04-16-2004, 02:08 PM
Dear Antonio,
The procedure of textual criticism you have outlined is very useful in the Greek primacist world. It is, in fact, a necessity because there is no such thing as a "Greek New Testament" - there are "Greek New Testaments."
The textual history of the Aramaic NT is far simpler in comparison - on this point, everyone is in agreement. Rather than four major textual traditions, each with a geographic church tradition associated with it - and thousands upon thousands of variants, you have one version in Aramaic that is universally accepted by all Aramaic churches (which, by the way, are all sworn enemies.)
Aside from this main Aramaic textual tradition - you have two pieces of scratch paper found in a Greek Orthodox monastery in Egypt - not in the possession, by the way, of any Aramaic-based church. The Aramaic grammar sucks. Misspellings abound. Obviously the work of an amatuer translating the Bezan Greek text.
I'm sorry - but the process you mention which is practiced out of necessity on the Greek side will not work on the Aramaic side - and that is the fundamental error that Trimm is making. You cannot apply Greek NT textual criticism, which was meant to try and accomplish the impossible (to arrive at some sort of "original Greek"), to the comparison of the well-attested Peshitta and those two pieces of scratch paper that sat on a shelf in a Greek Orthodox monastery.
Your textual criticism, by nature, is highly subjective. First off, it assumes that the "original" reading is somewhere to be found among extant manuscripts that vary as much as they possibly can and still be considered the same book. That is, of course, an unprovable assumption. To build your house on that presupposition is akin to the parable of building your house on sand.
We don't do things in the East that way. Thank God they didn't have the same freedom to revise as the Greeks did with their manuscripts. Anyone who even tried would have had their bowels ripped out and roasted for dinner. Semites do not alter their scriptures. Try and revise a Tanakh or a Koran.....and see how far you get.
The eastern manuscripts never change - and the archaeological evidence proves it. What you insinuate is bias is, in fact, what has kept this tradition pure. Hell yes I am bias. We don't accept any substitutes or use any other version. That what got you into trouble in the first place. Why you have thousands of Greek manuscripts that cannot even agree - and why you have even more English versions than Greek. It all started because some Greek took the liberty to alter and revise God's holy word - something which a Semite is afraid to death of.
I sincerely challenge you or anyone else to find one variant among the eastern Peshitta manuscripts, from the 5th century manuscripts we have in museums to the modern printed version. You will not be able to.
Why, on God's green earth, would I want to compare this textual tradition of the Peshitta, which scholars universally agree is the best and most accurately preserved textual tradition (even better preserved than the MSS).....to two pieces of junk scratch paper from a Greek monastery....two pieces of junk that can't even get Aramaic grammar right?
Do you realize how bad that grammar is to a speaker of the language? What if I told you in English...."that man, she is very argumentative" - what would you think? How about if I said something like "there ain't no fixin' this here type of grammar?" How about "hey mister tally-man, tally me banana!"?
Would you respect me as an English speaker? Would you consider anything that I write to be divinely inspired? Would God write in this type of grammar? IS that a God worthy of your worship - a God who cannot even speak properly?
Your insinuation that we cannot possibly be better than the Greeks, who did their own revising, is quite insulting. Just because the Greeks did it - doesn't mean that everyone else did.
Instead of advising me to do things the Western way - why didn't you just address the topic of my post? Wasn't it you who asked for this type of rebuttal to Trimm's arguments? Wasn't this what you were looking for?
The procedure of textual criticism you have outlined is very useful in the Greek primacist world. It is, in fact, a necessity because there is no such thing as a "Greek New Testament" - there are "Greek New Testaments."
The textual history of the Aramaic NT is far simpler in comparison - on this point, everyone is in agreement. Rather than four major textual traditions, each with a geographic church tradition associated with it - and thousands upon thousands of variants, you have one version in Aramaic that is universally accepted by all Aramaic churches (which, by the way, are all sworn enemies.)
Aside from this main Aramaic textual tradition - you have two pieces of scratch paper found in a Greek Orthodox monastery in Egypt - not in the possession, by the way, of any Aramaic-based church. The Aramaic grammar sucks. Misspellings abound. Obviously the work of an amatuer translating the Bezan Greek text.
I'm sorry - but the process you mention which is practiced out of necessity on the Greek side will not work on the Aramaic side - and that is the fundamental error that Trimm is making. You cannot apply Greek NT textual criticism, which was meant to try and accomplish the impossible (to arrive at some sort of "original Greek"), to the comparison of the well-attested Peshitta and those two pieces of scratch paper that sat on a shelf in a Greek Orthodox monastery.
Your textual criticism, by nature, is highly subjective. First off, it assumes that the "original" reading is somewhere to be found among extant manuscripts that vary as much as they possibly can and still be considered the same book. That is, of course, an unprovable assumption. To build your house on that presupposition is akin to the parable of building your house on sand.
We don't do things in the East that way. Thank God they didn't have the same freedom to revise as the Greeks did with their manuscripts. Anyone who even tried would have had their bowels ripped out and roasted for dinner. Semites do not alter their scriptures. Try and revise a Tanakh or a Koran.....and see how far you get.
The eastern manuscripts never change - and the archaeological evidence proves it. What you insinuate is bias is, in fact, what has kept this tradition pure. Hell yes I am bias. We don't accept any substitutes or use any other version. That what got you into trouble in the first place. Why you have thousands of Greek manuscripts that cannot even agree - and why you have even more English versions than Greek. It all started because some Greek took the liberty to alter and revise God's holy word - something which a Semite is afraid to death of.
I sincerely challenge you or anyone else to find one variant among the eastern Peshitta manuscripts, from the 5th century manuscripts we have in museums to the modern printed version. You will not be able to.
Why, on God's green earth, would I want to compare this textual tradition of the Peshitta, which scholars universally agree is the best and most accurately preserved textual tradition (even better preserved than the MSS).....to two pieces of junk scratch paper from a Greek monastery....two pieces of junk that can't even get Aramaic grammar right?
Do you realize how bad that grammar is to a speaker of the language? What if I told you in English...."that man, she is very argumentative" - what would you think? How about if I said something like "there ain't no fixin' this here type of grammar?" How about "hey mister tally-man, tally me banana!"?
Would you respect me as an English speaker? Would you consider anything that I write to be divinely inspired? Would God write in this type of grammar? IS that a God worthy of your worship - a God who cannot even speak properly?
Your insinuation that we cannot possibly be better than the Greeks, who did their own revising, is quite insulting. Just because the Greeks did it - doesn't mean that everyone else did.
Instead of advising me to do things the Western way - why didn't you just address the topic of my post? Wasn't it you who asked for this type of rebuttal to Trimm's arguments? Wasn't this what you were looking for?
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
![[Image: sig.jpg]](http://www.peshitta.org/images/sig.jpg)