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CRI Journal on Lamsa
#1
I would really appreciate if I could get the feel that many on this forum have towards 1989 article in the Christian Research Institute Journal admonishing George Lamsa's work.
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Having only a beginners (if even that) knowledge regarding Peshitta primacy the article did raise a couple of interesting questions that I would like answered:

There are also many dialects of Aramaic. Dwellers in Jerusalem noticed Peter's Galilean dialect (Matt. 26:73), even though he lived only 60 miles away. These dialects -- both representatives of western Aramaic -- differ even more noticeably from the dialects of eastern Aramaic used at Edessa (home of the Peshitta) and Lamsa's homeland.
1. My understanding according to Peshitta Primacists is that the language of the Peshitta was in fact the language that Christ. Could anyone clear this up?

Lamsa asserts that Jesus and His disciples never heard Greek spoken[34] and that no portion of the New Testament was originally written in Greek, but was first translated after Constantine's conversion in A.D. 318.[35] He assumes the Greek translators were deceitful and ignorant, intentionally adding and deleting passages and wrongly translating many parts.[36] The only documentation Lamsa ever offers is a quotation of Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews xx.12.1). While Lamsa takes him to mean that few Jews learned Greek, Josephus actually said that he himself lacked the precision and pronunciation in Greek which he desired.
2. Is there any other evidence to support Lamsa's claim?

Wide Use of Greek in Israel (Section)
3. Was Greek in fact as prevalent as the article makes it out to be?

Otherwise, just general thoughts or comments that anyone would like to address regarding the article would be appreciated.

Thanks!
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#2
Hello,

Brother Lamsa has done a great deal for the Aramaic cause.

However, a translator, should as much as possible, not insert his own opinion which he did.
Besides the remarkable different translations the article mentioned (e.g. about angles/Jesus son-ship etc) he also translates 'possedness' with illness.

Simply because he believed that 'demons' never are a cause for illness.

His assumptions about the Greek translation are really not backed up by history.

It was a fact, there lived many, many greek speaking people in the middle-east. To state, for instance, that the Galatians received a letter from Paul in Aramaic, is kind of weird.

There even has been found a Greek fragment in cave 7 of the Dead See, which seems to contain a passage of Marc (in Greek).

There are aramaic primacists, who believe that the Greek Bible was translated instantly from Aramaic. I've got no names, but I'm one of them <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile --> <!-- s:biggrin: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/biggrin.gif" alt=":biggrin:" title="Big Grin" /><!-- s:biggrin: -->
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#3
Is the peshitta dialect exactly the same as Christs dialect? Exactly the same? It is probably impossible to know.
Jesus Himself was probably familiar with more than one dialect anyway. We can see that the peshitta dialect is much the same as whatever the greek translators used. You can find a thread on this here somewhere (for some reason i cant find it now).

Here is an article based on or repeating something Paul wrote on , on this forum IIRC

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Quote:3. Was Greek in fact as prevalent as the article makes it out to be?
In the absence of evidence we cant make this conclusion. What evidence does the article provide?
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