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Steve Caruso's problems with peshitta primacy
#1
I thought I would have look at Steve Caruso's arguments against Peshitta primacy, found here, <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://aramaicnt.org/articles/problems-with-peshitta-primacy/">http://aramaicnt.org/articles/problems- ... a-primacy/</a><!-- m -->

The arguments seems to be that as the present day interpretation of the peshitta misses the wordplay in Matthew 26 that the peshitta can?t be the original.
All it more likely means is that some COE member/s in the 3rd 4th 5th or 6th century missed the wordplay. Which would be expected as it wasn?t a wordplay in the East.
Peshitta primacy has no need to argue that later COE members must have understood every word.

I don't think this is really an argument against peshitta primacy, but against an idea that COE members several centuries later would be expected to ackowledge wordplays that weren't wordplays in their dialect.

A more parsimonious solution might be that Matti was written by a westerner, but that it was the COE who added plurals, vowel markings etc.. and standardised the meaning of ambiguous words several centuries later
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#2
As for the suggestion that "Rabbouli" must be a later addition, ...
Quote:however, ?Rabbouli? is not a common word at all. The only possibility is that it is a later Syriac word
I think the evidence is being overstepped here. one can say it's not a known word from that time....but....that's hardly conclusive. How likely is it that we know every word (even slang, which this may be) spoken in Judea from that time?
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#3
judge Wrote:As for the suggestion that "Rabbouli" must be a later addition, ...
Quote:however, ?Rabbouli? is not a common word at all. The only possibility is that it is a later Syriac word
I think the evidence is being overstepped here. one can say it's not a known word from that time....but....that's hardly conclusive. How likely is it that we know every word (even slang, which this may be) spoken in Judea from that time?

Shlama Akhi Judge,

It's impossible that this is a "Syriac" word, firstly because of the gloss ("which means teacher"), and secondly because the text itself calls it "ebraith" (Hebraic).

Of course it could have been a slang Judean term for which we have no (other) extant witnesses. "Absence of evidence, is not necessarily evidence of absence." <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->

+Shamasha
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#4
Brother Steve also mentions a word used Luke 23:46 that is absent in Galilean Aramaic. This assumes (in error) that if Luke wrote in Aramaic that he would have written in the Galilean or Judean dialect of Aramaic. Being a Syrian from Antioch, if he wrote in Aramaic (which I believe he did), he would have wrote in the Assyrian Aramaic (Syriac) dialect. Historians in the 1st century were also not concerned with the exact words used by their subjects, but sought to capture the meaning of their words. This shows that the Gospel writers did not feel the necessity to capture every single word of Jesus exactly as it was spoken. The assumption that Jesus had to have used a wordplay when he spoke the quote from Matthew is also erroneous.

Many wordplays are preserved in the Peshitta, more than in any other ancient version of the Gospels. If you translate the Gospels into Hebrew I am sure you will get some similar wordplays to the Peshitta because of how similar Hebrew and Aramaic are, but I don't think you will get as many. You hardly ever hear talk of wordplays in the Greek or Latin Gospels! The fact that there are so many wordplays in the Aramaic Gospels is not only evidence that Jesus spoke His teachings in the Aramaic language, but also adds evidence to the possibility that the Gospels were written in Aramaic. The Gospels and Acts have a stronger case for Aramaic Primacy than any other parts of the New Testament. The fact that the Galilean Aramaic words we have preserved in the Greek Gospels are so similar to the Assyrian Aramaic words shows a great affinity between the two dialects.
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#5
Paul Younan Wrote:Shlama Akhi Judge,
It's impossible that this is a "Syriac" word, firstly because of the gloss ("which means teacher"), and secondly because the text itself calls it "ebraith" (Hebraic).
Yes, good point. Which means that one thing we can deduce about it is that it is not a later Syriac word, or even Syriac.
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#6
ScorpioSniper2 Wrote:Brother Steve also mentions a word used Luke 23:46 that is absent in Galilean Aramaic. This assumes (in error) that if Luke wrote in Aramaic that he would have written in the Galilean or Judean dialect of Aramaic. Being a Syrian from Antioch, if he wrote in Aramaic (which I believe he did), he would have wrote in the Assyrian Aramaic (Syriac) dialect. Historians in the 1st century were also not concerned with the exact words used by their subjects, but sought to capture the meaning of their words. This shows that the Gospel writers did not feel the necessity to capture every single word of Jesus exactly as it was spoken. The assumption that Jesus had to have used a wordplay when he spoke the quote from Matthew is also erroneous.

Many wordplays are preserved in the Peshitta, more than in any other ancient version of the Gospels. If you translate the Gospels into Hebrew I am sure you will get some similar wordplays to the Peshitta because of how similar Hebrew and Aramaic are, but I don't think you will get as many. You hardly ever hear talk of wordplays in the Greek or Latin Gospels! The fact that there are so many wordplays in the Aramaic Gospels is not only evidence that Jesus spoke His teachings in the Aramaic language, but also adds evidence to the possibility that the Gospels were written in Aramaic. The Gospels and Acts have a stronger case for Aramaic Primacy than any other parts of the New Testament. The fact that the Galilean Aramaic words we have preserved in the Greek Gospels are so similar to the Assyrian Aramaic words shows a great affinity between the two dialects.

Shlama Akhi,

There's a double standard, in case you didn't already know, among modern "scholarly consensus." Namely, if the NT was written in Aramaic - it must have been written in the exact dialect that Jesus and the Apostles spoke. However, if the NT was written in Greek, then it needn't be in the exact dialect that Jesus and the Apostles spoke.

Worded differently - it's ok of the GNT was written in the "universal Koine of Greek" .... but it's not ok if the ANT was written in the "universal Koine of Aramaic."

See where I'm going with this?

The first thing a Greek Primacist will tell you is that it's impossible that the Peshitta is the original NT, because it's not in the same dialect that Jesus spoke. (that's debatable, but for sake of argument, grant them that.)

But, is the GNT the original NT because it's written in the same dialect that Jesus spoke ?

Why can't the Peshitta be the original NT, from which the Greek was translated ? Even if it is in a more "universal Koine" dialect, isn't that the point? To reach the maximum audience ? Most speakers of Aramaic in the 1st century were eastern, not western. It would make sense to write the original NT in the eastern dialects, not the western.

Or, is that not the argument that the GPs use for Koine ?

+Shamasha
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#7
You're absolutely right. Syriac was the most widely spoken Aramaic dialect around that time also, if I'm not mistaken.
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#8
I put together all of the verses in RSV which appear under the filter "which means", adding the filter "Hebrew" for John:

Matthew 1: 23 (RSV):
[23] "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and his name shall be called Emmanuel"
(which means, God with us).

Matthew 27:33:
[33] And when they came to a place called Gol'gotha (which means the place of a skull),

Mark 5: 41:
[41] Taking her by the hand he said to her, "Tal'itha cu'mi"; which means, "Little girl, I say to you, arise."

Mark 15: 22:
[22] And they brought him to the place called Gol'gotha (which means the place of a skull).

Mark 15: 34:
[34] And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "E'lo-i, E'lo-i, la'ma sabach-tha'ni?" which means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

John 1: 38:
[38] Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, "What do you seek?" And they said to him, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"

John 1: 41:
[41] He first found his brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means Christ).

John 1: 42:
[42] He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, "So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas" (which means Peter).

John 5: 2:
[2] Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Beth-za'tha, which has five porticoes.

John 9: 7:
[7] saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Silo'am" (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

John 19: 13:
[13] When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, and in Hebrew, Gab'batha.

John 19: 17:
[17] So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Gol'gotha.

John 20: 16:
[16] Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rab-bo'ni!" (which means Teacher).

There are a few things left out, among them the Jewish town of "Arimathea", which, one would think, might be a sturdy enough Jewish word that it might need translating. I've already mentioned "Fourth Watch". I probably left out something very important - I usually do. Add whatever below and I'm sure we can discuss it.
I've left off my comments for now.

CW
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