use of OS by ancient Aramaic-speaking Christians

[Paul Younan]

Shlama Akhi Dave,

(1) Read the 645 A.D. entry - "an Old Syriac gospel manuscript." There's the careful wording again!
(2) Read the 647 A.D. entry. The Khudra, a huge 3-volume set which I own, contains 100% Peshitta readings. Does Steven Ring mention that fact, no!
(3) Read the 649 A.D. entry - "It is highly likely that the monks taught from their Old Syriac gospel texts in many of these schools." There's the careful wording again!
(4) Read the 653 or 654 A.D. entry - Gabriel was Monophysite. Irrelevant.
(5) Read the 657 or 658 A.D. entry - "an Old Syriac gospel" - wow, how many carefully worded statements can we find?

Akhi - we have manuscripts of the Peshitta dating to WAY before the mid-7th century.

Why does Steven Ring always use the ambiguous "An Old Syriac manuscript", instead of "The Old Syriac version?"

I'll tell you why: in the Church of the East, as opposed to the western Churches, they rarely quoted anything directly. There is a good reason for this. The Semitic (Jewish) tradition of Targum was kept alive and well in the Church of the East, but it died out elsewhere.

This means that the preferred method of exegesis in the Semitic Church of the East was "targumming", or "paraphrasing." When you "Targum", you tend to *expand* a reading, not *contract* it.

Of course sometimes these would bear some resemblance to the text of the Old Scratch, being that it is a Western text full of interpolations!

If you're at all interested in what Mr. Steven Ring thinks of the date of the Peshitta, you should see this page of his under the date 411 A.D. and then wonder about "AN Old Syriac manuscript."

http://www.srr.axbridge.org.uk/chron_tab4.html

A manuscript from Edessa dated 411 AD (the earliest dated manuscript in Syriac) was written. It contains the Syriac version of Eusebius' history of the Church, the Clementine Recognitiones and a work by Titus of Bostra. According to [38] the 'Recognitiones' contains scripture readings in marked agreement with the Peshitta, (unlike the underlying Greek text which the translator used which has readings more akin to the Old Syriac). This dated manuscript is itself a copy of an earlier Syriac manuscript .This demonstrates that the Peshitta had been in existence for some time by the time our manuscript was copied in AD 411. This manuscript provides us with the earliest evidence for the use of the Peshitta.

This manuscript, Akhi, DATED to 411 AD right on the manuscript itself, contains pure Peshitta readings AGAINST Old Scratch readings. It is, itself, a COPY of an earlier manuscript.

Now, what you're talking about is the original manuscript going back into the 300s, if not the 200s. And it contained PESHITTA readings, against Old Scratch.

And it predates the supposed "AN Old Syriac manuscript" quotes by at least 400 years.

That's science, Yuri. Manuscripts are hard evidence. Not Mr. Rings "probably"s and "an"s and "maybe."s