10-28-2004, 07:48 PM
Peshitta STILL superior
How?
Had some thoughts this morning while getting ready for uni. These things hapen at the oddest times... Actually I started thinking on this ages ago, but just realised the implications while grilling my cheese. Life's funny like that.
Where's the steak and onions?
1) Even if the Greek NT is the original and the Aramaic NT is a translation, what is the most important part of the whole Bible? Would you dare say it isn't the very words of Jesus?
Yes.
"Until the beginning of the fourth century the text of the New Testament developed freely. It was the "living text" in the Greek literary tradition, unlike the text of the Hebrew Old Testament, which was subject to strict controls because (in the oriental tradition) the consonantal text was holy. And the New Testament text continued to be a "living text" as long as it remained a manuscript tradition, even when the Byzantine church molded it to the procrustean bed of the standard and officially prescribed text. Even for later scribes, for example, the parallel passages of the Gospels were so familiar that they would adapt the text of one Gospel to that of another. They also felt themselves free to make corrections in the text, improving it by their own standard of correctness, whether grammatically, stylistically, or more substantively. This was all the more true of the early period, when the text had not been attained canonical status, especially in the earliest period when Christians considered themselves to be filled with the Spirit. As a consequence the text of the early period was many-faceted, and each manuscript had its own peculiar character.Aland & Aland, The Text Of The New Testament, p. 69.."
My thesis: The Peshitta is just a stylistic variation from the NT network. Sure, it has Semitic idioms, poetry, etc, etc lying therein. But this was from work of scribes who moulded the text.
Now, what language did He speak? Aramaic. So even IF the GNT is the original, the most important bits are still only translations (which as we have seen with our many Peshitta proofs, results in many problems with the Greek NT).
So what the P'shitta and the Greek NT differs from each other? Variation exists in all New Testament manuscripts.
"It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the NT in which the MS tradition is wholly uniform.George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 4, 1962 (1996 Print), Abingdon Press, Nashville, pp. 594-595 (Under "Text, NT")."
Could the Peshitta be its own source? The original? Either way, Peshitta primacists can take comfort in the fact that even if the Peshitta is in the main part, a translation from the Greek NT, it is still superior due to having the original words, in the original language of the central figure in Christianity, Jesus.
Strong assertions there, buddy. You have no written record of Jesus' words. You don't even have the original Peshitta to fall on.
As a sidenote, what applied here to Jesus can also be applied to other Aramaic-speaking New Testament figures such as Peter and Stephen. Keep applying the above principles to all those in the NT who spoke Aramaic (i.e. all, Aramaic being the common language of the Semitic peoples) and you may even garner the "crazy" notion that all of the NT was originally penned in the language of the Messiah and His people.
"For early Jewish Christians the Bible consisted of the Old Testament and some Jewish apocryphal literature. Along with this written authority went traditions, chiefly oral, of sayings attributed to Jesus. On the other hand, authors who belonged to the 'Hellenistic Wing' of the Church refer more frequently to writings that later came to be included in the New Testament. At the same time, however, they very rarely regarded such documents as 'Scripture'.
Furthermore, there was as yet no conception of the duty of exact quotation from books that were not yet in the full sense canonical. Consequently, it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to ascertain which New Testament books were known to early Christian writers; our evidence does not become clear until the end of second century.Bruce M Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament: Its Origin, Significance & Development, 1997, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 72-73
How?
Had some thoughts this morning while getting ready for uni. These things hapen at the oddest times... Actually I started thinking on this ages ago, but just realised the implications while grilling my cheese. Life's funny like that.
Where's the steak and onions?
1) Even if the Greek NT is the original and the Aramaic NT is a translation, what is the most important part of the whole Bible? Would you dare say it isn't the very words of Jesus?
Yes.
"Until the beginning of the fourth century the text of the New Testament developed freely. It was the "living text" in the Greek literary tradition, unlike the text of the Hebrew Old Testament, which was subject to strict controls because (in the oriental tradition) the consonantal text was holy. And the New Testament text continued to be a "living text" as long as it remained a manuscript tradition, even when the Byzantine church molded it to the procrustean bed of the standard and officially prescribed text. Even for later scribes, for example, the parallel passages of the Gospels were so familiar that they would adapt the text of one Gospel to that of another. They also felt themselves free to make corrections in the text, improving it by their own standard of correctness, whether grammatically, stylistically, or more substantively. This was all the more true of the early period, when the text had not been attained canonical status, especially in the earliest period when Christians considered themselves to be filled with the Spirit. As a consequence the text of the early period was many-faceted, and each manuscript had its own peculiar character.Aland & Aland, The Text Of The New Testament, p. 69.."
My thesis: The Peshitta is just a stylistic variation from the NT network. Sure, it has Semitic idioms, poetry, etc, etc lying therein. But this was from work of scribes who moulded the text.
Now, what language did He speak? Aramaic. So even IF the GNT is the original, the most important bits are still only translations (which as we have seen with our many Peshitta proofs, results in many problems with the Greek NT).
So what the P'shitta and the Greek NT differs from each other? Variation exists in all New Testament manuscripts.
"It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the NT in which the MS tradition is wholly uniform.George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 4, 1962 (1996 Print), Abingdon Press, Nashville, pp. 594-595 (Under "Text, NT")."
Could the Peshitta be its own source? The original? Either way, Peshitta primacists can take comfort in the fact that even if the Peshitta is in the main part, a translation from the Greek NT, it is still superior due to having the original words, in the original language of the central figure in Christianity, Jesus.
Strong assertions there, buddy. You have no written record of Jesus' words. You don't even have the original Peshitta to fall on.
As a sidenote, what applied here to Jesus can also be applied to other Aramaic-speaking New Testament figures such as Peter and Stephen. Keep applying the above principles to all those in the NT who spoke Aramaic (i.e. all, Aramaic being the common language of the Semitic peoples) and you may even garner the "crazy" notion that all of the NT was originally penned in the language of the Messiah and His people.
"For early Jewish Christians the Bible consisted of the Old Testament and some Jewish apocryphal literature. Along with this written authority went traditions, chiefly oral, of sayings attributed to Jesus. On the other hand, authors who belonged to the 'Hellenistic Wing' of the Church refer more frequently to writings that later came to be included in the New Testament. At the same time, however, they very rarely regarded such documents as 'Scripture'.
Furthermore, there was as yet no conception of the duty of exact quotation from books that were not yet in the full sense canonical. Consequently, it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to ascertain which New Testament books were known to early Christian writers; our evidence does not become clear until the end of second century.Bruce M Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament: Its Origin, Significance & Development, 1997, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 72-73
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???