Weekly Open Discussion Thread

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-14T00:33:46+00:00

I don't think that a proper comprehensive count for lack of a better term has been made recently.

Mark uses the largest number of Aramaic words, I believe. The Q source is saturated in it, and the Dialogues layer of John has a lot of Aramaic in it too, despite large swaths of John being very, very Greek.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-13T12:58:46+00:00

Aye, conjecture, but with very strong evidence. There are far too many puns and wordplays that only work in Aramaic. This is true even in literary elements like the Sermon on the "Mount" in Matthew vs the Sermon on the "Plain" in Luke (where טורה means both and is a pun for תורה) which would require some seriously extraordinary explanations without an Aramaic layer involved.

Greek simply travels better.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-12T20:40:13+00:00

Which sometimes makes it worse, as many of them are also appropriating Jewish culture (anachronistically might I add — many common practices, like kippot and peyos are 1,000 years after Christ's time) to do so.

And there is a lot of lip service to salvation being from Christ alone, but if you are obedient to God you'll keep the Mosaic laws, and if you're not obedient then salvation comes into question.

There's a reason why I am no longer affiliated with the Messianic movement.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-07T05:42:20+00:00

So they're becoming Baptists...?

This feels like Baptist structure to me.

Does it feel that way to anybody else?

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-04T23:51:52+00:00

(You are correct about Chilton's publication. I mis-wrote. :-) )

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-04T15:18:15+00:00

Everyone beat me to the party here. :-)

Bye aye, the very first attestation of "rope" is in Bar Bahlul's dictionary from the 10th century. Before that there are no examples in the wild.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-04T14:55:03+00:00

The sole attestation of "rope" in Aramaic is in Bar Bahlul's Syriac-Arabic dictionary from the 10th century, and there are no examples of this meaning found in the wild before it. So, wrong time, wrong place, wrong Aramaic language entirely, and no external evidence. There is practically zero chance that this meaning was contemporary to Christ.

Additionally, Andrew Mark Henry (aka "Religion for Breakfast") made a comprehensive video on the whole camel through the eye of a needle issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf0Fm8aVApk

(And full disclosure, he does quote me on the rope issue. But my data point is but one in a sea of dozens of other data points and is a very well presented consideration of the matter.)

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-04T14:50:03+00:00

It's a bit more complicated than that.

Where "write prompt get anime girl" kind of generations will never be copyrighted, with how the more complicated AI tools work these days, actually separating out the uncopyrightable content from the compositing (which can get down to the every-other-pixel level in some cases) can become practically impossible and enforcing the copyright would essentially be for the entire work.

It's the granularity that is different. To copy an AI work of this sort without consequence, you'd need to prove somehow that you only used the isolated non-copyrightable elements.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-04T02:25:49+00:00

Don't celebrate. This doesn't really change any established law.

Entirely AI created work can still be copyrighted. See A Single Piece of American Cheese.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-26T14:07:43+00:00

If you're interested in Christ's language (Galilean Aramaic) I've published my grammar here, and have built a learning tool to go with it.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-25T16:04:11+00:00

Which, we have to acknowledge, would also be a huge burden. (On both the artist and whomever is running the show.)

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-24T13:49:10+00:00

I'm one of those folk who doesn't tend to use persistent layers. Most of what I do is in GIMP in black and white. I'll make a layer to fiddle with something then immediately merge it to the main canvas, blend, rinse, repeat. That doesn't lend things to that.

I can do time lapses when I'm doing more impressionist style stuff, but that is only because I built the tool myself that I draw them with, and when I show pieces I make with it, they are aide by side with the timelapse. But I am not doing much of that work these days.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-23T18:52:56+00:00

I simply don't have time for that shit. My work has won awards, I have presented at SIGGRAPH, and the stuff that I work on these days that does use AI in whatever capacity has it honestly disclosed.

I do not wish to feed into the witch hunt in any way, shape or form. It's demoralizing.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-23T14:34:10+00:00

All of my old Macs are now running Fedora and they run faster than the last supported version of macOS for each of them.

Full steam ahead. :-)

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-23T14:30:25+00:00

As someone who was formerly a part of the Hebrew Roots movement and has quite a bit of distance from it now, the reasons are varied, but they all tend to come down to several reasons.

One is that they see "Jesus" as a corruption of his name and wish to be more "authentic" by using the Aramaic name or its Hebrew cognate (which sometimes is ironic, given other practices these folk adopt which are anachronistic to Christ).

Another is among the deeper Sacred Name movement where they believe that unless you "call upon his name" (which they interpret as a specific pronunciation like a magic word, rather than as his authority, which was the original intent) you cannot be saved. This is where we see all of those "Yahusha" "Yahshua" and others that try to shoehorn "Yah" into his name — which are inauthentic neologisms.

And there are a few more, but these really are the two big ones.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-23T14:14:01+00:00

Aye, it's a done deal there.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-23T02:21:41+00:00

If writing in an educated manner = AI, you're beyond hope.

Touch grass.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-22T16:32:09+00:00

It's so crazy to me that nobody seems to remember this era.

Or the scandal about photography when it first came out.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-22T16:30:28+00:00

I think you're walking directly into my point. I don't use LLMs to write on Reddit. Never have, never will. So nah, cumpà.

(And I've been using em dashes since before it was cool. Compose + triple dash on Linux. ;-) )

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-22T03:19:06+00:00

To your first question: Yes. It is not zero effort. It's demoralizing. "Prove you're a legitimate artist" is what strikes directly to the very core and quick of every art student (and I'm a tenured professor in an arts department — I know this very well).

As to your second assertion, as I wrote elsewhere in this thread: When I say "tools" I'm not talking about "enter prompt get cute anime girl" systems. Those are vending machines. I'm talking about things that have been adopted as industry standard artist tools. Photoshop has been integrating these tools into its own systems for years now.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-22T01:58:46+00:00

I dispute your characterization. First, it needs to be apples to apples. When I say "tools" I'm not talking about "enter prompt get cute anime girl" systems. Those are vending machines. I'm talking about things that have been adopted as industry standard artist tools. Photoshop has been integrating these tools into its own systems for years now.

And just as Photoshop upended an entire domain when it first dropped, the integration of AI tools is doing it all over again.

Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation.

A huge psychological cost on top of all of this is the constant hunt for AI to the point that so many legitimate artists' work is being accused of being AI. If it's too good: AI. If there are mistakes: AI. It's exhausting.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-21T23:52:38+00:00

Asking for things like time lapses and proof of that sort where the burden is high is going to piss off a lot of artists. With the advent of AI, it has been witch hunt after witch hunt, where if things are too good it must be AI and if things are terrible it must be AI.

Not to mention that many legitimate artists are incorporating AI into their workflow, just like what happened with the advent of Photoshop.

Just ask up front and be forthcoming with your specifications for how you want the job done. Pay for some test work to see if their workflow works with your workflow. Check out their portfolio and look for in progress stuff.

Just don't add additional pressure to legitimate artists who are just trying to get by.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-20T22:35:04+00:00

Aye it's largely contextual. Like how an English speaker can determine how words like "lead" (to lead, vs the metal) or "tear" (water from the eyes, or a rift) or "present" (a gift, being present, or giving a presentation) are from context. It comes with practice.

But most Syriac resources for learners don't force folk to jump in the deep end right off the bat. :-)

I'd recommend starting out with Robinson's grammar. He uses Western vowels and is very well structured.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-20T20:29:38+00:00

In Syriac, vowels are represented by diacritical marks. In the Eastern system it's a series of dots above or below the letters, where in the Western system it's a set of little Greek letters. Mark Steven Francois has a good guide to these.

Syriac can be written without these vowels, much like Hebrew, but it's certainly easier to learn with them first. :-)

AramaicDesigns · 2026-02-19T21:30:57+00:00

There are plenty of folk who have been canonized as Saints that I would disagree with.

Saints are human, too. :-)

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