Dusty Phrases

Dusty

February 27

Hi! Welcome to "Dusty Phrases." You will find below an ancient phrase in one language or another, along with its English translation. You may also find the power to inspire your friends or provoke dread among your enemies.

For other examples, visit HERE:

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Aramaic:

ṭlīthā qūm

English:

Little girl, I say to you, get up

This phrase comes from the New Testament of the Bible, wherein an Aramaic speaker, writing in Greek, left in the original Aramaic phrase before providing a translation in Greek. It is not known why the Aramaic was left in. Perhaps the original phrase had a first century history in the Aramaic-speaking community.

And taking the hand of the child, he said to her, "Talitha kum", which translates as, "Little girl, I say to you, get up."

— Mark 5:41

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke also tell this story but do not include the Aramaic phrase.

For more on the phrase and the story, I will direct you to wiki:

The raising of Jairus' daughter is a reported miracle of Jesus that occurs in the synoptic Gospels, where it is interwoven with the account of the healing of a bleeding woman. The narratives can be found in Mark 5:21–43, Matthew 9:18–26 and Luke 8:40–56.

Scholars have long recognised the Lukan and Matthean accounts of the story derive from the Markan account and are a typical example of a Synoptic triple tradition. The story has no equivalent in the Gospel of John. Although some have drawn comparisons with the healing the royal official's son (John 4 :46–53) and with the raising of Lazarus (John 11 :1–54) narratives, Zwiep (2015) states that "they are entirely different and unrelated stories, according to most biblical scholars to date".

he differences between the three Gospel narratives are well known amongst scholars. The premise of the story in Mark and Luke is that a ruler (Mark: εἷς τῶν ἀρχισυναγώγων "one of the synagogue rulers"; Luke: ἄρχων τῆς συναγωγῆς "a ruler of a synagogue") of a Galilean synagogue called Jairus (Greek: Ἰάειρος, Iaeiros, from the Hebrew name Yair) wants Jesus to "heal/save" (Mark: σωθῇ) his 12-year-old daughter who is "dying" (Luke: ἀπέθνῃσκεν) or "holding at (the point of) the end" (Mark: ἐσχάτως ἔχει; often translated as "at the point of death"). In Matthew, the synagogue ruler is unnamed, the girl's age is not mentioned, she has already "just died" (ἄρτι ἐτελεύτησεν), and the father's request is that Jesus lay his hand upon her "and she will live [again]" (Matthew: καὶ ζήσεται). In other words, in Matthew he requests Jesus to reverse her death rather than prevent it, in contrast to the accounts of Mark and Luke.

One other fun fact about the phrase "Talitha Cumi" is that it serves as the title of an episode of the X-Files. That episode (the season 3 finale) features one of my favorite scenes featuring The Cigarette Smoking Man: