Bad Hebrew/Aramaic Tattoos

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A while back, Codex (the blog of Tyler F. Williams, the Chair of the Religion & Theology Department and Assistant Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Taylor University College in Edmonton, Alberta… whew what a run πŸ™‚ ) did a both hilarious and sad (and hilariously sad) study on mis-translated Hebrew and Aramaic tattoos.

Well, guess what?

They keep happening!

I’ve come across two more:


The passage below is supposed to be taken from the Hebrew of the Song of Songs “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”

It is backwards. It should read:

אני ΧœΧ“Χ•Χ“Χ™ Χ•Χ“Χ•Χ“Χ™ ΧœΧ™
Ani ledodi vedodi li

Jesus appears to be scowling in disapproval.

Additionally this tattoo is on the arm of a man. “Dodi” is the masculine form of “beloved” so this backwards text, even when corrected means “I am my beloved’s (masculine) and my beloved (masculine) is mine.” Perhaps the bearer was trying to refer to Jesus? If so that would make sense. If they were referring to their sweatheart… not so much.

As if this one was bad enough, it looks like someone copied it for this tattoo:

Again backwards, and wrong gender.

If you are thinking of getting a tattoo, I cannot stress enough how serious such an endeavor is. I have helped over 300 people get tattoos done in the last year as a translator, and when you decide to get a translation done I recommend that you strive for the following:

  1. Don’t trust a tattoo gallery website. – A professional (preferably fluent with languages that are not dead or near-dead) translator with a good, strong record is the only way to go. That way, you can trust that you are getting something appropriate. The above two images were found on ReligiousTattoos.net which has a big blaring disclaimer not to trust anything posted there. This didn’t seem to stop our friends.
  2. Get an image of the text. – Don’t rely upon your computer to display a font properly. What had probably happened with the above examples is that their computer did not display Hebrew Unicode in the proper right-to-left format. Also, other problems with encoding can happen, such as mojibake.
  3. Always get a second opinion. – “Measure twice, cut once” the old proverb goes (and for a reason). Always take the time to double-check the text before getting things inked. With things such as dead or nearly-dead languages this can be difficult but not impossible. For Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic, check your local synagogue. For Syriac, track down a Syrian or Assyrian church. For Sanskrit, a Hindu temple or Buddhist monestary. If all else fails, go to your local College or University, and poke around the religion and linguistics departments. If you explain why you want your translation doublechecked, they will sympathize. πŸ™‚ AramaicDesigns.com will double-check Aramaic tattoo translations pro-bono.
–Steve Caruso

51 thoughts on “Bad Hebrew/Aramaic Tattoos”

  3. Tyler,

    If you’re too inundated with Aramaic requests send them my way. πŸ™‚ Heheh, I guess you could say that it has become a personal crusade of mine over the past year. I’ve even put together a webpage detailing statistics on the requests that I receive…. And the results aren’t too pretty:

    Tattoo Translation Verification

    Johnathan,

    Thanks πŸ™‚

    Peace,
    —
    Steve Caruso

  6. I really really want to get a hebrew tattoo but im still a little iffy on what one i want to get. do you think you could help me? i either want “key to my heart” (if possible) or other things… please email me:-) B3thy66@hotmail.com thanks!

  7. hi ti is really important for me to get a tattoo in hebrew preferably in rashi text saying “love conquers all” i would love it you could send me a correct version of this. thank you

  8. hey i am looking to get a last name translated into aramaic and i would just like to know how difficult it is to do that with a name that didn’t originate from that part of the world?? if u can email me at floersch@ku.edu that would be great
    -thanks

  11. You are a great helper. Can you take a look at this and check if its right. It should be a translation for:
    “Ha’ahava Hi Mekor Hachaim” (The love is the source of life.)

    האהבה היא מקור החיים
    and if you can tell me how to change the font

    THANK YOU A LOT.

  15. i wanted to get something for my daughter. something from the bible but i am having such a hard time finding the translation for biblical phrases do you have any suggestions and would you translate? or do i have to find what i want exactly and you will just translate to hebrew text? please email me at krysx0@hotmail.com

    thanks so much!
    Krystle

  16. hey.. i was woundering if you could translate the following script for me in aramiac:

    “The Kingdom of God is inside you and all around you,
    Not in a mansion of wood and stone.
    Split a piece of wood and God is there,
    Lift a stone and you will find God.”

    can u please send me an image thingy so the computa dosent fuck it up?? thanks mate

    email to: kjwalsh@alphalink.com.au

  19. Finally a good page showing errors and explaining them correctly.
    I’m not sure I should mention names, but I’ve seen quite a few several websites claiming to give accurate Hebrew tattoo translations and showing pictures of their customers with terrible spelling mistakes. It’s just painful.

    I’m Israeli and Hebrew is my mother tongue. So I decided to help people get their tattoos properly for a change, for a small fee of $5, cos I also help design the tattoo, choose a font and style, etc. I even do Rashi script.
    So if anyone’s interested go to http://www.hebrew-tattoo.com
    You’ll get a fast, accurate translation. This time for real. πŸ˜›

    If you already got a translation and just wanna double check, feel free to send it to me (hebrewtattoos@gmail.com) and I’ll tell you if it’s correct, no charge of course.

  20. Hi!

    So glad I found your page. My boyfriend and I want to get tattoos in Hebrew that say “eternal love” and I don’t trust putting anything on my body unless I know it’s correct. Hope you can help! Thanks! Can you please email me at christeekahn@yahoo.com.

    Thanks!

  22. Having read both tyler and steves’s comments I have been literally rolling around laughing at these “bad tattoos”. I am 33 and recently got my tattoo “This Too Shall Pas”..I didnt even go near a website to research this info. My ex-boyfriend is 50 and is from Israel and long before we broke up I had him write this out for me. I even spoke with his dad to make sure it was correct.

  23. My name is an Aramaic word and I have been looking for it in traditional Aramaic text but cannot find anything that can help me. My name’s Tabitha, as in Acts 9:36, and it would be incredible to see my name (or perhaps get a tattoo of it) in it’s original text. Please let me know if you can help me

    -Tabitha

    email: dubda@shaw.ca

  29. It is certainly interesting for me to read the blog. Thanks for it. I like such topics and anything connected to them. I definitely want to read more on that blog soon.

    Best wishes

  30. I am a female and I would like to get the “I am my beloved and my beloved is mine” in honor of my guy.

    The hebrew script with the Jesus scowling: is that correct or is the one that Christina Aguilera correct?

    The phrase: Tu Es Pulchra
    A man would say that to a woman.

    A woman saying it to man, is it correct that it would be: Tu Es Pulcher

    May I ask is there a tattoo in hebrew script for Tu Es Pulcher

    Sorry for all the questions but I’ve been doing searches and no one seems to know and then by luck I came across your web. Hope you can help me out.

    Thank you.

  31. My husband and I were going to get matching “I am my beloved’s my beloved is mine” tattoos, then realised that it would not be proper for a man to get that wording. Is there a way to word it in the proper gender? I believe I read somewhere that the only other way to change it would be a man referring to his “aunt” which would be a little disturbing to say the least. If you can help, please email jess.n.daniels@gmail.com Thank you

  33. Dani,

    That translation has a fascinating flub. I’ll have to do an article about it.

    In short, it is typeset as Syriac Aramaic, but it appears to be closer to Biblical Aramaic… with a few peculiarities.

    This would be similar to writing a phrase in Olde Englisc (meant to be written with thorns [þ], eths [ð], yoghs [ȝ] and wynns [ƿ]) out in modern English letters.

    More later, though. πŸ™‚

    Peace,
    -Steve

  34. I thought it might have such a flub. Just visually comparing it to script examples (it looked closest to the 2nd form of Estrangela) on Aramaic Designs, it looked a bit off. I wanted to get a tattoo of this quote myself. I look forward to your article on it. πŸ™‚ If you post the correct translation in your article, I would be very grateful.

    ~Blessings

    -Dani

  43. “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
    WAS WONDERING IF THIS CAN BE TRANSLATED TO HERODIAN? AND IF THAT IS TRULY THE SCRIPT JESUS WOULD HAVE USED?
    SEEMS TO BE A LOT OF FALSE INFORMATION AND I AM GETTING CONFUSED.

    THANK YOU
    PHILLIP
    EMAIL: USMCPC@GMAIL.COM

  46. About the masculinity of the verse…it is a Bible verse so some people might feel weird changing the gender regardless and it is generally considered to be addressed to God except (or perhaps including) on wedding bands. Of course, if you’re gay it doesn’t matter. My wedding band will have the original in reference to God and my partner and I am planning on getting the CORRECT tattoo as well. πŸ™‚ Thanks for raising awareness.

  50. Hey i am wanting to get a tattoo of Yeshua ben Yosef in aramaic down my ribs but i was wandering how it would work… would it be upside down and also how would it be spelt. plz help any advice would be greatly appreciated.

  51. Hey i am wanting to get a tattoo of Yeshua ben Yosef in aramaic down my ribs but i was wandering how it would work… would it be upside down and also how would it be spelt. plz help any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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