John 19:19 (YHWH?)

[Paul Younan]

His theory is based upon Greek primacy,

....and therein lies the problem.

...so he says that the Hebrew was translated, but the Aramaic left as it was.

That doesn't make any sense at all.

A Hebrew rendering of Meshikha's Aramaic teachings is only a little more comforting than a Greek rendering of Meshikha's Aramaic teaching. In either case, the original Aramaic that Meshikha delivered his Gospel in, is lost.

My theory would be more likely to be that it was originally in Hebrew,

In Hebrew for the benefit of whom? Take a step back and think about the implications of that statement. They needed the Targums in Aramaic to understand the Tanakh.....why would someone purposely write a Gospel or Epistle in a language that maybe a handful of people understood?

Can you give me one Hebrew phrase or even word out of Meshikha's mouth that is Hebrew? Any word from Paul? Kepha?

and the Judean Aramaic was left as it was when translated to Syriac.

So let me get this straight.....Meshikha's Aramaic words were first written down in Hebrew (lost once), then translated into "Syriac" (whatever that is....but now lost twice), and then this original Hebrew version is lost to all history, and all we have left is some of the Judean Aramaic....occasionally glossed to Syriac (or Standard Aramaic)?

Were Jesus and the Disciples Judeans, to have spoken Judean-Aramaic, or were they Galileans? Why was Peter's speech "recognized", his accent/dialect "noticed".....in Judea in the garden? Wasn't he charged with speaking like "one of them?"

As you pointed out, Judeo-Aramaic, not Syrian Aramaic.

Why not Syrian Aramaic? Isn't that what the name "Aram" means? The original word for the Greek term, "Syriac?"

Aren't you just playing with semantics now?

Why would the Gospel be written first in either Hebrew, or Judean-Aramaic? Why not Nazarene, Galilean, Samaritan or Syrian Aramaic?

Did Jesus preach in Judean-Aramaic that His words should have been preserved in that dialect in written form?

However, mightn't it be argued that these are proper in modern Aramaic due to its close association with the Peshitta, and that it went from the Peshitta into Syriac, rather than from Syriac into the Peshitta?

No, it mightn't. The Peshitta has no gloss in that verse. The Peshitta isn't shy when it needs to gloss something only a minority of Aramaic speakers would understand (again, Golgotha or Khaqel-dama).

There are actually several verses in the NT (and Peshitta OT, for that matter) that contain this Semiticism.

The question is, why would you think this type of Semiticism is a purely Hebrew thing? There's very little originality in Hebrew at all.

The bottom line is, your patriarchs (and even matriarchs) were Arameans. Unless your own scripture is lying to you when it calls them "wandering (-hebrew-) Arameans."

You act like it was some foreign language to you - it wasn't. Portions of the Tanakh were even penned in it. Aramaic was Hebrew before Hebrew even existed.

You didn't land on Canaan in a space ship from Mars.