George Lamsa

George M. Lamsa (* around August 5, 1892 as Lamsa , † September 22, 1975 in Turlock , California ) was an Assyrian writer and translated the Bible from Aramaic into English.

Life

The first name of George M. Lamsa's mother was Sara , her last name is unknown. Sometime in the 19th century, she married a shepherd named Jando , with whom she lived in the region of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers (today's border area between Turkey , Iran and Iraq ). She considered the purpose of her life to give birth to a son in order to dedicate this to God . Her wish was granted towards the end of the second half of the 19th century. Lamsa's exact date of birth is unknown, although some sources indicate August 5, 1892. According to his own statements, he was born in Marbishu, a small pilgrimage site in the Kurdish mountains. Marbishu (also: Mar Behishu ) is located in the extreme southeastern corner of today's Turkey, only a few kilometers from the Iranian border. The approximate coordinates of Marbishu: Latitude 37 ° 35'46.18 "N; Longitude 44 ° 30'39.87" E.

Sara and Jando belonged to the Mamisho tribe, one of the many nomadic tribes in that region. Their manners and customs, their clothes and tools and also their language had hardly changed over the centuries. The city of Marbisho served the Mamishos as winter quarters. Here Sarah brought her son to a Christian church for dedication.

At the age of four, Lamsa began taking classes at a Presbyterian school and learned to read and write the Aramaic alphabet. Before Lamsa could finish his sophomore year, his tribe banded together with other Christians fleeing hostile Kurds in Iran .

After his mother's death, Lamsa attended another church school. There he learned until he was 9 years old. Then his tribe returned to the area around Marbisho City. Here Lamsa met a stranger, an Englishman, for the first time in his life. It was Reverend Oswald Parry . Lamsa received two kirons (approx. 40 American cents) from him and thus came into contact with money for the first time. Reverend Parry selected five boys for college in Urmia, Iran, and Lamsa was one of them. The former shepherd boy spent nine years at this school and passed his final exam with the highest distinction at 19.

Thanks to his excellent graduation, Lamsa was able to take up a position as a teacher at the same school. A little later he switched to a newly opened school in Van , where he taught Turkish, among other things. He soon had to flee again because his life was at risk during the persecution of the Armenians. Back at his old school, he became editor and thus responsible for the books that the school published.

In 1913 Lamsa was sent to the university by the local ruler in Istanbul . After about a year, Lamsa had to flee in the turmoil of the First World War . Via Bulgaria and Italy he ended up in Buenos Aires with $ 3 in his pocket , where he hoped to meet some compatriots. His first drive was to the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), where he got a job as a printer. After various other jobs, his path finally led him to New York City in 1917 . In order to avoid difficulties when entering the country, he adopted the name "George" and used his only name "Lamsa" as his last name. The "M." in the middle stands for Mamisho, his tribe from home.

In 1919, George M. Lamsa received a bishop's scholarship to the theological seminary in Virginia , where he studied for three years. He then moved to Washington, DC , where, after a period of unemployment, he was commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury to raise money for the rebuilding of schools in Turkey that had been destroyed in the war.

1929, after the outbreak of the Great Depression , Mr. Lamsa joined the University of Pennsylvania in. The president and faculty were intrigued by Lamsa's idea that Greek was not the original language of the New Testament sources. He told them that Jesus and the first apostles Aramaic had spoken and that the Eastern Peshitta - Bible was still preserved in Aramaic. Since the Western Church only knew the Greek manuscripts, there was agreement at the time that the Greek sources had to be copies of the originals and not translations. His stay at the university was short, but it was also the start of his work as a Bible translator.

With the help of Mrs. Willam M. Wood of Boston , Lamsa wrote his first book, The Oldest Christian People . Later he was able to live in the house of Mr. William Parson from Flushing, and that resulted in My Neighbor Jesus , Gospel Light and the Lamsa Bible Commentary . In Samuel Thompson he found a companion and the financial support of the Aramaic Bible Society , and finally he translated the four Gospels from Aramaic Peshitta sources into English: The first part of the Lamsa Bible was born. His revolutionary view of the biblical sources met with little understanding and the hoped-for publication of the four Gospels by the University of Chicago was rejected.

The rescue came through AJ Holman from Philadelphia. A Methodist bookstore ordered the first two copies , and suddenly half the world was interested in him and his work. Holman now motivated Lamsa to translate the whole New Testament , which led to a worldwide demand.

In the autumn of 1940 Lamsa began translating the Old Testament . Margaret Outerbridge in Maine gave him the necessary assistance. In 1957 The Lamsa Bible went to press and went on sale.

Lamsa remained an ecumenical Christian throughout his life and preferred no denomination . He also campaigned for better understanding between Christians, Jews and Muslims , as he was convinced of a common universal God . In 1964 he participated as an observer of the Assyrian Church of the East in the third session of the Catholic Second Vatican Council.

In the early 1960s, the American clergyman Rocco A. Errico became aware of Lamsa and then studied with him for 10 years. Errico is the only one who carries on Lamsa's work in his spirit. In Erricos Noohra Foundation (Noohra, actually: nuchra = light), the updated and expanded (and authorized by Lamsa's heirs) Bible commentaries appear roughly every year, as planned by Lamsa together with Errico.

bibliography

(As of 07/2008)

German translations of George M. Lamsa's books:

• The Gospels in Aramaic Perspective, Lugano 2005 (Neuer Johannes Verlag)
• Origin of the New Testament, Lugano 1988 (Neuer Johannes Verlag)
• The Koran in a nutshell, Freiburg 2001 (Verlag Hans-Jürgen Maurer)

English books:

• Secret of the Near East, Philadelphia 1923 (Ideal Press)
• The Oldest Christian People; a brief account of the history and traditions of the Assyrian people and the fateful history of the Nestorian church; 1926 and 1970, both New York. (William Chauncey Emhardt, named as co-author, did not contribute to this work. The publisher insisted on his being mentioned because, unlike Lamsa, he was known to the reading public.)
• My Neighbor Jesus, New York and London 1932
• Four Gospels According to the Eastern Version, Philadelphia 1933 (Holman)
• Gospel Light, Philadelphia 1936 (Holman); German: The Gospels in Aramaic Perspective, Lugano 1963 (Neuer Johannes Verlag), ISBN 978-3-907119-04-4
• The Book of Psalms from the Aramaic, Philadelphia 1939 (Holman)
• The Shepherd of All - the 23rd Psalm, Philadelphia 1939
• New Testament Commentary (excludes the Gospels), Philadelphia 1945 (Holman)
• New Testament Origin, Chicago 1947 (Clause Davies); German: Origin of the New Testament, Lugano 1965, ISBN 978-3-907119-03-7 )
• A Short Koran, Designed for Easy Reading, Chicago and New York 1949 (Ziff Davies), German: The Koran in a nutshell, ISBN 978-3-929345-13-1
• The Holy Bible from the Ancient Eastern Text, Philadelphia 1957 (Holman)
• A Brief Course in the Aramaic Language, 1961 (Aramaic Bible Society)
• Old Testament Light, Englewood Cliffs 1964 (Prentice Hall)
• The Kingdom on Earth, Lee's Summitt 1966 (Unity Books)
• And the Scroll Opened, Garden City and New York, 1967 (Doubleday)
• More Light on the Gospel, Garden City and New York 1968 (Doubleday)
• The Hidden Years of Jesus, St. Petersburg Beach 1968 (Aramaic Bible Society)
• Roses from Gulistan, private publication, no year, probably early 1970s
• Modern Wisdom, private publication, no year, probably early 1970s
• The Man from Galilee, a life of Jesus, Garden City and New York 1970 (Doubleday)
• Idioms in the Bible Explained, San Francisco 1984 (Harper)

Short biography about Dr. Lamsa (from page 2 in German):

• Tom Alyea, The Life of George M. Lamsa

source

The Life of Dr. George M. Lamsa, Bible Translator & Comparative Verses, The Aramaic Bible Society, Inc. This booklet can be obtained antiquarian on the Internet.

Web links

• What Jesus Spoke , Time Archive
• BibleCenter original and original
• New Johannes Verlag
• Publisher HJ Maurer
• Noohra Foundation

Single receipts

1. ↑ An old map shows Marbishu in Quadrant 59 ( British Topographic Maps, 1910. Assyrian International News Agency (AINA), accessed on 13 April 2019 (English).  )
2. ↑ Proche-Orient Chrétien 17 (1967) 291-300.