Word play in aramaic and syriac

[Paul Younan]

Shlama akhay,


here's the textual evidence i suppose Murdock was referring to concerning alternate readings for RABBULI:

found this in the trusty ol' "Tetraeuangelium sanctum juxta simplicem Syrorum versionem ad fidem codicum, Massorae, editionum denuo recognitum." i held my breath while i wrote that and almost passed out....

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://ia600609.us.archive.org/3/items/tetraeuangeliums00puse/tetraeuangeliums00puse_bw.pdf">http://ia600609.us.archive.org/3/items/ ... use_bw.pdf</a><!-- m -->

take a gander at footnote 16 on page 597. i see RABONI, RABBONI, RABUNI... from different massoretic traditions for Yukhanan 20:16. the masorahs come from the referent JACOBITICUS.

soooo, scribal error is still the concensus, right?


Chayim b'Moshiach,
Jeremy

I think the reference there is to "Jacobite", meaning likely one of the many revisions they were infamous for.

I'm fairly convinced it's a scribal error. This is not a "Syriac" word, otherwise there would've been no need for a gloss in the Peshitta. Nor would Mar Ishodad have slammed the copyist as "lazy." If anyone knew "Syriac", it was Mar Ishodad (who was a candidate for the Patriarchate in his time due to his extensive writing and exegesis.)

It's not a Greek-to-Aramaic mistake. It's an Aramaic-to-Aramaic mistake. The word Mary spoke is Aramaic. A simple copyist error based on two letters that are often confused for one another.

Nothing that changed the meaning, it just caused an unnecessary gloss and, truth be told, it should have been corrected in later copies (despite the general hesitancy to do such things).

Instead, unfortunately, it was propagated. Most likely because it didn't affect the meaning. If that's the worst of the Peshitta textual tradition, we are still leaps and bounds ahead when compared to the "other side."

Or, Steve might get struck by lightning on a sunny day (khasli) if an inscription is unearthed in a first-century Nazareth tomb that reads with a quirky dialect like "Here lieth Rabboulan Shimon, son of so-and-so." I bet Akhan Steve converts to Peshitta-primacist within the hour the article is published.

+Shamasha Paul