Does it matter if Aramaic Primacy is wrong?

[Paul Younan]

While I hold to Aramaic primacy, I don't believe it matters too much whether it is wrong. If the Peshitta is not the original New Testament, then at least it would be the oldest translation, probably made at the same time that the Greek original was first distributed. Furthermore, it provides a valuable resource for understanding the original words of Jesus, and the mindset of the first Semitic Christians, since it's in the language that they spoke.

Shlama Akhan Spyridon,

I understand what you are saying, i.e., even if the Aramaic NT were a translation it would be valuable in the sense that it would be a reconstruction of the Aramaic sayings of Jesus (albeit vis-a-vis a Greek medium.)

However, consider the deeper implications of such a viewpoint. The gulf between the languages is immense. It's not like Greek to Latin, or Arabic to Hebrew. We're talking two totally different linguistic and cultural psyches.

If we were to not to give this issue the attention that it deserves, then that leaves us Christians in an unenviable position among the worlds major religions: we would be the only faith that has failed to preserve the original teachings of the Founder of our faith.

Moses' words are preserved in the very tongue he uttered them. Same with Muhammad. But Jesus, we would have lost his original words if the above were indeed the case.

How could anyone be sure that the Apostles, writing in Greek, could have conveyed to a precise level the very meaning of Jesus' teachings, word-plays, parallelisms, imagery...etc?

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: if the Messiah and the people he came to preach to were speakers of Swahili, I would be a Swahili Primacist. I would want to study His teachings in that particular African tongue.

But if His original teachings in Swahili only survived in Aramaic texts, with later Swahili translations - then I would probably not be a Christian. And I really do mean that. How could anyone convince me that no one bothered to save the most important words ever uttered in the Swahili tongue? As if Moses' or Muhammad's teachings were more important, that they should be preserved to us to this day in the original form, and not those of our Saviour? They weren't that important to save in their original form?

Aside from the evidence we have within the Greek text itself, that faithfully preserved its Aramaic origin....and aside from Akhan Stephen's point above that our faith is more defensible because of the problems that are solved within the Aramaic framework......are we really comfortable with the belief that we've lost the most important words ever uttered to a translation? Because even the most ardent Greek primacist will admit that the portions of the Gospel that are direct quotes of the Messiah are translations into Greek.

Are we to settle for a translation?

+Shamasha