The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

WlLCOX The Aramaic Background of the New Testament 369
contained forms, seem a thing of the past. In recent times J.A.L. Lee 11
and G.R. Horsley 12 have argued against such hypotheses, but one would
have thought that that battle was over, for the present at least. What
would make rather more sense is the use of 'in'-terms and expressions
which are not as such foreign to the basic language, but echo some of
the special concerns of various groups. The more direct influence of
Aramaic and Hebrew words, phrases and idioms is likely to be rather
more sporadic, somewhat as we find with bilingual people, who speak
both languages well and quite idiomatically most of the time, but in
moments of forgetfulness or emotion, occasionally make slips of
vocabulary, syntax and idiom. An interesting example of this situation
is found in Acts 1.15, 2.44, 46(D), 47, especially 44 and 47. Here we
have in the Greek text a use of the phrase ETC! TO OCUTO, which in the
LXX usually represents represents the Hebrew irr, mrr, 'together'.
Now while in Acts 1.15, this meaning may just fit, it will not do in
Acts 2.44-47. In 1953, the present writer, while working on the
original text of a PhD thesis, came upon the term in Hebrew in 1QS to
denote 'the fellowship', 'community'. 13 Further, the very combinations
TtpoaTiOevcu erci TO OTUTO and elvai ETC! TO cano, meaning
respectively, 'to join the fellowship' and 'to belong to the fellowship'
appear in Acts 1.15 and 2.47 respectively. 14 In Acts 2.47 this is a clear
solution for a long-known crux where the text-critical data show
attempts by early scribes to make sense of readings otherwise quite
opaque. This does not, of course, mean that Acts at these points is in
any way dependent upon 1QS or, indeed, on any other text from
Qumran, but merely that we have recovered a new meaning for an
otherwise long-known Hebrew word (and phrase), and also for two
related idioms. Was the immediate instance of this use Hebrew or
Aramaic? To this we can only say that the evidence which we actually
have is from Hebrew, not Aramaic, but then, until the discovery of
11. A Lexical Study of the Septuagint Version of the Pentateuch (SBLSGS 14;
Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983).
12. 'The Fiction of "Jewish Greek"', in New Documents Illustrating Early
Christianity 5 (1989), pp. 5-40.
13. The Semitisms of Acts i.-xv: a Critical and Linguistic Study' (Edinburgh,
1955), pp. 128-38, subsequently published as The Semitisms of Acts (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1965), pp. 93-100.
14.