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Greek quoting Aramaic in Ephesians
#1
Shlama,

I was recently in Ephesians and noticed the following concerning this passage:

4:8 Because this is spoken: ???He ascended to the heights, and made captive captivity, and gave gifts to the sons of men.???

This is a quotation from Tehillim (Psalms) 68:18 (17 in the Hebrew). In the Hebrew, the text reads just a bit differently, with "took" instead of "gave," but the implication of the "taking" was indeed to "give," so the Aramaic rendering is contextually accurate, just not a word-to-word translation.

The Aramaic is of great note because it serves to show that it is quoting from the Peshitta A???NK - the ???Old Testament??? in Aramaic -- The Peshitta A???NK translation reads one letter difference than the Peshitta New Covenant's rendering - a mere orthographical difference of no real translational importance.

In contrast, the Septuagint renders this exact same phrase as: ELABES DOMATA (took gifts), which is different from the Greek New Covenant???s rendering of: EDOKEN DOMATA (gave gifts).

What this shows is that the passage quoted in the Greek New Covenant MUST to be a translation of an Aramaic source, since the quote in Aramaic aligns with the Peshitta A???NK???s reading, but the Greek doesn???t align with the Septuagint's reading from whence it supposedly was derived, but rather, parallels perfectly the Aramaic rendering!

so for this instance, there are two options to consider for those in the opposing primacy camps:

A. For the Greek primacist, this is an example of the Greek NT quoting an Aramaic OT passage. There is just no other way around it.

B. For the Aramaic primacist, this is an example of the Greek NT quoting from the Aramaic NT.

either way, whether one embraces Greek or Aramaic primacy, ARAMAIC had to be the source-language of this text.
since the Septuagint, quoting from the Hebrew, translates as literally as possible, the Peshitta A"NK is seen as the text responsible for inserting the "gave" idea into the fray, which is where the Peshitta NT took it's choice of word, and finally ends up explaining why the Greek NT text differs from the Septuagint.

snazzy! <!-- s:biggrin: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/biggrin.gif" alt=":biggrin:" title="Big Grin" /><!-- s:biggrin: -->

Chayim b'Moshiach,
Jeremy
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#2
Burning one Wrote:Shlama,



The Aramaic is of great note because it serves to show that it is quoting from the Peshitta A???NK - the ???Old Testament??? in Aramaic -- The Peshitta A???NK translation reads one letter difference than the Peshitta New Covenant's rendering - a mere orthographical difference of no real translational importance.

I may have misunderstood, but isn't it that the NT (whether greek or aramaic) agrees with an Aramaic targum?
An Aramaic targum that has survived reads gave and Pauls letter reads gave, and all other versions read took.
This psalm IIRC is an allusion back to an incident in one of the early books of the bible (the first 5), but i cant at the moment remember exactly where.
There is IIRC an incident where gifts are given (by Moses?), although I may be misremebering (if that's a word ) :-)
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#3
judge Wrote:
Burning one Wrote:Shlama,



The Aramaic is of great note because it serves to show that it is quoting from the Peshitta A???NK - the ???Old Testament??? in Aramaic -- The Peshitta A???NK translation reads one letter difference than the Peshitta New Covenant's rendering - a mere orthographical difference of no real translational importance.

I may have misunderstood, but isn't it that the NT (whether greek or aramaic) agrees with an Aramaic targum?
An Aramaic targum that has survived reads gave and Pauls letter reads gave, and all other versions read took.
This psalm IIRC is an allusion back to an incident in one of the early books of the bible (the first 5), but i cant at the moment remember exactly where.
There is IIRC an incident where gifts are given (by Moses?), although I may be misremebering (if that's a word ) :-)

Shlama,

yes, the targum to Psalms DOES agree, but i don't believe it is a viable choice to claim as source material for either Greek of Peshitta. check out the relevant portion as translated from the targum:

You arose to the firmament, prophet Moses. You took captive the captives, you taught the words of the Instruction, you gave gifts to the sons of men...

the Peshitta's rendering in Ephesians does not read as the above. rather, the Aramaic rendering from Ephesians read the same as the Peshitta A"NK, which also doesn't include the inserted material of "firmament," "prophet Moses," or "taught the words of the Instruction." if it were legitimately targumming, then it should have contained those targummed additions.

neither does the Greek read anything like the targum except for the presence of the "give" instead of "take." instead, it reads as if it were translated directly from the Aramaic Peshitta text, whether one wants to believe it to have been OT or NT.

what i found most interesting is that normally, the Greek texts are obviously quoting from the Septuagint when referencing OT passages, or even at times the reading doesn't even align with any known OT manuscript. but this particular instance finds us with the situation where the Aramaic is the only solution. and the best Aramaic candidate for this particular source material is ultimately the Peshitta A"NK.


Chayim b'Moshiach,
Jeremy
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