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Shlama Akhay,

In Aramaic, the root [font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]Yks [/font]("saky") means:

sky V
011 Palestinian to expect
012 Palestinian to look
021 Syr to expect
022 JBA to look out for s.o.
023 Palestinian to wait
051 Syr to be expected
052 JLAInsc,JLATg,JBA to hope for, to expect

In the Aramaic of Romans 8:24, we read:

"For if we see it, do we hope for it?"

Zorba could have translated it either way ("hope" or "wait"), and he did!

The Greek roots in question are:

  • elpiv ("Elpis", "hope")
    decomai ("Dechomai", "wait")

Greek translation of "Hope":
EVIDENCE: {Sc} B2 {C} D G {K P Psi 33 81 104 614 630 1241 1881 2495 Byz Lect} lat vg {syr(h)}
TRANSLATIONS: {KJV ASVn NASV NEBn}

Greek translation of "Wait":
EVIDENCE: {A} {S* 1739margin} cop(north) cop(south)
TRANSLATIONS: {NEB} ASVn

Clear evidence of an Aramaic original to the book of Romans! <!-- sBig Grin --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/happy.gif" alt="Big Grin" title="Happy" /><!-- sBig Grin -->
This posted to me on another board
Quote:Neither _dechomai_, nor any of its cognates, appear in Romans 8:24. It is not only the Byzantine textual tradition, but the bulk of the Alexandrian and Western textual traditions as well which read _elpizei_; uncontested Greek ms evidence for _hupomenei_ is limited to Codex Alexandrinus (_hupomenei_ was corrected in Sinaiticus, and appears in the margin in 1739).

You have misrepresented the Greek text of Romans 8:24. it may be that you have relied on other sources. There is absoloutely no reason why an Aramaic translator, having in front of him a Greek text of Romans 8:24 which reads _elpizei_, could not or would not have rendered _elpizei_ into Aramaic with _mskyn_ (from the root _sky_)

The translational issues which you have raised are every bit as consistent with a translation from Greek into Aramaic as they are with a translation from Aramaic into Greek
Hello Metal1633,

Paul listed Alexandrinus , an early 5th century Greek uncial as having the dechomai reading. The Coptic mss. all seem to have it as well . These are 3rd and 4th century. Of course Aramaic "[font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]NnykS[/font] could come from the Greek word ,"elpizei", if one were to translate Greek to Aramaic. Where did Codex A and the Coptic Mss. get "dechomai", or "to wait" ? That is the question. This along with dozens of other examples, show that the Aramaic can explain the Greek variants , and the Greek mss. as translations of Aramaic.

You cannot do the converse. The Aramaic Peshitta does not even have variant readings . One would expects hundreds of them if it were translated from Greek mss. It does not conform to one particular Greek type. How could it be a translation of one ? Why are there no variants in this "translation" ?

Look for them; you will find no more than two or three in the entire NT worth calling a variant reading, using Eastern or Western mss. !

Damn those Aramaic scribes ! How could they be so accurate and meticulous over their "translated" mss. ? And in God's name, why ?

Old schools die hard. This Greek pimacy school is on the way out, however, because it is finally being challenged and it has no answers.
Kind of like Ptolomy's astronomy which held the field for 1500 years, until Galileo , Copernicus , Kepler challenged it and blew it to pieces.

Blessings,

Dave B
I want to make a correction of my last post. The Greek variant is "upomenei",
not "dechomai". The meaning is the same-"to wait".
Also, Sinaiticus, the second oldest Greek uncial (4th century), has the same reading as Codex A :"upomenei", in the original writing. It was later changed by a corrector. With the Coptic mss, these make up a considerable number of 3rd to 5th century mss. testifying to the alternate reading , which supports a Peshitta source for the two Greek readings in this place and not the converse scenario. We have no reasonable explanation for this variant in Greek mss. nor for the lack of variants in hundreds of Peshitta mss. in this and other places for mss. which are supposed to be mere translations of Greek, and therefore subject to different styles and techniques of different translators and
attempts at translation.
How could such a subjective process as translation with all its possibilities and approaches produce such a monolith as The Peshitta, seeming unified
and consistent in its testimony among it hundreds of mss. ?

How could the original NT text, which would be guarded and almost worshipped by believers of the early church , produce so much error and disagreement, omissions, additions and corruptions in so short a time as 3 centuries as we find in the Greek mss., when we would expect the original scrolls to still exist and many first hand copies. What idiots those Christians would have been not to have made and their copies accurate and to let the originals perish at the same time.
We have seen the zeal of the Jews in preserving their precious Hebrew mss. at Masada . The Jews were slaughtered; the mss. were hidden under the floors of the fortress and preserved. And of course we have found The Dead Sea scrolls which predate Masada. Would first century Jewish converts to Christianity be any less zealous of their NT scrolls ? I think not .
Indeed, the evidence we find in The Peshitta suggests they were even more devoted to the words delivered to them by God than the guardians of Hebrew scripture. The variation among Peshitta mss. looks to be less than even that of Massoretic mss. of the Torah ; if my memory serves me well, I recall approx. 160 letters more in the BHS edition of the Torah than
in The Koren edition's 304, 805 letters.
The two Peshitta versions of the NT differ in their common books (discounting the pericope de adultera).by 99 letters out of 424,239 letters !

Dave B