Jewish Palestinian Aramaic VS Syriac

[Paul Younan]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the reply! As far as the note taking goes, he explained it in such a way where during the ministry of Christ they would have jotted notes down in Aramaic, not with the expectation of writing a full Gospel in Greek at a later time, but just for the sake of making note some of the good teachings. If it was decided later on to write the Gospels in Greek, these would have been referenced at that point. This is in essence the theory as far as I understand it. But I certainly understand your point as well.

On a somewhat related note, what is the earliest piece/fragment of Christian Aramaic we have? Not necessarily canonized Scripture, but any kind of Christian document (liturgical or otherwise).

Thanks!

Shlama Luc

The earliest Christian Aramaic texts, aside from the scriptures were presumably the Diatesseron and later the works of Ephraim and Narsai (d. 4th century).

A great paper describing liturgical sources can be found here:

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+Shamasha