Thomas -

Uri gave a Hebrew word and an Aramaic word which he said may have been what Yeshu/the authors were intending to say. That is a far cry from legitmizing sabachthani. Since when is a word that is "not a real word" "not a nonsense word"? There are no nonsense words in the Hebrew Bible.

I was clarifying that sh'vaqtani was not in the Hebrew Bible because you said the word appeared in Ezra. I was just clarifying that it doesn't. It's nothing for us to go off on a side discussion about, but was worth pointing out for anyone that might have thought otherwise.

I have no desire to withold information from you, nor is it necessary to withold information to get accross the point I am making. Lama is a Hebrew word - not Aramaic. In the Targum Onkelos lama appears as l'ma, while in the Targum Yonatan (the Aramaic source for this Psalm) lama is translated as m'tul mah. What you will not find is lama. This may sound arbitrary to you, but it is not.

I am calling attention to it because in the Greek and in the English translations, it appears as lama. Why would I not call attention to the fact that ELI and LAMA appear just as the Hebrew, yet they are followed by a word that does not translate straight back to any particular Hebrew or Aramaic word?

I am no Greek expert but as far as I know alpha is a pretty cut and dry "a" sound. Somehow they managed to get the E right twice in ELI, yet they used an alpha for l'ma? They flat out wrote "lama". You can speculate they intended l'ma just like you can speculate they meant sh'vaqtani, but speculation doesn't change what is actually written in the Greek, and how it is translated into English.

BTW, you are mixing up Uri saying that the Greek(s) had lost the Q sound, for Uri saying that Aramaic lost its Q sound. The Aramaic sh'vaqtani would not be pronounced with a throaty kh or ch sound no matter the dialect. There is no kappa or chi in Aramaic, those are Greek letters.

The closest thing to the chi sound (which is the letter used in sabachthani) would have to be a chaf or chet (which do not appear in sh'vaqtani, but chet appears in z'vachtani). While the closest thing to kappa (which is not used in sabachthani) would be a kaf. And I would have to think qof (which is used in sh'vaqtani) - even though its Greek equivilent would be the obscolete qoppa - would be closer than a chaf or chet.

Again, I am no Greek expert, but qof is not a ch or kh sound in Aramaic, and dialect does not change that. So the assumption that Yeshu "would have said sh'vachtani" is not a solution to the red flags raised. Sh'vachtani would not be an Aramaic pronounciation of . A word with the pronounciation you have ascribed to Yeshu would look like this: .

I think such a pronounciation as you have proposed (with a chet) would actually translate closer to something along the lines of "why have you praised me?" But with a Qof (as sh'vaqtani has) it could not be pronounced in Aramaic with that sound.

Quote:
If you want to suggest "z'vachtani" there remains the question of why the Greek letter Theta is used instead of Tau. Sh'vaqtani has the correct meaning in Aramaic, and the small difficulty of a variant pronunciation "sh'vachthani" is a preferred solution to me. In any case, this is not a "massive error".


This is a bizarre question considering azavtani (Hebrew), sh'vaqtani (Aramaic), and z'vachtani (Hebrew) all have a tav in the same exact place. If you believe sh'vaqtani's tav to have been translated into a th (theta) why would the tav of z'vachtani be any different? And you are actually compounding the error by claiming you believe Yeshu would have pronounced it "sh'vachtani" for the reasons I mention in the paragraphs above this.

Yes, sh'vaqtani does have the same meaning of the Hebrew, hence it being used in the Aramaic Targum for the Psalm of the original Hebrew. That doesn't mean it is the word the gospels wrote down, or that it was the one they attempted to "transliterate". And the mixing of Hebrew and Aramaic words is an error that makes no sense from supposed Jews, nor out of the mouth of the supposed "Word in the flesh".

If I've spoken any errors in regards to the Aramaic or Hebrew here I ask that Uri correct me.

Netanel