I now have a website!

[Andrew Gabriel Roth]

Thank You for Your reply, Andrew.

When we use word docs, open them, they can be easily modified and saved accidentally. But, the Acrobat Reader is safe.
You will do your website much more precious if You put Peshitta into Acrobat Reader. This is my personal point of view.

AGR:

Okay...I can do that although I am not sure when my webmaster will be able to put it up. In the past though he as been quite efficient. I know of one other place where the Peshitta versions of the Gospels are in ktav ashurri script online, but the other books were never done. I would actually like to see a ktav-ashurri-estrangela interlinear as a powerful teaching tool.

Actually what I really want to see is the "whole megillot" as we say in my family: Estrangela text on top, Ktav Asshuri below that, Latin transliteration below that , original word order English translation below that and on the sides perhaps (looking like a Talmud page almost) syntactical English, and footnotes on the bottom of the page. Just a dream though, but I have done something along those lines when I translated Aramaic Galatians for a colleague in Jerusalem. While I am not at liberty to release that yet because he is using it in his book first, I plan on doing so at a later time, so perhaps you can see what I have in mind on that score.

I plan one day to make a program that converts Estrangelo into Qumran caves ashuri script. I believe that this kind of script is the closest to what Jesus and Apostles used. What do You think about this?

AGR:

I think it is pretty clear that such had to be case for Y'shua and his talmidim in Israel. There is not a doubt in my mind that such is the case, and talmudic evidence even strengthens such a view in my opinion (Mas Shabbath 116a). My personal belief, which has become more detailed over the years, is that the NT autographs are identical to the Peshitta versions we have except that dialectically speaking they would have stuck with "YHWH" rather than "MarYah", but the Aramaic of the two versions of Israel script and Edessan script would read 100% the same.

I also believe very strongly that the Peshitta itself gives powerful testimony to exactly when a tranliteration from Hebrew style to Estrangela would have happened. I have found evidence in the book of Romans and in Acts that certain confusions and mistakes that Zorba makes are only possible with an Estrangela alap-beet. Romans 5:7 is one of these, as the difference between two words is that of an AIH and a NOON in the second to last position in a word. If Romans 5:7 was in Hebrew script at that time, there is no way that confusion could happen. But in Estrangela it most certainly could.

So where that leaves us is:

1) Archaeological evidence by the truckload that the original Nazarenes used ktav-ashurri script in Israel but wrote in the Aramaic language (i.e. Caiaphas' ossuary says BAR and not BEN for "son" and there are dozens of others just like it). Bar Kochba Letters are in Hebrew like script, but some are also in Aramaic, etc., so I think we have this period in history well covered in making the case for ktav ashurri as used in sacred literature by the Nazarenes in Israel. BUT...

2) We also know with equal certainty that ktav ashurri would have been widely read outside of Israel and into the wider Aramaic speaking world that Kefa, Rav Shaul, Yochanan, Ya'akov Ha Tzadik and Matti were ministering to, hence the choice for Estrangela. And so, if we assume that the historical Rav Shaul wrote Romans, and we also assume that Rav Shaul knew the difference between "righteous" and "wicked" which is the precise variant between the Aramaic and the Greek, then the only conclusion possible is that Romans was transliterated into Estrangela before Rav Shaul's death in the year 67. And yet early church fathers and the talmud retain a memory of the ktav ashurri versions of the same text as well.

So, if Romans was put into Estrangela by the year 67, I have to believe that the Gospels and Acts would have been done even earlier, and Acts also has its version of this kind of proof. It is for these reasons and the COE assertion that living apostles brought the originals to their door, that I believe almost all of the NT would have been circulated to them by the year 80.

Hope this helps!
Ivan.