08-07-2012, 03:19 AM
DrawCloser Wrote:Hi forum users,
I have some questions, especially for Paul Younan
[1] Does the Church of the East tradition teach that they received only twenty-two "certified / handsigned" books from apostles and / or their associates?
[2] Is it true that the West Syriac churches only had the only 4 Gospels + Acts circulating and then got copies of the rest of the Aramaic NT from the East?
[3] Are there 'textual families' for the Peshitta text?
[4] In any given Eastern manuscript, are there any deliberate modifications?
Hi DC
1- I don't know that there ever were hand certified or signed copies of any of these books. We do know that the liturgy was set early, and that it includes readings set for specific days from these 22 books. Also we do know that the early manuscripts had only 22 books. And that patristic sources only quoted from the 22 books. It's based on these things that the church has a 22 book bible, and not so much that it has any sort of tradition on which ones were authentic or not.
2- I'm not sure of the history of the Syriac people or Church. Aside from language, it's a very different group with a very different history in a different empire.
3- There are two families, western and eastern. Scholarly consensus is that the western text has undergone revision and is less reliable then the eastern, due primarily to the geographical isolation of the eastern text.
4- I'm not aware of any deliberate modifications. There are minor scribal errors, but that's everywhere and increases with each manuscript that's copied. Depends on how many iterations a manuscript has been through. Most eastern manuscripts are two to three iterations through, so they are in very high agreement with one another.
+Shamasha Paul