03-20-2014, 05:24 PM
There was an Aramaic speaking diaspora among the Europeans up until the Bar-Kokhba revolt. Paul did not only write to churches in Europe, but also churches in Asia like Ephesus. Gentiles aren't just Greeks, but also non-Jewish Semites like the Assyrians and Arameans. Can you prove that these were primarily Greeks and Hellenistic Jews? I can't prove my beliefs on this either. Aramaic primacy has more than just manuscript numbers to back it up, but ancient testimony from Assyrian Christians, wordplays, poetry, polysemy and other things to back it up. The number of manuscripts doesn't prove much of anything, it just shows that the Greek versions were widely circulated among Western Christians.