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Full Version: Aphrahat and non diatessaron gospel quotes
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One of the arguments made by Metzger and his followers is that Syrian churches only accepted the diatessaron along with Acts and the Pauline Epistles (except Philemon), and that this was so until Rabbula and Theodoretus of Cyrrhus rooted out all copies of the diatessaron.
There are a number of problems with this (mainly to do with the term "Syrian churches"), but perhaps the simplest way to demonstrate the error , and thus get people thinking, is to show Aphrahat quoting a portion of the gospels not found in the diatessaron.
Does anyone know of one?
Additionally is there a place where one can see all of Aphrahats NT quotations?
Ok I think I have solved this one. Showing tbis is quite difficult in one way becuase apparently there are only 56 Nt verses that are not in the diatesaaron. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Diatessaron">http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Diatessaron</a><!-- m -->

Quote:Only fifty-six verses in the canonical Gospels do not have a counterpart in the Diatessaron, mostly the genealogies and the pericope adulterae

Firstly we have Matthew 1.23 where Aphrahats quote mirrors the peshitta against the diatessaron. This shows Aphrahat quoting the peshitta version of this verse as there is no mention of the words "a son" contained in the peshitta.

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However there is at least one place where Aphrahat refers to the geneology of Jesus. The geneology is not contained in the diatessaron, this showing that Aphrahat was not using it.

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