Aramaic

Abstract

Aramaic is unique among the languages relevant to biblical studies in that, like Hebrew, it is found both within and beyond the canon. Not only are several sections of the “Hebrew” Bible (most notably Daniel and Ezra) written in Aramaic, but so are several important bodies of texts outside of the Bible that are relevant to understanding it. The name “Aramaic” comes from the Bible itself. It reports that the leaders of Judah asked an Assyrian general who was besieging the city of Jerusalem toward the end of the eighth century to speak to them in )aÅ raa mît rather than Judean (i.e., Hebrew) so that the general population would not understand what was being said (2 Kgs 18:26 = Isa 36:11). The term is also found in Dan 2:4 and Ezra 4:7, where it indicates the shift from Hebrew to Aramaic that takes place in those verses, and in one of the papyri from Elephantine.1 Early Greek sources identify the language as “Syrian,”2 except at Dan 2:26, where the Old Greek uses the term “Chaldean.”3 The name is taken from that of the Aramean people, who are first mentioned by that name in the eleventh century B.C.E., when the Assyrian emperor Tiglath-pileser I reports having encountered them during a military campaign in Syria.4 There they created several small kingdoms that reached as far east as the Persian Gulf; several of these are mentioned in the Bible, including Beth-rehob, Damascus, Geshur, Hamath, Maacah, Tob, and Zobah.