Knowledge Library

Aramaic Studies

The everyday language of the exile and of Jesus' own street.

Scripture first

Daniel 2:4 · Mark 5:41 · Mark 14:36

Parts of Daniel and Ezra are written in Aramaic, and the Gospels keep the Aramaic on Jesus' lips: Talitha cumi, Abba, Eloi Eloi. The evangelists preserved the sound of the words because the moment mattered.

What this shelf holds

  • Biblical Aramaic in Daniel 2 to 7, Ezra, and a verse of Jeremiah, plus the Aramaic words retained in the Gospels.
  • The Targums, the Aramaic paraphrases read alongside Hebrew Scripture in the synagogue.

How to use it

  • Ask why the writer kept the Aramaic. It is usually a moment of address, intimacy or authority.
  • Treat Targum and Talmud as background to Jewish thought, not as a key that unlocks a Gospel saying.

What this cannot settle

Most surviving Aramaic literature is later than the New Testament. Claims that a Gospel saying is really a mistranslated Aramaic idiom are speculation unless a manuscript supports them.

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4 entries on these shelves

Reference works

Each of these is named so you can open it and check us. Each carries what it is good for and what it cannot decide.

Every entry below is labelled with the kind of evidence it is, so a lexicon is never mistaken for the text and a commentary is never mistaken for a conclusion Scripture has drawn.

  • A Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud and Midrashic Literature

    Original languageSupports the text, never settles it · Marcus Jastrow, 1903 · Public domain

    The Aramaic of the Targums and rabbinic writings.

    Use forUnderstanding Aramaic words and phrases that surface in Daniel, Ezra and the Gospels.

    CautionMost of the material it catalogues is later than the New Testament. It shows how words were used in Jewish writing, not what an Aramaic phrase must mean on the lips of Jesus.

  • Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament

    Original languageSupports the text, never settles it · Wilhelm Gesenius, translated by Samuel Tregelles, 1846 · Public domain

    Hebrew and biblical Aramaic vocabulary with grammatical notes.

    Use forA second witness alongside Brown-Driver-Briggs on a disputed word.

    CautionPredates the discovery of the Ugaritic and Akkadian material that clarified much Hebrew vocabulary.

  • A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica

    Theological interpretationOffered for weighing, not for receiving · John Lightfoot, 1675 · Public domain

    Jewish parallels to the Gospels and Acts, gathered from rabbinic sources.

    Use forRecovering assumptions a first century Jewish hearer would have brought to a saying.

    CautionThe sources he quotes are often later than the New Testament, so a parallel shows possible background, not proven background.

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Scripture · Biblical cross references · Original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek · Historical, cultural, geographical and archaeological background · Trusted biblical reference works · Explanation and application

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