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Are the Peshitta vowels accurate?
#1
Shlama Akhay,

My question is are the Peshitta vowels accurate?
I ask this because years ago when I first became an Aramaic primist, I heard about how in Aramaic the vowels determine the meaning. Leper/Potter, Eunuch/Faithful one, etc.

So what I want to know is in all the locations where Aramaic primists say the Aramaic can be rendering providing a much more logical and sensable sentance or phrase.

Do the vowels go with the Greek? or do they go with what makes sense?

Earnestly,
David R.

p.s. It's interesting how this topic can lead into the Masoretic text.
There's so many places where the Rabbis debate what the original vowels were.
Places where they say. You should read this word as if it were pointed such and such way.
I'm just wondering how much of that goes on with the Peshitta. Cause it was written without vowels right? So whoever put them in would have to know about 1st century Jewish culture and the Torah laws to work out if there really was a leper in the city.
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#2
Shlama David,

This is an excellent question and I hope others will add their thoughts.

I have found it interesting when examining various manuscripts how the vowels can be different from each other due to either 1) printer's mistakes, or 2) scribe's mistake. Sometimes the vowels can certainly make a world of difference concerning the word in question especially if the reader isn't aware of where the points should be.

Shlama,
Ya'aqub Younan-Levine
Ya'aqub Younan-Levine
Aramaica.org
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#3
Shlama Akhay,

David - the vowels were not inserted until centuries later, and in certain cases (as with the Masoretic text) the interpretation was up to the discretion of the scribe, or the general community in regards to oral tradition.

A case that comes to mind of erroneous judgment is of course the "holy things" vs. "earrings" reading, where the scribe (and, perhaps, the entire community) was unaware of the special usage of the term in the Aramaic dialect of 1st-century Israel. We don't use this word in our dialect. A simple change of vowel markings completes the parallelism. And the current printed copies of the Peshitta, with their standardized vowels, are wrong in this one reading. And the mistake made its way into the Greek (pre-vowel points, of course.)

That's why Akhan Abudar asked if BOTH of our communities (Maronite and Mesopotamian) could have missed this independently. I'm afraid, if we are to complete the parallelism, the answer is yes.

There are probably other examples, I just haven't run across any - the scribes were pretty accurate.
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
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#4
Thanks for the replies.

I guess that means this forum believes only in the preservation by God of the letters.

Some people believe that not only the Masoretic text letters are perserved by God, but the vowels as well.

I think anyone aware of the evidences can't believe in the divine perservation of the vowels.

Again,

thanks for the replies.
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#5
Definitely anything 6-7 centuries later like vowel markings I would not consider as inspired, whether by Masoretes or Monks. That's why I use an unpointed text in the Interlinear. Also, the oldest manuscripts are unpointed, so I even though it would be easier to recognize the meaning of a word with vowels, it would not be as authentic.
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
[Image: sig.jpg]
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