Aramaic?

Before I elaborate on the titled subject, the reader should realize that there is a lot in The HOLY BIBLE that makes obvious and logical common sense, but a rather disturbing portion which does not.

That predicament is well described by the following verses within that Bible, respectively:

Numbers 12:8 With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in dark speech; and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?"

Second Corinthians 1:13 For we write you nothing but what you can read and understand; I hope you will understand fully

Fine and good. But, on the other hand:

John 10:6 This figure Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what He was saying to them.
John 16:29 His disciples said, "Ah, now You are speaking plainly, not in any figure!

First Corinthians 2:14 The non-spiritual human does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Hebrews 11:19 He considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead; hence, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Second Peter 3:15 And count the forbearance of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
Second Peter 3:16 speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Some things recorded in Holy Writ seem tricky, and I suppose that the Spirit of the Divinely-inspired human authors of Scripture wanted it that way to reflect the deviousness of humans:

John 7:8 Go to the feast yourselves; I am not going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come."
John 7:9 So saying, He remained in Galilee.
John 7:10 But after His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He also went up, not publicly but in private.

John 11:5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
John 11:6 So when He heard that he was ill, He stayed two days longer in the place where He was.

Was Jesus lying in John 7? Was it logical to show love by not promptly going to heal Lazarus before he got worse in John 11? Where is the logic and sense in all that?

Some things in the Bible are downright obnoxious, like for example the cannibalistic-like public proclamation of Jesus for everyone to eat His own flesh and drink His own blood:

John 6:54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

Perhaps Christ the Creator had the disobedient ingestation of Forbidden Fruit by our wayward ancestors Eve and Adam when He uttered such apparent absurd and non-sensical obnoxiousness!

If you or I went up to some cop or whoever and told them to eat our flesh and drink our blood, the handcuffs would promptly be used in the process of escorting us to security guards and shrinks in state mental hospitals.

Hello Dracula? Excuse me while I go and vomit. Now, and every Sunday after communion mass!

No wonder many of Christ's disciples left Him:

John 6:53 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;
54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood stays in me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.
58 This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever."
60 Many of His disciples, when they heard it, said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?"
61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, "Do you take offense at this? [A rhetorical question?] Shouldn't such be quite apparent?]
62 Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where He was before [and what has that to do with anything?]
63 It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit [euphemism?] and life.
66 After this many of His disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.
67 Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?"
68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;
69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."

Ah, the Lord Himself explains the noxiously yucky cannibalistic suggestion with a relieving elaboration that His words are merely: "spirit and life."

Saint Peter Simonson (a.k.a. son of Simon) seconds the motion with: "......you have the words of eternal life."

Whatever. Words are only words. Thankfully - at times! No actual illegal flesh-and-blood cannibalism after all, obviously. And all this flesh-and-blood fastfood cusine or dining out was uttered by a Guy who spoke windstorms into silence, spoke dead guys back to life, spoke water into wine, walked (not slalomed) on liquid (and not ice) water, gave sight to men born blind, and rose from the dead.

Sometimes, though, there is an English-language mistranslation problem.

Some English translations of Luke 17:34 state that "two men will be sleeping in one bed" - from which one is taken and the other left. Others instead declare that "two" will be in one bed and so on without any reference to human males sleeping together, which males bed-sharing to me would have despicable homosexual connotations. The original Greek comes to the rescue by having no specific references whatsoever to human males.

Other utterances by Jesus also puzzle me:

Matthew 24:38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage [Is there a problem with that - or are people supposed instead to fornicate without getting married?], until the day when Noah entered the ark
Luke 17:28 Likewise as it was in the days of Lot?they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built . . .

The latter reference infers benign repetitive activities before judgment falls, but why Jesus mentioned a holy and sacred thing like marriage in the Matthew 24:38 referring to errant people appears quite irritating! It would have logically had made more sense if the Matthew 24:38 reference instead stated: "....before the flood they were eating, drinking, urinating, defecating, fornicating, stealing, lying, swearing, etc."

Oh well.

Sometimes, it appears that a specific event is described as an apparent contradiction to either the same or a very similar event elsewhere in Scripture:

Second Samuel 24:1 Again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, "Go, number Israel and Judah."
First Chronicles 21:1 Satan stood up against Israel, and incited David to number Israel.

Make up your mind, Scripture writers! Which is it - The LORD.....or instead Satan?

And hey, hey.....watch out! Let there be no blaspheming the LORD by equating Him with Satan!

Remember:

Matthew 12:31 Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
Matthew 12:32 And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
Luke 12:10 And every one who speaks a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

Here is another one:

Matthew 15:38 Those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children.
Matthew 16:9 Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?
Matthew 16:10 Or the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?
Mark 6:44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.
Mark 8:9 And there were about four thousand people.
Mark 8:19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" They said to him, "Twelve."
Mark 8:20 "And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" And they said to Him, "Seven."

Two different feedings?

At least the menu did not include Jesus-brand rye or wheat flesh bread, nor concord or chablais or port wine blood.

And what exactly did Jesus mean by "bread?"

Matthew 16:11 How is it that you fail to perceive that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the "leaven" of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

Perhaps He was not referring to real yeast either.

My my, may God give us discernment to distinguish the literal from figurative and symbolic metaphors.

Leviticus 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it for you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement, by reason of the life.
Leviticus 17:14 For the life of every creature is the blood of it; therefore I have said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off.
Leviticus 19:26 "You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not practice augury or witchcraft [bye bye, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, plus the Bible-less/Jesus-less/Creator-less Star Trek: Next Generation).
Deuteronomy 12:16 Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out upon the earth like water.
Deuteronomy 12:23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh.

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There is (to my present knowledge) NO verifiable Greek-based use of the word "Aramaic" whatsoever in the entire Greek-Text New Testament.

Nor even any use of the words: Aramaic and Aramean in the entire Old Testament either, except in mistranslated parts of certain non-King-James type bibles, such as in the following four examples:

Second Kings 18:26 (RSV) Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, "Pray, speak to your servants in the Aramaic language, for we understand it; do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall."
Ezra 4:7 And in the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam and Mithredath and Tabeel and the rest of their associates wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia; the letter was written in Aramaic and translated.
Isaiah 36:11 Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, "Pray, speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall."

Second Kings 18:26 (Darby) And Eliakim the son of Hilkijah, and Shebnah and Joah said to Rab-shakeh, Speak, we pray thee, to thy servants in Syriac, for we understand it, and talk not with us in the Jewish language in the ears of the people that are on the wall.
Ezra 4:7 And in the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his companions, wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in Aramaic, and interpreted in Aramaic.
Isaiah 36:11 And Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to Rab-shakeh, Speak, we pray thee, to thy servants in Syriac, for we understand it; and speak not to us in the Jewish language in the ears of the people that are upon the wall.

Second Kings 18:26 (LIT) And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna, and Joah said to the chief of the cupbearers, Please speak Aramaic to your servants, for we understand; and do not speak with us in Jewish, in the ears of the people on the wall.
Ezra 4:7 And in the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions, wrote to Artaxerxes the king of Persia. And the letter was written in Aramaic, and translated from Aramaic:
Isaiah 36:11 And Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to the chief of the cupbearers, Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we hear. But do not speak to us in Judean, in the ears of the people on the wall.

Second Kings 18:26 (MKJV) Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna, and Joah said to the chief of the cupbearers, Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand. And do not talk with us in Jewish, in the ears of the people who are on the wall.
Ezra 4:7 And in the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel and the rest of their companions, wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia. And the letter was written in the Syrian tongue, and interpreted in the Syrian tongue.
Isaiah 36:11 And Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to the chief of the cupbearers, Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. But do not speak to us in Jewish in the ears of the people on the wall.

As the reader can plainly observe, some of the partially-errant translations above have the word: Aramaic for some verses, while others in irreconcilable contradiction have the word: Syrian instead. There is intolerable and deplorable inconsistency, to say the least!

Fortunately, two translation have it consistent and correct, as seen below:

Second Kings 18:26 (AV-KJV) Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna, and Joah, unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and talk not with us in the Jews' language in the ears of the people that are on the wall.
Ezra 4:7 And in the days of Artaxerxes wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions, unto Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in the Syrian tongue, and interpreted in the Syrian tongue.
Isaiah 36:11 Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall.

Second Kings 18:26 (ASV) Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and speak not with us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall.
Ezra 4:7 And in the days of Artaxerxes wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his companions, unto Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in the Syrian character, and set forth in the Syrian tongue.
Isaiah 36:11 Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall.

The cause for such contradictory replacements of the word "Aramaic" in the above-referenced partially-errant translations might be that the ignorantly-or-deliberately-devious authors and editors of such non-authorized substitutions were trying to make themselves out to be (or make out others who influenced them to be) [false and fake] synagogue-of-Satan-type "jews" attempting to integrate their heretically-polluted word replacement to discredit bonafide Judaism - disregarding and/or disdaining the fact that "salvation is of the Jews," "Jews are entrusted with the oracles of God," and "[Jews] are beloved for the sake of their forefathers" -- with no allowable inclusion snuck in of non-Israelite Arabs, Egyptians, Syrians, or whoever else not authentically belonging to the messianic faith and lineage of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, David, and so forth.

On Easter Day, a certain pastor in a church I attended some time ago read from some strange modern mis-translation of the New Testament in which he declared that Mary spoke to Jesus at His tomb in "Aramaic." After thoroughly doing an exhaustive word search in my Bible-translations computer software, I discovered that he was completely non-justified in uttering that word: "Aramaic" -- being that there is NO such word with the New-Testament Scrivener/Trinitarian Greek Text, nor in legitimate English translations, but instead in fact correctly read:

John 20:16 (MKJV, also Douay, JB2000, and YLT) Jesus said to her: "Mary!" She turned herself and said to Him: "Rabboni!" which is to say: Master!

Although the following two translations do not state the absurd word "Aramaic" in the text, neither one is authorized to even include the words: "in Hebrew":

John 20:16 (RSV) Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

John 20:16 (ASV) Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turneth herself, and saith unto him in Hebrew, Rabboni; which is to say, Teacher.

Beware of anyone who says that "they" [everyone?] "spoke Aramaic in the days of Jesus" -- as such presumptive half-lie deceivers have absolutely NO Biblical proof at all that such was the case, but they are simply mouthing the possibly-antisemitic concocted conjecture of their own or some other goof's immentality.

The word: "Latin" is, (to my knowledge), only mentioned once in the entire Old-and-New-Testaments HOLY BIBLE:

John 19:20 (MKJV) Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

It is intriguing to wonder what language the Roman centurion spoke to Jesus when he encountered Him with his petition for healing:

Matthew 8:5 And when Jesus had entered into Capernaum, a centurion came to him, begging Him,
Luke 7:2 And a certain servant of a centurion who was dear to him, was sick and ready to die.

And what language was spoken by the centurion near the cross, who stated:

Mark 15:39 (KJ21) And when the centurion who stood opposite Him saw that He so cried out and gave up His spirit, he said, "Truly, this Man was the Son of God!"

Quite possibly, those who were in the Jewish Temple in the days of Jesus spoke nothing but pure Hebrew (not a renegade Hebrew-like Aramaic substitution).

Indeed, it is probable that many citizens of Judea (including even Samaritans) were multilingual, in that they perhaps usually communicated in Hebrew and Greek, plus Latin when dealing with the Roman Government officials they were subject to at the time.

In any case, rather than "Aramaic" being spoken by the general populace, the two Scripturally-mentioned languages of the time in that neck of the woods (so to speak) were both Hebrew and Greek:

Mark 7:26 The woman was a Greek, a Syro-phoenician by race. And she begged Him that He would throw the demon out of her daughter.

Acts 16:1 And he came to Derbe and Lystra. And, hey, a certain disciple named Timothy was there, the son of a woman who was a Jewess and who believed. But his father was a Greek.
Acts 16:3 Paul wanted him to go with him, and taking him he circumcised him, because of the Jews who were in those places; for they all knew that his father was a Greek.
Acts 17:12 Therefore many of them believed, and quite a few of honorable Greek women and men.
Acts 21:37 And as Paul was about to be led into the fortress, he said to the chiliarch, "Is it lawful for me to say a thing to you?' And he said, "Do you know Greek?"

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Romans 2:9 tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who has worked out evil; of the Jew first, and also of the Greek.
Romans 2:10 But He will give glory, honor and peace to every man who works good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Romans 10:12 For there is no difference both of Jew and of Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call on Him.

Galatians 2:3 But not even Titus, the one with me, a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.
Galatians 3:28 There cannot be Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is no male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 3:11 . . . where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, foreigner, Scythian, slave or freeman, but Christ is all things in all.

Revelation 9:11 And they had a king over them, the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in Greek his name is Apollyon.

. . . and Latin-speaking guys like New-Testament-mentioned Cornelius (an Italien) were probably among the first to make a pope out of Saint Peter, with all the Roman Empire Catholicism and related scribes, monasteries, liturgies, creeds, manuscripts, and ecclesiastical customs that followed.

Incidently, it is nice to have Biblical Scriptures written in Hebrew (for the Old Testament - including the entirety of the books of Daniel and Ezra), and written in Greek (for the New Testament) . . . being that they are both precise-terminology languages. In contrast, English can be (and frequently is) both linguistically and phonetically confusing - such as the English words: see and sea sounding the same, spelled differently, and meaning entirely different things. Also, the word pneumonia would preferably be spelled more in line with how it phonetically sounds, like for example: nuhmoanyuh.

Moreover, it is both crucial and vital in English and any other language to acknowledge that the exact letters of certain words usually and literally refer ONLY to certain specific objects and/or actions - even though they might be (and usually are) INDIRECTLY related to other objects or actions which the precise word is intended to exclusively describe them.

Euphemisms within and outside of Scripture should be recognized as allegorical, metaphorical, or symbolic euphemisms, and not be taken literally - even though reference using them is made to very real and existing environmental phenomena.

One final thing.

The Greek Septuagint (of the Old Testament) was NOT the first language the Old Testament was written in, which original language instead was Hebrew (the lettering of which God Himself most likely used to etch out the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, and which was probably the language of Adam and Eve onward).

Moreover, the hieroglyphic scribblings of Mesopotamians or Phoenicians, Egyptians, Chinese, Aztecs or Incas, Arabs, etc. was NOT the original language of discourse among humans before the multi-language-inception incident which occurred at the Tower of Babel:

Genesis 11:9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.