09-03-2004, 09:06 PM
Well I just started a my third Aramaic primacy thread on theooze.com, and got a response from my chief Zorban nemesis. I'm including it bellow to get your blood boiling so you feel very motivated to help me in my righteous cause. <!-- s
--><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s -->
"I've never fully bought this line about the NT being Aramaic in its textual heritage. One of the biggest holes in the theory is that no textual evidence lends itself to this theory of construction. Sure, one of the languages of the NT era was Aramaic but it is a difficult thing to suggest that our NT corpus derives completely from Aramaic documents. Looking at the Greek constructions of the NT there is nothing there at suggests anything but Greek foundation in creation. There is no thread of evidence textually to suggest that Aramaic was ever present in the NT manuscripts. One of the primary reasons for this is the matter that the OT quotations used in several of the Gospels and other NT books are translated into Greek from the Hebrew. To translate from Hebrew into Aramaic then into Greek is not a viable process to undertake. In the creation of the NT documents, particularly the epistolary literature, it was the work of a secretary and the particular apostle done in Greek which is how the text was formed.
Now it might be a sexy thing to say, well hey, this was Aramaic to begin with so we can probably explain away some textual issues. I just believe it is a credible position to take. The very nature of the Aramaic language, not to mention the Ugartic underpinnings, is not flexible enough to allow for easy transmission into Greek and find the texts as we have them today. Besides look at Mark, its clear that is dictation from Peter to Mark. Aramaic wasn't used.
Anyhoo...its lunchtime, maybe more when I get back."
--><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s -->"I've never fully bought this line about the NT being Aramaic in its textual heritage. One of the biggest holes in the theory is that no textual evidence lends itself to this theory of construction. Sure, one of the languages of the NT era was Aramaic but it is a difficult thing to suggest that our NT corpus derives completely from Aramaic documents. Looking at the Greek constructions of the NT there is nothing there at suggests anything but Greek foundation in creation. There is no thread of evidence textually to suggest that Aramaic was ever present in the NT manuscripts. One of the primary reasons for this is the matter that the OT quotations used in several of the Gospels and other NT books are translated into Greek from the Hebrew. To translate from Hebrew into Aramaic then into Greek is not a viable process to undertake. In the creation of the NT documents, particularly the epistolary literature, it was the work of a secretary and the particular apostle done in Greek which is how the text was formed.
Now it might be a sexy thing to say, well hey, this was Aramaic to begin with so we can probably explain away some textual issues. I just believe it is a credible position to take. The very nature of the Aramaic language, not to mention the Ugartic underpinnings, is not flexible enough to allow for easy transmission into Greek and find the texts as we have them today. Besides look at Mark, its clear that is dictation from Peter to Mark. Aramaic wasn't used.
Anyhoo...its lunchtime, maybe more when I get back."