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before I begin
#15
Kara Wrote:Jeremy,

I enjoyed reading your post. Thank you, too, for your encouraging words. May God bless you and yours!

Regarding the Peshitta's strongest points, I agree that it is closest to the Aramaic original. But what is meant by "original?" If by original, we mean Jesus' oral teachings, then based on the high level of uncertainty and turmoil surrounding the early Gospels (i.e. uncertain authorship, questionable memories, character, and motivations of unknown authors, intentional/unintentional scribal corruptions, theological disputes, etc), we can only say that the Peshitta preserves the original idiom behind what Jesus may or may not have said---saying more than this is superfluous. However, if by original, we mean the manuscripts originally authored by members of the earliest Aramaic-speaking Christian communities, who pseudonymously wrote under "Matthew," "Mark," "Luke," and "John" in their own styles and formats, then in terms of closeness, we can only say that there is a moderately high probability that the Peshitta is closer to this "proto-Gospel" than the Greek Gospels for linguistic reasons alone. However, without autographs, we can never say anything absolute about the Peshitta.

Quote: and the Aramaic disagrees with itself really in only a couple of instances, and those are in regards to known theological controversies between the East and West. so if i had to go with accuracy alone, the Peshitta would win hands-down regardless of personal bias.

I would have a large problem with any corruptions because I would not know where the true words begin and where the scribe ends. Studying early Christianity (before the fourth century), for instance, we know that the Gospels were in constant flux. We also know that before the churches canonized their NT books, they made subtle textual corruptions (one letter here, a word there), to justify their theological positions. We find, as you have testified, such corruptions in the Peshitta, which means that it, too, was not immune to human pride. This brings us to a few unavoidable questions:

(1) How many subtle textual corruptions entered the Syriac Gospels before they became "peshitta" or "straight?"
(2)To call the 4th century Syriac NT "straight," is to imply that what came before it was "crooked?" How so? What about the Syriac Gospels needed to be corrected?
(3)For the sake of argument, let's assume that the original authors of the Gospels were (a) pious (b) sane © blessed with amazing memories and (d) unbiased when they sat and recalled what they heard about Jesus' life. If what they wrote was "corrected" or made "straight," can we really say that we are reading all of the historical Jesus' actual words? Are we reading most of his actual words? Which are his words and which are the scribes'?

Finally, I believe that the "son of the man" term inside the Syriac Gospels will strengthen my argument. If you recall, I tried to argue that this term is a Greek christological term that the Syriac Church, in conformity, forced into Jesus' dialogue .If my hypothesis is correct, it will demonstrate either one of the following:

(1) The Syriac Gospels are creative translations of the Greek Gospels
(2) Scribes interpolated the Syriac Gospels in conformity to 4th/5th century theology.

Shlama,

i apologize, i got busy and forgot about this particular topic. my bad. i do want to make a few comments on your reply, though.

you wrote:
without autographs, we can never say anything absolute about the Peshitta.

okay, you can legitimately take this road. but to be honest, not a single person that i've ever heard claimed that the Greek were autographs, either. scholars are clear time after time that the Greek are copies only. so if this is true for the Greek AND, as you suggest, the Aramaic, then we are in an equally bad place. how can you say anything absolute about ANY of the NT texts or contents? now, if you aren't a believer, that won't be an issue for you, as it is relative to begin with. but if you are, then you've run into trouble. i started looking at the claims made by Aramaic Primacists exactly because i felt that the plethora of variants in the Greek texts damaged strongly the proposal that they could be trusted as faithful renditions of the autographs. i wondered precisely how i was supposed to decide what the "Word" was when there were so many variants in the Greek. this is a legitimate pondering, and i firmly believe the Peshitta is the only answer to the question. why? in another post to Judge you stated that we needed to prove:

© the Syriac Gospels were not creative translations of the Greek Gospels. By ©, I mean that the wordplays, puns, etc, as cited by Aramaic primacists, are not textual corruptions attempting to restore the original idiom lost in the Greek Gospels (which themselves could be a bad translation of the "original" Palestinian-Aramaic Gospels).

if you have ever tried to translate wordplays or puns into another language, you will find it to be VERY difficult. the likelihood is that you can't maintain it without dynamic equivalence in translation. the reason the Peshitta is so truly fascinating in this respect is that there is no "loss" of meaning when going from the Greek to Aramaic, but a very visibly and recognizable "gain." Moreover, this gain is in such that there is not a "change" of meaning as we would expect there would be, where instances of dynamic equivalence might be found. Rather, the opposite is the case. The Greek possesses very clear examples where dynamic equivalence can be seen IF, and only IF, it were a translation from the Aramaic. honestly, the wordplays/puns are of a greater weight than you are giving them. talk to any linguist or translator and ask them how easy it is to carry over a pun from one language to another, or to translate in such a way so that the result is a pun/wordplay that didn't exist in the original language but is now contained in the new translation. it is extremely difficult to do. this is a strong weight that you can't dismiss, or i should say, shouldn't dismiss. i have a copy of a Hebrew translation of the Greek NT, and every so often, on a rare occasion, you will run across a translated passage that does indeed "sound" better than the Greek. so i am not denying that it CAN happen. but the rate at which it occurs in the Peshitta is astounding, which strongly suggests not a translation, but a source-text.

you wrote:
(1) How many subtle textual corruptions entered the Syriac Gospels before they became "peshitta" or "straight?"
(2)To call the 4th century Syriac NT "straight," is to imply that what came before it was "crooked?" How so? What about the Syriac Gospels needed to be corrected?


i think you are putting too much emphasis on the title of the Aramaic text as relating to the contents itself. but if you want to go that route, consider this: Peshitta can also mean "simple/straightforward," as in the idea of no addition, as it is related to the idea of peshat. in this regards, one could say that the Greek texts, as well as the Harklean and Philoxean Aramaic texts that were unquestionably influenced by the Greek, were not considered straightforward or simple, but arose from the connection to them being translations.
to this, i would strongly suggest reading just a sample of the reasons why the other Aramaic texts, including the Old Syriac, aren't of merit when placed side by side to the Peshitta's text. it is found on this particular site, even:

<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://peshitta.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1916&start=0&hilit=OSS">viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1916&start=0&hilit=OSS</a><!-- l -->

furthermore, if the Old Syriac is the specimen from whence came the Peshitta, where did the Peshitta get the REST of the books of the NT from? The OSS is not a complete manuscript by far, so if you go that route, the explanation is only in part.

i think i could get a resounding "amen" from those others on this board who also read the Peshitta that books by the same author in the Peshitta NT have the same flavor. for instance, reading Paul's Aramaic letters are noticeably different than reading Peter, etc.. now you could argue that it just means one scribe was called upon to translate all of one man's writings, and all of anothers, etc., but there is a point to this: the level of wordplay/puns are consistent from one author to another, normally, showing that each author wrote his letter individually, and was not translating. this goes back to the difficulty of the wordplay/punning merit mentioned above. to make this happen in a translation, you would need the greatest minds on the planet each taking a series of Greek letter manuscripts, plus having those manuscripts in all different assortments so as to account for variants and somehow weave those variants into a perfect Aramaic term, and producing a translation that is better than the original. such an idea is absurd. take it over to the Greek, for instance, to the letters of Peter, and you have scholars seriously debating WHO wrote 2nd Peter, since the style is so very different than 1st Peter. if it were written by the same author, do you think he would change his style so drastically that people wouldn't think he actually wrote it? this leans towards translation of a text, rather than the Greek being the original source.

furthermore, if you're interested, there is an online book available that lets you scour the Peshitta and the Old Syriac verse by verse for yourself to see the differences, so you don't have to rely on anyone's interpretation of the data but your own, if you like. let me know if it sounds like something you could benefit from and i can give you the link to where you can get it.

you wrote:
Finally, I believe that the "son of the man" term inside the Syriac Gospels will strengthen my argument. If you recall, I tried to argue that this term is a Greek christological term that the Syriac Church, in conformity, forced into Jesus' dialogue .If my hypothesis is correct, it will demonstrate either one of the following:

(1) The Syriac Gospels are creative translations of the Greek Gospels
(2) Scribes interpolated the Syriac Gospels in conformity to 4th/5th century theology.


i thought in our previous discussion of the Bar Anasha issue that i clearly showed you it was a common phrase, used even in the Hebrew OT? grammatical features over time added the "a" on the end, so i don't know how it could be argued to stem from a Greek christological term.


Chayim b'Moshiach,
Jeremy
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Messages In This Thread
before I begin - by Kara - 02-22-2010, 09:51 PM
Re: before I begin - by Nimrod Warda - 02-22-2010, 10:56 PM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 02-25-2010, 01:26 AM
Re: before I begin - by Burning one - 02-25-2010, 03:12 AM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 02-25-2010, 07:40 PM
Re: before I begin - by judge - 02-26-2010, 12:40 AM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 02-26-2010, 01:26 AM
Re: before I begin - by judge - 02-26-2010, 12:26 PM
Re: before I begin - by judge - 02-26-2010, 12:43 PM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 02-26-2010, 06:05 PM
Re: before I begin - by Nimrod Warda - 02-26-2010, 07:03 PM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 02-26-2010, 07:55 PM
Re: before I begin - by judge - 02-26-2010, 08:59 PM
Re: before I begin - by judge - 02-26-2010, 09:05 PM
Re: before I begin - by Burning one - 03-04-2010, 09:43 PM
Re: before I begin - by ograabe - 03-05-2010, 03:42 AM
Re: before I begin - by Burning one - 03-05-2010, 03:46 AM
Re: before I begin - by judge - 03-05-2010, 04:02 AM
Re: before I begin - by Burning one - 03-05-2010, 04:47 AM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 03-06-2010, 01:05 AM
Re: before I begin - by judge - 03-07-2010, 11:06 PM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 03-08-2010, 07:34 AM
Re: before I begin - by judge - 03-09-2010, 06:03 AM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 03-10-2010, 01:09 AM
Re: before I begin - by judge - 03-10-2010, 02:08 AM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 03-10-2010, 05:23 AM
Re: before I begin - by Burning one - 03-10-2010, 07:24 AM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 03-10-2010, 07:44 AM
Re: before I begin - by Nimrod Warda - 03-10-2010, 02:09 PM
Re: before I begin - by Phil - 03-10-2010, 03:25 PM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 03-10-2010, 06:27 PM
Re: before I begin - by Nimrod Warda - 03-10-2010, 08:14 PM
Re: before I begin - by judge - 03-10-2010, 10:57 PM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 03-11-2010, 01:14 AM
Re: before I begin - by Stephen Silver - 03-11-2010, 01:57 AM
Re: before I begin - by judge - 03-11-2010, 03:52 AM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 03-11-2010, 04:40 AM
Re: before I begin - by Burning one - 03-11-2010, 05:45 AM
Re: before I begin - by Burning one - 03-11-2010, 06:07 AM
Re: before I begin - by Nimrod Warda - 03-11-2010, 03:35 PM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 03-11-2010, 05:28 PM
Re: before I begin - by Kara - 03-11-2010, 11:36 PM

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