Your "mistranslations" confirm Greek primacy

[wolfgang_lubb]

More likely than not, each Aramaic book was translated once into Greek - possibly by an immediate disciple of that author, or perhaps someone who was bilingual at that congregation a little later on for the benefit of those people who didn't understand Aramaic.

After that initial translation, different manuscript lineages (like Byzantine, Alexandrian, Western, etc.) developed over time. So a mistake in that very first translation perpetuated itself throughout the rest of the branches of the tree. That's where "Mistranslations" come in.

And the scribes responsible for the later manuscripts and Greek textual traditions introduced some of their own mistakes, not based on the Aramaic, but rather on a misunderstanding of the Greek text they were copying, or revising, or adding to, or subtracting from. That's where "Variances" come in.

In certain cases where Polysemy exists, it can be argued that the authors of those manuscripts attempted to correct what they considered to be an erroneous Greek reading by referring back to the original Aramaic. So they chose an alternate meaning to that word in Aramaic. That's where, of course, "Polysemy" comes in.

It's quite a mess in certain cases.

This is a rather complicated topic, and it requires careful thought. For your benefit I would suggest that you consider the sum of the parts when reaching a conclusion, rather than isolating one type.

Also didn't the Romans at one point (try to) destroy everything not written in Greek? I believe Flavius Josephus talks about this, in fact if I recall correctly Josephus had to learn Greek and translate all his documents into Greek so they wouldn't be destroyed. Obviously this would suggest that Greek translations would need to be created from the Aramaic for reasons other than just sharing the Gospel with Greek speaking people.

Kria, how would you possibly explain Paul writing most of the New Testament poetically in Aramaic? If you didn't already know, it is impossible to translate something into another language and still make it rhyme; the modern translations of Beowulf is proof enough of that.