''The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts'' (commonly called the ''Lamsa Bible'') was published by George M. Lamsa in 1933. It was derived, both Old and

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

s, from the

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

Peshitta The Peshitta ( syc, ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ ''or'' ') is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, ...

, the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

used by the Assyrian Church of the East and other

Syriac Christian Syriac Christianity ( syr, ܡܫܝܚܝܘܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ / ''Mšiḥoyuṯo Suryoyto'' or ''Mšiḥāyūṯā Suryāytā'') is a distinctive branch of Eastern Christianity, whose formative theological writings and traditional liturgies are expr ...

traditions. Lamsa, following the tradition of his church, claimed that the Aramaic New Testament was written before the Greek version, a view known as

Aramaic primacy The Aramaic original New Testament theory is the belief that the Christian New Testament was originally written in Aramaic. There are six versions of the New Testament in Aramaic languages: #the ''Vetus Syra'' (Old Syriac), a translation fr ...

. This contrasts with the academic consensus that the

language of the New Testament The New Testament was written in a form of Koine Greek, which was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean from the conquests of Alexander the Great (335–323 BC) until the evolution of Byzantine Greek (c. 600). Hellenistic Judaism Th ...

was Greek. Lamsa thus claimed his translation was superior to versions based on later

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

manuscripts. While Lamsa's claims are rejected by the academic community his translation remains the best known of Aramaic to English translations of the New Testament.

Textual differences between Peshitta and Greek manuscripts

Some places in Lamsa's translation differ from the Greek texts used as the basis of other English-language Bibles.

Matthew 27:46

An example is found in Matthew , where Lamsa has "My God, my God, for this I was spared!" where the Greek text has "My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?"

And about the ninth hour

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...
cried with a loud voice, saying,
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?
that is to say,
My
God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

This is rendered in Lamsa's translation:

And about the ninth hour,
Jesus cried out with a loud voice and said,
Eli, Eli lemana shabakthan!
My God, my God, for this I was spared!

Though in fact the Peshitta does not have four lines in this verse. The 1905 United Bible Societies edition by

George Gwilliam George Henry Gwilliam (28 July 1846 – 17 November 1913) was an English Aramaicist and Hebraist. Gwilliam was born in Bristol, the second son of Samuel Gwilliam. He was educated at King's College London and Jesus College, Oxford (BA 1871, MA 187 ...

of the Peshitta in Syriac contains only three lines, the Aramaic "Eli, Eli,.. " (ܐܝܠ ܐܝܠ) etc. not being given twice:

This verse in Greek manuscripts states that from the Cross, Jesus (quoting Psalm 22:1) cried out, 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' (See Matthew 27:46) proponents of the priority of the Aramaic New Testament such as George Lamsa claim this verse is a mistranslation into Greek.

Matthew 19:24

Some scholars of the Peshitta and the Greek New Testament claim that in Matthew 19:24 as the Aramaic word for 'camel' is written identically to the word for 'rope.' an error occurred due to the translator's limitations when the original scrolls were being transferred into Greek. This would mean Matthew 19:24 commonly translated as, 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.' Would read 'rope' instead of 'camel'. To support this they claim that rope, is much more in keeping with the imagery of a needle, and that it is probably what Jesus said, and what was originally recorded. Saint Cyril in his commentary on the Holy Gospel according to Luke (Luke 18:25) says that camel is the term used by those versed in navigation for a thick rope, thereby both stating that the term camel is the right one and that its meaning is that of a rope and not the animal. This suggests the Lamsa 'rope' translation is the more accurate "meaning" translation and 'camel' is the more accurate 1st century "slang" translation.

References

External links

Lamsa Bible Download
by John P. Juedes {{English Bible translation navbox 1933 books Bible translations into English 1933 in Christianity