NKJV & LAMSA
TRANSLATION USE:
I have decided to use the New King James Version (NKJV) for the Scriptural reference of the Hebrew and Aramaic Protestant
Old Testament. I used Dr. Lamsa’s translation for the Aramaic New Testament. Unless otherwise stated, the Scriptural
References are coming from those two sources. Additionally, The New American Bible translation was sometimes used to quote
the Deuterocanonical Books.
I had initially mainly used Dr. Lamsa’s Translation of the Old and New Testaments. I then made corrections in
round or square brackets to his translation when I disagreed with his translation. Recently, I decided against using Dr. Lamsa’s
Translation of the Old Testament because it has many errors and / or mistranslations. His translation isn’t always faithful
to the Aramaic Peshitta Old Testament. Sometimes he will translate an Aramaic word differently than its most obvious meaning,
when in fact the most obvious meaning is what the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments say.
* See EXAMPLES below
Ideally I would have liked to use one Bible Translation that used the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament for its translation
of the Old Testament plus used the Aramaic Peshitta text for its translation of the New Testament. Since no such Translation
exists yet I am compelled to use the NKJV for the Old Testament text and the Lamsa Translation for the New Testament text.
I decided against using the King James Version for the Old Testament reference because that translation uses old English
such as “thou, ye, art, –eth, -est, etc. The original Hebrew text doesn’t use those archaic expressions
or separate between the words “You” or “Thou” when used for God or humans. The NKJV updates the KJV
into modern English plus corrects or makes better the KJV from the original Hebrew and Aramaic texts. It is a faithful translation
of the original Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament. That is not to say the NKJV is perfect. No Translation is perfect as of
yet.
In some places the
NKJV interprets the Hebrew or Greek text correctly and departs from the homophobic and wrong KJV interpretations, but not
in all of them. I referenced the KJV in some places when I needed to show that the translation was incorrect in its interpretation
or to prove that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic. In one place (Daniel 1:9), I used the KJV text because
it is more accurate to the Hebrew text than the NKJV.
In some places I used Dr. Lamsa’s Translation of an Old Testament verse to prove what the Aramaic Old Testament says.
This was done to give a legitimate alternate interpretation of the verse, meaning, the Hebrew text can say the same thing
as the Aramaic translation, but isn’t interpreted as such in the major English Bible Translations.
Other miscellaneous references
to the King James Version, New International Version, Living Bible, Greek Translation, etc are used to show the dishonesty
of their translators.
*A COUPLE EXAMPLES:
They slay the widow and the innocent (stranger), and murder the fatherless.”
(Psalm. 94:6 Lamsa). The Aramaic word a-mo-ra literally means “an inhabitant,”
but can also mean “an alien, stranger or foreigner.” I don’t know why Dr. Lamsa translated this Aramaic
word as “the innocent.” None of my Lexicons define this word as such; plus the Hebrew or Greek text would disagree
with his interpretation.
“And there shall
come forth a shoot out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots; And he shall be at peace, and
the Spirit of the LORD shall rest (dwell) upon him…” (Isa. 11:1-2 Lamsa). The Hebrew and Greek texts don’t
have the additional underlined words. The Aramaic text has those words but they shouldn’t be translated as Dr. Lamsa
interpreted them. The first part of verse two should be: “And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest
and shall dwell upon him…” The Hebrew word nu-a-kh means “to
rest, dwell” and the Aramaic translation wanted to convey both of those meanings for the same Hebrew word at this verse.
–So again we see Dr. Lamsa translating a verse differently than what the Aramaic most obviously says when the obvious
meaning is what the original Hebrew text says.
There are more examples
in Dr. Lamsa’s Translation that I could give when his Translation doesn’t appear to be what the Aramaic text says.
But these two examples plus others elsewhere on my website where I made corrections in normal text (i.e. not bold text)
should be enough.