Aramaic   A Northwest Semitic language, Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Ancient Near East from c.600 B.C.E. to c.700 C.E., and was thus the major spoken language in Palestine during the rise of early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism.  Some portions of the Bible are written in Aramaic (Gen 31:47 [two words], Jer 10:11; Ezra 4:8-68 and 7:12-26; and Dan 2:4-7:28; plus some transliterated terms in the Greek New Testament).  In addition, the targumim and the Syriac Peshitta, both expansive translations of the Hebrew scriptures, preserved the biblical record in this language and influenced the Dead Sea Scrolls community, the early Christians (particularly in Syria), and the two major Rabbinic schools in Palestine and Babylon.   Bible Elliger, K. and W. Rudolph, eds.  Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.  Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1967/1977. (portions of some books are in Aramaic)   Dictionary Brown, Francis, with S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs.  The New Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon: With an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic.  Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1979. --------.  A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament: With an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic.  Oxford: Clarendon, 1959. Holladay, William Lee.  A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1971. Jastrow, Marcus, comp.  Sepher Milim: A Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature.  New York: Judaica, 1989; original 1903. Sokoloff, Michael.  A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, 2d ed.  Ramat-Gan/Baltimore: Bar Ilan University Press/Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.   Concordance Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon - hosted by the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion.   Grammar Johns, Alger F.  A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic.   Berrien Spring, Michigan: Andrews University Press, 1972. Greenspahn, Frederick E.  An Introduction to Aramaic, 2d ed.  Atlanta/Leiden: Society of Biblical Literature/Brill, 2003. Rosenthal, Franz.  A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, 6th ed., Porta Linguarum Orientalium 5.  Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995. © 2017 Catherine Murphy, Associate Professor cmurphy@scu.edu   Dept of Religious Studies, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053