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United We Stand!
#1
Shlama, everyone!

I would like now to address a few matters that should be important to all Aramaic prioritists. It's really not my intention to argue here against the Peshitta. I see Peshitta as a very important text that definitely goes back to ancient times.

But, unfortunately, among the mainstream biblical scholars, nobody knows anything either about the Peshitta or about the Old Syriac gospels. So how can we address this unfortunate situation?

What I really want to do is to find the way forward towards the situation where the Aramaic priority in general is taken more seriously by the professional scholars.

Right now, 99% of the professional biblical scholars in the English-speaking world don't really have the first clue about any of this Aramaic stuff! And I see this as tragic... Ancient gospels that are written in the language of Jesus are being marginalised! It's a MASSIVE DELUSION out there!

So how do we make the way forward in this area?

It seems to me that, at this time, the Semitic prioritists are quite sharply divided among the Peshitta Primacists and the Old Syriac Primacists. And let's not forget that there are also quite a few Hebrew prioritists too out there. (Some of them argue for the priority of the Hebrew Matthew, and there's also the Jerusalem School, who argue for the priority of the Hebrew Luke!)

But, meanwhile, all of those combined are still something less than 1% among the total number of professional NT scholars...

At this time, the whole NT studies area is totally ruled by what I call the Alexandrian/Egyptian Greek monster. This is a real Goliath, a monster without a brain. All those Egyptian Greek prioritists out there really don't have a clue about any other theories in Textual Criticism. They are just a bunch of Egyptian zombies!

So how do we deal with this situation? To begin with, it must be said that the whole NT Textual Criticism is now in a terrible state of decline (and the TC scholars actually admit that themselves!). So _this_ is where the problem begins already...

Compared to 100 years ago, for example, the NT Textual Criticism really declined... Back 100 years ago, there were a lot more scholars working in TC field than today!

The only real and visible opposition today to the Egyptian dominance, it seems, are the Byzantine prioritists. And only then come the Semitic prioritists, which, as I say, are badly divided among themselves.

And so, the way I see it, we must build coalitions among us in order to challenge the Egyptian Zombie. It is possible, I think, to make strategic alliances between the Byzantine folks, the Peshitta folks, and all the other Semitic prioritists.

For the Peshitta people, the enemy isn't really the Old Syriac people -- the Big Enemy is elsewhere! In fact, the Old Syriac theorists can provide some important ammunition for the Peshitta people to argue their case. How can this be done? Let me explain.

Rightly or wrongly, it seems like, at this time, the Peshitta is typically seen as quite similar to the Byzantine text. So this is probably the main obstacle today against the Peshitta priority... A typical NT professional will say, "The Byzantine text is late, the Peshitta is similar to the Byzantine text, so therefore the Peshitta is also late!"

But, in actual fact, the Byzantine text is _not_ late; I'm quite sure that it's a lot more original than the Egyptian text!

So, in such a situation, it seems like Byzantine prioritists should be seen as the natural allies of the Peshitta prioritists...

Now, the Egyptian mainstreamers do respect ancient MSS. This is one argument that actually registers in their zombified minds. But the Western/Peripheral text supporters like myself do have quite a few ancient MSS, and these ancient MSS happen to have _hundreds_ of readings that agree both with the Peshitta and with the Byzantine MSS!

So if we all focus on those hundreds of passages where the Peshitta, the Old Syriac, the Old Latin, the Diatessaron, and the Byzantine text all agree, we have hundreds of good arguments against the Egyptian text! This way, all of us can go together against the Egyptian monster, and actually make him very hot and uncomfortable in his high seat...

But if we all fight against each other all the time, the Egyptian positions will only appear stronger in comparison.

So, as I see it, we should really be building common alliances against the overwhelming dominance of what I see as this false Alexandrian/Egyptian monster. Together, and with some hard work, we can make a dent in the Alexandrian dominance, to weaken and undermine this false Alexandrian monstrosity.

There's so much _positive_ work than can be done to help identify the places where the Peshitta, the OS Syriac, and the Byzantine text _all agree with each other_ over against the Alexandrian text! So let's work together to locate those passages, to explore them further, and to build working alliances around this area. There's so much work that can be done in this area that still remains undone...

And here I can give a useful example from my own new research. Recently, I've been studying the way the word "Behold!" is used in the ancient MSS of the Gospel of Luke, in a variety of languages. I have compiled this data into 3 big Tables, so here it is.

The word "BEHOLD!" in Luke
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/idou.htm">http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/idou.htm</a><!-- m -->

This is completely objective data, that contains no bias of any sort. And it can be analysed in a variety of ways. So here's a good example of how often the Aramaic Peshitta and the OS Aramaic go together against the Egyptian text. As I count it, there are the whole 20 cases there in these Tables where the Peshitta and the OS go together against the canonical Greek.

As it happens, this data doesn't really show any common alliances between the Aramaic and the Byzantine texts (there's only one such case there, in Lk 17:21b). The word "Behold!" isn't really good for this particular purpose. But I'm aware of great many other cases where the Aramaic and the Byzantine texts go together against the Egyptian Greek.

Anyway, this is really all I'm trying to say now. Instead of focusing on our differences (however substantial), we should be focusing on our common strengths. Let's agree to disagree about some things, and find the way forward in our common struggle. The odds are very heavy against us, it's true, but I do believe that we can make some good progress together.

Shlama,

Yuri.
Yuri Kuchinsky | Toronto | <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/bbl.htm">http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/bbl.htm</a><!-- m -->
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#2
I don't agree with your theory that the Peshitta is 'closer to the Byzantine'. This is what many say, but I have seen many examples (check the split word forum) where the Alexandrian got it right and others where the Byzantine got it right. It looks like Paul is correct, that they are independant translations of the Peshitta. Both are corrupted.

As for Old Syriac, I think that is the biggest enemy... A lot of people's arguments against the Peshitta are often really against the Old Syriac!
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#3
<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.peshitta.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46">viewtopic.php?t=46</a><!-- l --> is a good example where the Alexandrian got it right and the Byzantine got it wrong.

Believe me, when I started looking at this stuff, I wanted the Byzantine to 'win', but the truth is they are both quite wrong in many areas.

I always had something against Alexandrian because of the NIV calling Yeshu', Lucifer <!-- s:angry: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/angry.gif" alt=":angry:" title="Angry" /><!-- s:angry: -->
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#4
drmlanc Wrote:I don't agree with your theory that the Peshitta is 'closer to the Byzantine'.

No, Chris, this is not my theory... I'm not trying to argue this at all.

This is just a common perception, that's all.

Quote:As for Old Syriac, I think that is the biggest enemy... A lot of people's arguments against the Peshitta are often really against the Old Syriac!

For example?

Shlama,

Yuri.
Yuri Kuchinsky | Toronto | <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/bbl.htm">http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/bbl.htm</a><!-- m -->
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#5
"No, Chris, this is not my theory... I'm not trying to argue this at all."

Cool. Both texts have their ups and downs...

"Quote:

As for Old Syriac, I think that is the biggest enemy... A lot of people's arguments against the Peshitta are often really against the Old Syriac!


For example? "

From discussions I have had with Greek primists. They often will say things like "the Peshitta is a revision of the Old Syriac", when it is actually sort of the other way around. And things like "the Peshitta is translated from the Greek" - This is not so, it is the OS which is translated form the Greek. When there are faults in the OS, people like to use this as evidence against the Peshitta, which is of course, ridiculous.
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