A Greek Camel ? An Aramaic Rope ? The WORDS of YESHUA+ HA MASHIYACH+: Which Is BEST ?

RE-PRINT FROM FEBRUARY 10, 2013

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He that rejects ME+ 

and receives not My+ WORDS, 

hath ONE that judges him;

  

The WORD that I have spoken, 

the same 

shall judge him 

in the Last Day. 

For I+  have not spoken of Myself+; 

but The FATHER 

which sent ME+,

HE gave ME+ 

a commandment, 

what I+ should say, 

and what I+ should speak.

( Yochanan 12:48-49, words the same in all versions. ) 

 ~ ~ ~ A SERIOUS QUESTION ~ ~ ~ 

Why is the controversy over the true meaning of GaMLa of any importance ?

THIS IS WHY: Either the Greek translators changed the meaning of The Words of YESHUA+ HA MASHIYACH+... or the Aramaic translators changed them.  

Simply put:  one is wrong, one is right. 

Put another way: 

• one will stand before the Judgment Seat of The MASHIYACH+ to give an awful accounting ; 
• the other will hear the words, "Well Done, thou good and faithful Servant. Enter thou into the Joy of Thy LORD." 

BOTH, however, can not be right.

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We know: ROPE is found for CAMEL in George Lamsa's Bible, Paul Younan's work on the New Covenant, and the current "Golden, Best, and Historic" version published by the Netzarim publishing house. 

We know :  The Aramaic lexicon written by Hassan Bar Bahlul in the 10th century states that some traditionally have translated a SHIP'S ROPE for GaMLa. [ See blog on Bar Bahlul.]

We know: BB cites Cyril of Alexandria,  a noted GREEK scholar and Patriarch of Alexandria , 412 - 444 AD, as identifying GaMLa as ROPE.  

We know: The ARMENIAN church followed some of the Greek, Cyril of Alexandria's teachings. ( See Wikipedia: " Armenian Apostolic Church." )

We know: From  Wikipedia " Eye of a Needle" 
5. ^ Manlio Simonetti - 2002 -"Cyril of Alexandria: By "camel" here he means not the living thing, the beast of burden, but the thick rope 33 to which ... "This interpretation — "rope" (kamilos)

and not "camel" (kamelos) — rests on the 

homonymic character of the two .."

( In other words, in Medieval Greek, the two Greek words were pronounced the same and thus, caused some confusion. This is also stated in numerous other places on the internet and by Dr. Robinson. See below. )

[ Please note:  The Greek CAMEL is written with a Greek vowel, ETA = a long "A" sound. Greek scholars like Dr. Robinson write the letters in English with a capital "H" for the ETA, / "Ate-aah" /... hence he would write "kamHLon" . 

In my earlier blog, I wrote "kam- A - lon" to indicate the pronunciation.  Some writers insert an English "e" , as did Simonetti, above, to indicate the CAMEL, as "Kam-e-lon".  

ROPE, you may recall, is spelled in Greek "Kam-i-Lon." ]

 We know : "Kam-i-Lon" ( Gk. ROPE) is never found in the Greek New Covenant. 

However,"Kam-i-Lon"  for ROPE is seldom used even in other Greek  writings when concerning  ships' cables. Thus, that usage is rather a moot point ... EVEN IN THE GREEK WRITINGS THEMSELVES. 

It is found in two Greek writings OUTSIDE of the New Covenant. See BAGD, 2nd ed. , 1979, page 401, for "KamiLon" for those two references. Many other ancient references in the Greek literature OUTSIDE of the New Covenant are listed for "KamHLon." See BAGD entry directly above kamiLon.  

Rather,  "s X o i n i O n" is found for rope in John 2:15 ( a whip out of ropes = phragellion ek sXoiniOn )  and in Acts 27:32, where soldiers are cutting away the ropes which hold lifeboats, = ta sxoinia. 

Likewise, in the Peshitta texts: 
John 2:15 = phragela men CHaBLa is the whip out of ropes, and L-CHaBLe'H  is the  rope on the ship in Acts 27:32.   

We know :  Toma Audo, ( 1854-1918 ), an archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church, stated the ROPE definition, as does the German linguist who wrote in Latin, Carl Brockelmann ( 1868-1956).... [ according to the information from Mr. Steven Ring, noted Aramaic scholar, well-known on the Internet.]

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We know:  Dr. Steve Kaufman who edits the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon in Cincinnati's Hebrew Union College stated that  [ GaMLa for] ROPE was not found in the Aramaic literature or writing. 

He stated that the ONLY place it was found was in the "exegetical" work of some translators. 

Dr. Kaufman stated ( See his comments, verbatim, on the previous blog ) that 

" ... the exegetes derive it from the context.  It has nothing to do with Aramaic per se."

And: "What I am saying is that the word "camel" in that text was explained by some exegetes as referring to a thick rope used on boats.  Otherwise it is not found in any actual texts."

We know : Dr. Kaufman does NOT establish ROPE as a regular definition for GaMLa in  the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon because GaMLa is never used as "rope" in any Aramaic writing.

[ Please note: the scholarly CAL editor(s) differentiate between 30 different dialects which are used in the writings classed as "Aramaic." ]   

We know : Even Dr. Kaufman's note about GaMLa being translated by some translators as ROPE was added to the CAL entry on GaMLa during the week of January 7, 2013 following my quest for scholarly information.... so the current volumes did not have this reference note from which to work when compiling their translations.

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We Know: The information about an extra vowel in GaMLa .... making it to be pronounced as Gam-a-lah  in Aramaic is totally erroneous, according to Dr. Kaufman.  

We know : Unfortunately, that mis-information about "gamala" is printed in footnote 182, at Matthew 19:24 in the "G,B, and H" version of the Netzarim New Covenant. 

We Know: Dr. Maurice Robinson of the excellent Robinson-Pierpont's The New Testament in the Original Greek, Byzantine Textform, 2005, listed NO VARIANTS for those three verses where GaMLa is translated as ROPE instead of CAMEL. Nestle-Aland's 26th Greek edition listed only a very few, starting with the 9th century. Nestle-Aland's 27th Greek edition listed a few, also from the 9th or 10th century.   Here are Dr. Robinson's exact words:  

The data shown in NA27 are simple:

Mt 19:24, where KAMILON is read in only MSS 579 1424 pc arm

Mk 10:25, where KAMILON is read in only MSS f13 28 579 pc geo

Lk 18:25, where KAMILON is read in only MSS S f13 579vid 1424 al

1. First thing to notice is that, except for MS 579, *none* of the witnesses remain consistent for all three occurrences. [ Please note: ms 579 was from the 13th century. /SrJH]

2. The reason the R-P text doesn't mention KAMILON in place of KAMHLON is simple: the manuscript support is too slim to be of any consequence.

3. The *primary* issue is merely phonetic orthographic variation. In (at least) later medieval Greek H and I were pronounced identically. This phenomenon is replicated in the *other* instances where "camel" occurs, where no one is claiming * * * "rope" meaning; e.g., John the Baptist dressed in camel's hair:

Mt 3:4, where instead of KAMHLOU  [ camel] you have KAMILOU [rope ] in MSS 28 565 (and where MS D reads KAMHLLOU )

Mk 1:6, where instead of KAMHLOU [ camel ] you have KAMILOU  [ rope ] in MSS Gsup 2 28 (and where MS D along with Theta reads KAMELOU).

 And Mt 23:24, where it hardly matters whether a Pharisee is trying to swallow a camel or a rope (he simply can't do it); there KAMILON [ rope ] is read by MSS M Theta Pi* 579.

We know : These few with Kam-i-lon spellings in the Greek manuscripts came from the 9th, 10th, and 13th century. 

We know : At least one or two of these early manuscripts came from the ARMENIAN and the GEORGIAN early manuscripts. 

We know : George Lamsa was born in Armenia. 

We know: Cyril of Alexandria , a Greek Patriarch, was lauded by the church in Armenia. 

We know : Mr. Lamsa repudiated and taught against basic Christian doctrines, like the physical Resurrection of YESHUA+ HA MASHIYACH+ and a host of other doctrines central to Christianity. 

We know : The idea of a LARGE animal going through a small opening is an ORIENTALISM.  This quote was found on Wikipedia  
[ From Wikipedia's "Eye of a Needle " article, above]  and on several other sites on the Internet.  To wit: 

The Babylonian Talmud applies the aphorism to 

unthinkable thoughts. To explain that dreams 

reveal the thoughts of a man's heart, the product 

of reason rather than the absence of it, the rabbis 

say:

They do not show a man a palm tree of gold,

 nor an elephant going through the eye of a 

needle.^[1]

References

1.                             ^ B.T. Berakhot 55b

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Changing the words of 

YESHUA+ HA MASHIYACH+ 

is serious  

because 

it makes a rich man 

able to enter 

the Kingdom of Heaven...

exactly the opposite teaching 

of YESHUA+ HA MASHIYACH+ !   

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