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— Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhausen

For Those Inspired By Mel Gibson

I never cease to be amazed at what shows up on the Ars Magica mailing list. Many thanks to Michaël de Verteuil for posting a link to Peshitta.org, where you can find an interlinear, Aramaic-English New Testament online in PDF format. If you want to see a quick example, here is a link to John (Yukhanan) Chapter 3. Remember, Aramaic, like its descendent, Hebrew, is written right to left, and so the English will appear jumbled, but that's only because it's correlating English phrases to the Aramaic in the order of the original. If you want to know more about the Aramaic-Syriac language, check out Wikipedia's excellent article.

It's worth mentioning that while an historical Jesus could have spoken Aramaic and there is a possibility that some of the original Gospels were written in Aramaic as well, there is no extant Gospel literature in Aramaic, and these Aramaic texts are re-translations from the Greek. Some Biblical scholars even question whether any of the Gospels were written in Aramaic at all. But it seems likely that even if all of the modern Gospels were written in Greek, they were at least informed by the presence of either a Hebrew or Aramaic source. This is the most widely-accepted solution to the so-called Synoptic problem: that an older source document called "Q" (from the German Quelle, meaning "source") informed some or all of the synoptic Gospels, thereby accounting for their striking similarities. Some good, general information about the different hypothetical solutions to theis problem can be found here.

Comments on For Those Inspired By Mel Gibson
  Comment from Blogger Red Bull at Saturday, December 03, 2005 7:53:00 PM
I posted this for those inspired by Mel Gibson. Duh.
  Comment from Blogger MacFurious at Sunday, December 04, 2005 7:02:00 AM
and other geeks interested in moldy dead languages and their translations in, around, and about the Bible apparently...:)
  Comment from Anonymous Anonymous at Tuesday, December 13, 2005 10:37:00 AM
You suckk me in with the promise of Gisoniana, then hammer me with this esoteric crap. No Riggs? No William Wallace? No Mad freakin' Max? How can you invoke Mel Gibson without addressing such seminal roles as these?
  Comment from Blogger Red Bull at Tuesday, December 13, 2005 2:08:00 PM
I always use the same criteria when choosing what to post. If it's interesting to me, then I post it. I figure that those who are interested will read it; those who aren't, won't. Either way, this blog is more about drawing like-minded individuals than about catering to some imagined audience. When your actual readership is in the double digits, does it really matter?
  Comment from Blogger MacFurious at Thursday, December 15, 2005 4:08:00 AM
Wow, that guy FREEDOM! was quite... interesting.
  Comment from Blogger Red Bull at Thursday, December 15, 2005 10:47:00 AM
Almost... Bubba-esque.

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The Red Bull Diary is the personal pulpit and intellectual dumping-ground for its author, an amateur game designer, professional programmer, political centrist and incurable skeptic. The Red Bull Diary is gaming, game design, politics, development, geek culture, and other such nonsense.