1,500-Year-Old Hidden Record Of Christ's Words

Found this on a Google feed, hot off the digital press at Forbes.com:

"Sotheby's hopes an ancient biblical manuscript will fetch $1 million.

"Sotheby's might want to send a bidding paddle to Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown. In its July 7 London manuscripts sale, the auction house is offering a 1,500-year-old biblical document that includes layers of text and meaning--in three languages.

"Known as the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, the piece was written over the span of three centuries and stowed in a sacred monastery until landing in the hands of a pair of British twins by way of local Egyptian dealers. Now an English college is cannibalizing its library and cashing out, to pay for some building renovations."

[...]

"The sixth-century text includes chunks of the Old and New Testaments in both Aramaic and Greek."

It looks like they were trying to show off the Palimpsest's Greek under-layer, so in the picture on the article the Syriac Script is upside-down. To get a better look at the script, here's the image flipped:

Boy I wish I had an extra million bucks to blow on this.

However, if you do have an extra million bucks, here's the listing on Sotheby's if you want to bid. :-)

[Judea (probably Jerusalem), sixth century AD. and Egypt (probably St. Catherine's, Sinai), early ninth century AD.]

137 leaves (including 52 bifolia), approximately 230mm. by 185mm., with foliation according to the overtext in the hand of Agnes Lewis, written space of underscript 210mm. by 160mm., double column, 18 lines of faded brown ink in Christian Palestinian Aramaic uncials (a script most probably created from Estrangelo script for this Biblical translation, reflecting in its square monumental characters the Greek uncials in the manuscript that the translator worked from), written space of overscript 175mm. by 135mm., single column, 19 lines of black ink in Syriac Estrangelo script, underscript in varying states of fading, some slight water damage and crumbling to edges of some leaves, else in outstanding condition for age, each gathering of leaves within folders, the whole within three archival cloth-covered drop-back boxes, with the picnic basket in which Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson themselves kept it

-Steve

Abba Isn't Daddy - The Traditional Aramaic Father's Day Discussion

It is traditional that I bring up the common myth that the Aramaic word "abba" means "daddy" around this time of year, but I must admit that this is the first year in a long time that sightings of that anecdote among the blogs are few. (So either, there isn't as much interest this year, or people are actually doing their research. :-) )

So, for those of you who aren't familiar with this particular meme, it is common to find around the Internet and in sermons throughout the world that where Jesus is recorded in the New Testament to use the Aramaic word "abba" that the term was an informal word, the likes a child would refer to their pop (i.e. "dad" or "daddy").

This stemmed from an idea that was originally proposed by a scholar named Joachim Jeremias (b1900-d1979); mainly, that the form "abba" originated from "child-babble." The connection between "abba" and "daddy" was then popularized by his following.

However, this idea was immediately challenged by a number of other scholars, such as James Barr who published an article entitled "Abba Isn't 'Daddy'" (in the Journal of Theological Studies) which outlined the numerous problems with such an assertion and addressed them in detail.

Overall, I believe that Mary Rose D'Angelo summed up what happened next nicely:

"Jeremias began almost at once to retreat from the claim that "abba" had the same connotations as "daddy." In a sense, Barr's title (but only his title) misrepresents Jeremias. Even as Jeremias acknowledged that the word was in common use by adults and was used as a mark of repect for old men and for teachers, he continued to stress the origins in babytalk and the consequent intimacy as a special component of Jesus' use of the word. This meaning seems to have been the basis on which he regarded Jesus' use as absolutely distinct from the Judaism of his time.

The NT itself gives quite a different reading of αββα. Each of the three occurrences of αββα in the NT is followed by the Greek translation ο πατερ, "the father." This translation makes clear its meaning to the writers; the form is a literal translation -- "father" plus a definite article -- and like abba can also be a vocative. But it is not a diminutive of "babytalk" form. There are Greek diminutives of father (e.g., παππας [pappas]), and the community chose not to use them.

--Mary Rose D'Angelo. Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 111, No. 4 (Winter, 1992), pp. 615-616

And beyond this, many years after Jeremias' death, modern linguistic study of how children pick up speech has completely discounted his conclusions of abba as "babytalk."

But...

There is still a point of confusion: In Modern Hebrew, "abba" has become commonly used as... You guessed it: "Daddy." So, when a Hebrew speaker happens upon this anecdote, to them it makes "perfect sense." :-)

The myth survives.

Nevertheless, happy Father's Day to all of the pas, fathers, pops, dads, papas and daddies out there, wherever you are!

Peace,
-Steve

Movement on the NENA Front

A number of you may remember the University of Cambridge's North Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) Database Project some years back. Well, I just decided to pop by the website to see how things were going, and was pleasantly surprised to see some spiffy maps, lots of audio files and progress. Things are looking good!

-Steve