As for the difference between Matthew’s “Eli, Eli” and Mark’s “Eloi, Eloi” we must consider the crowd’s reaction. The only reaction quoted is in both Matthew and Mark as Jesus having said “Elias”. If we are reduced to a choice, we would have to go along with “Eli, Eli.”

I searched and searched, and could not find the words in any language either. In desperation I turned to the parent language, Prehistoric Mayan or Naga.

There the words were, as large as life:

Heli, heli, lamat sabac ta ni.

I am fainting, I am fainting, darkness is overcoming me.

Since Jesus is quoted as having “cried with a loud voice” in both Matthew and Mark, perhaps we should quote the translation to be:

I am fainting! I am fainting! Darkness is overcoming me!

This opens up a bucketful of questions and controversies. Imagine what I was faced with as soon as I found the translation. I was faced with a mountain to climb. If I didn’t climb it, I would never sleep again. I knew that, like solving the puzzles of cataclysm ology, this problem would never leave me alone – mainly for the sake of my own and my Dear Wife’s curiosity.

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A hundred questions crossed my mind. Well, maybe not a hundred. But a plethora of them, anyway.

Why did Jesus, in his dying moments, speak a language which no one whom we know of heard him speak before? Was he naturally reverting to a language he had spoken as a prime language in earlier years?

If so, where had he been to have picked up that language?

And used it habitually?

Let’s again look to the Bible as history. A good place to start is Luke 2: 41, where Jesus’ parents are mentioned:

“41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover.

42   And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.

43   And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.

44   But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their kinfolk and acquaintance.

45   And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him.

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