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17 January 2011

The Lord's Prayer ( in Ancient Aramaic )



A phrase by phrase rendition of the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic similar to its original form as prayed by Jesus.

It is generally agreed that the historical Jesus primarily spoke Aramaic,[1], along with some Hebrew and Greek (although there is some debate as to the degree[2]). The towns of Nazareth and Capernaum, where Jesus lived, were primarily Aramaic-speaking communities, although Greek was widely spoken in the major cities of the Mediterranean Basin. Jesus may have also known enough Hebrew to discuss the Hebrew Bible, and he may have known Koine Greek through commerce in nearby Sepphoris.


Aramaic, as a Semitic language, was a common language of the Eastern Mediterranean during and after the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid Empires (722 BC – 330 BC). Aramaic remained a common language of Israel in the 1st century AD, despite the subsequent Macedonian-Greek (331 BC) and Roman (63 BC) invasions. Indeed, in spite of the increasing importance of Greek, the use of Aramaic was also expanding, and it would eventually be entirely dominant among Jews both in Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East around 200 AD;[3] it would remain so until the Arab conquest in the 7th century. Jesus and his disciples spoke a Galilean dialect clearly distinguishable from that of Jerusalem (see Jewish Palestinian Aramaic)[4]. In the same time period, the Mishnah was recorded in Hebrew, Josephus wrote in Aramaic, and Philo and Paul of Tarsus wrote in Greek.
Most of the apostles from the Galilee region also spoke Aramaic. The message of Christianity spread (primarily among Jewish Aramaic-speaking enclaves) throughout Canaan, Syria and Mesopotamia, and even to Kerala, India in Aramaic (or Syriac; Aram is the Hebrew word for Syria).[5]
 (Wikipedia)

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