Chaim Bentorah discusses Peshitta words

[DavidFord]

What's the best way to translate the Aramaic John 8:24?
("believe that I am _He_"?
"believe who I AM"?)

John 8 (Berean Literal)
https://biblehub.com/blb/john/8.htm
24 Therefore I said to you that
you will die in your sins;
for unless you believe that I am _He_,
you will die in your sins.”
25 Therefore they were saying to Him,
“Who are You?” ...

Joh 8:24 (APNT)
https://www.aramaicdb.org/index.php/sear...rfilters=0
24 I told you that you will die in your sins,
for unless you believe that I am [he],
you will die in your sins."
25 The Judeans said,
"Who are you?" ...

John 8 (modified Younan 8:13)
http://dukhrana.com/peshitta/msviewer.php?ms=4&id=421
24. I told you that you will die in your sins,
for unless you believe d'ana ana [who I AM],
you will die in your sins."
25. The Yehudeans said,
"Who are you?" ...

[DavidFord]

What’s the best way to translate the Aramaic John 12:23?
(“that the Son of Man may be glorified"?
“for the Son of Man to be glorified"?)

John 12:23
https://biblehub.com/john/12-23.htm
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/12-23.htm
(Literal Standard)
And Jesus responded to them, saying, “The hour has come
that [2443 hina ἵνα that] the Son of Man may be glorified;
(Berean Literal)
And Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come
that Son of Man should be glorified.
(Young's Literal)
And Jesus responded to them, saying, 'The hour hath come
that the Son of Man may be glorified;
(Smith's Literal)
And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour has come,
that the Son of man should be honoured.

(Aramaic Bible in Plain English)
But Yeshua answered and said to them, “The hour has come
for The Son of Man to be glorified.”

Joh 12:23 (APNT)
https://www.aramaicdb.org/index.php/sear...rfilters=0
https://www.aramaicdb.org/index.php/sear...rfilters=0
https://dukhrana.com/peshitta/analyze_ve...ize=125%25
https://dukhrana.com/peshitta/msviewer.php?ms=4&id=446
And Jesus answered and said to them, "The hour has come
for the Son of Man to be glorified [d'n-sh-th-b-kh for to be glorified].

[DavidFord]

When John 8:56 was first written, did it say:
"rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad"?
"longed to see my day, and he saw it and rejoiced"?

John 8:56
https://biblehub.com/john/8-56.htm
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/8-56.htm
(Literal Standard)
your father Abraham was glad that he might see My day; and he saw, and rejoiced.”
(Berean Literal)
Abraham your father rejoiced in that he should see My day--and he saw it and rejoiced."
(Young's Literal)
Abraham, your father, was glad that he might see my day; and he saw, and did rejoice.'
(Smith's Literal)
Your father Abraham was overjoyed that he might see my day: and he saw, and rejoiced.

Joh 8:56
(APNT)
Abraham, your father, was longing to see my day and he saw [it] and rejoiced."
(KJV)
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
(Murdock)
Abraham your father desired to see my day: and he saw it, and rejoiced.

John 8:56 (based on Younan)
Your father Awraham did long to see my day, and he saw (it) and rejoiced."

===============================================
What’s the best way to translate the Aramaic John 12:41?
("because he saw"?
"when he saw"?)

John 12:41 (Disciples’ Literal NT)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...rsion=DLNT
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/12-41.htm
Isaiah said these _things_ because [3754 hoti ὅτι because] he saw His glory and spoke about Him.

John 12:41 (based on Younan)
Eshaya said these things when he saw [k-d kh-z-a when he saw] his glory and spoke concerning him.

Joh 12:41 (APNT)
These [things] Isaiah said, when he saw his glory and spoke about him.

==========
3754. hoti
https://biblehub.com/greek/3754.htm
hoti: that, because, since, for

Original Word: ὅτι
Part of Speech: Conjunction
Transliteration: hoti
Pronunciation: ho'-tee
Phonetic Spelling: (hot'-ee)
Definition: that, because, since, for
Meaning: that, since, because; may introduce direct discourse.

Word Origin: A primary particle

Corresponding Greek / Hebrew Entries: While there is no direct one-to-one correspondence between Greek and Hebrew particles, the Hebrew conjunction "כִּי" (ki), which also means "that," "because," or "for," serves a similar function in the Hebrew Bible.

Usage: The Greek conjunction "ὅτι" (hoti) is a versatile particle used primarily to introduce clauses that provide explanations, reasons, or content. It often translates to "that," "because," "since," or "for" in English. In the New Testament, "hoti" is frequently used to introduce direct or indirect speech, to explain reasons for actions or beliefs, and to provide causal connections between statements.

Cultural and Historical Background: In the context of Koine Greek, the language of the New Testament, conjunctions like "hoti" were essential for constructing complex sentences and conveying nuanced meanings. The use of "hoti" reflects the logical and rhetorical style of the period, where explanations and reasons were often explicitly stated to clarify teachings and narratives. This was particularly important in the context of early Christian writings, which aimed to instruct, persuade, and edify diverse audiences.

NAS Exhaustive Concordance
Word Origin
conjunction from neut. of hostis,
Definition
that, because
NASB Translation
because (212), fact (3), how (2), saying (1), since (10), so (1), then (1), though (1), what (1).

===============================================
What’s the best way to translate the Aramaic John 13:1?
("knowing that his hour had come that he would depart"?
"knew that the hour had come when he would depart"?)

John 13:1
https://biblehub.com/john/13-1.htm
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/13-1.htm
(Literal Standard)
And before the Celebration of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour has come, that [2443 hina ἵνα that, in order that, so that] He may depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who [are] in the world—to the end He loved them.
(Berean Literal)
Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved the own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
(Young's Literal)
And before the feast of the passover, Jesus knowing that his hour hath come, that he may remove out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own who are in the world-- to the end he loved them.
(Smith's Literal)
And before the feast of the pascha, Jesus knowing that his hour had come that he should pass out of this world to the Father, having loved his own in the world, he loved them to the end.

John 13:1 (Murdock)
https://dukhrana.com/peshitta/analyze_ve...ize=125%25
And before the feast of the passover, Jesus knew that the hour had come when he should depart from [d'n-sh-n-a when he would go out of] this world unto the Father.
And he loved his own [people], who were in the world; and he loved them unto the end.

==========
1768. di
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1768.htm
di: that, which, who, because, for, when
Original Word: דִּי
Part of Speech: particle of relation; mark of Genitive; conjunction; mark of the Genitive; conjunction; particle
Transliteration: diy
Pronunciation: dee
Phonetic Spelling: (dee)
Definition: that, which, who, because, for, when
Meaning: that, of

Word Origin: Aramaic origin, used in the context of the Hebrew Bible, particularly in the books of Daniel and Ezra, which contain Aramaic sections.

Corresponding Greek / Hebrew Entries: While there is no direct Greek equivalent for the Aramaic particle "di," similar functions are served by Greek conjunctions and relative pronouns such as ὅτι (hoti - that, because) and ὅς (hos - who, which).

Usage: The particle "di" is primarily used as a relative pronoun or conjunction in Aramaic portions of the Old Testament. It serves to connect clauses, indicating relationships such as cause, purpose, or result. It is often translated as "that," "which," "who," "because," "for," or "when," depending on the context.

Cultural and Historical Background: The use of Aramaic in the Hebrew Bible reflects the historical context of the Jewish people during the Babylonian and Persian periods. Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Near East during these times, and its presence in the Bible highlights the influence of surrounding cultures and the Jewish diaspora. The books of Daniel and Ezra contain significant Aramaic sections, illustrating the integration of Jewish and foreign elements during the exile and subsequent return to Jerusalem.

NAS Exhaustive Concordance
Word Origin
(Aramaic) a prim. particle
Definition
who, which, that, because

NASB Translation
after* (1), against (1), because (1), because* (5), before* (1), even (1), forasmuch* (1), inasmuch* (9), since (2), so (6), soon (1), soon* (1), surely* (1), than* (1), until* (11), what (1), what* (1), whatever* (2), when (3), where (1), where* (1), wherever* (1), which (46), who (34), whom (12), whom* (1), whomever (4), whomever* (3), whose (6).

===============================================
What’s the best way to translate the Aramaic John 16:32?
("the hour... has now come, that you be scattered"?
"the hour... has now come, when you will be scattered"?)

John 16:32
https://biblehub.com/john/16-32.htm
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/16-32.htm
(Literal Standard)
and now it has come, that [2443 hina ἵνα that, in order that, so that] you may be scattered, each to his own things, and you may leave Me alone, and I am not alone, because the Father is with Me;
(Young's Literal)
and now it hath come, that ye may be scattered, each to his own things, and me ye may leave alone, and I am not alone, because the Father is with me;
(Smith's Literal)
Behold, the hour comes, and has now come, that ye be scattered, each to his own, and leave me alone: and I am not alone, for the Father is with me.

2443. hina
https://biblehub.com/greek/2443.htm
hina: that, in order that, so that
Original Word: ἵνα
Part of Speech: Conjunction
Transliteration: hina
Pronunciation: HEE-nah
Phonetic Spelling: (hin'-ah)
Definition: that, in order that, so that

John 16:32 (based on Younan)
For behold the hour is coming,
and has now come,
when you will be dispersed [d'th-th-b-d-r-u-n when you will be dispersed],
(every) man to his own place,
and you will leave me alone.
Yet I would not be alone
because the Father is with me.

Joh 16:32
(APNT)
for behold, the hour comes and now has come, when you will be scattered, [each] man to his place and you will leave me alone. Yet I will not be alone, because the Father is with me.
(Murdock)
Behold, the hour cometh, and hath now come, when ye will be dispersed, each to his place; and ye will leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is with me.

===============================================
What’s the best way to translate the Aramaic John 20:18?
("comes bringing word to the disciples that, 'I have seen the Lord,' and that he had said these things to her"?
"came and declared to the disciples that she had seen our Lord, and that he had told her these things"?

John 20:18 (Disciples’ Literal NT)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...rsion=DLNT
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/20-18.htm
Mary the Magdalene comes, announcing _to_ the disciples that [3754 hoti ὅτι that] “I have seen the Lord”, and _that_ He said these _things to_ her.

John 20:18 (based on Younan)
Then Maryam of Magdala came and declared to the disciples that she had seen [d'kh-z-th that she had seen] our Lord, and that he had told her these things.

Joh 20:18 (APNT)
Then Mary Magdalene came and declared to the disciples that she had seen our Lord and that he had told her these [things].

==========
3754. hoti
https://biblehub.com/greek/3754.htm
hoti: that, because, since, for
Original Word: ὅτι
Part of Speech: Conjunction
Transliteration: hoti
Pronunciation: ho'-tee
Phonetic Spelling: (hot'-ee)
Definition: that, because, since, for
Meaning: that, since, because; may introduce direct discourse.

Word Origin: A primary particle

Corresponding Greek / Hebrew Entries: While there is no direct one-to-one correspondence between Greek and Hebrew particles, the Hebrew conjunction "כִּי" (ki), which also means "that," "because," or "for," serves a similar function in the Hebrew Bible.

Usage: The Greek conjunction "ὅτι" (hoti) is a versatile particle used primarily to introduce clauses that provide explanations, reasons, or content.
It often translates to "that," "because," "since," or "for" in English.
In the New Testament, "hoti" is frequently used to introduce direct or indirect speech, to explain reasons for actions or beliefs, and to provide causal connections between statements.

Cultural and Historical Background: In the context of Koine Greek, the language of the New Testament, conjunctions like "hoti" were essential for constructing complex sentences and conveying nuanced meanings.
The use of "hoti" reflects the logical and rhetorical style of the period, where explanations and reasons were often explicitly stated to clarify teachings and narratives.
This was particularly important in the context of early Christian writings, which aimed to instruct, persuade, and edify diverse audiences.

NAS Exhaustive Concordance
Word Origin
conjunction from neut. of hostis,
Definition
that, because
NASB Translation
because (212), fact (3), how (2), saying (1), since (10), so (1), then (1), though (1), what (1)

[DavidFord]

Burnett Hillman Streeter (1874-1937), _The Four Gospels: a study of origins: treating of the manuscript tradition, sources, authorship, & dates_ (1930), 624pp., on 227-229, 243-245
https://www.amazon.com/Four-Gospels-Burn...001SJH5OG/
https://archive.org/details/fourgospelss...hypnotised
https://archive.org/details/fourgospelss...=ingenuity
The psychologists are all warning us of the peril of the "unconscious motive."
It is against "unconscious assumptions" that critics of the Gospels most need to be on their guard.

(1) It is unfortunate that the name “Two Document Hypothesis” should have been given to the theory that the authors of the First and Third Gospels made use of Mark and Q, for it conceals the unconscious assumption that they used no other documents, or, at least, none of anything like the same value as the “Big Two.”
Hence a quite illusory pre-eminence has been ascribed to the document Q in comparison with the sources for our Lord’s teaching made use of by Matthew or by Luke alone.
To this illusion I must confess that I have been myself for many years a victim.
The idea has grown up that it is just a little discreditable to any saying of our Lord if it cannot be traced to Q.
Immense efforts are accordingly made to extend the boundaries of Q as much as possible-- as if a sentence of exclusion from this document meant branding the excluded saying with a reputation of doubtful historicity.
Much of what is clearly authentic teaching of Christ-- quite half of the Sermon on the Mount, for instance-- is found in only one Gospel.
An effort, then, must be made to get all this material somehow or other assigned to Q; and ingenious motives must be discovered to explain why the other evangelists omitted it.
Once, however, the "unconscious assumption" of some special superiority of Q is brought up into the daylight of clear consciousness, a moment’s consideration will show that it is wholly baseless.
One has only to mention the fact that hardly any of the parables are found in Q to realise that a large part of the most obviously genuine, original, and characteristic teaching of our Lord is derived, not from Q, but from sources peculiar to Matthew or Luke.
The Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Pharisee and the Publican, are peculiar to Luke;
the Labourers in the Vineyard, the Pearl of Great Price, are given by Matthew alone.
There cannot be the slightest presumption that a source which lacked such material as this is a more reliable authority than those which contained it.

Some scholars, indeed, have been so far hypnotised by the prestige of Q that, from the possible absence from Q of the longer narrative parables, they have drawn the conclusion that such parables formed no part of the original teaching of our Lord but are developments in later tradition, though probably in some cases being expansions of shorter authentic sayings.
Nothing could be more absurd.
Our Lord was above all a popular teacher;
it was the common people who heard Him gladly.
But everybody knows that a story told vividly and in detail is the one thing most likely to attract the attention and to remain in the memory of a popular audience.
A friend once said to me,
“You can preach the same sermon as often as you like, provided you don’t repeat your illustrations;
but tell the same story twice, and, even if the rest of your sermon is on a totally different topic, people will say that you repeat yourself.”
If one considers the teaching of Christ from the standpoint of the psychology of everyday life and not of academic theory, it is obvious that the parables, and that in their most graphic and least curtailed form, such as we find in Luke, are just the element most likely to belong to the earliest stratum of tradition.
Why the author of Q included so few (or, possibly, none at all) of them, we cannot say, any more than we can say for certain why he did not include an account of the Passion.
Probably the reason for both omissions was the same.
He wrote to supplement, not to supersede, a living oral tradition.
Both the longer parables and the Passion story were easy to remember, and every one knew them;
and what he was most concerned to write down was something which was either less well known or easier to forget.
...
Page 243
two collections of parables...
These collections number respectively eleven and nineteen.
But they overlap to the extent of three parables, since each collection includes a version of the Lost Sheep, the Marriage Feast (=the Great Supper), and the Talents (=Pounds).
But though these three parables occur in both Matthew and Luke, they do so in such very different forms that the supposition that they were derived from Q postulates too large an amount of editorial manipulation of that source.

But the ingenuity that attempts to derive them from a single written source is wholly misdirected.
Given that two different persons set about collecting parables of our Lord, and that one of them succeeded in finding eleven and the other as many as nineteen. Would it not be an astounding circumstance if the two collectors never happened to light upon the same parable?
The remarkable thing is, not that the two collections have three parables in common, but that they have _only_ three.

Thirteen years ago I myself, under the malign influence of the of the Two Document Hypothesis, argued that these three parables occurred in Q.^1
But one day, while I was meditating on the curious fact that the moral which Matthew draws from the parable of the Lost Sheep is quite different from that drawn by Luke, it occurred to me that this is precisely what one would expect if the two versions had been handed down in two different traditions.
People so often remember a story or an illustration, but forget the point it was told to illustrate.
Then I turned to Harnack’s famous reconstruction of Q.^2
I found that, in order to derive both versions from Q, he had to maintain that the saying
“There shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance”
was an editorial addition.
The scales fell from my eyes.
No saying attributed to Jesus can have struck those who first heard it as so utterly daring as this.
I reflected that, if a man of Harnack’s insight can be driven by the logic of his premises to the conclusion that such a saying is an editorial addition, there must be something wrong about the premises.
Then it dawned on me that the assumption on which he-- and I too-- had been working was fundamentally false.
Even if the differences between the versions did not demonstrate, antecedent probability would lead us to expect, that two different collections of parables would certainly overlap.

I proceeded at once to re-examine the parable in a Synopsis, and I saw at once that if, instead of mechanically counting the number of Greek words common to the two versions, one asked which of the really significant words were found in both versions and which in only one, the conclusion that the versions were independent was confirmed.
The words which are found in both versions are the words without which the story could not be told at all-- “man,” “sheep,” “go,” “find,” “rejoice,” the “I say unto you” (which is the regular formula for pointing the moral in our Lord’s teaching), and the three numerals, 100, 99, and 1, which since 100-1=99 would be inevitable in any version.
But where the versions can differ, they do so.
For Matthew’s “if it happen to a man,” Luke has “what man of you?” ;
for “be gone astray” (passive), “having lost” (active) ;
for "into the mountains," "in the wilderness" ;
for “seek,” “go after” ;
for “layeth it on his shoulder rejoicing,” “rejoiceth over it.”
Luke adds the calling together of friends and neighbours, about which Matthew is silent, and the saying about the joy in heaven over the sinner repentant ;
while Matthew, instead of this, points the moral,
“Even so it is not the will of your Father that one of these little ones should perish.”

The differences between the two versions of the parable of the Lost Sheep are as nothing compared to the differences between the other two pairs, the Marriage Feast = the Great Supper, and the Talents = Pounds.
But since Matthew has eleven and Luke nineteen parables, and twenty-seven of these thirty must have been derived from two quite different cycles of tradition, the probability that the two cycles overlapped to the extent of including divergent versions of at least three parables is a high one.

=========================
Burnett Hillman Streeter (1874-1937), _The Four Gospels: a study of origins: treating of the manuscript tradition, sources, authorship, & dates_ (1930), 624pp., on 266
https://www.amazon.com/Four-Gospels-Burn...001SJH5OG/
https://archive.org/details/fourgospelss...benedictus
Professor C. C. Torrey^1 argues on linguistic grounds that Lk. i.-ii. must have been translated, not merely from a Semitic language, but from Hebrew as distinct from Aramaic. [1: _The Translations made from the Original Aramaic Gospels_, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1912, pp. 290 ff.]
The point is one on which I have not the linguistic qualifications needed to pronounce a judgement.
But on one point I feel fairly clear.
The Magnificat and the Benedictus were not originally written in Greek.
No one who thought in Greek could have produced, either
ἐποίησε κράτος ἐν βραχίονι αὐτοῦ 1. 51, or
ἤγειρε κέρας σωτηρίας ἡμῖν ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ Δαβὶδ, i. 69.

[DavidFord]

Re: the book of Daniel, do you disagree with any of this?:

Karl Marti (1855-1925), _Das Buch Daniel_ (1901), on ix, x
https://archive.org/details/dasbuchdanie...eschrieben
https://archive.org/details/dasbuchdanie...einerseits
Page n10
Nun macht der aramäische Teil 2:4 - 7:28 in keiner Weise den Eindruck einer Ubersetzung...
Es liegt daher eine andere Annahme näher: das Buch ist ursprünglich ganz aramäisch geschrieben;
dafür spricht einerseits die Art des aramäisch erhaltenen Teiles, der nirgends auf ein hebräisches Original zurückführt, andererseits erhebt dagegen das Hebräische in 1:1 - 2:4 und Capp. 8 - 12 keinen Einspruch, da man hier im Gegenteil auf Schritt und Tritt Aramaismen begegnet (vgl. z. B. ... 1:4, ... und ... 1:10, ... 1:16, dann ... 8:5, 21, ... 8:7, 11:11, ... 8:18, ... = ... 8:22 etc., ... 10:21, ... 10:21 vgl. 5:24 f., 6:9-11,  13 f.,  ... 11:17,  ... 11:23, ... 11:43).

google translate:
Now the Aramaic portion 2:4 - 7:28 does not in any way give the impression of a translation...
Another assumption is therefore more likely:  the book was originally written entirely in Aramaic;
On the one hand, this is supported by the nature of the Aramaic part, which nowhere leads back to a Hebrew original;
on the other hand, the Hebrew in 1:1 - 2:4 and Capp. 8 - 12 raises no objection to this, since on the contrary, one encounters Aramaisms at every turn
(cf. e.g. ... 1:4, ... and ... 1:10, ... 1:16, then ... 8 :5, 21, ... 8 :7, 11:11, ... 8 :18, ... = ... 8 :22 etc. , ... 10:21, ... 10:21 cf. 5:24 f., 6:9-11, 13 f., ... 11:17, ... 11:23, ... 11:43).

[DavidFord]

"The rendition of the Genealogy of Jesus in Matthew and Luke follows the male lineage"
Some people claim that the lineage in the book of Matthew is that of Jesus through his mother Mary.

Andrew Gabriel Roth, _The Apostolic Writings Reader’s Version:  A... Translation from the Original Aramaic Language Spoken by Our Messiah-Savior and His Apostles_ (2024), 599pp., on 51
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1736589369?
16 Jacob fathered Joseph, the adopted guardian^8 of Maryam^9, from whom was born Yeshua, who is called the Messiah.

8: _The adopted [adoptive?] guardian of Maryam_.
The Aramaic word _gowra_ refers to a protector-male or guardian.
In the translations from Greek, calling Joseph the son of Jacob, Maryam’s husband, would make Yeshua the thirteenth generation of that set of names.
Through the Aramaic however we understand Joseph to be the adopted [adoptive?] parent of Maryam, which makes her the thirteenth and therefore Yeshua is the fourteenth generation.
The Greek word _aner_, which is used in both verse 16 and verse 19, has some of this flexibility of meaning as well, but it has almost never been translated as “adopted [adoptive?] father” even though the math appears to demand it and its root meanings allow it.
But whether through _gowra_ or _aner_ the fact remains that the only way to get to a fourteenth generation in Matthew’s third set is with two different men named Joseph. …

9: Interestingly enough there are two late medieval manuscripts of Matthew Hebrew that appear to have been inspired by the adopted [adoptive?] guardian reading of the Peshitta and read instead, Joseph the father of Maryam in Matthew 1:16
Like _gowra_, that alteration will also add back the apparent “missing” generation.
However, the Peshitta reading is a thousand years older and much better attested to than either of these Hebrew Matthew versions of Matthew.
One of these is a 13th century manuscript at Oxford University known as Ms. Oppenheim Add. 4° 111.
The other is a 14th century manuscript from the National Library of Israel that was provided by microfilm by the Jewish Theological Society, New York, New York.

"how Jesus is considered to be of David’s bloodline since he didn’t share Joseph’s DNA"
Jesus had DNA of his mother Mary.

"why the genealogies diverge twice: once after David and once after Zerubbabel"
Jesus was a descendant of King David on his biological mother Mary's side, and on his step-dad Joseph's side.

[DavidFord]

"While it’s true, that Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15 talk about future king, it still doesn’t mention 'messiah'"
Targum Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15 speak of an "anointed one."

_The Targum of Jeremiah (The Aramaic Bible) (Volume 12)_ (1987), 206pp., on 111, 141
https://www.amazon.com/Targum-Jeremiah-A...814654819/
https://archive.org/details/aramaicbible...avid+an%22
Page 111
5. Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when
I shall raise up for David an Anointed One of righteousness^c [c: That is, A Messiah...],
and he shall reign as king and prosper,
and he shall perform true justice and righteousness in the land.
6. In his days those of the house of Judah shall be redeemed,
and Israel shall dwell safely;
and this is his name which they shall call him:
Righteous deeds shall be done for us before the Lord in his days.

Page 141
13. In the cities of the mountain,
in the cities of the lowland,
and in the cities of the south,
and in the land of the tribe of Benjamin
and in the environs of Jerusalem,
in the cities of the house of Judah,
the people shall yet eagerly pursue the words of the Messiah,
says the Lord.
14. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when
I will establish the upright word that I have spoken
concerning the house of Israel
and concerning the house of Judah.
15. In those days
and at that time
I will raise for David an anointed one^u of righteousness [u:  Lit.: "a Messiah of Righteousness"; f.:  "the Messiah of Righteousness."],
and he shall perform true justice and righteousness in the land.
16. In those days
the men of the house of Judah shall be redeemed
and Jerusalem shall dwell safely; ...

Targum Jonathan on Jeremiah
https://www.sefaria.org/Targum_Jonathan_...b=contents
About This Text
Composed: Talmudic Israel/Babylon,  c.150 BCE  – c.350 CE
Targum Jonathan is an Aramaic translation of the Neviim (Prophets).
Authorship of the Targum is attributed to Jonathan ben Uzziel, a prime student of the great Talmudic sage Hillel.
In Talmudic times, the Targum was read verse-by-verse, alternating with the Hebrew text of the haftarah.

[DavidFord]

Grok disliked the idea that Mary had 2 Josephs in her life:  an adoptive father called Joseph, and also a husband called Joseph.
https://x.com/i/grok?conversation=1923395469025177943

Grok also disliked the idea that much of the New Testament was originally composed in Aramaic,
and it maintained that the Arabic Diatessaron was translated from Aramaic, which was in turn translated from Greek.
Later in the conversation, Grok flails around and makes up things regarding the Aramaic Peshitta and Arabic Diatessaron.
https://x.com/i/grok?conversation=1923413249896170000

[DavidFord]

Relationship-- with citations-- of the Aramaic Peshitta, Arabic Diatessaron, and Greek New Testament?
DeeperSearch 3m 42s
33 sources
https://x.com/i/grok?conversation=1924940689567318048
Conclusion
In summary, the evidence leans toward the Greek New Testament as the original, with the Peshitta as a 5th-century translation from Greek, influenced by earlier texts like the Diatessaron.
The Arabic Diatessaron, a translation of the Syriac Diatessaron, reflects this early harmony's impact, showing textual connections with the Peshitta.
While debates like Aramaic primacy exist, the scholarly consensus supports Greek origins, providing a comprehensive understanding of these texts' relationships.

question:
5 ways in which the Peshitta was "influenced by... the Diatessaron"?
DeeperSearch
4m 11s
68 sources

question:
Glosses had by the Greek New Testament, but absent from the Aramaic Peshitta?
DeeperSearch 4m 55s
55 sources

This page alleges that there are mistranslations in the Greek NT.
https://web.archive.org/web/202105100405...ent_theory
What's your assessment of those allegations of mistranslations?

With which if any of these claims do you agree?:
1. The Arabic Diatessaron was translated from Syriac.
2. The Arabic Diatessaron was translated from Greek.
3. The Greek New Testament's 4 gospels were translated from Aramaic.
4. The Aramaic Peshitta's 4 gospels were translated from the Greek NT.
5. The Diatessaron was created by Tatian using the Aramaic Peshitta's 4 gospels.
6. The Peshitta was created using Tatian's Diatessaron.

What's the source of, i.e. what's responsible for, the very high degree of similarity between the Peshitta, and Tatian's Diatessaron?

[DavidFord]

Question: "the question at issue is what right we have to reject the oldest Syriac and the oldest Latin when they agree"

F.C. Burkitt, Introduction to
P. Mordaunt Barnard, _The Biblical Text of Clement of Alexandria in the Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles_ (1899), on xviii-xix
https://www.amazon.com/Biblical-Text-Cle...59244833X/
https://archive.org/details/biblicaltext...t+right%22
The African Latin was unknown, except so far as it was covered by chance quotations from S. Cyprian, and the very existence of a Syriac Version older than the official Peshitta was a conjecture.

How different is the case now!
By the publication of Cod. Bobiensis (_k_) enough of the version used by S. Cyprian is before us in a continuous text to enable us to judge of its critical affinities, while with regard to early Syriac evidence the difference is that between darkness and daylight.
Not to speak of the fragments of Tatian’s _Diatessaron_ preserved in S. Ephraim or the quotations of Aphraates, we have an excellent text of the four Gospels nearly complete in the Sinai Palimpsest, while Cureton’s MS (a far inferior text, but the only form of the version known to Dr Hort) serves to tell us something of the limits of variation in Syriac-speaking communities.
These authorities are all ‘Western,’ i.e. they do not attest certain well-defined Alexandrian readings, such as ... in Mc vi 20 and the well-known interpolation in Mt xxvii 49.
But in many other instances they actually form the bulk of the attestation for Dr Hort’s own text.
That text is sometimes in agreement with the oldest Syriac, sometimes with the oldest Latin:
the question at issue is what right we have to reject the oldest Syriac and the oldest Latin when they agree.

The strain of text represented in Greek MSS by א and B can be traced in Egypt as far back as the middle of the 3rd century, but Clement shews that even in Egypt the earliest evidence gives it little support.

hat tip
William Petersen, _Tatian's Diatessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance, and History in Scholarship_ (1994), 555pp., on 21
https://www.amazon.com/Tatians-Diatessar...004094695/

=================
Alexander Souter, "Progress in the Textual Criticism of the Gospels Since Westcott and Hort," in
_Mansfield College Essays: Presented to the Reverend Andrew Martin Fairbairn on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, November 4, 1908 by Mansfield College_ (1909), on 363
https://www.amazon.com/Mansfield-College...172597308/
https://archive.org/details/mansfieldcol...lost+it%22
Page 363
The combination of Syr^sin and _k_ would now generally be regarded as sufficient to upset the combination B א or, in other words, the versions may sometimes have retained the correct text, where all known Greek MSS. have lost it.
This is a principle of the highest importance, and likely to be increasingly fruitful.
It is especially useful, where the problem of the relation between the Synoptists is thus helped (cf. Burkitt, "The Gospel History and its Transmission" [Edinburgh, 1906], chap. ii. ; Harnack, "Sayings of Jesus" [London, 1908].)

=========================
Eberhard Nestle, _Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek New Testament_ (1901), on 223
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Text...036515753/
https://archive.org/details/introduction...?q=arrayed
https://books.google.com/books?id=Yc9HAQ...22&f=false
§ 241. These exceptional instances of the preservation of the original text in exclusively Western readings are likely to have had an exceptional origin.
In the edition of 1896, the surviving editor (Westcott) appends an Additional Note which contains a further exceedingly valuable admission in the same direction.
It is as follows :—

_Note to p_. 121; § 170 (p. 328):
"The Essays of Dr. Chase on _The Syriac Element in Codex Bezae_, Cambridge, 1893, and _The Syro-Latin Text of the Gospels_, Cambridge, 1895, are a most important contribution to the solution of a fundamental problem in the history of the text of the N.T.
The discovery of the Sinaitic MS, of the Old Syriac raises the question whether the combination of the oldest types of the Syriac and Latin texts can outweigh the combination of the primary Greek texts.
A careful examination of the passages in which Syr._sin_ and _k_ are arrayed against א B, would point to the conclusion."

[DavidFord]

Do you see any flaws in this?:

Daniel Plooij (1877-1935), _A Further Study of the Liège Diatessaron_ (1925), 92pp., on 68-69
https://archive.org/details/furtherstudy...ts+tale%22
Although the preceding list of Syriasms and Syriac readings represents only. a selection, its tale seems fully clear and a complete collation can, I think, hardly alter the main thesis.
The Syriasms, the Syriac readings and the cases of Syriac expressions found in APHRAHAT, EPHREM and the Old-Syriac on the one side and in L on the other, confirm fully, I think, the thesis that the Old-Latin Diatessaron was translated from the Syriac.
I do not see how the facts can be explained satisfactorily in any other way.
On the other hand the readings, especially the harmonistic readings, which the Old-Latin Gospels have in common with the Syriac and the Old-Latin Diatessaron, seem to prove as indubitably, that the translation of the Greek Gospels into Latin took place after, and under influence of, the Old-Latin Diatessaron.

What's your assessment of this genealogy?:

Arabic Diatessaron                          
^                                                                                            
|                                                                                            
by-AD 175 Aramaic Diatessaron ---------> Latin Diatessaron ---------> Dutch Leige Diatessaron
^
|
Aramaic Peshitta --------> Greek gospels

[DavidFord]

Which came first, the Aramaic four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), or the Aramaic Diatessaron?
https://diatessaron.ir/wiki/Diatessaron_FAQ
This may come as a complete surprise to the amateurs in this area, but the Scholars are still debating about it!
Of course, we all know about that famous puzzle in Biology 101, "Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg"?
Well, we're not about to solve that one here... a bit too difficult.
What we can solve, on the other hand, is the much easier question, that also happens to be much more relevant in our present context,
Which came first, the Omelette or the Egg?
Everyone knows that it's easy enough to take a couple of eggs, and to make an omelette with them.
But try making an egg out of the omelette... Not easy at all!
And the same logic should apply to the question of the Diatessaron and the single gospels.
So let's take the conventional dating of the Gospel of Matthew, ca. 80 CE.
And it's generally believed to have been written in Syria... So, let's see... it never occurred to anyone to translate it into Aramaic, the native language of the country, before Tatian the heretic came to Syria in 170 CE? Is this so?
Yeah, right... The idea is absurd!
So the natural solution to this "problem", of course, is that the separate Aramaic gospels came first.
And then, later on, there was produced an Aramaic gospel harmony based on these!
So then why is such a strange debate even happening among the Scholars?

[DavidFord]

Acts 21:7
https://biblehub.com/acts/21-7.htm
(NIV)
We continued our voyage from Tyre and landed at Ptolemais,
where we greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed with them for a day.
(Aramaic Bible in Plain English)
And we journeyed from Tyre and we came to the city Akko,
and we gave greeting to the brethren there and we lodged with them one day.
…
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers
(7) We came to Ptolemais.–This city is memorable both for its antiquity and for the varied fortunes of its city.
As Accho it appears in Judges 1:31 as one of the old cities of the Canaanites which the Israelites of the tribe of Asher failed to conquer.
It was conquered, rebuilt, and re-named by Ptolemy Soter King of Egypt.
The old name, however, ultimately revived, or perhaps was never entirely disused; and the natives of the region still speak of it as Accho, while to Europeans it is familiar as Acre, or, more fully, St. Jean d’Acre.

[DavidFord]

"must have been some Greeks who knew of Jesus before Jesus was crucified"
The Greek NT bogusly claims so.

Mark 7:26
https://biblehub.com/mark/7-26.htm
(NIV)
The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia.
She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
(Aramaic Bible in Plain English)
But she was a pagan woman from Phoenicia of Syria,
and she was begging him to cast out the demon from her daughter.

John 12 (NIV)
https://biblehub.com/niv/john/12.htm
20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival.
21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request.
“Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.”
22 Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.

John 12 (Aramaic Bible in Plain English)
https://biblehub.com/aramaic-plain-english/john/12.htm
20 But there were also some of them from among the Gentiles who came up to worship at the feast.
21 These came and approached Philippus, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and they asked him and were saying to him,
"My lord, we wish to see Yeshua."
22 And Philippus himself came and told Andrewas, and Andrewas and Philippus told Yeshua.