judge

Now obviously the oldest fragments of the NT and the oldest NT mss survibg are written in greek but I'm not sure this means much. 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.

So does anyone have any hard evidence or any particular reason to believe that the NT was originally written in greek?

Thanks in advance

rlogan

Hi Judge.

I don't have a stake in this one way or the other. I could care less. I did post this earlier:


vitriol

Here is their evidence, besides the undisputed fact that the oldest copies we have are Greek, and that there was a substantial difference between "old" syriac (no texts in this) and "new" syriac (the texts we have):


As an example of this, let us look at the Greek New Testament where Jesus is quoted speaking Aramaic, and compare these passages to Lamsa's translation of the Peshitta. Mark 5:41 reads in the AST:

"And taking hold of the child's hand, He said to her, 'Talithe koum,' which is, being translated,
'Little girl, I say to you, rise up!'"

Now if these are the original words of Mark, then it is clear that he was writing in Greek because he found it necessary to translate the Aramaic into Greek so his reader could understand. Also, if the Peshitta were a translation made from the Greek, then it should show that these are the original words of Mark. Lamsa's translation of this passage reads:

"And he took the little girl by her hand, and said to her, Talitha, koomi, which means, Little girl, rise up."

Now if the Scriptures were written in Syriac or Aramaic originally, then a translation of the words talitha koomi would be unnecessary because the reader would naturally understand them. So if Lamsa's translation is correct, then it is impossible for the Syriac to be the original language of the New Testament. Even if the Syriac did not say that and Lamsa's translation is wrong, it still would not matter, because throughout the Syriac there is similar internal evidence that shows that it was a translation of the Greek, while the Greek shows no signs that it was a translation of the Syriac.

Knowing all of this, we need to look at why it has become a popular Jewish contention to claim that the New Testament was written in Aramaic. The first major reason is that claiming the New Testament was written in Aramaic helps the case for the Jewish Masoretic Text. Anyone can look at the Greek New Testament and see that the quotes from the Old Testament are from the Greek Septuagint. The Jews who support the Jewish Masoretic Text often resort to saying that the Greek New Testament is a corruption of the original Aramaic New Testament just as the Septuagint is a corruption of the Hebrew Old Testament. Of course, the reality is just the opposite, and the quotations as contained in the Syriac agree more with the Septuagint than the Jew-perverted Masoretic Text. For example, in Romans 3:11-18, the Apostle Paul quotes Psalms 14:1-3 from the Septuagint. Only Romans 3:11-12 are found in Psalms 14:1-3 as it reads in the Masoretic Text, but Romans 3:13-18 are found exactly, word for word, in the Septuagint and not in the Masoretic Text. This means that the Apostle Paul absolutely had to be quoting the Greek Septuagint, because these five verses only exist in the Greek Septuagint. Now the question is, are these five verses in the Peshitta? And the answer is yes. This means that the author of Romans spoke Greek because he quoted the Greek Septuagint, the only source for the quotation in existence, and then the Syriac was translated from a Greek copy of the book of Romans, because it also contains the quotation. Furthermore, this means that the Peshitta, or what Lamsa calls 'the Aramaic Bible' is a witness against the Hebrew Masoretic Text, and it is therefore ridiculous to assert that the New Testament was written in Aramaic.

Judge - Again, i don't care one way or the other. But I thought these were good arguments, and since Greek was so widely spoken I would think that evidence would have to be offered on the "old syriac" authorship.

Take care...

Javaman

As the books of the NT have different authors, it's not unreasonable to assume that the first people to document them spoke different languages. From what I've read, though. I think it's more than reasonable to accept that Paul, a worldly man from a port city, spoke and wrote as his first language koine Greek.

In another thread, the following took place and you didn't respond. It touches on what I posted here and also reiterates a question from another member:

judge

thanks for the reply!

I'm not sure why Lamsa might have done this, but the peshitta does not contain any explanation here. It merely has the the words in aramaic.






Although there may be jewish people or groups who make this claim, the real and oldest claim is that of the Assyrain Church of the East. They are not jewish they are a christian church who hold there services in Aramaic.
Their liturgy is believed to be the oldest in existence.

rlogan

You're welcome, Judge.

Again, I don't have a stake in this. On the other post you had asked why I gave credence to the source quoted. I don't know what kind of credence to give, and gave it just as an example. A search would produce peer-reviewed scholarly articles on this subject, I would think.

I did believe the issue of differing dialects in the "old" vs. "new" syriac was particularly important in that we have no surviving texts in the old syriac and cannot therefore establish an unbroken chain. I'm not a linguist and cannot evaluate how substantive this distinction is.

In this post, of course it was more of a direct case being made for the Greek original, which was what you had asked for.

Regards, R.

judge

No probs

Quote:

A search would produce peer-reviewed scholarly articles on this subject, I would think.

One would expect so. However I don't think the subject has been subject to peer review.
Following the reformation the protestant churches of course rejected the authority of Rome and instead said that the only authority was the scriptures.
Thus there was a need for them to turn the scriptues into something they were not. additionaly if one is to rely solely on the scriptures then one must defend them .

European protestants then began to look to the various greek manuscripts (which all differ) and just assumed that these were the originals.
No one has ever bothered to really examine this assumption deeply for hundreds of years. It is just a myth.
Meanwhile aramaic speaking churches continued (outside europe) to continue to use the original aramaic.

Quote:

I did believe the issue of differing dialects in the "old" vs. "new" syriac was particularly important in that we have no surviving texts in the old syriac and cannot therefore establish an unbroken chain. I'm not a linguist and cannot evaluate how substantive this distinction is.

The dialect of the Syriac in the peshitta is almost identical to that used by Jesus.


http://www.peshitta.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=29

The Christian seperatist does not know or speak Aramaic

rlogan

here's your peer review outlet:


journal for the aramaic bible

cheers, all...

Yuri Kuchinsky

Dear rlogan,

Sorry, but this stuff you've posted from the christianseparatist.org website is just a load of ignorant rubbish. I don't even know where to begin to untangle all these misconceptions...

Quote:

besides the undisputed fact that the oldest copies we have are Greek,

The oldest Old Syriac manuscript of the gospels (OS Sinaiticus) is about the same age as our best Greek manuscripts of the gospels (what Nestle/Aland's is based on).

Quote:

and that there was a substantial difference between "old" syriac (no texts in this)

The Old Syriac manuscripts of the gospels _do exist_. See my webpage,

Ancient Aramaic Texts (2002)
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/aramaic.htm

Quote:

and "new" syriac (the texts we have): As an example of this, let us look at the Greek New Testament where Jesus is quoted speaking Aramaic, and compare these passages to Lamsa's translation of the Peshitta. Mark 5:41 reads in the AST: "And taking hold of the child's hand, He said to her, 'Talithe koum,' which is, being translated, 'Little girl, I say to you, rise up!'"

None of this stuff is relevant in any way... as judge already explained.

Quote:

Knowing all of this, we need to look at why it has become a popular Jewish contention to claim that the New Testament was written in Aramaic.

The Jews have nothing to do with this. (This is just the christianseparatist.org take on things...)

The fact remains that currently there doesn't seem to exist _even one_ valid argument for the idea that Matthew was written originally in Greek. If you (or anyone else) find any such argument, I'd be very happy to see it here.

And, please, I'm sure that some more respectable sources can be found on the Net, other than christianseparatist.org.

Regards,

Yuri.

rlogan

Yuri, thanks for your comments. Edited by moderator to remove mildly inflammatory remark

As I already said, I could care less. I cited this without "championing" it, and without claiming it as scholarship. I stated what it was - vitriol. Nothing more.

I further stated that I thought a search should show up peer-reviewed scholarly work. I did not see any in a cursory search. Judge claims there is none.

I am not going to argue this. The Greek authorship was not invented by me. I am not a proponent one way or the other. Judge states:

"obviously the oldest fragments of the NT and the oldest NT mss survibg are written in greek"

So I don't know why you are criticising me for this.

Sincerely, R.

Radcliffe Emerson

Actually, orthodox Jews do not make the Armaic contention. They say Jesus is a Greek legend to begin with. His attributes are not Jewish in origin, they're Greek.
That makes it highly unlikely that the stories about Jesus were written in Aramaic before they were Greek.
Most scholars do not support the Aramaic contingent.