I respectfully disagree with Mr. Kifa on his statement that "little Aramaic inscriptions have survived".
Mr. Kifa's information on the Aramaic language is very old, it belongs to the 19th and early 20th century.
Since then, numerous Aramaic inscriptions have come to light. I will list just a few of them:
1-Old Aramaic Inscriptions:
-The Zakir Inscription (800B.C.),
-The Sefire Inscription (740 B.C.),
-The Aramaic Inscriptions found at Tel Dan, Hazor, and Ein Gev in the Northern Galilee,
-The Zinjirli Inscriptions (Sam'al).
2-Official Aramaic:
-The Bar Rakkib (Bar Rekub) inscriptions,
-The Nerab Inscriptions,
-The Ahikar proverbs,
-The Hermopolis papyri,
-The Wadi Daliyeh papyri (unpublished yet),
-The Aramaic Neo Babylonina tablets from Iraq,
-The dockets, graffiti, seals from Iran,
-The inscriptions and bullae from Turkey,
-The North Arabian inscriptions,
-The documents preserved in the Aramaic portion of Ezra (4:8-6:18; 7: 12-26)
written in the official Aramaic,
-Many Iranian loanwords and phrases in the fields of administration, communications, dress, crafts, artisanry, and religion entered Aramaic,
3-Middle Aramaic:(330 B.C. to 200 A.D.)
-The Aramaic portions of Daniel fit well into this dialect,
-The Aramaic texts found in the Qumran caves, better known as the Deasd Sea Scrolls,
-The Book of Tbit, and the Dream of Nabonidus,
-The book of Enoch and Melchizedek,
-The Genesis Apocryphon and the Treatment of Levi were written in Aramaic,
-The Aramaic Targum of Job,
-The Aramaic Targum of Onkelos for the Pentateuch and Jonathan for the Prophets,
-The Aramaic texts of Meghillath Ta'anith (Fasts Scroll) and the later Meghillath Antiyochos (the Scroll of the Hasmoneans),
-The Aramaic formulas quoted in the Mishna and in both Talmuds ,
-The Aramaic documents found in the Bar Kochba caves (65-135 A.D.),
-The Nabataean Aramaic epigraphic material including dedicatory, religious, and burial inscriptions,
-The Nabatean Aramaic ostraca, coins, and papyri,
-The legal Aramaic documents in Nabatean found in the Bar Kochba cave at Nahal
Hever, and the sepulchral inscriptions from El Hejra, The Nabataean Aramaic texts found at Halutsa, Advat and Nitsanah in the Negeb as well as at Petra, Bozrah, etc.,
-The Aramaic inscription from Palmyra, including dedicatory, funerary, and religious inscriptions (from 50 B.C. to 250 A.D.),
-The Aramaic Palmyrene papyrus found at Dura-Europos,
-The Aramaic Palmyrene texts found in North Arabia, in Europe, and in the Merv Oasis in Central Asia,
-The Aramaic inscriptions found in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Georgia, Armenia and Turkey,
-The Aramaic papyri foun in Egypt, and a large group of Aramaic ostraca found at Nisa in Turkmenistan from the Parthian period,
-The adoptian of the Aramaic script by the Persian Empire to write their Iranian inscriptions, including the Aramaic name of king Qorosh Aramaic (Qor Resh=the cold head),
-The Aramaic ideograms of the eight century Pahlavi text Farahang i Pahlavk wich is used as a main source fro Official Aramaic,
4-Western Aramaic:
-The Jerusalem tomb Aramaic inscriptions including: Jason's tomb; the Ussiah tomb; the Giv'at ha-Mitvar cave inscriptions,
-The Aramaic sarcophagi lides from Bethphage, the ossuaries, weights, and other items inscribed in Aramaic,
-The Aramaic vocabulary of the New Testament as Talitha Cumi, Maranatha, Ephphatah, Eloi, Eloi Lama Sabaqtani, and Rabouni,
-The Aramaic place names in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem such as: Akeldama, Golgotha, Gethsemane, and Bethesda,
-The Aramaic Galilean dialects of Jesus Christ and his disciples (Matt. 26: 73), Some of the work done by the Jewish historian Josephus was written in Aramaic,
-The Bar Kochba Aramaic letters (132-35 A.D.),
5-Eastern Aramaic:
-The incantation text from Uruk in S. Mesopotamia (second cent. B.C.),
-The Aramaic inscriptions and graffiti found in Northern Iraq at Asshur and
Hatra (2nd century A.D.),
6-Later Aramaic:(200-900 A.D.)
-The Aramaic Palestinian Talmud, better known as the Geniza Text,
-The Palestinian Aramaic Medrashim knwon as Genesis Rabbah and Leviticus Rabbah and the Palestinian Targums,
-The Aramaic Neofiti Targum,
-The Yerushalmi or "fragment Targums" and the Genizah fragments published by Kahle and others,
-The Aramaic Targum to the Kethubim,
-The Pseudo-Jonathan Aramaic Targum,
-The Aramaic funeral inscriptions from Joppa (2nd-3rd. cen. A.D.),
-The Aramaic inscriptions of Beth-Shearim (3rd-4th centuries),
-The Aramaic Zoar inscriptions on the Dead Sea (5th century A.D.),
-The Aramaic synagogue inscriptions from Eshtemoa, Susya, the Hebron area, Beth Guvrin, En-Gedi, Jericho, Naarah, Maon, Beth Shan, Hamath Gader, Hamat Tiberias, Capernahum, Umm el-'Amad and sites on the Golan Heights, etc.,
-The Samaritan Aramaic from the Shechem area,
-The Bardaisan and the story of Ahikar written in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic,
-The Syriac slave document drawn up at Edessa (243 A.D.), it was found at Dura-Europos,
-The Syriac Peshito (Fshito) and numerous literature written in Syriac.
Mr. Kifa's information on the Aramaic language goes back to the mid 19th and early 20th centuries. His erroneous information do not satisfy modern scholarship in the study of the Aramaic language.
His claim that the parchment do not last more than 600 years is wrong. The Dead Sea Scrolls were written on parchment almost two thousand years ago, they were discovere in the Dead Sea area in 1947. Mr. Kifa could see them if he goes to the Museum of Jerusalem where they are displayed.
Here at Princeton University, we have two volumes of the Gospel of St. John written on parchment in the Estrangelo Syriac script, they beolong to the 10-11 century A.D. Mr. Kifa is welcome to come and see them displayed in the Princeton Library Museum of Manuscripts (the Near East Dept.).
The Elephantine Papyri of Egypt were written in Aramaic on papyrus, they belong to the 5th-6th century B.C., that is more than 2500 years ago.
I worked on an Aramaic manuscript written on parchment that belongs to the 2nd-3rd century A.D., that is 1700 years ago.
Mr. Kifa should refrain from giving erroneous information about the Aramaic language.
Sincerely,
Gabriel Sawma
