The Aramaic Version: Not Your Parents' Bible

Victor Alexander has translated the Scriptures of the Church of the East. Their perspective is notably different from the Scriptures of the Western Church: the Holy Spirit is feminine; God is the Father AND the Son AND the Holy Spirit; believers have lives, and disbelievers have oblivion--the differences are myriad.

A quick story: When I was saved in 1975, I noted that this world is not as I had known it. There is another layer of meaning and power giving it another set of values, values we are normally oblivious to. Soon after that Jesus spoke to me "audibly" in my physical brain, so I set out to find out what He had said to other people. I got into seminaries and studied Western Christian theology. I became uneasy with the church teaching one thing and the Bible saying another. It was like that disparity I had perceived between the regularly known earth and the spiritually known earth.

Then I found out about the Eastern Aramaic versions of the Scriptures and sought them out. OMG! It is a whole different Bible. "How did they ever get that out of this?" I often asked myself. Well, the Western cultures saw the Scriptures differently than the Eastern cultures. They added their values and adjusted their translations so that the Scriptures made sense to and reflected their world. But the Scriptures did not say those things. The Church of the East read what the Scriptures actually said, and kept it that way. Hence the disparity.

If you have the money (Merry Christmas!), I recommend getting Victor Alexander's Aramaic New Testament (ISBN 9781456475789) and reading it with constant referral to its footnotes. While I do recommend Vic's Old Testament Scriptures, you should know that it is the ten books of the Old Testament Vic has translated thus far (and he isn't going any farther). I far prefer the individual books of the Old Testament, but I do not think Qohlat (Ecclesiastes), which is in Old Testament Scriptures, is available as an individual book. The Scroll of Hosea, which is not included in Old Testament Scriptures, is available as an individual book.

No, Victor does not pay me anything for my recommendations. This blog is my ministry, and recommending the closest thing to the original scriptures in English is a part of that. If you had to choose between my teachings and Alexander's version of the Scriptures, I'd say go with Alexander. Good God yes, get what you can of them while you can. Get what reflects the spiritual world we do, after all, really live in.
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Vic was for awhile stricken with a disease. He has pretty much recovered. Do not be put off by what he wrote while he was ill. All his work with the Scriptures was completed before he got sick.