09-30-2009, 02:45 PM
Shlama all,
Lately, I've been finding more occasion to bring up Aramaic Primacy with my Christian friends. A few days ago in small group, we were debating the meaning of Romans 5:7 because the English translations based on the Greek are confusing.
This, of course, is one of the premier passages used to demonstrate Aramaic Primacy. The Peshitta has the word reshey'a meaning "wicked/ungodly". This makes much more sense, and is also the same word found in the previous verse which says "At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly."
Now the Aramaic Primacy argument is that Zorba confused this word reshey'a with reshyana, since the only difference between them is that the ein has been replaced with a nun, which look very similar in Estrangelo. The argument goes that reshyana means "righteous/blameless", so that's how the mistranslation came about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_pri...anslations
However, reshyana does not actually mean "blameless". It means "blame" or "accusation". The phrase similar to it that means "blameless" is dla reshyan. This means that Zorba's eyes would have had not only to change an ein into a nun but also to ignore the alap on the end and add the word dla before it. Then, it means "blameless" and can be mistranslated into the Greek.
http://dukhrana.com/lexicon/Jennings/page.php?p=212
http://dukhrana.com/lexicon/PayneSmith/page.php?p=550
Now this is a much less solid argument than originally presented. Akhan Andrew doesn't even mention reshyana in his AENT. He claims that Zorba confused reshey'a with zadiyqa, but these words don't look at all similar.
Any further thoughts on this?
bar Sinko
Lately, I've been finding more occasion to bring up Aramaic Primacy with my Christian friends. A few days ago in small group, we were debating the meaning of Romans 5:7 because the English translations based on the Greek are confusing.
Quote:Rom. 5:7 (NKJV):
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.
This, of course, is one of the premier passages used to demonstrate Aramaic Primacy. The Peshitta has the word reshey'a meaning "wicked/ungodly". This makes much more sense, and is also the same word found in the previous verse which says "At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly."
Now the Aramaic Primacy argument is that Zorba confused this word reshey'a with reshyana, since the only difference between them is that the ein has been replaced with a nun, which look very similar in Estrangelo. The argument goes that reshyana means "righteous/blameless", so that's how the mistranslation came about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_pri...anslations
However, reshyana does not actually mean "blameless". It means "blame" or "accusation". The phrase similar to it that means "blameless" is dla reshyan. This means that Zorba's eyes would have had not only to change an ein into a nun but also to ignore the alap on the end and add the word dla before it. Then, it means "blameless" and can be mistranslated into the Greek.
http://dukhrana.com/lexicon/Jennings/page.php?p=212
http://dukhrana.com/lexicon/PayneSmith/page.php?p=550
Now this is a much less solid argument than originally presented. Akhan Andrew doesn't even mention reshyana in his AENT. He claims that Zorba confused reshey'a with zadiyqa, but these words don't look at all similar.
Any further thoughts on this?
bar Sinko