spin

First, do a simple search of John for examples of "my father" o pathr mou and "the father" o pathr, eg Jn 8:28 & 9. All the Greek manuscripts have this separation in John, while the Peshitta simply has "my father". You are already fantasticating about John being translated a few times to get your imaginary ambiguities in the supposed Aramaic source (each so far has been baseless, eg the legw/dokew difference which is not present in the Aramaic despite the erroneous claim). So we have, according to you different translations into Greek each maintaining a separation "the father"/"my father" which is not represented in Aramaic. Explain the data so as not to make a farce out of your position, and please no more trivial responses which show you don't understand the problems involved.

Yes, we love your way of dealing withthe material...
... by not even attempting to understand the problem. Now stop. Go back to the problem and try again. The gospel of Luke, pick any manuscript, ie you can't fudge your way with different translations, and look at the material that is only found in Luke, ie not shared with other gospels, and you find that the word, which is spr' in Aramaic, is nomikoi in Greek. In the shared material in Luke, the synoptic material, you find grammateis where you find spr' in Aramaic. Now note the non-randomness of the distribution in Greek. Why is nomikoi found in the purely Lucan material if the text was not redacted first in Greek then translated into Aramaic where the distinction between nomikoi and grammateis was lost? Explain the evidence.

So you need to explain why two separate translators with different abilities in Greek chose independently to translate the the expression "house of Herod" as "herodians" instead of the more literal "house of Herod" or even "Herod's family", which byt hrwds fundamentally means.

And now a perspicacious response from judge to my statement:
As though you even perceive the linguistic problem. I can understand you admitting your ignorance, but why trumpet it? In case you want to learn about the theoretical side of the subject it's called comparative linguistics. You can plot the movements of linguistic data by the forms and the ways they change from language to language.

So what makes the linguistic changes I described according to you a "pet theory"? Such trivial gambits show you incapable of dealing with the problems presented to you.

Loan words are usually found because the idea borrowed doesn't exist in the target language. You mean to say that Aramaic didn't, for example, have a term for "soldier"? And as already pointed out in this thread

I have since discovered that the Aramaic word generally used to translate euaggelion is dttkrz. This latter word must be considered the "commonly used" term in Aramaic, at least based on the Peshitta evidence. The appearance of euaggelion in the Peshitta of Mk 1:1 still needs to be explained by you, as your appeal to the notion of loan words is inappropriate when there is a commonly used Aramaic term.

Another interesting transliteration from Greek into Aramaic is the term stola, which means "(long) robe". Talking about Jerusalem scribes Mk 12:38, about the angel in the tomb Mk 16:5, and about the prodigal son's father Lk 15:22, who are unlikely to have been wearing Greek style clothes, we find in the Peshitta )s+l) ("astola" -- borrowing words which start with "st", Aramaic adds a vowel at the beginning to help pronunciation). There is no necessity to use a foreign word for clothes which are part of your culture.

And judge, sadly for you, there are very many examples of words transliterated into the Peshitta Aramaic from Greek, often, regarding culture, unaccountably. Why use a Greek name for baskets, such as those used in the fishes and loaves stories (eg Mt 15:37)?? Why didn't people use local measures for distance instead of Greek stadion?? Were sponges introduced by Greeks (eg Jn 19:29)?? Why is a Greek term used in Aramaic for "robbers" in Mk 11:17 et al.?? Didn't they have robbers before?? (You'll find the Aramaic word for robber in Jn 10:1.)

This is further occasion for one to see you as the protagonist of Memento.

Try for example looking once again at Mk 15:16.

This is a hilariously irrelevant response.

I make no such claims as you try to trump up, but you do show you need to do a few lingusitics courses. 1) You seem to have some crazy notion that Aramaic never changed, yet if you investigated the matter it did a lot. 2) If you reread what you were responding to, you'd see I never claimed Hebrew predated Aramaic. 3) You misunderstand the simple notion that terms may not have gone from Aramaic to Greek, but from Hebrew to Greek, or even from some other language into Greek. We are talking about how certain non-Greek terms may have made it into Greek, nothing more.

We see unaccountable use of Greek terms in the Peshitta. We see differences in the Greek text which are unaccountable for from the Aramaic text (examples were "my father"/"the father" in Jn, and nomikoi and grammateis in Lk). We see explanations which don't help an Aramaic audience but do help a Greek speaking Roman audience.

Unable to deal with any of the above, what judge offers in response is the strange notion that the gospels were translated from Aramaic a number of times to explain why supposed ambiguities in Aramaic manifest themselves in different text traditions in Greek. Let's look at one ridiculous example which shows why one needs to use the original languages:

In the Alexandrian text one finds the Greek word oti, usually translated as "that, because or since". In the western tradition the Greek word is ote "when", yup, just one letter difference from the Alexandrian text. Judge, who knows nothing about the languages, adheres to Paul Younan's explanation that both oti and ote must each derive from the Aramaic kd hz) due to different translations. I'm sure the readers here will see that it is far simpler to see a scribe getting a single letter wrong while copying.

Judge has different translations reflecting Alexandrian/western texts, but he also has different translations within the Alexandrian tradition in order to argue the singular/plural of "sign" to be caused by different translations. Just how many translations judge is fantasticating on no-one knows: someone would have to collate his whacky examples to see just how many they imply, if we were to accept the logic he supports.

Rub judge's fragile quibbles the wrong way and they all fall apart.


spin

judge

Spin you are rehashing old arguments used incomparing one greek text with another. These arguments are not relevent to the peshitta. They only relate to the greek translations.


So they both used the same term? Big deal.

By your own admission loan words are "usually" found because the borrowed ida does not exist. Not a very tight argument when you provide this qualifier. Bzzzz...thank you for playing.

I have replied to this before. Even the Romans themselves used a form of this word to describe the salvational power of the Roman Empire in the priene inscription.
How ironic that the NT authors should use this loan word to contrast the rael "good news" with supposed "good news" of the Empire.

So there is no necessity. Isn't this a rather naive view of languages. Loan words only appear when necessary?
Oh just aminute you contradicted this your self just above here when you wrote usually

Sigh....So languages change and absorb influences from other languages. Big deal. You haven't really shown anything.



You have provided many examples.I will mentiuon one again.
I pointed out the existence of the Aramaic "corban" in the gospels. Here si your reply

Corban is Aramaic. Aramaic precedes hebrew. Aramaic comes first, then Hebrew. The hebrew language sprang from Aramaic.

But as it turns out the word is of akkadian origin. The akkadians offered "qurbanu" at their altars. It comes from the ancient Akkadian root "qrb" menaing to approach (the altar).

What esle could explain your blunder except that you imagine Hebrew gave rise to Aramaic?




[QUOTE=spin]
but you do show you need to do a few lingusitics courses. 1) You seem to have some crazy notion that Aramaic never changed, yet if you investigated the matter it did a lot. 2) If you reread what you were responding to, you'd see I never claimed Hebrew predated Aramaic. 3) You misunderstand the simple notion that terms may not have gone from Aramaic to Greek, but from Hebrew to Greek, or even from some other language into Greek. We are talking about how certain non-Greek terms may have made it into Greek, nothing more. [/spin]

It's funny to watch you tap dancing. Here are your own words.

You are not competent to comment on the relationship between biblical hebrew abd other languages, other wise you would not make these false claims.


No by your own admission these are accountable because it only "usually" happens.


This alteration is easily explainable as being done for theological reasons by greek speakers who argued about the relationship of Jesus to God. The variations I provided however are not explainable in this way.


Rubbish these words help anyone understanding them. That they would have to be a greek speaking Roman audience is your "pet theory"

spin

As anyone can see, there is no point in trying to elucidate problems that judge is incapable of seeing because he is too busy falling over his beliefs.

People who understand the notion of source criticism, here especially of the synoptic gospel problem (ie there is a literary relationship between the first three gospels which has caused many scholars to see that Mark is the principal source for both the gospels of Matthew and Luke), would know that if you extract the non-unique material in Luke you have a separate collection of material that yields certain common traits, one of which is the term nomikoi which refers to "lawyers", ie those knowledgeable of the Torah. The Lucan material is reflected by the use of nomikoi. The rest of Luke reflects the traditions that use grammateis for scribes. The Greek reflects the separations of material in Luke identified through source criticism. This is something Aramaic is incapable of because it makes no distinction between nomikos and grammateus, using only spr. The Greek version of Luke provides lexical evidence (ie lawyers v. scribes) to support the source critical analysis of the text, but the Aramaic doesn't. This suggests that the Greek is closer to the source of the text.

Further evidence of judge being out of his depth:
Yep, big deal. If anyone compares the two translations of the book of Daniel found in the LXX, ie the Old Greek and the Theodotion version, they will see just how different the translations are. Judge takes for granted that a term such as byt hrwds ("house of Herod"), would automatically be translated as "Herodians" when the term literally means "house of Herod" which actually suggests the dynasty or family of Herod.

He also fails to address the fact that the Greek of Mark is much more rudamentary than that of Matthew, which is not a reflection of an underlying difference in the Aramaic, but of the people writing the Greek text. The best that judge could say in order to stick to his untenable claim that the Aramaic is the source is to say that the translators didn't have the same skills yet he sees no big deal that they each happened on the same strange translation of byt hrwds. How ingenious of judge. Or more to the point, how ingenuous.

To the following:
judge's effort is:
Didn't you see the problem breeze by this boy? He doesn't care about the problem at all. There is no problem. He prefers to play word games. Obviously he is incapable of doing more, but you already know that.

Every single time the word soldiers is found in English derived from the Greek stratiwtai, we find in the Aramaic, )strtiwt) "astratiota". Yet in the Hebrew we find various terms including Isa 15:4, xlcy for soldiers.

Not "NT authors", but, according to judge belief that the nt was translated from Aramaic, only one nt author. He wants us to believe that because a Roman inscription uses the term, it must have been used by those who wrote the Peshitta, but we see that the Peshitta generally uses a home grown term dttkrz, and he wants us to believe that the writer just so happened to decide to use the Greek term on this one occasion. Don't you love the imagination of this guy?

Love it, don't you? This sort of contorted reasoning should start to be called "judgisms", ie "it doesn't matter what the evidence indicates as long as judge can give a lame excuse."

Native clothing is the sort of thing that has native words to describe them. Judge wants this not to be so. The Aramaic writers of the Peshitta just preferred to use a Greek word for ordinary clothing. :rolling:

I think of shown that judge is utterly clueless when it comes to linguistic matters. Each of the Greek words mentioned above being found in the Peshitta need to be explained. They are of ordinary things, things that a language has resources in itself to deal with, robes, baskets, sponges, robbers, land measures. Judge's "big deal" is so ironic.

What we see are good signs of translation from Greek to Aramaic: how do you say "stadion" in Aramaic? You don't because they used other measures and there would have to be some conversion so the translator left "stadion" to maintain the original text. How do you translate the Greek word stola, which is Greek clothing into Aramaic? You don't, so you use the Greek word. Etc.

Ahh, tit for tat.

Too bad judge didn't understand the reply. Poor judge.

Talking of bringing things to the Lord, this word is often translated as "gift" in the Hebrew bible, see Lev 1:2, 3, 10 etc. So, "corban" is a technical term in Hebrew. Judge responds:

This is great logic. He claims "corban" is Aramaic without showing any examples of its Aramaic use. He says that Aramaic "precedes' (whatever he means) Hebrew, but how does that change the fact that "corban" is a technical term in Hebrew? Then the biggest clanger, our know-nothing claims that the "Hebrew language sprang from Aramaic". Yeah, sure. Judge is now rewriting the history of North-west Semitic languages. Judge has no shame. He will make such erroneous declarations with nothing tangible to back it up. Why does he meddle with things he knows nothing about you may ask? He is driven by his beliefs. :wave:

This does not help us understand how "corban" made it into the various Semitic languages. The Latin language had the word "tre" long before English existed, but no-one would claim that the English word "three" was derived from the Latin word. They are both eventually derived from the same source, but through different trajectories. The Latin is historically older but that fact doesn't mean anything with regard to the relationship between the two forms. Judge simply knows nothing about historical linguistics. Why does he meddle? you ask. He is driven by his beliefs to make such mistakes. :rolling:

Can anyone see the logic here? As though I claimed that "Hebrew gave rise to Aramaic." To quote an old Steely Dan song: "Only a fool would say that." :thumbs:

How on earth would judge know? -- having shown himself to be incompetent in all the linguistic fields he has been meddling in.

Now for a little rat cunning:
This is an attempt to recycle my words though without any awareness of the notion in them. Too bad old judge is incompetent with regards to linguistics and refuses to take the advice to learn something about the subject. After a few years he would be able to do some comparative and historical linguistics, which he would find truly useful for this sort of discussion.

Did judge look at the various problems? His response showed that he didn't. Is there any point in responding to his demonstrated lack of awareness to the problem? Well, not to him. Anyone interested in "the father/my father" should see this thread. You'll note that the contrast occurs within passages and it causes problems in understanding the fabric of the text.

As to nomikoi v. grammateis, theological reasons? Of course not. It is a matter of cutural background. The writer of the uniquely Lucan parts of Luke was a better writer of Greek than his synoptic sources, so he uses a better word for his Greek context. This goes blithely over the head of our judge. :snooze:

Judge then continues quoting me after breaking the text in the wrong place:
showing he doesn't understand the discourse he is dealing with. The sentence starting "We see explanations which don't help an Aramaic audience..." is a different idea from the one which precedes it. Judge's response shows that he doesn't understand:

The explanations I was referring to have been cited elsewhere. But here is a fuller list of explanations for non-Semitic audiences also translated into Aramaic:

1. In Mk 15:16, we are told that "the soldiers led him [Jesus] into the courtyard of the palace," and then the text explains for his Roman audience, "that is, the praetorium." That explanation has been translated into the Peshitta.
2. In Mk 12:42, we are told that "a poor widow cast in two leptas (coins)," and then the text explains for his Roman audience, moving from Greek leptas, "that is, a quadrans (a Roman coin)." That explanation has been translated into the Peshitta with different coins, but same logic.
3. In Mt 27:3, we are told that they "came to a place called Golgotha," and then the text explains for his Roman audience, "that is, the place of the skull." Interesting that this explanation of the Aramaic term is translated into Aramaic.
4. In Mt 27:46, we are told that Jesus "cried out Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani," and then the text explains for his non-Semitic audience, "that is, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me", and this is translated into Aramaic, giving a slightly different dialect!!
5. In Mk 15:42, we are told "that it was the day of preparation," a common idea for anyone with knowledge of Judaism, and then the text explains for his Roman audience, "that is, the day before the sabbath."
6. In Acts 1:19, we are told that that the place where Judas killed himself, "was called in their own language, Akeldama," and then the text explains to its non-Semitic audience, "that is, field of blood," but did the Aramaic speaker need the term translated? Interestingly enough the Aramaic Akeldama doesn't mean "field of blood", but "portion of blood" -- the translator was just sticking too closely to the Greek source.
7. In Jn 20:24 we are told of Thomas, a person who the text explains as "called the twin", this explanation is also found hilariously in Aramaic, for the name Thomas means "twin" and we have t)wm) called t)m) (note the extra vowel in the name, ie the first one, to assure correct pronunciation), so we have "the twin called the twin" in Aramaic.
8. In Jn 20:16 we are told that "Mary said [to Jesus] in Hebrew, Rabbouni," and then the text explains for his non-Semitic audience, "which is to say, teacher," and this is also as it is found in the Peshitta. The readers of the Peshitta apparently wouldn't understand the Aramaic rabuni or as the Peshitta writes it, rabuli.

I'm starting to anticipate what judge's new low standard of ineffective response will be which will satisfy his need to defend the untenable position he believes to be true.

However, given the standards so far witnessed from judge's muddling responses, I've decided to merely respond with what should be apparent to anyone who has followed the many series of responses about the Peshitta on this forum:

spin

Vorkosigan

Wow! Great post, spin.

judge

OK Spin first thing you need to do is be up front about your experience with Aramaic. Yes, be upfront. Don't run away. Don't ignore this request. Tell us your experience. Are you prepared to be honest and forthright about your experience with the Aramaic language?
I am betting you are not prepared to be honest and forthright about your experience with Aramaic, but perhaps you will prove me wrong.

Please make up your mind. It is hard to hit a moving target. Are these translations for "non semitic" audiences or "Roman" ones.

Or are they just for anyone not familiar with day to day life in Jerusalem?

1. Wrong yet again. The Aramaic reads "into the courtyard that was the praetorium".
   
   
   
   Quote:

   Originally Posted by spin In Mk 12:42, we are told that "a poor widow cast in two leptas (coins)," and then the text explains for his Roman audience, moving from Greek leptas, "that is, a quadrans (a Roman coin)." That explanation has been translated into the Peshitta with different coins, but same logic.

   The explanation is for anyone who may not be familiar with the coins used. These explanations are obviously helpful when the gospel is to be taken into the known world.
   
   
   
   Quote:

   Originally Posted by spin In Mt 27:3, we are told that they "came to a place called Golgotha," and then the text explains for his Roman audience, "that is, the place of the skull." Interesting that this explanation of the Aramaic term is translated into Aramaic.

   Yes the Local term is translated in to Aramaic for those who would not understand the local term. If you went to Ireland would you understand all the local terms? How about New Zealand?
   English is spoken in many parts of the globe but that does not mean you would understand local names for places.
   Do you really need this explained to you?
   
   
   Quote:

   Originally Posted by spin In Mt 27:46, we are told that Jesus "cried out Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani," and then the text explains for his non-Semitic audience, "that is, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me", and this is translated into Aramaic, giving a slightly different dialect!!

   Wrong again Spin. Here is Matthew 27 in Aramaic . No explanation is given.
   
   
   Quote:

   Originally Posted by spin In Mk 15:42, we are told "that it was the day of preparation," a common idea for anyone with knowledge of Judaism, and then the text explains for his Roman audience, "that is, the day before the sabbath."

   Wrong yet again. The peshitta says "it was friday evening before the sabbath"
   Since friday evening after dark is the sabbath the peshitta exaplains that it was
   1.Friday
   2.Evening
   3.Before sundown
   
   
   Quote:

   Originally Posted by spin In Acts 1:19, we are told that that the place where Judas killed himself, "was called in their own language, Akeldama," and then the text explains to its non-Semitic audience, "that is, field of blood," but did the Aramaic speaker need the term translated? Interestingly enough the Aramaic Akeldama doesn't mean "field of blood", but "portion of blood" -- the translator was just sticking too closely to the Greek source.

   Sp "portion of blood" (as you suggest) is a local nickname for the field. The explanation is not for a "non semitic audience". It is for Aramaic speakers who do not understand every nuance of the local dialect. See my reply above.
   Would Aramaic speakers in Mesopotamia ir galilee have understood that Akeldama referred to this local field. Probably not so an explanation is provided.
   
   
   Quote:

   Originally Posted by spin In Jn 20:24 we are told of Thomas, a person who the text explains as "called the twin", this explanation is also found hilariously in Aramaic, for the name Thomas means "twin" and we have t)wm) called t)m) (note the extra vowel in the name, ie the first one, to assure correct pronunciation), so we have "the twin called the twin" in Aramaic.

   Wrong yet again. We do not have the twin called the twin in Aramaic. We have Thomas (tooma) called the twin (tama). It is a play on words. All throughout the Aramaic peshitta we have plays on words.
   
   We have none on the greek.
   
   
   
   
   Quote:

   Originally Posted by spin In Jn 20:16 we are told that "Mary said [to Jesus] in Hebrew, Rabbouni," and then the text explains for his non-Semitic audience, "which is to say, teacher," and this is also as it is found in the Peshitta. The readers of the Peshitta apparently wouldn't understand the Aramaic rabuni or as the Peshitta writes it, rabuli.

The peshitta has and said to him in Hebrew Rabbuli ( Ylwbr ) which means Teacher ( 0nplm )....�

Hebrew and Aramaic are different languages. John gives Maryams precise words in Hebrew and then translates this for Aramaic speakers who do not speak Hebrew.

judge

Oh puleease!

gregor

Judge

I don't think anyone here has been convinced by your assertions about Aramaic primacy. Why continue to proselytize?

Notsri

Except, judge, John doesn't give it (Mary's response) in Hebrew; Spin is absolutely correct: it's Aramaic. Rabuni, in fact, is apparently an early form of the word in Palestinian Aramaic, as it's preserved also in some of the (Aramaic) Fragment Targums to the Pentateuch, e.g., fragment D to Gen. 44:18, where it's found twice. (Later targums like Onkelos have riboni (Gen. 33:11) or ribonana' (Gen. 23:6) which, if I remember correctly, are generally considered artificial vocalizations from the (Babylonian?) rabbinic academies.)

Mosor

Sorry to interject here but I need your expert opinions. A friend of mine sent me link to a christian apologetics site and one section seemed relevant to this discussion. The author was arguing for the Clementine tradition of Mathew-Luke-Mark-John rather than the later tradition of St. Jerome of Mathew-Mark-Luke-John.

All of this stuff just flied over my head so I don't know what to make of it but it seems suspicious to me. The author argues Mark is a conflation of Mathew and Luke through talks Peter held on them and recorded by Mark. That would mean that both Mathew and Luke would have had to be written before 69 A.D.

http://www.church-in-history.org/pag...-gospels-1.htm

Diogenes the Cynic

This piece assumes all its own conclusions, ignores evidence which contradicts those conclusions and makes tendentious extropolations from meaningless details.

First of all, Mark is most definitely a sophisticated literary piece and is in no way a "transcript" of an oral lecture by anybody. The author's assertions about "Peter" being the source of this "lecture" are utterly without basis or merit.

The specific extropolation about the misattributed quotation from Malachi is specious in the extreme. The notion that a secretary preserved an oral gaffe is ridiculous in itself considering that Mark quotes from the LXX (which Peter could not have and which his audience would not have understood). The entire composition is in Greek and is not a verbatim translation from a transcript of an oral Aramaic "lecture." This misattributed quote (which does eventually get back to Isaiah) is not necessarily even an error as there are other examples in Jewish and Talmudic literature of attributing multiple quotes to a single prophet.

As I said before, the article simply ignores other overwhelming evidence of Markan priority and late dating in favor of a priori religious beliefs and tradition.