05-19-2010, 04:24 PM
Why would all the single original text need to be Greek? Intuitively, it seems probable that the original text was a composite of two or three languages. Those likely being Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, maybe some Latin, etc. Maybe "Q" was Aramaic, Matthew and a few others Hebrew or Aramaic, Paul's letters Greek. Which is which would depend some upon who the author was and who the target audience was. Who knows for sure, I am just speculating.
Could it be that the Greeks were the first to assemble all 27 into one language, that of Greek. And a few centuries later the same occurred with the Peshitta, for the 22, in Syriac. Maybe some of the original texts lost through time to the Greeks were still available to the writers of the Peshitta in the 5th century. Not that they were the original, but a very direct first or second generation copy of them.
Again, all this is pure speculation on my part, but it seems intuitively probable to me.
Could it be that the Greeks were the first to assemble all 27 into one language, that of Greek. And a few centuries later the same occurred with the Peshitta, for the 22, in Syriac. Maybe some of the original texts lost through time to the Greeks were still available to the writers of the Peshitta in the 5th century. Not that they were the original, but a very direct first or second generation copy of them.
Again, all this is pure speculation on my part, but it seems intuitively probable to me.