Exploring evidence of Peshitta primacy

  • Thread starter Thread starter ltravis
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
On another angle,
Take the Ronald Knox study bible. One CAN find codes hidden in that – which were OBVIOUSLY intentional.
Consider psalm 33 (34).
At all times I will…
Be all my boasting…
Come sing …
Did I not …
Ever look…
F…
Can’t you see the code? IT’s childs play! And it shows up in the “original” language too – only it doesn’t quite work in English – as there are a few letters missing from our 26 letter alphabet…

Did the translator mess up?
Hmm … codefinder doesn’t appear to locate this one! It’s not equally spaced.
 
{Sorry, I need to keep the sarcasm down – but I couldn’t resist.}

On the second idea of translation of the Peshitta:

The problem is that what one sees in the original is what one translates. If someone translates literally and not phonetically, these things get lost. The primacy of the Peshitta is interesting – but stastistcs about “most” translators will never tell anyone what a specific translator decided to do.

For example, 10 was a susperstitious number to the Egyptions at the time of the Hebrew enslavement – It meant “divine” or “good”, and Egyptians would routinely add up the number values of plant names to decide which were medicine (Much to the death of many a patient I’m sure.)

So, When the Hebrew authors (who knew Egyptian culture, and had Egyptians with them who needed to obey the law) wrote the ten words (Not sentances, not commandments – besides count the full sentences, you’ll get 11 or so.) What did they really mean – the literal 10 or the Good commands? How does one translate it and why?

Reduction or increments of words seems pretty shaky grounds for judging a text, although it is evidence. Being able to see the intention of the author when they make an obvious (but not doctrine changing) mistake is far more convincing of what is a translation – and what isn’t.

I guess my question is – can the statistics be refined – can one compare the Lukian and Pauline texts which ARE CLEARLY translations and show a statistical difference in word reduction? (Not conclusive for primacy, but could be used as a provocative estimator to decide whether or not to research further – non difference = more likely a translation since same period authors, and translations are being carried out.)
 
Very interesting, but the more I learn about their methodology in this ELS stuff, the more I’m pretty sure that it’s “seeing what you wanted to find”.

So, let’s just look at the most obvious evidence against Peshitta primacy – the works which were written to Greek audiences. Is there any reason to believe these works would have been initially authored in any language other than Greek?
 
No, I think the burden is really in the other direction – although I would love to find Hebrew/Aramaic originals. The reason is that the entire area was Hellenized under Alaxander – the Great macedonian (outcast Greek). Although his influence was deteriorating, the Sadducees were very Greek influenced – as were the Romans and Egyptians at that time. Many Egyptian Hebrews had lost the ability to speak Hebrew – and only knew Greek. It was that which caused the OT septuagint translation to occur – to pacify Hellenized Jews in Egypt. So, to reach the broadest audience – Greek was it.
Hebrew language was elitist – perhaps needed only to reach small pockets of people who were not hellenized – shepherds, or purists…

I can think of a few reasons to wonder if certain texts were written in Hebrew/Aramaic/etc. Matthew’s immediate audience may well have been Hebrews who still clung to the Aramaic as primary. There are textual signs, such as the use of couplets in the Beatitudes similar to the Psalms, giving 8 beatitudes – which Luke who is shows much more Greek culture, renders as four – since he is not using the Hebrew literary poetic structure. Now Jesus could have spoken both Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek – and have given the beatitudes twice, but even then – the poetic structure recorded in Matthew is different from typical Greek literature, and doesn’t even show up in Pauline texts. etc.
Couplets can be done in Greek – but they don’t appear in any of the other Greek NT. Texts, and they are not a technique used in normal Greek texts. So this shows Matthew’s background, and suggests his audience may have been more receptive to the Aramaic/Hebrew.
 
Huiou_Theou said:
I can think of a few reasons to wonder if certain texts were written in Hebrew/Aramaic/etc. Matthew’s immediate audience may well have been Hebrews who still clung to the Aramaic as primary. There are textual signs, such as the use of couplets in the Beatitudes similar to the Psalms, giving 8 beatitudes – which Luke who is shows much more Greek culture, renders as four – since he is not using the Hebrew literary poetic structure. Now Jesus could have spoken both Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek – and have given the beatitudes twice, but even then – the poetic structure recorded in Matthew is different from typical Greek literature, and doesn’t even show up in Pauline texts. etc.
Couplets can be done in Greek – but they don’t appear in any of the other Greek NT. Texts, and they are not a technique used in normal Greek texts. So this shows Matthew’s background, and suggests his audience may have been more receptive to the Aramaic/Hebrew.
Click to expand...
This brings up a really interesting point that I had considered earlier. Why are we assuming the entire original NT had to be wholly Aramaic or wholly Greek? Couldn’t some of it (like Matthew) been Aramaic, and others (i.e. Romans) been Greek? Also, if this were considered, where would that leave the Peshitta? Could it have been part original Aramaic and part translation from Greek, or is it most likely to be a translation from prior Aramaic (of which there is no extant evidence of) and Greek? Thoughts?

Huiou - I appreciate the thoughts concerning my 2nd proposed proof item. I will explore the issue deeper and see if I can get to some more specific examples for the increased terminology in the Peshitta.

Thanks,
LT
 
Perhaps this is a stupid question or thought… I have not read the whole thread here (I apologize if this creates a problem). I got stuck on this buried Bible code idea… I mean, I agree with the OP that the code would have to be present in the original language the Gospel was written in to be considered legitimate, but seriously…

If the Gospel can not be taken at face value (in this I am not referring to differences in translation, etc, but that the subject is exactly as it is stated) but has to be deciphered by scholars who have discovered some hidden, secret, ancient code, then would that not mean that what we all believe is the Word of God is inherently deceptive?

That whole idea strikes me as dangerously close to heretical, possibly even blasphemous. At the very least, it would likely shake my faith if it were to be proved beyond a doubt to be true.

I don’t mean this as an attack… I just really don’t get it. Why should we need a secret code deciphered to understand the Word of God?
 
ltravis said:
This brings up a really interesting point that I had considered earlier. Why are we assuming the entire original NT had to be wholly Aramaic or wholly Greek? Couldn’t some of it (like Matthew) been Aramaic, and others (i.e. Romans) been Greek? Also, if this were considered, where would that leave the Peshitta? Could it have been part original Aramaic and part translation from Greek, or is it most likely to be a translation from prior Aramaic (of which there is no extant evidence of) and Greek? Thoughts?
Click to expand...
I would guess it’s possible that there was an original Aramaic form of some volumes in the New Testament. My original concern was the claim that the whole of the Peshitta was a completely accurate copy of the supposed original entirely-Aramaic New Testament, and thus could be trusted as more accurate than the Greek texts we have.

My general feeling at this point is that the Peshitta is entirely a work of translation from Hebrew, possibly Greek, and earlier forms of Aramaic, though no one can say for sure which parts were originally Aramaic when authored.
 
My general feeling at this point is that the Peshitta is entirely a work of translation from Hebrew, possibly Greek, and earlier forms of Aramaic, though no one can say for sure which parts were originally Aramaic when authored.
Reply With Quote
Click to expand...
I agree, but would like to note – some of the distinction is artificial.
Hebrew became Aramaic – but that doesn’t mean that the two are entirely distinct. The language evolved into Aramaic, but much of the original Hebrew is preserved even in Aramaic. I’ll leave it to the people who can actually read the scripts to do the fine points, but – the authors of the Peshitta, being close in time to the original writing hold out the real possibility – even in the case of a double translation – of being closer to the original Matthew than the Greek. etc.

The reason is that languages of higher similarity can aid in the correction of errors in translation. eg. a poor Greek translation might make sense to an author in the original language or a similar language more than to a Greek, and hence might translate back more accurately in a sort of error correction. I would expect a fair amount of this to occur, although the entire text would not be expected to be more accurate.
 
Indeed, but if the works were originally in Greek, composed by a fluent Greek-speaker, does this apply?

In any case, I think we’ve fairly certainly asserted that the Peshitta is not an entirely preserved copy of a completely Aramaic original of the New Testament, right?
 
Yes, obviously it would not apply to any Greek original which is not at least composed / thought out in the Hebrew/Aramaic tongue.
 
This discussion is evolving nicely. Its very interesting. It seems evidence thus far (pending the rest of the case I have been to lazy to present so far 😊 ), is that the Peshitta was likely a translation from original Aramaic/Hebrew and Greek. Is that fair assessment, or is there a strong case apparent that the *entire *NT must have been Greek originally? If it was indeed a combination, how does this apply to Matthew, which is a good candidate for being an Aramaic original? Would the first translating of Matthew most likely have been (1) Aramaic > Peshitta, (2) Greek > Peshitta or (3) Aramaic > Greek and what is the evidence for the most likely of these?

I promise I will post more of the Peshitta primacy case, as that was the overall context of this thread. I am leaning to the idea it is a translation from something, but will do justice to the argument by addressing the rest of the case.

Thanks all,
LT
 
Here is the fourth argument from the Peshitta proponents. Le me quote the paragraph since I cannot state it any clearer:
Variant readings in Greek texts support Peshitta primacy. Many variants in Greek can be explained as different translations of the same Aramaic word in the Peshitta version, where double meanings are possible. There is no explaining the Peshitta as a translation of any particular Greek text type. It cannot have come from the Byzantine Greek text, nor from the Alexandrian Greek text. 54% of the Peshitta’s readings in 140 verses of Mark and Acts are all distinct from all Greek texts, Western, Alexandrian and Byzantine. All of them can be shown to have derived from the Peshitta.; the Peshitta cannot have derived from any one of these, in the majority of cases.
Click to expand...
aramaicnt.com/Research/Proofs%20of%20Peshitta%20Primacy.pdf

I confess that this sounds impressive, but I can’t quite understand what it is asserting. Can anyone help out?

LT
 
It’s an interesting point, but one must keep in mind that the distinctions that make up different text types are often very small. It also doesn’t account for the idea of other Aramaic text types (which as I understand, do, or did, exist).

Basically, it’s saying “we can explain all the Greek differences as being only small errors if we assume the Peshitta was the original, and the various Greek versions are all translations from the Peshitta, but we can’t assume that any one of the Greek text-types was the original and get the same result”.

The flaws are…
  1. The discrepancies between text-types are less than 0.2% in every case. That’s 1 letter per 500 letters that’s different. This is an insanely small sample to work with to determine anything.
  2. There’s no historical or other evidence I’ve seen (aside from unsubstantiated claims made by the Peshitta-primacy movement) that the Peshitta existed in the time the Greek translations would have been done (assuming they were translations). Aside from that obviously not making it the original, it also means that the original Aramaic (again, assuming) would have been something other than the Peshitta, so comparisons should really be made to whatever the earlier text would have been.
  3. Why is a 99.98% match good enough to say that the Peshitta has not been at all altered from the original, but 99.8% isn’t enough for Greek? Either there’s a complete match, or there isn’t.
 
icxc_nika said:
The reason that the Latin Vulgate gets it’s validity is through it’s translation of the original Greek.

The Septuagent was used by the Jews ( again Greek ) for over 400 yrs. prior to the arrival of Christ.
It was the best language that all Jews from all over the world would understand, thus the reason for the translation.

Some of the protestant bibles screw up a lot of the NT and OT translation. We know this specifically because Christ himself quotes the Spetuagent on a number of different occasions. Everyone understands that he himself was working with the Spetuagent as far as OT versions goes.

With the NT, the Greek was used in Rome and in the East for the better part of 200-300 years, before the Vulgate came around.

There is little doubt that the peshitta is older than the Vulgate, however I have never heard the claim that it was the “original”.

This assertion is inaccurate as far as anything I have ever read.

Again, the peshitta is ancient, a direct translation from the Greek ( as is the Vulgate ), and a valid canon, with a couple more books than the Vulgate has.

I’d love to hear anyhting different from this point.
Click to expand...
NO! NO! NO! NO!
The Vulgate is not a translation of any ‘original’ Greek.
It is an update of the Vetus Latina.
Much of LXX was used, if care to call this ‘original’ Greek., but the Gospels in particular are virtually unmodified Vetus Latina. For Matthew and John, at least, St Jerome modified less than 15% of the VL text to accord with the ‘Best Greek’.
The VL texts were translated from the original languages in about AD 201 under the commission of Pope Victorius Africanus, (D AD 199), and are commonly referred to as the Carthage VL.
It is from these Carthage VL Gospels, that the so-called original Greek, and Peshitta Gospels were translated.
Read the Peshitta Gospels, as translated into English if you like, and you can feel Latin all over the text. Then ask yourself, why, in Syriac, the Language of the Peshitta, that the Aramaic sayings of Our Lord are translated from Aramaic into Syriac, essentially, the same language.
 
Voco_proTatiano said:
Then ask yourself, why, in Syriac, the Language of the Peshitta, that the Aramaic sayings of Our Lord are translated from Aramaic into Syriac, essentially, the same language.
Click to expand...
Excuse my ignorance, but I’m not a linguist. Any chance you could explain this in a bit more detail, and provide some examples of where this was done, and exactly how this shows us the Peshitta isn’t the original? I would really appreciate it.
 
PC_Master said:
Excuse my ignorance, but I’m not a linguist. Any chance you could explain this in a bit more detail, and provide some examples of where this was done, and exactly how this shows us the Peshitta isn’t the original? I would really appreciate it.
Click to expand...
Please forgive me.
I was in error.
I have rechecked the Peshitta Gospels as found on peshitta.com, and found my accusation to be false.
I can only think that I have confused my memory with that of the Arabic Diatessaron.
I can no longer find the page on the site which I downloaded.
It was however Murdock’s translation, and it is possible that the translator had a mind-set conditioned by KJV, but the English text he produces matches the KJV text in such detail that it is hard to imagine that it is not derived from the same Latin.
I have placed this text in parallel with KJV for comparison. There may be copyright implications, so I cannot publish, but I could eMail you a copy of the Microsoft Word document.

However, a recheck of Matthew XVI: 1 - 3 shows the presence of the ‘Red sky at night’ proverb, which can only have come from Codex Amiatinus, (AD 710), so it has at least been ‘infected’ by a late source’
I can give a geographical proof, that this proverb originates in Northern Britain, and is very appropriate to the climate at Jarrow, where C.A originates.
 
Guys, I appreciate all the good points; let me get your take on this next argument. Again, all this is from the same document (aramaicnt.com/Research/Proofs%20of%20Peshitta%20Primacy.pdf), which my simple summary does little justice to 😦 . Anyway, the Peshitta proponents maintain the Peshitta is more accurate and consistent than the Greek and also made use of a massorah while the Greek does not. From what I gather, a massorah is a tradition of notes maintained with the translation to ensure accuracy. The Catholic encyclopedia defines it as such:newadvent.org/cathen/10035a.htm. I grant that evidence of a massorah is circumstantial, but raises the question of why there is not evidence of such care in the supposed original Greek.

Also, as an aside, I am leaning to the thought that that Peshitta was not the original. However, how sure are we that the Septuigent was? Is it possible neither was the original, especially Matthew, which was written to a Jewish audience?

LT
 
ltravis said:
Also, as an aside, I am leaning to the thought that that Peshitta was not the original. However, how sure are we that the Septuigent was? Is it possible neither was the original, especially Matthew, which was written to a Jewish audience?

LT
Click to expand...
Whoops, in my haste I typed “Septuigent” when I really meant the NT Greek writings. Sorry, thinking of two many things at once!

LT
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top