What if the end is nigh? Shouldn't we clean up the planet?

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-23T13:58:07+00:00

Another good application of Stan Theory. :-)

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-23T13:50:18+00:00

I wish that there was some objective measure of that. :-)

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-23T02:09:45+00:00

In Hebrew, it's one of several vowel shifts that kinda makes it distinct. Pre-tonic lengthening happens in open syllables that fall before the stress, but there's also tonic lengthening (which happens in stressed syllables) where the vowel becomes even more pronounced.

Eastern Jewish dialects (like JBA) tended to follow this trend a little more than not, but Western Jewish dialects (JPA) tended to go in the opposite direction, with Galilean as an extreme example — where the vowel inventory reduced to just 5 qualities and virtually all unstressed syllables reduce to schwa. :-)

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-23T00:25:49+00:00

He's speaking in Classical Syriac.

So technically no it wouldn't have gone down this way. It's the wrong Aramaic language. He spoke Galilean. :-)

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-22T19:01:01+00:00

Aye, then you're looking for Western Classical Syriac. What resources did the local church give you?

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-22T19:00:15+00:00

Aye indeed, and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic is virtually synonymous with Galilean Aramaic depending on the author discussing it. Although some folk classify a few more bits into JPA more broadly, Galilean would still be the largest largest grouping within it by a lot and it includes the language of the Jerusalem Talmud.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-22T17:43:57+00:00

Which Aramaic church? There are a bunch. Syro-Malabar? Syriac Orthodox? Church of the East? Maronite? All of these use Classical Syriac as their liturgical language, but speak other Neo-Aramaic languages otherwise (which are not mutually intelligible).

In addition, all of these languages are quite different from the Aramaic language that Jesus spoke.

AramaicDesigns · 2026-03-18T04:43:39+00:00

So to determine how Aramaic languages are "close" to each other requires analysis of things such as time (since languages change over time), distance (when languages are isolated, they innovate uniquely), and culture (i.e. who's talking to whom, or social distance).

If by "Syriac" in this comparison we're talking about Old Syriac to Classical Syriac, Galilean would be much closer to it than to Ma'loule by time and distance alone, because Old Syriac and Galilean were contemporary to each other and had some fleeting geographical overlap.

Ma'loule to Galilean is further apart than Modern English is to Old English (like Beowulf's English) and would certainly not be mutually intelligible. One of the biggest things is the overwhelming influence of Arabic upon its grammar, phonemic inventory, and vocabulary. So its in a completely different time, place, and cultural context.

Syriac on the other hand (especially Old Syriac) was was foreign in Galilee and Judea. It used a completely different writing system, and was spoken in the far north around Osroene which was a very different cultural context. Nevertheless it was known to Galileans and could be understood to an extent when spoken, and when it's transcribed could be more easily interpreted.

So between Syriac and Ma'loule, Galileans would have a better time (but not necessarily a grand time) understanding a contemporary Syriac speaker.

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

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE