Rather than add an extremely lengthy addendum to another essay, I chose to begin a series of essays on Psalm 22 in the Septuagint.  Here is a Gospel harmony of Jesus’ words.

Chaim & Laura wrote a very moving essay on Chaim BenTorah online about ELI ELI LAMA SABACHTHANI.  It got me thinking about the possibility that the New Testament, especially the Gospel narratives, might be Greek translations of an original Hebrew or Aramaic text.  I imagined comparing it to the Greek text.

What if it lacked which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  How would I react?  Would I assume that it was the original?  Or would I assume that the translators of a Hebrew or Aramaic text had regarded it as redundant?

To get to the beautiful end of their essay Chaim & Laura made an assumption that discomforted me.  I resorted to giving my account face-to-face with Jesus.  So I considered believing that the Holy Spirit wanted me to know ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον· ὁ θεός μου |ὁ θεός μου|, εἰς τί ἐγκατέλιπες με (NET: which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”).  Then Jesus looks at me and says, “No, Dan, Chaim & Laura were right”:

the scribes added the footnote which being interpreted means…. This is in accordance with the Eastern Church which teaches that the scribes who wrote this out in Greek really did not understand what the phrase really meant, so they merely transliterated it into the Greek rather than translate it and then put in a short commentary or their own opinion and indicated this by the words that is to say… In other words they were not sure they had correctly quoted Jesus so they assumed he was speaking Psalms 22:1 and put in a little commentary to offer their opinion as to what he really said.^[4]

Then I can respond, “I’m sorry, I took it literally.”  The alternative, to believe Chaim & Laura (something they have not asked me to do, by the way), leaves me without excuse if Jesus asks me, “What does the Scripture say, Dan?”

“Don’t be so lazy,” I chided myself for rejecting their insight in a thought experiment.  Comparing a Hebrew or Aramaic Gospel to the Greek might be interesting and informative.  So I looked online but I found no Hebrew^[5] or Aramaic^[6] Gospel.  Instead, I found an essay by David N. Bivin, “Has a Gospel in Hebrew Been Found?,” on Jerusalem Perspective.  Mr. Bivin wrote on October 31, 1987:

From time to time, one hears reports of the discovery of a portion of the New Testament written in Hebrew or Aramaic. To date, such reports have proven false. There is not a single extant Hebrew-language or Aramaic-language manuscript from the early Christian era of any of the New Testament books. [Addendum: March 29, 2024, Rev. Glenn David Bauscher might dispute that claim. Without a concordance I will still be unable to study it.]

Under a heading, “My Assumptions,” Mr. Bivin continued:

I have arrived at two conclusions that serve as working hypotheses for my research:

An account of Jesus’ life was written in Hebrew, probably by one of Jesus’ original disciples.

One (or more) of the sources used by the writers of the Synoptic Gospels is derived from a Greek translation of that Hebrew account.

After this I returned to the essay by Chaim & Laura:

As I have said, Jesus spoke a Northern dialect of Aramaic…

This now brings us to the word Eli. In the Southern dialect this would mean my God.  However, in the Northern dialect, which is more colloquial, the word el would be used for more than just the word god, it was sometimes used in a descriptive sense.  A god is someone or something that has control over you. People are, for instance, controlled by their hearts desires. Thus Jesus could have been saying, “my heart.” In the Semitic languages when a word is repeated twice it is done to show emphasis.  Hence in the Old Galilean when Jesus said Eli Eli he could have been saying “listen to my heart.”  The word lama (Hebrew) or lema (Aramaic) generally is used as an interrogative, but this is not necessarily set in stone.  To use lema as a question, why am I forsaken or why have I been kept suggest that Jesus did not understand what was happening to Him. That is not my Jesus, He is God, and He is all knowing. In that context we could properly and linguistically render this not as a question but as a declaration, this is why.  In the Old Galilean lema Sabachthani means, this is why I have been kept or this is my destiny. In fact scholars have discovered this phrase still in use in that tribe that still uses the Old Galilean. They use it in the context of this is my destiny.  In other words Jesus was not speaking to God but to the people who were mourning his death, those who could understand his dialect and in His last breath what He could have been saying is, “Listen to my heart, this is my destiny.” Jesus was telling those who were in sorrow over his death, “Listen to my heart, this is why I came to earth in the first place, this is my purpose, to die for you.”

This time it occurred to me to ask, if an ancient language like Aramaic was so divergent over so small a geographical area almost two thousand years ago, why should I believe that its current usage among a contemporary tribe corrects an “error” in the Bible?  If Aramaic was that diverse in Jesus’ day, it would only make sense to address large mixed gatherings in a newer, more universal, common language used over a larger geographical area, like Koine Greek.  With all due respect to the research and assumptions of Mr. Bivin and Chaim & Laura, I’ll continue to explore Psalm 22 as the melody^[7] in Jesus’ heart as He endured the cross.

The rabbis translated שַֽׁאֲגָתִֽ (sh^eʼâgâh; Tanakh: roaring) τῶν παραπτωμάτων μου (my transgressions) in the Septuagint (Table2 below).  I can see why Jesus may have preferred to meditate on the Hebrew or Aramaic text rather than the Greek.  Morfix, which I assume is intended more for contemporary Hebrew to English translation than ancient, yields “roar, shout” when I enter שַֽׁאֲגָתִֽ (sh^eʼâgâh).  Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon on the BLB entry for Strong’s Concordance number H7581 mentions “cry of a wretched person, wrung forth by grief.”  Only the NET dictionary mentions “the wicked” in its definition of שאגתי (sh^eʼâgâh): “1) roaring 1a) of lion, the wicked, distress cry.”  But even in the words, the account of my transgressions is far from my salvation, I hear the echo of, God^[8] made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us.^[9]   And yet no follower of Nietzsche can claim that Jesus affirmed that “He died for his own sins.”^[10]

Chaim & Laura wrote about sabachthani:

As for the word Sabachthani well, we are not sure, it appears to be from the Aramaic word sbq which means to forsake or abandon for a purpose.  The Aramaic word for just simply to abandon to forsake because it is unwanted is taatani. However, it can be argued that the root word is really shwaq which means to be kept, spared or allowed or to fulfill an end. If Jesus had really meant that God had abandoned Him or forgot Him He would have used the word taatani (forsake) or nashatani (forget).

Something even more curious is that the passage suggests that Jesus is quoting Psalms 22:1 yet in Hebrew that phrase is eli, eli lama ‘azabethni not sabachthani. However the Jewish Targum (Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible) does use the Aramaic word sbq in Psalms 22:1, which is probably why the scribes added the footnote which being interpreted means….

It is certainly true that the Masoretic^[11] text has עֲזַבְתָּ֑נִי (a form of ʽâzab) here.

Chaim & Laura continued:

Indeed Jesus could have been misquoted from scribes or witnesses at the crucifixion if they were from Judea, for the Judeans spoke a Southern dialect of Aramaic but Jesus and his disciples were from the Northern part of Israel, Galilee, where they spoke a Northern dialect of Aramaic…My belief that all Scripture is the inspired Word of God makes me a little uncomfortable suggesting that the Bible misquoted Jesus.  If the Bible teaches Jesus said Sabachthani, then that is what He said, no misquotation.

As I have said, Jesus spoke a Northern dialect of Aramaic.  My studies have been in the middle dialect of Aramaic, more commonly known as the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic or Talmudic Aramaic…So I claim no expertise on the Old Galilean or Northern dialect of Aramaic. However, from my research into the Old Galilean I find that the study of the Old Galilean is a relatively new discovery.  It was felt that the Northern dialect of Aramaic or the Old Galilean dialect was a dead language, however, linguist have found a tribe in Northern Iraq that still speaks this dialect and scholars from Oxford have descended upon these people to learn some of the finer points of this dialect.

I am as moved emotionally by this—the idea that a contemporary tribe, since Jesus’ resurrection, uses lema Sabachthani (in difficult circumstances, I assume) to mean this is my destiny—as I was moved by Chaim’s & Laura’s use of this contemporary meaning of Sabachthani to translate Jesus’ words.  It’s a wash^[12] for me emotionally.  But if I will receive ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον· ὁ θεός μου |ὁ θεός μου|, εἰς τί ἐγκατέλιπες με (NET: which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”) as words inspired by the Spirit of God rather than the words of ignorant scribes I can know that Sabachthani meant ἐγκατέλιπες (a form of ἐγκαταλείπω) when Jesus said it, as the rabbis translated it in the Septuagint (Table2 below).  And Chaim’s & Laura’s essay has placed an asterisk in my mind beside one of the meanings of ἐγκαταλείπω: “to leave for future benefit.”

One more thing before I move on.  The Septuagint had πρόσχες μοι (attend to me) between My God, my God and why hast thou forsaken me.  That Jesus did not say anything like attend to me would ordinarily tip me toward the idea that the rabbis added it to the original Hebrew rather than that the Masoretes deleted it from the original.  In this particular case the content itself leaves me wondering if Jesus might have skipped it because he was too short of breath to add: I knew that you always (πάντοτε) listen to me, but I said this for the sake of the crowd standing around here, that they may believe that you sent me.^[13]

Though the Masoretic text was translated into English in the present tense, but thou hearest not (Tanakh) or but you do not answer (NET), the rabbis chose εἰσακούσῃ (a form of εἰσακούω).  An English translator can be reasonably certain they didn’t intend εἰσακούσῃ as a 3^rd person singular verb here (he did not listen or hear).  But there are two choices for the 2^nd person singular: a future tense in the indicative mood or an aorist tense in the subjunctive mood.  I assume it was the negation οὐκ (Table4 below) that tipped them to the future tense: and you will not listen (NETS) or but thou wilt not hear (English Elpenor).

It is interesting to think of the Septuagint here as more faithful to the original text, even as I consider that original text as Jesus’ prayer to his Father from the cross.  He knew He would not be saved from death.  But it’s fair to wonder whether I would have been sensitive enough to recognize this subtle difference if I hadn’t been primed by Chaim’s & Laura’s concern: “To use lema as a question, why am I forsaken or why have I been kept suggest that Jesus did not understand what was happening to Him.”

Where the Masoretic text had דֽוּמִיָּ֥ה (dûmı̂yâh), the Septuagint had ἄνοιαν (a form of ἄνοια).  The English translations of the Masoretic text, and am not silent (Tanakh) or my prayers do not let up (NET), are considerably different from those of the Septuagint, and it becomes no folly for me (NETS) or and [it shall] not [be accounted] for folly to me (English Elpenor).  So I ran דֽוּמִיָּ֥ה and דומיה through Morfix.

I don’t see how to get the one from the other.  But if I assume that the Septuagint is closer to the original Hebrew, even as I consider it as Jesus’ prayer, I hear his persistence and faith: O my God, I will cry to thee by day, but thou wilt not hear: and by night, and [it shall] not [be accounted] for folly to me.

After Peter recognized Jesus as the Christ, Jesus began to teach [his disciples] that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by^[14] the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law,^[15] and be killed, and after three days rise again.^[16]  Jesus’ prayer day and night was not folly.  I’ll let what follows stand as a testament to his faith without comment from me.

I’ll continue this in another essay.

Tables comparing Psalm 22:1; 22:2; 22:3; 22:4 and 22:5 in the Tanakh, KJV and NET, and Psalm 22:1 (22:1, 2); 22:2 (21:3); 22:3 (21:4); 22:4 (21:5) and 22:5 (22:6) in the Septuagint (BLB and Elpenor) follow.  Tables comparing Mark 15:34; Ephesians 5:19; 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Mark 8:31 in the NET and KJV follow those.