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92-467: The etymology of the name Yaldabaoth has been subject to many speculative theories. Until 1974, etymologies deriving from the unattested Aramaic : בהותא, romanized: bāhūṯā , supposedly meaning " chaos ", represented the majority opinion. After an analysis by the Jewish historian of religion Gershom Scholem published in 1974, this etymology no longer enjoyed any notable endorsement. His analysis showed

184-954: A Latin script . Periodization of historical development of Aramaic language has been the subject of particular interest for scholars, who proposed several types of periodization, based on linguistic, chronological and territorial criteria. Overlapping terminology, used in different periodizations, led to the creation of several polysemic terms, that are used differently among scholars. Terms like: Old Aramaic, Ancient Aramaic, Early Aramaic, Middle Aramaic, Late Aramaic (and some others, like Paleo-Aramaic), were used in various meanings, thus referring (in scope or substance) to different stages in historical development of Aramaic language. Most commonly used types of periodization are those of Klaus Beyer and Joseph Fitzmyer. Periodization of Klaus Beyer (1929–2014): Periodization of Joseph Fitzmyer (1920–2016): Recent periodization of Aaron Butts: Aramaic's long history and diverse and widespread use has led to

276-636: A complex set of semantic phenomena was created, becoming a subject of interest both among ancient writers and modern scholars. The Koine Greek word Ἑβραϊστί ( Hebraïstí ) has been translated as "Aramaic" in some versions of the Christian New Testament , as Aramaic was at that time the language commonly spoken by the Jews . However, Ἑβραϊστί is consistently used in Koine Greek at this time to mean Hebrew and Συριστί ( Syristi )

368-572: A man with a donkey's head. The Greek practice of interpretatio graeca , ascribing the gods of another people's pantheon to corresponding ones in one's own, had been adopted by the Egyptians after their Hellenisation ; during the process of which they had identified Seth with Typhon , a snake-monster, which roars like a lion. The story of the Exodus , featured in the Hebrew Bible , speaks of

460-562: A patribus genitus , lit.   'the child of fathers'. A theory proposed by Matter in 1828 identified the name as descending from Hebrew : ילדא , romanized :  yāldā , lit.   'child' and from Hebrew : בהות , romanized :  bahot , a supposed plural form of Hebrew : בוהו , romanized :  bōhu , lit.   'emptiness, darkness'. Matter however interpreted it to mean 'chaos', thus translating Yaldaboath as "child of darkness [...] an element of chaos". This etymology

552-482: A prestige language after being adopted as a lingua franca of the empire by Assyrian kings, and its use was spread throughout Mesopotamia , the Levant and parts of Asia Minor , Arabian Peninsula , and Ancient Iran under Assyrian rule. At its height, Aramaic was spoken in what is now Iraq , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Jordan , Kuwait , parts of southeast and south central Turkey , northern parts of

644-746: A prestige language. Following the conquest of the Sassanids by the Arabs in the 7th-century, the Aramaic-derived writing system was replaced by the Arabic alphabet in all but Zoroastrian usage , which continued to use the name 'pahlavi' for the Aramaic-derived writing system and went on to create the bulk of all Middle Iranian literature in that writing system. Other regional dialects continued to exist alongside these, often as simple, spoken variants of Aramaic. Early evidence for these vernacular dialects

736-522: A relatively close resemblance to that of the Achaemenid period, continued to be used up to the 2nd century BCE. By the end of the 2nd century BC, several variants of Post-Achaemenid Aramaic emerged, bearing regional characteristics. One of them was Hasmonaean Aramaic, the official administrative language of Hasmonaean Judaea (142–37 BC), alongside Hebrew , which was the language preferred in religious and some other public uses (coinage). It influenced

828-511: A wild ass. After the emergence of Christianity the same charge was also repeated against its devotees. Most famously so in the earliest known depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus , the Alexamenos graffito , where a Christian by the name of Alexamenos is shown worshipping a donkey-headed crucified god. According to Litwa, this tradition forms the basis for the development of Gnostic beliefs about Yaldabaoth. Gnosticism originated during

920-567: Is an emphasis on writing as words are pronounced rather than using etymological forms. The use of written Aramaic in the Achaemenid bureaucracy also precipitated the adoption of Aramaic(-derived) scripts to render a number of Middle Iranian languages. Moreover, many common words, including even pronouns, particles, numerals, and auxiliaries, continued to be written as Aramaic "words" even when writing Middle Iranian languages. In time, in Iranian usage, these Aramaic "words" became disassociated from

1012-427: Is known only through their influence on words and names in a more standard dialect. However, some of those regional dialects became written languages by the 2nd century BC. These dialects reflect a stream of Aramaic that is not directly dependent on Achaemenid Aramaic , and they also show a clear linguistic diversity between eastern and western regions. Babylonian Targumic is the later post-Achaemenid dialect found in

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1104-609: Is now called Syria, is considered the linguistic center of Aramaic, the language of the Arameans who settled the area during the Bronze Age c.  3500 BC . The language is often mistakenly considered to have originated within Assyria (Iraq). In fact, Arameans carried their language and writing into Mesopotamia by voluntary migration, by forced exile of conquering armies, and by nomadic Chaldean invasions of Babylonia during

1196-456: Is often spoken of as a single language but is actually a group of related languages. Some languages differ more from each other than the Romance languages do among themselves. Its long history, extensive literature, and use by different religious communities are all factors in the diversification of the language. Some Aramaic dialects are mutually intelligible, whereas others are not, similar to

1288-506: Is still the main spoken language, and many large cities in this region also have Suret-speaking communities, particularly Mosul , Erbil , Kirkuk , Dohuk , and al-Hasakah . In modern Israel, the only native Aramaic-speaking population are the Jews of Kurdistan , although the language is dying out. However, Aramaic is also experiencing a revival among Maronites in Israel in Jish . Aramaic

1380-481: Is the mixing of literary Hasmonaean with the dialect of Galilee . The Hasmonaean targums reached Galilee in the 2nd century AD, and were reworked into this Galilean dialect for local use. The Galilean Targum was not considered an authoritative work by other communities, and documentary evidence shows that its text was amended. From the 11th century AD onwards, once the Babylonian Targum had become normative,

1472-654: Is the son of Sophia , the personification of wisdom according to Gnosticism, with whom he contends. By creatively becoming matter in goodness and simplicity, Sophia created the imperfect Yaldabaoth, who has no knowledge of the other aeons. From his mother he received the powers of light, but he used them for evil. Sophia rules the Ogdoas, the Demiurge rules the Hebdomas. Yaldabaoth created six more archons and other fellows. The angels he created rebelled against Yaldabaoth. To keep

1564-521: Is used to mean Aramaic. In Biblical scholarship, the term "Chaldean" was for many years used as a synonym of Aramaic, due to its use in the book of Daniel and subsequent interpretation by Jerome . During the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires, Arameans , the native speakers of Aramaic, began to settle in greater numbers in Babylonia , and later in the heartland of Assyria , also known as

1656-495: The Achaemenid (Persian) conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I , Aramaic (as had been used in that region) was adopted by the conquerors as the "vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages. The use of a single official language, which modern scholarship has dubbed Official Aramaic or Imperial Aramaic , can be assumed to have greatly contributed to

1748-544: The Achaemenid Empire (539–330 BC). Mediated by scribes that had been trained in the language, highly standardized written Aramaic, named by scholars Imperial Aramaic , progressively also became the lingua franca of public life, trade and commerce throughout Achaemenid territories. Wide use of written Aramaic subsequently led to the adoption of the Aramaic alphabet and, as logograms , some Aramaic vocabulary in

1840-580: The Anti-Lebanon Mountains in western Syria . They have retained use of the once-dominant lingua franca despite subsequent language shifts experienced throughout the Middle East. The connection between Chaldean, Syriac, and Samaritan as "Aramaic" was first identified in 1679 by German theologian Johann Wilhelm Hilliger . In 1819–21 Ulrich Friedrich Kopp published his Bilder und Schriften der Vorzeit ("Images and Inscriptions of

1932-673: The Arabian Peninsula and parts of northwest Iran , as well as the southern Caucasus , having gradually replaced several other related Semitic languages. According to the Babylonian Talmud ( Sanhedrin 38b), the language spoken by Adam – the Bible's first human – was Aramaic. Aramaic was the language of Jesus , who spoke the Galilean dialect during his public ministry, as well as

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2024-702: The Aramaic alphabet , a descendant of the Phoenician alphabet , and the most prominent alphabet variant is the Syriac alphabet . The Aramaic alphabet also became a base for the creation and adaptation of specific writing systems in some other Semitic languages of West Asia , such as the Hebrew alphabet and the Arabic alphabet . The Aramaic languages are now considered endangered , with several varieties used mainly by

2116-724: The Assyrians , Mandeans , Mizrahi Jews . Classical varieties are used as liturgical and literary languages in several West Asian churches, as well as in Judaism , Samaritanism , and Mandaeism . Aramaic belongs to the Northwest group of the Semitic language family , which also includes the mutually intelligible Canaanite languages such as Hebrew , Edomite , Moabite , Ekronite, Sutean , and Phoenician , as well as Amorite and Ugaritic . Aramaic languages are written in

2208-547: The Bible : Biblical Aramaic is a somewhat hybrid dialect. It is theorized that some Biblical Aramaic material originated in both Babylonia and Judaea before the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty. Biblical Aramaic presented various challenges for writers who were engaged in early Biblical studies . Since the time of Jerome of Stridon (d. 420), Aramaic of the Bible was named as "Chaldean" (Chaldaic, Chaldee). That label remained common in early Aramaic studies , and persisted up into

2300-656: The Carpentras Stele corresponded to the Aramaic in the Book of Daniel , and in the Book of Ruth . Josephus and Strabo (the latter citing Posidonius ) both stated that the "Syrians" called themselves "Arameans". The Septuagint , the earliest extant full copy of the Hebrew Bible, a Greek translation, used the terms Syria and Syrian where the Masoretic Text , the earliest extant Hebrew copy of

2392-543: The Demiurge , "creator" of the material universe. Gnostics considered the most essential part of the process of salvation to be this personal knowledge, in contrast to faith as an outlook in their worldview along with faith in the ecclesiastical authority . In Gnosticism, the biblical serpent in the Garden of Eden was praised and thanked for bringing knowledge ( gnosis ) to Adam and Eve and thereby freeing them from

2484-533: The Euphrates , Tiglath-Pileser III made Aramaic the Empire's second official language, and it eventually supplanted Akkadian completely. From 700 BC, the language began to spread in all directions, but lost much of its unity. Different dialects emerged in Assyria, Babylonia, the Levant and Egypt . Around 600 BC, Adon, a Canaanite king, used Aramaic to write to an Egyptian Pharaoh . Around 500 BC, following

2576-533: The Pahlavi scripts , which were used by several Middle Iranian languages , including Parthian , Middle Persian , Sogdian , and Khwarezmian . Some variants of Aramaic are also retained as sacred languages by certain religious communities. Most notable among them is Classical Syriac , the liturgical language of Syriac Christianity . It is used by several communities, including the Assyrian Church of

2668-624: The Phoenician alphabet , and there is a unity in the written language. It seems that, in time, a more refined alphabet, suited to the needs of the language, began to develop from this in the eastern regions of Aram. Due to increasing Aramean migration eastward, the Western periphery of Assyria became bilingual in Akkadian and Aramean at least as early as the mid-9th century BC. As the Neo-Assyrian Empire conquered Aramean lands west of

2760-470: The Sasanian Empire (224 AD), dominating the influential, eastern dialect region. As such, the term covers over thirteen centuries of the development of Aramaic. This vast time span includes all Aramaic that is now effectively extinct. Regarding the earliest forms, Beyer suggests that written Aramaic probably dates from the 11th century BCE, as it is established by the 10th century, to which he dates

2852-672: The Sinai Peninsula , where it has been continually written and spoken in different varieties for over three thousand years. Aramaic served as a language of public life and administration of ancient kingdoms and empires, and also as a language of divine worship and religious study. Western Aramaic is still spoken by the Christian and Muslim Arameans (Syriacs) in the towns of Maaloula and nearby Jubb'adin in Syria . Other modern varieties include Neo-Aramaic languages spoken by

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2944-492: The Targum Onqelos and Targum Jonathan , the "official" targums. The original, Hasmonaean targums had reached Babylon sometime in the 2nd or 3rd century AD. They were then reworked according to the contemporary dialect of Babylon to create the language of the standard targums. This combination formed the basis of Babylonian Jewish literature for centuries to follow. Galilean Targumic is similar to Babylonian Targumic. It

3036-437: The earliest languages to be written down . Aramaicist Holger Gzella  [ de ] notes, "The linguistic history of Aramaic prior to the appearance of the first textual sources in the ninth century BC remains unknown." Aramaic is also believed by most historians and scholars to have been the primary language spoken by Jesus of Nazareth both for preaching and in everyday life. Historically and originally, Aramaic

3128-543: The fall of man through the serpent. By eating the forbidden fruit , Adam and Eve became wise and rejected Yaldabaoth. Eventually, Yaldabaoth expelled them from the ethereal region, the Paradise , as punishment. Yaldabaoth continuously attempted to deprive human beings of the gift of the spark of light which he had unwittingly lost to them, or to keep them in bondage. As punishments, he tried to make humanity acknowledge him as God. Because of their lack of worship, he caused

3220-455: The malevolent Demiurge's control. Gnostic Christian doctrines rely on a dualistic cosmology that implies the eternal conflict between good and evil, and a conception of the serpent as the liberating savior and bestower of knowledge to humankind opposed to the Demiurge or creator god , identified with the Yahweh from the Hebrew Bible. Some Gnostic Christians (such as Marcionites ) considered

3312-458: The names of God in Judaism . Thus he rendered Yald' Abaoth as 'begetter of Sabaoth'. Black objects to this, because Sabaoth is the name of one of Yaldaboth's sons in some Gnostic texts. Instead he suggests the second noun to be Jewish Aramaic : בהתייה, romanized : behūṯā , lit . 'shame'. Which is cognate with Hebrew : בושה , romanized :  bōšeṯ , a term used to replace

3404-583: The proto-orthodox Early Church Fathers . Yaldabaoth is mentioned mainly in the Archontic, Sethian, and Ophite writings of Gnostic literature , most of which have been discovered in the Nag Hammadi library . In the Apocryphon of John , "Yaldabaoth" is the first of three names of the domineering archon , along with Saklas and Samael . In Pistis Sophia he has lost his claim to rulership and, in

3496-600: The "Arbela triangle" ( Assur , Nineveh , and Arbela ). The influx eventually resulted in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) adopting an Akkadian -influenced Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of its empire. This policy was continued by the short-lived Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Medes , and all three empires became operationally bilingual in written sources, with Aramaic used alongside Akkadian. The Achaemenid Empire (539–323 BC) continued this tradition, and

3588-464: The 3rd century BCE, Greek overtook Aramaic in many spheres of public communication, particularly in highly Hellenized cities throughout the Seleucid domains. However, Aramaic continued to be used, in its post-Achaemenid form, among upper and literate classes of native Aramaic-speaking communities, and also by local authorities (along with the newly introduced Greek). Post-Achaemenid Aramaic, that bears

3680-602: The Achaemenid-era use of Aramaic was more pervasive than generally thought. Imperial Aramaic was highly standardised; its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect, and the inevitable influence of Persian gave the language a new clarity and robust flexibility. For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire (in 330 BC), Imperial Aramaic – or a version thereof near enough for it to be recognisable – would remain an influence on

3772-529: The Aramaic language and came to be understood as signs (i.e. logograms ), much like the symbol '&' is read as "and" in English and the original Latin et is now no longer obvious. Under the early 3rd-century BC Parthian Arsacids , whose government used Greek but whose native language was Parthian , the Parthian language and its Aramaic-derived writing system both gained prestige. This in turn also led to

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3864-656: The Assyrians of northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwest Iran, with diaspora communities in Armenia , Georgia , Azerbaijan , and southern Russia . The Mandaeans also continue to use Classical Mandaic as a liturgical language, although most now speak Arabic as their first language. There are still also a small number of first-language speakers of Western Aramaic varieties in isolated villages in western Syria. Being in contact with other regional languages, some Neo-Aramaic dialects were often engaged in

3956-532: The Bible, uses the terms Aramean and Aramaic ; numerous later bibles followed the Septuagint's usage, including the King James Version . This connection between the names Syrian and Aramaic was discussed in 1835 by Étienne Marc Quatremère . In historical sources, Aramaic language is designated by two distinctive groups of terms, first of them represented by endonymic (native) names, and

4048-647: The Biblical Aramaic of the Qumran texts, and was the main language of non-biblical theological texts of that community. The major Targums , translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, were originally composed in Hasmonaean Aramaic. It also appears in quotations in the Mishnah and Tosefta , although smoothed into its later context. It is written quite differently from Achaemenid Aramaic; there

4140-882: The East , the Ancient Church of the East , the Chaldean Catholic Church , the Syriac Orthodox Church , the Syriac Catholic Church , the Maronite Church , and also the Saint Thomas Christians , Syriac Christians of Kerala , India . One of the liturgical dialects was Mandaic , which besides becoming a vernacular, Neo-Mandaic , also remained the liturgical language of Mandaeism . Syriac

4232-726: The Egyptians and not commonly worshipped, in large part due to his role as the god of foreigners. From at least 200 BCE onward, a tradition developed in the Graeco-Egyptian Ptolemaic Kingdom which identified Yahweh , the God of the Jews, with the Egyptian god Seth . Diverging from previous zoologically multiplicitous depictions , Seth's appearance during the Hellenistic period onwards was depicted as resembling

4324-521: The Flood upon the human race, from which a feminine power such as Sophia or Pronoia (Providence) rescued Noah . Yaldabaoth made a covenant with Abraham , in which he was obligated to serve him along with his descendants. The Biblical prophets were to proclaim Yaldabaoth's glory, but at the same time, through Sophia's influence, they reminded people of their higher origin and prepared for the coming of Christ . At Sophia's instigation, Yaldabaoth arranged for

4416-543: The Galilean version became heavily influenced by it. Babylonian Documentary Aramaic is a dialect in use from the 3rd century AD onwards. It is the dialect of Babylonian private documents, and, from the 12th century, all Jewish private documents are in Aramaic. It is based on Hasmonaean with very few changes. This was perhaps because many of the documents in BDA are legal documents, the language in them had to be sensible throughout

4508-409: The Hebrew God of the Old Testament as the evil, false god and creator of the material universe, and the Unknown God of the Gospel , the father of Jesus Christ and creator of the spiritual world, as the true, good God. In the Archontic , Sethian , and Ophite systems, Yaldabaoth is regarded as the malevolent Demiurge and false god of the Old Testament who generated the material universe and keeps

4600-475: The Jews and exalt Egypt and its gods. In this context some Egyptians discerned similarities between Yahweh's in-narrative actions and attributes and those of Seth (such as being associated with foreigners, deserts, and storms), in addition to a phonetic resemblance between Koinē Greek : Ἰαω , romanized:  Iaō , Yahweh's name as used by hellenised Jews , and Coptic : ⲓⲱ , romanized:  Iō , lit.   'donkey', then considered as

4692-422: The Jews as a nation betrayed and subjugated by the Pharaoh , for whom Yahweh subjects Egyptians to ten plagues — destroying their country, defiling the Nile , and killing all their first-born sons. Jewish migration within the Hellenised Ptolemaic Kingdom to Greek-speaking Egyptian cities such as Alexandria led to the creation of the Septuagint , a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek . Furthermore,

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4784-409: The Past"), in which he established the basis of the paleographical development of the Northwest Semitic scripts. Kopp criticised Jean-Jacques Barthélemy and other scholars who had characterized all the then-known inscriptions and coins as Phoenician, with "everything left to the Phoenicians and nothing to the Arameans, as if they could not have written at all". Kopp noted that some of the words on

4876-440: The adoption of the name ' pahlavi ' (< parthawi , "of the Parthians") for that writing system. The Persian Sassanids , who succeeded the Parthian Arsacids in the mid-3rd century AD, subsequently inherited/adopted the Parthian-mediated Aramaic-derived writing system for their own Middle Iranian ethnolect as well. That particular Middle Iranian dialect, Middle Persian , i.e. the language of Persia proper, subsequently also became

4968-407: The angels in subjection, Yaldabaoth generated the material universe. In the act of creation, however, Yaldabaoth emptied himself of his supreme power. When Yaldabaoth breathed the soul into the first man, Adam , Sophia instilled in him the divine spark of the spirit. After matter, Yaldabaoth produced the serpent spirit (Ophiomorphos), which is the origin of all evil. The light being Sophia caused

5060-421: The animal of Seth. From this arose a popular response to the Jewish accusation that Egyptians were merely worshipping beasts, namely that, in truth, the Jews themselves worshipped a beast, a donkey or a donkey-headed man, ie Seth. Accusations of onolatry against the Jews, spread from the Egyptian milieu, with its understanding of the donkey's Seth-related importance, to the rest of the Graeco-Roman world, which

5152-428: The astonishing success of the Achaemenids in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did". In 1955, Richard Frye questioned the classification of Imperial Aramaic as an "official language", noting that no surviving edict expressly and unambiguously accorded that status to any particular language. Frye reclassifies Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Achaemenid territories, suggesting then that

5244-404: The best known is the Story of Ahikar , a book of instructive aphorisms quite similar in style to the biblical Book of Proverbs . Consensus as of 2022 regards the Aramaic portion of the Biblical book of Daniel (i.e., 2:4b–7:28) as an example of Imperial (Official) Aramaic. Achaemenid Aramaic is sufficiently uniform that it is often difficult to know where any particular example of the language

5336-413: The bodily shell and returned to the spiritual world. Aramaic Aramaic ( Jewish Babylonian Aramaic : ארמית , romanized:  ˀərāmiṯ ; Classical Syriac : ܐܪܡܐܝܬ , romanized:  arāmāˀiṯ ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia , the southern Levant , southeastern Anatolia , Eastern Arabia and

5428-426: The depths of Chaos, together with 49 demons, tortures sacrilegious souls in a scorching hot torrent of pitch. Here he is a lion-faced archon, half flame, half darkness. Yaldabaoth appears as a rebellious angel both in the apocryphal Gospel of Judas and the Gnostic work Hypostasis of the Archons . In some of these Gnostic texts, Yaldabaoth is further identified with the Ancient Roman god Saturnus . Yaldabaoth

5520-535: The development of many divergent varieties, which are sometimes considered dialects , though they have become distinct enough over time that they are now sometimes considered separate languages . Therefore, there is not one singular, static Aramaic language; each time and place rather has had its own variation. The more widely spoken Eastern Aramaic languages are largely restricted to Assyrian , Mandean and Mizrahi Jewish communities in Iraq , northeastern Syria , northwestern Iran , and southeastern Turkey , whilst

5612-419: The development of the language from being spoken in Aramaean city-states to become a major means of communication in diplomacy and trade throughout Mesopotamia , the Levant , and Egypt . After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, local vernaculars became increasingly prominent, fanning the divergence of an Aramaic dialect continuum and the development of differing written standards. "Ancient Aramaic" refers to

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5704-431: The dividing line being roughly the Euphrates , or slightly west of it. It is also helpful to distinguish modern living languages, or Neo-Aramaics, and those that are still in use as literary or liturgical languages or are only of interest to scholars. Although there are some exceptions to this rule, this classification gives "Old", "Middle", and "Modern" periods alongside "Eastern" and "Western" areas to distinguish between

5796-459: The earliest known period of the language, from its origin until it becomes the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent . It was the language of the Aramean city-states of Damascus , Hamath , and Arpad . There are inscriptions that evidence the earliest use of the language, dating from the 10th century BC. These inscriptions are mostly diplomatic documents between Aramaean city-states. The alphabet of Aramaic at this early period seems to be based on

5888-453: The earliest textual data, which termed Yaldabaoth "the King of Chaos", he was the progenitor of chaos, not its progeny. Scholem's own theory rendered the name as Yald' Abaoth. Yald' being Aramaic : ילדא, romanized : yaldā but translated as 'begetter', not 'child' and Abaoth being a term attested in magic texts, descending from Hebrew : צבאות , romanized :  Tzevaot , lit.   ' Sabaoth , armies', one of

5980-502: The extensive influence of these empires led to Aramaic gradually becoming the lingua franca of most of western Asia, Anatolia , the Caucasus , and Egypt . Beginning with the rise of the Rashidun Caliphate and the early Muslim conquests in the late seventh century, Arabic gradually replaced Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Near East . However, Aramaic remains a spoken, literary, and liturgical language for local Christians and also some Jews. Aramaic also continues to be spoken by

6072-559: The generation of Jesus through the Virgin Mary . For his proclamation, he used John the Baptist . At the moment of the baptism organized by Yaldabaoth, Sophia took on the body of Jesus and through it taught people that their destiny was the Kingdom of Light (the spiritual world), not the Kingdom of Darkness (the material universe). Only after his baptism did Jesus receive divine power and could perform miracles. But since Jesus destroyed his kingdom instead of promoting it, Yaldabaoth had him crucified . Before his martyrdom, Christ escaped from

6164-440: The history of Aramaic language. During the early stages of the post-Achaemenid era, public use of Aramaic language was continued, but shared with the newly introduced Greek language . By the year 300 BC, all of the main Aramaic-speaking regions came under political rule of the newly created Seleucid Empire that promoted Hellenistic culture , and favored Greek language as the main language of public life and administration. During

6256-460: The language of several sections of the Hebrew Bible , including parts of the books of Daniel and Ezra , and also the language of the Targum , the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible. It is also the language of the Jerusalem Talmud , Babylonian Talmud , and Zohar . The scribes of the Neo-Assyrian bureaucracy also used Aramaic, and this practice was subsequently inherited by the succeeding Neo-Babylonian Empire (605–539 BC) and later by

6348-429: The late 1st century CE in non-rabbinical Jewish and early Christian sects. In the formation of Christianity , various sectarian groups, labeled "gnostics" by their opponents, emphasised spiritual knowledge ( gnosis ) of the divine spark within, over faith ( pistis ) in the teachings and traditions of the various communities of Christians. Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God , and

6440-417: The majority opinion until a 1974 analysis by Scholem explained its origin. Consequently most scholars retracted their endorsement (for example Gilles Quispel did so by lamenting humorously that due its literary merits he believes the originator of the name Yaldabaoth had made the same erroneous association between baoth and tohuwabohu as the former majority opinion). Additionally, Scholem argued that based on

6532-478: The mutual exchange of influences, particularly with Arabic, Iranian, and Kurdish. The turbulence of the last two centuries (particularly the Assyrian genocide , also known as Seyfo "Sword" in Syriac, has seen speakers of first-language and literary Aramaic dispersed throughout the world. However, there are several sizable Assyrian towns in northern Iraq, such as Alqosh , Bakhdida , Bartella , Tesqopa , and Tel Keppe , and numerous small villages, where Aramaic

6624-417: The name Ba'al in the Hebrew Bible . Thus Blacks' proposal renders Aramaic : ילדא בהתייה, romanized : yaldā behūṯā , lit . 'son of shame/ Ba'al '. In his proposed 1967 etymology Alfred Adam already diverged from the then majority opinion and translated Aramaic : ילדא, romanized : yaldā similarly to Scholem, as German : Erzeugung , lit.   'bringing forth'. He believed

6716-458: The name's second part to derive from Syriac : ܐܒܗܘܬܗ‏ , romanized :  ˀabbāhūṯā , lit.   'fatherhood'. This he interpreted however to describe more broadly 'the power of generation'; thus suggesting the name to mean 'the bringing forth of the power of generation'. After the Assyrian conquest of Egypt during the 7th century BCE, Seth was considered an evil deity by

6808-506: The nineteenth century. The " Chaldean misnomer " was eventually abandoned, when modern scholarly analyses showed that Aramaic dialect used in Hebrew Bible was not related to ancient Chaldeans and their language. The fall of the Achaemenid Empire ( c. 334–330 BC), and its replacement with the newly created political order, imposed by Alexander the Great (d. 323 BC) and his Hellenistic successors, marked an important turning point in

6900-516: The older generations. Researchers are working to record and analyze all of the remaining varieties of Neo-Aramaic languages before or in case they become extinct. Aramaic dialects today form the mother tongues of the Arameans (Syriacs) in the Qalamoun mountains , Assyrians and Mandaeans , as well as some Mizrahi Jews . Early Aramaic inscriptions date from 11th century BC, placing it among

6992-407: The oldest inscriptions of northern Syria. Heinrichs uses the less controversial date of the 9th century, for which there is clear and widespread attestation. The central phase in the development of Old Aramaic was its official use by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–608 BC), Neo-Babylonian Empire (620–539 BC), and Achaemenid Empire (500–330 BC). The period before this, dubbed "Ancient Aramaic", saw

7084-539: The other one represented by various exonymic (foreign in origin) names. Native (endonymic) terms for Aramaic language were derived from the same word root as the name of its original speakers, the ancient Arameans . Endonymic forms were also adopted in some other languages, like ancient Hebrew . In the Torah (Hebrew Bible), "Aram" is used as a proper name of several people including descendants of Shem, Nahor, and Jacob. Ancient Aram , bordering northern Israel and what

7176-481: The period from 1200 to 1000 BC. Unlike in Hebrew, designations for Aramaic language in some other ancient languages were mostly exonymic. In ancient Greek , Aramaic language was most commonly known as the "Syrian language", in relation to the native (non-Greek) inhabitants of the historical region of Syria . Since the name of Syria itself emerged as a variant of Assyria, the biblical Ashur , and Akkadian Ashuru,

7268-521: The severely endangered Western Neo-Aramaic language is spoken by small Christian and Muslim communities in the Anti-Lebanon mountains , and closely related western varieties of Aramaic persisted in Mount Lebanon until as late as the 17th century. The term "Old Aramaic" is used to describe the varieties of the language from its first known use, until the point roughly marked by the rise of

7360-620: The situation with modern varieties of Arabic . Some Aramaic languages are known under different names; for example, Syriac is particularly used to describe the Eastern Aramaic variety spoken by Syriac Christian communities in northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, and northwestern Iran, and the Saint Thomas Christians in Kerala , India. Most dialects can be described as either "Eastern" or "Western",

7452-456: The souls trapped in physical bodies, imprisoned in the world full of pain and suffering that he created . However, not all Gnostics regarded the creator of the material universe as inherently evil or malevolent. For instance, Valentinians believed that the Demiurge is merely an ignorant and incompetent creator, trying to fashion the world as well as he can, but lacking the proper power to maintain its goodness. They were regarded as heretics by

7544-592: The story of the Exodus was adapted by Ezekiel the Tragedian into the Ancient Greek : ἐξαγωγή , romanized :  Exagōgḗ , a Greek play performed in Alexandria and seen by Egyptians and Jews. Egyptian receptions of the Exodus story were widely negative, because it insulted their gods and praised their suffering. Thus it inspired Egyptian works retelling the story, but changing its details to mock

7636-485: The unattested Aramaic term to have been fabulated and attested only in a single corrupted text from 1859, with its listed translation having been transposed from the reading of an earlier etymology, whose explanation seemingly equated " darkness " and "chaos" when translating an unattested supposed plural form of Hebrew : בוהו , romanized :  bōhu . The first etymology was advanced in 1575 by Feuardentius , supposedly translating it from Hebrew to mean Latin :

7728-546: The various languages and dialects that are Aramaic. The earliest Aramaic alphabet was based on the Phoenician alphabet . In time, Aramaic developed its distinctive "square" style. The ancient Israelites and other peoples of Canaan adopted this alphabet for writing their own languages. Thus, it is better known as the Hebrew alphabet . This is the writing system used in Biblical Aramaic and other Jewish writing in Aramaic. The other main writing system used for Aramaic

7820-579: The various native Iranian languages . Aramaic script and – as ideograms – Aramaic vocabulary would survive as the essential characteristics of the Pahlavi scripts . One of the largest collections of Imperial Aramaic texts is that of the Persepolis Administrative Archives , found at Persepolis , which number about five hundred. Many of the extant documents witnessing to this form of Aramaic come from Egypt , and Elephantine in particular (see Elephantine papyri ). Of them,

7912-611: Was also the liturgical language of several now-extinct gnostic faiths, such as Manichaeism . Neo-Aramaic languages are still spoken in the 21st century as a first language by many communities of Assyrians , Mizrahi Jews (in particular, the Jews of Kurdistan / Iraqi Jews ), and Mandaeans of the Near East , with the main Neo-Aramaic languages being Suret (~240,000 speakers) and Turoyo (~250,000 speakers). Western Neo-Aramaic (~3,000) persists in only two villages in

8004-796: Was developed by Christian communities: a cursive form known as the Syriac alphabet . A highly modified form of the Aramaic alphabet, the Mandaic alphabet , is used by the Mandaeans . In addition to these writing systems, certain derivatives of the Aramaic alphabet were used in ancient times by particular groups: the Nabataean alphabet in Petra and the Palmyrene alphabet in Palmyra . In modern times, Turoyo (see below ) has sometimes been written in

8096-550: Was endorsed by Schenke , Böhlig , and Labib . The latter two also cited a supposed attestation for Aramaic : בהותא, romanized: bāhūthā , lit . 'chaos'. This supposed attestation stemmed from a Targum and was merely a corrupted reading of Aramaic : כהותא, romanized: kāhūthā , lit . 'strife' published in a 1859 Bible. This pseudo-variant was translated in Jastrow 's popular Aramaic dictionary as 'confusion'. Helped by these events, Hilgenfeld's etymology remained

8188-468: Was largely ignorant of this context. In the most famous variations of narratives alleging Jewish onolatry Antiochus IV Epiphanes , a Seleucid king famous for raiding the Jerusalem Temple , supposedly discovered that its Holiest of Holies was not empty, but instead contained a donkey idol, and Tacitus (early second century CE) claimed that the Jews dedicated in their holiest shrine a statue of

8280-440: Was popular due to its perceived literary merits. It inspired Adolf Hilgenfeld to keep Matter's proposed 'chaos' translation, while fabulating a more plausible sounding, but unattested second noun: Aramaic : בהותא, romanized: bāhūthā , deriving the name from Aramaic : ילדא בהותא, romanized: yaldā bāhūthā supposedly meaning ' child of chaos' in 1884. This became the late 19th, early 20th-century majority opinion, which

8372-421: Was the language of the Arameans , a Semitic-speaking people of the region between the northern Levant and the northern Tigris valley. By around 1000 BC, the Arameans had a string of kingdoms in what is now part of Syria , Lebanon , Jordan , Turkey , and the fringes of southern Mesopotamia ( Iraq ). Aramaic rose to prominence under the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC), under whose influence Aramaic became

8464-487: Was written. Only careful examination reveals the occasional loan word from a local language. A group of thirty Aramaic documents from Bactria have been discovered, and an analysis was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdia . Biblical Aramaic is the Aramaic found in four discrete sections of

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