This is a prose English and very literal translation of the first five books of the Peshitta Aramaic Old Testament (The Torah). Aramaic was the language of Jesus and of 1st century Israel. The Peshitta Bible is the world's first complete Christian Bible. The Peshitta Old Testament is itself a translation of the Hebrew Bible completed in the 1st century AD, according to the available evidence. No Peshitta scholar places the Peshitta OT later than the 2nd century AD. As such, it gives an early look at the state of the Hebrew Bible at that time, since Aramaic and Hebrew are sister Semitic languages and about as close to each other as any two languages can be, sharing the same alphabet, writing, grammar, much vocabulary and even similar pronunciation of many words. Some of the original Old Testament is Aramaic, such as Daniel chapters 2 through 7 inclusive, and Ezra 4 through much of 7. It even appears in a verse of Genesis 31 and one verse in Jeremiah 10:11.

228 pages, paperback.