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What is wrong with the Bauscher codes?
#1
I''ve put a lot of faith and money into the various works that Dave has offered on lulu, incluiding his interlinears, gospels, and eventually his plain english NT. But after reading the forum "Who is Dave?", Ive been regretting my faith in his flawless NT because literally everyone seemed to attack it. So, I want to know WHY his codes are false, and WHAT exactly are wrong with them? I was so interested in his NT because Ive always wanted a flawless Bible (since we do serve a flawless GOD, can you blame me?), and Ive always despised textual variations in our Bible, and didnt understand why they would even exist if GOD really wanted his word protected.

I would also like to ask Andrew, are you certain that the text of MARI is the closest to any original on the face of the Earth?Why are you going to have the Western 5 in Mari if you believe they are not part of the original Eastern canon? If you are going to promote the Eastern text as much as you do, it makes no sense why you would insert these books, but leave out the Canannite woman scenario in John.

Thanks, Daniel.
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#2
Shlama Akhi Runggold, or do you prefer Daniel?

I would also like to ask Andrew, are you certain that the text of MARI is the closest to any original on the face of the Earth?

AGR:

This is a difficult question for me to answer in advance of Mari being circulated. I am not gunnning for a sale here, only saying that I can't refer to things which folks cannot at this moment physically check and discuss.

In terms of the 22 books, the answer is yes. I am absolutely 100% sure of the Eastern text being perfect, certainly at a thought-concept level. Letter for letter divergences never affect meaning between mss and to talk about a perfect letter for letter text is disingenuous and impractical in my view. But I stand on the idea with the 22 that if an original NT author saw the Eastern Peshitta, they would recognize their work as authentically preserved from their pen.

The Western 5 are books that I believed in for more than a decade before my Peshitta studies kicked in. I still believe it them as canon, but I also know the historical chain of custody is not as strong and I admit such. Nevertheless, within the Aramaic of the Western 5 there is also evidence of original vs. later readings, and these I document in Mari. I can't list that stuff here. It will take too long.

Next:

Why are you going to have the Western 5 in Mari if you believe they are not part of the original Eastern canon?

AGR:

Because if I didn't, most Christians and Messianics would not view it as an authoritative collection, and they would only ask me for translations for the Western 5 anyway, as they have continuously for a decade now. Mari is meant to answer THEIR NEEDS.

But I do beleive in the Western 5 as canon. The difference is, as I have said many times, that there is a gap between what I believe and what I can prove textually and historically. In saying that, I just want to be honest about it. If I don't admit that, then Mari itself is prone to attack from people who will rightly complain at I did not have a grasp of the textual issues. These things must be admitted UP FRONT and explained as fully as is humanly possible.

Finally, I have sometimes considered a COE only style edition of just the 22 at some point in the future, so it is not that I have not thought about it. It just isn't where I am right now.
Next:

If you are going to promote the Eastern text as much as you do, it makes no sense why you would insert these books, but leave out the Canannite woman scenario in John.

AGR:

I don't know what you are talking about Daniel. You have NOT seen my text, so you don't know what I have included and what I have not. The "canaanite woman" is in the Synoptics. I can only assume you mean the Pericopa Adultera in John 7:53-8:11. I would ask that you simply reserve judgment until you have a chance to see how I have dealt with divergences between the Peshitta and the Greek. I will only say that I have done everything I can think of to report and annotate major text variants so that the reader can decide from themselves what is and is not relevant.

I think you make too much about what I believe and not enough about how I am trying to speak to folks of multiple beliefs. Please don't judge what you have not seen.

Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
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#3
Daniel,

I can understand your feelings on this, because I have had them as well. I too had hope that Mr. Bauscher had made a pure or as pure as could be made translation, but I have found a number of things where his own personal religious leanings and doctrinal beliefs have trumped the clear meaning of a text...To the point of being misleading...And that is very dangerous to people reading the translation. I am sure he meant we'll, but that does not excuse it or make it ok.

Mr. Bauscher has confessed that the original Aramaic text that he used in his codes program was sent to him by a person who made a few mistakes when typing the text and thus making the New Testament text longer than it really is. Mr. Bauscher did not know this at the time, nor did the person who made the mistake....

So, when Mr. Bauscher got the text in his code program, he ran the text as was to find Bible codes in it...

We'll, he found a number of long codes that he believes was put there by God.... Come to find out later, after he noticed the mistakes in the text and after taking them out, that the shorter and correct Biblical text would not bring him the long codes that the error text showed him....

Now, instead of saying, well I got that wrong.... Mr. Bauscher started to believe that God made all that happen to show him that the codes were real. You see Mr. Bauscher sees himself as the instrument of God, in bringing the world the perfect New Testament text...so he could not have made a mistake there, it was God just getting his attention so he could look closer for codes. The codes where from God he says, even though the Text had errors in it from a man....

This is very dangerous thinking....

Is his translation to be discarded? No more than Lamsa's translation should be...I will still consult them both as well as the others out there but I never trust a translation above what the Holy Spirit speaks to me in my spirit as HE leads me and guides me into all truth...Would to God that we all hear that voice loud and clear.... Amen

Mr. Bauscher truly believes that the text he used is the only perfect text and God inspired one out there and that the codes he found were put there by God to prove it is the only true text.... Even when a man made a mistake, God somehow made sure that the man made just the right mistakes so that the long codes would appear for Mr. Bauscher to find them....

This is what was conveyed to me by Mr. Bauscher himself.
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#4
rungold315 Wrote:I''ve put a lot of faith and money into the various works that Dave has offered on lulu, incluiding his interlinears, gospels, and eventually his plain english NT. But after reading the forum "Who is Dave?", Ive been regretting my faith in his flawless NT because literally everyone seemed to attack it. So, I want to know WHY his codes are false, and WHAT exactly are wrong with them?
..
Thanks, Daniel.

Daniel,

There are several things wrong with the codes as presented in Mr Bauscher's codes book (Divine Contact..). I could discuss the flows in the application of statistical methods, the methodology and logic of the "experiment" presented there. In my opinion it is not a good science. Good intentions, authors dedication to the idea, enormous amount of work and time put into it are obvious, but these are not enough to accept the claim. The proof is faulty.

A major and very simple blow to the DBs claim is that:
1) he himself wrote "If this Codefinder edition of The Peshitta NT had one letter more or less ,the code would disappear"
2) the text used for finding the codes and calculations is that of an electronic version of the Peshitta (UBS edition) made available in the Online Bible program and then used in a program (codefinder?) developed by some people who managed to flog it to DB. This text has several errors in it. I have checked it, they are quite minor but enough to ruin the whole thing. I can dig out the details for you if you want.

And there you have it. I do not even have to go to probabilities, hypothesiss testing (which I believe Dave did not understand when he was applying it in the book), etc. 1/ and 2/ simply do not go together. Not for me. It's been discussed in another thread, in the codes sub-forum.

Please note that I have not joined the "Who is Dave Bauscher" thread, it is kind of not nice to talk about a person in a "who is he" manner if they decided not to take part in the discussion. I have also never attacked him or his translation of the NT, I do not know him personally and do not know enough Aramaic to say anything about this translation. But I simply can't stand claims based on non-logic and will challenge them always, if only have time. Also, I'm not saying that there are no codes in the Bible or Peshitta, only that Bauschers method to prove it was wrong.

Jerzy
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#5
Thanks to Thirdwoe and Jerzy for clearing that up. *Sigh* So its back to accepting the word of God (or should I say wordS) as a jumbled, varied, unsure text as our source of faith.

And to Andrew-do you feel comfortable neglecting the woman in adultery scenario as true scripture? I dont see why it would be faked or unoriginal, it describes Yeshua to the very T. Very forgiving and condemning of individuals who judge without compassion.
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#6
...

What was the "source of faith" for all those who lived before there were any written down words of God ya think...?

If you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you, then you are being led and guided into all truth.

The Holy Spirit is your teacher and life source and is sent to us by Y'shua while He is away.

...
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#7
September 26, 2008

I believe that Dave Bauscher???s Bible Code studies and ???devine contact???claims are meaningless. They are based Dave???s misunderstandings of statistics and probability science. I have spent hours analyzing his so-called 95 divine name data and I have found that they are not remarkable and they fit a predicable natural pattern. I have sent Dave these data and information, but he is unwilling to acknowledge the mistakes in his "divine contact" interpretations. I am a scientist with training and extensive experience in statistics.

Pastor Dave Bauscher has been doing excellent translation work on the Western Pershitto text, but I believe that he is hung up on Bible Codes. Dave is convinced that he has been chosen by God for a "divine contact" given by "Bible Codes" that he has uncovered in the Western Peshitto text that he happened to receive along with his purchase of the Codefinder computer program.

Let me reiterate from the beginning that I think that Dave's Aramaic translation work is of the highest quality. But after careful analysis of his data, I determined that his Bible code claims are without merit.

Here is a simple explanation of the misunderstanding associated with Dave Bauscher's Bible Code "divine names" study.

Dave is using a computer program called CodeFinder to sort letters of the Peshitto text by skipping one or more alphabetical letters between letter selection. This is called equal letter spacing (ELS). This program can skip from one to many hundreds of letters in making each letter selection, and can go around through the text in both directions until all possible unique combinations have been made for the desired ELS's. This creates a very, very, very long string if letters. The program then searches for every occurrence of a desired short string of letters chosen by the user. For a short string of letters like a short word it will typically locate about a MILLIONS copies. Wow! This would not be possible without a modern high-speed computer.

So, if you choose to "search" this very, very long string of letters obtained from the text of the Peshitto New Testament for the Aramaic word Yeshua (four Aramaic letters) you might get a million copies "found". Dave ran this word and CodeFinder found 944,519 copies of Yeshua!!!

How would you decide whether this is a "significant" find?

This is not an easy question to answer, because that many might be expected to be "found" by pure chance considering it was nothing more than a massive shuffling and dealing of 22 Aramaic alphabetical letters.

One way of evaluating this find would be to ASSUME that all of the letters in the text are perfectly randomly distributed. Then you can ASSUME that the actual word that was chosen for the search does not affect the probability of finding a the chosen combination of letters, the word for which you are searching. The CodeFinder program will tell you how many copies of each letter are found in the whole text and it can use simple probability mathematics to estimate the chance of finding each letter in the word and then estimate the ideal number of copies of the whole word that would be expected for the whole search by pure chance.

Thus, assuming the normal approximation of the Poisson distribution, CodeFinder can estimate the "expected" total number of "finds" that you should get and "standard deviation" of the expected variability. CodeFinder estimated that "theoretically" it should have found 942,600 copies of "Yeshua". Therefore, it "found" 1,919 "extra" copies in the 944,519 that it found. Dave focuses on this number and neglects to mention that this is only a mere and meaningless 0.2% of the total. But a simple textbook statistical test would tell you that the probability of observing this number of extra copies by pure chance is only about 2% assuming the letters are randomly distributed in the text. Some other examples provide even very much lower probabilities by this simple calculation! Dave concluded that this "extra" 0.2% among the 944,519 copies of "Yeshua" was statistically ???significant???. Dave made up 95 words he called ???divine names??? and about half were found in greater number than predicted and about half were found in lesser number than predicted. Some of these ???excesses??? and some of these ???shortages??? had very tiny calculated probabilities, so he concluded that these results were a Godly miracle.

Both truth and common sense suggest that there is something wrong with this logic. Dave highlights this small numerical difference by failing to report the large number of finds and emphasizing the theoretical difference between the observed number and the ideal expected number.

The logical error is in the ASSUMPTION part of the process. To believe these results you have to ASSUME that all of the letters in the text are "perfectly randomly" distributed. They are not! They are, in fact, organized in a very systematic fashion in the form of meaningful words, phrases, and sentences, a virtual mosaic rather than a random mess. If they were randomly distributed the text would be pure jibberish. This is a common mistake in the logical process involved in looking for "Bible Codes". Dave created a "control" text by randomly shuffling the letters in the Peshitto using a randomization routine, and the results of searching the actual Peshitto is quite different from the control text because the Peshitto letters are not randomly distributed. No book with real words, phases, and sentences in a real language has letters that are randomly distributed. This is not a miracle. In statistical terms the actual variance for the distribution of observed letters is larger than the ideal theoretical variance.

In addition there is a second erroneous assumption. You cannot ASSUME that the actual word that was chosen for the search does not affect the probability of finding the chosen combination of letters. The actual word chosen may have letters that tend to have a commonly recurrent paired relationship in the Aramaic language. Such a paired relationship can affect the result in a complex way for which the simple probability calculation does not account. For example, in English the letter "t" and "h" are often adjacent. If you are searching for the word "hit", every "h" that is found that is adjacent to a "t" removes a "t" as well as an "h" from the calculated total of available letters since adjacent letters are not allowed in the equal letter spacing (ELS) process. This suggests that extra shortages and extra excesses of chosen words at the tails of the distribution are to be expected. This also causes the actual variance for the distribution of observed letters to be larger than the ideal theoretical variance and different among different chosen search words.

In Dave's divine names study he used CodeFinder to separately search for 95 words or short phrases in Aramaic or Hebrew which he viewed as being of spiritual significance. There actually were no remarkable trends with about half of the observed number of "divine names" being slightly more than the calculated expected number and about half being slightly fewer. Here is a summary of the results:

(1) the distribution formed a typically Gaussian (or normal distribution) bell-shaped curve demonstrating a correction factor of about 2 for the calculated ideal standard deviations;
(2) 47 "divine names" had fewer than the calculated "expected" number (the ideal number is half or 47.5);
(3) 48 "divine names" had more than the calculated "expected" number (the ideal number is half or 47.5);
(4) within one standard deviation of the mean there were 38 that were fewer than the mean and there were 36 that were more (the ideal number for each is 32.4);
(5) within two standard deviations of the mean there were 43 that were fewer than the mean and there were 44 that were more (the ideal number for each is 45.3);
(6) beyond two standard deviations of the mean there were 4 that were fewer than the mean and 4 that were more than the mean (the ideal number for each is 2.2).

These results are rather ordinary and certainly not a miraculous finding. However, these are the data that Dave uses to proclaim a "divine contact".

In addition, Dave used the Codefinder long string of letters to search for so-called "long codes", a series of letters that created a phrase. Using a seed word or phrase, such as Jesus Messiah, he searched the long string of letters generated by the Codefinder for a phrase that made sense. This is simply look-and-see process to look for a unique pattern but not one that is expected in advance of the search. He found some combimcation that seemed to provide a sentence of phrase. Again, it is important to note that this was a fishing expedition where the results was not anticipated in advance! Since he did not search for or expect these particular "long codes", finding a readable series of letters among the millions of letters dealt by the Codefinder has no statistical significance at all. It is like seeing the perfect image of the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich. It's a interesting finding, but not statistically unlikely since that is what was found by chance. Finding something you are not expecting has a probability of 100%!

The whole Bible code process is really somewhat silly. Any objective statistician or actuary will recognize its flaws. Unfortunately, the Bible Code claims can be a serious distraction that interferes with logical and scholarly consideration of the wonderful Peshitta text.

Sincerely,
Otto
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#8
Shlama khalkown,


Quote:Daniel said:
Ive always despised textual variations in our Bible, and didnt understand why they would even exist if GOD really wanted his word protected.

Quote:Andrew said:
I can only assume you mean the Pericopa Adultera in John 7:53-8:11. I would ask that you simply reserve judgment until you have a chance to see how I have dealt with divergences between the Peshitta and the Greek. I will only say that I have done everything I can think of to report and annotate major text variants so that the reader can decide from themselves what is and is not relevant.

Quote:Daniel said:
And to Andrew-do you feel comfortable neglecting the woman in adultery scenario as true scripture? I dont see why it would be faked or unoriginal, it describes Yeshua to the very T. Very forgiving and condemning of individuals who judge without compassion.

I???ve always shared in Daniel???s sentiments concerning the critical question as to attaining to the Autographic content of Scripture. Now, the reason I???m posting here, is simply to ask akhay Andrew, Paul, and/or Keefa or any other specialist coming from the Linguistic Side ??? not the codes angle ??? to review something that I???ve wanted to myself ask for some time now, but haven???t got around to it yet. Hope you don???t mind akhi Daniel, since your question is really based on Dave???s codes (I hope that you can appreciate where I???m going with this?).

I have a tremendous respect for Dave Bauscher as a Biblical linguist and theologian, and also as a translator. Needless to say, there???s always differences, albeit I pray that an unconditional linguistic analysis can be considered from those specialists I???ve mentioned above, for their ???second opinion???. So, what I???m asking this second opinion for, is on Dave???s non-Codes-related paper done in August, where he offers a scribal examination on the Percicope Adultera. Because I???ve wanted to reserve my own judgment until I could see MARI and how and what all is analyzed for this passage, I???ve held off until now in asking this question. I guess if you???ve already dealt with this angle in MARI, Andrew, then please feel free to just give a nod, and I???ll wait. Just figured it might be one approach unique to Dave???s critical eye, but there???s no way for me to be sure. Guess I thought I???d ask now, since I saw this thread pop up again today, and I???ve already forgotten that I wanted to ask the question here.

Here is the paper:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://aramaicnt.com/Research/Pericope%20Adultera%20demonstration.pdf">http://aramaicnt.com/Research/Pericope% ... ration.pdf</a><!-- m -->



Many thanks,

Akh Ryan
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#9
Generally speaking, I like Dave???s story. I can see a strain, personally, as one who is a close reader myself. But I also see the nuts and bolts in place. Even the most careful person nowadays makes innumerable mistakes, and from what I???ve come to understand, the ancients were far superior to modern-day man in intelligence, as well as memory (contra evolution <!-- s:biggrin: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/biggrin.gif" alt=":biggrin:" title="Big Grin" /><!-- s:biggrin: -->). Nevertheless, we see all kinds of mistakes in the most ancient manuscripts, so I see validation right there in Dave???s hypothesis.

For me, the nut or bolt that doesn???t quite sit right (yet), is the actual acceptance of the Peshitta Mss. which came to be accepted as Apostolic by the CoE, in this own remark of Dave???s:

Quote:They [Aramaean Christian scribes] also kept a record of important statistics for each ms. so as to compare it with its original and keep copying errors to an absolute minimum.

Otherwise, like I said, I generally like Dave???s story. I personally would???ve chosen the second Alep on his chart for interpolation rather than the first as he did, because the second one (to me) looks even closer to Tau, just with a messy blob on the top right-hand roof. I could be convinced from handwriting variability, even though a missing ???He??? is pushing the envelope a wee bit ??????..

But his own point about the Massorah tradition has me hanging out to dry. I do not know enough about Peshitta/o Massorah(s) to be able to judge properly, so I???m gonna need some help. It is hard for me to imagine, knowing about the Hebrew Masoretic statistical tradition, that an early copy of the Peshitta by which the current ones were copied from, could have been passed off by the selfsame scrupulous scribes that Dave himself appraises for accuracy and integrity. In their counting out of the letters, from forward-to-back, and from back-to-forward, surely 12 verses??? worth of missing letters would???ve not gone unnoticed! But I know that Dave is also not unfamiliar with ALL things Peshitta/o-wise, including the Massorah. So, I???m in need of rescue here for my understanding, by the specialists! Otherwise, Dave???s story looks good to me.



Many thanks again,

Akh Ryan
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#10
No Aramaic patristic writer (at least eastern) that I'm aware of (Aphrahat, Narsai, Ephrem, etc.) makes reference to the story of the woman caught in adultery. I would imagine it would have caught someone's attention if in fact this existed in any Aramaic text. Unless of course Dave's point was that the ball was dropped in the 1st or 2nd century.

But then again, it makes one wonder why Tatian's Diatesseron (compiled from the Peshitta) didn't contain it.

From Wikipedia:

Quote:Only 56 verses in the canonical Gospels do not have a counterpart in the Diatessaron, mostly the genealogies and the pericope adulterae.

The Diatesseron was of course created around 150ad.

And then the question becomes: how and when did it make it back into the text? No manuscript contains it. Only the later versions like the 1891 Mosul Text (created by the Chaldean Catholic Church) contains it, but with the explanation that it was not originally there.

+Shamasha
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#11
Shlama all--Combing through this thread I saw two important questions directed my way:

And to Andrew-do you feel comfortable neglecting the woman in adultery scenario as true scripture? I dont see why it would be faked or unoriginal, it describes Yeshua to the very T. Very forgiving and condemning of individuals who judge without compassion.

Well, let me just start by saying that I understand the desire to have a "perfect autograph" text, but I find the way a lot of folks go about it is inconsistent. What I mean by that is invariably their "perfect" text is always the one they feel most familar and comfortable with. So people grow up with the Adulteress story and maybe have an image from a movie like "Jesus of Nazareth" of this very moving episode, and then they look for "evidence" that it makes sense, should be real, etc. To me that's kind of like shooting an arrow and then drawing a bullseye where that arrow lands.

If we go by however the mss record, which we say we do when looking for that "original-autograph" text, the 4 most ancient GREEK codices don't have this story and therefore most scholars have concluded it is a LATER addition, so if you want that original text, isn't that process part and parcel with separating the earliest readings from the later ones? I mean, isn't that the whole point? And this is not even taking the universal silence of the Peshitta collection into account--I say the WESTERN record here speaks volumes in this case.

So I have to ask back: What is more important, having the most ancient and reliable NT or having the most familar NT? These are two separate considerations that often get lumped together.

Now is the story effective and showcases Y'shua's compassion? Of course it is. I love the story personally, but then if most people did not feel that way, there is no way it would have crept into the mss record in the first place, and to my mind the way it got in there is less important than the fact that came later.

So the answer to this question is YES I feel comfortable with telling the truth that this is a later addition, and besides this, Y'shua does show the exact same mercy with adulterers and such elsewhere in the Gospels, like the sinful woman who anointed him at Bethany for example, so it's not as if we must have John 7:53-8:11 to show this side of our Savior.

Next question:



Because I???ve wanted to reserve my own judgment until I could see MARI and how and what all is analyzed for this passage, I???ve held off until now in asking this question. I guess if you???ve already dealt with this angle in MARI, Andrew, then please feel free to just give a nod, and I???ll wait. Just figured it might be one approach unique to Dave???s critical eye, but there???s no way for me to be sure. Guess I thought I???d ask now, since I saw this thread pop up again today, and I???ve already forgotten that I wanted to ask the question here.

My opinion here is the same. David is free to suggest all manner of esoteric linguistic mechanisms, but there is nothing in my view that trumps the Eastern and earliest Western mss traditions in BOTH LANGUAGES. That must be the consistent key, because if we set it aside for the sake of a good story that moves us, then our critics can throw out every other reliable textual witness in Scripture by not being moved with other cases of strong attestation. We have to have equal weights and measures both spiritually and critically, or we are lost.

So, does Mari talk about and compare the Peshitta and Greek on this passage? Of course it does. But do I add to the Aramaic later readings and pretend they are originals and promote a known artificiality as a Masorah?--NO WAY. I must keep the base Aramaic text as pure as I know how, but I am equally determined to discuss all major variants in the NT--and this is definitely a big one--in a way that allows the reader to make up his or her own mind. I think I have balanced these desires that may never be resolved and are somewhat in opposition to one another, though not always.

So I guess what I am saying is that if the choice is between explaining the record accurately and what I am comfortable with or know others are comfortable with, then comfort must be sacrificed for the sake of consistency. Sorry but that's just how it is.


Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
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#12
Dear brothers and sisters in Yashua, Berek Alaha! Although it is an intriguing subject regarding codes MarYah could have placed within the Holy Peshitta,the true original Holy Gospels of our Lord,Alaha and Makydoneh Yashua Msheekha in the original Aramaic, Mr.Bauscher has made a huge mistake just by using the incorrect name for MarYah as Jehovah. It is common knoledge that scribes in the middle ages tried to use the vowels from Adonai and place them within the Tetragrammaton YHWH.Yahweh is far more accurate.This was done not only by the Catholic scholar to Pope Leo10 in the 16th century Peter Galantius but also by Jewish scribes.This is purely a mistake and it is obvious from the Peshitta that MarYah is the proper way to address almighty God the Father from the true Aramaic perspective.Andrew Roth points this out in his wonderful trans but he doesnt employ MarYah either but uses the tetragrammaton even after pointing out that MarYah is used 7000 times in the Tanakh alone.He uses Elohim instead of Alaha also.These are of course the Hebrew equilivents but the Peshitta is ARAMAIC not Hebrew.I dont understand why he did this nor why his new edition of the AENT is in the HEBREW script.I feel he is allowing his own Netzari Jewish faith influence his work which is very evident with his translating the word for cross into stake when it is common historical knoledge that the Romans crucified victims on a horizontal bar that was affixed to the vertical beam.The cross is a very Holy symbol of our redemption which Roth himself unknowingly alluded to when he pointed out that MarYah brought about the initial creation in the form of a cross as the Word was spoken while the Spirit of MarYah hovered over the waters. I'm not trying to judge anyone,MarYah forbid, but the truth is the truth. I pray Father Deacon Paul can help Mr.Roth in this regard.I love Andrew's trans and have learned much from it as I have from all the good Peshitta trans but I feel he has really let his own personal beliefs colour alot of his commentary and a good handful of pivital verses. It would be great to see all of the current Aramaic Peshitta scholars come together and make a faithful,unbiased trans.Deacon Younan's is by far the best.I have even learned much from Victor Alexanders idiomatic trans which is very,very beautiful.Magiera's is quite good as are Murdock's and Etheridges at the time,and even Lamsa's which was the only one in print 25 years ago when I was quided by the Lord to the Holy Peshitta.I have learned much from them all and thank MarYah for this blessing.The Aramaic Peshitta codes is a very interesting subject but I think Rev Bauscher should be aware that the name Jehovah is just a plain down right mistake which I'm quite surprised he isnt aware of. I'm just a humble Deacon in the Orthodox church but I think that accuracy of knoledge,exspecially when one takes it upon themselves to be a Malpana is very important as Mar Jacob points out in his Ruach filled epistle.In Yashua,D.Michael.
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#13
Shlama ahi,
Please understand that Roth's decision to switch to the Asshuri script was by no means an easy decision for him. He found the preservation of the Estrangelo script valuable, which is why the first 2 editions used it. There were many requests that he switch to Asshuri script for accessibility to a larger crowd who could already read it.
His use of Elohim instead of Alaha is because he does not see 'God' as a fit translation of Alef-Lamed-Heh. Consider that he made Elohim into an English loan-word, thus translating Alaha into English as Elohim.
Also I think his decision to translate zqifa as stake is due to its literal meaning, not to the detriment of understanding the stake being referred to as a cross. His decision was probably influenced by how cross made its way into Greek translations from the Vulgate, though the Greek also reads as stake.

I hope I've eased some of your gripes toward his translation <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->
I also have my own gripes and preferences here.
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#14
Shlama Akhay Aaron and Rev. Dn. Michael,

Shamasha Michael, please also consider the fact that the Ashuri script is, like Estrangelo, an Aramaic script. In fact it is called "Ashuri" because that means "Assyrian" in our language and in Hebrew. It is very different from the original Hebrew script which is still used to this day by the Samaritans.

The work Andrew has done is wonderful, a treasure to all of us. The script will probably look different in another 2,000 years if Aramaic somehow lives that long. It's the same alphabet anyway.

Andrew, and any other honest translator will tell you that it is impossible for a translation to not contain errors, and for it to not be tainted with the prejudices of the author(s). My work first. He would tell you the same thing. That's one of the problems with translations. Some of the errors we are aware of, others we aren't until someone points it out. And the endless cycle of revisions begin after that.... <!-- sHuh --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/huh.gif" alt="Huh" title="Huh" /><!-- sHuh -->

+Shamasha
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#15
Dear beloved D.Paul and brother Aaron,Berek Alaha! Thank you for your kind replies.I remember reading somewhere that the Estrangelo script was originally developed specifically for writing the Holy Gospels-Scriptures in.Is this true? Its plain that evangelion-ie-Greek loanword for Holy Gospel (Good news)is within the word itself. I am sorry if it seemed like I was critisizing Roth's translation but the translating the word for cross as stake when no other Peshitta translator has done so is disturbing to me. In respect of brother Aaron stating that Mr.Roth was just literally translating the word,he also goes on in his footnotes with this and also has an essay in the back about this.As I said prior it is common knoledge that the Romans crucified their victims on a horizontal beam throgh the outstreched wrists which was affixed to the upright beam where the feet would be nailed through.The cross has profound,deep and mystical symbolism also as it is the tool of our redemption and represents the salvation bestowed upon us through our Holy Yashua's crucifixion and also represents that what we must carry within our lives to truely follow our Mari,Alaha and Makydoneh.There are numerous other theological issues involved also but its not necessery to list them. He himself points out the fact that MarYah is the proper name for God in Aramaic,being the actual cognate for the Hebrew Tetragrammaton YHWH but uses the Tetragrammaton instead.This is just confusing to me as he has himself pointed this out.He also points out in his intro also that Alaha is the cognate for Elohim,with Eloah obviously being the singular of Elohim,but uses Elohim instead of Alaha which is the Aramaic,not the Hebrew.This is also confusing as the Peshitta is Aramaic of course,not Hebrew.These Hebrew Divine names are very,very common in Messianic translations but not the Peshitta.His translation is fantastic however and I didn't mean to open up an proverbial can of worms.I was just praying for a more ancient Apostolic Christian approach in the notes and commentaries as I'm an Oriental Orthodox Christian and Deacon.It would be wonderful as brother Spyridon pointed out in a few of his posts if a Peshitta translation was issued by the Church of the East,Syrian Orthodox,Syrian Malankara(Indian)Orthodox,or Syrian Maronite Catholic church(or Chaldean Catholic church).I am Oriental Orthodox but recognise the complete Orthodoxy of the Holy Church of the East and know that what happened at Ephesus was completely a matter of politics and semantics in regards to Mar Nestorius as he was fully Orthodox and was faithfully representing the Antiochian school of Christology which is what prevailed at Chalcedon which is something most Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christians will not admit even though the proof is irrefutable.The OSB-Orthodox study bible is nice but it is the NKJV for the New Testament and a new translation of the Septuagint for the Old Testament.I pray one of the ancient Syriac churches will issue a study Bible translation of the Peshitta which is and always has been the true,pure Holy Scriptures of the Church of the East,Syrian Orthodox,Syrian Malankara Orthodox,Syrian Maronite Catholic or Chaldean Rite Catholic(Church of the East under Rome).We have such a wealth of beloved Saints who have written such splendid commentaries such as Theodore of Mopsuestia,Diodore,St.Ephrem,Aphrahaat,St.Issac,St.John of Dalyatha,Narsai,ect that a study bible of the Peshitta from the Syriac church would be so wonderful.Have you considered doing this Deacon Paul? I have been going to the local Syrian Maronite church for Quorbono as there isn't a Church of the Church of the East or Syrian Orthodox or Syrian Malankara Orthodox church here in Minneapolis.At least in the Maronite Church portions of the liturgy are in Aramaic and they are from the Syrian Rite.The liturgy is the original Divine liturgy of St.Jame's but highly abbreviated and somewhat westernised.The Peshitta has always been the Scriptures of the Maronite church but liturgically they use the NRSV in the USA because of the sitiation with the latin rite Catholic Dioceses.This is unfortunate. In Yashua,D.Michael
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