Aramaic

I am about to begin work on my second semester of Aramaic under Dr. Brian Aucker. We had a lot of fun last semester diving into to two grammars and working through the material together. It was wonderful to finally get a deeper look at the Aramaic sections of the OT (see below). Previous work in these sections had been limited to full reliance on commentaries and stumbling through on Hebrew cognate awareness. Obviously, being able to translate well these sections are helpful for good exegesis and working with the text, but there are other (bigger?) benefits for me.

Being able to deal with Aramaic grammar and understand the issues relevant there have been immensely helpful in furthering my understanding of Hebrew. Most recently, it is being used to further inform my ongoing study of NW Semitic languages, specifically their valency.

So as I work through the grammars, I'll try to remember to post interesting points and discoverings.

The large Aramaic sections of the OT are:
Ezra 4:8-6:18 and 7:12-26
Daniel 2:4b-7:28
Jeremiah 10:11