04-04-2008, 08:21 PM
Hi Aramaicists
I've read online sources and seen the strong body of evidence which points to Aramaic primacy of the New Testament and I'm convinced it's true.
With that in mind I went in pursuit of the nearest source of the gospel but I still don't know where it exists. I went to a village in Syria where Aramaic is still spoken today however even in their churches they pray in Arabic and there are no Aramaic gospels in that town - their Bibles are in Arabic. In fact the Aramaic of that village is entirely just a spoken language - they don't deal with it in a written form and haven't agreed on an alphabet.
Where then, is this Peshitta in a printed format? Where are the churches that use Aramaic as their only language in their services and who use the Peshitta? The story I've read is that the Eastern Church received the gospels from the hands of the apostles and preserved that gospel to this day. But then I've also heard some missionaries retranslated Aramaic gospels from the Greek and gave those Bibles to Aramaic speakers. Obviously I don't want to use a translation of a translation of a etc. etc. I remember seeing a scanned version of a very old Peshitta online which is kept in a museum somewhere. Is *this* the absolute best source we have?
Thanks all,
Ben
I've read online sources and seen the strong body of evidence which points to Aramaic primacy of the New Testament and I'm convinced it's true.
With that in mind I went in pursuit of the nearest source of the gospel but I still don't know where it exists. I went to a village in Syria where Aramaic is still spoken today however even in their churches they pray in Arabic and there are no Aramaic gospels in that town - their Bibles are in Arabic. In fact the Aramaic of that village is entirely just a spoken language - they don't deal with it in a written form and haven't agreed on an alphabet.
Where then, is this Peshitta in a printed format? Where are the churches that use Aramaic as their only language in their services and who use the Peshitta? The story I've read is that the Eastern Church received the gospels from the hands of the apostles and preserved that gospel to this day. But then I've also heard some missionaries retranslated Aramaic gospels from the Greek and gave those Bibles to Aramaic speakers. Obviously I don't want to use a translation of a translation of a etc. etc. I remember seeing a scanned version of a very old Peshitta online which is kept in a museum somewhere. Is *this* the absolute best source we have?
Thanks all,
Ben