spin

Oh, judge, how can you expect a Hebrew or Aramaic speaker to formulate Isa 7:14 as being anything other than "young woman" (almah), yet the Peshitta plainly uses betulah, "virgin" following the Greek parthenos. That necessarily comes through Greek.

Around half the Hebrew bible citations in the Greek nt are consistent with the LXX, suggesting that they are from that source.


spin

Peter Kirby

There already has been a debate, here:

Was the NT penned in Aramaic or Greek? (Judge versus Bib Lit Major)

best,
Peter Kirby

andrewcriddle

(Reasonably) Clear examples of use of non-Peshitta text by Aphrahat
(Sorry for delay, for some reason I couldn't connect to Forum yesterday)

In Demonstration VI Aphrahat says 'Let us seek His Kingdom and His righteousness, that we may receive increase in the land' this is a reasonably clear allusion to Matthew 6:33 but it is not the Peshitta text which like the majority of Greek manuscripts reads 'the kingdom of God and his righteousness'. However 'of God is omitted by some of the most ancient Greek manuscripts (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus with rearrangement of passage) plus versional and patristic evidence.
Aphrahat's text here would seem to be a Syriac language paraphrase of what is probably the original Greek. He is not using the Peshitta here.

In Demonstration VIII we have 'And our Lord Himself, in that His first Coming raised up three that were dead, that the testimony of three might be made sure. And He raised up each one of them with two words each. For when He raised up the widow's son, He called him twice, saying to him, Young man, young man, arise. And he revived and arose. And again, He twice called the daughter of the chief of the synagogue, saying to her, Damsel, damsel, arise. And her spirit returned and she arose. And after Lazarus died, when He came to the place of burial. He prayed earnestly and cried with a loud voice and said, Lazarus, come forth. And he revived and came out of his tomb. And concerning all this that I have explained to thee, that those dead persons were raised with two words each, it was because for them two resurrections take place; that former one, and the second, that which is to come'
Although the Syriac manuscripts of Aphrahat here have Jesus say Lazarus only once in agreement with the Peshitta the logic of Aphrahat's argument requires a repetition of Lazarus and this is probably confirmed by the medieval Ethiopic version of this homily which has 'Lazarus Lazarus'. Aphrahat appears to have known a text which has Jesus say 'Lazarus Lazarus' this is not the Peshitta but may have been that of the Diatessaron since the Persian Diatessaron has 'Lazarus Lazarus' here.

In Demonstration VI 'Let us be planted as vines in the midst of His vineyard, for it is the true vineyard. Let us be fruitful vines, that we may not be uprooted out of His vineyard' and Demonstration V 'For Christ is the vineyard, and His Father is the husbandman; and they who drink of His cup are the vines' Aphrahat alludes to a non-Peshitta text of the first few verses of John 15, with Vineyard instead of Vine and Vine instead of branch. This reading is found in Ephraem and (probably) Cyrillona and is (partially) supported by the Old Syriac. It is clearly not the Peshitta text which agrees here with the Greek and is probably that of the Diatessaron.

(I'm giving examples here without access to all the reference works I would like. The examples which I have quoted of Aphrahat can be found online at
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-13/Npnf2-13-38.htm
but there are IMs a number of other examples of about the same weight.

Andrew Cridddle

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Andrew,

As you say, the case studies that you give are "reasonably clear", but I doubt that they would be sufficient to convince the true believers.

Here's something that I wrote that seems more solid, but still this evidence didn't seem to have any real effect,

*The Rich Young Man episode* (Mk 10:17ff)
http://www.peshitta.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=204

This whole pericope in Aphrahat has many more examples of the same.

This study by Baarda has dealt with the issue at length,

T. Baarda, THE GOSPEL QUOTATIONS OF APHRAHAT, THE PERSIAN SAGE: Aphrahat's text of the Fourth Gospel. 2 vols. (Diss.). Amsterdam, 1975.

Baarda showed that Aphrahat used the Diatessaron for his gospel quotes. But of course the true believers never showed any interest in interacting with this study by Baarda. (It can be obtained for $40 and up from abebooks.com)

All the best,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hello, Vork,

One of the problems with an uncritical believer like Judge is that they create the impression that this is an either or situation. Either the gospels were all written in Greek, or all in Aramaic. But most likely the truth lies somewhere in between.

At least for Mt, the evidence is quite good that it may have been written originally in a Semitic tongue.

The arguments that you give above can be easily refuted, if one were to argue that the early versions of the gospels were written originally in a Semitic tongue.

It could have been either Aramaic or Hebrew, or perhaps both.

Regards,

Yuri.

spin

Matthew is based on Mark, as is linguistically obvious: the Matthean Greek improvements are, all over, observable. Texts don't get dumbed down in such a way as to make a proposal of Matthew as the single source for Mark functional. With Matthew as a source for Mark many of the poor Greek wouldn't have happened. It's easier to copy better Greek than it is to write it. Mark, by the way was probably written in Rome, which explains its Latinisms. A Matthew based on Mark with an improved Greek tells the story: Matthew was written in Greek based on Mark, also written in Greek. This also explains the various other developments and changes between the two gospels.


spin

Yuri Kuchinsky

None of this stuff is obvious. I don't buy Markan priority. Some of your arguments only make sense for the Greek text. Others are circular.

"Poor Greek" in Mk is often in the passages that were IMO edited the latest. You assume that the early Christians were illiterate.

If you want to compare some specific passages, by all means, let's look at them.

IMO what is obvious is that both Mt and Mk were based on a shared source, that could very easily have been in Aramaic or Hebrew.

Yours,

Yuri

judge

Andrew thanks but your original claim (suggestion?) was that Aphrahat does not quote the peshitta. (added in edit..to be fair I think you said "does not appear to...)
I gave three examples of word for word quotes!!! Aphrahat quoting the peshitta word for word. I offered to give more as well.
You have given examples of paraphrasing. You have given zero word for word quotes.
At the moment the score is three word for word quotes from the peshitta and no word for word quotes from elsewhere.

rlogan

Say, Yuri -

I tried this with Judge, but I will ask you directly. Any theory about the original language carries with it a view about the veracity of the gospel story and the date of composition. We can buy into the gospel story, the disciples, the apostles writing in their own tongue - a direct lineage from Jesus to the NT books - or, we can envision a 2nd century creation long after the fact, in an era when greek would make better sense for the suspected authors.

Where are you placing Mt and Mk historically, and are the "originals" (in aramaic or hebrew) composed by someone with first or second-hand knowledge of the gospel events? Close to jesus, that is?

andrewcriddle

What I provided were three examples where IMO it is difficult to regard Aphrahat as either quoting or paraphrasing the peshitta text.

Aphrahat is IMO using a non-Peshitta text (probably the Diatessaron) here either word-for-word or as paraphrase. Since we lack full and accurate knowledge of the Diatessaron text we cannot say with certainty how close to this text Aphrahat's citations are.

(Accepting that Aphrahat's quotes are sometimes word-for-word equivalent to the Peshitta text is beside the point. The Diatessaron obviously agreed word-for-word with the Peshitta in many places, sometimes in disagreement with the Old Syriac of the separated Gospels.)

Andrew Criddle