While I enjoy much of Joachim Jeremias’ book, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, one of the biggest errors therein is Jeremias’ claim that Aramaic did not have a word for “all,” only “many.” This is reminiscent of the bogus claim made by some Catholics that Hebrew and Aramaic did not have a word for “uncle” or “aunt.”
Responding to Jeremias on this point, James F. Wathen wrote:
The doctor found this out all by himself—I mean, altogether by himself—for absolutely no one else knows about it not even the Hebrews, nor the Arameans, who would have sworn that they did have words to express the ideas represented in our language by the words “all” and “many!” (Our Lord spoke Aramaic. The word He would have used for all in this language is: kol, or kola; the word He would have used for many is: ‘saggi’an.)
Even though St. Matthew and St. Mark both spoke Our Lord’s vernacular tongue of Aramaic, they are both supposed to have made the identical error, neither one daring (or knowing enough) to correct the other. Apparently no one in the Apostolic Church caught the mistake. Nor did any of the early Church Fathers, none of the Doctors of the Church, none of the Popes, not one of the great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages, no one in the whole wide world except one Joachim Jeremias. In fact, to this very day, he alone knows of this mistake, for his all-but-divine revelation has failed to impress scholars, both true and false. Witness, not a single translation of the Bible (the countless ones for which this deeply pious age has suddenly found a need) with all their unheard of, outrageous, and heterodox turns of phrases—not a single one of them, I say—indicates acceptance of this crack-pot theory that since Christ our God, the “Word made flesh,” did not have a way, could not devise a way, to say “all,” He had to be satisfied with saying “many” and waiting two thousand years for Dr. Jeremias to explain it for Him.
His explanation means, of course, that the word should be “all,” not “many,” in the following scriptural passages: “All are called, but few chosen.” (Mt. 20:16). And, “The Son of man is not come to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give his life a redemption for all.” (Mt. 20:28). Speaking of the time of the Great Tribulation, Jesus meant to say, “for all [everybody!] will come in my name saying: I am Christ: and they will seduce all [everybody!].” (Mt. 24:5). (James F. Wathen, The Great Sacrilege: A critical essay on the Novus Ordo Missae of Pope Paul VI with particular reference to its moral impact and ramifications [Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books and Publishers, 1971], 101, italics in original)
