Wrong, so I cannot recommend Lamsa's work to the general public.” His work is reliably done, but the layman generally will not know where he goes Personal beliefs to taint and abort legitimate translation principles. I have not done a systematic study of Lamsa's beliefs, though I have seenĮnough to see that he is not a safe guide in his translation, as he allows his Superstition to be explained as mental illness. “lunatics” in some places, since he believed demon possession was a Translation of Aramaic words and therefore translated “Shada” (“demons”) as Lamsa also allowed some of his heterodox beliefs to override acceptable Testament text to be accepted as an accurate representation of the Peshittaīible. Lamsa's work is not carefully done and contains far too manyĪccommodations to the King James Version and to the Massoretic Hebrew Old Lamsa's translation of the entire Peshitta (OT and NT) in English is the only such Lamsa: “and forgive us our offences, as we have forgiven our offenders.” KJ: “and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” Lamsa: “He who comes to Me and does not put aside his father and his mother and his brothers and his sisters and his wife and his children and even his own life can not be a disciple to me”. NIV: “If any one comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yes even his own life, he can not be My disciple”. Lamsa: “It is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle” KJ: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle…” Lamsa: “For your conflict is not only with flesh and blood, but also with the angels, and with powers, with the rulers of this world of darkness, and with the evil spirits under the heaven”. Lamsa Bible: Jesus says: “My God, My God, for this I was spared!“īible, New International Version: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. King James Bible : Jesus says: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?“ What follows are a few side by side comparisons. Looking into this only peripherally, I was surprised to find such huge discrepancies amongst translations. But what if the opposite is true – that the Bible was mistranslated and even changed, some by accident but some with manipulative intent. This reflects the view of many Christians out there. The close similarities between the Palestinian dialect of Aramaic spoken by Christ and Syriac offer us a unique understanding of some of the Biblical readings.Ĭhick Publications call the Lamsa Bible “perverted” and “occult”, part of a conspiracy to subvert Christianity. The Syriac Old Testament is a translation from the original Hebrew and Aramaic (a different Aramaic dialect from Syriac which is known by the name 'Biblical Aramaic'). The Syriac New Testament as we know it today is an early translation of the Greek text back into Syriac, the Aramaic dialect of Edessa (Modern Urfa in Southeast Turkey). It is from this Aramaic tradition that the Greek Gospels were derived. The words of Christ were first transmitted in his native language, the Palestinian dialect of Aramaic, either orally or in a written form.
In fact, the Syriac Church Fathers produced a number of translations of the Bible and revisions of these translations from the original languages of the Bible. Since the translation of the Bible into Syriac started as early as the first century, the Syriac version preserves the very ancient renditions of the original texts. Further, the Syriac New Testament is quite unique for it presents the teachings of our Lord in an Aramaic dialect (Syriac) which is akin and would have been mutually comprehensible with the Palestinian dialect of Aramaic in which Christ taught.
These Syriac translations of the Bible are the oldest and most ancient in any language. Its Fathers labored in translating the Holy Scriptures into Syriac since the very dawn of Christianity. The Syrian Orthodox Church believes that the Holy Bible, which comprises of the Old Testament and the New Testament, is the divine word of God. The Western Churches claim however, that it is the Aramaic not the Greek which is the translation. They claim that the Greek manuscripts were translated from the Peshitta NT. Assyrian and Syrian Christians have always maintained that they hold the original New Testament, preserved in the Peshitta NT, as they call it, carefully copied since the days of the disciples.