Thomas,

Lama is a purely Hebrew word, and lama and l'ma do not sound the same. L'ma most definitely does not have an "aw sound" where the Greek author puts it. Lama, on the other hand, does. I am pointing it out for the same reason you are downplaying it.

Since the first three words are Hebrew (as they are actually recorded in the GT), and are completely uniform with the actual Hebrew Psalm, it doesn't make sense that only the last word be an incoherent attempt at Aramaic. You, on the other hand, accept it is an Aramaic word, and thus you try to reconstruct the rest of the sentence from Hebrew into Aramaic to match what you believe to be a Greek transliteration from Aramaic.

Judea is not Germany. There are certain letters that dialect may have an impact on, but it is a baseless stretch to claim Qof fluctuated into a CH in Nazareth, or Galilee, or whatever stretch of land you apply this claim to. We already have two letters (in Hebrew and Aramaic) that produce a throathy ch or kh sound, along with a "regular h sound", and Qof is not one of them. And there is no indication of Tiberian Hebrew (centered in Galilee, who's vocalizations are well documented and known) reflecting such a radical change in Qof into a CH sound.

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I am simply SUGGESTING that evidently, according to the NT Greek transliteration, people who grew up in Nazareth 2000 years ago had modified the pronunciation of Aramaic to soften the Qoph and the Tav, in a similar kind of thing as the German example.


This assumption of yours is based on reconstructing two words written in an entirely Greek document one way, into two other words that you have chosen to believe were the ones "actually said/meant". This stretches credulity, Thomas. There is no historical support for this. Your suggestion has no backing.

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However, since I believe the NT for other reasons, I believe that this would not fit the Greek TRANSLATION given in the NT that Jesus said "forsaken me" and not "slaughtered me".


This is a case of working backwards, and is not support for the word being what you have chosen to believe it is. As Greek speakers, the writers would have known the Psalm in Greek, they would not have been taking the original words and translating them into Greek.

Had they been proficient enough in either Hebrew or Aramaic to know it and translate it into Greek, they would not have recorded a word that isn't a word in either language, using a Greek spelling that doesn't translate back to what the word in the Psalm would be in Aramaic.

As it is we have a quote from the Psalm which features two distinctly Hebrew words, and one word which is itself not a word, and which at best could be an attempted transliteration of a Hebrew or Aramaic word.

Your ascertion that Yeshu would've said "sh'vachtani" in Aramaic is not a good defense. As I said, sh'vachtani would have a much different connotation than "sh'vaqtani", and in no way would it be derived from shavaq. This vocalization would have to derive from SHIN-BET-CHET, which means "praise".

Netanel