CX

I took the liberty of splitting this off from the current thread on Jesus and the Gentiles to avoid derailing that thread and to get some input. My colleague Peter Kirby informs me that perhaps this contention is more controversial than I thought so I'd appreciate any input from opponents of the idea....

Layman

I guess my first question is, which canonical gospels? Our English KJV, NIV or NAS versions? Or the more scholarly NRSV which takes into account more textual criticism? Or our earliest complete manuscripts?

Yuri Kuchinsky

I guess most people already know what I think about this. The canonical Gospels aren't even close to "the original text".

For one thing, the original gospels were most likely still Jewish-Christian. This idea was argued by Loisy, and I borrowed it from him.

See my long article about the evolutionary development of Christian gospels.

Evolutionary View of the Gospels (May 24, 2003),
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=53550

Also, another discussion of these ideas was here,

Yuri's Evolutionary view of the Gospels - the evidence? (August 22, 2003),
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=57784

Also, I think that the KJV, which is based on the Majority text, is better than NIV or NAS or NRSV, that are all based on a 19th century version of the Egyptian text.

All the best,

Yuri.

judge

.....In Aramaic of course.

We have the original gospels word for word the same in Aramaic.

The aramaic gospels are by and large ignored by western scholars and have been for centuries. Some how at some point it was decided that the gospels were written in greek (despite there not being any evidence), and the myth has grown.


In reference to the originality of the Peshitta, the words of His Holiness Mar Eshai Shimun, Catholicos Patriarch of the Church of the East, are summarized as follows:

"With reference to....the originality of the Peshitta text, as the Patriarch and Head of the Holy Apostolic and Catholic Church of the East, we wish to state, that the Church of the East received the scriptures from the hands of the blessed Apostles themselves in the Aramaic original, the language spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and that the Peshitta is the text of the Church of the East which has come down from the Biblical times without any change or revision."

Mar Eshai Shimun

by Grace, Catholicos Patriarch of the East


from.....

http://www.peshitta.org/initial/peshitta.html

Doctor X

. . . and I have a bridge to sell you. . . .

--J.D.

Bernard Muller

I want to know:
Is the Peshitta written in Syriac or Aramaic?
If it is in Syriac, then it is not the same language as spoken by Jews in Palestine then.
What are the differences between Aramaic & Syriac?
Can one listener/reader of one understand the speaker/writer of the other?
Best regards, Bernard

judge

Hi Bernard,
hopefully this stuff can answer your queries

Here is a recent post dealing with the technicalities of this issue from www.peshitta.org


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

The following online article by Steven Ring (Ithink??) quotes William Cureton

http://www.srr.axbridge.org.uk/syriac_language.html


"Generally it may be observed that the language used by our Saviour and his apostles being that ordinarily employed by the Hebrews in Palestine at the time, and called by St. Luke (Acts xxi. 40, xxii. 1), Papias, and Irenaeus, the Hebrew Dialect, is so very similar and closely allied with the Syriac of the New Testament, called the Peshitto, that the two may be considered identical, with the exception, perhaps, of some very slight dialectical peculiarities. These facts are so well known to all who have given attention to this subject, that it is not necessary for me to enter into any proof of them in this place."


The article itself concludes....Some very important conclusions can be reached from this synopsis of the available linguistic information.
* The Syriac versions of the New Testament are written in the language that Jesus actually spoke.
* The extant Syriac manuscripts of the New Testament are very old, at least as old as many ancient manuscripts written in Greek.
* The sayings of Jesus were spoken in Syriac. Therefore, the best way to understand them is to read them in Syriac.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Bernard,

Peshitta is written in Syriac Aramaic. Syriac is generally considered as one of the many dialects of Aramaic.

Our most ancient manuscripts of NT gospels, the Curetonian and the Sinaitic, are written in the Old Syriac Aramaic. This dialect is believed to be the older dialect of Syriac Aramaic.

The language as spoken by Jews in Palestine at the time of Jesus was Palestinian Aramaic, which wasn't so far removed from the Old Syriac Aramaic. These two dialects of Aramaic are believed to have been mutually intelligible.

But we also have to keep in mind that a lot is still unknown or poorly understood about the precise details of all those ancient dialects. For example, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of which are in Aramaic, has changed a lot of previously accepted beliefs about these dialects. The re-evaluation is still going on.

Best,

Yuri.

CX

I was think more of the critical greek text as embodied by the NA27.