Couple of questions

[Andrej]

Thanks so much for all the answers. Anyone here that can answer the remaining questions, no.

Also, i remembered another question:
13) Did anyone consider that the varying Greek texts come from different interpretations of the Aramaic? Like, there was one translation into Greek, but later, someone felt the need to correct some of the Greek based on the aramaic, and thus we have the differences?

And a new question came up, since the Peshitta is supposed to be nearly the same:

from what i am aware of, there are around 350 Peshitta manuscripts. as for "families," this may not be the best term to use as it is understood in the Greek textual criticism realm. there is the Eastern and the Western Peshitta, with the Western being referred to usually as the Peshitto instead of the Peshitta, but even then some less-specific may still call the Peshitto the Peshitta. but there is a difference between them. the Western Peshitto contains the Western 5, plus a very minor set of variation elsewhere in the text.

Someone posted a link to a Book on this forum, i read a few chapters, and this stuck out: The disputed passage in 1 John v.7 is not to be found in [...] any copy of the Syriac scriptures which I have yet seen.. i looked up 1 John 5:7 on <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.dukhrana.com">http://www.dukhrana.com</a><!-- m -->, and the two Peshitta sources differ, as do the translations. Is this one of the very few differences?

the consonance between the Peshitta texts is a whopping 99.995%, if i recall correctly. the consonance between the Greek is actually much less than you've suggested: the 7 best Greek manuscripts only contain a 62.9% agreement, as tallied by Kurt Aland, in The Text of the New Testament, and this was ignoring verses with only one variant reading, at that.

i don't mean to disagree, but it seems like there were two sets of measurement at work. 99.5% is word-by-word, ignoring variances in spelling, i think. i do not know, how 62.9% came to be, but, if you measure book-by-book, NOT ignoring spelling, you may even reach 0% (since someone may have misspelled one single word, making it 0% agreement for that book).

Paul would write in Aramaic for the same reason that Josephus composed his works first in Aramaic for the Jews who lived in the Diaspora. even though in the Greek empire, the Greek language was not the most prevalent, and this was especially the case for those of differing ethnic backgrounds who lived within the Empire.

So you would say that Paul would write Aramaic even to a group of people he clearly and exclusively labeled as gentiles (like in Romans)? i think there can't be any argument about the Diaspora here, since Paul would surely make a distinct greeting for the Jews (Else, they would be offended for being called gentiles.) If Greek was not bridge language, what was (Latin?)? Do you mean to say Roman gentiles spoke Aramaic?

Thanks for all your help with this, please do not misunderstand my wish for clarification, i actually kind of wish Aramaic primacy is true (makes a whole lot of Greek textual criticism unnecessary), it would be awesome to have Jesus' completely original and untranslated words available. But i won't accept this without having reached certainty that there is reason to believe this.

Is anyone able to help me out with questions 2), 8 ), 10), 11), 12)

Thanks Jerry, Konway87, Burning One!!!