Exploring evidence of Peshitta primacy

[metal1633]

The reason that the Latin Vulgate gets it’s validity is through it’s translation of the original Greek.

The Vulgate NT was translated from both Aramaic and Greek. Jerome himself said he received a copy of Aramaic Matthew from a Sect of Nazarenes.

The Septuagent was used by the Jews ( again Greek ) for over 400 yrs. prior to the arrival of Christ.

No it was not. The Story of the Seventy Two Rabbi’s is a Myth. In the Third Century B.C the Torah was translated into Greek for use by Gentiles. Over the next 400 years translation continued until by the beginning of the 2nd century A.D it was finished.

It was the best language that all Jews from all over the world would understand, thus the reason for the translation.

No it was not. Aramaic was the Language spoken by Jews all over the world. The Jews of Palestine REFUSED to learn Greek. Very few spoke it and none fluently. Even Josephus had someone else translate his works into Greek because he could not speak it. The reason for the Greek OT was to make it accessible to gentiles.

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.

Jesus never quoted the Greek.

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.

Greek was a second language in the west, Latin being the Native language of the Latin Tribes the Romans descended from. In the East, beginning around 900 B.C Aramaic began to spread at a phenomenal rate. Aramaic spread over Palestine and Syria and large tracts of Asia and Egypt, replacing many languages, including Akkadian and Hebrew. Despite Greek influences in the Cities because of the conquest of Alexander Aramaic remained the lingua franca of the entire east until it was replaced by Arabic 9th century A.D because of Islamic expansion. Aramaic was even adopted by the Mongols and the Manchu Dynasty in China used Aramaic Script in Official Proclamations.

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

And I never heard the claim it was not until the last few years. When I heard the words “Original Greek” I was shocked. Then I found that most western scholars believe it now. Even though none did before the reformation. I do not know any eastern scholars who believe in anything but an Aramaic Original to the NT.

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.

The Eastern Peshitta is shorter not longer. It only has a 22 book canon. The reason for this is that the accuracy of the surviving copies of the other 5 is in doubt. The early Jewish and non-jewish Semitic Christians were very careful in the copy process. Old copies were destroyed and if a new copy was not perfect, to the letter, it too was destroyed. By the 4th century it was known that the only reliable copies of those 5 books were Greek translations. They were Back translated into Aramaic in the west which is why the Western Peshitto (a different book) has the full 27 book canon.

I’d love to hear anyhting different from this point.

You just did.

 

[metal1633]

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.

“Syriac” is the name given by the Romans to the Western Aramaic Dialect spoken in Syria. It is not a different language. The Peshitta is in the Eastern Aramaic Dialect, the dialect of northwest Mesopotamia, which the Jews brought back to Israel after the captivity. Harran, the city of Abraham’s brother Nahor, lies 38 kilometers southeast of the large colony of Orhai Jews, and the Jewish colonies in Assyria in the kingdom of Adiabene whose royal house had converted to Judaism. They possessed most of the Bible in this dialect, the Peshitta Tenakh.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

This is all good stuff, icxc nika, and I can definitely say I am getting a good education . I will grant that the idea of Peshitta predating the Greek flies in the face of conventional wisdom and understanding.

Yes, I am aware of Christ’s using the septuigent, and accept the Greek was the prevailing translation of the OT at the time. I was wondering if it was remotely possible though, for the original NT writer to use the Greek OT and Christ’s quotes from it, but yet create his own manuscript in Aramaic, which was then translated into the Greek. In any case, the thread right now is concentrating on the code theory, but later I will bring up the other evidence the peshitta proponents have used and that may lend itself to more of this historic kind of perspective and we can get some really good discussion going. Thanks so much for your attention!

LT

Hi, I have to add my pennyworth here.
I have no solid proof, but I do have an ancient and trustworthy witness, namely St Victor, Bishop of Capua, who found an ancient Vetus Latina harmonised Gospel. From his investigations, he argued that though the text had been attributed to Ammonius of Alexandria, he was convinced that it was the work of Tatian.
Later scholars have, because the Latin text so resembles St Jerome’s Latin, assumed that an Aramaic, or Greek original was translated into Latin, using St Jerome’s Gospels as a pattern, thus they date in late.
There are two points agaist this,
1/ The sequence of sections, and the selection of sections in the Vetus Latina Gospel do not match up with either the Arabic witness to the original quoted by Ephrem Syrus, and even the finer detailed weaving is different.
2/ Anyone who reads St Jerome’s preface to his Gospel translations will immediately understand that they are not ‘de novo’ but are in fact, simply the ancient Vetus Latina, from Carthage, gently edited to comply with the best available Greek of the time.

In AD 200, as a result of the efforts of the then late Victorius Africanus, Pope, all the liturgy, and most of the New Testament was translated into Latin, at a time when it was still familiar history. My conjecture is that this New Testament was such an excellent work, that it was translated into the Mediterranean languages, and even superceded the Greek originals, which thus fell into disuse. This is a part of History which has been forgotten due to the firestorm of repression, which endured from AD 250 until the arrival of Constantine.

Much was forgotten, and many inaccurate translations appeared in those dark years. Essentially, the central scolarship was lost in the Mediterranean regions, and only survived in outlying areas such as Persia, and Britain.
BTW, did you know that Constantine was a Yorkshire Man!

So there are now no Greek originals, the earliest Greek texts are Late 3rd century at best. The Vetus Latina Gospel, if the Work of Tatian is Late second century, and if Ammonius, Early third.

So my conjecture is, that ALL the Gospels, and most of the NT has its earliest extant roots in Latin.
Mark was written in Latin, and Street Latin at that.
Luke might have been written in Greek, for Luke was St Paul’s scribe, and Paul comes from a Greek speaking area.
Matthew and John would have been written in Aramaic, and it is questionable whether a Greek translation lies between them and the Latin. There are many grammatical similarities between Koine Greek and Street Latin, one notable aspect is the high frequency of introducing discourse as indirect, then quoting it verbatim, leaving the word ‘quia’, (‘hOTI’ in Greek) = ‘that’ to be omitted, as in direct discourse, or in case of context, the discourse to be modified into indirect form.

Simply put, I have serious doubts over the ‘original’ Greek’ and prefer the best extant witness of the Vetus Latina, of which over 80% of both Matthew and John can be recovered from the Codex Fuldensis. The witness of Mark and Luke is much lower, Mark being extremely poorly witnessed.

As to bible codes, these codes were commonly used by British POWs during the last War. It is not beyond reason that early translators deliberately inserted them into their texts as a form of ‘check-sum’ to prevent adulteration of the texts. They would of course be lost if subsequent translators forgot to re-insert them.

 

[ltravis]

Fantastic stuff. Metal. I look forward to your opinion on some of the other points I raised. I have presented some of the Peshitta arguments, but they get technical and I confess I am not scholarly enough to go much beyond that. Feel free to chime in on anything you feel important…

LT

 

[PC_Master]

The Vulgate NT was translated from both Aramaic and Greek. Jerome himself said he received a copy of Aramaic Matthew from a Sect of Nazarenes.

Source please? Actually, sources for all of your claims would be nice, as it seems to contradict the information I’ve seen before.

Can you really explain how it’s logical to assume that Luke (a Greek speaker), writing to Theophilus (who is frequently supposed to be a Roman, Greek-speaking prefect), would have been conducted in Aramaic?

Can you explain how various of Paul’s letters, written to communities that had Gentile believers in them, would have made sense to have been written in Aramaic rather than Greek?

Can you explain how the whole book of the Peshitta can be a Syriac original when the Old Testament was written in Hebrew which, while similar, was not the exact same language?

 

[metal1633]

Source please? Actually, sources for all of your claims would be nice, as it seems to contradict the information I’ve seen before.

Over 20 years being immersed in Aramaic and most of it and its history is known by heart. Which ones specifically and I will dig around.

Can you really explain how it’s logical to assume that Luke (a Greek speaker), writing to Theophilus (who is frequently supposed to be a Roman, Greek-speaking prefect), would have been conducted in Aramaic?

Can you really explain how it is logical that Luke, a an Aramaic speaking Aramean, from Antioch in Syria, A Nation of Aramaic speaking Arameans, Whose Native Language was Aramaic is suddenly Identified as a Greek? Hows this, Luke either had his works translated or did it himself. And of all the conjectures I have seen as to the Identity of Theophilus, none point to a Greek person. It has been speculated that he was an Alexandrian Jew who earned the Honorary Academic Title of “Theophilus”, a common title at the time. Others think he was Theophilus Ben Ananus, High Priest of the Temple from 37 to 41 A.D. Some even think he was possibly Titus Flavius Sabinus II, a former Prefect of Rome and older brother of Roman Emperor Vespasian. Some believe Theophilus was nobody, that “Friend of God” was a general address. The Aramaic name of Theophilus Ben Ananus was “Tawpeela” Which is exactly what the Peshitta says. Theophilus was his given name. And there is an ossuary with the inscription “Johanna, granddaughter of Theophilus the High Priest” The Names Johanna and Theophilus are only found in the Gospel of Luke.

Can you explain how various of Paul’s letters, written to communities that had Gentile believers in them, would have made sense to have been written in Aramaic rather than Greek?

To the Jew First. It is more reasonable to believe that the synagogue official in the communities he was writing to took care of copying and translation issues in most cases.

Can you explain how the whole book of the Peshitta can be a Syriac original when the Old Testament was written in Hebrew which, while similar, was not the exact same language?

Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language by the people during the captivity. It was the language of the Temple. Hebrew was not commonly spoken. Synagogue services were held in Aramaic. Not all the OT was written in Hebrew. I do not see why Native Aramaic Speakers, writing to a predominantly Jewish audience, would write in any other language.

 

[ltravis]

Voco, thanks for you long explanation above. So, from your comments, am I to take that Latin was the true original NT? If you could draw a quick flow chart beginning with Jesus’ own mouth, to the first written account of any kind of the NT (gospels esp.), to the first translation, and finally to St. Jerome’s work, what would it look like? It is all becoming a blur to me with so much information

Metal, its not that I disagree with your views, but I was going to suggest sources as well. You know how it is - anything that is a direct challenge to western prevailing wisdom or “accepted scholarly opinion” will require backup to be most effective. Again, I don’t think you don’t intend to mislead, but the rigor of this conversation demands sourcing. So far your comments are fascinating though

LT

 

[Michael_G]

This thread is to be dedicated to studying the evidence put forward suggesting the Aramaic peshitta New Testament were the original writings, which they were the basis for translation into Greek. Prevailing opinion now is that the Peshitta was translated from Greek originals, so I wish to explore the claims in more depth. The conclusions here have ramifications for another issue, the language of Matthew 16, which is somewhat ambiguous in its terms for “rock”. The prevailing opinion is that Petros/petra was kepha/kepha when originally spoken by Jesus in Aramaic. However, there is a suggestion that he might have used another aramaic word (shu’a) which could have been translated to petra as well. The thread discussing that is forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=159292. Now, since the Peshitta proponents purport it to be THE original, if that can be proven, we can rely on its rendition of Matt. 16 rather than worry guessing what the Greek writer had heard. Incidentally, the Peshitta uses “kepha/kepha”, or “keepa/keepa” in that particular dialect of Aramaic.

That is the basis of this thread. Tonight I will begin presenting some of the arguments that have been used to support Peshitta primacy. If you want a firsthand look at what I will explore, you can visit peshitta.org and aramaicnt.com/.

LT

I have not taken the time to go through all of the replies. I think the idea of proving the Peshitta is orginal versus being translated from the Greek in relation to the words of Mathew is basically irrevelant. Why, because according to Papias, Irenaeaus, Jerome at Least Mathew was originally written in Hebrew,so the point is mute on the Gospel of Mathew. The best one can say with absolute certainity is that the Septuagent, the Latin Vulgate and the Peshitta are ancient go about as close to the Apostles as one is going to get as a whole that is.

 

[ltravis]

I have not taken the time to go through all of the replies. I think the idea of proving the Peshitta is orginal versus being translated from the Greek in relation to the words of Mathew is basically irrevelant. Why, because according to Papias, Irenaeaus, Jerome at Least Mathew was originally written in Hebrew,so the point is mute on the Gospel of Mathew. The best one can say with absolute certainity is that the Septuagent, the Latin Vulgate and the Peshitta are ancient go about as close to the Apostles as one is going to get as a whole that is.

Wow, that puts yet another interesting spin on it. Thanks Michael, I will consider this.

LT

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Voco, thanks for you long explanation above. So, from your comments, am I to take that Latin was the true original NT?

My belief is that the Latin, that is, the Vetus Latina that St Jerome found, and modified in accordance with his best Greek and Aramaic, was the first NT as a complete document. In its earliest form, it comprised only the Gospels. Prior to the Latin, the Gospels existed, as did the epistles, in individual forms, as separate documents, but were mainly the currency of story-tellers.
These verbal traditions were first collected by St Justin, and I believe, compiled into a proto-New Testament with the very active assistance of a certain Tatian, who was St. Justin’s apprentice for most of the last 14 years of St. Justin’s life. This compilation became the Diatessaron, which St Ephrem comments upon, and the Arabic witnesses somewhat imperfectly. It is clear from St Ephrem’s witness, that although clearly T & J had access to the four Gospels, they were not as we see them now, but were probably still the verbal currency of story-tellers, indeed, I believe that St. Justin was such a story-teller.

To push the clock back further, we go heavily into conjecture.
The Epistles are no mystery, though some are what we might now call pious forgeries.
The Gospels however fall into three families.

The first, Matthew and John are the reports of witnesses to the actual history. Both were literate, Matthew was a civil servant, (tax collector), and John was of a priestly family, and was recognised with authority in the temple and its precincts.
Matthew, I believe, took verbatim notes on a Roman wax tablet, a tool of his earlier life, while John retained in his mind the essence of Our Lord’s sayings, and also acted as a mouth-piece for Mary Magdaleine.
Matthew’s wax tablet transcriptions were circulated among the early churches, and became the common currency found mainly in ‘Q’.

Mark was not a witness, but was the scribe to a witness who was both illiterate, and ignorant of Latin or Greek. Mark was not a scholar, but knew Street Latin, some Greek, and could write.
He took dictation of Peter’s recollections, and put them into Latin for the church in Rome. Peter’s recollections were growing dim, and he was best able to recall them by associating them with the seasons and festivals, thus the account of Mark seems to telescope the ministry into a single year. This was useful as it thus formed the basis of a litturgical calendar.

Luke was Paul’s scribe. Paul also had difficulty with Greek and Latin, though must have had at least the knowledge to trade. Luke, like St Justin and Tatian, went out among the story-tellers, and gathered such tales as he found credible into an indirect witness. He clearly used the notes circulated by followers of Matthew’s tradition, so setting the foundation for the ‘Q’ theory.

If you could draw a quick flow chart beginning with Jesus’ own mouth, to the first written account of any kind of the NT (gospels esp.), to the first translation, and finally to St. Jerome’s work, what would it look like? It is all becoming a blur to me with so much information

LT

Most of the above is conjecture, but I believe you can draw a possible tree therefrom.

 

[PC_Master]

Can you really explain how it is logical that Luke, a an Aramaic speaking Aramean, from Antioch in Syria, A Nation of Aramaic speaking Arameans, Whose Native Language was Aramaic is suddenly Identified as a Greek?

I didn’t identify him as a Greek – I identified him as a Greek-speaker. Common belief is that many of that region were bi or tri-lingual. Being fluent in multiple languages wasn’t uncommon, and is quite possible for Luke.

Hows this, Luke either had his works translated or did it himself.

If Luke translated his works, then we can assume them to be as good as originals. Either way, it’s conjecture, not evidence.

And of all the conjectures I have seen as to the Identity of Theophilus, none point to a Greek person. It has been speculated that he was an Alexandrian Jew who earned the Honorary Academic Title of “Theophilus”, a common title at the time. Others think he was Theophilus Ben Ananus, High Priest of the Temple from 37 to 41 A.D. Some even think he was possibly Titus Flavius Sabinus II, a former Prefect of Rome and older brother of Roman Emperor Vespasian. Some believe Theophilus was nobody, that “Friend of God” was a general address.

Conjecture all around, but still, as I understand from my own reading, Theophilus is most commonly accepted to have been a Roman prefect.

To the Jew First. It is more reasonable to believe that the synagogue official in the communities he was writing to took care of copying and translation issues in most cases.

That’s highly speculative. It also means we should see some Aramaic originals having floated around between the churches, especially in areas that were concentrated with Aramaic speakers.

Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language by the people during the captivity. It was the language of the Temple. Hebrew was not commonly spoken. Synagogue services were held in Aramaic. Not all the OT was written in Hebrew.

That does not explain how you can claim the Old Testament in the Peshitta to be anything but a translation, at least in parts.

I do not see why Native Aramaic Speakers, writing to a predominantly Jewish audience, would write in any other language.

Because in some cases they were not writing to a Jewish audience. Matthew may have been. Mark probably wasn’t. Luke probably wasn’t. John…it’s debatable. Paul did a little of both for certain (usually by scribe).

…at Least Mathew was originally written in Hebrew,so the point is mute on the Gospel of Mathew.

Actually it’s not mute. If parts of the Peshitta were translated from Greek (or Hebrew) to Aramaic, then we cannot say for certain that any of the Peshitta is the original. Additionally, if we don’t have any extant ancient fragments of the gospel of Matthew in Aramaic (as opposed to Hebrew, a slightly different language), we can’t be certain that it was originally in that language. It could have been Hebrew, though there are other theories suggested to explain it.

Luke was Paul’s scribe. Paul also had difficulty with Greek and Latin…

How do we know that?

 

[metal1633]

That does not explain how you can claim the Old Testament in the Peshitta to be anything but a translation, at least in parts.

I don’t get this one. Everybody knows the Peshitta Tanakh is a translation, made from the same source material as the LXX.

It also means we should see some Aramaic originals having floated around between the churches, especially in areas that were concentrated with Aramaic speakers.

Well thats exactly what we do see. There are many more greek copies simply because semitic Christians generally destroyed manuscripts when they got old or were damaged. Not always and everywhere, but generally when a scribe finished making copies of a document if the original was no longer usable it was burned, which is why the oldest complete copy of the Hebrew bible dates to 916 A.D. for the codex containing the prophets with Babylonian punctuation, and 1009 A.D. for an entire Hebrew Bible.

 

[PC_Master]

Well thats exactly what we do see. There are many more greek copies simply because semitic Christians generally destroyed manuscripts when they got old or were damaged. Not always and everywhere, but generally when a scribe finished making copies of a document if the original was no longer usable it was burned, which is why the oldest complete copy of the Hebrew bible dates to 916 A.D. for the codex containing the prophets with Babylonian punctuation, and 1009 A.D. for an entire Hebrew Bible.

First, would you care to assert that there are any fragments of the Peshitta prior to the fourth century? We have Greek fragments from the first century.

Second, while your claim of originals being destroyed is something I find rather hard to believe (at least in every case as to provide no intact copies or at least fragments for us to find), there’s still the problem that, even if I could accept that, it still isn’t an affirmative for the Peshitta – if the Peshitta indeed were a later translation of the works, we’d see the same lack of early manuscripts and fragments. It doesn’t support it either way.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

First, would you care to assert that there are any fragments of the Peshitta prior to the fourth century? We have Greek fragments from the first century.

We hear much of ancient Greek fragments, but how many complete works are there amongst these fragments.
I recall much ado over the ‘Dura fragment’ which claimed to prove a Greek vorlager to the Syriac Diatessaron, but it transpires that this fragment is barely more than two words, and actually proves nothing.
I still maintain that there is nothing complete in Greek which predates the Carthaginian Gospels of AD 200, witnessed by Codex Fuldensis, according to Victorius Capriani.
Tatians first Diatessaron, witnessed in Syriac by Ephrem Syrus, witnesses Syriac Gospels prior to AD 170.

Second, while your claim of originals being destroyed is something I find rather hard to believe (at least in every case as to provide no intact copies or at least fragments for us to find), there’s still the problem that, even if I could accept that, it still isn’t an affirmative for the Peshitta – if the Peshitta indeed were a later translation of the works, we’d see the same lack of early manuscripts and fragments. It doesn’t support it either way.

I still consider that both Peshitta and Greek owe much to the Carthaginian Latin, as do the Gospels which St Jerome published.

 

[ltravis]

I am learning quite a bit of fascinating stuff here, more than I imagined. Would any of you be willing to address the earlier argument that translations from the Peshitta used a massorah as an error-check while the translations from the Greek did not? It is rather interesting to me since I had never heard of this massorah concept before.

LT

 

[PC_Master]

Voco> I find your claims somewhat hard to believe, but I’d really appreciate any links to source material you might have on the subject.

ltravis> It’s an interesting claim, but it doesn’t really say anything as to the originality of the text. A massorah could have easily been created and maintained for a translation.

 

[Pax]

I am merely following along…I wish I had something to contribute, but alas my academic study in this area is nil.

Keep going…it’s all very interesting.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Voco> I find your claims somewhat hard to believe, but I’d really appreciate any links to source material you might have on the subject.

Codex Bobbiensis is believed to be a faithful witness to the Carthaginian Gospels, from AD ca 200. Bob is accepted as 4th century, so it, itself predates the completion of St Jerome’s work.
But in any case, read St Jerome’s preface to the New Testament, and you will find that he, himself admits that he only lightly edited the best Vetus Latina Gospels to concord them with his best Greek and Syriac.
Yes, critics of Codex Fuldensis claim, and with some justification, that the work looks as if it has been translated from some other tongue, using the Gospels of St Jerome as a pattern. However I have found from bitter experience that when you do this, for that is how I translated the Latin into English, using Douay-Rheims as a pattern, you embody artefacts from the pattern Gospel, which were not present in the source. Also, if you are not extremely careful, because of the different word sequencing in different languages, a suture between two phrases might work well in Latin, but not at all in English, and these are related laguages. I would hate to try from Syriac to Latin.
If you would choose to examine the translation from the Arabic Diatessaron, you will begin to see what I mean. The text is full of repetitions, Matthew is called three time, under the names Matthew, Levi, and James. This text seriously looks like a Peshitta patterned translation from Latin. To translate Syriac into Arabic is a trivial exercise from one Semitic language to another very closely related Semitic language. A semi literate clerk could do better. You can find the Hope W Hogg translation here:-
ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf09.iv.html
You can find my translation of the Codex Fuldensis in a link in my signature.
I am convinced from the content of the CF, that it is not a Latin translation of some foreign text into Latin using St jerome’s Gospels, by rather it is an original work, compiled in Latin, from Latin Gospels available in the lifetime of Tatian, or his suspected alter ego, Ammonius of Alexandria. Conflating the two lives solves Tatian’s mysterious disappearance, and Ammonius’ mysterious appearance, about the same time, with almost identical interests and skills. A ripe old age of 120 years is remarkable, but not impossible.
So, I aver that complete Latin Gospels were in existance at the beginning of the 3rd century, and I personally believe that these Latin Gospels were so admired, that they were translated back into the mediterrainian provincial languages, and in many cases, superceded the original tongue Gospels.
The frequency of Latin ideomatic forms in the Greek and Syriac tends to support this hypothesis.

 

[ltravis]

PC - admittedly, the massorah argument is one of circumstantial evidence; and a massorah could certainly have been maintained only for the translation. I think there is some merit to the point: that one would expect the most protective care to be taken with the most writings closest to the source.

Voco - you have very intriguing arguments once again, and I would like to explore your ideas a bit more. Looking at earlier posts, you said the true earliest originals were scattered documents and oral stories (i.e. hardly leather bound with footnotes and gold leaf ). That period is where we would have to gather evidence on Christ’s exact words when exploring possible translation errors such as PC Master proposed regarding “rock”, which is the genesis of this entire thread. That, however, is an impossible task, and thus we can only look at the early Latin or Greek or Peshitta (whichever proves earliest). That said, and I believe this is key, it begs the question of inspiration. We know we can trust the inspired word. So then, *where *did the inspiration occur? Was it in those earliest oral stories and scattered letters, or was it in one of these early translations we are comparing?

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Voco - you have very intriguing arguments once again, and I would like to explore your ideas a bit more. Looking at earlier posts, you said the true earliest originals were scattered documents and oral stories (i.e. hardly leather bound with footnotes and gold leaf ). That period is where we would have to gather evidence on Christ’s exact words when exploring possible translation errors such as PC Master proposed regarding “rock”, which is the genesis of this entire thread. That, however, is an impossible task, and thus we can only look at the early Latin or Greek or Peshitta (whichever proves earliest). That said, and I believe this is key, it begs the question of inspiration. We know we can trust the inspired word. So then, *where *did the inspiration occur? Was it in those earliest oral stories and scattered letters, or was it in one of these early translations we are comparing?

If you are to appeal to inspiration, then all receive inspiration.
Whether that inspiration is from the Holy Spirit or otherwise is for you to judge: ‘By their fruits will you know them.’

My personal belief is that all copying involves potential for error, and the belief that the Holy Spirit will not permit Mother Church to err, frankly contradicts the precept of ‘free-will’.

Thus I tend to prefer the most ancient of records, which have been copied and translated the least.