Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: Was the bible ever written in Aramaic?
Biblical Aramaic is the form of Aramaic that is used in the books of Daniel, Ezra and a few other places in the Hebrew Bible. It should not be confused with the Aramaic paraphrases, explanations and expansions of the Hebrew scriptures, which are known as targumim.
According to the Talmud, the Torah and its translation into Aramaic were given to Moses on Mount Sinai, because Egyptian slaves spoke Aramaic. After the Babylonian exile, the Targum was completely forgotten. Onkelos, a Roman convert to Judaism, was able to reconstruct the original Aramaic. Saadia Gaon disagrees and says the Aramaic of Onkelos was never a spoken language. He believed that Onkelos's Aramaic was an artificial construct, a combination of Eastern and Western dialects of Aramaic. The mayor commentary on Targum Onkelos is "Netinah LaGer" written by Nathan Marcus Adler.
The discovery of this inscription follows that of several other inscriptions in Aramaic or Greek (individually, or both languages together), written by Asoka. The most famous are the Kandahar Bilingual Inscription, written in Greek and Aramaic, or the Greek Edicts of Ashoka, also found in Kandahar. Previously, in 1915, Sir John Marshall had discovered the Aramaic Inscription of Taxila, and in 1932 another inscription in Aramaic was discovered in the Laghman Valley in Pul-i-Darunteh, also called "Laghman I", the Aramaic inscription of Pul-i-Darunteh, then in 1963 an "Indo-Aramaic" inscription alternating Indian Prakrit and the Aramaic language, but using only Aramaic characters, with the Aramaic parts translating the Indian parts transcribed in the Aramaic alphabet, was also discovered in Kandahar: the Aramaic Inscription of Kandahar.
Aramaic academic journals include the annual "Aramaic Studies", a leading journal for Aramaic language and literature published by Brill Academic Publishers. The journal incorporates the previous "Journal for the Aramaic Bible" for a more inclusive scope, to include all aspects of Aramaic language and literature, even when not, or only indirectly, related to Biblical texts.
The Cornish Bible Project was initiated in 1997, with the aim of translating the whole Bible into Cornish from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. The Project is run under the auspices of the Cornish Language Board, and the Bishop of Truro’s Ecumenical Advisory Group for Cornish Language Services. The Cornish Bible is written in the Common Cornish spelling system. It has the ecumenical support of all members of Churches Together in Cornwall. In 2004 An Testament Nowydh (The New Testament) was published by Kesva an Taves Kernewek;. In July 2014 the New Testament and Psalms were posted on-line on YouVersion (Bible.com) and BibleSearch by the Bible Society.
Aramaic translations of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) played an important role in the liturgy and learning of rabbinic Judaism. Each such translation is called a Targum (plural: "Targumim"). During Talmudic times the targum was interpolated within the public reading of the Torah in the synagogue, verse by verse (a tradition that continues among Yemenite Jews to this day). Targum is also an important source for Jewish exegesis of the Bible, and had a major influence on medieval interpreters (most notably Rashi). Maimonides (Hilchot Ishut 8:34) writes that the Talmudic definition of a "person who knows how to read and translate the Torah into Aramaic" refers to "the Aramaic translation of Onkelos".
Under the category of post-Achaemenid is Hasmonaean Aramaic, the official language of the Hasmonean dynasty of Judaea (142–37 BCE). It influenced the Biblical Aramaic of the Qumran texts, and was the main language of non-biblical theological texts of that community. The major Targums, translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, were originally composed in Hasmonaean. Hasmonaean also appears in quotations in the Mishnah and Tosefta, although smoothed into its later context. It is written quite differently from Achaemenid Aramaic; there is an emphasis on writing as words are pronounced rather than using etymological forms.
The Hebrew Bible, upon which the Christian Old Testament is based, was originally composed in Biblical Hebrew, except for parts of Daniel and Ezra that were written in Biblical Aramaic. These writings depict Israelite religion from its beginnings to about the 2nd century BC. The Christian New Testament was written in Koine Greek. (See Language of the New Testament for details.)
The Hebrew Bible was largely written in Biblical Hebrew, with portions in Biblical Aramaic, and has an important Ancient Greek translation called the Septuagint. The modern Hebrew Bible, which generally follows the Masoretic Text, uses several words to represent alcoholic beverages:
The New Testament (Koine Greek) and Septuagint Greek words:
The Aramaic Targums, paraphrase-translations of the Hebrew Bible for use in Palestinian synagogues, contain several expansions and additional references to "the kingdom of God" not emphasized in the Hebrew Masoretic Text. An example is Targum Neofiti's paraphrase of Exodus 15:18. Where the Hebrew has only "The shall reign for ever and ever", the Aramaic paraphrase has "How the crown of the kingdom (Aramaic "kingdom" "malku" מַלְכּוּ, corresponds to Hebrew "malkut" מַלְכוּת) becomes you, O Lord! ... Of the Lord is the kingdom before the world and forever and ever." The turning of Hebrew Bible references to God "reigning" into concrete references to a "kingdom" of God occurs in many Targum passages.
Wierwille became associated in 1957 with Aramaic Bible scholar George Lamsa who finished his translation work for the Lamsa Bible in Wierwille's home. Lamsa and Wierwille together produced the first American Aramaic grammar in 1960 for the study of Biblical manuscripts with the classical Estrangelo letters. Believing the original New Testament was written in Aramaic, he was a supporter of Lamsa's translation of the Bible and used it frequently.
A Hebrew Bible manuscript is a handwritten copy of a portion of the text of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) made on papyrus, parchment, or paper, and written in the Hebrew language. (Some of the Biblical text and notations may be in Aramaic.) The oldest manuscripts were written in a form of scroll, the medieval manuscripts usually were written in a form of codex. The late manuscripts written after the 9th century use the Masoretic Text. The important manuscripts are associated with Aaron ben Asher (especially Codex Leningradensis).
The first known translation of the Bible into Greek is called the Septuagint (LXX; 3rd–1st centuries BC). The LXX was written in Koine Greek. It contains the Hebrew Bible translated from Hebrew and Aramaic. It also includes several other documents which are considered to have differing levels of authority by various Christian churches. Some of these other documents are believed to have been written originally in Greek.
Today, Biblical Aramaic, Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects and the Aramaic language of the Talmud are written in the Hebrew alphabet. Syriac and Christian Neo-Aramaic dialects are written in the Syriac alphabet. Mandaic is written in the Mandaic alphabet. The near-identity of the Aramaic and the classical Hebrew alphabets caused Aramaic text to be typeset mostly in the standard Hebrew script in scholarly literature.
The Assyrian tradition has been widely refuted by scholars of both the New Testament and the Peshitta. Another concern is that the 1905 United Bible Societies Aramaic New Testament, based on the editions of Philip E. Pusey, George Gwilliam and John Gwyn, with which Lamsa's sources are largely common, are a late form of the Aramaic text which reveals nothing of the early stages of the Peshitta's development. This translation is better known as the Lamsa Bible. He also wrote several other books on the Peshitta and Aramaic Primacy such as Gospel Light, New Testament Origin, and Idioms of the Bible, along with a New Testament commentary.
In the Syriac (Eastern Aramaic) language the Peshitta (Syriac: "common version") is the standard version of the Christian Bible. It continues to serve as the Bible of churches in the Syriac tradition (Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic, and Syriac Orthodox) to this day. The history of Christian Translations of the Bible into Syriac language includes: the Diatessaron, the Old Syriac Version, the Peshitto, the Philoxenian Version, the Harklean Version and the recent United Bible Societies' modern Aramaic New Testament. 
Most of the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, which is the basis of the Christian Old Testament, was written in Biblical Hebrew, though a few chapters were written in Biblical Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, with possible Aramaic undertones, as was the first translation of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint or Greek Old Testament. Therefore, Hebrew, Greek and sometimes Aramaic continue to be taught in most universities, colleges and seminaries with strong programs in biblical studies.
The original texts of the Tanakh were mainly in Hebrew, with some portions in Aramaic. In addition to the authoritative Masoretic Text, Jews still refer to the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and the Targum Onkelos, an Aramaic version of the Bible. There are several different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew, mostly differing by spelling, and the traditional Jewish version is based on the version known as Aleppo Codex. Even in this version there are words which are traditionally read differently from written, because the oral tradition is considered more fundamental than the written one, and presumably mistakes had been made in copying the text over the generations.
The Bible has been translated into many languages. The Jewish Tanakh (similar to the Protestant Old Testament) was originally written in Hebrew, with the exception of some passages of Daniel, Ezra, and Jeremiah which are in Aramaic. The New Testament is widely agreed to have originally been written in Greek, although some scholars hypothesize that certain books (whether completely or partially) may have been written in Aramaic before being translated for widespread dissemination.
The position of the Assyrian Church of the East is that the Syriac Peshitta (a Bible version which is written in a vernacular form of Aramaic), used in that church, is the original of the New Testament. For instance, the patriarch Shimun XXI Eshai declared in 1957:
This view is to be distinguished from the view held by most historical critics, that the Greek New Testament (particularly the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Mark) may have had Aramaic source texts which are no longer extant.
Under the category of post-Achaemenid is Hasmonaean Aramaic, the official language of Hasmonaean Judaea (142–37 BC). It influenced the Biblical Aramaic of the Qumran texts, and was the main language of non-biblical theological texts of that community. The major Targums, translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, were originally composed in Hasmonaean. Hasmonaean also appears in quotations in the Mishnah and Tosefta, although smoothed into its later context. It is written quite differently from Achaemenid Aramaic; there is an emphasis on writing as words are pronounced rather than using etymological forms.
The Tanakh was mainly written in biblical Hebrew, with some small portions ( and , , ) written in biblical Aramaic, a sister language which became the "lingua franca" for much of the Semitic world.
In terms of language, "Hebrew" refers to the original language of the books, but it may also be taken as referring to the Jews of the Second Temple era and Jewish diaspora, and their descendants, who preserved the transmission of the Masoretic Text up to the present day. The Hebrew Bible includes small portions in Aramaic (mostly in the books of Daniel and Ezra), written and printed in Aramaic square-script, which was adopted as the Hebrew alphabet after the Babylonian exile.
The Hebrew Bible (i.e. the Jewish "Tanakh" or Christian Old Testament) is almost entirely in Classical (or Biblical) Hebrew. However, there are some significant sections in Biblical Aramaic: about a third of the Book of Daniel and several quoted royal letters and edicts in the Book of Ezra. These are written in the same square-script as the Hebrew parts, and many readers of the Bible in Hebrew do not require translation for them. Nevertheless, numerous Hebrew translations and paraphrases for these Aramaic parts have been written from the Middle Ages to the present day. The medieval commentary of Gersonides on these books, for instance, contains a Hebrew paraphrase of their Aramaic sections which translates them nearly in their entirety. Many modern editions of the Masoretic Text also contain Hebrew translations of these sections as appendices. Such translations may be found for instance in some versions of the Koren edition, in the IDF edition, and in the text published by The Bible Society in Israel. Hebrew translation of biblical Aramaic is also standard fare in numerous multivolume Hebrew commentaries meant for popular audiences, such as those of , Elia Samuele Artom, Moshe Zvi Segal, "Da`at Mikra" and "Olam ha-Tanakh". 
The Aramaic square script was adopted to write Hebrew in place of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet found in earlier inscriptions. The system of vocalization used is the same for both the portions of the Bible written in Hebrew and the portions written in Aramaic. Verb systems are based on triconsonantal roots. Similar functions of the verbal conjugations. Different letters in each alphabet are sometimes used to make the same sound. Nouns have absolute and construct states.