Updated February 4, 2024 at 4 p.m.
BERLIN — Jesus spoke Aramaic. It was its native language, and 2,000 years ago it was the primary language of the entire Middle East. The New Testament, however, is translated from Greek in all the languages of the world. Aramaic expert and theologian Günther Schwarz (d. 2009) was dissatisfied with the classical translation and studied Aramaic every day for 50 years in order to better understand Jesus in his native language. In doing so, he realized that about half of all of Jesus’ words in the gospels had been mistranslated or even deliberately falsified.
His shocking conclusion: “What Christians believe, Jesus did not teach!” And what Jesus taught — the the Christians do not know.”
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The theologian has written around twenty books and around a hundred scientific articles on Jesus and Aramaic. He sent his conclusions to all German-speaking bishops. Answer: zero.
So, as a journalist, I want to use my books about Jesus to inform people about the discoveries of Günther Schwarz.
When I first read a book by Günther Schwarz in 2010, I too was skeptical. But ultimately, the subject captivated me so much that in two years I read everything the world-renowned Aramaic expert wrote about the original Jesus. And I discovered a new, fascinating and very contemporary image of Jesus. Nothing is more difficult than abandoning a lifetime of practiced beliefs.
Flight from the church
Are the Gospels really full of fake news? Should the bestseller of all bestsellers, the Bible, be rewritten? It is true that if the words are wrong, the entire message is wrong. Is this perhaps the real cause of the current dramatic wave of departures from the two main Churches? In recent decades, the number of adherents to Catholicism and Protestantism has declined, and the Federal Statistical Office estimates that this trend will continue for both faiths.
Even Cardinal Reinhard Marx, in presenting his resignation to the Pope, declared that his Catholic Church is in a “dead end”. The real reason to flee the Church is spiritual and religious. The Church and society are becoming more and more alienated. I wonder why? In fact, the churches that actually exist have dried up spiritually.
If the words are wrong, the whole message is wrong.
An example of fleeing the church is a statement made by cabaret performer Carolin Kebekus, who has since left her church. He was asked, “Do you also know anything funny in the Bible?” » His answer: “Yes, a virgin who gave birth to many children.”
This riddle is easy to solve using Aramaic. In Jesus’ native language, there is no word for “biological virgin.” In Aramaic, it simply means “young woman.” This sounds simple, but it immediately becomes a problem when you consider that one of the most prominent and popular Catholic theologians, Eugen Drewermann, had his teaching license revoked because he did not want to believe in the virginity of Jesus’ mother. Similarly, Hans Küng was disbarred because he could not believe in the “infallibility” of the Pope.
A pacifist, not a warmonger
The problem of translation becomes more difficult in other passages of the Bible. In Matthew 10:34, we find the terrible phrase, which would come from Jesus: “For I have not come to bring peace, but the sword”. Is this what the pacifist in the Sermon on the Mount would have said? Jesus – a warmonger, really?
I did not come to spread harmony, but to settle differences
Translated from Aramaic, this verse from Jesus means: “I have not come to spread harmony, but to settle differences.” This suits the warlike pacifist of Nazareth much better, but it is the opposite of what is written in Bibles around the world and with which Church leaders have justified “holy wars” or “just wars” and blessed bombs – even atomic bombs. of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Jesus, however, blessed the peacemakers and never the warmongers and ideologues of the sword.
The Italian, French, Portuguese and Brazilian bishops modified their Our Father according to the Pope’s proposal, but not the German bishops of the two confessions. In the newspaper Image of the Sonntagformer bishop Margot Käßmann said: “We do not want to change tradition! If tradition is more important than Jesus in such a central question like the image of God in the Our Father, then the faithful rightly flee the churches. Then the churches really can no longer be saved. »
Christ never condemned
As a young theology student, I often heard the expression: “Ecclesia semper reformanda” – the Church must always be renewed. But woe betide anyone who tries to do that.
Hundreds of people who read the “new” Aramaic translation in my books about Jesus write to me that the “permanent” burdens that the priests or religious teachers had imposed on them have fallen away. A 75-year-old Catholic clergyman informed me that he was on the verge of becoming an atheist. But thanks to the Aramaic Jesus, he was able to believe again.
Two other serious examples of death translation errors. In Matthew 5:22, we read of someone saying to his brother: “You impious fool, let him fall into the fires of hell.” » Just recently, a priest told me that he was “afraid of hell” because of such passages in the Bible and that he had not been able to sleep at night for a long time. Instead of proclaiming the good news of Jesus, the fear of hell is threatened.
It is the same Mark 16:16. Here the official Bible says: “He who does not believe will be condemned. » Jesus never condemned anyone. This is an ecclesial example of blackmail against baptism and the Christian faith. The tolerant Jesus, preaching freedom and love, said no such thing.
Why Judas was called a traitor
A particularly catastrophic example of corrupt translation concerns Judas. For centuries, theologians and church leaders have referred to it as “traitor“. Moreover, they equated Judas with “Jews” and “killers of God.” Günther Schwarz proved that anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism could be historically attributed to this misconception.
The true story between Jesus and Judas, as it has come down to us in Aramaic: Judas was the only one of the twelve apostles who knew about Jerusalem. Then Jesus sent him to the chief priests. In the German translation, the word for “betray” is based on the Greek word “paradidomai”. But it can also be translated as “handed over”. It should be noted that in all the passages where this word is associated with Judas in the four gospels (i.e. 32 times), the German translation is “betray”. But in many other places in the Bible (17 times in total) it is translated “remitted.”
Thus, Judas was deliberately branded a traitor. The “traitor” was the figurehead of all anti-Semites for 2,000 years – until the Nazis, the Holocaust and Auschwitz. It is high time to tell this story. For popular Israeli writer Amos Oz, who died in 2018, the story of Judas, betrayer of Jesus, is “the Chernobyl of anti-Semitism.”
Judas was equated with “Jews” and “killers of God”.
For 2,000 years, Judas was thrown with mud by Christians, just as Jesus the Jew was thrown with mud by Jewish theologians 2,000 years ago. The “traitor” was in fact Jesus’ best friend, from whom he asked one last friendly service. The real traitor was not Judas, but Peter, who denied Jesus “before the rooster crows three times” (Mark 14:72). Today only, with a correct and honest translation, Judas gets the recognition he deserves. Judas did not betray Jesus, even though this remains horribly false in all four Gospels. He delivered it in consultation with Jesus.
Walter Jens writes in his latest novel: “Without Judas, there is no cross. Without the cross there is no fulfillment of the plan of salvation. Without Judas, there is no Church. No narration without this narrator. Judas’ kiss was a friendship kiss. Without Judas, there would be no Good Friday and probably no Easter either. And probably no Christianity.
The Bible in its original language
The difference between Greek and Aramaic 2,000 years ago was similar to that between Arabic and German today.
If a Japanese Germanist wants to understand Goethe, he probably does not read his texts in Chinese, but in German. This is why my request to the Pope and the bishops is the following: that the Gospel be finally retranslated into the mother tongue of Jesus and officially rehabilitate Judas at the next council. And do the same for Mary Magdalene, who was not a whore, as it is said in the Gospels, but the closest confidante and companion of Jesus, as it is said in other sources. The world today needs a rebirth of Jesus. Günther Schwarz has already done good and important preliminary work in this regard.
The church is not in good health. But Jesus is alive.
The author is a journalist and best-selling author. Most recently, he published “The Most Extraordinary Love of All Time – The True Story of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Judas.”
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