Linguistics

I've been mulling over a curious question and perused the internet for information but only found surface level answers thus far and am curious if the religious knowledge of the folks here have anything to add.

(KJV) Matthew 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

So I personally own a Strong's Concordance of the Bible and its a great resource as anyone who has used it knows. Most any time I come across something in the Bible I find curious I run to my concordance, do a quick translation back to Hebrew or Greek as well as search the roots of the words to try and fully understand the passage. I recommend doing this for anyone going through the Bible, it's exceptionally educational and for me, spiritual. Anyway. This particular phrasing, specifically when he says "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" is a very strange phrase to find. First, the entirety of the New Testament is classically Greek and the Bible Hebrew. This phrase, while if a quote could make sense if Hebrew, is Aramaic. While the languages are similar, the meanings of words do come with slight variations. Such as "sabachthani" is meant to say what is similar to the English forsaken in Hebrew, specifically meaning to be left or abandoned in a particular place whereas for English we use forsaken in an emotional context to say that someone has broken a bond with you. The Aramaic translation is much closer to English, being more closely associated with emotional abandonment rather than a geographical one. As I am trying to understand the meaning of this verse, ultimately the feeling that I might believe Christ is trying to convey is one of loneliness to his father and rather than saying "why'd you betray me dad" he's communicating "why have I been left here" as now at this point everyone has left him there or expects him to die. Either way is sad, but one reflects differently on the character of God and Christ vs the other. If you view it as an emotional forsaken, God's perfect character seems thrown into jeopardy as he would never truly forsake anyone, including his son. As a perfect father he would never abandon Christ. Yet Christ, also meant to be perfect, could be taken here to be questioning his father which would be a form of griping or complaining. While I don't think anyone would count this against him having been whipped, beaten, nailed to cross, and slowly dying in front of his family and friends it would throw some doubt on the nature of his character if taken in the Aramaic or English sense. It truly makes no sense to me. I don't understand why this, and only this phrase is Aramaic in the New Testament and why use that language instead of Hebrew which Christ almost certainly would have spoken instead. It is similar to if I go to a Trump rally as a Russian speaker, transcribe everything into Russian but then keep one phrase in Spanish and translate that back to Russian. I just don't get it. That said, there are plenty of places where the Bible doesn't make total sense which is why I don't believe in biblical inerrancy so normally I'll take what is good and move on. For some reason though this passage continues to be one that I chew on and haven't had a satisfactory answer yet. If anyone has any insight or other source I haven't seen yet I am open to it.

I believe it's impossible to be completely separate from the Creator at any point in time. Because we are basically parts of the Creator. Though I can certainly sympathize with the feeling that you've been abandoned spiritually by the Creator or god(s). Whenever a translation of any text is done with an agenda it creates problems. The Etta's that are most known today were translated by Snorrison who was a Christian and Incorporated and manipulated the text to fit Christian themes and symbology. There's all kinds of debates in the Heathen community about what's genuinely pagan/ animist and what's Christian influence. The story of Thor fighting the sea serpent, Jörmungandr, is a big one because there's no reason for Thor to fight the thing that represents the life force of the earth, his Mother. Now in the story of Ragnarok, which again is in itself Christian symbology reflecting the apocalypse, Thor then killing the sea serpent makes sense. 

The comment could very well have been added in as a way of justifying that God had abandoned Christ so he could go to hell and pay for sin. The fact is we have no idea what was said, wasn't said, what's true or not true based solely on the Bible because it's not written by God or even Jesus. That's why there should be things like reflection, study, meditation and not just the word of a book. 

The word transliterated as Sabachtani has a structure that mirrors a Hebrew or Aramaic structure, but I'm not sure of the root.

Some Hebrew options are

Azavtani (left me)

Zavachtani (sacrificed me)

Shachachtani (forgot me)

The Aramaic for Psalm 22:2 has

Sh'vaktani (left me)

This is interesting. I've not delved much into this particular passage, but I do remember coming across this part in a book called the "Pure Word" which has the NT translated directly from Koine Greek word for word which has it stated as this: My God, My God, why have You within Me left?

This translation, to me, makes it sound as though God, perhaps specifically the Father, separated Himself from the Son, (Jesus did teach that the Father was in Him doing the works.) This might align more with emotional abandonment than geographical like you said, but I don't think it should throw into question God's character. Remember, as Isaiah foretold, God would be pleased to crush the Messiah, His Servant. God's perfection doesn't overexaggerate this idea of love as current culture has done; God's nature carries a perfect balance between love, justice, mercy and grace. I think Jesus was authentically feeling the weight of the world's sins upon Himself, and God has to deal with sin. Believe it or not, he deals with man everyday when it comes to sin. Romans 1 states that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. The Father up until that point has never had to deal with sin in (on?) His Son, so there's never been separation between them before this moment. Jesus was effectively sinless in Himself up until the point he needed to carry our sins away.

I think that God is just showing that he approves of abortion.

Then "mull" and "chew" no ,longer

The passage is simple enough. Jesus lost his faith. After all the promises made by the Gabriel to his mother of  her son "inheriting the throne of David, becoming king to rule over the Jews with a kingdom that will never end", which in reality came to nothing. He failed to unite the tribes of Israel, failed to rebuild the temple, failed to free the Jews from the Roman yoke and failed to bring peace to earth all of which were expected of a messiah. Instead he ended up nailed to a cross with a view overlooking the Kidron Valley for crimes against Rome with the help of the Jewish elders thereby putting an end to the claims that he was a messiah.  Is it any wonder he cried out;

"Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me"?  Matthew 27:46

His god let him down something serious and was totally abandoned by him, imo. Or maybe he wasn't the expected messiah after all? The Jews didn't think so.

One of the concerns I believe is a misconception is this idea that God is omnipotent, and perfect, which I believe he is. However, I do not think he always acts omnipotently if the occasion does not warrant it. For example, being perfect, one might expect that the entirety of his creation was perfect, when, clearly, it is not. We are the best examples of that, because we clearly are not perfect. So why does anyone think we should be, now, if God is truly God? It is really the same question as that which we pose when we are faced with a personal tragedy - why did God allow that to happen? If he were truly God, I would not be facing this suffering and loss. That thinking is, first, arrogant, and second, misunderstanding our purpose here, not to mention the purpose of Christ's atonement, which is infinite. Our purpose here is to learn and grow; to become perfect, eventually, but to suffer hardship as challenges to our faithfulness during the course of our mortal lives. We must recognize that usually, we are the cause of our own suffering by making poor choices of thought and action. We were given free agency, but must use it to learn how to be more obedient. Not that we will avoid suffering, but because we can learn how to overcome these challenges and not be swayed to blame God, or worse, dismiss him as irrelevant because we thin he should coddle us like children.

As for Christ feeling forsaken, for his personal sacrifice to be completely successful, he had to endure the extreme of his suffering with no assistance from God the Father. This was Christ's mission, alone, relative to the atonement. Only he, by himself, a perfect, sinless man, could satisfy the demand of ultimate justice that he, alone, pay the price of sin, suffering, disappointment, and sorrow that would beset all of us. It was not a heartless, forsaking God who withdrew, but oone who know this was on Christ's shoulders, alone.

The words of Men.

Variously interpreted by Men..........(And perhaps latterly Women got to have a say).

Men create GODS in recognisable images, and attribute them with dialogue.

Storytelling.

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