Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar and Nevim Arith Hayomin:
Romans 8:15: “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba Father.”
“In Congress when someone makes a joke, it becomes a law.” – Will Rogers
About 40 years ago a scholar named Jochim Jeremias wrote in religious journal that the Aramaic word “abba” is like baby talk and represents the sound a baby makes when first trying to say “father.” For this reason the word “abba” really means “daddy.” Scholars of Semitic languages immediately attacked this notion and Dr. Jeremias quickly retracted his statement indicating that it was very misleading. However, he did not retract the statement in time and it was picked up by preachers and teachers more interested in wowing their congregations than linguistic accuracy and this idea of calling God “daddy” became viral. This is just another example of how urban legend finds its way into the Christian faith and becomes dogma.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe we have a Scriptural basis to call God “daddy” but this is based upon the word used for “beloved” in the Song of Solomon. That word is “dodi” which many scholars believe is the basis of the word for Daddy. So if you want to called God your “beloved” Go right ahead and use the Hebrew word for beloved, dodi, which sounds an awful lot like “daddy.”
About the word “abba,” what does it really mean? We really do not know. We only assume by the context it means “father.” But this is really only an educated guess. Even in English we play around with that word “father.” We have a biological father, a surrogate father, the father of our country, the father of time, and one may call a mentor more of a father than our natural father’s if their natural father was not a “real” father. What did Jesus really mean when he was praying to “Abba” in the garden, how does that relate to the trinity? Why did Paul have to repeat the word father in Greek. Do we really read the verse as “we cry Father, Father?” Why did Paul use the Aramaic word for Father and then the Greek word? Did this indicate that Abba is something greater than a father? We simply do not know and can only make an educated guess.
I stress the fact that Abba is an Aramaic word as I hear many Christians wrongfully refer to it as a Hebrew Word. Academically, Hebrew is a dialect of the Aramaic or a sister language. There are numerous dialects of the Aramaic, many which are lost, many which had gone into extinction and a few which exist today. There is no one static Aramaic language. The Aramaic language, in its 3,000 year history, has shared over a dozen different scripts, including the Assyrian or Square script used in Hebrew today. Generally speaking, Aramaic is to Hebrew like German is to English. If you listen closely enough to German you can pick up some words which are very similar to English and maybe even get some understanding. In the Indiana Jones movie there is one scene where a German agent approaches Indiana Jones and says: “Der Herr ein de bar spreaken de.” You don’t need to be fluent in German to know that he was telling Indiana Jones that the gentleman in the bar wants to speak with him. Still, there exist major differences between the two languages particularly when we are faced with Aramaic idioms.
In the time of Jesus Koine Greek was the international language and most people spoke this language. Latin was used by the Roman soldiers , Roman lawyers and politicians of Rome. But among themselves the Jews spoke an Eastern dialect of Aramaic. Jesus most likely spoke Old Galilean which is a dialect of Eastern Aramaic. Mel Gibson had scholars research this dialect so he could use it in his movie The Passion of The Christ. Where certain words or phrases were not to be discovered he filled it in with Biblical Aramaic, the Aramaic used in Daniel and Ezra. Biblical Aramaic is sort of a hybrid of Hebrew and Chaldean (Babylonian Aramaic).
Up until a few years ago it was generally accepted that the New Testament was written in Greek. However, recent archeological discoveries has caused the jury to reconvene and consider the idea that the Gospels may have been written in Aramaic and a few years later translated into Greek. There is gaining acceptance that the Book of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic and as a result there is sort of a revival in the study of Aramaic taking place, especially since the Mel Gibson’s movie. Oxford University usually had maybe three or four students studying Eastern Aramaic and found over forty students signing up for the class with professors and other noted scholars among them.
Why is this important? Well, it is very difficult to translate the Aramaic into another language. So if the Book of Matthew were translated from Aramaic into Greek, there is reason to take a closer look at the translation. If even the Book of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic and later translated into Greek, we may have a whole new insight into many of the teachings of the New Testament that have been locked up for 2,000 years.
One Aramaic word is of great curiosity, it is the word Abba, as indicated earlier, we really do not know how to properly translate it or if there is even an English equivalent for the word. There may very well be no Greek equivalent which may explain why the Apostle Paul followed the word Abba with the Greek word “pater.” Perhaps this new interest into the study of the Eastern Aramaic just may tell us something even more profound about the word “Abba” than its recent misuse as “daddy.”
What we do know is that in Aramaic the definite article is an Aleph at the end of the word, unlike Hebrew where the definite article is a Hei at the beginning of the word. Hence the Aleph at the end of the word, Abba, would mean we would render it as “The Father.” Also the Aleph represents God. What did Paul really mean when he said that we would cry: “Abba Father.” Abba means The Father. It is followed in the Greek by the word “pater” which means father in Greek but is preceded by a nominative singular masculine definite article “Ho,” which would then be rendered “The Father.” Hence we would cry: “The Father (Aramaic), The Father (Greek).” Was Paul trying to show us something really significant about this Aramaic word that he had to use the Aramaic because he could not express it in the Greek? You know what, I have no idea and apparently no one else has any idea what the Apostle Paul really meant and what the true meaning of Abba is, but if archeological research continues with their study of Eastern Aramaic, we may just know in the next few years.
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