11-07-2003, 03:32 AM
Just when I thought it would be over and he wasn't interested, I get this email: (Conder's replies are in red)
So now we can go ahead, apparently, with debating Aramaic primacy... <!-- s8) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/cool.gif" alt="8)" title="Cool" /><!-- s8) -->
Quote:My apologies Paul for the tardiness in answering.
There is no doubt that we started off on the wrong foot. I never intended to, nor did I ever, challenge you to debate the contents of the New Testament.
Yes, we did. This is the problem with go-betweens speaking on one's behalf.
If you read my words carefully, I said that I would like to show you how the Aramaic clears up many contradictions in the Greek NT.
I don't understand how the Aramaic can show me that, if the contents are off limits. Even if you can prove that the Aramaic is the original language of the NT, my questions over its contents remain.
I cannot speak for what Christopher thought the debate would be about. However, I read nothing in his original email to you that makes me think that he meant an all-out debate on theological topics.
Chris said that he invited me "to read the original Bible, with no errors", followed by an invitation to debate you. I think it reasonable on my part to assume that you were going to address my objections to the NT. Obviously my assumption was wrong.
Having said that, I can see how you easily misunderstood the terms of the debate.
How about we start out fresh?
If you believe that the NT was originally penned in Greek - I challenge you to a very specific scholarly, courteous and professional debate in which I believe I can demonstrate to you that the Aramaic text of the Peshitta is the ancestor to all the various families and texts of the Greek NT. Nothing more, nothing less.
Paul, as I stated, neither of us are scholars. I have to rely on the research of experts who have dedicated their lives to the New Testament. The bulk of these men and women have concluded that the NT was originally penned in Greek. If the NT was indeed written by the apostles of Jesus, then I could believe it, or part of it, was written in Aramaic. However, there is no evidence that the apostles mentioned in the Gospels ever lived, let alone wrote anything in the fourth decade of the first century. This is why I want to discuss specifics of the Gospel stories.
If this interests you - great. If it doesn't, that's fine too. All I need is the word "no" from you, and I will delete all content on my website about you and our previous debate and it will be as if it never happened. That is my promise to you. You have my word on it.
In my response to your questions, I raised a number of question other than those you deemed outside your rules. You brushed those off as "hodge-podge" quotations, or words to that effect. Why not go back and address those questions and observations, point by point? However, my focus is trying to get someone, anyone, to prove to me that my stand on the NT is in error by answering the massive contradictions I have found there. I understand that this doesn't interest you, so I will leave the point alone.
I do hope you say "yes", though. Not because I want to "beat" you or "win" a debate. It's because I really think that you, as a free-thinker, will be able to see past all of the lies that traditional NT scholarship has shoved down our throats here in the West for the last 2,000 years.
I can agree with that last observation. But don't you think that it is barely possible that your Eastern scholars have also failed, or have falsified research?
NOTE: I do not want to debate the inspiration of the NT with you.
How about it?
Okay. Please start by answering the questions in my last reply that do not deal with theology, but the Peshitta's history.
So now we can go ahead, apparently, with debating Aramaic primacy... <!-- s8) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/cool.gif" alt="8)" title="Cool" /><!-- s8) -->
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan