1 Corinthians Aramaic primacy doubted...

[DrawCloser]

But on the other places, it has Armoyee, _not_ Aramoyee and according to the lexicon, Armoyee means 'gentiles'.

The issue is that it may be possible, that originally when it was written, there were not vowels (except aleph of course) in the writings, so syrians (Aramoyee) were an ethnic group which just like the Jews had a big population and they also lived as the Jews did, along the Mediteranian.
Later, when Christianity was a fact, 'Syrians' became internally divided as 'Syrians' and pagans. And the Pagans were called 'Armoye' (syrians) and the Christians, were called Kristiyane.

The meaning 'gentiles' also was used for the same devision among the ethnic Greeks. The Christians were called 'Christians' and the non-Christians were called 'Greek' (gentiles).

Shlama Akhay.

It is important to note a couple of historical facts.

The Aramaic-speaking world during this time was split between Jews and Arameans (Gentiles). Geographically speaking, the nearest Gentiles to the Jews were Arameans. In fact, the Jews originated with (were originally) the Arameans.

Over time, the word "Aramaye" became synonymous with "gentile" in order to differentiate the two Aramaic-speaking populations. This was such a problem to the early Christian church, that we changed our own self-destination to the Greek form "Syriac" so as to shake off the negative connotation that "Aramaye" had taken on.

Like the Jews, the Arameans spread all over Mesopotamia, Arabia, Africa and Anatolia, and were commonly found amongst each other due to their cultural and linguistic affinity. This spreading helped to make Aramaic the Lingua Franca of a large area, and multiple empires, for over a thousand years.

As to the "wisdom" question, and I don't mean this to sound harsh but will say it anyway...long before the Greeks even learned how to read and write (indeed before they settled down in what we recognize as a civilized condition), the Mesopotamians (including the Arameans) were inventing almost every aspect of culture and science and education. While the Greeks were counting on their fingers, Mesopotamians were writing down calculus and geometry on clay tablets.

So again, I'm not sure that "wisdom", as relates to scientific thought, applies to the Greeks solely as they inherited this wisdom (and pretty much everything else) from the civilizations of the Semitic world, not the other way around.

+Shamasha

Hold on. I am confused. May you please clarify -- why then doesn't the text read Armoyee instead of Aramoyee in those verses I quoted? Why did the writer or scribe have to use a different word in 1 Cor. 1:22-24, 10:32?

If both Gentiles (Armoyee) and Arameans (Aramoyee) sought wisdom, and if Aramoyee and Armoyee both then meant 'gentiles', why the different reading here if the aramaic usually uses Armoyee? <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/huh.gif" alt="" title="Huh" /><!-- s --> <!-- s:dontgetit: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/dontgetit.gif" alt=":dontgetit:" title="Dont Get It" /><!-- s:dontgetit: -->

And side note, distazo (or Paul), why were the Aramean Christians called Kristyane? That has Christos as a root instead of something like Meshikha. Why a Greek title in an Aramean area?