judge

Did Paul write to the church at Corinth in Aramaic?
It seems he did (as has always been claimed by the Church of the East), despite the ideas of western protestants and in their turn textual critics.

Evidence of this is plain to see in the surviving greek mss, by comparing them with the Aramaic peshitta.

In The Aramaic of 1 Corinthians 13:3 we read (parapahrse) ....if I give away ny possessions and surrender my body to be burned but have not love it's no good.....

Now the point to be looked at here is that the Aramaic word here for burned can also mean boast. So anyone translating from Aramaic to Greek would be in a dilemma..."Did Paul mean burn or boast?"

Some greek translators went with burn.
This can be found in the KJV
Greek mss which read burn include, C D F G L 81 1175 1881*

Some Greek translators went with boast
Greek mss which read boast include Ì46 Í A B 048 33 1739*
This can be found in the ISV.

So we have a word which in Aramaic could have two meanings and both these meanings show up in different greek mss.

Can we still continue to think it was written in Greek?

Bear in mind that most western scholars believe Paul wrote in greek even though they have never bothered to examine the Aramaic

Haran

Doubtful. I've never understood why Paul would write to Greeks in Aramaic. It just doesn't make sense. I can agree that maybe one or more of the Gospels was in Aramaic, but not Paul...

Why is it plain to see?

I've asked Yuri this before too, but would you present the Aramaic word. It is difficult to check claims using only English.

But you left out the Syriac Peshitta, which according to Metzger has "burned". The Harklean version also appears to use "burned".

What is the Aramaic word?


Actually, textual critics gave preference to "boast" over "burned". They gave "boast" a "C" rating however because it was hard to decide between the two based on the split evidence.

So, in conclusion, Metzger includes the Syriac Peshitta as reading "burned" here and not "boast". What Syriac manuscript reads "boast"? Even though UBS and NA contain mentions of the Syriac versions, I can't find it.

Finally, there is one major factor that may allow one to believe that it was originally written in Greek....

One can still account for the variation in the fact that the Greek words for "burned" and "boast", in this instance, are only different by two easily changed letters. If some scribe messed up the letter for some reason, then voila, you have the other word...

Here are the Greek words:

καυχησωμαι - meaning "I may boast"
καυθησομαι - meaning "I should be burned"

judge

Metzger wouldn't know Aramaic from Lithuanian!
It is the word which appears in in the peshitta which has the dual meaning!

This is what I meant in my post. Textual critics such as Metzger assume that the greek came first, but they have never subjected this assumption to scrutiny.

Haran

Metzger and Aland had to at least be familiar with Syriac/Aramaic (or at least work with others who were) in order to correctly present the Syriac/Aramaic versional evidence in UBS and NA. Do you really think they were not familiar with it? Metzger wrote a book about the different versions with quite a lot of focus on the Syriac/Aramaic.

I realize that you said the word in the Peshitta has dual meaning. However, I am saying that since the two different Greek words are very close in spelling, it would have been an easy mistake which led to the variation and not underlying Syriac/Aramaic. I am also saying that scholars like Metzger who more than likely know Syriac/Aramaic (or at least know and communicate with scholars who do) listed the Syriac Peshitta as a witness to the reading "burned" rather than what you are claiming is the original from the Peshitta. So, it seems to me that this is a scholar's evidence against a layman's evidence, unless you can present a scholar's evidence for what you are saying... (Forgive me if the tone of my post comes across confrontational, I do not mean it that way. I'm trying to understand more about your position, why you hold it, and what scholarly evidence there is to back it up.)

I'm still not convinced that the Syriac/Aramaic word you mention has this dual meaning because I have not had a chance to look it up for myself. Would you mind telling me where you got your information and what this Syriac/Aramaic word is?

judge

Well....I was probably exagerating a little re Metzger

But I suppose the point seems that western scholars have never really examined whether the peshitta might in fact be the original.

It seems (to me that ) because, in the wake of the reformation greek texts have been assumed to be the original they must be defended as such by western Christians, because the "authority of scripture" is such a crucial point in much theology.

I think there is very little "scholarly" evidence because the work has just not been done. All this time the Church of the East has said that they have the original Aramaic, but western Christians have not bothered to consider it. Or have not thouroughly done so.

Quote:

I'm still not convinced that the Syriac/Aramaic word you mention has this dual meaning because I have not had a chance to look it up for myself. Would you mind telling me where you got your information and what this Syriac/Aramaic word is?

I don't think I can write the Aramaic script here, but I will try to find as much info as I can about this word and return.

Here is alittle more info on this topic.

http://www.peshitta.org/pdf/SplitWords1.pdf

http://www.peshitta.org/pdf/SplitWords2.pdf

Haran

In fact, I'd like to know where you read the text of 1 Corinthians in Syriac/Aramaic. Is it online somewhere? If not, what book did you read it in?

I only know of the following excellent websites with Syriac/Aramaic texts (the first one, thanks to Yuri):

CAL Database - apparently only OS Gospels (click Syriac radio button then Submit button)
Peshitta.org - Interlinear Syriac/English (Gospels only)
Bible MS Project - Sinaitic Syriac version (Gospels only)

If you know of others, I would be very happy to see them.

Haran

Syriac Unicode Test:

ܝܢܝܡܝ ܢܡ
"from my right" (Mk 10:40)

That's not very pretty... Does anyone know much about Syriac Unicode? It's written from right to left like Arabic. How do I make the letters join like Arabic? Is that possible? Is it supposed to be automatic (if so, it didn't work for me as the letters stayed separate) or is there something that needs to be done for the joining of letters? I also had to intentionally write them from right to left. That's kind of a pain...

Haran

Anyway, judge, if you can find the aramaic word claimed to represent both "burned"/"boast", using the above link and a little ingenuity, you should be able to at least provide the letters of the word even if it doesn't look quite right. A transliteration would also be fine.

By the way, thanks for the article links. I'll try to get them read.

Haran

Ok...

From this link that you provided, I found the Syriac/Aramaic word I was looking for:

ܕܩܝ

Transcribed into our alphabet in our left-to-right order it is:
yqd

If you enter yqd in the blank next to lemma on the the CAL Database search page and press the Submit button, you will get the lexicon ("dictionary") entry for yqd.

It gives the following meanings for the word:

• burn
• ardent
• frozen
• suffer
• bake
• inflame with love
• kindle

I don't see "boast"...

So, from the link you provided, it appears that the Peshitta does use yqd. And from this lexical entry, it appears that "burned" is all it means. Do you know of another lexicon that gives "boast" as a secondary meaning for this word?

Haran

Well, I found a transliterated 1 Corinthians on the Peshitta.org website under Tools - Word Docs.

There I was able to find the following transliteration (presented left-to-right):
dn0qd

I'm not sure I understand the transliteration scheme, though.

This is apparently the actual word used in the Peshitta, for which the root is yqd mentioned above.

Typed into their lexicon under the Tools - Lexicon in right-to-left format dq0nd yields only two one-word meanings: set and burn and connects them both with 1 Corintians 13:3. This is from the site that hosts the article from which this argument is derived, but I'm still not seeing the meaning "boast".