Cook Strait is a strait that separates the North and South Islands of New Zealand. It connects the Tasman Sea on the northwest with the South Pacific Ocean on the southeast, runs next to the capital city, Wellington, it is 22 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, is considered one of the most dangerous and unpredictable waters in the world. The strait is named after James Cook, the first European commander to sail through it, in 1770. In Māori it has the name Te Moana-o-Raukawa. Raukawa may mean "bitter leaves". In Māori legend, Cook Strait was discovered by Kupe the navigator. Kupe followed in his canoe a monstrous octopus called Te Wheke-a-Muturangi across Cook Strait and destroyed it in Tory Channel or at Pātea; when Dutch explorer Abel Tasman first saw New Zealand in 1642, he thought Cook Strait was a bight closed to the east. He named it Zeehaen's Bight, after the Zeehaen, one of the two ships in his expedition. In 1769 James Cook established. Cook Strait attracted European settlers in the early 19th century.

Because of its use as a whale migration route, whalers established bases in the Marlborough Sounds and in the Kapiti area. From the late 1820s until the mid-1960s Arapaoa Island was a base for whaling in the Sounds. Perano Head on the east coast of the island was the principal whaling station for the area; the houses built by the Perano family are now operated as tourist accommodation. During the 1820s Te Rauparaha led a Māori migration to, the conquest and settlement of, the Cook Strait region. From 1840 more permanent settlements sprang up, first at Wellington at Nelson and at Whanganui. At this period the settlers saw Cook Strait in a broader sense than today's ferry-oriented New Zealanders: for them the strait stretched from Taranaki to Cape Campbell, so these early towns all clustered around "Cook Strait" as the central feature and central waterway of the new colony. Between 1888 and 1912 a Risso's dolphin named Pelorus Jack became famous for meeting and escorting ships around the Cook Strait.

Pelorus Jack was spotted in Admiralty Bay between Cape Francis and Collinet Point, near French Pass, a channel used by ships travelling between Wellington and Nelson. Pelorus Jack is remembered after he was the subject of a failed assassination attempt, he was protected by a 1904 New Zealand law. At times when New Zealand feared invasion, various coastal fortifications were constructed to defend Cook Strait. During the Second World War, two 9.2 inch gun installations were constructed on Wrights Hill behind Wellington. These gun could range 18 miles across Cook Strait. In addition thirteen 6-inch gun installations were constructed around Wellington, along the Makara coast, at entrances to the Marlborough Sounds; the remains of most of these fortifications can still be seen. The Pencarrow Head Lighthouse was the first permanent lighthouse built in New Zealand, its first keeper, Mary Jane Bennett, was the only female lighthouse keeper in New Zealand's history. The light was decommissioned in 1935. A number of ships have been wrecked with significant loss of life, such as the Maria in 1851, the City of Dunedin in 1865, the St Vincent in 1869, the Lastingham in 1884, SS Penguin in 1909 and TEV Wahine in 1968.

The strait runs in a general NW-SE direction, with the South Island on the west side and North Island on the east. At its narrowest point, 22 kilometres separate Cape Terawhiti in the North Island from Perano Head on Arapaoa Island in the Marlborough Sounds. Perano Head is further north than Cape Terawhiti. In good weather one can see across the strait; the west coast runs 30 kilometres along Cloudy Bay and past the islands and entrances to the Marlborough Sounds. The east coast runs 40 kilometres along Palliser Bay, crosses the entrance to Wellington harbour, past some Wellington suburbs and continues another 15 kilometres to Makara beach; the Brothers is a group of tiny islands in Cook Strait off the east coast of Arapaoa Island. North Brother island in this small chain is a sanctuary for the rare Brothers Island tuatara, while the largest of the islands is the site of the Brothers Island Lighthouse; the shores of Cook Strait on both sides are composed of steep cliffs. The beaches of Cloudy Bay, Clifford Bay, Palliser Bay shoal down to 140 metres, where there is a more or less extensive submarine plateau.

The rest of the bottom topography is complex. To the east is the Cook Strait Canyon with steep walls descending eastwards into the bathyal depths of the Hikurangi Trench. To the north-west lies the Narrows Basin, where water is 300 and 400 metres deep. Fisherman's Rock in the north end of the Narrows Basin rises to within a few metres of low tide, is marked by waves breaking in rough weather. A shallow submarine valley lies across the northern end of the Marlborough Sounds; the bottom topography is irregular around the coast of the South Island where the presence of islands, underwater rocks, the entrances to the sounds, create violent eddies. The strait has an average depth of 128 metres; the South and North Islands were joined during the last ice age. The waters of Cook Strait are dominated by strong tidal flows; the tidal flow through Cook Strait is unusual in that the tidal elevation at the ends of the strait are exactly out of phase with one another, so high water on one side meets low water on the other.

Strong currents result, with zero tidal height change in the centre of the strait

The Färentuna runestones are 11th century runestones labelled U 20, U 21, U 22 in the Rundata catalog that are located in Färentuna, Sweden. Runestones U 20 and U 21 were registered separately although they come from the same original runestone and are called U 20/21; the runestone U 20/U 21 is most interesting as it, together with the Hillersjö stone and the Snottsta and Vreta stones, tells the story of the family of Gerlög and Inga. All of the Färentuna runestones are inscribed in the younger futhark; the two fragments named U 20 and U 21 were part of the same runestone and were discovered under the plaster of a wall during the renovation of the charch at Färentuna. It is that other fragments of this runestone may be part of the church but have their inscriptions facing inwards, they are held to tell of the same family as the Snottsta and Vreta stones. This runestone is believed to have been raised by Inga in memory of her husband Eric and her father Godric; the runestone has been attributed to the runemaster known as Torbjörn or Þorbjôrn Skald, who signed the Hillersjö stone.......k * bunta sin... auk -......þrik * faþur sin * gu......-b......n- *... k, bonda sinn... ok... uðrik, faður sinn.

Gupn.... Eiríkr his/her husbandman... and... Guðríkr, his/her father. May God help spirit; the runic text of U 22 is within a serpent. This runestone is classified as being carved in either runestone style Pr2 or Pr3. Ulfr * uk uikil + uk syrkil * þa......- stain * þina iiʀ ayt--u faþur sin ku*þ ia a-t Ulfʀ ok Vikell ok Syrkell/Sørkell þæ... stæin þenna æftiʀ <ayt--u>, faður sinn. Guð hialpi ad. Ulfr and Vékell and Syrkell/Sørkell, they... this stone in memory of... their father. May God help spirit. Svärdström, Elisabeth. "Runfynd 1969". Fornvännen. Swedish National Heritage Board. 65: 301–313. Retrieved 2010-01-14. Inga och Estrid - en såpa för tusen år sedan: Människor, händelser och platser i Ingas och Estrids liv. A page at the Museum of Stockholm County

Bible translations into Aramaic covers both Jewish translations into Aramaic and Christian translations into Aramaic called Syriac. Aramaic translations of the Tanakh played an important role in the liturgy and learning of rabbinic Judaism; each such translation is called a Targum. During Talmudic times the targum was interpolated within the public reading of the Torah in the synagogue, verse by verse. Targum is an important source for Jewish exegesis of the Bible, had a major influence on medieval interpreters. Maimonides writes that the Talmudic definition of a "person who knows how to read and translate the Torah into Aramaic" refers to "the Aramaic translation of Onkelos". In the Syriac language the Peshitta is the standard version of the Christian Bible, it continues to serve as the Bible of churches in the Syriac tradition to this day. The history of Christian Translations of the Bible into Syriac language includes: the Diatessaron, the Old Syriac versions, the Peshitto, the Philoxenian Version, the Harklean Version and the recent United Bible Societies' modern Aramaic New Testament.

About AD 500 a Christian Palestinian Aramaic version was made. It contains 2 Peter, 2-3 John and Apocalypse, it is a representative of the Caesarean text-type and is a unique translation different from any other, made into Syriac. These are among the manuscripts used by John Gwynn in 1893 to complete his edition of the Catholic Epistles. In 1892 Agnes Smith Lewis discovered the manuscript of the Palestinian Syriac lectionary in the library of Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai, it is designated by Syrpal. The first revision of the New Testament from the Syriac into Turoyo language was made by Malphono Yuhanun Üzel, Benjamin Bar Shabo and Yahkup Bilgic in 2009 with notes from Harclean and Philoxenios; this commission "Sihto du Kthovo Qadisho Suryoyo" works specially to preach the Gospel in Aramaic all over the world. List of Syriac New Testament manuscripts "Massoretic, Aramaic, JOS, Kaplan bible with concordances". JPS. Archived from the original on December 5, 1998. Retrieved April 25, 2019 – via Jewish Virtual Library