Since the second edition of this book appeared in 1954, two major discoveries in the field of Aramaic studies—the Qumran texts and the Neofiti Targum—have been made available to scholars. These, along with some important publications on the subject, have made this third edition necessary. The book has been completely revised and reset and the supplementary notes of the second edition incorporated in the text; a new chapter has been added to take account of the implications of the new discoveries for previous views about the language of Jesus. Those parts of the book dealing with Acts have been revised and supplemented in the light of Dr. Max Wilcox’s important book on the Semitisms of Acts; and an Appendix by Dr. Geza Vermes, Reader in Jewish Studies in Oxford, has been added containing fresh evidence for the use of the expression “son of man” in Palestinian Aramaic.

The New Testament was preserved in Greek, but the events narrated in the Gospels and part of Acts took place in a largely Aramaic-speaking environment. Matthew Black therefore begins with the hypothesis that the material contained in these books was spoken or written in Aramaic. Black surveys the New Testament for Aramaic grammatical features (syntax, grammar, and vocabulary), poetic features (parallelism, alliteration), and other linguistic evidence that the New Testament text was translated from Aramaic. He uses this approach to shed light on difficult passages from the Gospels and Acts.