Arabia (continued) – Ararah

Arabia (continued)

In the Koran a third creed is bracketed with those of the Jews and Christians as entitled to toleration--that of the Sabians. These are monotheists who also worshipped the stars or the angels. The name Sabian has no connection with Sabean which is derived from the name of the town of Saba. An account of their religion, taken from Abu'l Faraj (Bar Hebraeus), the Jacobite bishop, who wrote about the middle of the 13th century, will be found in Sale's Koran, Preliminary Discourse, section I. Sale, however, identified Sabianism with the primitive religion of the Arabs, which Mohammad sought to supplant. This is impossible, however, in view of the fact that Mohammad tolerated the one and proscribed the other. Since the publication of Chwolson's Ssabier und Ssabismus it has been recognized that under the term Sabians are included two very different groups of people. In the first place the devotees of the old Semitic idolatry which flourished at Harran assumed the name Sabian to enable them to claim the protection afforded by the Koran. It is the tenets of these Harranians of which Chwolson's work contains an exposition. The true Sabians, however, were a survival of primitive Christian Gnosticism; whence they were also called Mandeans. From their frequent ablutions they received their name derived from the Aramaic tsebha`, to "baptize," the `ayin being softened to 'aleph, and connected with John the Baptist. The Jews, Christians and Sabians are called in the Koran "the people of the book," that is, those to whom a revelation had been vouchsafed, and who were in consequence of this tolerated. In one passage of the Koran (22 17) a fourth religion is added to these--the Magian, or Zoroastrian, introduced from Persia.

6. Seekers after Truth: Islam:

Shortly before the appearance of Mohammad a number of thinking persons had become dissatisfied with the old Arabian religion of their ancestors, and yet had not joined the Christian or Jewish faith. They gave up the worship of idols, studied the various sacred books, and sought to find out the true way. They are considered in the Koran as having been of the true faith even before Mohammad had appeared. About a dozen are mentioned by the historians, of whom the most important are four--Waraka the cousin of Mohammad's wife Khadija; Othman who became a Christian; Obeidallah who became a Christian and then a Muslim; Zeid who traveled in pursuit of Truth, but did not at tach himself to any one faith. The Hebrew prophets and those who accepted their doctrines are regarded as belonging to the same class. A person who is a monotheist, and who yet does not attach himself to any particular creed is called in the Koran a Hanif. This pure religion is called the religion of Abraham. Mohammad claimed to restore this primeval religion in Islam. By John of Damascus Mohammad was regarded as the founder of a Christian sect. It is probable that but for his appearance Christianity would have spread over the whole of Arabia.

LITERATURE.

Causinn de Perceval, Essai sur l'histoire des Arabes; Sprenger, Die alte Geographie Arabiens; Hamdani, ed., Muller, Geographic der arabischen Halbinsel; Niebuhr, Travels through Arabia; Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia; Wellsted, Travels in Arabia; Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah; Palgrave, Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia; Blunt, A Pilgrimage to Nejd; Hurgronje, Mecca; Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta; Harris, A Journey through the Yemen; Brunnow and Domazewski, Die Provincia Arabia; Musil, Arabia Deserta; Glaser, Skizze der Geschichte und Geographic Arabiens.

Thomas Hunter Weir

Arabian

See ARABIA.

Arabic Gospel Of The Infancy

See APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS.

Arabic History Of Joseph The Carpenter

See APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS.

Arabic Language

ar'-a-bik lan'-gwaj: For the student of the Bible the Arabic language is of interest, first, as one of the members of the Semitic group of languages, to which belong the Hebrew and Aramaic tongues of the Bible; secondly, as one of the languages into which the Bible and other church literature were early translated and in which a Christian literature was produced; and thirdly, as the vernacular of Mohammed and his followers, the classical tongue of that religious system which is the offspring of a degenerate Judaism and Christianity.

1. Philological Characterization:

Scholars are generally agreed in grouping the Arabic and Ethiopic together as a South-Sem branch of the Semitic stock. For the geographical and ethnological background of the Arabic language, see ARABIA. A general characteristic of this tongue of the desert is its remarkable retention into a late historical period, of grammatical features obliterated or in process of obliteration in the other Semitic tongues at their earliest emergence in literature; so that in the period since the golden age of its literature, the Arabic has been undergoing changes in some respects analogous to those which its sister-dialects underwent in their pre-literary or earliest literary stage. Thus, for example, the case-endings of nouns, lost in Aramaic and Canaanitish (including Hebrew), all but lost in the Abyssinian dialects, beginning to be disregarded in even the early (popular) Babylonian, lost also in the dialects of modern Arabic are in full vitality throughout the classical period of Arabic literature.

The Arabic language itself, ancient and modern, divides into a vast number of dialects, many of which have attained the distinction of producing a literature greater or less. But the dialect of the tribe of Koreish, to which Mohammed belonged, is the one that, naturally, by the circumstance of the Koran's composition and diffusion, has become the norm of pure Arabic. Old Arabic poems, some of them produced in "the Ignorance," that is, before the days of Mohammed, are in substantially the same dialect as that of the Koran, for it appears that Bedouin tribes ranging within the limits of the Arabian desert spoke an Arabic little differentiated by tribal or geographical peculiarities. On the other hand the inhabitants of the coast of the Indian Ocean from Yemen to Oman, and of the island of Socotra off that coast, spoke an Arabic differing widely from that of the northern tribes. The various dialects of this "South-Arabic," known partly through their daughter-dialects of today (Mehri, Socotri, etc.), partly from the numerous and important inscriptions ("Minaean" and "Sabaean") found in Yemen by recent travelers, notably Halevy and Glaser, show a closer affinity than do the "North-Arabic" with the Abyssinian dialects (Ge'ez, i.e. "Ethiopic," Tigre, Tigrina, Amharic, etc.), as might indeed be expected from the admitted South Arabian origin of the Habesh-tribes or Abyssinians.

For the interpretation of the Old Testament the Arabic language has been of service in a variety of ways. In the department of lexicography it has thrown light not only on many a word used but once in the Bible or too seldom for usage alone to determine its meaning, but also on words which had seemed clear enough in their Biblical setting, but which have received illustration or correction from their usage in the immense bulk and range of Arabic literature with its enormous vocabulary. For the modern scientific study of Hebrew grammar, with its genetic method, Arabic has been of the greatest value, through the comparison of its cognate forms, where, in the main, the Arabic has the simpler, fuller and more regular morphology, and through the comparison of similar constructions, for which the highly developed Arabic syntax furnishes useful rubrics.

In addition to this the Arabic language plays a prominent part, perhaps the foremost part, in the determination of those laws of the mutation of sounds, which once governed the development and now reveal the mutual relationships of the various Semitic languages.

The script which we know as Arabic script, with its numerous varieties, developed out of the vulgar Aramaic alphabet in North Arabia; diacritical points were added to many of those letters, either to distinguish Arabic sounds for which no letter existed, or to differentiate letters the forms of which had become so similar as to create confusion. In Yemen another script arose early, that of the inscriptions above mentioned, admirably clear and adapted to express probably all the chief varieties of consonantal sounds in actual use, though quite without vowels.

2. Christian Arabic Literature:

For Arabic versions of the Bible, see ARABIC VERSIONS. Outside of the Scriptures themselves there was most felt by Christian communities living in the Arabic-speaking world (primarily, though not exclusively, in Egypt and Syria) the need of a Christian literature suited to the tastes of the time and region. Apocryphal and legendary material makes up a large part, therefore, of the list of Christian Arabic literature. See APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS. But this material was not original. With the small degree of intellectual activity in those circles it is not surprising that most of such material, and indeed of the entire literary output, consists of translations from Syriac, Greek or Coptic, and that original productions are few in number.

Of these last the most noteworthy are the following: theological and apologetic tracts by Theodore, bishop of Haran, the same who held the famous disputation with Mohammedan scholars at the court of Caliph Al-Mamun early in the 9th century; apologetic and polemic writings of Yahya ibn Adi of Tekrit, and of his pupil Abu All Isa ibn Ishaq, both in the 10th century; the Arabic works of Bar Hebraeus, better known for his numerous Syriac compositions, but productive also of both historical and theological works in Arabic (13th century); in Egypt, but belonging to the same Jacobite or Monophysite communion as the above, the polemic and homiletic productions of Bishop Severus of Eshmunain (10th century), and, a generation earlier than Severus and belonging to the opposing or Melkite Egyptian church, the chronicle of Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria, continued a century later by Yahya ibn Said of Antioch; large compilations of church history, church law and theological miscellany by the Coptic Christians Al-Makin, Abu Ishaq ibn Al-Assal, Abu'l-Barakat and others, the leaders in a general revival of Egyptian Christianity in the 13th century; on the soil of Nestorianism, finally, the ecclesiastical, dogmatic and exegetical writings of Abulfaraj Abdallah ibn At-Tayyib, (11 century), the apologetic compositions of his contemporary, Elias ben Shinaya, the historian, and the Nestorian church chronicle begun in the 12th century by Mari ibn Suleiman and continued two centuries later by Amr ibn Mattai and Saliba bar Johannan. After this date there is no original literature produced by Arabic-speaking Christians until the modern intellectual revival brought about by contact with European Christianity.

3. The Literary Vehicle of Islam:

What Aramaic, Greek and Latin have been successively in the history of Christianity, all this, and more, Arabic has been in the history of Islam. The language of its founder and his "helpers," the language of the Koran "sent down" from God to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel, the language therefore in which it has always been preserved by the faithful, untranslated, whithersoever it has spread in the wide world of Islam, Arabic is identified with Islam in its origin, its history, its literature and its propaganda. All the points of contact between the religion of the Bible and the religion of the Koran, literary, historical, apologetic and missionary, are alike in this, that they demand of the intelligent student of Christianity a sympathetic acquaintance with the genius and the masterpieces of the great Arabic tongue.

J. Oscar Boyd

Arabic Versions

ar'-a-bik vur'-shuns: Arabic translations of the Bible must have been made at a very early date, for Christianity and Judaism had penetrated far into Arabia by the 6th century of our era, but the oldest of which a copy has come down to our time is that of Sasdish the Gaon (942 AD). This version was made directly from the Massoretic Text and is said to have covered the whole of the Old Testament, but much of it is no longer extant. It is characterized by an avoidance of anthropomorphisms (e.g. Genesis 6:2, "sons of nobles" and "daughters of common people") and by giving modern equivalents, e.g. Turks, Franks, Chinese, for the Hebrew names. Saadiah's Pentateuch was first printed at Constantinople in 1546 and was incorporated into the Paris (1629-45) and London (1657) Polyglots.

When, after the rise of Islam, Arabic became the common language of Syria, Egypt and North Africa, translations were made from the Septuagint, from the Peshitta and from Coptic. In the Polyglots the translation of Joshua is, like the Pentateuch, made from the Massoretic Text, as also portions of Kings and Nehemiah, with interpolations from the Peshitta. Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings (in parts), 1 and 2 Chronicles (?), Nehemiah (in parts) and Job have been translated into Arabic from Syriac. The remaining books (Prophets, Psalms, Proverbs, etc.) are from the Septuagint, and that according to Codex Alexandrinus. In the New Testament the Gospels have been translated from the Vulgate, and the remaining books, although from the Greek, are late. A revised edition of the versions in Walton's Polyglot was published by J. D. Carlyle, professor of Arabic in Cambridge, and printed at Newcastle by Sarah Hodgson in 1811. A very fine translation of the entire Bible in classical Arabic has been issued by the Jesuit Fathers in Beirut, and a simpler version in Arabic which can be understood by the common people, educated and uneducated alike, was made by the late Dr. Cornelius Van Dyck of the Syrian Protestant College and published by the American Press in Beirut. Dr. Van Dyck had the benefit of the help and advice of the Sheikh Nacif al-Yaziji.

A large number of manuscripts of the Bible in Arabic, in whole or in part, are to be found in the British Museum, the Bibliotheque Nationale and the great libraries of the Continent, but none of them are of sufficient age to make them of value for the criticism of the text.

Thomas Hunter Weir

Araboth

ar'-a-both. See ARUBBOTH.

Arad

a'-rad (`aradh; Arad):

(1) A city mentioned four times in the Old Testament. In the King James Version it is twice mistakenly rendered as the name of a king (Numbers 21:1; Numbers 33:40). Three times it is spoken of as in the South Country, one mention using the phrase `the wilderness of Judah which is in the South Country of Arad' (Judges 1:16), that is, the part of the wilderness of Judah which is in the South Country near Arad. It was situated near the frontier of Judah and Simeon, being grouped with Debir, Hormah, Makkedah, etc. (Joshua 12:14). Arad and other cities joined in attacking Israel in the fortieth year of the sojourn in the wilderness (Numbers 21:1–3), and Israel vowed to "make their cities a devoted thing." In the case of Zephath, one of the cities, this vow was fulfilled after the death of Joshua (Judges 1:17). The Kenite relatives of Moses had their inheritance near Arad (Judges 1:16). In the form a-ru-da the city is mentioned by Shishak of Egypt as among the places which he conquered in Palestine. The identification of the site with Tel Arad, about 17 miles South of Hebron, seems to be generally accepted.

(2) One of the descendants of Elpaal the son of Shaharaim, mentioned among the descendants of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 8:15).

Willis J. Beecher

Aradus

ar'-a-dus (Arados, 1 Macc 15:23): Greek name of the Old Testament ARVAD (which see), a city on the coast of Phoenicia.

Arah

a'-ra ('arach, "traveler"?):

(1) The son of Ulla, an Asherite (1 Chronicles 7:39).

(2) The head of a family that returned from the exile with Zerubbabel (Ezra 2:5; Nehemiah 7:10). He is sometimes identified with Arah of Nehemiah 6:18 whose grand-daughter became the wife of Tobiah, the Ammonite who tried to thwart Nehemiah in rebuilding Jerusalem.

Aram

a'-ram ('aram):

(1) A son of Shem (Genesis 10:22; 1 Chronicles 1:17). See ARAMEANS; SYRIA.

(2) A grandson of Nahor (Genesis 22:21).

(3) A descendant of Asher (1 Chronicles 7:34).

(4) Aram, King James Version: Greek form of Ram (thus the Revised Version (British and American) Matthew 13:4; Arni Luke 3:33), grandson of Perez.

Aram-Dammesek

a-ram-dam'-es-ek: Syria of Damascus, conquered by David (2 Samuel 8:5,2 Samuel 8:6). See SYRIA.

Aram-Maacah

a-ram-ma'-a-ka. See SYRIA.

Aram-Naharaim

a-ram-na-ha-ra'-im. See SYRIA.

Aram-Rehob

a-ram-re'-hob. See SYRIA.

Aram-Zobah

a-ram-zo'-ba. See SYRIA.

Aramaeans; Arameans

ar-a-me'-ans: Often in the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) Syrians. See SYRIA.

Aramaic Versions

See TARGUM.

Aramaic; Aramaic Language

ar-a-ma'-ik lan'-gwaj ('aramith; the King James Version Syrian, Syriac; SYRIAN in the Revised Version (British and American)):

1. Early Notices of Aramaic in Scripture

2. Extra-Biblical Evidences of Aramaic

3. The Script of Aramaic Inscriptions

4. Dialects of Aramaic

5. Grammatical Peculiarities

6. Comparison of Aramaic of Sinjirli with That of Bible

7. Comparison of Aramaic of Assouan with That of Daniel

8. Elephantine Papyri

9. Comparison with Aramaic of the Targums

10. Chief Differences in Latter

LITERATURE

The name is given to a form of Semitic speech, most nearly related to Hebrew and Phoenician, but exhibiting marked peculiarities, and subsisting in different dialects. Its original home may have been in Mesopotamia (Aram), but it spread North and West, and, as below shown, became the principal tongue throughout extensive regions. After the return from the Captivity, it displaced Hebrew as the spoken language of the Jews in Palestine. In its eastern form it is known as Syriac. In its occurrence in the Old Testament, it formerly, though incorrectly, generally bore the name Chaldee. The present article deals with it chiefly in its. Old Testament relations.

1. Early Notices of Aramaic in Scripture:

If we neglect two words which occur in Genesis 31:47, the earliest notice of the use of this language in Scripture is in the request which the representatives of Hezekiah make to Rabshakeh: "Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syriac language" ('aramith, 2 Kings 18:26; Isaiah 36:11). The narrative from which we have made this excerpt, even if it stood alone, would prove that Aramaic, "the Syriac language," was so different from Hebrew, "the Jews' language," that it was not understood by the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Further, it shows that Aramaic was the ordinary language of Assyrian diplomacy. We next meet with Aramaic in Jeremiah 10:11 which appears to be an answer put into the mouths of the Jews as a reply to any attempt to seduce them to the worship of idols. If we assume the traditional date of Daniel to be correct, the six chapters in that book (Daniel 2:4–7:28), forming the greater part of the whole, are the next and most important occurrence of Aramaic in Scripture. There are, further, passages in Ezra 4:8–6:18; Ezra 7:12–26, amounting approximately to three chapters, in which Aramaic is used. In the New Testament several Aramaic words and phrases occur, modified by having passed through Greek

2. Extra-Biblical Evidences of Aramaic:

Formerly our knowledge of Aramaic earlier than the Targums and the Peshitta was restricted to the above-noticed passages of Scripture. Now, however, discoveries, still comparatively recent, have put us in a different position. In the closing decade of last century extensive inscriptions were discovered in Sibbaldia, in the neighborhood of Aleppo, dated in the reigns of Tiglathpileser and the Sargonid monarchs, and one that seems earlier. More recent has been the discovery of the Assouan papyri; these bear dates which synchronize with Ezra and Nehemiah. Earlier than these in discovery, but between them in date of origin, are weights of the reign of Sargon, with two inscriptions, one, official, in cuneiform, which not only gives the designation of the weight, but relates the name and titles of the king; the other, popular, in Aramaic, which only tells the weight. More striking is the fact that frequently, in regard to contract tablets, while the binding document is in cuneiform character and the Assyrian language, the inscription on the clay envelope which served as a docquet is in Aramaic, language and letter. This affords proof that at all events before the reign of Tiglath-pileser Aramaic was the general speech for commerce and diplomacy all over Southwest Asia.

3. The Script of Aramaic Inscriptions:

When we come in contact with it, Aramaic is a fully formed alphabetical language, and has attained a further stage of development than the Assyrian with its cumbrous cuneiform. To the end, Assyrian was largely ideographic and hieroglyphic. The same group of symbols represented very different sounds according to circumstances, and widely differing meanings were connected with the same sound, with the consequent necessity for determinatives. The alphabet employed in Aramaic is practically that found on the Moabite Stone. It evidently stands at the end of a long process of evolution. It is probable that a hieroglyphic stood behind it; whether it is derived from the Hittite (Conder), or from Egyptian (Rouge), or Assyrian (Delitzsch), or is of independent origin (Gesenius), cannot be determined. Aramaic is, like Hebrew and Assyrian, a North Semitic tongue, standing in a manner between them. It is more regular in its formation than either of the others, a character that may to some extent be due to its use as a lingua franca over so wide a territory. Aramaic was the official language of the extensive Persian empire, as it had been to some extent that of its predecessor, the empire of Assyria. It may be regarded as having been generally understood from Asia Minor on the North, to the Cataracts of the Nile on the South, and from the mountains of Media on the East, to the Mediterranean on the West. Its history has been long; spoken, as we learn by inscriptions, from before the days of Tiglath-pileser, it is still spoken on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates.

4. Dialects of Aramaic:

These extensive limits, geographical and chronological, imply dialectic differences. Means of communication were so ineffective that the distance between the eastern and western limits would require greater time to traverse, than does that which separates America from Europe, or New York from Brazil. The primary dialectic distinction was between eastern Aramaic (Syriac) and western (formerly called Chaldee). The peculiarity which most prominently distinguishes these is the preformative of the imperfect; in the western, as in Hebrew and Arabic, it is yodh (y), while in the eastern it is nun (n) or lamedh (l). Each of these has sub-dialects. In Palestine, besides the Chaldee of the Jewish Targums, there was the Samaritan Pentateuch; in it, besides many foreign elements in the vocabulary, the use of `ayin instead of waw in the preterite of `ayin-waw verbs is the most striking feature. The sub-dialect of eastern Aramaic is Mandean; it is characterized by the use of the matres lectionis instead of vowel signs. From the inscriptions and the papyri it would seem to follow that the eastern peculiarities are the more recent--changes introduced through passage of time. In eastern Aramaic the script became more cursive than in western, which retained the square character we associate with Hebrew: except the Samaritan, which used a still earlier script, less removed from the angular style of the inscriptions. The script of the Assouan papyri indicated a tendency toward the later square character.

5. Grammatical Peculiarities:

Although an article like the present is not the place to give a full grammar of Aramaic, yet we may advert to some of the more prominent peculiarities, common to all branches of the language, which distinguish it from Hebrew, the best-known of north Semitic tongues. The peculiarity that most strikes the beginner in Aramaic is the want of the article, and the presence instead of the status emphaticus, which follows the syntactic rules of the Hebrew article. The next thing likely to attract attention is the use of the relative pronoun zi or di as if it were a preposition meaning "of." While in Hebrew the passive voice is generally indicated in the derived conjugations by internal vocalic changes, as the pu`al from the pi`el; in Aramaic the syllable 'eth (E) or 'ith (W) is prefixed (earlier hith). Instead of the Hebrew causative hiph`il there is the 'aph`el earlier haph`el with its passive 'ethtaph`al or 'ittaph`al (earlier hoph`al). The causative had also shaph`el and taph`el forms, which occasionally are found. While in the Targums and the Old Testament Peshitta the syllable yath is the sign of the accusative (earlier vath, as in the Sinjirli inscriptions), the letter lamedh serves that purpose in Aramaic which is not a translation from Hebrew. A characteristic of later Aramaic prominent in the Peshitta of the New Testament is the facility with which it adopted words and phrases from Greek which had already largely displaced it as the common language. New Syriac shows a similar facility in regard to Arabic and Persian.

6. Comparison of the Aramaic of Sinjirli with That of the Bible:

A question of very considerable importance to the Biblical student is the relation in which the Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra stands to that of the Sinjirli inscriptions and that of the more nearly contemporary Assouan papyri. In making the comparison we must bear in mind that the Hebrew Massoretic Text is the result of transcriptions extending the Bible over 1,500 or 1,200 years, according as we take the traditional or the critical dates for the books in question. This implies probably a score or more of transcriptions each with its quota of variations from the original. While the variations introduced by any one transcription might be few and unimportant, they would all be in the direction of lateness, and cumulatively might easily become very great. The late Hebrew of Ecclesiastes, notwithstanding its ascription to Solomon, shows how little the idea of the chronology of style entered into the thoughts of the scribes of those days, to check this tendency to modernization. It follows that while the presence of late peculiarities proves nothing but the inaccuracy of the copyist, early grammatical forms and modes of spelling are nearly indisputable evidences of antiquity.

The Sinjirli inscriptions, if we neglect the less important, are three, the Panammu inscription, the Hadad inscription and the Barrekab inscription (Bauenschrift, Sachau). The first and last of these are dated in the reign of Tiglath- pileser, the middle one is placed by Sachau in the preceding century. It ought to be noted that, when first discovered, it was a matter of doubt whether the inscriptions should not be reckoned as Hebrew, rather than Aramaic The close affinity between them and Hebrew is shown in various ways. By a relation among the north Semitic tongues similar to that among the Aryan languages expressed by Grimm's law, where letters with the s- sound appear in Hebrew, in later Aramaic we find corresponding letters with the t-sound. But in the Sinjirli inscriptions we do not find this mark of the later language; thus we have sheqel, not theqel, shelathin instead of telathin, zehabh for dhehabh, etc. That this is not due to the proximity of Hebrew is proved by the fact that on the weights in Sargon's palace we find sheqel. Thus, the Sinjirli inscriptions date from a period when Hebrew and Aramaic had not been completely differentiated. There are other points of likeness. Instead of the 'aph`el and 'ethtaph`al or 'ittaph`al of later Aramaic, there is haph`el and hoph`al; instead of the 'eth or 'ith as the sign of the passive, there is hith. The vocabularies also are nearly identical. In both, the syllable yath or wath, sign of the accusative, is present, as if a survival, only as the support of the oblique case of a pronoun (Daniel 3:12; Sinjirli, Had 28). The pronouns exhibit a similar resemblance to Hebrew and also to Biblical Aramaic. The 1st person pronoun is 'anokh (once 'anokhi in Pan. 1.19), as in the Phoenician and Moabite dialects of Hebrew; 'anah occurs occasionally as in Daniel. The most marked differences from later Aramaic is "z" instead of "dh" in the demonstrative pronoun; here there is relation to the Hebrew zeh. Another case in frequent evidence is 'arqa' instead of 'ar`a.

7. Comparison of Aramaic of Assouan with That of Daniel:

More nearly contemporary with the Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra is that of the Assouan papyri. These are carefully dated, and extend from 471 BC to 411 BC; these two dates include the whole reign of Artaxerxes I, the king whose cupbearer Nehemiah was, and who sent him as governor to Jerusalem, and a few years of his predecessor's and successor's reigns. These documents, as written with a reed pen on papyrus, and not cut with a chisel on stone, manifest a very different style of letter; as already said, there is some approximation to the later square character. The resemblance between the grammar and vocabulary of these papyri and those of Biblical Aramaic is closer than that of the latter to the Sinjirli grammar and diction. Where, in the more ancient Aramaic, we have "z," in these papyri we occasionally find the later "dh." It is not improbable that, as in Spain, a lisping pronunciation became prevalent; the "dh" pronounced as "th" in "then" would in that case represent more accurately the sound actually uttered than would "z."

The word already noticed, 'arqa' which generally appears in Biblical Aramaic as 'ar`a, is a similar case. In northern Palestine the Arabic qaf is pronounced much as if it were `ain, if not even the related sound hemzeh; instances of this spelling also are found in the Assouan papyri. Both of these differences are due to frequent transcription assimilating the spelling to the pronunciation. Another peculiarity is probably due to a different cause. In Biblical Aramaic the preformative of the 3rd person singular and plural of the imperfect of the substantive verb is lamedh. Of this peculiarity Dr. Bevan gives an ingenious explanation. If the yodh preformative were used, the resulting word would have a resemblance to the sacred name: to avoid this, he thinks, the yodh was changed into a lamedh.

Unfortunately this explains too much, therefore explains nothing. Had this been the explanation, the name "Jehu," which consonantally is nearly the same as the 3rd person singular and plural of the substantive verb, would never have been written as it is. Further, if Jewish reverence for the Divine name expressed itself in this way, we should expect to find this preformative in the Targums, which, however, we do not. Hundreds of cases in proof may be found in Onkelos alone. The truth is, it is a Mandean form, which proves that the Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra is eastern. A further peculiarity is the nun compensative; as tinda` (Daniel 4:23), which regularly would be tidda`. This also is found in the Mandean; it is, however, also found in papyri of Assouan, an evidence that the Mandean characteristic was a survival from an earlier time.

8. Elephantine Papyri:

Another interesting point of contact between the Aramaic of this period and that of Daniel is exhibited in the Elephantine papyri published by Sachau. These papyri, discovered in the island of Elephantine (opposite Assouan) in 1907, are three in number, and are dated in the 14th year of Darius II (407 BC). In the first, ll. 2, 27, 28, the second, l. 26, and the third ll. 3, 4, we have God called "the God of heaven," the title given to God throughout Da 2. This is also the appellation used in the Aramaic of Ezra (5:11,12; 6:9 etc.) From the passages where it occurs it would seem that during the Babylonian and Persian rule this was the recognized governmental title of the God of the Hebrews.

9. Comparison with Aramaic of the Targums:

As it is frequently asserted that the Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra is that of the Targums, it is necessary to examine the truth of this statement. In considering this question son with we must have regard to the history of these paraphrases, as only in this way can we estimate truly the chronological value of this "great" resemblance, should it be found to exist. According to Talmudic tradition the Targums were delivered orally, and were not committed to writing till late in the 2nd century of our era. A traditional rendering was handed on from meturgeman (interpreter) to meturgeman. In such circumstances archaic forms, words and idioms, are perpetuated. The sacred always tends to preserve the antique; in illustration we need only refer to the song of the Fratres Arvales, a college of priests dating from primitive Latin times and continuing to the days of the Gordians. This sacred song of theirs preserves to us the most ancient form of the Latin tongue, though the inscriptions, from which we learn of it, date from the classic period. Hence the Aramaic of the Targums may represent the form of the language a couple of centuries before the Christian era.

10. Chief Differences in Latter:

We cannot attempt to give an exhaustive summary of the differences between Biblical and Targumic Aramaic, but indicate only some of the more obvious. Account need not be taken of yath, the sign of the accusative, as it appears only as representing the Hebrew 'eth. In verbs, reference has already been made to the "L" preformative in the substantive verb, a peculiarity which Biblical Aramaic shares with Mandean in distinction from other forms of the language: also to the fact that the hith of the earlier verbal forms is replaced by 'ith in the more recent 'ithpe`el and 'ithpa`al. This also is the case with 'aph`el (in earlier and Biblical Aramaic haph`el), the passive of which is hoph`al, not 'ittaph`al, as in Targumic. The importance of verbal forms in determining age is readily recognized; thus in English, if the 3rd person singular of the verbs in an English writing is in eth we decide that writing to belong, in fact or feigning, to a period not later than the 17th century. In regard to pronouns, while in Biblical Aramaic, as in Sinjirli and Assouan, the 1st person singular is 'an'a, in Targumic it is 'anah: the plural in Biblical Aramaic is 'anachna' akin to 'anachnah in Assouan, whereas in the Targums it is usually 'anan, though sometimes the Biblical form appears. The 2nd person singular in Biblical Aramaic is 'ant as in Assouan, with the plural 'antum (Assouan, 'antem): in Targumic it is 'att and 'attun.

To compare our own language, when we find "thou" and "ye" in a writing, we date it as not later than the 17th century. The ordinary vocabulary, though not without value in this respect, is not very important chronologically. Connective particles, however, are. Everyone acquainted with Hebrew knows how frequently yesh, "is" occurs; as frequent is 'ith in Targumic. In the Bible, the papyri, the form found is 'ithi. In the Targums 'i stands for "if"; in the Bible and papyri it is hen. Cognate with this, the Bible and the papyri have lahen, "therefore": this is not found in the Targums, which have instead `al-ken. In our own language the presence of "eke" in serious prose or poetry as a conjunction would prove the antiquity of the composition. The fact that the distinction between "c" and "s" has disappeared in the Targums, but is still preserved in the Bible, is a note of age that cannot be passed over. Other examples might be given, but these will suffice. Professor Bevan lightly dismisses many of these differences as mere matters of orthography; yet in French the presence of "l" for "u" or as strengthening the "u" in such words as alx, eulx, aultres is regarded as a note of old as distinct from modern French; yet probably the pronunciation was not different.

In pursuing this part of the subject the latter portion of Pusey's first Lecture (Daniel the Prophet) is worthy of study. Pusey had not the advantage of contemporary documents with which to compare Biblical Aramaic; he could only emphasize the nature and amount of the differences which separated the language of Daniel from that of the Targums. The argument can now be supplemented by a yet stronger argument from the resemblance between the former and the contemporary papyri of Assouan, and yet the earlier Sinjirli inscriptions. See further, SYRIAC VERSIONS; LANGUAGES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT; and compare the article "Aramaic" in Encyclopedia Biblica.

LITERATURE.

Numerous grammars and dictionaries of the two principal dialects of Aramaic, eastern (Syr) and western (Chaldee) may be seen in any catalogues. There is an excellent compendium of the grammar of Biblical Aramaic in Delitzsch's introduction to Baer's Text of Daniel and Ezra. For the Samaritan there is a small grammar by Nicholls, also one in the series "Porta Linguarum Orientalium." Noldeke has published grammars for Mandean and New Syriac

J. E. H. Thomson

Aramitess

ar-am-it'-es, ar'-am-it-es, ar'-am-it-es ('arammiyah): The term applied to the concubine-mother of Machir, the father of Gilead (1 Chronicles 7:14); the inhabitants of Gilead were thus in part Arameans (Syrians) by descent.

Aran

a'-ran ('aran, "wild goat"): A son of Dishan, the Horite (Genesis 36:28; 1 Chronicles 1:42). It may possibly be connected with the Yerahmelite Oren ('-ren) (1 Chronicles 2:25; compare Curtis, Chron. at the place; Dillmann, Ge at the place; ZDMG, L,168); Robertson Smith claims that this name is equivalent to the Samaritan ('-r-n), "wild goat" (Jour. Phil., IX, 90). J. Jacobs translates it by "ass" (Stud. Biblical Arch., 71). This is one of the many totem names in the Bible. More than one-third of the Horites, the descendants of Seir, bear animal names, and those clans of the Edomites connected with the Horites also have animal names. The very name "Self" means a "he-goat," and Dishan, "a gazelle" (Stud. Biblical Arch., 70-72). Gray, however, remarks that "the instance (Aran) is most uncertain" (HPN, 108).

Samuel Cohon

Ararah

Same as ARARAT (Tobit 1:21).