Tuesday Tips: So you wanna learn Aramaic?

Daniel 3:17–18

"If our God to whom we pay reverence exists, he is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and he will deliver us from your hand, O king. And if not, let it be known to you, O King, that to your gods we will not pay reverence and we will not pay homage to the golden image that you have set up."
                           -Daniel 3:17–18 (my translation)

I have always loved these verses. I love the courage of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed Nego in the face of the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar. Even under a tremendous amount of social and political pressure, and at the risk of their very lives, they refuse to bow to the golden statue that Nebuchadnezzar has erected. They are not certain that God will deliver them. But they are certain that he can. And that is enough for them. Their fear of Him outstrips their fear of any human king and his pagan gods.

Though I've known this story for most of my life, this evening I read it for the first time . . . in Aramaic. Did you know that about 10 chapters of the Old Testament were first written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew? I've wanted to learn Aramaic for several years now, and thanks to some great resources, I'm studying it on my own this semester.

If you've studied Hebrew, then adding Aramaic is no big deal. You, too, can learn Aramaic from the comfort of your own home. Here are some helpful tools:

1. Miles Van Pelt's Basics of Biblical Aramaic. It's the only book you need. It contains a complete grammar of the language, a full lexicon of all the Aramaic words occurring in the Bible, and the complete biblical Aramaic text double-spaced so you can practice translating it. Amazon has it for only $33. (And no, I'm not getting paid to tell you this.) The grammar is divided into 22 lessons, so at one lesson a day, you can finish "learning" the language in less than a month. Then you can work your way through the biblical text in another month, translating about 10 verses each day (268 verses in all). You don't need more than this, but here are a few more things that I've found helpful:

2. Aramaic flash cards on BibleWorks. With the flash card feature you can isolate just the Aramaic words and practice them. Once you mark a word as "learned" it won't ask you again. You can sort words alphabetically or by number of occurrences, so that you can just work on the most common words.

3. Listen to the Aramaic biblical text being read online or download it for free. Follow along to train yourself to read well.

4. Check out the treasure trove of resources for learning Aramaic here, on a website designed by a friend of mine.

Now I can read the whole Bible in its original languages. Hurrah!

bringin' in the big dawgs

I've been meeting with some Jehovah's Witnesses off and on for about 17 months now.  We met regularly for 6 months and then took a break for the summer. We met a few more times and then I asked if we could wait until April and meet to talk about the Trinity.

I have learned a lot from Lula. She is a godly woman, dedicated to the ministry, who really knows her Bible.  She has refused to be intimidated by my 6 years of formal Bible training and knowledge of both Greek and Hebrew.  Though not formally educated herself and not paid a dime for her ministry, she has continued to come week after week to meet with me and study the Bible.  Each time we meet she brings along someone different, always another woman volunteer. Can I make a confession?  For a long time now I've wondered when she would call in her supervisor. Today she finally did.

Kevin is the district substitute superintendent for the entire Charlotte area all the way to Spartanburg.  Like Lula, he is mystified that anyone could actually read the Bible and persist in believing in the Trinity.  Often I tell them that I can see how they could read the passage in the way that they do, but that I understand it differently. Today Kevin finally asked me (in exasperation?), "If a straightforward reading of the Bible implies that Jesus is not God, but sent from God as his representative, then what would motivate you to elevate him further?"

I was so glad he asked.  I pointed immediately to a brochure Lula had given me last year entitled, Should You Believe in the Trinity? They do a good job of introducing the topic, and I especially like this: "If the Trinity is true, it is degrading to Jesus to say that he was never equal to God as part of a Godhead. But if the Trinity is false, it is degrading to Almighty God to call anyone his equal ..." (3). This is why it matters: because right worship depends on knowing God as He really is.

Though there is a number of passages that seem to suggest that Jesus was not equal to the Father (John 14:28; 1 Cor 11:3; 15:27), there are many other indications in Scripture that Jesus was more than just God's representative (John 1:1; 17:21; Acts 2:21 with 4:12). Jesus did things that only God can do.  He forgave sins, he raised the dead, he healed a man blind from birth. Jesus also made claims that were tantamount to claiming deity.  He called himself the "light of the world" (John 9:5 with Isa 60:1-2), the "good shepherd" (John 10:11 with Eze 34), the "son of man" (Matt 17:9 with Dan 7:9-10, 13-14; Rev 1:12-18), and the "I am" (John 8:54-59 with Ex 3:3-4). These claims caused great consternation among the Jewish leaders, and in several cases they tried to stone him for blasphemy! His followers worshipped him (see John 9:38), and he did not object.

I recommended two books that have been helpful for me on this issue.  One is Donald Fairbairn's Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers. Not only is it written simply and beautifully, it is changing the way I think about salvation.  I highly recommend it!  Fairbairn explains that the earliest followers of Jesus saw salvation as an invitation to share in the life of the Trinity the way the Father and Son share life together.

The other book is Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament's Christology of Divine Identity. This one is not quite as easy to read, but terribly profound. Bauckham argues that Jesus' actions and claims about himself prompted his early followers to include him within their concept of "one God." The first century Jewish idea of monotheism was flexible enough to allow for Jesus' inclusion in the deity without seeing God as "more than one." At the end of our discussion, Kevin admitted that he needed to go back and reexamine some things in the Bible.  And that's what every good Bible discussion should do -- push us back to the Scriptures with fresh eyes to see once again what God has revealed and how we are to respond.  Please pray for Kevin, and for me and Lula as we continue to study the Bible and discuss what it teaches.