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5. “Do you not know that the wicked shall not
inherit the kingdom of God? Be not misled; neither the immoral (Prostitutes) nor idolaters nor adulterers
nor the corrupt, nor [men] who lie with males...” (1 Corinthians 6:9 Lamsa). Dr. Lamsa translated the Aramaic word m'khab-le (plural)
as "the corrupt" here. This is an acceptable interpretation since this is the meaning
of m’khab-le when the Aramaic text literally described
Israel as “corrupt children” (Isaiah 1:4). M’khab-la (singular) also means “corrupt” at Titus 2:8, which says: “who is honourable and not
corrupt; and don’t let a man despise him, that he who stands against us may be ashamed when he will not be able
to speak against us any hateful thing.”
Additionally, m'khab-le (plural) has a more common
and obvious meaning that is more in line with its verb root. M’khab-le also means
“destroyers.” M’khab-le occurs in the construct form in the Song
of Solomon at 2:15. That verse says that the little foxes were the destroyers of the vineyards (literal
translation). M’khab-le is pronounced as m’khab-lay at the afor mentioned verse because the sentence needed the word “of” between “the
destroyers” and “the vineyards.” For this verse, m’khab-le
has a dual meaning of “destroyers” and “spoilers.” Dr. Lamsa translated this verse as: “..the
little foxes that spoil the vineyards,..” M’khab-la (singular) appears
at Sira 21:3: “Falsehood is like the teeth of a lion, and a destroyer of the souls of men.” At Job 21:10, the Aramaic literally says this: “his bull breeds, and fails not; and
his calf calves and is not a destroyer (i.e. she does not miscarry).” M’khab-la-na (singular) is the spelling for “the destroyer”
when it is listed in a Dictionary or Lexicon. Very early in Aramaic grammar, some Aramaic words were spelled with a final
“a” sound for their indefinite form. For these masculine words,
they are made definite by adding a final na sound. These feminine
words added a final tha sound. Some of these words, like m’khablana, loose their final na sound when they follow the word la, which means neither, nor, not or does
not. This is just a grammatical rule and doesn’t necessarily make the word indefinite. The final na
sound also drops when it is in the construct form and the word “of” is needed before the next word. And lastly,
if the Aramaic word is used as an adjective, the final na sound drops.
Elsewhere in the Bible, m’khab-la-na (singular) means “the destroyer” (Ex. 12:23; Prov. 18:9; Isa.
54:16; Wisdom 18:22,25; 1 Cor. 10:10). M’khab-la-ne (plural)
means “the destroyers” (1 Sam. 13:17 & Jer. 22:7) in the Bible. There is no where in the Bible showing that
the word m’khab-la-ne means homosexuals. 1st
NOTE: Dr. Lamsa defined m’khab-la-na (singular) as “the ravager” at
Isaiah 54:16 and m’khab-la-ne (plural) as “raiders” at 1st Samuel
13:17. For Isaiah 54:16, m’khab-la-na is best translated as “the destroyer.”
At 1st Samuel 13:17, Dr. Lamsa could be right by translating its plural pronunciation as “raiders.”
However, translating the Aramaic word m’khab-la-ne as “the
destroyers” at 1st Samuel 13:17 would agree similarly with the Greek text at that verse.
2nd NOTE: The root of
m'khab-la-na is Khwa-la, which means:
“to harm, destroy, writhe, etc.” The Aramaic letter beth, has a "b" and a "w" sound. The Aramaic word khwa-la is the same as the Hebrew word kha-val (Or Strong’s
pronunciation: kha-bal, #2256). Kha-bal has the same
meanings of khwa-la that I have seen in the Aramaic Bible.
The Aramaic
pronunciation of shach-bay am dich-re is translated as [men]
who lie with males (Lamsa). Dr. Lamsa adds the word men
in our English translation. The Aramaic text says: “those who commit rape with a man.” A plural of men
lying with one man sounds like gang rape to me. The Bible gives examples of this in the story of Sodom and of the men of Gibeah.
That is why I translated the word shcaw, which is the same as the Hebrew word sha-cav (Strong’s # 7901), as “rape.”
The Hebrew word sha-cav was translated two ways in the Aramaic Old Testament. Ninety-nine
percent of the time, sha-cav was translated as dmik;
which means “to lie down, sleep.” Dmik can also mean “to lie with”
when the word “with” is added after it. When sha-cav was translated as schaw in the Aramaic, the context is referring to rape and perhaps death (see Gen. 35:22). At
least mostly, shcaw means “rape” throughout the Bible when used in the sexual
sense.
Most Aramaic nouns are spelled the same in their plural and singular form. Plural or singular pronouns attached to the verb
will let the reader know if the noun is plural or singular. When the word “of” is used between a [verbal] noun
and another noun, the absence of the pronoun them means the second noun is singular. If the pronoun them
(usually attached to the first noun) appears before the second noun, then that second noun is plural. If the Aramaic language
didn’t do this, then there would be no way to know if the second noun is plural or singular. In the above
example, the Aramaic literally says: “rapers of with a man (dich-ra).”
The verbal noun (rapers) is in the plural construct form, so it is clearly plural. Since there is no plural pronoun
afterwards to indicate that the second noun is plural, then it is wrong for Dr. Lamsa to translate the Aramaic word as “males”
(dich-re). The following are a couple examples of the regular or normal way to express
a statement which has two plural nouns connected with the word “of.” “…the souls of the disciples…”
(Acts 14:22) is literally in the Aramaic: “the souls of them - of the disciples…”
“…the words of the prophets…” (Acts 15:15) is literally in the Aramaic: “…the
words of them – of the prophets…” A third example is at Acts 15:10:
“the necks of the disciples…” The Greek translator translated the word “necks” in
the singular though, as “neck.” The meaning of both the Aramaic and Greek text here is the same. The Aramaic text
isn’t saying that the disciples have more than one neck. Neck is plural here because there is more than one
person spoken of in the phrase. Here are some examples
of the same construction used in 1 Corinthians 6:9. In some of the examples I left the word “of” out. Revelation
17:8 says: “inhabitants (pl.) upon the earth (sing.).” Revelation 18:17
says: “all the passengers (pl.) in the ship (sing.).” Revelation 19:5
says: “worshippers (pl.) of His Name (sing.).” Additionally, there are some examples
with this verbal noun form in which the second noun sounds like it should be plural to an English speaker, but it is not.
We know this because at Revelation 22:15, the Greek text has the second noun in the singular form as in: “makers
(pl.) of a lie (sing.).” And at Job 13:4, the phrase says: “speakers (pl.)
of a lie (sing.).” We know that the word “lie” is singular because the original Hebrew
text has the word “lie” in the singular form. Additionally, there are a few occurrences where this verbal noun form used here at First Corinthians will have
the following noun pointed (voweled) as being plural. These errors occur frequently in the Aramaic Old Testament Translation
and in Dr. Lamsa’s Translation. The Aramaic Old Testament is very often a literal translation of the Hebrew and doesn’t
always have the additional grammar needed to let the reader know if the noun is singular or plural. Dr. Lamsa many times translated
a noun plural when the Hebrew noun is singular and vice versa. Since the Aramaic Old Testament is a translation of the Hebrew,
then the Aramaic noun is singular when the Hebrew noun is singular and plural when the Hebrew noun is plural (in most cases).
I haven’t come across this problem in the Aramaic New Testament, which was originally written in Aramaic and is very
precise. Though I do have to say that I may not agree with how a noun is pointed (voweled) and translated as in this example
at First Corinthians 6:9. The Aramaic phrase used
at 1 Corinthians 6:9 can be translated as “those who rape a man.” The Aramaic language mostly contains
the word “with” (am) in most of the places that English speakers
use the word; but there are a few places where the Aramaic language uses the word “with” where English
speakers would not use it in a phrase.
The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Shcaw –
to rape (Galilean Aramaic), kill (Jewish Babylonian)
Is the Bible Against Homosexuality?
by Mattai "the Preacher" © 2003-2009. All rights reserved.
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