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+--- Thread: From the pen of a famous Greek primacist NT scholar. (/showthread.php?tid=3224)
From the pen of a famous Greek primacist NT scholar. - Thirdwoe - 12-10-2013
German scholar Johann David Michaelis stated.
"The Peshitta is the very best translation of the Greek Testament that I have ever read;...
Of all the Syriac authors with which I am acquainted, not excepting Ephrem and Bar-Hebraeus, its language is the most elegant and pure, not loaded with foreign words, like the Harklean version and other later writings.
It displays the hand of a master in rendering those passages where two idioms deviate from each other. It has no marks of the stiffness of a translation, but is written with the ease and fluency of an original.
This excellence of style must be ascribed to its antiquity, and to its being written in a city that was the residence of Syrian kings.
It is true that the Syriac version, like all human productions, is not destitute of faults, and ? what is not to be regarded as a blemish ? differs frequently from the modern modes of explanation, but I know of none that is as free from error, and none that I consult with as much confidence, in cases of difficulty and doubt.
I have never met with a single instance where the Greek is interpreted in a way which betrays a weakness and ignorance in the translator, and although in many other translations the original is rendered in so extraordinary a manner as almost to elicit a smile, the Syriac version must always be read with profound veneration.
.
Re: From the pen of a famous Greek primacist NT scholar. - Paul Younan - 12-10-2013
He almost said it. <!-- s
--><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s -->+Shamasha
Re: From the pen of a famous Greek primacist NT scholar. - ScorpioSniper2 - 12-10-2013
It's sad that scholars slight the Peshitta like they do. It used to be viewed in such high regard by both Greek and Aramaic primacists alike. Now it seems to be viewed as just any other translation (not even being viewed as the oldest).
Re: From the pen of a famous Greek primacist NT scholar. - Paul Younan - 12-10-2013
Quote:It has no marks of the stiffness of a translation, but is written with the ease and fluency of an original.
You can tell he *wanted* to say it ... but probably feared the backlash he would receive among his peers.
+Shamasha
Re: From the pen of a famous Greek primacist NT scholar. - ScorpioSniper2 - 03-30-2014
He said later in the quote, "Many obscure passages would be made clear, if the words were still on record which Jesus spoke with his disciples in the Aramaean language. But the translator appears not to have been fortunate in rendering passages of this nature.... This circumstance alone affords sufficient evidence that the Syriac version was not written by one of Christ's immediate disciples." Does anyone have a reply to this? I still find this quote to be amazing, especially when he says that it doesn't read like a translation.