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It was my desire, prior to the translation of the Four Gospels from Aramaic, to publish a thesis on the origin of the New Testament showing that no portion thereof was originally written in Greek. I have spent many years studying the subject, collecting material, and doing research work. But, not having financial backing, I abandoned that idea and began translating the Aramaic New Testament text into English. Thanks to God, and to the American and British Press, and the warm reception which the work received from ministers, Bible students, and the public, I was enabled to carry on and complete the translation of the entire New Testament and the Book of Psalms, and the writing of a commentary on the Gospels and another on the rest of the New Testament.
Since the publication of these works, hundreds of letters have come from scholars, educators, ministers, Bible students, and men and women who love the teaching of Jesus, and who are eager for new light on it. Some want to know why this work was not done before. Some ask if Aramaic is still spoken; others inquire about the Eastern text, Aramaic dialects, and Christians in biblical lands. Some are surprised to learn that in Syria alone there are about a million Christians today who pray in Aramaic, and that some of them speak it.
I have no theory of my own to support. I have simply translated the Eastern text of the New Testament from Aramaic, which is my mother tongue, into English, my adopted tongue. The Aramaic Eastern text is venerated by all Christians in the Near East and India, by Eastern Christians (wrongly called Nestorians), Roman Catholics, and Monophysites, and its originality and authority are upheld by all ancient churches of the East as well as by the Moslems. Only within the past two decades have Eastern Christians heard of the theory that the New Testament was first written in Greek.
The Aramaic text speaks for itself; it needs no defense. It is strongly supported by internal evidence, by the Aramaic style of writing, idioms, metaphors, and Oriental mannerisms of speech. Since Christianity is an Eastern religion, the Scriptures must have been written in an Eastern tongue. This fact will be recognized easily by any philologist familiar with Semitic languages. I am one of the millions in biblical lands--both Christians and Mohammedans-who believe that the New Testament was first written in Aramaic, and that our texts were carefully handed down from apostolic times.
Twenty-five years ago Aramaic was scarcely known in America. Today many notable scholars and Bible students are turning to Aramaic for a better understanding of the Scriptures. Most of those prominent scholars who maintained, some years ago, that certain portions of the Four Gospels were first written in Aramaic, now say that the whole of the New Testament originally was written in Aramaic.
Aramaic is indeed the key to the Scriptures and an answer to many New Testament problems. Not a word of the Scriptures was originally written in Greek. Greek Christians themselves always have taken it for granted that the Scriptures were written in Aramaic. Greece being close to Syria, the Greek people were the first Europeans to embrace Christianity.
My own people, the Assyrians, were ruled by the Turks for nearly six hundred years. We spoke, wrote, and prayed in the Aramaic language of our forefathers. A few men spoke Turkish. I was one of the very few who had learned the Turkish tongue.
The contention of some of the scholars that the New Testament was first written in Creek is the main reason that for centuries the Scriptures have been subjected to unsuccessful revisions.