The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

WlLCOX The Aramaic Background of the New Testament 365
Hippocrates, a very important step in diagnosis). 7 After the girl had
come out of the coma, and was back on her feet, he told the parents to
give her something to eat. All this is highly consistent with her condition
being due to an episode of hypoglycaemia, either due to diabetes
or just in its own right. Yet this side of the matter is not really what
the Evangelist sees as the point of the story, for he seems to think of it
as a 'raising from the dead' (and so, of course, it may have appeared
to the bystanders). 8
Yet although Aramaic appears to be Jesus' home-language, that does
not mean that he spoke only Aramaic. Moreover, there are other
examples of this transliterated Semitic (i.e., Aramaic or Hebrew)
speech where the balance of probability leans towards Hebrew.
Furthermore, in the Parable of the Wicked Vinedressers (Mk 12.1-12)
the quotation of Ps. 118.22-23 in vv. 10-11 is apparently the 'callline'
of the parable, yet there is no obvious cue in it except in Hebrew
to link it to its context. Thus, if we think of XiOoq as = Hebrew p»,
then we may indeed have a play on words here: the p» (= stone)
which the builders disregarded may recall the pronunciation pK (for
'son'), sometimes found in Hebrew in place of the better known and
attested p. But this cannot take place in either Aramaic or Greek-but
only in Hebrew.
Borderline cases are provided by ephphatha (Mk 7.34), abba (Mk
14.36; cf. Gal. 4.6 and Rom. 8.15), and qorban (Mk 7.11; cf. Mt.
15.5). In all three the language is probably Aramaic, but the words do
also occur in Hebrew, and that attested by first and second century
inscriptions, as well as the later Targumic and other traditional texts. 9
When we move away from transliterated Aramaic (and Hebrew), to
other Aramaisms (and Hebraisms), we come up against the widely
held view that the Semitisms of the Gospels and Acts are basically
'septuagintalisms', that is, words, phrases and idioms, Semitic in
appearance, but due to conscious or unconscious influence of the LXX
upon the style, vocabulary and idiom of those books. A number of
7. For another example of this, more clearly displaying the 'history-taking', see
Mk 9.14-29, the story of the healing of the epileptic boy.
8. Wilcox, 'TaXvGa Koujafv] in Mark 5.41', in LOGIA. Les Paroles de
Jesus—The Sayings of Jesus. Memorial Joseph Coppens (BETL 59; ed. J. Delobel;
Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1982), pp. 469-76.
9. See Wilcox, 'Semitisms', pp. 995-98, 998-99, 1002-1004, and also Anchor
Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), s.v.