Today, few people outside the Caucasus know that between Azerbaijan and the Armenian Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh lies the small Tartar District, through which the Tartar River flows.
Almost 120 years ago, this region was the site of the so-called Armenian-Tatar massacre, a bloody clash in Transcaucasia between Armenians and Azerbaijanis (called Transcaucasian Tatars in Russia at the time). The massacre was originally called “Armenian-Tartar” in the Western press, and it was only about 90 years ago that “Armenian-Tatar” came to be used.
In the New Testament book the Acts of the Apostles, which tells about the events that followed the Gospel events, there is a fragment, Acts 2:5-12, which lists the regions, whose representatives spoke one language understandable to each other:
5-11 There were many Jews staying in Jerusalem just then, devout pilgrims from all over the world. When they heard the sound, they came on the run. Then when they heard, one after another, their own mother tongues being spoken, they were blown away. They couldn’t for the life of them figure out what was going on, and kept saying, “Aren’t these all Galileans? How come we’re hearing them talk in our various mother tongues? Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; Visitors from Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene; Immigrants from Rome, both Jews and proselytes; Even Cretans and Arabs! “They’re speaking our languages, describing God’s mighty works!”
12 Their heads were spinning; they couldn’t make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: “What’s going on here?”
However, in various Latin editions of the New Testament, this fragment between Mesopotamia and Cappadocia mentions Armenia instead of Judea. For example, in Erasmus of Rotterdam‘s EN NOVVM TESTA. Continue reading
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