George Lamsa

He popularized the claim of the Assyrian Church of the East that the New Testament was written in Aramaic and then translated into Greek, contrary to academic consensus.

[4] According to Lamsa, "Aramaic was the colloquial and literary language of Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, from the fourth century B. C. to the ninth century A. D."[5] This view of the Assyrian Church regarding the Language of the New Testament is rejected by mainstream scholarship, but Lamsa's views won support among some churches such as The Way.

Matthew 19:24, according to Lamsa, is correctly translated as, 'It is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.'

[10] Bruce Chilton, scholar and prominent Aramaicist, has said: "A still less defensible tendency confuses Aramaic of the first century with Syriac, a different form of the language.

The approach of George Lamsa, who used the Peshitta Syriac version as an index of replicating Jesus’ teaching in Aramaic, has been taken up and popularized by Neil Douglas-Klotz.

The review concludes by saying: "On the surface, Lamsa appears to be a revealer of biblical truth and culture and a friend of evangelical Christianity.

Closer study, however, has revealed that Lamsa promotes metaphysical, not evangelical teachings which have led him to inaccurate interpretations and translations of portions of the Bible.

They heard the words of a prophet or shaman on many possible levels if they had “ears to hear.” The ancient Semitic languages suited themselves to this multi-levelled understanding.

From this creative process arises the multi-levelled translation and rendering of sacred texts called midrash in the early Jewish tradition, and ta’wil in the Islamic one.

"[14][15]William M. Branham, evangelist and personal friend to Lamsa [16] has said: "To our gratification we find the words in both amazingly the same so that there is no difference actually in content or doctrine.