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Would Paul write to greek communities in Aramaic?
#1
I'm loving the way Aramaic primacy solves so many issues of variations with the Greek text. However, I'm wondering why Paul, who was able to speak Greek, would write in Aramaic to communities in Greece--Corinth, Thessolonica? Is there anything that makes it IMPOSSIBLE that the Gospels and Revelation and the writings of the Disciples were Aramaic but the letters of Paul to Greek communities were originally Greek? Is it not possible that the apostles translated the gospels for the Greeks out of the original Aramaic and the letters of Paul for the Syrians from Greek and delivered them respectively with apostolic authority?
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#2
Shlama khati Sarah:
It's sometimes difficult to picture writing Aramaic letters to Greek communities. However,The entire population of non-Jews were from pagan origins. Now, Aramaic and Hebrew are sister languages. There are short portions of the old testament which were written in Aramaic but there is not one line,written by any Jewish Biblical scribe which was written in Greek. This is why we have an exclusive Peshitta, The intended recipients of the Peshitta of every community were Jews, because they were the chosen people and the Word of Alaha was committed to them. The Peshitta New Testament is a seamless continuation of the Jewish Bible (Old Testament). It's likely that only a handful of Greek believers spoke Aramaic hence the early translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into the Greek language used what has been commonly known as Koine. This language is a word for word translation and ignores Semitic idioms. Both th Old Testament and New Testament have the independent Greek witness, but since Greek does not share any gramatical roots with the Semitic languages it was imperative for translations into Greek to be a literal translation, thus inadvertently the Greek cannot record the Semitic idioms that exist in the original languages.
The early church was not intentionally ethnically divided. Both Jews and Gentiles followed the pattern of non-ownership, to a great degree and had all things in common. it was the job of bilingual Jewish believers in Yeshua to give the idiomatic sense throughout both the Hebrew/Aramaic Old Testament as well as the Peshitta New Testament. Virtually all of the very early comunities had one Bible, or portions of the Peshitta text (there were no printing presses so the copying of the Peshitta was a slow and methodical process, not done by novices but by learned Jewish teachers ordained as such.
As a side note Josephus the Jewish historian had great difficulty when his second writing of his Jewish history into Greek, the translation that we have today. Internal readings show tis to be his own witness.

Shlama,
Stephen Silver
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#3
Thank you Steve for responding. What you said would make sense to me seeing that the disciples were instructed to make disciples of all nations beginning in Jerusalem, the Judea, then Samaria (which I'm thinking was the Syrians wherein dwelt the 10 tribes who had long ago been taken captive and to whom James writes, along with the Jews). Ok, so you are saying when Paul was a missionary tot he Gentiles it was to Syrian/Aramaic Gentiles of the diaspora? They would not have been of the Uncircumcision though and Paul calls himself the Apostle to the uncircumcised. If not, then he was a missionary to the Gentiles and the communities to which he wrote were Greek communities. That would lead me to think that those letters would have been written in Greek, though, most certainly, given your being chosen by God, these letters would have been delivered also to you/Syria/Samaria with apostolic authority in your Aramaic language. That would make your text reliable, especially given the meticulousness that you copied it with. I simply cannot see that Paul would write a letter to Corinth in Aramaic and then have it translated into Greek for them so it could be sent to you in Aramaic.
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#4
Sarah Wrote:I simply cannot see that Paul would write a letter to Corinth in Aramaic and then have it translated into Greek for them so it could be sent to you in Aramaic.
Hi Sarah,

I also find this an intriguing subject.
His mothertongue would be the most obvious language to write letters. It was known about Paul that his letters were well written.
In most congregations where Jewish Christians, and why could they not read it as Jews today in a synagoge most certainly could read a Hebrew letter if somebody would want to use that language.

My bet is that Pauls letters which contain 'marya' originally were written in Aramaic, but the ones without, might have been translated from Greek to Aramaic. But this is wild speculation.
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#5
distazo Wrote:My bet is that Pauls letters which contain 'marya' originally were written in Aramaic, but the ones without, might have been translated from Greek to Aramaic. But this is wild speculation.

Distazo, that is a brilliant observation and well worth consideration! Thank you.
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#6
Quote:I simply cannot see that Paul would write a letter to Corinth in Aramaic and then have it translated into Greek for them so it could be sent to you in Aramaic.
Yes, it is sent to Stephen in Aramaic. He has Aramaic original and enjoys reading it just like I do.

Let me, Sarah, ask you this.
I personally read NT in Greek and Aramaic and reading it in Greek I see Semitic language structure (e.g house of faith, and he answering said, son of liberty, children of Jerusalem etc.).How can author writing in Greek use Semitic language structure instead of Greek one?

But thank you, Sarah, for your question. It is important.
I highly appreciate your participation in the forum.
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