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Hi all, my first post here.

My main interest is in translation of the Peshitta, and have been doing some work with it over the past couple of years. Not that there aren't already other translations of high quality out there, but my main interest is in comparing translation to original text. So I invite anyone to post feedback on anything I post here, and I will try to apply some feedback to others' posts as well.

This is a rendition of the first verse of Matay (Matthew). The first line is simply the transliteration, somewhat stylized to my liking, and then a word-for-word rendition of it.

k'thobo` d'iy:liy:duw:theh d'yeshuw' mConfusedhiy:cho` b'reh d'dawiyd b'reh d'a`b:rohom
A-writing of-his-genealogy, of-Yeshua the-Anointed; son-his of-Dawid, son-his of-Abrohom:

Not much controversy to this verse, except that other translations of the Aramaic tend to use "book" or "scroll" instead of "a-writing", and I know of no translations that render the 3sm (his) suffix for the word "son", instead opting for "the son". Understandable perhaps, since "son-his" is not conventional English syntax.

A reason for using "a-writing" for the first word, in my opinion, is that it is from the same root as "to-write" (KTB), except being inflected to a noun form. So the logical noun form of "to-write" would be "a-writing" or "the-writing"; with "book" or "scroll" likely being overly specific to the root word. I did glance at the Greek text and noticed that they use the word "biblos", which is likely different from their root word for "to-write", so maybe "book" or "scroll" is accurate for the Greek, but not as accurate for the Aramaic.

Best wishes to all, and my thanks to those on this board who have made so much information available, for all to see and use.
Just thought I would share one last thought process on translating Matay 1:1. The second word d'iy:liy:duw:theh is interesting in that it is only used once in the NT. Common translations for it are "origin, descent, ancestry, genealogy, etc.". A "bottoms-up" way of approaching the word is to look at the root of it first. The root of d'iY:LiyBig Grinuw:theh is YLD. The TH is a feminine label, and the W and second Y are "matres lectionis" noun formers. D is typically a prefix for (of) and the EH suffix a 3sm possessive object (his) or (of him).
Which leaves us with the YLD root, which is "to-bear", "to-give-birth", "to-be-born", etc. The simplest noun form of that is "the-birth" or "a-birth". And the context of its use takes us to something like "birth line", "birth account", "birth record", "birth lineage", et. It is a subjective call at that point, but I kind of like "birthline" as it is the most simple and direct description of the context, and embodies the root word. Adding the prefix and suffix info, we get to "of-his-birthline".

k'thobo` d'iy:liy:duw:theh A-writing of-his-birthline,
d'yeshuw' mConfusedhiy:cho` of-Yeshua the-Anointed;
b'reh d'dawiyd son-his of-Dawid,
b'reh d'a`b:rohom son-his of Abrohom:

So that is just one individual perspective on Matay 1:1, and is just something I find interesting to do, sort of a hobby of mine.