Yuri Kuchinsky

Greetings, all,

Yes, I agree with spin that many of the passages he cited do make it very difficult to argue for the primacy of the Peshitta.

Especially the passages below.

But you can also note that, in all the following cases, the Old Syriac doesn't have these problems! Because, in the Old Syriac, there are no translations from Aramaic for Greek-speaking audiences...

So here are some illustrations of that. 'SyS' is the Old Syriac Sinaitic manuscript.

SPIN:
In Mk 15:34, 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.

(Mt 27:33 Pesh) And they came to a place which is called Golgotha, which is interpreted a skull. (34) And they gave him to drink...

OS Aramaic Matthew ~ Chapters 22 - 28
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/aramat4.htm

(Mt 27:33 SyS) And they came to the place called Gagultha; (34) And they gave him to drink...


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!!

(Mk 15:34 Pesh) And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, and said: Il, Il, lemono shebakthone; _that is: My God, my God; why hast thou forsaken me?_

(Mk 15:34 SyS) And at the ninth hour, he cried with a mighty voice _ My God, my God; wherefore hast thou left me? _

---

Thomas the Twin

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.

(Jn 12:16 Pesh) Thomas, _who is called the Twin_, said to his fellow-disciples: Let us also go [and] die with him.

(Jn 12:16 SyS) Thomas _ said to them, to his fellow-disciples: Come, let us also go [and] die with him.


YURI:
And the same problem is also found in Jn 20:24, and in Jn 21:2!

(Jn 20:24 Pesh) But Thomas, _who was called the Twin_, one of the twelve, was not there with them, when Jesus came.

SyS = omit 'who was called the Twin'.

(Jn 21:2 Pesh) There were together, Simon Cephas, and Thomas _called the Twin_, and Nathaniel...

SyS = omit 'who was called the Twin'.

---

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.

(Jn 20:16 Pesh) Jesus said to her: Mary! And she turned, and said to him _in Hebrew_: Rabbuni; _which is interpreted Teacher._

(Jn 20:16 SyS) Then said Jesus to her _ : 'Mary!' And she perceived him, and answered, and said to him: 'Rabbuli!' _ And she ran forward unto him that she might draw near to him.

YURI:
So, in all the passages above, the Peshitta does very strange things, if one still wants to hold to the idea that all 4 gospels were written entirely in Aramaic of the Peshitta.

As I say, the Peshitta primacy idea has very little to do with science or the scientific method. It's an idea that is based purely on faith.

But the most obvious argument against the Peshitta priority is found in the fact that it is universally agreed that the Old Latin gospels (very similar to the Old Syriac gospels) came before the Latin Vulgate (very similar to the Syriac Vulgate, i.e. the Peshitta). There's _nobody_ who is disputing this view!

Thus, it can be concluded from this that the Old Syriac gospels likewise came before the Syriac Vulgate.

So, rather than engaging in his hopeless struggle to persuade the world that the Peshitta is the original NT, I encourage Judge to switch instead to a much better based concept of the Old Syriac priority!

Shalom,

Yuri.

PS.
In regard to spin's argument about the significance of nomikoi/grammateis divergence in Lk, this may well be a good argument against the Peshitta priority. And yet, I'm not quite sure how this would work vis-a-vis my own theory of limited Aramaic priority.

To remind, "limited Aramaic priority" means that I do accept that some gospels, or perhaps some parts of the gospels, _were_ written in Greek. But, at the same time, my argument would be that the oldest parts of the gospels, as well as perhaps the entire Mt, were written originally in a Semitic tongue.

(Also, I consider myself an "Aramaic Conservative", rather than an Aramaic prioritist. Because I believe that, almost in all cases, the Old Syriac gospels do happen to preserve the earliest text of the separate gospels that we now have... Greek text is the most corrupt!)

I started to check this nomikoi/grammateis business already, and I already did find one mistake in spin's theory.

Because Lk 10:25 uses nomikoV, and yet this is paralleled by nomikoV in Mt 22:34.

judge

Please Spin stop pretending that you understand aramaic! You do not.

When will you be upfront about this?

You refure to tell us your experience with Aramaic (if you have any at all).

The word does not mean preparation.

The word is derived from the Aramaic?Hebrew root "Ereb" which means to set.

This is the Christian word for Friday.


It is forgivable that you keep getting Aramaic wrong as you don't seem to have any experience with it. But can you stop pretending you do?

Chris Weimer

judge, from the way you handled this thread, neither do you...

Now let us all turn to Yuri who actually knows what he's talking about...

judge

One must wonder what this word meant in Aramaic prior to Chriatianity though. I await Spins evidence it means or meant preparation in Aramaic.

judge

I mean that it has been rejected out of hand by western scholars who assume greek primacy. This is the default position. This assumption has never been put to the test by scholars except the odd one here or there, and even then their conclusions are far from clear.

For the most part it is rejected "out of hand".

jbernier

Yeah, Greek primacy is assumed. And it's a fair assumption, as all the earliest manuscripts that we have are Greek. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge none of the earliest witnesses that we have to the Gospel of John - i.e. writers who comment upon or simply mention it - appear to know of this Aramaic original. These two points, alone, make it a reasonable default position and puts the burden of proof upon those who would say otherwise. Greek primacy is by far the most parsimonious reading of the evidence, as it does not postulate no-longer-extant originals of which we have no direct evidence and no compelling textual reason to postulate. Again, it's not my job to test your claim: It's your job to prove it.

jbernier

Hang on. How do you know this? This is an ad hominen attack, plain and simple. Deal with what he says, not with his personal qualifications to say it. Why should I take your argument seriously if your best response is to critique another's knowledge of Aramaic?

graymouser

It seems to me (as somebody who's interested, but is not a biblical scholar) that the best argument for any non-Greek priority would not be variations within the Greek texts (the multiple-translations theory is simply beyond the pale), but if early patristic NT citations were clearly independent translations and not quotes from a relatively uniform Greek text. Is there any indication of this whatsoever?

-Wayne

Yuri Kuchinsky

JUDGE:
Please Spin stop pretending that you understand aramaic! You do not.

YURI REPLIES:
Spin obviously knows at least some Aramaic. He also seems to know Hebrew well, which is a sister language of Aramaic (if you know one, the other one tends to come easy). And he knows Greek.

Judge OTOH doesn't seem to know _any_ of these languages.

This is not just pot calling the kettle black... This is more like pot calling Frosty the Snowman black!

Yuri.

spin

The Aramaic word for evening I've already given, rm$).

The word for the day we call the "eve of preparation", (rwbt), comes from (rb. By itself (rwbt) is sufficient to indicate (rwbt) d$bt), "the eve of the Shabbat", ie it is sufficient to indicate the day of preparation. It can also be used to indicate the eve on important feasts, when the particular feast is specified. It has nothing to do with the notion of a weekday name.

Hence we have

wkd hw) rm$) d(rwbt)

And when [it] was the evening of the "eve",

d)ytyh qdm $bt)

that is, before the Shabbat

I'll use "eve" so that one doesn't get the idea that I say (rwbt) means "preparation". We refer to the day as the "day of preparation" because those who observe the Shabbat feel that they can do no work on the day, which includes cooking, so the food is prepared the day before.

The word supplied in the Greek of Mk 15:42 is paraskeuh, which Josephus also uses in AJ 16.6.2, for the [day of] preparation.

It's actually sad to see poor judge avoid issue after issue, hiding behind word games, and generally ducking his responsibility. He is supposed to believe the stuff that he disseminates, yet he is incapable of analysing it. He can't admit that there are problems with his position, such as in the material I have posted in response to him over a long period now. He eventually goes away and, like the guy in Memento, comes back apparently without memory of what came before and starts up the same conversation again.


spin