1) In the very recent advertisement by Trimm of his HRV he mentions Max Wilcox and his book _The Semitisms of Acts_, 1965.

The very first paragraph of the Preface of this book (page vii) states, "The general aim of this study is to assess the nature, significance, and probable origin of the elements in Acts which have been, or may be, styled 'Semitisms'. It does not seek to prove that Acts, or any portion of it, is a translation of an Aramaic or Hebrew source, nor does it claim that all the phenomena in question may be explained by reference to the influence of the diction of the Septuagint upon the style of the author of Acts. Rather it is an attempt to reconcile the plain fact of the presence in Acts of what have been called 'septuagintalisms' with the other fact - hardly less clear - of the existence in the same work of what we may term 'hard-core' or 'residual' Semitisms."

The first person to whom Max Wilcox expresses gratitude for supervision of his research is Matthew Black (also p. vii).

Notice Trimm's quote from Wilcox in his advertisement below.

"...the presence of Semitisms... in Acts once again raises the whole question of its composition. (Max Wilcox; The Semitisms of Acts; 1965; p. 157)

The ultimately Semitic nature of the traditions enshrined in a number of parts of the New Testament- especially in Acts- must not be underestimated or otherwise left out of account." (ibid; p. 185)

The above quotation by Trimm from Max Wilcox in his advertisement would perhaps cause a reader to imagine that Wilcox would agree with Trimm's approach. But a careful reading of the first paragraph from Wilcox's book indicates nothing of the kind. There is a vast difference between recognizing a number of phrases that show a Semitic mindset on the one hand, compared to a claim that Acts was originally written in Aramaic or Hebrew on the other hand. I have always believed that the Semitic upbringing of the original apostles would cause them to express themselves with occasional Semitisms, even in Greek. But that does NOT imply that the Greek writing was originally written in Aramaic or Hebrew. I can hardly imagine that Trimm would not have read the first paragraph of Wilcox. How then can he attempt to use Wilcox to advertise his views?

Most of Trimm's quotations for advertising his book are from very old sources that are no longer considered reliable in this field. Trimm quotes from David Stern, but Stern's highest degree in a related field is Master of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary, a very good institution, yet Stern makes no claim to being advanced in this specialty of origins of the writings of the New Testament. Stern is well known as a Jewish convert to the Messiah and he achieved status in the Messianic movement in the U.S. His _Jewish New Testament_ is well known among Messianic believers, and more recently he published a translation of the entire Bible. But Stern is not a scholar in this field. George Lamsa is also quoted, but Lamsa is not respected in scholarly circles because his translation does not agree with the Syriac, yet it is supposed to be translated from the Syriac. In Ps 81:3 the Syriac word for "full moon" occurs, but Lamsa translates it "time appointed" just as the KJV does!!! This is an incorrect interpretation of the Hebrew from the Jewish sage Rashi of the middle ages. Lamsa's translation is a joke in scholarly circles because he tries to keep close to the KJV regardless of the Syriac Peshitta in many places.

Trimm's advertisement also quotes from the book _The Aramaic Origin of the Four Gospels_ by Frank Zimmermann (1979). There is considerable criticism of Zimmerman on pages 42-44 of the book _Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel_ by Maurice Casey (Cambridge University Press, 1998). On page 42 Casey has, "The next book on this subject was F. Zimmermann, _The Aramaic Origin of the Four Gospels_ (1979). Zimmermann presented himself as carrying forward the work of Torrey, and his work is full of methodological errors. The majority of his examples are changes in single words, supposedly mistranslations of an Aramaic substratum. For the Aramaic behind the Gospels, he selects what he calls 'proto-Syriac', but for his examples he uses ordinary Syriac, and later Jewish Aramaic too. This gives him a larger vocabulary than any Aramaic speaker ever had, with which to play tricks. He omits the Dead Sea scrolls and all earlier Aramaic sources, which is methodically unsound, because the words in the scrolls were in existence in Aramaic within a relatively short time of the ministry of Jesus and the writing of the Gospels. At no point does he justify his assumptions about the content of 'proto-Syriac'."

Then Casey discusses many of Zimmermann's mistakes, and on page 44 Casey concludes, "We must conclude that Zimmermann's methods are not satisfactory. Like Torrey and Burney, he would have taken scholarship backwards, if enough scholars had followed him."

In a sense Casey indicates what I believe to be the difficulty with Trimm's background. Trimm has no formal classroom education in Aramaic. He has studied on his own. There is nothing wrong with that as far as it goes. But in order to do a good job in this field, one must be trained under an expert in the field who can give proper direction on differentiating between different varieties of Aramaic as it changed over the centuries. One must also be familiar with the Aramaic of the Dead Sea scrolls and the differences in grammar between these varieties of Aramaic. Also, one should be well trained in Greek in order to compare the various texts. How can one judge between the various texts without a background in Greek? One ought to be able to determine whether a Syriac text was translated from the Greek due to a Greek grammatical borrowing. But Trimm has never claimed to have studied Greek. When Trimm uses poor sources as recommendations for his work, that is annoying. When he uses recommendations from sources who would disagree with his approach that is annoying. What Trimm should do is seek a good scholar in this area of study, have that scholar review Trimm's HRV, and then see if that scholar would recommend the HRV. It is only through Trimm's use of advertising over the internet among people who are not able to judge well that he may be able to earn some money and fame for this effort. When Trimm claims that Paul's writings were not originally written in Greek and no scholar supports this, that rings further alarm bells.

2) Here are some select quotations regarding the NT language. The conclusion at the bottom is not as dramatic as I originally was led to believe it would be.

Some quotes from Matthew Black's book _An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts_, 3rd edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967).

pp. 4-5 "Since Dalman, C.C Torrey and C.F. Burney are the best known names [favoring an Aramaic original of some of the NT]; each attempted to prove the existence of Aramaic originals, the latter to the Fourth Gospel; Burney, in a subsequent work, undertook a study of the poetry of Jesus. Torrey goes so far as to claim in his first larger work that Aramaic originals lie behind all four Gospels, and, on the basis of this view and of numerous conjectural reconstructions of Aramaic, has produced a new translation. He bases his conclusions mainly on examples of mistranslation of Aramaic originals. Most of his examples of mistranslation, however, and several of Burney's, are open to grave objection. Torrey's attempt at a new translation of the Gospels before any adequate presentation of the philological evidence was premature."

p. 7 "Both Torrey and Burney attach much importance to conjectural mistranslations of Aramaic as proof os source. Mistranslation of an original is, it is true, the best proof of translation; but it is doubtful if it can ever have scientific value as evidence except in cases where we possess not only the translation but also the original work."

p. 8 "Nearly two generations after J.T. Marshall's elaborate failure to prove on internal evidence of 'mistranslation' the existence of 'an Aramaic Gospel', and the considered verdict on such work given by the great Oxford Semitist S.R. Driver, the same kind of mistakes continue to be made. All dialects of the language are ransacked for an expression or usage, however rare or unusual, to explain a difficulty. There are even cases where Aramaic words which do not exist, or are not at any rate found in the lexica or literature, have been invented; and such false coin continues to be circulated by the non-specialist."

p. 9 "In Mk. xiv. 3 (cf. Mt. xxvi. 6), [Greek] 'Simwnos tou leprou' is said by Torrey to contain a mistranslation of [Aramaic] 'gimel-resh-vet-alef', 'garabha', 'a jar-merchant'; the same consonants had been misread as [Aramaic] 'garba', [Greek] 'lepros'. The noun [Aramaic] 'garba' is the usual one for 'leper', and there is another word with the same consonants found in the Targum and meaning 'a wine-skin'. But no noun [Aramaic] 'garabha' meaning 'a jar-merchant' appears in any of the lexica."

p. 16 "In the Palestinian Talmud Aramaic and Hebrew are found together, sometimes in the form of a kind of 'Mischsprache' [mixed-language]; sentences half Hebrew, half Aramaic, are familiar to the reader of the Talmud, and this artificial language [Talmudic Hebrew], rabbinical in origin, may well have been in use before as after the Fall of Jerusalem."

p. 271 "A survey of the results of this study in this connexion yields one conclusion only which can be regarded as in any degree established, that an Aramaic sayings-source or tradition lies behind the Synoptic Gospels. Where any one Semitic or Aramaic construction could be observed recurring, its distribution showed that it tended to be most frequently, and in some cases exclusively, in the Words of Jesus. The same conclusion emerged from a study of the translation and mistranslation of Aramaic in the Gospels. Not all the observations made there or the arguments advanced are of equal value or cogency: much is inevitably exploratory; but individual objections and difficulties do little to weaken the main impression that we have to do with a translation-tradition, sometimes literal, mostly, however, literary and interpretive, but generally bearing the stamp on it, in one feature or another, of its Aramaic origin. Whether that source was written or oral, it is not possible from the evidence to decide."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3) This continues the saga of what the Syriac speaking people had for their gospels. Since Syriac was an offshoot of Aramaic, if there had been an Aramaic form of Mark, Luke, or John originally (unless they all got destroyed with no one saying anything about them), there would have been no need for translating from the Greek gospels into the Old Syriac as the quotations below show.

This concerns the origin of the Old Syriac texts.

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First I quote from the book _Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels: Matthew_, vol.1 by George Anton Kiraz (Leiden: Brill, 1996), page xx. Here are the first two paragraphs (square brackets by Kiraz, and "" indicates where the text has Syriac
words).

"The form of the Gospel text used by the early Syriac Church is an issue under much debate. The earliest form of the Syriac Gospels of which, however, we are certain is the Diatesseron ("dia tessaron" 'through [the] four [Gospels]), a harmony of the four Gospels
composed by Tatian, known in Syraic as 'Gospel of the mixed.' The text of the Diatessaron is lost and survives only in patristic citations, mainly in St. Ephrem's commentary."

Before quoting the second paragraph I will offer two comments about the one above. First, Kiraz makes it quite clear that prior to the Diatesseron's introduction in what is called today Iraq (c. 173 CE), we have no knowledge of what those people had
concerning the four gospels. Second, the Syriac text of the Diatesseron is lost, but there are many surviving translations or partial translations of the Diatesseron in many other languages.

Now to quote the second paragraph.

"Next in line is the Old Syriac, known in Syriac as 'Gospel of the Separated [Evangelists]', in order to distinguish it from the Diatesseron. This translation was made at some point between the late second century and the early fourth century by a number of translators. It represents a free translation from the Greek. A series of revisions took place over a long period of time aiming at bringing the Old Syriac into closer line the Greek.

The original translation of the Old Syriac is lost, but we are fortunate to have two lacunous manuscripts which represent two different stages of the revisions: the Sinaiticus palimpsest and the Curetonianus manuscript."

The above makes it clear that the very name of the Old Syriac indicates it came after the Diatesseron which was c. 173. The Diatesseron would not have become so popular if the four gospels had already existed and become accepted. But even more importantly, the Old Syriac was originally a translation from the Greek, but its orignal is lost.

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A paper titled "Greek Words in the Syriac Gospels (vet and pe)" by Sebastian P. Brock appears on pages 389-426 in the journal _Le Museon_, volume 80, 1967. On page 390 we note, "Within the Syriac Bible the Gospels naturally were particularly influential, and
below the Greek words occurring in both the Old Syriac and the Peshitta Gospels are collected and listed alphabetically." The rest of the paper discusses these words and where they occur.

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In the journal _Novum Testamentum_, volume 42, 2000 on pages 201-204 there is a book review by David G. K. Taylor of the book _The Syriac Language of the Peshitta and Old Syriac Versions of Matthew_ by J. Joosten. On page 202 Taylor writes, "Joosten is clearly aware that since the early Syriac versions of St. Matthew's Gospel are translations of Greek originals they are not necessarily representative of idiomatic Syriac, for the Greek almost inevitably interfered on occasion with the Syriac syntax, and
that as a consequence frequent comparison with the 'Greek equivalent' is required."

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The above three quotes make it clear that originally the Old Syriac text was a translation from the Greek. This makes it clear why Arthur Voobus considered that the Greek gospels came before the Old Syriac. He never made a clear statement on this from his two books I read.

~~~~~~~~

Prove all things and hold only to the GOOD.

Be Blessed

Phillip Frankford
VCOM Services, Inc.
Principal Consultant
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P.S. The materials that I have posted are from Mr. Herb Solinsky. Mr. Solinsky was another Jew enlightened to the living Messiah - Yahsua (sp). He was engage in his PhD studies in mathmatics when YHWH openned his mind to show him the Messiah.

First, Mr. Solinsky has the great ability to do research. Furthermore, he does well in his studies because he does not defend any 'religious bias'. He just wants the truth and is willing to dig for it. He doesn't really care if he needs to change his prior views because new evidence shows him to have made a wrong conclusion.

Secondly, he does not seek a following nor does he seek anyone's money. He is willing to hear the voice of the Messiah and follow only it. This attitude make for a person of great personal character.

Thirdly, Over the past 20 years that I have known Herb, I have found him to be a humble man of many good qualities. I have personally witnessed him reverse himself and change his mind when presented with new facts that he did not have at first. He is willing to re-examine his prior conclusions and repent from error.

Now to set the record straight, Herb and I do not agree on several subjects. In several areas, we have agreed to disagree. I'm sure that he will soon change his mind in the areas that he is still in error. :-)

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(moderator note)
Thanks for sharing this.. very interesting.
Lots of interesting historical information on the concepts of an
Aramaic text, and the history of the scholarship.
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"It is only through Trimm's use of advertising over the internet among people who are not able to judge well that he may be able to earn some money and fame for this effort."

Amen..
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Two areas where we have some differences..

1) concepts of 'septuagintalisms' are subject to the basic error of septuagint scholarship.. backdating 400 AD manuscripts into the hands of the apostles, without considering the alternative of the corruptness of the Greek Tanach manuscripts of that time (ala Jerome) and their 'smoothing' of Tanach passages to more closely match the NT.

2) Psalm 81:3 - Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day. KJB - Lamsa is similar.

The issue is whether keh-seh, also Proverbs 7:20, should be translated
"time appointed" or "full moon".

Here is a start to that discussion.
http://www.servantsnews.com/sn0207/moon.htm
the Hebrew word translated “full moon”, kehseh (Strong’s #3677) is of uncertain meaning. It is completely different than yereach (Strong’s #3394), the normal Hebrew word for “moon”. It only appears twice in the Bible: Psalm 81:3 (81:4 in Hebrew Bibles) and in Proverbs 7:20, where it is actually spelled slightly differently. The usage in Proverbs is of little help in figuring out what the word means.

Rashi, the King James Bible, and others believe appointed times is correct. If someone disagrees with that, fine, but where is their hard evidence that Rashi and the KJB were wrong ? Even if the Syriac word is unambiguously "full moon" .. which apparently is based on a questionable view of De Dieu, that would not justify the accusation of the KJB following an "incorrect interpretation", nor that Lamsa should take De Dieu over Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Kimchi and even the Targum, and the King James Bible, all of which cannot fit the 'full moon' translation. See the John Gill commentary.
See also http://www.chcpublications.net/fullmoon.htm
Is the Full Moon a part of God's Biblical Calendar??

The whole discussion is fascinating, both as to how the word should be translated, and what is its precise meaning, we just get a little annoyed at quick accusations. We find the King James Bible is a target that apparently incites confusion in its opponents, folks get into a fog, and they often try to attack without substantive base.
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TRIMM AND THE SEMITIC THEORIES

We haven't really paid much attention here to the details of this
semitic history discussion lately, (we did earlier) especially vis
a vis Trimm, for two reasons....

1) Do you like to dialog with a crook about how much of the stuff he can
take out of your house ? Trimm is a textual crook who blatantly
plagiarizes other's translastions, using them as his own base text,
and pawns them off as his own original translation.
Clearly this taints all his writings on textual issues.

2) Trimm's actual 'theories' are self-serving and designed to give some
way of justifying the 'translations' he sells. Most of these supports
are rather superficial snippets of information from others.. and,
as shown above, often using misrepresentation of the quotees,
such as a deceptive omission or ellipsis "...".

So, debating such snippets of misused information would be
like trying to nail a smorgasboard of jellies to the tree.
And give a crook's theories as to why it is ok to steal credence.
Not really edifying.
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