1999 - maurice casey - an aramaic approach to the synoptic gospels

7/27/2019 1999 - Maurice Casey - An Aramaic Approach to the Synoptic Gospels

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DOI: 10.1177/001452469911000902

1999 110: 275The Expository TimesMaurice Casey

An Aramaic Approach to the Synoptic Gospels

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early. (I do not see how such a source could have beenwritten later than c. 40 CE, when the Gentile mission was

such a great success that it would have to be taken note

of.A date earlier than this is surely more probable,p. 259.) Following on from this he proposes an early datefor Marks Gospel. (The portrayal of this document as

flimsy post-70 fiction is the unsatisfactory consequence of

reading it in the light of literary theory which has

emerged from the study of modern fiction, pp. 259f.)Had Mark written as late as 65 CE, he would surely havealtered the text in the same way that Matthew and Luke

did.A date for the Gospel as early as c. 40 CE must be

regarded as highly probable. He also sees his study as

providing further evidence for the priority of Mark, andhe manages to explain many of the minor agreements ofMatthew and Luke against Mark on the basis of hisreconstructedAramaic.

This is a most important study, but I have several

questions and one hope. My questions are these. First, ifMark was indeed written in 40 CE, and the other two

Synoptic Gospelssomewhere around

70,how does he

picture the development of a Synoptic-type Christianityduring the intervening thirty years? If, as the canonsuggests, a Pauline Christianity quickly becamedominant, how did the religion of Matthew and Lukesurvive? Second, at one point Casey claims that Markstext was not revised after the translation was done, andadds: This should be treated as part of the evidence that

his Gospel was never finished (p. 135). Presumably heholds that 16:8 was not the intended conclusion of the

Gospel. I wonder what he supposes Mark would haverecounted had he completed his work. Third, Casey has

deliberatelyselected four

passageswhere his method can

be effectively applied. What differences would it make ifit were applied to all the sayings of Jesus recorded in the

Synoptic Gospels? Can, indeed, it be done? Fourth, I readthe book in the light of his earlier study, From JewishProphet to Gentile God (1991, see ET 103, 1991/92, 33f),and I wonder again what, now that he has made thesestudies of theAramaic teaching of Jesus, he imagines aChristianity that is a viable option for honest and well-informed people today would look like.And my hope? The large sections of unpointed

Aramaic make it difficult for readers who are not fluent inthe

language.Transliteration is no answer

(as Caseyrightly observes in relation to studies by some otherscholars), but pointing his reconstructions would havehelped those who know Hebrew but are insecure inAramaic. What we now need, however, is for Casey towrite a book which incorporates his findings but is tunedto a more general readership - perhaps pursuing furtherthe quest of the historical Jesus which he mentions rightat the end of the book.

Because of the importance of this approach for the lifeand teaching of Jesus I have asked Dr Casey to respond tomy questions.

AnAramaicApproach to the

Synoptic GospelsBY DR MAURICE CASEY,

UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM

The Synoptic Gospels are written in Greek, though Jesu

spokeAramaic. Moreover, Jesuss ministry was exercise

among Jews, whereas, by the time the Synoptic Gospelwere written, many of Jesuss followers were Gentilesand both Mark and Luke show traces of Gentile identityIt follows that the change in language fromAramaicGreek was part of a cultural shift from a Jewish to

Gentile environment. Shifts of this kind are very familia

to scholars whose field is Translation Studies. In th

field, it is axiomatic that language is a significant part oculture, and this main point now goes unquestionebecause of the mass of evidence on which it is based. Th

quest of the historical Jesus has, however, proceeded asthis were not the case. Scholars usually study the text othe Gospels in Greek, and very few of them have troublemuch with theAramaic level of the tradition. If we wis

to recover the Jesus of history, however, we ought to sewhether we can reconstruct his sayings, and the earlieaccounts of his doings, in their originalAramaic. Thishould help us to understand him within his own culturabackground.This task has traditionally been very difficult, sin

very littleAramaic survived from the time of Jesus. Thi

situation has now been

completelyaltered

byth

publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls. InAramaic Sourceof lvfarks Gospel I have sought to lay down a methodology for this work, as it has now become possible. Thpurpose of this article is to indicate briefly, in Englishwhat can now be done, and to respond to the questionraised by Dr C. S. Rodd in his review of this book.The Scrolls now provide us with a core ofAramaic o

the right period and culture. Moreover, most of the wordin the Dead Sea Scrolls are used in other dialects too. Thimeans that they are not specific to the dialect of Judaea aopposed to anywhere else, and can reasonably be usedreconstruct the Galilean Aramaic of Jesus. Previou

attempts to use GalileanAramaic suffered badly frothe late date and corrupt nature of the source material, an

invariably used a high proportion of material which wanot Galilean at all. Now, however, the problem of dialeis much less serious than it seemed previously. It shoul

1 This book was written, and some of the other researdiscussed in this article was done, in 1994-96, whenI heldBritishAcademy Research Readership awarded for this purposeI am extremely grateful to theAcademy for this award, whicenabled me to complete a major piece of research.

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now also be accepted thatAramaic was a very stable

language, both before and after the time of Jesus.

Consequently, we can work carefully with words notfound in the Scrolls, especially those from an earlier

period. ThisAramaic is not pointed, for pointing is a

system of vocalization which originated at a later date.This is why I have so far refrained from pointing my

proposed reconstructions, thoughI can see that

pointingwould make them more intelligible for New Testamentscholars.

Many of the Scrolls are written in Hebrew. We mustinfer that some people knew bothAramaic and Hebrewover a period of centuries before and during the time ofJesus. Naturally, therefore, there are Hebraisms in the

Aramaic Scrolls. Hebraisms in the Gospels have oftenbeen regarded as evidence that their sources were writtenin Hebrew rather thanAramaic. This should no longer be

accepted. For example, at Mark 14:25, some manuscriptshave readings which may be literally translated on the

followinglines: I/we shall not add to drink of the fruit of

the vine ... This is a Hebrew idiom for I/we shall not

drink again of the fruit of the vine ... This Hebrew

idiom, however, occurs inAramaic in 4Q 198 (Tob 14:2),and it is implied at 1 I Q Targum Job XXV.8 (Job 34:32).It is therefore perfectly consistent with Marks source

beingAramaic, not Hebrew. Its presence in a documentwhich uses the straightforward Greek word palin no lessthan 28 times is also evidence that the translator was

suffering very badly from interference, so much so thatthis is evidence that his source was written rather than

oral.

This is one of the ways in which the unchangedevidence of the Gospels must now be seen in a differentlight. This is the next major point.All the work on the

Aramaic of the Scrolls would be to no avail, if the

Synoptic Gospels were really Greek fiction, or if all ofthem had been so heavily edited thatAramaic sourceswere irrecoverable. There is, however, substantial anddecisive evidence that parts of Marks Gospel, and to alesser extent parts of Matthew and Luke, are literaltranslations of written Aramaic sources. This followsfrom an argument of cumulative weight. Firstly, theScrolls provide part of the evidence thatAramaic was thelingua jranca of Jesuss environment, the language which

he would have had to use in teaching normal Jews, andthe natural language for his first followers to use whenthey reported his life and teaching. Secondly, there aremany reasons for supposing that some passages of theSynoptic Gospels are generally accurate accounts of whatJesus or his disciples, or both, said and did. They are,therefore, just the sort of passages to be transmitted inAramaic, quite different from the secondary narratives ofthe Fourth Gospel, many of which originated in Greek.Thirdly, there are many details in such passages which areexplicable only if they are part of translations of writtenAramaic sources.

For example, the story of Peter denying Jesus has a

perfectly good Sitz im Leben in the events of the time, butthe early church had no reason to make it up. Mark endsthis story by saying of Peter, And throwing, he wept(Mark 14:72). In normal Greek, the word which I havetranslated throwing (epibalbn) is just as much nonsenseas it is in English. The explanation is to be found in

Syriac,a

groupofAramaic dialects

spokenlater than the

time of Jesus, but with many words and constructions incommon with theAramaic of his time. Here, a word for

throwing is used for throwing threats and curses, muchas in English we may hurl abuse. Moreover, in normal

Aramaic script it differs by only one letter from the wordfor began, and these two letters (resh and daleth) wereoften confused. We must infer that Marks source read

And he began to weep. It was slightly misread, so thatMark reads And throwing, he wept. This was nothowever a silly mistake. It is the natural and normal workof a bilingual translator suffering from interference. Hedid throw threats and curses in his nativeAramaic, and heknew from his translation of the previous verse that Peterhad been doing just that. It was the influence of the

Aramaic text in front of him which made him assume that

you could throw threats and curses in Greek as well. This

is also a good example of howAramaic extant later thanthe time of Jesus can be fruitfully used. Finally, this is arelatively simple example of a single word: this indicateshow complex a task this research is.The results of studying four complete passages,

reported inAramaic Sources ojMarks Gospel, are quitedramatic. Mark 9:11-13 has become fully intelligible forthe first time, and casts new light on Jesuss

understanding of John the Baptists death. The difficultiesof Marks Greek text result from the work of a translator

who was landed with the translators nightmare, a passagewhich, by the very nature of the two languages and thedifferences between the source and target cultures, simplywill not go smoothly from the one language into theother. The reconstruction of the other three passages(Mk 2:23-3:6; 10:35-45; 14:12-26) also has dramaticresults. In each case, the whole passage emerges as aunified whole. It has also become infinitely easier tolocate each passage in Jesuss own culture, first century

Aramaic-speaking Judaism. New arguments for the

historicity of each passage follow. This is because eachpassage so interpreted has an excellent Sitz im Leben inthe ministry of Jesus, whereas conventional arguments forsplitting these passages up and treating parts of them assecondary are generally dependent on reading them inGreek with Gentile assumptions. We find Jesus immersedin detailed halakhic disputes over whether Peah may betaken on the Sabbath, and whether healing is permittedthat day (Mk 2:23-3:6). We can understand better theentirely reasonable nature of Jacob and Johns request tosit on his right and left in his glory (Mk 10:35-45).At theend of his ministry, we find him celebrating Passover, not



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instituting the Christian Eucharist (Mk 14:12-26). Itfollows that this work is essential if we are to end the

quest of the historical Jesus by finding him.We can now approach Dr Rodds third question:

Casey has deliberately selected four passages where hismethod can be effectively applied. What differenceswould it make if it were applied to all the sayings of Jesus

recorded in the Synoptic Gospels? Can, indeed, it be

done? No, it cannot. Some sayings are secondary, andoriginated in Greek. For example, a comparison is madebetween the days ofNoah and the days (Luke) or parousia(Matthew) of the Son of man (Mt 24:37-9//Lk 17:26-7).This makes excellent sense in the Gospels as they nowstand. In both of them, the term Son of man is a term for

Jesus alone. They both hoped fervently for his second

coming, which is anticipated here. They wrote forchurches which were small minorities between the Jewish

and Gentile worlds, and consequently were happy to

contemplate judgment on the rest of the world, as in the

days of the Flood. The saying therefore has an excellent

Sitz im Leben in the Gospel tradition, andwas

naturallyrewritten by both evangelists because it was existentiallyrelevant to their current situation.A satisfactoryAramaicreconstruction cannot however be made, because the

Aramaic term bar I)nash(d ) always has a general levelof meaning, which cannot be found in an Aramaicreconstruction of this verse. At the same time, this

comparison has no Sitz im Leben in the teaching of Jesus,who hoped for the coming of the kingdom and did notlook into the distant future for his own return.

There are, however, many other passages which can be

fruitfully studied by reconstructing theirAramaic sources.

My next contribution is planned as another book,AnAramaicApproach to Q, which I hope to have completedbefore this article is published. The present state ofresearch into Q varies from the chaotic to thebureaucratic.At the chaotic end of the spectrum, there isno agreement as to whether Q existed, nor as to what it

was, if it did.At the bureaucratic end of the spectrum, an

amorphous group of scholars have agreed that it was aGreek document. It was produced by a Q community,whose concerns can be worked out from it. Some of these

scholars suppose that this Q community did not have anatonement theology, on the ground that Q has no passion

narrative. Many scholars who believe this also believethat Q was the first Gospel, and that its picture of Jesuswas that of a sort of cynic philosopher.As we narrowdown the group of scholars to more detailed agreements,we see an increase in the number of common judgmentsmade in the interests of a consensus of a group, with quiteinadequate attention to evidence or argument. We also seethe large scale omission ofAramaic, mostly by scholarswho cannot read the language Jesus spoke.This situation is completely unsatisfactory, and should

be brought to an end by careful study of theAramaicsubstratum of the Q material. This is more fruitful in

some passages than in others. We have already noted on

Q passage which originated in Greek. Paradoxicallyhowever, it is passages which are verbally almosidentical in Greek which are often easiest to reconstructbecause these are passages which Matthew and Luke hav

not edited heavily. Take, for example, Matthe11:4-6//Luke 7:22-23, Jesuss reply to John the Baptistuncertain question as to whether he was the person who

John expected to come. This has an excellent Sitz iLeben in the ministry of Jesus, and anAramaic source ca

readily be reconstructed from the almost identical Greeof the two evangelists. In this case theAramaic sourcdoes not cast a great deal of additional light on th

passage: the process of reconstruction simply adds to th

arguments for supposing that the words of Jesus ar

genuine, by showing that they could be spoken antransmitted in the language in which Jesus taught.More can be gained from studying passages such a

Matthew 23:23//Luke 11:42, where Matthew and Luk

have made or used two different translations. Her

Matthew correctly has scribes and Pharisees tithe dill sthat the priests who served in the Temple would havsome. Luke, however, by misreading one letter, has thetithe rue, which is ridiculous. It grows wild, and fro

Lukes perspective one sort of rue is not good as a spifor food, and another is for making wicks. Lukcontinued editing vigorously, replacing cummin witevery herb, which makes the Pharisees a bit silly tosince the tithing of every herb was not necessaryMatthew has Jesus complain that they overlook theavier things, so he translated theAramaic homerayyaThis has cultural ramifications which can only b

sketched briefly here. From our perspective the word htwo meanings, which we generally represent by twdifferent words, in English perhaps weighty anstringent. So the heavy of heavies may be Honour tfather and mother, or Thou shalt not take the namethe Lord thy God in vain. These commandments aobviously very important, so they are b 6merayy3 . On tother hand, or equally, depending on our perspectivRabban Gamaliels house were said to be stringent withemselves, and light, or rather lenient, towards IsraeThis was because they let Jews in general bake larloaves on festivals, the ruling of Bet Hillel, while ththemselves baked only thin cakes, the ruling of BShammai. It follows that orthodox Jews will have thougthey were doing the stringent things ( b 6merayyd 1 whethey tithed mint, dill and cummin.The Aramaic word do (-bad) also forms

unavoidable pun with overlook and transgress(&dquo;bar which forms an unavoidable pun with tithe (&dquo;sarFrom the perspective of orthodox Jews, people whoverlooked (&dquo;bar ) mint dill and cummin, transgress(&dquo;bar again) the stringent things (homerayya) of tLaw. Jesus ordered them to look at matters the other waround, by doing (&dquo;bad ) the important thin



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(I;merayy), justice mercy and faith, and not

overlooking/transgressing (&dquo;bar ) the others, the tithing ofmint dill and cummin. Luke misread mercy as love,

again a difference of only one letter, and edited

vigorously to give the love of God in place of both

mercy and faith. In this passage, therefore, a massiveamount of new knowledge can be gained by careful study

of theAramaicsubstratum of Matthew and Luke. This

enables us to see Jesuss teaching more accurately in its

original cultural context. Moreover, we can see Matthewand Luke following translating and editorial procedureswhich fit the somewhat different Christian environments

for which they wrote. Finally, the fact that this part of Qwas transmitted inAramaic and is not found in common

order means that we must adopt a more chaotic model of

Q than has become conventional.Rodd ends his review by suggesting that I should write

a book incorporating my findings but tuned to a more

general readership, perhaps in quest of the historicalJesus. This is indeed a major task to be undertaken atonce, and I have begun it. The great advantage of careful

study of theAramaic substratum of the Synoptic Gospelsis that it permits a more accurate account of the life and

teaching of Jesus to be obtained. The result will inevitablybe the portrayal of a figure who is more immersed in theJudaism of his time than is conventional.

This will raise very sharply Rodds fourth question.Recalling my previous book From Jewish Prophet toGentile God (1991, reviewed in ET 103, 1991/92, 33f), hewonders what I would imagine a Christianity that is aIviable option for honest and well-informed peoplewould look like, in the light of this more recent work.

This is a more difficult question every year. TheJewishness of Jesus has proved very difficult for manyChristians to come to terms with. There is moreover no

doubt that a more Jewish figure, more immersed inJudaism than Christians generally like to see him, isemerging from this work. From a theological perspective,this might be thought appropriate if the Son of God weregenuinely incarnate among the chosen people. Even tosuggest that, however, is to distance oneself radicallyfrom the Jewish community, who have maintained

through centuries of persecution that the deity of a man isquite unJewish. Moreover, they seem to have done so

because they were conditioned by their existing adherenceto the oneness of God, and from a theological perspectivethat may be regarded as God revealing his oneness tothem. Whatever we do, however, we should not respondto the difficulty and profundity of these issues byignoring the results of historical research from which amore accurate picture of the historical Jesus can be drawn.Quite where that will leave honest and well-informedChristians remains to be seen.

Rodds first question raises very broad generalquestions about the development of Christianity in thefirst century. If my proposed date for Mark, c. 40 CE, is

right, then some questions will need rethinking. Theseinclude the dates of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.Rodd raises particularly the relationship between the

development of a Synoptic-type Christianity and adominant Pauline Christianity. His question arisesnaturally from the bulk of contemporary scholarship, butsome minority views should perhaps be preferred in

responseto it. Whereas the Fourth

Gospelis a

productof

the Johannine community, both Matthew and Lukecontain accounts of the life and teaching of Jesus whichmay well have been read eagerly in churches some ofwhose members believed in the main points of Pauline

theology too. We should not infer from the Gospels ofMatthew and Luke the existence of narrow Matthaean and

Lukan communities, who believed only in the contents ofeach of these documents. Equally, Pauline Christianitywas more varied than is sometimes allowed. Corinthian

Christians may not have had too much need for

justification by faith, central though it was elsewhere.Moreover, Paul quoted the teaching of Jesus asauthoritative ( Cor 7:10-11 ), and sought to control thebehaviour of the Corinthians by reminding them of Jesustraditions transmitted to them long ago ( Cor 11:23-25).In general, therefore, Christianity in the yearsimmediately after the writing of Mark was a quite variedphenomenon in which the narrative accounts of Matthewand Luke surely found the natural home which they haveenjoyed ever since, among Pauline Christians as amongothers.

Rodds second question arises from an unexpectedaspect of the work which I have done. When Matthew andLuke encounter peculiarities like throwing, he wept(Mk 14:72, above), they alter them, as any self-respectingmonoglot Greek would do. Both of them also omit theincomprehensible, and edit for their churches. Mark hasnot removed so many peculiarities, and has edited somepassages so little, as to imply that these passages are firstdrafts of translations incorporated in an unreviseddocument. This coheres with the lack of a normal ending.Despite theories to the contrary, therefore, I wouldinterpret Mark 14:28, 16:7 to mean that Mark intended towrite an account of the risen Jesus in Galilee, as Matthewdid.

In sum, therefore, the publication of all theAramaicDead Sea Scrolls permits us to do far more work on the

Aramaic sources of the Synoptic Gospels than waspreviously possible. The completion of this work shouldnow be regarded as an urgent task which should becompleted within a few years. It enables us to raisesignificantly the level of proof that Jesus and his disciplessaid and did some of the things attributed to them.A moreJewish picture of Jesus than is conventional, and indeed aJesus more immersed in first century Jewish issues than isconventional, is emerging from this work. This may beexpected to have far-reaching consequences for ourunderstanding of his significance.


1999 - maurice casey - an aramaic approach to the synoptic gospels

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