One of many examples: The facilitator of the Bible Studies obtained a copy of the Khabouris manuscript in 1993 from the Aramaic Bible Society, then in Covington, Georgia. An initial word study of the manuscript revealed over 60 times the word Father in the Gospels, 57 or so of which were translated into Greek as “Pater” and then Father in English. However, in the Khabouris manuscript, in each of the 60 original expressions used by Christ Jesus to His audience, the word ABBA was used and remains so in the Khabouris manuscript. One significance is this: The word ABBA had never been used before Christ Jesus presented it to his audience to describe an intimate, personal relationship with God, His Father. His usage of it conveyed to the audience a relationship which earthly fathers of that time, and today have with their own children. This way very new, and here is one reason why:

In the Jewish culture of that time, using the word ABBA used to describe his relationship with His Father, was illegal and an offence which laws then subjected him to “stoning.” The Jewish culture of that time, declared Abraham was their Father, but not God. Only 3 times out of 60 did the word ABBA remain in the translations we have today in English. Once in Mark during Christ Jesus prayer in the Garden of Gesthamane, and two times in the Epistles. Here is a very short summary of the Khabouris manuscript.

The Khabouris (also spelled Khaburis) Codex is a copy of the oldest known Eastern Canon of the New Testament in its native, and  the original language of the Scriptures, Aramaic. The physical manuscript has been carbon-dated at approximately 1000 AD plus or minus 50 years. The colophon bears the seal and signature of the Bishop at the Church at Nineveh, then capital of the Assyrian Empire located today in the present-day Iraqi city of Mosul.  According to colophon it is a copy of a text from approximately 164 AD (internally documented as 100 years after the great persecution of the Christians by Nero, in 65AD).  It was scribed on lamb parchment and hand bound between olive wood covers adorned with gold clasps, hinges and corner-brackets. The scribe would have been in ancient Nineveh (present-day Mosul, Iraq), according to the Colophon signed by a Bishop of the Church at Nineveh.  Of particular interest, is the fact that the Khabouris is written entirely in Aramaic, the tongue of Y’Shua, otherwise popularly known as Jesus, the Nazarite.  [AUTHOR’S NOTES]:  No text of the Gospels containing the words of Christ Jesus has been found in my research that is older than the Khabouris Manuscript.  I obtained my copy from the Aramaic Bible Society in the early 1990’s from the Aramaic Bible Society, Inc. in Covington, Georgia. (It is believed that Society has gone through a number of organizational changes since the 1990’s)

          The original second century manuscript, as well as the Khabouris, were scribed in the ancient Estrangelo script.  The script which was developed at the School of Edessa (100AD) in order to record the Teachings of Christ Jesus.  In Aramaic, the word, Estrangelo, actually means “to write the Revealed Message.”   Translations of the New Testament into Greek, then Latin, then Middle English, and then Modern English progressively lost more and more of the nuances of the Aramaic.  Until this past century, those Western languages and cultures could not express certain concepts core to the Aramaic understandings of the mind.  With the translation of this manuscript using these re-discovered understandings, entire concepts that seemed, at times, baffling, become crystal clear. The message in Christ Jesus’ Teachings becomes even more persuasive, and ever more focussed around a fatherly relationship of love, compassion, forgiveness and grace, particularly when viewed through the New Covenant and grace.