The Verbal Root ntn Replacing yhb ‘to give’ in the Imperfect. A Case Study in Early Christian Palestinian Aramaic Manuscripts

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Published: Jul 31, 2026
Keywords:
Christian Palestinian Aramaic – ntn – manuscripts – Monastery of St Catherine Western Aramaic

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Christa Müller-Kessler
Friedirch-Schiller-Universität Jena

Abstract

The local Aramaic dialect of the Judean Desert with Jerusalem in the centre was turned into a written literary dialect for the translations of biblical, liturgical, and other religious literature from Greek ‘Vorlagen’ at the end of the 4th century AD. This was presumably initiated during the episcopat of Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386 AD). Despite being a rather artificial language some dialectic residues remained in some of the early manuscripts. For example, the replacement verb ntn for yhb in the imperfect instead of borrowed ntl from Syriac, which is the common deployed one Christian Palestinian Aramaic, is one of them. New attestations come from early manuscripts recently identified in this dialect at the Monastery of St Catherine on Mt Sinai.

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Vol. 23 (2026)
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Articles
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