01-31-2008, 09:03 PM
Shlama Paul,
Here's what Father Michael J. Birnie said to me (in a personal letter to me written on December 4th, 1990) about the P'shitta: "In response to your question about the date of the P'shitta: It all depends whether you are talking about the Old Testament or the New Testament. The Old Testament is apparently a Jewish work of translation, probably of the late first or early second century, to meet the needs of a people who no longer understood well (or at all) the Hebrew language. It was incorporated in full in the official P'shitta ("simple", or "vulgar," hence "vulgate"), the New Testament WHICH WAS TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK (Albion's caps) under the auspices of (apparently) Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Rabbula of Edessa. The initial impetus for such a translation was the felt need to quash the Diatesseron of Tatian, which had been used throughout the Syriac-speaking church as authoritative, and replace it with integral, "separate" (m'parshe) Gospels. There was an older Syriac version of the New Testament know as "Old Syriac", the dating of which is difficult, if not impossible, but it may go back to the second century. It is not known how much of the New Testament it contained, or how much influence it may have had on the later P'shitta. The date most agreed upon for the promulgation of the P'shitta is circa 435-450. There are many reasons for believing this is a correct "informed guess".
Albion here again. Now, of course I've been here at Peshitta.org since 2001 and I know how much of what is said in the above is B.S.
But I thought that you might like to hear what one of the 'Plan G' "Reformers" actually said about the Syriac P'shitta himself.
One GOOD thing.....Father Birnie helped my ex-wife and I find a very lovely Syriac name for our daughter, which I would love to tell you here, but I fear that might not be a safe thing to do, considering he who is also here reading everything that I write.
Shlama, Albion
Here's what Father Michael J. Birnie said to me (in a personal letter to me written on December 4th, 1990) about the P'shitta: "In response to your question about the date of the P'shitta: It all depends whether you are talking about the Old Testament or the New Testament. The Old Testament is apparently a Jewish work of translation, probably of the late first or early second century, to meet the needs of a people who no longer understood well (or at all) the Hebrew language. It was incorporated in full in the official P'shitta ("simple", or "vulgar," hence "vulgate"), the New Testament WHICH WAS TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK (Albion's caps) under the auspices of (apparently) Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Rabbula of Edessa. The initial impetus for such a translation was the felt need to quash the Diatesseron of Tatian, which had been used throughout the Syriac-speaking church as authoritative, and replace it with integral, "separate" (m'parshe) Gospels. There was an older Syriac version of the New Testament know as "Old Syriac", the dating of which is difficult, if not impossible, but it may go back to the second century. It is not known how much of the New Testament it contained, or how much influence it may have had on the later P'shitta. The date most agreed upon for the promulgation of the P'shitta is circa 435-450. There are many reasons for believing this is a correct "informed guess".
Albion here again. Now, of course I've been here at Peshitta.org since 2001 and I know how much of what is said in the above is B.S.
But I thought that you might like to hear what one of the 'Plan G' "Reformers" actually said about the Syriac P'shitta himself.
One GOOD thing.....Father Birnie helped my ex-wife and I find a very lovely Syriac name for our daughter, which I would love to tell you here, but I fear that might not be a safe thing to do, considering he who is also here reading everything that I write.
Shlama, Albion