judge

On a few occaisions on this forum I have argued that the peshitta is in fact a more ancient text than the various greek texts of the NT.
The main argument against this and the one on which most arguments ultimately rest is that the fragments of greek manuscripts and partial greek manuscripts we possess are much older than the oldest peshitta manuscript. On the surface this seems a very sensible argument, after all we must be moved by the facts. However if we plumb beneath the surface of the argument we may find that it is not really that strong at all.

You see although we have many many fragments of greek manuscripts and partial maunuscripts stretching right back into the 2nd century, we do not have any fragments or partial manuscripts of the peshitta at all. None!

So we should ask ourselves why is this the case. Why do we have hundreds of partial manuscripts and fragments on the greek side but none at all when it comes to the peshitta?

The answer is fairly simple. The Church of the East which was the custodian of the peshitta did not keep old and damaged manuscripts, they instead copied them.
Is this so hard to believe? Not really when we compare their tradition to say the jews who kept the Hebrew bible. How many fragments and partial copies of the Hebrew bible do we find between 100 C.E and 1100 C.E. ? And remember the DSS were never intended to decay into the state they were in when found last century.

Consider this also before the discovery of the DSS the oldest Hebrew bible was in greek, but no one imagined that the HB was penned in greek.

No the myth that the NT was penned in greek is a myth of the protestant church eagerly taken up by fundamentalists.

spin

Wait for it... This logic desereves... a great... big... doh!

And I guess they preservers of the Greek nt texts didn't copy them??

Whatever the reason, the earliest gospel material is in Greek, often from unusual sources such as text hoards, texts used as linings. One needs to show that another language should be given priority. You cannot just assume it, then label the common notion a myth. It always comes down to what you don't have, evidence.

What on earth makes you think the proposition that "the NT was penned in greek" is a myth? All you've done so far here on i.i. is to rehash other people's bad philology as to why the Peshitta must have been the original document, that Aramaic must have been the original language, despite, for example, the fact that the Peshitta borrows and transliterates "evangelion" at the beginning of Mark, strongly pointing that the text was translated from Greek into Aramaic, for the translator at the time couldn't think of a better way to translate euaggelion. In other parts of the Peshitta the translator did find an adequate means of rendering "good news" in Aramaic. There are numerous words transliterated or plain borrowed in Aramaic, which should indicate that the original thought was not in Aramaic, but in the language of those borrowings and transliterations, ie Greek. Attempts to find better explanations of problems in the Greek text by looking at Aramaic always prove to inconclusive or wrong. (Just think of the argument against the expression "salting with fire" which didn't consider "salting with salt". The former becomes intelligible when the latter is considered. We've looked at a number of these attempts and the results are always the same: they lead nowhere.)


spin

judge

No you have missed the point here. The point is that those in possession of greek fragments saw no problem with keeping damaged copies of the scriptures. Those of a more semetic tradition had a problem with this.
If you wish to address this aspect of my argument feel free.

Perhaps because the Roman empire itself used this same word (or a version of it) to describe it's own salvational power.
Mark's use of this word is clever way of showing that Jesus was Gods' appointed saviour not Caeser. You may not see the force of it as you live in the 21st century but to someone living in the Roman empire the connotation might have been quite different.

judge

Hmmmm..by that logic the greek NT must have been written in Aramaic. Look at all these Aramaic words in the greek NT.

Lebonthah (frankincense, Matthew 2:11)
Mammona (Luke 16:9)
Wai (Woe! Matthew 23:13)
Rabbi (Matthew 23:7,8)
Beelzebub (Luke 11:15)
Qorban (Mark 7:11)
Satana (Luke 10:18)
cammuna (cummin, Matt 23:23)
raca (a term of contempt Matthew 5:22)
korin (a dry measure, between 10-12 bushels, Luke 16:7)
zezneh (tares, Matthew 13:25)
Boanerges (Mark 3:17)


Amen.(woops there's aanother aramaic word)

spin

You didn't have a serious point to miss.

You are merely guessing. You have no evidence for what you say. You've said yourself that there are no early manuscripts. Without evidence your thought is real lonely.

Another doh!

euaggelion was a common Greek word. Xenophon used it, as did Isocrates, Appian and even Josephus. Looking for special significance of the term to cover a simple borrowing is of little use. Good news is good news. The word has been popularized by Greek xianity. But it also has a history in hellenistic Judaism for it is found in the LXX, where in fact one finds even the related verb, to evangelize, ie "to bring the good news" (see LXX Isaiah 40.9). It's got nothing to do with the Romans. It's just the normal Greek term, "good news", which has a religious connotation already.

And your sad list of (supposedly Aramaic) magic words doesn't mean much for you theory that the text was translated out of Aramaic. There is a reason for them in a Greek text claiming to be dealing with Palestine, while there is no reason for an Aramaic text to include Greek and Roman words. Why talk about denarii when they used prutahs and shekels in Palestine? No reason. Why give a translation note for Aramaic speakers that the palace was a "praetorium" when it doesn't help the Aramaic speaker at all?

1. "Corban" is a technical term of Hebrew origin.
2. "Wai", an exclamation, is a really meaningful word to leave in Aramaic if translated from Aramaic, wouldn't you say??
3. "Libanos" is simply not an Aramaic term. "Lebonthah" is from the same source, but you might like to wonder why Euripides is using the term in his Bacchae, if you think the nt borrowed it from Aramaic.
4. "Rabbi" is Hebrew
5. "Kuminon" is another word which has been in the Greek world for centuries before the gospels were written. Like Libanos it was a traded commodity.
6. "Raca" again from a Hebrew word (See 1K22:16 where RQ means "nothing".)
7. "Koros" again from a Hebrew word (1K4:22 etc.)
8. "Zizanion" is a weed originally from Sumerian. It made it into Aramaic as well, eh?
9. "Boanerges"? The claim that this is from Aramaic forgets the fact that the Aramaic word for son is "bar", not the Hebrew "ben" as implied here.

What are we left with?? Umm, Mammon? which appears to be derived from a god's name. Satana? What, not from Hebrew?? Ahh, Beelzebub, no wait, not even that, it's from Hebrew as well (2K1:2). With the exception of "wai", not a single one of your examples yields a necessarily Aramaic source.

You've had a bad trot, judge. You better stick to talitha kumi.

[And I forgot about your little levity on "Amen", a good Hebrew word.]


spin

andrewcriddle

The date of the oldest Syriac form of the NT is not necessarily the same as the date of the peshitta.

In fact it seems probable that the original Syriac text of the gospels was rather different from the peshitta. Our oldest partial Syriac gospels, (the curetonian and sinaitic manuscripts) are not a peshitta text and early Syrian fathers (Ephraem and Aphraat) do not appear to have used the Peshitta.

Andrew Criddle

Amaleq13

Why does this require the conclusion that the latter's copies must be the original manuscripts or at least closer to the originals?

judge

No it is not. The term is of akkadian origin. The akkadians offered "qurbanu" at their altars. It comes from the ancient Akkadian root "qrb" menaing to approach (the altar).See here for variations.


All i can say is O Vey!

Wrong again. The greek word is based on the Aramaic for "white". The purest frankincesne is white.
(See William Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, tr. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1957), p. 429.)

Also you can check here

Wrong again. The word is present in Akkadian long before hebrew. It goes Akkadian "Rabu" -> Aramaic -> "Rabba" - > Hebrew "Ha-Rabb".

You can find the ahkkadian cuniform script here


So what. Even the greek version of the NT uses the Aramaic word!

The word is not RQ it is RAQA! The Emphatic form used in Aramaic, but not in Hebew where it would be "Haraq."



Since Sumer is in southern iraq it is understandanble it made into Aramaic. How did it make it into greek?

Wrong again. In Aramaic, the singular is "bar" while the plural is "bnai" - the form shared in common with Hebrew.
.
Really what sort of trot are you having?

[true]

:banghead: yay!

judge

Yes this text is the oldeest because it comes from a greek monastery. These people threw it away. This would not have happened in a semitic tradition. If they valued it they would have copied a damaged manuscript and destroyed it. That is why we have no partial or damaged peshittas.
The OS was never used by the Persian church who used the peshitta.

On would not expect Ephraem to quote the peshitta as he was not from the COE. Aphrahat was so we would expect him to either paraphrase or quote the peshitta.
Aphrahat does in fact quote the peshitta word for word.

Here is a quote from Mar Aphrahat's Demonstrations on Faith:

0n0 rm0d Mdmd Yhwdymltl ryg rm0
0ryhnb Jwtn0 Yhwrm0 0kw4xb Jwkl

This is translated "For he said to his disciples: whatever I tell you in the darkness, proclaim in the light (Nahira)."



Yukhanan 10:27:

Peshitta:
0ryhnb Jwtn0 Yhwrm0 0kw4xb Jwkl 0n0 rm0d Mdm

"Whatever I tell you in the darkness, proclaim in the light (Nahira)."

Old Syriac:
0rhwnb Jwtn0 Yhwrm0 0kw4xb Jwkl 0nrm0d Mdm

"Whatever I tell you in the darkness, proclaim in the light (Nuhra)."

Next from mar Aphrahats 22nd demonstration where he quotes Romans 5:14.Of course here there is no OS text to compare it to.

0xyl4 rm0d Ky0
04wml 0md9w Md0 Nm Fwm Klm0d
w=x fd Nyly0 L9 P0w

Transliteration:
Aykh d'emar Shlikha:
d'amlekh mowtha men wAdam w'adma l'Moshe
w'ap al aylyn d'la khaTaw

Translation:
As the Apostle said, that "Death ruled from Adam unto Moses" and "even over those who sinned not."

Now the peshitta:
04wml 0md9w Md0 Nm Fwm Klm0
w=x fd Nyly0 L9 P0

Transliteration:
amlekh mowtha men wAdam w'adma l'Moshe
ap al aylyn d'la khaTaw

Translation:
"Death ruled from Adam unto Moses, even over those who sinned not."

Here is another from Mar Aphrahat's Demonstrations on Faith where he quotes Luke 15:8. We can compare the peshitta with both OS Mss.


Mar Aphrahat:
hl ty0d Ftn0 Yh 0dy0
Jwhnm dx dbwtw Nyzwz 0rs9
Fyb 0mxw 0gr4 0rhnm fw

"What woman, who has ten coins and loses one of them, and (Waw Proclitic) not does light a lamp and sweep (Khama) the house..."
:

Peshitta:
hl ty0d Ftn0 Yh 0dy0
Jwhnm dx dbwtw Nyzwz 0rs9
Fyb 0mxw 0gr4 0rhnm fw
"What woman, who has ten coins and loses one of them, and (Waw Proclitic) not does light a lamp and sweep (Khama) the house..." (exactly 100% the same as Mar Aphrahat)

Old Scratch Sinaiticus:
hl ty0d Ftn0 Yh 0dy0
Jwhnm dx db0tw Nyzwz 0rs9
Fyb 0mxw 0gr4 0rhnm f
"What woman, who has ten coins and loses one of them, not does light a lamp and sweep (Khama) the house..."

Old Scratch Cureton:
hl ty0d Ftn0 Yh 0dy0
Jwhnm dx dbwtw Nyzwz 0rs9
Fyb 04nkw 0gr4 0rhnm f
"What woman, who has ten coins and loses one of them, not does light a lamp and organizes (kansha) the house..."


I can provide many more examples if you wish. Western scholars may claim Mar Aphrahat does not quote the peshitta but it seems to be a myth.