03-05-2013, 12:53 AM
The article is interesting not only because it clears up the common misconception about Christ not coming to bring "peace" to the earth (an obvious absurdity), but also because the key to this is "Shayna" as opposed to "Shlama."
The fact that Christ used a purely "Syriac" term (again, this isn't hypothetical, this is in the Peshitta text) throws a monkey wrench into this whole "Galilean Aramaic" argument, doesn't it?
Search "western" Aramaic sources up and down, and you will not find any reference to Shayna. By Akhan Steve's criteria, that's "just how the western dialectic family leans." I could copy a lot of his arguments for the "stones" hypothesis, but I'll be kind.
But then where does that leave his argument here, in reference to both the ramifications of this great article....and the word imagery/wordplay James 3:18 ?
We can play games like this all day and look stupid doing so. This is what scholars do all day long, to argue this or that hypothesis. If our criteria really is as loose as the example which sparked it all, we look no better than the Greeks. We doubt our primary texts, make up stuff to make our case look stronger (which in fact, weakens it), etc.
It's silly. Stick to the text, like this author did. The results are better and more glorious than conjecture.
+Shamasha
The fact that Christ used a purely "Syriac" term (again, this isn't hypothetical, this is in the Peshitta text) throws a monkey wrench into this whole "Galilean Aramaic" argument, doesn't it?
Search "western" Aramaic sources up and down, and you will not find any reference to Shayna. By Akhan Steve's criteria, that's "just how the western dialectic family leans." I could copy a lot of his arguments for the "stones" hypothesis, but I'll be kind.
But then where does that leave his argument here, in reference to both the ramifications of this great article....and the word imagery/wordplay James 3:18 ?
We can play games like this all day and look stupid doing so. This is what scholars do all day long, to argue this or that hypothesis. If our criteria really is as loose as the example which sparked it all, we look no better than the Greeks. We doubt our primary texts, make up stuff to make our case look stronger (which in fact, weakens it), etc.
It's silly. Stick to the text, like this author did. The results are better and more glorious than conjecture.
+Shamasha