Scholarship in the Humanities

Originally I wrote that the project's potential contribution to scholarship in the humanities is in providing a clear translation of the message of Jesus, the greatest teacher who ever lived. By translating the dynamics of the language through its idioms, and retaining the poetic impact of its verses, without consideration for the differing interpretations of various theological schools, religious institutions or churches, the wisdom and elegance of the words of Jesus Christ will emerge more clearly -- Project Proposal, 1997.

And this is something that is unfolding as I continue to translate the Old Testament. The Book of Genesis is a beautifully written history of God's people. One of the advantages of translating the New Testament first was that I didn't fall prey to the distortions that were committed by the translators of the Old Testament for the sake of denying the fulfillment of the prophesy that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied by all the Old Testament prophets.

It wasn't only the removal of the name of Jesus from the Old Testament Scriptures, the translators of the modern version of the Bible had to change many passages to allow for the disappearance of the direct references to the concept of the true Jewish Messiah. It's the tragedy of the modern Bible that its translators conformed the words and concepts of the New Testament to what was contained in their already distorted versions of the Old Testament.

The major reasons for the errors introduced in the Old Testament were based on the desire of the newly established churches to pursue power and money. This was the original desire of the Pharisees when they saw Jesus as a threat to their way of life, and of course this too was prophesied. However, the irony of what the modern churches wanted, namely power and money, was lost on the emerging Roman church. Later the Protestants also fell prey to the same errors and abandoned the true origins of Christianity as preserved in the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures for the same reasons.

The success of this Translation Project is not in selling or marketing of the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures, it is rather in the level of scholarship applied to the translation of the old language that has ceased to exist as a spoken language. However, if the language was silenced for the purpose of preserving the Scriptures, its interpretation should not be relegated to foreigners who have no vested interest in the culture that produced it. Furthermore, the constant persecution and ridicule of the Ancient Aramaic's authority manifested in the Scriptures is a pure indication of its sacredness.

April 5, 2002