As It Was In the Beginning A Commentary on the Value of the Study of the Aramaic Bible

I am often asked what special insights Aramaic Bible studies have to offer. After all, the Bible is and has been studied extensively for hundreds of years. Scripture eludes easy understanding and challenges its readers to seek ways to uncover the message it proclaims. The quest for understanding the sacred text takes many forms. The methods and goals of biblical criticism arise with the kinds of questions we have about the Bible's meaning. The search for understanding the Bible's meaning originates with particular questions not only about the content of individual books, but also about when, why, and how these books were produced. Most laymen study the Bible to learn the meaning of its teachings. In contemplating the meaning of the scriptures, the texts are taken at face value, interpreted, and understood within the context of the longstanding consensus of their peers. The layman usually accepts the Bible used by their peers as the definitive version.

Biblical scholars, however, have a very different approach to Bible study. When scholars realized the Bible had been physically handed down in manuscripts that are not identical to one another, they set out to establish what the sources of the written form of the tradition were, in number and kind, and whether the process of transmission was reliable. At first this required that the known manuscripts be catalogued and compared. Then a critical edition could be prepared, which showed where the major variations in wording and placement of biblical texts occurred. The goal of this level of biblical study, called textual criticism, was to establish a trustworthy text. After all, without a text that one could feel was reliable, how could one have confidence in the words the text conveyed?

Other scholars were prompted by an interest to know about the kinds of materials contained in the Bible and how they may have related to the real lives of those who were responsible for producing it. In view of the realization that the transmission of biblical tradition may be quite complex, these scholars set out to catalogue the various shapes that tradition, preserved in the Bible, took. With the help of comparison with other ancient literature, contemporaneous with the Bible, they were able to isolate narrative, poetic, cultic, legal, literary and historical materials, which had their own definite shapes or forms. These, they conjectured, functioned in relation to the various circumstances of life in the ancient biblical world. Such criticism came to be known as form criticism.

The desire to know the origin of biblical traditions went beyond the establishment of a reliable text and inquired into the sources of the stories and narratives included in the Bible. Often comparison of biblical texts with other ancient literatures, or with other texts in the Bible itself, was helpful in isolating subtle differences among these texts. The noted differences became important clues. They may indicate, for example, that some biblical stories did not originate only with their written transmission. It is very likely that these stories, or at least some parts of them were, at first, handed on by word of mouth. Or, the observed differences of style, vocabulary, and viewpoint may show that a given biblical story was passed on in more than one form.

Once sources and composite elements of biblical texts could be identified, it was inevitable that interest would turn to the persons who collected and ordered these materials in continuous biblical books. Naturally scholars wanted to know if the process was merely one of collection, or whether it involved editing and composition as well. Out of this method of biblical criticism, called redaction criticism, emerged the identity of particular biblical authors, or editors, known largely from how they shaped the traditions they received into an ordered and continuous form. One advantage of this type of biblical criticism was that it could study the history of given biblical traditions, by paying attention to the author's writing style, the choice and use of vocabulary, and the ways the content of biblical tradition was modified over time. This method is especially helpful in studying how the first three Gospels tell the story of Jesus in strikingly similar ways, yet with individual variations. Once scholars felt reasonably sure that Mark wrote his Gospel first, and that both Matthew and Luke used some form of Mark in composing their own Gospels, they could point to the modifications of stories evident in all three and offer suggestions about the interest of each of the Gospel authors in any given tradition about Jesus.

Moving beyond the questions of the sources, shapes and styles of biblical tradition one comes to the question of history. Do the traditions of the Bible emerge under particular historical circumstances that influence their content? If so, what can they tell us about those historical circumstances? In addition to knowing about the authorship of biblical texts, historical methods of biblical criticism are interested in knowing why, for whom and to what end the Bible was written. With the aid of modern methods of historical study, some biblical critics try to depict the world of the Bible in terms of its culture, society and religion. Sometimes this amounts to representing the Bible in its day by describing the world out of which it emerged and comparing the communities that produced biblical books with their ancient contemporaries. At other times this type of biblical criticism is enhanced by methods employed in the social sciences. Sociology, anthropology and ethnography can be very useful in analyzing biblical texts and can help to situate the Bible in its own world.

If your interest is mainly in the origins of the Bible, what it meant at the time it was being written, you will follow a method of interpretation that looks at the time, place and circumstances under which a given biblical book originated. Knowledge of the language and idiom of the day, as well as awareness of cultural and historical circumstances, will be essential in such an endeavor. Familiarity with ancient religion, philosophy and literature is a valuable aid for understanding some of the riddles of biblical texts. Other helpful disciplines are archaeology and ancient history, which might supply a context and help to avoid anachronistic reading of biblical texts.

Frequently, methods that are primarily concerned with this kind of historical interpretation of the Bible are called diachronic. The literal meaning of this word is "through time," that is, over a span of time. Diachronic methods of biblical interpretation are then interested in how the books of the Bible originated and how they changed down through the time of the biblical period. Traditional diachronic methods fit within approaches that are historical-critical, such as source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism and the study of the history of a tradition.

As long as people search for answers to their questions about the Bible, biblical criticism will flourish. Time has shown how biblical interpretation is always a product of its age that accommodates itself to the questions and interests of the day. Methods of biblical criticism come in and out of fashion to the extent that they are useful in helping people to understand the origins of the Bible and to appropriate its meaning for their lives. In summary, we have discussed several sources of error in the Bible as it exists today: 1.The natural changes that take place over an extended period of oral transmission; 2.Errors in the original transmission due to the lack of understanding of Jesus' intent; 3.Copying errors resulting from the tedious process of hand copying, which was the only means of reproduction for the centuries before the invention of the printing press; 4.Translation errors resulting from the lack of understanding of linguistic rules, grammar and idioms, and of the culture; 5.Errors resulting from the translator's unconscious bias toward personal convictions, i.e., human bias; 6.Intentional innovation: conscious additions to the scripture for prejudicial, political or other reasons.

The importance of these errors lies in their effect on the basic doctrines of Christianity. Verses that seem to support some of the fundamental doctrines of today's Christianity may well be mistranslated or taken out of their cultural and temporal context, thus giving a distorted picture of the original teachings of Jesus. This may be discouraging to searching Christians. It should not be. Though humans may have introduced distortion, none of this possible distortion affects the fact that two thousand years ago a man walked on earth, delivering a message of hope and strength. He spoke of the coming Kingdom of God, and how to gain admission to it. He taught us how to love and worship God with our whole beings, and thus win the prize of redemption. No human interference can ever change the essential truth of Christ's message, but clearly discerning it from our human concepts may seem almost impossible. A look at some of the basic doctrines of Christianity may help clarify the issue.

Those who translate the written word from one language into another warn us that original meanings are often lost in the process. Unless one understands the idioms, customs, psychology and other factors indigenous to a particular culture, accuracy in translation becomes very difficult. It is widely known that the Bible used in modern times was translated from Greek. It is less widely known, and a subject of disagreement among some scholars, that the Greek translation was actually derived from Aramaic.What I refer to as the Second Coming of the Holy Scriptures began early in the nineteenth century. The manuscripts from which the Bible was derived in the Western Church were chosen carefully for their content by the heads of state and Church for centuries. Beginning with the Council of Nicea, in 325 A.D., the scriptures of the Early Christian Church were edited from the repository of manuscripts thought to be suitable material for the official Bible of the state-sponsored Church. For many centuries, the study of Biblical literature was conducted mostly by the clerics of the Church and the very wealthy. Laymen and laywomen of the Church were not allowed to read the Bible at all. There has been much speculation about intentional tampering with Biblical texts by the very clerics whose duty it was to protect and preserve the integrity of the Scriptures. Whatever the case may be, we know one thing for sure, the numerous translations of the Bible from the first editions are full of errors in both spelling and context. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that the study of the Bible became the focus of universities and scholars who were not under the direct control of the Church. These scholars began to search for and compile Biblical manuscripts for the purpose of comparing and dating these texts. Scholars wanted to locate the earliest Biblical literature so that they could check them against later translations, and see if and how they had been changed from the originals.

One of the first biblical scholars to publish books translated from ancient Aramaic manuscripts was Rev. George Phillips. In his book, Elements of Syriac Grammar (1), published in 1837, he says, "Syriac Language supplies one source of valuable information for the criticism of the Hebrew Bible. By an examination of a Hebrew word as it is used in this language, essential service has been rendered in elucidating many difficult and important passages of Holy Writ, and it has been the constant practice of commentators to have recourse to Syriac whenever the Text of the Old Testament fails to establish satisfactorily the signification of a word. In such case every person allows that a reference to Syriac is one of the legitimate means to be employed in determining the sense of a passage, and although this language is inferior to Arabic in the extent and variety of its literature; it is nevertheless superior as regards its much more intimate connection with the original language of the Bible."

Rev. Phillips continues in saying, "But the great claim as it appears to me, which the Syriac has on the attention of that class of persons, for whose use this book is intended, consists in the Syriac New Testament. The high antiquity of this Version and its use in the early established Syriac Church stamp an importance on it, which can be assigned to no other, and if to these circumstances be added another, that the Syriac Language is so nearly the same as that spoken in Palestine in the first age of Christianity, that by many persons it has been termed the vernacular language of our Lord, it must be allowed that the Syriac New Testament possesses a value inferior only to that which belongs to the Original."

Herein lies the motivation behind the tireless efforts of Bible scholars to translate broken fragments of ancient manuscripts written in the Aramaic language. Though the Evangelists wrote in Greek, Syriac was the native language of Jesus and His disciples, and whenever the actual words of Christ are quoted: 'ethphatha,' 'talitha cumi,' 'eli, eli, lama sabachthani,' they are not in Greek, but in Syriac (or rather in Aramaic, of which Syriac is a dialect) In the Aramaic biblical texts, we are given the very sound of the words which Jesus uttered.

The history of the discovery, transcription, and translation of the Aramaic Bible texts that will eventually be known to the rank and file of Christians throughout the world is fascinating and little known. My work with Aramaic Bible research has been in the capacity of historian. Having been on the Board of Directors of the Aramaic Bible Society for the past three years has allowed me to access and research the complete body of Aramaic Bible literature published by the late Dr. George M. Lamsa. Having absorbed Dr. Lamsa's extensive repertoire of teachings, I began to research the works of other authors who have published on the subject. I discovered a rich tradition of Western Aramaic Bible studies that began in earnest with the publication of the book Ancient Syriac Documents.

In reference to the question of the importance of the study of Aramaic (Syriac) Christianity, Dr. Burkitt says, "The Church we are about to consider believed itself to have had an apostolic origin and the great Church within the Roman Empire admitted the claim. The Saints of the Syriac-speaking Church are Saints of the Church universal, so far as their fame reached the West. Nevertheless there is a real difference between the Church of Edessa and the Church of Antioch and Rome. They were divided by one of the greatest barriers between man and man….the barrier of language. It did not estrange the Syriac-speaking Christians from their brethren over the border, but it separated them, so that the Church of which they were members grew up to some extent under influences different from those which helped to mold the Graeco-Roman Church of the Empire."

The major difference that Dr. Burkitt is referring to is that the language of the Syriac speaking Church is the language spoken by Jesus and the Apostles. In this regard Dr. Burkitt says, "The establishment of a Christian community at Edessa is an event of real importance in the history of the Church. Edessa was the only center of early Christian life where the language of the Christian community was other than Greek. Christianity, the child of Judaism, was nursed by the Greek civilization of the Roman Empire for a short time only. The primitive Semitic Christianity of Palestine came to an end in the great catastrophe of the Jewish War. Christianity survived among the Greek-speaking population of the great towns of the Levant, the Aegean, and in cosmopolitan Rome. The Church of Antioch in Syria, one of the oldest of the these communities, was, so far as we know, wholly Greek."

"When Christianity took root in Edessa, a Syriac-speaking city with a native dynasty and culture, the whole atmosphere was different. The Syriac language was used in place of Greek, and the Church developed a national spirit. It was not long before Edessa claimed the special protection of our Lord. It was believed that the city had been evangelized by Addai, one of the seventy-two disciples, that he had been sent there from Palestine in response to a letter fro King Abgar to our Lord: nay more, that our Lord Himself had answered Abgar with a promise that Edessa should be blessed, and that no enemy would ever have dominion over it. The story of Addai and King Abgar was received by Eusebius and incorporated into his Ecclesiastical History. It is intimately connected with the various legends of the finding of the True Cross and of the True Likeness of Christ, and its reception forms a curious chapter in the history of human credulity. But this legend, as contained in the book called the Doctrine of Addai, is also a source of real value for the historian."

"Undoubtedly it grew up at Edessa itself, attaining its present shape by the end of the fourth century, or at any rate before the reforms of Rabbula. The author's chronology is faulty, and his grasp of history, secular and ecclesiastical, is feeble. But he knew the place he is describing. The memory of the reign of native princes was still fresh when he wrote, and the names of his personages are genuine survivals of the ancient pagan nomenclature. Moreover he is comparatively so near to the events that his narrative contains unassimilated fragments from an older, more historical, account of the rise of Christianity in Edessa. These fragments fit in badly enough into the main story, but for that very reason we may be sure that they were not invented by the author of the Doctrine of Addai."

There is, however, another reason why the study of the Early Syriac Church is so important. In The Oldest Christian People, published in 1926 by William Chauncey Emhardt and George M. Lamsa, we are told, "While Christianity was spreading under conditions favorable to the integrity of the faith in the East, trials befell the Church in the West which led to suffering, confusion, and discord. Persecutions for a time strengthened the faith of the believers and largely contributed to the rapid spread of Christianity in the West. The blood of the martyrs was the seed that grew so rapidly and in the end so signally triumphed over imperial Rome. Nevertheless, at just this time these persecutions were not only a menace to the little loyal army of Christ, but a real catastrophe to Christian literature. The people had just begun to appreciate the faith of Christ and His sacrifices for humanity. The Gospels were not yet written, and most who possessed valuable information concerning the life of Christ suffered at the hands of the enemy. The whole group of the Faithful was disorganized and literary activities rendered almost impossible. If the persecutions had not started so soon in the Roman Empire, Christianity would have been prepared more fully to meet controversies, and today we probably would have had additional early documentary statements concerning Christ and His Teachings."

While the horrific persecutions of Christians were a form of entertainment for the sadistic Romans and Christians of every class were routinely slaughtered the Christians in Persia (Syria) enjoyed the protection of the state that were the enemies of the Roman Empire. Drs. Emhardt and Lamsa tell us, "In the Persian Empire, Christianity was tolerated. There the Church won into its fold men and women of noble families, who in many cases gained special favors for it from the king and governmental authorities. For nearly three hundred years persecutions were unknown. The Church was progressing so rapidly that missionary centers had been established in various neighboring countries. Institutions of learning were created, and the Church gave birth to literary scholars, such as Bardaisan, Tatian, and Ephraim the Great." Indeed, it is the writings of St. Ephraim that form the basis of the scholarship of all of the Aramaic Bible scholars I have discussed. In the literature of the Syriac speaking Church, we find not only the Teachings of Jesus in a very close dialect of His own language, we also find the most complete evolution of the Early Church unhindered by persecution. In this Early Syriac Christian Church we find the flowering of the Church of the Pentecost

In the twelfth century, an Abbot of the Catholic Church had a vision that has influenced the Church ever since. A highly literate and learned man, the holy Abbot faithfully recorded what he saw in the vision. The Abbot's name was Joachim of Fiore. His vision involved the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Joachim experienced this vision on the day of Pentecost, in 1183 A.D., while visiting Casamari, one of the most important Cistercian monasteries in Italy.

The Abbot writes, "I had entered the church to pray to Almighty God before the Holy altar, when there came upon me an uncertainty concerning belief in the Trinity, as though it were hard to understand or to hold that all the Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) were one God and one God all the Persons. When that happened, I prayed with all my might. I was very frightened and was moved to call on the Holy Spirit, whose feast day it was, to deign to show me the holy mystery of the Trinity. The Lord has promised us that the whole understanding of Truth is to be found in the Trinity. I repeated this and I began to pray the Psalms to complete the number I had intended. At this moment without delay, the shape of a ten stringed psaltery (musical instrument) appeared in my mind. The mystery of the Holy Trinity shone so brightly and clearly in it that I was at once impelled to cry out, What God is as Great as our God!"

The teachings of the Holy Trinity that Abbot Joachim received in his vision were radically different from any other theological system before or during his time. Had Joachim been any less formidable a member of the Catholic hierarchy, or had he possessed any less influence, his theology would never have found acceptance during his time, nor would it have survived into our own time. Joachim summed up the fundamental understanding that was revealed to him during his vision with these words:

"Therefore, because there are two divine Persons of whom one is ungenerated (unmanifest,) the other generated (sent,) two testaments have been set up, the first of which, as we have said above, pertains especially to the Father, the second to the Son, because the latter is from the former. In addition, the spiritual understanding, proceeding from both testaments, is one that pertains especially to the Holy Spirit."

In Joachim's vision, the Holy Spirit, as a distinct Divine Person, enters the formal theological world for the first time. The Holy Spirit revealed to Abbot Joachim that the Resurrection was the first stage of the spiritual understanding (intellectus spiritualis) meant to be conveyed by both the Old and New Testaments. While the Resurrection conveyed the idea of Jesus' victory over death, it did not fully communicate the fullness of its spiritual meaning. Joachim learned that the revelation of the spiritual understanding conveyed through both the Father and the Son was to be fully divulged by the Holy Spirit in a coming age, which he called the "Third Status."

He called the first status the Status of Law (Father,) the second status, of Grace (Son,) and the third status, of Spirit (Holy Spirit,) whom he believed would come in the future. Joachim saw that when the Age of the Spirit arrived, the Holy Spirit would communicate Divine knowledge directly to human beings. In Joachim's vision he saw the coming of what he called the Viri Spirituales (Spiritual Men) who would possess great spiritual understanding and power. Joachim believed the angel described in the tenth chapter of Revelations to be the Viri Spirituales. In the angel's hand is an open book, which Joachim believed contained the revelation of all that has been previously hidden in the Scriptures. The angel is described as having "his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the land," which Joachim interprets as meaning that the Viri Spirituales will be grounded in both the Old and New Testaments.

In speaking of the spiritualized human beings of the Third Status, Joachim says, "All those wonderful things written about Solomon and Christ will be completed in them in the Spirit, because in this people Christ will reign more powerfully." As the agents of the Holy Spirit, the Viri Spirituales would serve to prepare the way for the emergence of what Joachim calls the "Ordo Novus," or the "New People of God" in the Third Status. Joachim saw that the Viri Spirituales would be divided into two groups, one of preachers and the other of pure contemplatives. Joachim foresaw that they would engage in conflict with evil and emerge triumphant. In their triumph, they would usher in an age in which the Holy Spirit would do His own work, distinct from that of the Father and the Son. Joachim tells us, "He (the Holy Spirit) has reserved His own time for Himself in which He will do His work, not like some divine powers which are called gifts of the Holy Spirit, but like true Lord and God just as the Father and Son." Joachim saw that the Third Status would bring Peace, Harmony, and Spiritual Understanding.

Bernard McGinn, a professor of Divinity at the University of Chicago, details the Abbot's work in the book, The Calabrian Abbot-Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought. The Abbot's vision revealed that, with the Coming of the Holy Spirit, a deeper meaning of the Scriptures would also be revealed to a waiting world. A spiritual (as opposed to literal) interpretation of the Scriptures would then result from a new relationship being forged between the Holy Spirit and humanity. This new relationship was to begin with the bestowal of a special gift of the Holy Spirit that Joachim called 'intellectus spiritualis.' Professor McGinn states, "The predominant characteristic of the Third Status of history, the fundamental dynamic behind all its manifestations, is the fullness of the intellectus spiritualis (spiritual understanding) that will be given by the Holy Spirit."

According to Professor McGinn, Joachim interpreted the miracle in which Jesus changes water into wine as an analogy of the manner in which the gospel as interpreted by the spiritual intelligence sent by the Holy Spirit would be changed into the intoxicating wine of spiritual understanding and Divine contemplation in the Third Status. Joachim openly criticized those who were guilty of what McGinn describes as "the intellectual error of the persistence of the literal interpretations of the Scriptures." In his writings Joachim says, "And if the preachers of the Gospel according to the letter were preferred to the Jewish doctors who preached Moses' law, they are still far below those who have spiritual knowledge of that Gospel and who walk in no way according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." The Abbot prophesied that as the Third Status approached, the conflict between spirit-directed and literalist Christian theologians and churches would become more intense and, that ultimately, the "pagans and heretics will outlaw the dissemination of the spiritual understanding."

Reading between the lines, the inferences of the Abbot suggest that a conspiracy based on the intentional misinterpretation of the Scriptures originated early in the history of the Church. The Abbot describes the nature of the conspiracy by saying, "The external evil they did was a sign of the greater evil they conceived within, that is, to snuff out the spiritual understanding and bury it in the belly of the letter so that its voice might be heard no more in their streets nor have any further place in their possessions." Theologians, past and present, have accused Abbot Joachim of abandoning the centrality of Jesus in salvation history. Joachim believed Jesus to be central to the progressive revelation of the will of God; but the Abbot's revelatory experiences had brought him to an understanding of Jesus' role in history that was unique. For Joachim, the Christ-centered interpretation of the Bible fails to take into account Jesus' extensive references to the Holy Spirit. When Jesus articulates the coming of the Holy Spirit as an extension of his own work, the inference is that the Holy Spirit is to complete what he began. Joachim was the first in history to assign five great works to Jesus, whereas, other theologians saw only four. In addition to the four great works of the Nativity, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, Joachim added a fifth: the Sending of the Holy Spirit. This fifth great work of Jesus, the Sending of the Holy Spirit, was thought of as having two separate phases in history. The first was the Pentecost. The second phase would take place at the beginning of the Third Status.

The second outpouring of the Holy Spirit would culminate in the perfect spiritualization of the members of the Body of Christ. Professor McGinn writes, "Joachim had no intention of creating a new theology of history: such a notion would have been abhorrent to him. He was convinced that everything he had to say was clearly revealed in the Scriptures to those who had been granted the intellectus spiritualis and that he was doing nothing more than pointing to something already under our noses." Those who failed to grasp the message, failed simply because they lacked the spirit-directed understanding that revealed the inner significance of the letter. In placing the coming age of the Holy Spirit at the center of his theology, Joachim reversed the conventional wisdom that all perfection was to be found in the past, in some golden age such as the time of the primitive Church, which later ages could only hope to revive in imperfect fashion.

The Holy Spirit revealed that the age of perfection lay ahead. Joachim prophesied the coming of a new stage of history, established by a group of powerful spiritual beings, in which human beings would consciously participate in the revelation of the Divine numen described as "that which leaves the flesh completely behind and passes over into the spirit." In this revelation of the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the Scriptures, Joachim inferred that fresh, even contemporary, meaning would be imparted through texts whose meaning, theologians insisted, were already complete. By placing the magnet of reform in the future rather than in the past, the Abbot broke with previous theologies of history in a manner that has continued to be a source of inspiration for many, and a bone of contention for others. In the Third Status, Joachim describes a future event in which a divinely revealed understanding of the Scriptures will introduce true peace and ecstatic prayer on earth ... an event, which will usher in an age in which harmony and spiritual insight will bring to completion all that is spiritual in human history - the Age of the Holy Spirit.

I have given much thought to the possibility that the discovery of the Aramaic Bible manuscripts in 1842 and the dedicated work of the gifted Christian men and women who have transcribed, translated, and made these texts available to us are the work of Rukha D'Koodsha, and quite possibly a necessary stage in the fulfillment of the prophesies of first Jesus and more recently Abbot Joachim of Fiore concerning the coming Dispensation of the Spirit of Truth. In my own work, the incredible synchronicities that have taken place in my efforts to trace the history of Aramaic Bible studies have convinced me that Rukha D'Koodsha is helping me in this work. Before we can arrive at the Spiritual understanding of the Holy Scriptures, we must first make every effort to insure that the Bible texts we use are those written by the men and women who received them directly from the inspiration of the Divine presence within. In the establishment of the Aramaic Bible Center, I hope to provide the educational resources needed to prepare everyone who will to participate in the sacred Body of Christ. You can visit the Aramaic Bible Center at http://www.aramaicbiblecenter.com. If you would like to receive a catalog, please contact us at this address - Aramaic Bible Center - P.O. Box 15548 - Savannah, GA - 31416

In Spirit and Truth
Harvey Martin

Early Eastern Christianity - Francis C. Burkitt - New York - E.P. Dutton & Co. - 1904
The New Archeological Discoveries - Camden M. Coburn - New York - Funk &Wagnalls - 1917
Our Journey to Sinai - Mrs. R.L. Bensly - London - The Religious Tract Society - 1896
Ancient Syriac Documents - William Cureton - Amsterdam - Oriental Press - 1864 - Reprint 1967
The Elements of Syriac Grammar - Rev. George Phillips - London - Cambridge University Press - 1837
The Teaching of Addai - Rev. George Phillips - London - Trubner and Co. - 1876
The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts - Dr. George M. Lamsa - Philadelphia - Holman - 1957
Enlightenment…Selected Passages from the Khabouris Manuscript - Dr. Daniel MacDoughal - Aramaic Bible Society - 1974
Proceedings of the British Academy - British Academy - Obituary of F.C. Burkitt - London - 1932
The Life of Dr. George Lamsa - Aramaic Bible Society - USA - 1969
A Primitive Text of the Diatessaron - The Liege Manuscript of a Medieval Dutch Translation - Dr. Daniel Plooij with Commentaries by Harvey Martin - Savannah, GA - Metamind Publications - 2000
The Diatessaron of Tatian - Rev. Samuel Hemphill with Commentaries by Harvey Martin - Savannah, GA - Metamind Publications - 2000
A Greek Fragment of the Diatessaron of Tatian with Commentaries by Harvey Martin - Savannah, GA - Metamind Publications - 2000