Our Lord, Come!

I love languages. I love linguistics. More than that, though, I love how language is the mode for conveying meaning. Take for instance a not-too-often quoted expression used by the apostle Paul. In the ante-penultimate verse of 1 Corinthians 16, Paul wrote the following:

If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ,

let him be Anathema

"Maran-Atha".

This expression "Maran-Atha" is from Palestinian Aramaic, the language Jesus, his apostles and indeed most first century Jews spoke. The expression is often translated as 'Come, O Lord'. Time and again I find that when translations are offered precision is preferable to flow. The word "Maran" is to be parsed "Mar" 'Lord' "-an" 'our' and "Atha" 'come': "Our Lord, Come!"  

In ancient Hebrew the Israelites had the practice of referring to Deity by various forms of the word "God" (a topic for another day) and YHWH 'Jehovah' or "Adonai" 'Lord'. About three centuries before the birth of Christ Alexandrian Jews translated many Hebrew holy books to Greek. These translators opted to render both YHWH and Adonai identically, "Kyrios" 'Lord'. 

When the Aramaic-speaking Jews, however, translated their scriptures from Hebrew to Aramaic, the translators preserved the distinction between YHWH and Adonai through an ingenious device. The Aramaic-speaking translators took their word "Mar" 'Lord' and affixed "Yah" to it, "MarYah" 'Lord Jehovah', as the translation for YHWH 'Jehovah.' The title "Yah" (alternative spelling is "Jah", though the pronunciation should still be [Yah]) is the short-form of the name Jehovah. In English we say "Jehovah", though the Ancient Hebrews most likely said "Yahweh", and they took the first syllable, "Yah" as the short form of Jehovah. 

If the reader were to examine Psalm 146 verse 1, (just one of several such examples), the reader would see the verse begin with the expression "Praise ye the LORD" (King James Version). The plural command "Praise Ye" in Hebrew is "Hallelu" and "Yah" is the short form of Jehovah, hence together, "Hallelujah" means "Praise ye the Lord". 

When the Aramaic-speaking translators saw the Hebrew word "Adonai", they simply used "Mar" 'Lord' as the translation. Again, where the translators saw "YHWH" they rendered "MarYah" (alternative spelling "MarJah", though the pronunciation would still be [MarYah]).

I am grateful to these translators for at least preserving a form of YHWH in their translation. However, I want to demonstrate something interesting about affixation in Aramaic. First, however, I will indulge an example of Finnish. The Finnish language is said to be "agglutinative", meaning that endings can be strung to the ends of words. Follow this pattern.

auto 'car'

auto-ssa 'in (the) car'

auto-ssa-ni 'in my car'

Aramaic shares a feature in common with Finnish (and Hebrew, Arabic, and a good many other languages), namely, that possession is expressed by affixing a suffix to the end of the noun rather than by using independent, stand-alone words. Compare English to Finnish and Aramaic:

"My Lord" (English)

"Herra-ni" (Finnish)

"Mar-i" (Aramaic)

All three examples have the same meaning, 'my Lord', but English forms this expression by using two independent words in a single noun phrase, 'my Lord', whereas Finnish and Aramaic accomplish the same objective, but they use a single independent word, "Lord", to which they add a suffix ("ni" in Finnish, "i" in Aramaic) that carries the meaning of 'my'.

Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, as shown above, used "Mari" to mean 'my Lord', and, as seen at the outset of this blog post, "Maran" to mean 'our Lord'. 

Here is where the case gets interesting. Aramaic speakers would use (depending on their objective) "MarYah" 'Lord Jehovah' or "Mari" 'my Lord' in reference to the Deity, but if these Aramaic speakers wanted to express possession, as in "my Lord" or "our Lord", their only option was to drop the suffix "Yah" and add the possessive ending "i" 'my', "an" 'our', etc. In other words, even if the speaker intended to convey the meaning of "My Lord Jehovah", it appears that it was not normative in Aramaic to say "MarYah-i" but rather "Mari" 'My Lord', without the second component "Yah". 

Now, the reason I am posting this is because, unbeknownst to a good many people, myself until very recently included, Aramaic-speaking Christians preserved New Testament writings in the Aramaic language. It appears that the Gospels and Acts were originally penned in Aramaic, then translated to Greek, and that a large number of New Testament writings may have been prepared for release in both Greek and Aramaic originals, but certainly some portions of the New Testament (such as Jude) were translated from Greek to Aramaic. Scribes later would tweak the Aramaic writings to have them conform with the Greek texts, leading a good many people to conclude that the entire New Testament was written in Greek. However, I find sufficient reason to view the Aramaic New Testament as a mostly reliable reflection of the original writings.

One thing is certain: Jesus spoke Aramaic to his apostles and to the general public, so the record of his addresses in Aramaic have potentially much to offer by way of nuance. I draw your attention to Matthew 22:42-46:

Saying, What think ye of Christ?

whose son is he?

They say unto him,

The Son of David.

He saith unto them,

How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying,

The LORD said unto my Lord,

Sit thou on my right hand,

till I make thine enemies thy footstool?

If David then call him Lord,

how is he his son?

Matthew records that the audience was unable to answer Jesus a word and posed no more questions to him from that time forth.

I find it interesting that the King James translators used the all capital "LORD" here, in the New Testament, just as they had in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament "LORD" was their translation of "YHWH" or "Jehovah", but "Lord" was their translation of "Adonai". Sure this passage in Matthew is a quote of Psalm 110:1, where "LORD" indeed stands for "YHWH". However, the Greek text from which our New Testament is translated reads "the Lord said unto the Lord of me" with no terminological distinction between "the LORD" and "my Lord" as we have in our King James Version.

Bear in mind that Jesus did not say this in Greek, but in Aramaic. For this reason the Aramaic New Testament is invaluable for conveying what may have been Jesus' actual words. This passage goes as follows (remember that "MarYah" means 'Lord Jehovah' whereas 'Mari' means either 'my Lord' or 'My Lord Jehovah':

Saying, What think ye of Christ?

whose son is he?

They say unto him,

The Son of David.

He saith unto them,

How then doth David in spirit call him MarYah, saying,

MarYah said unto Mari,

Sit thou on my right hand,

till I make thine enemies thy footstool?

If David then call him MarYah,

how is he his son?

When Jesus states "if David then call him Lord", he is referring to the second "Lord", the one that LORD or Jehovah speaks to saying "Sit thou on my right hand". But did you notice what the Aramaic record witnesses? The Aramaic record witnesses that to Jesus the underlying meaning of "my Lord" was "MarYah" or "Lord Jehovah" for that is precisely how Jesus chooses to rephrase "Mari" 'my Lord'. This would be the rendition in straightforward English:

Saying, What think ye of Christ?

whose son is he?

They say unto him,

The Son of David.

He saith unto them,

How then doth David in spirit call him Lord Jehovah, saying,

Lord Jehovah said unto my Lord (Jehovah),

Sit thou on my right hand,

till I make thine enemies thy footstool?

If David then call him Lord Jehovah,

how is he his son?

This is not something that many Christians will hear over the pulpit nowadays, nor many Jews, nor many Muslims, namely, that the ancient Hebrews believed in Two Jehovahs, the difference between the Two being that One was the Father and the Second His Son. It is conventional for Latter-day Saints today to refer only to Jesus as "Jehovah" and God the Father as "Elohim" (itself one of several Hebrew versions of 'God', but the most frequently used version in the Hebrew Bible). However, even LDS scriptures record Joseph Smith addressing God the Father as "Jehovah" (Section 109:29,34, compare "Holy Father" of verse 29 to "O Jehovah" in verse 34). 

The above citation is not the sole instance of two Jehovahs in either the Old or New Testaments, not to mention The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ and the Doctrine and Covenants, but this citation is special because in it Jesus uses the depth of expression in Aramaic to make the case that the Messiah was the Lord Jehovah, Son of the Lord Jehovah, as well as a literal descendant of King David. 

That having been said, I love what Jesus repeatedly taught about prayer: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." With the wealth of beautiful titles for God, the one He chose for us to address Him with is "Father". 

This Father is as real to me, more so, than even my earthly father. My earthly father encouraged me to pray to God, but God bonded me to Him by answering me. I love my earthly dad, and hearing from him makes me happy, but my Heavenly Father is accessible anywhere and at any time, and He brings me peace and joy even when this crazy life of mine should have me going bonkers. 

One last point, Jesus did not start praying to His Father when He was on earth (Matthew 6:9 "Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name"). Jesus, Jehovah, prayed to Jehovah, His Father, on earth, in front of Moses (Exodus 34:5-6). I will offer the rendition from Hebrew versus the translation from the King James which reflects how perplexed the King James translators were when then scrutinized this passage (possibly wondering how Jehovah could be praying to Jehovah):

And Jehovah descended in the cloud,

and stood with him [Moses] there,

and cried out in the name of Jehovah.

And Jehovah passed by before him, 

and proclaimed, 

Jehovah, Jehovah Elohim is merciful and gracious,

longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.

So even before His birth from the Virgin Mary, Jesus, "Jehovah", modeled prayer to His Father ("Jehovah"), and modeled the pattern of witnessing to our brethren (and sisters) of the goodness and mercy of our Father.

Happy and peaceful Sabbath Sunday to all!