Rocco A. Errico
Rocco A. Errico is an American minister and founder of the Noohra Foundation, an organization devoted to Aramaic Biblical research. Errico was a student of the late George M. Lamsa, a Biblical scholar born in Tur Abdin to an Aramaic-speaking mother, who believed that the Peshitta, or Syriac (Aramaic) language version of the New Testament, came before the Greek New Testament. Errico writes books and gives lectures based on this belief that the New Testament was originally composed in Aramaic and only translated into Greek in about AD 300. Lamsa's work compares translations of the Peshitta with popular English translations based on the Greek New Testament, particularly the King James Version.
Biography
Dr. Rocco A. Errico is an ordained Unity minister, international lecturer and author, spiritual counselor, and a Biblical scholar working with the Syriac language Peshitta text of the Bible. For ten years he studied intensively with Dr. George M. Lamsa, Th.D., (1890-1975), an Assyrian biblical scholar and translator of the Holy Bible from the Ancient Eastern Text. He began his practice as an ordained minister and pastoral counselor in the mid-1950s and during the next three decades served in churches and missions in Missouri, Texas, Mexico, and California. Dr. Errico is proficient in Aramaic and Hebrew exegesis and the recipient of numerous awards and academic degrees, including a Doctorate in Philosophy from the School of Christianity in Los Angeles; a Doctorate in Divinity from St. Ephrem's Institute in Sweden; and a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the School of Christianity in Los Angeles. In 1993, the American Apostolic University College of Seminarians awarded him a Doctorate of Letters. He also holds a special title of Teacher, Prime Exegete, Maplana d’miltha dalaha, among the Federation of St. Thomas Christians of the order of Antioch. Dr. Errico speaks at conferences, symposia, and seminars throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe and has been a contributor for over 23 years to Science of Mind Magazine. Dr. Errico has stressed the nonsectarian, open interpretation of Biblical spirituality.[1]
In 1970, Dr. Errico established the Noohra Foundation a non-profit, non-sectarian spiritual-educational organization devoted to the belief that Aramaic/Syric was the original language of the New Testament, and promoting his interpretation of the Bible. Currently Dr. Errico leads Tuesday night Bible studies at Hillside International Truth Center, a church in Atlanta, Georgia associated with the metaphysical New Thought movement.[2]
Dr. Errico’s publications include: Aramaic Light on the Gospel of Matthew, Aramaic Light on the Gospels of Mark and Luke, Aramaic Light on the Gospel of John, And There Was Light, Setting a Trap for God (formerly: The Ancient Aramaic Prayer of Jesus), Let There Be Light: The Seven Keys, The Mysteries of Creation: The Genesis Story, The Message of Matthew, Classical Aramaic Book 1, La Antigua Oración Aramea de Jesús: El Padrenuestro (Spanish version of The Ancient Aramaic Prayer of Jesus). He is also published in Europe: Acht instimmungen auf Gott (German translation of Setting a Trap for God), Es Werde Licht (German translation of Let There Be Light), and a forthcoming Italian publication of Setting a Trap for God.[3]