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Primacy Proofs Refuted (Six and counting) - Printable Version

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Re: Primacy Proofs Refuted (Six and counting) - Thomas - 01-26-2015

Quote:There are four identical lists of the disciples who were chosen as Apostles in Matthew 10:1-5, Mark 3:14-19, Luke 6:13-16, In Acts 1:13 Judas Escariot is not mentioned. The first two lists name Simon the Canaanite. The second two lists call the same person Simon the zealot. There is an apparent discrepancy and contradiction. Simon the Canaanite was not a Jewish disciple. Simon the Zealot was not a Canaanite but a Jewish disciple/Apostle. The Greek New Testament has created confusion. Nevertheless the Aramaic New Testament Peshitta does resolve this discrepancy.

Thank you again, Stephen, for sharing this insight; and a wonderful one indeed. I will, however, in regards to the topic of concern (verifiable Aramaic primacy claims), suggest that the Aramaic / Peshitta does not solve any confusion here; nor does the Greek create confusion in this situation with the apostles list. Here's why:

Both Greek and Aramaic use different words to describe Simon in Mat/Mark and Luke/Acts, and also for the Canaanite woman in Mat 15. The Greek is therefore just as diverse and the Aramaic in distinguishing between them, and therefore the confusion cannot be blamed on the Greek anymore than on the Aramaic.

Secondly, if the solution to the translation of "Simon the Canaanite" in Mat 10 / Mar 3 was actually the Hebrew word, qinaa, then this doesn't positively reflect on the Aramaic anymore than the Greek. Sure, Aramaic is closer to Hebrew in many respects; but this whole situation seems more like an English translator's fault which could have been made from either the Greek or the Aramaic. Nevertheless, a wonderful linguistic insight!

Thomas


Re: Primacy Proofs Refuted (Six and counting) - Stephen Silver - 01-26-2015

Thomas Wrote:
Quote:There are four identical lists of the disciples who were chosen as Apostles in Matthew 10:1-5, Mark 3:14-19, Luke 6:13-16, In Acts 1:13 Judas Escariot is not mentioned. The first two lists name Simon the Canaanite. The second two lists call the same person Simon the zealot. There is an apparent discrepancy and contradiction. Simon the Canaanite was not a Jewish disciple. Simon the Zealot was not a Canaanite but a Jewish disciple/Apostle. The Greek New Testament has created confusion. Nevertheless the Aramaic New Testament Peshitta does resolve this discrepancy.

Thank you again, Stephen, for sharing this insight; and a wonderful one indeed. I will, however, in regards to the topic of concern (verifiable Aramaic primacy claims), suggest that the Aramaic / Peshitta does not solve any confusion here; nor does the Greek create confusion in this situation with the apostles list. Here's why:

Both Greek and Aramaic use different words to describe Simon in Mat/Mark and Luke/Acts, and also for the Canaanite woman in Mat 15. The Greek is therefore just as diverse and the Aramaic in distinguishing between them, and therefore the confusion cannot be blamed on the Greek anymore than on the Aramaic.

Secondly, if the solution to the translation of "Simon the Canaanite" in Mat 10 / Mar 3 was actually the Hebrew word, qinaa, then this doesn't positively reflect on the Aramaic anymore than the Greek. Sure, Aramaic is closer to Hebrew in many respects; but this whole situation seems more like an English translator's fault which could have been made from either the Greek or the Aramaic. Nevertheless, a wonderful linguistic insight!

Thomas

Shlama Akhi Thomas:
The "four lists of the Apostles' which appear in both the Aramaic Peshitta as well as the Greek New Testament is a sound example of Aramaic New Testament primacy proof and the Greek New Testament has no adequate explanation for this. Without getting too deeply into linguistics, let's just say that the subject of phonetic "stops and fricatives" does address the selective use of "Q, K" as opposed to "T,D". This example cannot be easily dismissed as an English translation oversight.

Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting 50 (2008, Hardcover)

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=tfVZnCV6ABcC&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=aramaic+fricatives&source=bl&ots=akPTEz3OxK&sig=n8q4clPLogLTW2ndi-benkZx-3U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6HvGVNj8B5KzoQSzqILgAg&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=aramaic%20fricatives&f=false">https://books.google.ca/books?id=tfVZnC ... es&f=false</a><!-- m -->

This book is on my "wish list", so for now I will reference it on Google Books. Please take time to read the page which is shown. This will give you some idea of the complexity of the subject of Semitic Linguistics. We're also very fortunate to have some Aramaic speakers on the forum of whom Aramaic is their mother tongue.

Enjoy,
Stephen


Re: Primacy Proofs Refuted (Six and counting) - Thirdwoe - 02-01-2015

Refuted? or just seen a different way? <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->

This kind of thing can go back an forth forever, with it never being able to convince either side of the issue.

I have never received a good answer to this question, Ta'oma.

Q: Which Greek NT text (a single manuscript, or a textual family's text) can be shown to be the original Greek NT text, and which the Aramaic NT could be said to be a translation of it?

Shlama,
Chuck


Re: Primacy Proofs Refuted (Six and counting) - distazo - 02-03-2015

Thomas Wrote:Distazo, would you mind sharing your understanding of the origin of the Peshitta text, as I'm curious to see how it compares. I've heard some say that the Peshitta came "directly from the apostles' hands (or their disciples') to the Church of the East sometime between 80-100CE.


Thomas

Sure, I believe that the Jewish Christians, also called 'messianic jews', had the gospels especially Matthew going around (and the original was in Ceasarea) and they were used, in Jewish dialect, and who knows, probably they had it like what here in this forum is called 'old scratch'. The old scratch, is less 'syriac' and a lot more Jewish in dialect (for sure).

Paul and Luke and friends however, directly wrote in the Syrian dialect as that was their mother tongue.
Later, after 70, the Jewish gospels were 'reviewed' (details differ as I believe it) to be in the Syrian/Assyrian dialect. The differences are however, not so big, as wordplay could be maintained.

I also believe that this review of the NT letters/gospels was done very early at the end of the 1st century, they were reviewed in Edessa together thus they harmonize very much (call it a miracle), however, Aramaic was not/never translated from Greek.


Re: Primacy Proofs Refuted (Six and counting) - Charles Wilson - 02-05-2015

distazo Wrote:I believe that the Jewish Christians, also called 'messianic jews', had the gospels especially Matthew going around (and the original was in Ceasarea)...

distazo--

Very interesting statement! Please tell how you know that Matthew's Original was in Caesarea! [[NOTE: Not argumentative in any sense here. Caesarea is an intriguing little creation. I'm interested...]]

Thanx,

CW


Re: Primacy Proofs Refuted (Six and counting) - sestir - 02-07-2015

guess it is based on this statement by Jerome in De Viris Illustribus, chapter 3:

Matthaeus, qui et Lovi, ex publicano apostolus,
Matthew, who is also Levi, and from a tax collector came to be an emissary

primus in Judaea propter eos qui ex circumcisione crediderant, Evangelium Christi Hebraicis litteris verbisque composuit:
first of all evangelists composed a Gospel of Messiah in Judea in the Hebrew language and letters, for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed,

quod quis postea in Graecum transtulerit, non satis certum est.
who translated it into Greek is not sufficiently ascertained.

Porro ipsum Hebraicum habetur usque hodie in Caesariensi bibliotheca, quam Pamphilus martyr studiosissime confecit.
Furthermore, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea, which the martyr Pamphilus so diligently collected.

Mihi quoque a Nazaraeis, qui in Beroea urbe Syriae hoc volumine utuntur, describendi facultas fuit.
I also was allowed by the Nazarenes who use this volume in the Syrian city of Borea to copy it.

Latin from here, English from here.
More info at Wikipedia and an article by a rev. Ron Jones.

Perhaps Jerome means the untranslated text, but not the original scroll. If there were periods of time when the Jews tried to destroy all copies of Matthew's gospel, it should have been hard to keep track of which manuscript was the original and who had it.

The second article has this quote:
In the Gospel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use (which I have lately translated into Greek from the Hebrew, and which is called by many (or most) people the original of Matthew), this man who had the withered hand is described as a mason ...

The Wikipedia page on Eusebius says:
The library's biblical and theological contents were more impressive: Origen's Hexapla and Tetrapla, a copy of the original Hebrew Version of the Gospel of Matthew, and many of Origen's own writings. ? Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 94.

I think these uses of "original" are deceptive.


Re: Primacy Proofs Refuted (Six and counting) - Charles Wilson - 02-08-2015

sestir--

Thank you very much!

CW


RE: Primacy Proofs Refuted (Six and counting) - Thomas - 06-01-2020

(01-13-2015, 02:15 AM)Thomas Wrote: And one such proof, which I examined last night and today is the issue of "hanging earrings on dogs" in Mat 7:6, which you just mentioned--both as a semi-split word and as a wordplay.  My interest is primarily on the semi-split word aspect--namely, that there are either dictionaries or other ancient sources (Targums) that attest to a double-meaning of qudsha. ...  I feel secure about Matthew 8:7 as a legitimate primacy proof (and the wordplay a nice enhancement).

Not anymore.  This one (Mat 8:7) is now shot dead, along with the others that I began to post here, 5 years ago.  For those who are interested, this "primacy" claim is no good either.

Some Aramaic translators prefer to translate‎ לא תתלון קודשׁא לכלבא (la tetluwn qudsha l'kalbey) as "You should not hang earrings on dogs"--claiming that the word קודשׁא (qudsha) can mean either "holy things" or "earrings."  While this may seem attractive for forming a synonymous parallelism between "earrings" and "pearls" in Mat_7:6, this claim doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Though there may be a common root--קדשׁ (qds)--between "earrings" (see Gen_24:22 in the Peshitta Tanakh and Targum Onkelos) and "holy things" (passim), the former is spelled‎ קדשׁא (qedasha), while the latter is spelled קודשׁא (qudsha) in Mat_7:6.  The difference is the letter ו (vav) in the word קודשׁא (qudsha).

How significant is this difference between קדשׁא (qedasha) and קודשׁא (qudsha)? The same exact spelling that we find in Mat_7:6 --viz., קודשׁא (qudsha)--appears nearly 200 times in the Tanakh (both Peshitta Tanakh and Targum Onkelos), and nearly 100 times in the Peshitta "NT". Out of the combined 300 occurrences in these three versions, קודשׁא (qudsha) is never once translated as "ring / earring" in any other place.

Therefore, those who claim that קודשׁא (qudsha) in Mat_7:6 could also mean "earrings" instead of just "holy / set-apart" don't have even 1 occurrence out of 300 to back their claim, when the full spelling of the word is taken into account. In my opinion then, this is yet another example of "Peshitta primacy" gone bad.

(02-01-2015, 09:22 PM)Thirdwoe Wrote: Refuted? or just seen a different way? <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->

This kind of thing can go back an forth forever, with it never being able to convince either side of the issue.

I have never received a good answer to this question ... Q: Which Greek NT text (a single manuscript, or a textual family's text) can be shown to be the original Greek NT text, and which the Aramaic NT could be said to be a translation of it? Shlama, Chuck

For the record, even if there isn't an extant Greek text *now* that shows itself to be the predecessor to the Peshitta, that doesn't mean that one never existed.  And considering that we don't have *any* biblical manuscripts (Aramaic or Greek) before about 200 CE (with a decent amount of text that we can read), there's no telling what happened in the first generations.  There's no telling what the original Aramaic OR the original Greek looked like.

Personally, I'm interested in the 78 CE "Assemani gospels" because they are the earliest attested to text of the good news accounts in terms of specific dating.  But I have a strong suspicion that if we could get to read it, it would be significantly different from the Peshitta we now have from the 5th century.

So to repeat: it *may* be that no Greek text available today can show itself as the predecessor of the Peshitta. Fine. The same exact thing works the other way around: the Peshitta can't claim to be the predecessor of any particular Greek text, since it differs from them all in so many ways. Given that

1) we have no actual "Peshitta" manuscripts prior to the 5th century (and some quotes from Aphrahat / Ephrem in the 4th century), no one can legitimately claim to know what did or didn't exist prior to that time. Obviously, people make claims all day long, and traditions abound, but without real evidence, tradition is just tradition.

2) I've shown (both above and below this post) that multiple Peshitta "primacy" claims are debunked, I don't see evidence that the Peshitta is the predecessor of any of the Greek texts we now have.


RE: Primacy Proofs Refuted (Six and counting) - Andrej - 06-21-2021

The peshitta works very well as the archetype of all greek versions. Its variants find their way into nearly all textual families. Its Aramaic pops up in the Greek NT, and some scholars who attempted to discover the Aramaic behind the Greek came up with the exact text of the peshitta.