established the Noohra Foundation a non-profit, non-sectarian spiritual-educational organization devoted to the belief that Aramaic/Syric was the original language of the New Testament, and promoting his interpretation of the Bible. Currently Dr. Errico leads Tuesday night Bible studies at Hillside International Truth Center, a church in Atlanta, Georgia associated with the metaphysical New Thought movement. [4]

[TBP]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lamsa George M. Lamsa (Syriac: ܓܝܘܪܓܝܣ ܠܡܣܐ) (August 5, 1892 – September 22, 1975) was an Assyrian[1] author. He was born in Mar Bishu in what is now the extreme east of Turkey. A native Aramaic speaker, he translated the Aramaic Peshitta (literally "straight, simple") Old and New Testaments into English. Lamsa was a member of the Assyrian Church of the East. He was a strong advocate of one of that Church's beliefs: Peshitta primacy (a form of Aramaic primacy). His hypothesis was that for the New Testament, the Peshitta was the original text, and the Greek version was translated from it. In support of this, he noted that Aramaic was the language of Jesus and the earliest Christians,[2] because of the historical fact that, according to Lamsa, "Aramaic was the colloquial and literary language of Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, from the fourth century B. C. to the ninth century A. D."[3] Lamsa further claimed that while most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the original was lost and the present Hebrew version, the Masoretic text, was re-translated from the Peshitta.[citation needed] Lamsa produced his own translation of the Bible in the form of The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts, which is commonly called the Lamsa Bible.[4]

[TBP]

http://www.noohra.com/Index.pl?glamsabio