Version Analysis/Summary

[gbausc]

Shlama all,

I apologize for my statement about the Eastern Church Peshitta edition of 1886, and accept Paul's correction about its Syrian provenance. I have observed, however, that its text in the 22 book canon presents the Eastern text readings in every place I have compared it with the Eastern Peshitta. That seems quite unusual, given that it is used by Western Syrian and Chaldean Catholic churches.

Chuck wrote:

the text retains all the Western (Greek) influenced readings, from the Western Aramaic speaking groups, who were doctrinally aligned with the Greeks and Latins, in their Christology

I was primarily objecting to that, because you make the Western Peshitta out to be edited to conform to "

all the Western (Greek) influenced readings"

, etc. How many are all the Western Greek influenced readings? It is simply a lie to say the Western Peshitta is based on Greek. That is Greek primacy. The only provable Greek based Aramaic is the Harklean Version; the 1905 (actually the entire NT was published 1920) Peshitta does not use the Harklean at all. The text of the Western five is very different and superior to the Harklean text throughout, as John Gwynn solidly establishes in his books on the Apocalypse and the General Epistles in the Crawford and other Aramaic mss. As to the 22 Eastern Peshitta book canon, the Western and Eastern Peshittas are practically identical, as I have stated.
It is extremely misleading to say that the Western text is based on Greek or Latin, with regard to the doctrine of Christ, or any other doctrine.But you insist in making two words in two verses into some vast doctrinal conspiracy of corruption. If someone were to alter the NT Christology, he would not stop with Acts 20:28 and Hebrews 2:9; in fact, it is hard to imagine why those verses would be bothered with at all, especially if the Eastern readings were the originals. Why would anyone target, "the church of the Messiah, which He purchased with His blood" (Acts 20:28) as a heresy? Why would "He tasted death for everyone apart from God" (Hebrews 2:9) be targeted as a heresy and altered? Surely the Gospels would be first targeted and then the Acts, General Epistles, Paul, etc. I can't imagine a Syrian Orthodox Christian objecting that either of those statements are heretical; neither can I see that a Monophysite would want to change those statements in the NT, reading them for the first time, as there is nothing objectionable in them. Of course the Messiah shed his blood; of course He died for men and not for God.
I can imagine someone objecting to the Western readings of those two verses, even to the point of altering them; hence, I can see why the Western readings would be deliberately altered by some over zealous Christian, though I am not convinced that this explains the alterations. They both can easily be explained as misreadings of the Aramaic text, and I have illustrated these in my notes for those particular verses. As I have said, if someone were to deliberately change readings about God's blood or God's death, he would need to alter verses in 1 Cor. 11:27 as well as Hebrews 9:16, along with every verse that names Yeshua as LORD Jehovah- "Mar -Yah" (32 places in Eastern Peshitta NT).