“ROPE” THAT “CAMEL” AND LET’S GET IT STRAIGHT FROM THE DROMEDARY’S MOUTH

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NEW TESTAMENT ORIGIN
by George M. Lamsa
published: 1976
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The first real Bible I ever owned was the New King James Version, given to me as a gift, and it served me well for several years. But as my understanding improved and my thirst for water drawn from the deeper parts of the Spiritual well drove me into more scholarly directions, I eventually came to realize that the English version of [link> THE HOLY BIBLE FROM THE ANCIENT EASTERN TEXT translated from the Aramaic language by George M. Lamsa represented the most accurate and trustworthy rendering of God’s Holy Spirit-inspired Word.
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Lamsa’s native tongue was Aramaic and having grown up in the Near East with the ancient customs, and using some idiomatic phrases known since the time of Jesus, he was eminently qualified for his chosen life work of giving the world an English version of The Bible from the original Aramaic (the same language that Christ spoke).
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NEW TESTAMENT ORIGIN by George M. Lamsa is a small exposition that presents the author’s basic argument that “no portion of [the New Testament] was originally written in Greek”, but rather in Aramaic, the language of the common man in The Holy Land during the first century. If true, this means of course that the many Christian “scholars” who slave over the subtle shades of meaning of Greek words in order to gain greater insight into Biblical passages are sweating over foreign language copies of the original scrolls.
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My copy of this book is the 1976 edition with the bright green cover. While the NEW TESTAMENT ORIGIN is written in a very plain, straightforward and persuasive manner, my only complaint is that it could have been expanded with additional material. I know that this material exists as some of it appears in the Introduction to Lamsa’s Holy Bible translation, as well as in his 'IDIOMS OF THE BIBLE EXPLAINED AND A KEY TO THE ORIGINAL GOSPELS', which I also own.
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Lamsa explains his position with the use of sound logic and reasonable assumptions and the accumulated force in his thesis is bound to surprise many who are willing to put aside their dogmatic assertion that the New Testament was originally written in Greek long enough to weigh the evidence with an open mind. Lamsa writes that “Aramaic and Hebrew are the two closely related Semitic languages in which all sacred Jewish literature is written” and that the Gospel, written to sway and enlighten the Jews first, would have been written in the language commonly spoken by them at that time, makes perfect sense.
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Lamsa points out that “The Greek version contains many Aramaic phrases and passages directly transliterated from Aramaic documents, such as Talita Komi, Eli Eli lmana skabachtani, Raca, Rabuni, Abba and Maraeta.”
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In Chapter XXII he utilizes several examples of where the Greek translator’s limited understanding of the Aramaic originals he was working from created errors that become apparent only when compared with the words used in the Aramaic texts from the Eastern churches. Although I found some of the examples used to illustrate this same point in the Introductin to his translation of The Holy Bible to be more compelling, Lamsa does make one especially potent cultural point in NEW TESTAMENT ORIGIN: Acts 18:3, in the Bibles that are based upon the Greek scrolls, tells us that Saint Paul earned his livelihood as a “tentmaker”. According to Lamsa, that was improperly translated from the Aramaic word “lawlarey” which means “saddlemaker”, and furthermore that “there is no such occupation as tentmaker in the Near East. The tents are made by women in their own homes. There are, however, many expert saddlemakers who travel from town to town making saddles and leather goods.” Well, Lamsa was certainly the one Bible translator who would know!
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In 'The Holy Bible: From the Ancient Eastern Text', there are some startling differences between some verses based on the Greek manuscripts and those based on the Aramaic. I highlight a few of them in my review of that publication on this website. But if there is a real “smoking gun”, I would say that it comes in the form of the confusion over the Aramaic word “gamla” which can mean either “camel” or “rope” depending upon the context. Bibles based upon the Greek tell us in Matthew 19:24 that Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” A camel to a needle is a “non sequitur” to say the least, but a rope to a needle is in keeping with the imagery and displays a very obvious and organic relationship. Is it mere coincidence that “gamla” means both “camel” AND “rope” in the Aramaic, yet Greek-based Bibles conjoin a camel and a needle, creating a wildly nonsensical match? Is it not pretty evident that the Greek manuscripts were first copied from Aramaic originals by a translator not sufficiently knowledgeable with the latter language to avoid making such a contextual mistake? (Surprisingly, Lamsa did not include this example in his NEW TESTAMENT ORIGIN, though perhaps it does appear in the later version of it.)
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The following may not be of interest to everyone, but I feel it worth mentioning that in the book [link> 'Bible Code Bombshell' -- the most current of the academic publications I have found on the Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS) code believed to be contained in The Bible -- the question appears: “Do Bible Codes Show Up Only In The Old Testament?” and author R. Edwin Sherman answers, “Highly improbable ELS groupings have been discovered in preliminary research of the Aramaic New Testament. Since Aramaic uses Hebrew letters, available code search software can be used to research the ... Aramaic New Testament. More work needs to be done ... before conclusive results can be presented.” How odd that an ELS code has never been found within the Greek version of the New Testament, but that it may be present in the Aramaic Bible.
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I enthusiastically recommend NEW TESTAMENT ORIGIN by George M. Lamsa to anyone seeking to expand their knowledge about the language of Scripture. I own The Holy Bible in the King James Version, the New King James Version, the New American Standard version (largely considered to be the most “literal” translation from the Greek), and the George M. Lamsa translation, and while I do occasionally compare verses from these four texts, I long ago came to accept that when it comes to The Holy Bible, the version derived from the ancient Aramaic represents “the final word” in God’s Word.
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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