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The "O" argument
#1
I've heard it argued that the GNT can't be original because in Revelation it reads "The Alpha and the O" instead of "The Alpha and the Omega". But the name "Omega" didn't come along until the Byzantine period to distinguish between O(mega) and O(micron).
Any thoughts on this?
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#2
Indeed GNT reads as you wrote. There appears (strangely) one character for the w-mega in Revelation 1:8, after "alfa" the name of the first letter of the alphabet (see <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.peshitta.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2122">viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2122</a><!-- l -->). However, I honestly do not understand the rest of the argument. If O-mega (large o) as the name of the letter appeared at a later date it is reasonable that the text (presumably, older and original) contains just one character, not that name. So lack of the name would be an argument for the older date of GNT, not against. By the way, both letters (o-mikron, and o-mega) were in use BC. Would be interested to know more.
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#3
enarxe Wrote:Indeed GNT reads as you wrote. There appears (strangely) one character for the w-mega in Revelation 1:8, after "alfa" the name of the first letter of the alphabet (see <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.peshitta.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2122">viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2122</a><!-- l -->). However, I honestly do not understand the rest of the argument. If O-mega (large o) as the name of the letter appeared at a later date it is reasonable that the text (presumably, older and original) contains just one character, not that name. So lack of the name would be an argument for the older date of GNT, not against. By the way, both letters (o-mikron, and o-mega) were in use BC. Would be interested to know more.
That's exactly what I'm saying. This would simply prove that the GNT is older than the Byzantine period (which we already knew) not that it is a translation of the Peshitta.
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#4
Shlama alokhun,

While things like this sound interesting to outsiders, this is not a good argument/explanation. We need to remember that the original/official Peshitta does not include Revelations. It is only 22 books (not 27), so this proves nothing. That is why you don't hear people from the Church of the East making these types of statements. I am not trying to disrespect others, but for me trying to "decode" Revelations for the sake of proving either Greek or Aramaic Primacy is a mute point.

Push b'shayna,

-Nimrod Warda-
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#5
Dawid Wrote:That's exactly what I'm saying. This would simply prove that the GNT is older than the Byzantine period (which we already knew) not that it is a translation of the Peshitta.
Oh, I get it now. Must have misread your "But". Thanks and sorry, late and lazy reading.
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#6
Nimrod Warda Wrote:Shlama lokhun,

While things like this sound interesting to outsiders, this is not a good argument/explanation. We need to remember that the original/official Peshitta does not include Revelations. It is only 22 books (not 27), so this proves nothing. That is why you don't hear people from the Church of the East making these types of statements. I am not trying to disrespect others, but for me trying to "decode" Revelations for the sake of proving either Greek or Aramaic Primacy is a mute point.

Push b'shayna,

-Nimrod Warda-
I'm just throwing this out there as one part of a lot of issues I've been finding lately. As much as Greek primacy is very unsatisfactory, I'm finding Peshitta primacy certainly has its own issues. Neither of them is fully satisfactory to me. Things like this, and other moments of just plain bad scholarship in the Peshitta primacy movement are very disconcerting to me. I guess I'm coming down to more of an argument for traditionalism. I think my inclination would be to accept the COE tradition because it is a tradition, because the proofs don't fully add up on either side.
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#7
Shalom Dawid,

Got be quick, but what must be remembered is that there is a difference between Aramaic Primacy and Peshitta Primacy. Revelation, and the other 4 disputed books are outside of the scope of Peshitta Primacy (for obvious reasons) but are still within the scope of Aramaic Primacy.

I for one am not in the least bit convinced that Greek is the original language of the book of Revelation, and even many Greek primacists assert that Yokhanan's original was actually Aramaic.

There are plenty of reasons why but before getting into an actual textual analysis (when I have the time!), I first want you to ponder this:

Revelation 1:8 Wrote:I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

OK, let's stop right there for a minute. Who is "the Lord God" talking to? The Shlikha Yokhanan, right? (Assuming he was indeed the author of this book of course). Wasn't Yokhanan an Aramaic-speaking Jew from Galileela? Didn't Yeshua speak ARAMAIC to Yokhanan on a daily basis before He ascended into Heaven? So then why would He suddenly switch to Greek years later after He ascended? Quite frankly if He did, I doubt Yokhanan would have believed that it was really His Master who was speaking to him!

Here's the thing, no matter how fluent you are in a 2nd or 3rd, ect. language the fact is when you pray to God you do so in your native language (unless you're praying in public with/for people who don't speak your native language). Now tell me, if God should ever speak audibly to you, what language do you think He'll speak? Your native language or your 2nd, 3rd, ect. language?

The fact of the matter is the "God-breathed" original is Aramaic, and this passage in particular deals a death blow to the suggestion that Yeshua ever spoke Greek to any of the NT authors:

Acts 26:14 Wrote:And we all fell on the ground. And I heard a voice saying to me in Hebrew, 'Shaul, Shaul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.'

This "Hebrew" is actually the Jerusalem dialect of Aramaic (then called "Hebrew"), not the Hebrew language of Moshe, because earlier on we are told:

Acts 21:39-40 Wrote:Paulos said to him, "I am a Yehudi man from Tarsus, the notable city of Cilicia in which I was born. I beg you [to] allow me to speak to the people." And when he allowed him, Paulos stood on the stairs and was motioning to them with his hand. And when they quieted down, he spoke with them in Hebrew and said to them,

This also deals a death blow to Hebrew Primacy, unless it can be proven that the language of Moshe was the native language of the NT authors.

The "word of God" is exactly that - in the language which He spoke it, and where the Brit Khadasha is concerned it's impossible for this language to be anything other than Aramaic. Besides all the textual evidence presented on this forum, this alone (which quite frankly is just simple common sense which is seriously lacking in popular western scholarship!) is enough to convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that Aramaic is the original language of the Brit Khadasha.
Shalom, Shlama, Salaam & Yiasou.
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#8
Shalom Christina,
With all due respect, I've been riding this train longer than you have. I can read Revelation, and the grammar is undeniably Semitic. The "Hebrew is Aramaic" argument fails to hold water to me, since both the Septuagint and Eusebius use an entirely different word to refer to Aramaic. We also have first century documents (such as the Bar Kochba letters) that were actually written in Hebrew.
None of this necessarily precludes a Greek original, though. I'm not saying I believe in a Greek original. I'm saying that the evidence for every side of this argument is inconclusive. It's like scholars arguing about the original language of Enoch 100 years ago. We simply didn't have enough data to know. Now we do have enough data to know. Maybe one day (B"H) we'll have enough information to make a definitive statement about the original language of the NT. For now, I don't think we have that.
Judean Aramaic? Syriac Aramaic? Hebrew? Greek? I don't know. I find Greek to be highly incredible in many cases, but I'm not scholar enough to entirely preclude the possibility.

I have no doubt that John's vision was originally given in a Semitic language. But that is as far as I can go. It is probably as far as anyone can actually go with any degree of certainty. There are constructions in it which are not in keeping with Syriac Aramaic, but only with Hebrew or, at most, Judean Aramaic.
The door is still wide open to Hebrew, since we do have clear evidence that it was spoken at least sometimes, and in some contexts in the first century, and since we know that Greek has another word for Aramaic, as do Hebrew and Aramaic.
We also have the evidence of Peter's accent. This was only applicable in the context of Hebrew, where Galilean accents became an issue because of Synagogue usage. Galileans were forbidden from reading the Torah in Judean synagogues because of their accent when speaking Hebrew. The Judeans were afraid they would mispronounce the Torah and render a different meaning to it.

There are so many more possibilities.
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#9
Shlama Akhi Dawid,

"There are so many more possibilities." ?

How many possibilities are there? Chinese, Hindi, Latin, Parsi, Arabic, Ethiopic, Sanscrit, Egyptian, Ugaritic?

Seriously, David, if there were an original Hebrew NT, it has not been known to exist for as long as we have any historical record or manuscripts.
The only possible viable candidates for the original are Greek and Aramaic, as they both exist. I know you believe the NT is Divine scripture.
It makes no sense that the Tanak would be preserved and the NT entirely destroyed; it makes no sense religiously, historically or theologically.
A medieval and corrupt Hebrew Matthew cannot be a stand-in for the original NT.

The Peshitta distinguishes the southern Judean Aramaic from the northern and Syrian Aramaic with the word, "Hebrayth" -"Hebrew". The written scripts differed as well as the pronunciations, as the Ashuri of Daniel's Aramaic of chapters 2-7 differs from the Estrangela of the oldest Peshitta mss. extant. Acts 1:19 establishes that the language (one language, not two or more) of Jerusalem was Aramaic. "Khaqeldama" is Aramaic; the Greek text transliterates it "Akeldama". Hebrew does not have a word, "Khaqel"; Modern Hebrew does have noun variations, including "khaqelayoth"- "farming???, but that is apparently an Aramaicized form; Biblical Hebrew has no such word. "Field" in Hebrew is "Sadeh" or "Shedamah"; "dma" is the Aramaic for "blood". Acts 1:19 in the Greek tells us that "Akeldama" represents the language
of Jerusalem and the region- clearly an Aramaic compound word.

But let's suppose for the sake of argument that Hebrew proper was the language to which Luke referred. That would mean the Jews spoke Hebrew and only Hebrew, as only one language is predicated of the residents of the region of Judea in Acts 1:19. Aramaic would not have been commonly spoken in that case.

But history tells a different story. The Jews had Hebrew scrolls read in their synagogues on the Sabbath; then after the reading of the Hebrew, a Targum was read, because the people did not understand Hebrew. This practice started at Babylon after the Jewish captivity. The Targums are evidence that in Babylon and in Palestine, the common language of the Jews was not Hebrew and was in fact, Aramaic.More powerful historical evidence is provided by Josephus, who wrote that "he composed" his Jewish Wars "in the language of his country and sent them also to the upper Barbarians."

Whiston???s note on the ???upper Barbarians???: Who these Upper Barbarians, remote from the sea, were, Josephus himself will inform us, sect.
2, viz. the Parthians and Babylonians, and remotest Arabians [of the Jews among them]; besides the Jews beyond Euphrates, and the Adiabeni, or Assyrians.
Whence we also learn that these Parthians, Babylonians, the remotest Arabians, [or at least the Jews among them,] as also the Jews beyond Euphrates, and the
Adiabeni, or Assyrians, understood Josephus's Hebrew, or rather Chaldaic, books of The Jewish War, before they were put into the Greek language.

"Chaldaic" is an old term for Aramaic, though often referred to as "Hebrew", as here by Whiston, the translator of Josephus' works in Greek. Josephus composed his works in Aramaic. The Assyrians and Parthians and Babylonians would have been able to read Aramaic, but not Hebrew. He also says he translated his works into Greek for the Romans.
Internal Biblical and historical evidence confirms the position that the Jews of the 2nd Temple period, and certainly of the 1st century AD, spoke, read and wrote Aramaic as their national language.
Alfred Edersheim wrote that ???the language spoken by the Hebrews was no longer Hebrew, but Aramaean, both in Palestine and in Babylonia; in the former the Western, in the latter the Eastern dialect. In fact, the common people were ignorant of pure Hebrew, which henceforth became the language of the student and of the Synagogue.??? -p. 10, The Life and Times of Jesus The Messiah

Hebrew would have been reserved for Rabbinical school exercizes and for the scribes who copied the Hebrew scrolls for the synagogues. Students might learn Hebrew in a classroom setting, but that would be a far cry from making it their native language, even as a Seminary student learning Greek, Hebrew or Latin will hardly ever make those his or her spoken language. How many Jewish kids who go to Hebrew school in the U.S. speak Hebrew in everyday conversation at home? Most likely, they speak English at home.

As for the Hebrew letters found from the post AD 70 period, I would say that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple changed everything for the generations following. The former traditions and the national spirit were radically altered and compromised, and understandably so. Even the prospect of the Temple???s destruction was seen by Peter, James and John as ???the end of the world???, as per Matthew 24:1-3; imagine the effect the actual destruction had upon the people of Israel at the time and upon their children. Perhaps they attempted to revive their pre-Babylonian Hebrew as a spoken tongue, to counter the effect of Gentile oppression and tyranny. It would be a major error to cite post Temple practices and documents as evidence to establish customs and traditions for pre AD 70 Israel. They were two different worlds entirely!

I have said nothing of the hundreds of internal Greek readings which are demonstrably translated from Peshitta readings, from Matthew to Revelation, and the fact that the Greek NT declares itself to be a translation of Aramaic in six places of the Gospels and Acts. I have shown this in notes for John 1:38-42 & elsewhere.

"But lies have winged feet; truth plods alongside the snail."

Therefore we must brush away the fast and furious locust-like cloud of lies to see and think clearly as we search for the truth. Perhaps it is already before us,at our feet; if not, we must be patient.


If the NT was written in Hebrew, where's the beef? Show us the manuscripts.Show us Hebrew mss. of 4 Gospels, or of any NT epistles.

Nrben al ylmw Nwrben aeraw ayms Lu 21:33
"Heaven and earth will pass away; my words will never pass away."

Blessings,

Dave Bauscher
Get my NT translations, books & articles at :
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://aramaicnt.com">http://aramaicnt.com</a><!-- m --> and Lulu.com
I also have articles at BibleCodeDigest.com
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#10
First, I'm not saying that I believe in a Hebrew origin. I just know more about that than I do about Greek primacy.

I don't have the time to reply to your entire message, but I would like to point out that you didn't reply to my objection to your own faulty omega argument.
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#11
Shlama Dawid,

Oh, I didn't know you were responding to my faulty omega argument, as I never made one. I did present Chris Lancaster's notes on Rev. 1:8 in both of my translations, to which you must be referring. You also have permission to use my name when writing or referring to me.

Chris's note makes the point that the Greek Omega - "w" looks like the Estrangela letter "Tau", which he illustrates with graphics, and which I reproduce in my notes on Rev. 1:8. It may be that a Greek translator actually saw the Tau in an Aramaic ms. as a Greek Omega. I will attempt to illustrate this here, (using Peshitta.org fonts) as I believe there is even more evidence to support his contention than he presented.If you cannot view the fonts, I suggest you download all of them from the web site.
It is very difficult, if not impossible to show Chris's note graphics as they are in the book, so please excuse the following attempts. If you have my NT, you can see the graphics there.

[font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]wt p0 pl0 [/font]="Alap also Tau"
A Greek Omega is w
If I simply remove a space after Alap, I get this:
[font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]wt p0pl0 [/font] ="Alpha [also] Tau" by misreading 4th & 5th letters from the right; the 4th as a final Alap [A] to the word, Alpha, the first letter of the Greek Alphabet, and again as the 1st letter of "Ap", meaning "also". SInce Alpha is a Greek letter, the translator would expect the following letter to be Greek also, and therefore saw [font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]w[/font][font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]t [/font][font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]p0pl0 [/font] - "Tau".
If the [font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]wt[/font] are pushed together, they look more like Omega : w
This interpretation would also set a precedent for the three other references to Alpha and Omega in Revelation, no doubt translated by the same person. Double readings in Revelation are not infrequent- reading the same letters twice, once as one word and another time as another word, sometimes with different spacing. I have noted some of these elsewhere in Revelation. "Sharp" and "double" are found several times in Greek Rev., where the Crawford has only "sharp";
But the two words are very similar looking in Aramaic:
Ashuri Aramaic Script:
atpyrx-???Sharp???
atynyrt-???Double???
Estrangela Aramaic Script
[font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]a0tpyrx[/font]-???Sharp???
[font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]a0tynyrt[/font]-???Double???
The earliest Greek copy of Revelation is 3rd century, so its archetype may have been translated from Estrangela script Aramaic, though I believe it was probably translated from something more like Herodian or Ashuri Aramaic script. In the case of Rev. 1:8, the first word- "Alpha" was a misreading, combining the Alap from the word "Ap" to "Alap", making the Aramaic letter Alap into the Greek "Alpha", the "Omega" was then assumed as a matter of course, or simply conceptually translated as "Omega", the last Greek letter, from the "Tau", the last alphabetic Aramaic letter. Otherwise, we have Estrangela being translated here, and a Dead Sea Herodian script original being the most likely original elsewhere in Revelation. A case could be made for Estrangela being the original, but not as strong a case as for Herodian script, overall.

Blessings,

Dave
Get my NT translations, books & articles at :
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://aramaicnt.com">http://aramaicnt.com</a><!-- m --> and Lulu.com
I also have articles at BibleCodeDigest.com
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#12
Now I have time for a complete response.
gbausc Wrote:Shlama Akhi Dawid,

"There are so many more possibilities." ?

How many possibilities are there? Chinese, Hindi, Latin, Parsi, Arabic, Ethiopic, Sanscrit, Egyptian, Ugaritic?

Please don't get sarcastic. Obviously the maximum is...I was terrible at algebra, but I think it's four to the twenty-seventh power. Four plausible languages, twenty seven books, so any number of possible combinations among the four. That's the maximum possible. Far fewer are plausible.

Dave Wrote:Seriously, David, if there were an original Hebrew NT, it has not been known to exist for as long as we have any historical record or manuscripts.
The only possible viable candidates for the original are Greek and Aramaic, as they both exist. I know you believe the NT is Divine scripture.
It makes no sense that the Tanak would be preserved and the NT entirely destroyed; it makes no sense religiously, historically or theologically.
A medieval and corrupt Hebrew Matthew cannot be a stand-in for the original NT.

First, I think you know what I think of the idea of supporting the Shem Tov. I find it completely insupportable.
Second, record and manuscripts, "record" depends entirely on your interpretation of the various terms for "Hebrew." If you believe, as I do, that it really means "Hebrew" then we do have fourth-century witnesses to a Hebrew gospel, most famously in Eusebius. As far as texts, so we don't have any extant Hebrew texts. Note my previous appeal to Enoch. For centuries scholars thought it was probably written in Greek.
Now, if you make the canonical argument, I have a response. Enoch is treated as canonical in several communities. So, yes, both of them were preserved, but in their traditional, not necessarily original, languages.
Secondly, I do not believe in divine preservation of the text. All I have to say is Psalm 22. Preserve in a traditional form. Not necessarily the original form.

Dave Wrote:The Peshitta distinguishes the southern Judean Aramaic from the northern and Syrian Aramaic with the word, "Hebrayth" -"Hebrew". The written scripts differed as well as the pronunciations, as the Ashuri of Daniel's Aramaic of chapters 2-7 differs from the Estrangela of the oldest Peshitta mss. extant. Acts 1:19 establishes that the language (one language, not two or more) of Jerusalem was Aramaic. "Khaqeldama" is Aramaic; the Greek text transliterates it "Akeldama". Hebrew does not have a word, "Khaqel"; Modern Hebrew does have noun variations, including "khaqelayoth"- "farming???, but that is apparently an Aramaicized form; Biblical Hebrew has no such word. "Field" in Hebrew is "Sadeh" or "Shedamah"; "dma" is the Aramaic for "blood". Acts 1:19 in the Greek tells us that "Akeldama" represents the language
of Jerusalem and the region- clearly an Aramaic compound word.

Please don't try to school me in Aramaic. I'm certainly not Mr. Younan, but I have spent countless hours pouring over Judean Aramaic texts and over the Peshitta.
I have never contended that they were speaking Biblical Hebrew. I would contend that, if they spoke Hebrew, it was somewhere between Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew. This kind of Hebrew is attested to in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most notably in the Great Isaiah Scroll, which I will go into in a moment. But we would expect to see borrowed words in post exilic Hebrew. We would also expect this in Judean Aramaic. And either of these being the spoken language does not preclude the possibility of a Greek written original.
As I said, I still prefer a Peshitta original, but based on a traditional argument. Sort of an NT "Unbroken Chain of Tradition." Or, as the introduction to the new JPS calls it, an "Unbroken Chain of Uncertainty."

Dave Wrote:But let's suppose for the sake of argument that Hebrew proper was the language to which Luke referred. That would mean the Jews spoke Hebrew and only Hebrew, as only one language is predicated of the residents of the region of Judea in Acts 1:19. Aramaic would not have been commonly spoken in that case.

This in no way precludes that other languages were spoken. It simply states that it was in the primary tongue of the region. If I said "in the language of Amsterdam and all of the Netherlands" then I would mean Dutch. Naturally. That doesn't mean that people who live in Amsterdam don't also speak French, German, and English. Virtually all Dutch citizens speak German and/or French. But it would be completely normal for me to say "The language of the Netherlands" and mean Dutch.

Dave Wrote:But history tells a different story. The Jews had Hebrew scrolls read in their synagogues on the Sabbath; then after the reading of the Hebrew, a Targum was read, because the people did not understand Hebrew. This practice started at Babylon after the Jewish captivity. The Targums are evidence that in Babylon and in Palestine, the common language of the Jews was not Hebrew and was in fact, Aramaic.More powerful historical evidence is provided by Josephus, who wrote that "he composed" his Jewish Wars "in the language of his country and sent them also to the upper Barbarians."

As you point out, this practice began in Babylon. And Jews are notorious for retaining traditions that are no longer relevant simply for the sake of tradition.
I pointed to the Great Isaiah Scroll earlier. It contains clear updates in vocabulary including, note, Aramaicisms. These indicate a colloquial Hebrew in which the prophets were read. This is just one example of colloquial Hebrew in postexilic Israel.
On the other hand, it does not say that He wrote it in the language of the upper barbarians, but sent it to them. Whiston makes a deduction, which is not completely unsupported, from this. However, this conclusion is also not entirely undisputed.
Note, also, that this indicates nothing about the "Hebrew" of Eusebius and the New Testament, since Josephus never calls it Hebrew.

Dave Wrote:Whiston???s note on the ???upper Barbarians???: Who these Upper Barbarians, remote from the sea, were, Josephus himself will inform us, sect.
2, viz. the Parthians and Babylonians, and remotest Arabians [of the Jews among them]; besides the Jews beyond Euphrates, and the Adiabeni, or Assyrians.
Whence we also learn that these Parthians, Babylonians, the remotest Arabians, [or at least the Jews among them,] as also the Jews beyond Euphrates, and the
Adiabeni, or Assyrians, understood Josephus's Hebrew, or rather Chaldaic, books of The Jewish War, before they were put into the Greek language.

"Chaldaic" is an old term for Aramaic, though often referred to as "Hebrew", as here by Whiston, the translator of Josephus' works in Greek. Josephus composed his works in Aramaic. The Assyrians and Parthians and Babylonians would have been able to read Aramaic, but not Hebrew. He also says he translated his works into Greek for the Romans.

Yes, sir, I know what Chaldaic means. However, multiple other explanations have been offered for this passage. Such as it not necessarily being meant for everyone, but for the scholars who would have understood Hebrew. It could have also been translated from Hebrew to Aramaic. On the other hand, they undoubtedly did speak Aramaic in Israel at the time. No reasonable scholar would deny this. The only question is whether or not they also spoke Hebrew. Note, also, that Whiston's comments are extremely outdated. They're three hundred years old. Much research has been done, and much new information has been discovered since then.
That's one thing about Peshitta primacy I've noticed. Much of the information used is outdated. Whiston, Lamsa, and Murdock all get quoted regularly. They were all great. And we would not be where we are without them. But we see further because we are standing on their shoulders.

Dave Wrote:Internal Biblical and historical evidence confirms the position that the Jews of the 2nd Temple period, and certainly of the 1st century AD, spoke, read and wrote Aramaic as their national language.
Alfred Edersheim wrote that ???the language spoken by the Hebrews was no longer Hebrew, but Aramaean, both in Palestine and in Babylonia; in the former the Western, in the latter the Eastern dialect. In fact, the common people were ignorant of pure Hebrew, which henceforth became the language of the student and of the Synagogue.??? -p. 10, The Life and Times of Jesus The Messiah

Again, this has been disputed in the two hundred years since Edersheim died.

Dave Wrote:Hebrew would have been reserved for Rabbinical school exercizes and for the scribes who copied the Hebrew scrolls for the synagogues. Students might learn Hebrew in a classroom setting, but that would be a far cry from making it their native language, even as a Seminary student learning Greek, Hebrew or Latin will hardly ever make those his or her spoken language. How many Jewish kids who go to Hebrew school in the U.S. speak Hebrew in everyday conversation at home? Most likely, they speak English at home.

That is one way to explain the evidence. On the other hand, it could be that most people were bi (or even tri) lingual.

Dave Wrote:As for the Hebrew letters found from the post AD 70 period, I would say that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple changed everything for the generations following. The former traditions and the national spirit were radically altered and compromised, and understandably so. Even the prospect of the Temple???s destruction was seen by Peter, James and John as ???the end of the world???, as per Matthew 24:1-3; imagine the effect the actual destruction had upon the people of Israel at the time and upon their children. Perhaps they attempted to revive their pre-Babylonian Hebrew as a spoken tongue, to counter the effect of Gentile oppression and tyranny. It would be a major error to cite post Temple practices and documents as evidence to establish customs and traditions for pre AD 70 Israel. They were two different worlds entirely!

Exactly. They were two different worlds. One was when the cultural center of the nation was still there, the people were a much more solid unit, and before many of the people were scattered.
Reply
#13
gbausc Wrote:Shlama Dawid,

Oh, I didn't know you were responding to my faulty omega argument, as I never made one. I did present Chris Lancaster's notes on Rev. 1:8 in both of my translations, to which you must be referring. You also have permission to use my name when writing or referring to me.

Chris's note makes the point that the Greek Omega - "w" looks like the Estrangela letter "Tau", which he illustrates with graphics, and which I reproduce in my notes on Rev. 1:8. It may be that a Greek translator actually saw the Tau in an Aramaic ms. as a Greek Omega. I will attempt to illustrate this here, (using Peshitta.org fonts) as I believe there is even more evidence to support his contention than he presented.If you cannot view the fonts, I suggest you download all of them from the web site.
It is very difficult, if not impossible to show Chris's note graphics as they are in the book, so please excuse the following attempts. If you have my NT, you can see the graphics there.

[font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]wt p0 pl0 [/font]="Alap also Tau"
A Greek Omega is w
If I simply remove a space after Alap, I get this:
[font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]wt p0pl0 [/font] ="Alpha [also] Tau" by misreading 4th & 5th letters from the right; the 4th as a final Alap [A] to the word, Alpha, the first letter of the Greek Alphabet, and again as the 1st letter of "Ap", meaning "also". SInce Alpha is a Greek letter, the translator would expect the following letter to be Greek also, and therefore saw [font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]w[/font][font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]t [/font][font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]p0pl0 [/font] - "Tau".
If the [font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]wt[/font] are pushed together, they look more like Omega : w
This interpretation would also set a precedent for the three other references to Alpha and Omega in Revelation, no doubt translated by the same person. Double readings in Revelation are not infrequent- reading the same letters twice, once as one word and another time as another word, sometimes with different spacing. I have noted some of these elsewhere in Revelation. "Sharp" and "double" are found several times in Greek Rev., where the Crawford has only "sharp";
But the two words are very similar looking in Aramaic:
Ashuri Aramaic Script:
atpyrx-???Sharp???
atynyrt-???Double???
Estrangela Aramaic Script
[font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]a0tpyrx[/font]-???Sharp???
[font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]a0tynyrt[/font]-???Double???
The earliest Greek copy of Revelation is 3rd century, so its archetype may have been translated from Estrangela script Aramaic, though I believe it was probably translated from something more like Herodian or Ashuri Aramaic script. In the case of Rev. 1:8, the first word- "Alpha" was a misreading, combining the Alap from the word "Ap" to "Alap", making the Aramaic letter Alap into the Greek "Alpha", the "Omega" was then assumed as a matter of course, or simply conceptually translated as "Omega", the last Greek letter, from the "Tau", the last alphabetic Aramaic letter. Otherwise, we have Estrangela being translated here, and a Dead Sea Herodian script original being the most likely original elsewhere in Revelation. A case could be made for Estrangela being the original, but not as strong a case as for Herodian script, overall.

Blessings,

Dave
I rest my case.
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#14
Shlama Dawid,

I find it difficult to have a serious discussion with you after reading your full response. 4 to the 27th power? Are we to accept this
as a serious argument mitigating the Peshitta primacy position? Come on, David, stop with the sophistry, already.

You seem more interested in defending yourself than discovering truth, even when you have no real position to defend.

An objective assessment of the facts will lead one to see the reasonableness of the Peshitta primacy position as supported by the predominant testimony
of historical and internal evidence. If you had read my NT and had seen all the evidence which I have illustrated in detail throughout the NT books, you would understand
my position much better. There is much more than tradition to support Peshitta primacy and refute Greek and Hebrew primacy. I have no doubt that the Peshitta primacy position is the correct one, and I was a Greek primacist for almost 30 years.

Even if you do not accept the Rev. 1:8 example as evidence, though I do not respect your cynical "I rest my case" as a scholarly response, there are many far better examples showing very plainly how various Greek readings arose from Dead Sea scroll script or Ashuri script readings in the Peshitta. BTW , if you are not using MS Internet Explorer browser, you may not even be able to read the Hebrew and Greek fonts here. I have found that my Firefox browser does not show them. The illustration of Rev. 1:8 in my books is a much better graphic.

Quote:This kind of Hebrew is attested to in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most notably in the Great Isaiah Scroll,
The Great Isaiah Scroll is Biblical Hebrew with Aramaicisms, that is, it often adds an Alap to the end of a word. If that is Mishnaic Hebrew, well that's news to me, but it certainly demonstrates that Aramaic was being used in Israel at the time (100 BC) and so much so, that it changed the Hebrew writing, even of Biblical mss.!
How does that support anything but the idea that Aramaic was the language of Israel at the time?

Your response to Acts 1:19 is very weak. It does not say "the primary language of the region"; its says "the language of the region". If there were more than one, Luke was quite capable of saying so, and he did not. "Khaqel dma" is not Hebrew; it is Aramaic. And Acts 1:19 is not the only such example showing the language of Israel was Aramaic. The Greek NT gives no examples of Hebrew transliterations of Yeshua's speech or that of others, as it does of Aramaic, except for its apparent quote from Psalm 22:1 in Matthew 27:46. And the Greek NT declares itself to be translating Aramaic into Greek in six places. The Peshitta has no statements to the effect that Greek was being translated into Aramaic.
Quote:Please don't try to school me in Aramaic. I'm certainly not Mr. Younan, but I have spent countless hours pouring over Judean Aramaic texts and over the Peshitta.
Just what in 'tarnation have you have been "pouring" over them? <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->

You also mention "unbroken tradition" as the reason you support Peshitta primacy, not argument from evidence. Greek primacy is the unbroken tradition of the West; it would appear tradition alone cannot settle the matter. We must weigh the evidence, and it is disingenuous to say the evidence for each position is equal. That is simply false. I know you did not say that, directly, but you imply it.

Eusebius simply used the Greek word ,"ebraisti", and you assume it means, "Hebrew". Have you looked up the word in a Greek lexicon? If you had, you would know it refers to "Chaldean"-"Aramaic". Oh, I know, those 19th century guys, what did they know? Thayers and Edersheim, who studied and wrote Greek and Hebrew all of their adult lives, and were familiar with the primary documents the Hebrew and Greek literature going back to Homer's Odyssey & Iliad 900 BC, and all the classic works written since, but they had no computer or the internet to Google search and dredge up every new fad and theory that crops up and may dissipate in a night. We know about evolution and global warming, humanism and communism, rockets to Mars and computer technology, so we must be way ahead of their thoughts and ideas, right?

We stand on their shoulders? I doubt it. Isaac Newton certainly did stand on the shoulders of giants; most of us never even appreciate, let alone master the work of such men, to be able to climb up to the shoulders of giants. I think that in the area of Biblical scholarship and spiritual understanding, we have been regressing, not progressing. Someone once told a famous evangelist, "You want to turn back the clock 50 years." He responded, "No, I want to turn it back 2000 years." He meant, he wanted to get back to the original message of God. We have lost something, something very great, and we cannot improve on what we lost, morally and spiritually. We need to go back and find it. Our forefathers had something we lack, generally today, as a culture. This is true for the whole Western culture, and that something is, certainty.

It's funny that moderns think that the further away from the origins of things we get, the more we know about them. For instance, scholars think that Westcott and Hort
in 1881 at Cambridge,England,knew more about what the original Greek Bible looked like than Jerome, who translated Greek to Latin in the 5th century, or Origen or Eusebius, who collected Greek mss.in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Well, we argue, we have mss. that are 1800 years old, back to the 2nd century. They, of course, had no access to 1st century manuscripts, which would have been no more than 200 years old?!??!!

What on earth were they copying from- 10 year old mss.? If a manuscript can last 2000 years, and we have quite a few from Israel, and yet we believe that we know better than a 4th century scribe that a 5th century Peshitta ms. is unreliable, because the original was lost and never accurately preserved, or the same for the Greek NT, then what have we learned from the Dead Sea Scrolls? Does not The Great Isaiah scroll tell us a different story? Does it not show that the 10th century Leningradensis was a very accurate representative of at least a 100 BC manuscript, and that we in the 21st century have in that 10th century AD ms., a Hebrew Bible that is at least very close to the Hebrew Bible used 100 BC? Think about it. An 12th century Peshitta ms. is annotated by its scribe to have been copied from a mid 4th century ms. (the Khabouris). If a 12th century scribe had an 800 year old ms., are we going to affirm that a 4th century scribe never saw a 300 year old manuscript? This is to stretch credulity beyond the breaking point. Modern Biblical scholarship is adrift in the middle of the Pacific in a canoe without a paddle or compass.We have bought a bill of goods from a bunch of charlatans.

I have a copy of the Codex W (Washingtonensis), whose readings I have cited in my translations. This ms. of the 4 gospels has all the evidence needed to verify its date as 1st century. It was recently found to be dated in Aramaic, in each Gospel, by Dr. Lee Woodard. His book is titled, Kodex W, Old and Holy. He has revised and enlarged it also, and given a new title, which eludes me just now. What is just as interesting about this, is that there are Aramaic signatures and codes in very small and cryptic seals, giving not only dates and names of copyists, but of place of composition! This is probably one of the first Greek copies of the Gospels, and many of its readings are unique and agree with the Peshitta, against all other Greek mss. Much more study needs to be done, but this ms. was formerly dated as 5th century, or 4th, at the earliest, but no one had even detected these Aramaic seals and signatures before.

Now why would the NT be lost? Why should we expect less for that, than of the OT?

Tradition is great if it is founded on truth. If it is grasped just to avoid the insecurity of uncertainty, then it is false security born of fear and doubt.

What you say about God not preserving His words is most troubling. If He does not preserve His words, what hope do we have of knowing the truth that sets us free?
We will be plagued with doubt, as we see we human beings are.

I have never been content to be uncertain about the Bible, its origins, its words, its language. You seem content to live with uncertainty, which saddens me a bit, especially since you are so young.

Edersheim passed away in 1889. That's not quite 200 yrs. ago, now, is it? If he were living today and were still teaching at Oxford and lecturing, I would be a fool not to avail myself of his lectures if I had the opportunity. Please do not put yourself on your own pedestal; humility is a mark of wisdom, and pride, the mark of fools. 40 years from now, you will hopefully change your thinking on hundreds of points, not the least of which will be how you think of yourself and how smart you are. Not that you will know less, but you will think less of what you know, and are, and more of what you do not know and what you are not. Hopefully you will think more of Him Whose very Name and Being is Truth, and Who said:
Nrben al ylmw Nwrben aeraw ayms Lu 21:33
"Heaven and earth will pass away; my words will never pass away."

Kqdu jpsm-lk Mlwelw tma Krbd-sar 160 (BHS)
160 ?? (ERV) The sum of thy word is truth; and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever. Psalms 119:60


Blessings,

Dave Bauscher
Get my NT translations, books & articles at :
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I also have articles at BibleCodeDigest.com
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#15
I believe I explained that number. Don't laugh at it's largesse until you look at what it represents.

Well, for starters, I don't believe that human beings are ever truly objective. At least, if it is possible, I've never seen it.
Second, I find it fascinating that you think I've never read your translation. I own it, and I use it regularly when I study the New Testament. I have read many of your notes. Most of them are based on ELS, which has serious issues. Of the others, polysemy are the best ones.
You shouldn't have doubt. In fact, you can't have doubt. If you're teaching it I would hope that you don't have any doubts. That is not the same as saying that there can be no doubt. Of course there is room for doubt. That is just honest.

You don't have to respect it, but you never answered my objection. The name "Omega" is Byzantine. Before that it was simply called "O."

Why would you modify a Hebrew text if you need a translation? Note also the Copper Scroll, a clear example of first century colloquial Hebrew.

It wasn't weak. He was capable of saying it if he wanted, yes. But if I were to speak of Dutch I would not say "The primary language of Holland." I would say "The language of Holland" and specify the others by saying "French" or "German."
Except that there are other clear possibilities.

I did not say that it is equal. I actually made a much bolder claim, that the evidence for both is inconclusive. Certainly they're unequal. That should go without saying. But it is irrelevant which has the weight of evidence if that evidence is still inconclusive.

Yes, I have researched the issue. And it is disputed among scholars. There is no clear universal opinion that ebraisti means Aramaic. If he read the LXX, which he undoubtedly had, he would know the Greek word for Aramaic.

I don't think there is any reason to get sarcastic. I was not implying that they were ignorant. We do, however, have more information than they did. Whiston lived before we knew that Koine was an actual Greek dialect! Since his time many Koine papyri have been discovered, but at his time it was uncertain if it wasn't simply Septuagint Greek. And that's just one example of what he couldn't have known. I am not doubting his knowledge or his skill, and I am not suggesting that we should ignore him. He was an excellent scholar. One of the best. But he did not have all the information that we did now.
With all due respect, I do not think that is a legitimate comparison. We could say that Eusebius had more information than Wescott and Hort. Perhaps. If they had two-hundred year old texts, which is questionable. But it is not the same as the difference between us and Whiston. We have more information due to archaeology than he did. We almost certainly do not have more information than Eusebius, Jerome, and the other fourth century fathers.

I also find it interesting that you are accusing me of picking up the latest fad theories, and yourself are a proclaimed fan of Codex W theory? This is the height of irony.
We know nothing without tradition.

I am okay with uncertainty. My faith is strong enough, and I am at peace.

I am not saying that Edersheim has nothing good to say. I am not saying that his are not valuable insights. I am not saying he was not a great scholar. I am simply saying that modern scholars have a lot more information available to them.
I am not basing any of this on thinking that I am some kind of genius. I am relying on scholars who are much more knowledgeable than I. Coming to the realisation that Peshitta primacy is not entirely certain has been a very humbling experience for me, because I had to acknowledge that I am not wiser, less biased, or smarter than the hundreds of scholars who are Greek primacists.
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