09-15-2011, 06:42 PM
Shlama all,
I feel compelled to respond to Chuck's near assertion that the Western Peshitta (Peshitto) is a translation of Greek
in its entirety. This is simply false. I am not even sure that the Western five books from the Harklean version are still used in Syrian or Maronite churches, but I know that the 1905 Peshitta edition does not use the Harklean version for the Western 5 books. This edition seems to have been popularly received into many Peshitta Bibles and New Testaments on the internet and in print. John Gwynn's crtitical edition is used for these books, and he contends that the manuscripts he used, including the Crawford ms. of Revelation, represent a text very Peshitta like in style and idiom, probably indistinguishable from the Peshitta to any Aramaic scholar familiar with the Peshitta's syntax. Gwynn shows and lists the many differences between the Harklean version and his "S" text which he believes was the Philoxenian version of AD 508
Gwynn was a Greek primacist, so naturally he believed the excellent Aramaic of his edition's Aramaic manuscripts for the books of 2nd,3rd John, 2nd Peter, Jude & Revelation, virtually identical to the Peshitta, was itself a translation of Greek, as he believed the entire Peshitta was translated from Greek, both Eastern & Western. This is his theory, which he cannot prove, as no one has ever found an identified Philoxenian version.
I demonstrate in the West. 5 books of my translation notes that even in those books, the Greek texts are various translations of the Aramaic text in Gwynn's edition, and sometimes mistranslations. The Greek of those books is not original.It is translated from the Aramaic of a manuscript like the Crawford ms., which is a Peshitta ms. containing all 27 books of the NT, and is a manuscript with Eastern readings in the 22 books of the Eastern Peshitta canon. The Crawford readings of the West. five are very close to what Gwynn's edition has in those books, and very unlike the Harklean translation of Greek into Aramaic.
Those who hold that the NT 27 book canon is the divinely inspired canon of the New Covenant writings must ask the question: "Would God preserve 22 out of 27 books in the original canon and let the originals of the other 5 be lost?"
I don't think we can have it both ways. Either the book of Revelation is Gods word, or it is not. If it is, then it is preserved, since God's words cannot be lost. If the original is lost, then it is not God's word. This seems logically consistent with scriptural teaching of Old and New Testaments.
Blessings,
Dave Bauscher
I feel compelled to respond to Chuck's near assertion that the Western Peshitta (Peshitto) is a translation of Greek
in its entirety. This is simply false. I am not even sure that the Western five books from the Harklean version are still used in Syrian or Maronite churches, but I know that the 1905 Peshitta edition does not use the Harklean version for the Western 5 books. This edition seems to have been popularly received into many Peshitta Bibles and New Testaments on the internet and in print. John Gwynn's crtitical edition is used for these books, and he contends that the manuscripts he used, including the Crawford ms. of Revelation, represent a text very Peshitta like in style and idiom, probably indistinguishable from the Peshitta to any Aramaic scholar familiar with the Peshitta's syntax. Gwynn shows and lists the many differences between the Harklean version and his "S" text which he believes was the Philoxenian version of AD 508
Gwynn was a Greek primacist, so naturally he believed the excellent Aramaic of his edition's Aramaic manuscripts for the books of 2nd,3rd John, 2nd Peter, Jude & Revelation, virtually identical to the Peshitta, was itself a translation of Greek, as he believed the entire Peshitta was translated from Greek, both Eastern & Western. This is his theory, which he cannot prove, as no one has ever found an identified Philoxenian version.
I demonstrate in the West. 5 books of my translation notes that even in those books, the Greek texts are various translations of the Aramaic text in Gwynn's edition, and sometimes mistranslations. The Greek of those books is not original.It is translated from the Aramaic of a manuscript like the Crawford ms., which is a Peshitta ms. containing all 27 books of the NT, and is a manuscript with Eastern readings in the 22 books of the Eastern Peshitta canon. The Crawford readings of the West. five are very close to what Gwynn's edition has in those books, and very unlike the Harklean translation of Greek into Aramaic.
Those who hold that the NT 27 book canon is the divinely inspired canon of the New Covenant writings must ask the question: "Would God preserve 22 out of 27 books in the original canon and let the originals of the other 5 be lost?"
I don't think we can have it both ways. Either the book of Revelation is Gods word, or it is not. If it is, then it is preserved, since God's words cannot be lost. If the original is lost, then it is not God's word. This seems logically consistent with scriptural teaching of Old and New Testaments.
Blessings,
Dave Bauscher