Gospel of John: Reading and Interpretation, by Victor Alexander from the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures: Youkhanna

This translation of the Book of John from the Ancient Aramaic is the same as that in Alexander's Aramaic New Testament, of which I have both the softcover and the hardcover editions (I believe the hardcover is no longer available--check with Vic about that) and, come to think of it, in digital. The text is about two-thirds as wide as in the New Testaments, so the book has more pages. This single Gospel is much easier to open and to read comfortably, and to refer to the footnotes at the end of each chapter. The real reason I got it is my memory of how much an individual NASB Gospel of John influenced me to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I was in 1975 living in a 1959 Chevy Fleetside pickup truck in Honolulu, Hawaii. I had moved to Hawaii to get away from my crazy Charismatic mother in California. I shipped my truck and homemade camper over to Hawaii on a Matson roll-on ship. I had no idea at all at that time that it was illegal to live in a car or truck in Hawaii; I had probably the only camper in the state. Having no windows (I had built it with louvers around the roof for ventilation), my camper appeared to be a little more than a mobile storage shed. I parked in the Ala Wai yacht harbor, and whenever the harbor master or police came around, I would walk over to a friend's boat as if I lived there.

Although formerly a church member, I was into metaphysics, meditation, Eastern religions and the occult. But when in a meditation I actually met a demon, that individual NASB Gospel of John became of real interest to me, especially after I had read Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation in the old KJV Bible I had kept from my childhood. I remember reading that Gospel of John over and over, even as I walking up and down the beach. Having witnessed the reality of the demon and my mind's eye having been opened by Someone greater than me, the words of John were real and immediate--all the "dots" connected. "Oh, this (the Bible's report) is the real world, the world we are really in," I thought to myself as the reality of the spiritual world became clear to me.

Of course, I sought a church (the House of Praise in Kaimuki) and got saved--I guess I was already--and the illumination I gained from that Gospel of John was essential to my becoming fully surrendered, submitted, and baptized in the Holy Ghost.

So now I have the individual Gospel of John translated from the Bible's native language. "More better!" we'd say in Hawaii. I can use this Gospel and its illuminating power as a tract again, which makes it to me . . . priceless.