George Lamsa
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A native Aramaic speaker, Dr. George M. Lamsa (August 5, 1892 – September 22, 1975) was born in Mar Bishu in what is now the extreme east of Turkey. He translated the Aramaic Peshitta (literally "straight, simple, sincere and true") into English versions of the Old Testament and New Testament.
Lamsa was a member of the Assyrian Church of the East. He was a strong advocate of one of that Church's beliefs: Aramaic primacy. This is the belief that for the New Testament, the Peshitta was the original text, and the Greek version was translated from it. In support of this, he noted that Aramaic was the language of Jesus and the earliest Christians. Few scholars would accept this view; they would argue that most of the New Testament was originally directed at Greek-speaking non-Jews, so it would have made no sense to write it in Aramaic.
Lamsa further claimed that while most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the original was lost and the present Hebrew version, the Masoretic text, was re-translated from the Peshitta. This view too would be rejected by most scholars. In particular, it seems to have been disproved by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which pre-date the Peshitta yet are generally almost word for word identical with the Masoretic text.
A notable difference between Dr. Lamsa's translation and other versions of the New Testament occurs in the fourth of the Words of Jesus on the cross – Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. These are regarded by virtually all scholars as a quotation in Aramaic of the opening of Psalm 22, which in English is "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Indeed, this is exactly how that psalm appears in the Aramaic Peshitta. Dr. Lamsa believed that the text of the Gospels is corrupt, and it is not a quotation but should read Eli, Eli, lemana shabakthani, which he translates as: "My God, my God, for this I was spared!" An accompanying footnote in Dr. Lamsa's English version of the Bible explains Jesus's meaning as "This was my destiny."
This revised translation makes more sense to some Christians, in that it shows Jesus Christ's understanding — even while he was in the process of "dying" – that as the Son of Man he was largely sent by his Father (God, or in Aramaic Khad meaning 'One'; also in the Aramaic Allaha) to demonstrate truly that there is literally conscious life following the perception of death. However, it is only valid if Dr. Lamsa's controversial amendment is correct.
See also
- Lamsa Bible
- Words of Jesus on the cross, section "Eli Eli lema sabachthani"