judge

Yes...it is a bit confusing.
It seems that for quite some time now western bible scholars have bee trying to piece the NT together. They have followed hard on the heels of protestant christians who have used greek mss of the NT.
That the NT was written in greek has almost become a theological affirmation amongst western protestants.

Anyway ....then along comes the Church of the East saying..."Huh?...what on earth are you guys talking about we have the NT in the original Aramaic?"

There was no real reason for anyone to believe that the NT was written in greek. It was just assumed to be the case.
Western scholars have made no effort to examine claims that the peshitta might in fact underly the greek.

Those who have spent much time and money studying ancient greek are not suprisingly resistant to the idea the greek may only be a translation. It is all a myth.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, judge!

Well, actually, I haven't really heard this theory previously... I don't think Akhi Younan really has all that much basis for such a claim. Most critics believe the Old Syriac is much older than Rabbula's time.

Sorry I've not been contributing more at the peshitta.org site recently. Too busy with other stuff... But I'll be back soon.

Cheers,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Not really, Amaleq.

There's the Peshitta camp. Quite active, but almost totally ignored by the academic mainstream.

There's the Old Syriac camp. Mostly represented by James Trimm, with some supporters here and there. Trimm is not a recognised textual scholar. But he often does have some pretty good analyses, and he often bases his stuff on respectable older studies.

There's the Jerusalem School camp. These are the Hebrew prioritists. They _are_ recognised scholars, (i.e. professional NT scholars), but unfortunately they seem to be quite weak on textual criticism. They know very little about the Aramaic priority theories, in my experience. And they know very little about the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. They like Luke a lot, though, which is what I also like.

So these are the main camps, and they hardly ever interact with each other.

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As I sort of implied earlier, I'm really not familiar with this issue. That bothers me, actually, because I consider myself fairly well read on NT scholarship and this is the first I've heard of Aramaic originals. It certainly doesn't appear to be common knowledge among some of the more knowledgeable Christians I know, either.

Well, this just proves my point! It's the Great Aramaic Coverup!

Today's NT studies is nothing other than Jesus the Greek Cult! IMHO, it's a sort of a systemic racism in our academic NT studies that is to blame...

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Is there anything that might qualify as Papias' reference to Matthew?

Try the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew for that. This text (first published in 1987) is the best candidate for what Papias mentioned.

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I guess I've got some reading to do. Thanks for the information.

Good luck to you!

Yuri.

Johann_Kaspar

A very late text. Looking like a translation (because for instance it cares to explain what would be obvious for Hebrew speaking people). But very interesting nonetheless.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Have you read it, Johann?

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Looking like a translation (because for instance it cares to explain what would be obvious for Hebrew speaking people).

For example?

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But very interesting nonetheless.

The best evidence for the antiquity of Howard's Hebrew Gospel of Matthew is its strong textual connection with the Old Syriac Aramaic Matthew. Such evidence is abundant.

I'm not denying that this medieval Hebrew text also includes some later glosses and corruptions.

All the best,

Yuri.

judge

Hi again Yuri,
how old is the Old Syriac believed to be?
I notice that here the following dates are given.

1. Old Syriac Codex Sinaiticus, dated to the mid- or late-fourth century.
2. Old Syriac Codex Curetonianus, dated to the early fifth century.

I believe that Rabulla died in 433 a.d.

This seems pretty close

Johann_Kaspar

Yes, some years ago.

For examples read p. 186: "Late Revisions of the Hebrew Text". But how do we know when the "revisions" occurred and if they are revisions at all? I mean there could be an old text not in Hebrew explaining the translated explanations.

Thanks for that information. Seems that new studies are done since 1987, which is very good news. Will read carefully the link to your pages provided below.

Thanks! All te best for you too.
Johann

Quixote

"After all until the discovery of the dead sea scrolls the oldest OT mss were in greek also but no one believed the OT was written in greek."


they were? Better not tell all those Hebrew reading Jewish people *s*

The NT texts, the oldex codex we have is dated around 130 AD and is in Greek are the first written texts. But the orginal stories about Jesus and the desciples are in several languages and one of those would have been Aramaic. In manys esnes the Greek texts are in fact translations themselves.

The writers are also diverse, with John cosidered not to be an Aramaic speaker at all. We should also bear in mind the NT we have was codified by King James, and there were several other gospels and fragments written not all of them in Greek. Some were in Hebrew and none are considered older than our oldest codex.

*s*

Haran

They were. Before the discovery of the DSS, the oldest known OT manuscripts were of the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

You are probably refering to papyrus 52. It is not a codex, it is a fragment of one page of what was most likely the Gospel of John.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Judge,

It is clear that the Old Syriac Sinaiticus, and the OS Curetonianus MSS both depend on a shared archetype, that existed already well before the mid- or late-fourth century date of the OS Sinaiticus MS.

Burkitt said that the OS gospels originated some time in the 2nd century.

And to Johann, I recommend the following article, where the connection of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew to the ancient Aramaic and other MSS is laid out in some detail,

The word "Behold!" in Matthew, according to the most ancient manuscripts
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/idhmt1t.htm

All the best,

Yuri.