12-29-2014, 03:56 PM
Tim,
Paul can speak much better than I can to this. But based on my experience taking part in a few Bible studies using Peshitta, no. A living language evolves over time... Modern Greek is different than it was 2000 years ago. But a modern Greek speaker finds it very easy to learn say Biblical Greek, because many words are still preserved, grammar similarities, there are certain rules to how words changed over time, etc.
What I learnt though was unique to Aramaic was how little it has actually changed over 2000 years. Such that native speakers need little effort to become proficient in Biblical Aramaic. So one will see people among them with not so much formal education still being able to lead Bible studies directly off the Peshitta text. But such person has done some studing and learning of Biblical Aramaic first.
Paul can speak much better than I can to this. But based on my experience taking part in a few Bible studies using Peshitta, no. A living language evolves over time... Modern Greek is different than it was 2000 years ago. But a modern Greek speaker finds it very easy to learn say Biblical Greek, because many words are still preserved, grammar similarities, there are certain rules to how words changed over time, etc.
What I learnt though was unique to Aramaic was how little it has actually changed over 2000 years. Such that native speakers need little effort to become proficient in Biblical Aramaic. So one will see people among them with not so much formal education still being able to lead Bible studies directly off the Peshitta text. But such person has done some studing and learning of Biblical Aramaic first.