Customer Reviews

Aramaic Light on the Gospel of Matthew

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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
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This book is called a commentary and that's exactly what it is. But don't be fooled: if you think commentaries must be dry and boring, you should read this book. I'd even recommend you to take this book on your holidays, because it is not only extremely learned but also written so wonderfully well that you almost think it is entertainment. Jesus and his times become alive. Customs, traditions and idioms are explained and not only that, Dr. Rocco Errico, Master student of the world renowned Assyrian Scholar George Lamsa (Lamsa-Bible!) translated the Gospel of Matthew anew considering exactly the mentioned idioms, the psychology, the customs and most importantly: the Aramaic language, which was Jesus' language. I am a translator myself, nothing sophisticated, "just" English into German, but I see the problem of translating idioms, how quickly one is trapped as a translator. How much more difficult must it be if you translate from Aramaic into Greek into Latin into English. And even more a few thousand years ago! Yes, I know, the common opinion is that sacred scriptures have only survived in the Greek language. But this is not true. But that's beside the point here. Important is that Biblical scholars nowadays acknowledge at least that the Gospels were originally written in Aramaic (even if they don't believe we still have these manuscripts, but we do). A doctor of Theology in Germany admitted to me a while ago that biblical scholars indeed do re-translate the Greek text into Aramaic and then certain passages begin to make sense. But again, Lamsa and Errico do not base their work on re-translations from Greek into Aramaic, not at all! The Church of the East always had the old manuscripts, handed down from their author's times, unaltered, but meticulously copied and kept well (read New Testament Origins by Lamsa). "Aramaic Light on the Gospel of Matthew" is scientifically founded stuff, alive, fascinating - a real page turner.

As a seminary graduate and having studied Greek and Hebrew, I have found Dr Errico's book on Matthew (and all of his other works) excellent additions to my library. In my work I regularly do research and prepare lectures from the Bible and other religious texts, and Dr. Errico's scholarly yet practical writting style is immensely helpful. There is indeed true and real light thrown onto the words of Jesus when they are read and understood in the language which he, himself, spoke. I find Dr Errico's comments and applications of the text wonderfully encouraging. Thank you, Dr Errico!

He was from the Middle East,studied at Oxford and came home and reinterpreted the text understanding the idioms of the language
that no westerner could.
Mind blowing.Mind Expanding.A must read.

This book is interesting. On one hand, it reads more like a book than a commentary. On the other hand, for a commentary it is accessible to the general public and certainly not scholarly with its wording.

The main purpose is to expose the reader to some contextual problems of reading the Bible from a western mindset through a language not easily transferrable from the original. With one of the authors claiming to have been brought up in a near eastern setting, some of the insights are intriguing and worth pondering over.

The main thrust is dealing with the idiomatic expressions with a little personal theology built-in. Hard line literalists will simply hate this book since it relies on the gray instead of the black and white.

The one MAJOR caution I would suggest is that unless you're going to read the whole book, don't buy it. There are certainly some areas where if a person used this text as a commentary and pulled out a specific verse, they would definitely miss the author's intention since there are multiple lines of theology coursing through this text. However, if you are going to read the whole thing, and it is honestly a pretty easy read for a commentary, you will be able to temper some of the more questionable commentary against the background of the whole text.

I had thought this book would be a neutral, scholarly approach to Gospel of Matthew in light of the customs in Palestine at the time of Jesus. But at least half the book is related to the doctrines of the Unity Church, of which one of the authors/editors is a minister of. A lot of the commentary has nothing to do with Near East customs, but is based on the teachings of the Unity Church. I did get some useful information out of the parts that were actually about the customs (hence two stars and not one); but the ratio of useful information to the size of the book wasn't enough to justify me buying the book.