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Back Breaker
#1
Shlama,

What's your opinion on this site, Akhi Paul?

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/index.shtml">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... ndex.shtml</a><!-- m -->

And no, it's not a Islamic site.
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???
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#2
Shlama,

Now what's my point to citing that source?

My point is that the Gospels (handpicked at Nicea) were not double-checked by the Disciples of Jesus.

My point is that the Peshitta, like the Greek, was developed under its own little Council of Ephesus. It was most likely edited to fit the Church's formulations (Peshitta supports Qnoma while Greek supports Persons). A good example would be Peshitto or Old Scratch. Please, take a pick. Also, it is nice to mention that the oldest exisiting Peshitta comes down to us from that late period. Fishy.

"This represents for the New Testament an accomodation of the canon of the Syrians with that of the Greeks. Third Corinthians was rejected, and, in addition to the fourteen Pauline Epistles (including Hebrews, following Philemon), three longer Catholic Epistles (James, 1 Peter, and 1 John) were included. The four shorter Catholic Epistles (2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude) and the Apocalypse are absent from the Peshitta Syriac version, and thus the Syriac canon of the New Testament contained but twenty-two writings. For a large part of the Syrian Church this constituted the closing of the canon, for after the Council of Ephesus (AD 431) the East Syrians separated themselves as Nestorians from the Great Church.Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament: Its Origin, Significance & Development, Op.Cit, pp. 227-228.)"

The Patriarch said that "with reference to....the originality of the Peshitta text, as the Patriarch and Head of the Holy Apostolic and Catholic Church of the East, we wish to state, that the Church of the East received the scriptures from the hands of the blessed Apostles themselves in the Aramaic original, the language spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and that the Peshitta is the text of the Church of the East which has come down from the Biblical times without any change or revision."

However, scholars say:

"The original copies of the NT books have, of course, long since disappeared. This fact should not cause surprise. In the first place, they were written on papyrus, a very fragile and persihable material. In the second place, and probably of even more importance, the original copies of the NT books were not looked upon as scripture by those of the early Christian communitiesGeorge Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 4, 1962 (1996 Print), Abingdon Press, Nashville, pp. 594-595 (Under Text, NT).""

The Church of the East is not the only Church that claims to be founded by Apostles. Consider also the Ethiopic Church and the Coptic Church (both having different canons).

"The Ethiopic church has the largest Bible of all, and distinguishes different canons, the "narrower" and the "broader," according to the extent of the New Testament. The Ethiopic Old Testament comprises the books of the Hebrew Bible as well as all of the deuterocanonical books listed above, along with Jubilees, I Enoch, and Joseph ben Gorion's (Josippon's) medieval history of the Jews and other nations. The New Testament in what is referred to as the "broader" canon is made up of thirty-five books, joining to the usual twenty-seven books eight additional texts, namely four sections of church order from a compilation called Sinodos, two sections from the Ethiopic Book of the Covenant, Ethiopic Clement, and Ethiopic Didascalia. When the "narrower" New Testament canon is followed, it is made up of only the familiar twenty-seven books, but then the Old Testament books are divided differently so that they make up 54 books instead of 46. In both the narrower and broader canon, the total number of books comes to 81. Metzger, Oxford Companion To The Bible, Op.Cit, p. 79.."

....and the Coptic Church

"Athanasius issued his Thirty-Ninth Festal Epistle not only in the Greek but also in Coptic, in a slightly different form - though the list of the twenty seven books of the New Testament is the same in both languages. How far, however the list remained authoritative for the Copts is problematical. The Coptic (Bohairic) translation of the collection knowns as the Eighty-Five Apostlic Canons concludes with a different sequence of the books of the New Testament and is enlarged by the addition of two others: the four Gospels; the Acts of the Apostles; the fourteen Epistles of Paul (not mentioned individually); two Epistles of Peter, three of John, one of James, one of Jude; the Apocalypse of John; the two Epistles of Clement.Bruce M Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament: Its Origin, Significance & Development, 1997, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 225."

So did the Apostles sent out to different lands sanction different books or did the Churches sanction them to color their own shade of theology?

Ah yes---

"Many thousands of these different readings are variants in orthography or grammar or style and however effect upon the meaning of the text. But there are many thousands which have a definite effect upon the meaning of the text. It is true that not one of these variant readings affects the substance of Christian dogma. It is equally true that many of them do have theological significance and were introduced into the text intentionally. It may not, e.g., affect the substance of Christian dogma to accept the reading "Jacob the father of Joseph, and Joseph (to whom the virgin Mary was betrothed) the father of Jesus who is called 'Christ'" (Matt. 1:16), as does the Sinaitic Syriac; but it gives rise to a theological problem.

It has been said that the great majority of the variant readings in the text of the NT arose before the books of the NT were canonized and that after those books were canonized, they were very carefully copied because they were scripture. This, however, is far from being the case.

It is true, of course, that many variants arose in the very earliest period. There is no reason to suppose, e.g., that the first person who ever made a copy of the autograph of thc Gospel of Luke did not change his copy to conform to the particular tradition with which he was familiar. But he was under no compulsion to do so. Once the Gospel of Luke had become scripture, however, the picture was changed completely. Then the copyist was under compulsion to change his copy, to correct it. Because it was scripture, it had to be right. George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 4, 1962 (1996 Print), Abingdon Press, Nashville, pp. 594-595 (Under Text, NT)."

Damn, I'm good.
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???
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#3
November 3, 2004

This presumptuous and cold analysis seems to leave out the all-important influence of the Holy Spirit in protecting God's true message as delivered by the Apostles.

Messiah's words in Matthew 24:35 spoken in Aramaic can be expressed in English as "Heaven and earth will pass away but my words shall not pass away." I don't think he was referring to his words after they were translated into some foreign language.

Otto
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#4
Shlama Bar Khela,

Any four year old can ask difficult questions. It takes great intelligence to answer them. You have thus far asked questions and provided objections, but I see you really have no definite answers which you can substantiate, other than to quote "scholars" who seem to provide much in the way of objections and few answers, and most of whom quote other "scholars".

Paul has provided much evidence from Aphraates that the Peshitta existed in the early 4th century (AD 325) exactly as we have it today ,by the many word for word quotations Aphraates provides from The Peshitta NT which do not agree with the OS.
The Khabouris ms. is an 11th century ms. that contains an inscription describing the manuscript from which it was copied , placing it at AD 360 or earlier. This ms. is the same text used today and at all times since the 5th century by The Church of The East.
I have a copy of it and have collated it in Matthew 1-3 thus far against the Western Peshitta. There is only one difference, and that a very minor orthographical one: the spelling of "Israel". No substantial variant exists.
That is 99.8% word agreement at the very least, considering the Israel spelling is used twice in the portion I have thus far collated of the 763 words in the text. Letter agreement is 99.9% (-4 out of 2678 letters).
And this is an Eastern text compared against the Western Peshitta !

The matter of ms. agreement should not be sneezed at. It is evidence in itself that the scribes of that tradition believed the text they were copying was the original New Testament text and the word of God. I see no evidence to support your quotations to the contrary. The early church did receive the original gospels and epistles , "not as the word of men, but as the word of God." 1Thess. 2:13
2Co 2:17 For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.
2Co 4:2 But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man???s conscience in the sight of God.
The early Christian revered every writing which was read publicly in the churches as the word of God. He would not be likely to possess a copy. Those who first copied it would have been professional Jewish-Christian scribes trained and committed to preserve the written text in its original form according to the rules of the Hebrew scribes. We know how careful and particular they were. The Peshitta text is the only NT text with a Massorah ("fence") tradition like the OT Massorah. Pusey and Gwilliams critical edition of The Peshitta has all the NT Massorah notes in it. His collation of 42 mss. is the only text available on the internet as an electronic edition. He wrote in 1901: "The Peshitta text of the Gospels (all that had been collated at that time) was not corrupted in later times.Whatever variations it exhibits from the Greek date from a most remote antiquity."

The variations among Greek mss. and other mss. betray a
less reverent attitude than that of the Jewish and Aramaen scribes. The Greeks obviously did not have a conviction that the words and the very letters they were copying were sacred. Their actions betray their beliefs and attitudes, not as those who were the guardians of the original words of Heaven, but as copyists and editors of something of a lesser value.
Perhaps they knew they were copying a translation. Their actions and the results thereof are certainly consistent with that notion, and with the tradition of The LXX, which is also a translation, exhibiting different text types and many variations among mss. like Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, both of which are complete versions of The LXX and The Greek NT.
What other NT tradition displays the kind of agreement and precision The Peshitta demonstrates among its hundreds of mss. separated by a 1100 years from AD 464 to 1555 ?

I personally believe the Greek NT was a decoy and a fence around the secret Peshitta original of the first century. The early Christians would not risk the destruction of their most precious treasure and inheritance by their enemies.
They concealed the original Aramaic covenant and advertized the Greek text so well that even the Western churches eventually forgot the original text. The Eastern Church never did forget and was its guardian.

What evidence ? I have found that the Greek NT disguised the language of the original gospels as Greek by sytematically changing the Aramaic words, "Aramith" & "Aramaia" (Aramaic & Aramaean) into "Ellhn" (Greek) and "Ethnos" (Gentile).
This occurs 21 out of 22 times throughout The NT. The only place where "Aramaia" is not changed to "Greek" is in Luke 4:27 which refers to "Naaman the Syrian". Clearly Naaman would not betray the truth of the Aramaic original.

"To the Jew first, and also to the Aramaean" in the book of Acts and in the epistles and similar pairings of the two groups occur about 18 times. They are reminders ,in The Peshitta, that the gospel message was first given to these two Semitic groups and proclaimed in the language that connected them - Aramaic.
The Greek NT unanimously obliterates this connection and all references to the Aramaen people and language as the gospel audience and language of the original gospel.
There is no linguistic equivalence between "Aramaean" and "Greek". There is no linguistic rationale for translating one of these with the other.
The LXX uses "Suros"- "Syrian" , in 86% of the 132 places where "Aram" & "Armi" occur in the Hebrew OT.
The Greek NT uses the word "Suros" only once out of the 22 places the Peshitta has the Aramaic terms, [font=Estrangelo (V1.1)] ty0mr0 , 0ymr0[/font] "Armaith", "Armia".
These disparate results in the NT reveal what I believe was
a cultural modification of the original Aramaean New Covenant in translating it into Greek and concealing it from the Roman empire and all who followed.
The Greek NT also seems to rely on The LXX for OT quotations, contrary to the Peshitta NT quotations.This is also an attempted disguise of the Semitic nature of the NT and its origins.
It seems there was an agenda to bury the Aramaean culture and roots of the NT in order to preserve it from the enemies of God and His word. At least, that is the most noble and reasonable explanation I can give for these strange phenomena and the proliferation of Greek mss. while the Peshitta mss. remained by far the most consistent and carefully copied and at the same time,the most obscure to the Western church, along with Aramaic, which have been neglected and forgotten by them for almost 2000 years.

PS : I have an article on the above "Aramaic to Greek" revision in the Greek NT at my web site : <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://dave.ultimasurf.com/">http://dave.ultimasurf.com/</a><!-- m -->

Dave B
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#5
Shlama Akhi bar-Khela,

bar-Khela Wrote:My point is that the Peshitta, like the Greek, was developed under its own little Council of Ephesus.

Was was the name of this council, in which locality was it convened, by whom was it convened, under which Synodal authority was it judged, and what were the names (and, jurisdictions) of the prelates who were present?

You see, the rules of any educated and civilized debate are clearly defined. One of the most fundamental and universally recognized of these rules is this: it's not my job to rebut a claim made by you, it is your job to substantiate it with some sort of reasonable evidence.

Merely claiming that you find something "suspicious", and then outlining your personal theory about how this suspicious matter came about, is not how things work.

I can just as easily come back and claim that pigs fly on Mars, and dare you to prove me wrong. First off, you couldn't. There is no way for you to know that pigs aren't flying on Mars. Second off, it shouldn't be up to you to formulate my argument for me.

Come back again, beloved Akha, but this time with something a bit more substantial. Names, dates and places would be helpful.
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
[Image: sig.jpg]
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#6
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Yes, each copy of the Peshitta is nearly letter perfect to each other.

So what?

We do not have an autograph to compare our earliest copies to.

No Apostolic signature, no stamps, not even a postcard. Nada.

Therefore, accuracy in regards to letter-by-letter precision has no real weight in our discussion.
-------

Let's discuss the "Four-in-One."

Employing the four canonical Gospels and, perhaps, one or more extracanonical sources, Tatian wove a single, continuous narrative. He omitted doublets, harmonized discrepancies, and "corrected" omissions found in his source gospels"David Noel Freedman (Ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary On CD-ROM, 1997, New York: Doubleday (CD-ROM Edition by Logos Research Systems), (Under Diatesseron).

According to Freedman, Tatian "corrected" and "harmonized discrepancies" with the aid of "source Gospels."

In regards to these source Gospels,

The number and identity of the sources employed by Tatian remain unclear. Numerous readings attributed by Church Fathers to "the Gospel of the Hebrews" or "the Jewish Gospel" appear in the Diatessaron. An example is the "light" which shines in the Jordan at Jesus' baptism. Epiph. (haer. 30.13.7) says this stood in the "Hebrew Gospel"; the reading is also in Justin (Dial. 88.3) and at Matt 3:16 in two Old Latin mss{mss manuscripts} (a and g1, 4th and 9th century, respectively). Whether a "fifth source," such as Epiphanius' "Hebrew Gospel," is Tatian's source for this reading, or whether it came from a variant ms of the gospel of Matthew, as represented by the two Old Latin mss, cannot be determined until we have a clearer picture of the Gospels in the mid 2d{2d second} century. Nevertheless, a strong prima facie case can be made that Tatian employed sources other than the canonical Gospels, for there are numerous examples of such extracanonical readings in the Diatessaron

Textually speaking, the Diatessaron is a gold mine of early readings, some of which may, arguably, antedate the reading offered by the canonical Gospels" David Noel Freedman (Ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary On CD-ROM, 1997, New York: Doubleday (CD-ROM Edition by Logos Research Systems), (Under Diatesseron).

The Diatessaron was very popular.

"The Diatessaron proved itself one of the most popular editions of the Gospels ever produced. It was used by Catholic Christians, such as Ephrem Syrus, by Judaic Christians (Epiph., haer. 46.1.8-9), Manicheans, and missionaries, who took it to the furthest reaches of Christendom. Its greatest impact, however, was in Syria, where as late as the 5th century it was the standard gospel text" David Noel Freedman (Ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary On CD-ROM, 1997, New York: Doubleday (CD-ROM Edition by Logos Research Systems), (Under Diatesseron).

Tatian was later declared heretic and the copies of his Diatesseron were burnt.

With Tatian's Diatessaron being burned in the late second century CE (being the oldest Syriac NT ever), what source was used to compose the Peshitta (which appeared at least in the third century)?
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???
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#7
bar_khela Wrote:Sleepy

Yes, each copy of the Peshitta is nearly letter perfect to each other.

So what?

So what? You'd use the same argument to defend the accuracy and originality of the Quran.

It's very powerful proof of the reverence it held among Eastern Christians.

bar_khela Wrote:We do not have an autograph to compare our earliest copies to.

No Apostolic signature, no stamps, not even a postcard. Nada.

Neither do you have an original Quran. No Mohammaden signature (Mohammad couldn't read or write, anyway, but I'm just sayin'), no stamps, not even a postcard. Nada.

bar_khela Wrote:Therefore, accuracy in regards to letter-by-letter precision has no real weight in our discussion.

Don't be silly. Of course it does.

If you have one English Hamlet, and find hundreds of different Chinese translations.....it's a pretty good guess that hundreds of different Chinamen translated from that single English source.

I can't believe after all these years you still haven't "gotten" it.

bar_khela Wrote:Let's discuss the "Four-in-One."

What Tatian called in Aramaic the "Damkhaltey?" Sure, start by reading this:

<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.peshitta.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=401">viewtopic.php?t=401</a><!-- l -->

bar_khela Wrote:According to Freedman, Tatian "corrected" and "harmonized discrepancies" with the aid of "source Gospels."

Ummmm, yeah! Of course "source Gospels" were used to create a Harmony. You can't create a Harmony from nothing. Think about it.

bar_khela Wrote:In regards to these source Gospels

They were the same exact source Gospels that we have preserved today in the Peshitta.

<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.peshitta.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4">viewtopic.php?t=4</a><!-- l -->

bar_khela Wrote:The Diatessaron was very popular.

Yes, of course. Why wouldn't a harmony of the Peshitta Gospels be popular?

bar_khela Wrote:Tatian was later declared heretic and the copies of his Diatesseron were burnt.

In the Western Church, yes indeedee.

bar_khela Wrote:With Tatian's Diatessaron being burned in the late second century CE (being the oldest Syriac NT ever), what source was used to compose the Peshitta (which appeared at least in the third century)?

If Tatian's Diatesseron was burnt in the Western Empire, but not in the Eastern (Persian) Empire, where they were compiled to begin with, who cares?

And no, the Diatesseron wasn't "burnt" in the second century AD. They still existed in 1043 AD, otherwise Ibn-at-Tayyib (a CoE monk, and an Arab for what it's worth) wouldn't have been able to translate it into your beloved and "proto-Semitic" Arabic. Here is the subscription from the Arabic manuscript, in case you were interested:

Quote:Here endeth the Gospel which Tatianus compiled and named Diatessaron, i.e., The Fourfold, a compilation from the four Gospels of the holy Apostles, the excellent Evangelists (peace be upon them). It was translated by the excellent and learned priest, Abu'l Fa??ra??j ??Abdulla ibn-at-Tayyib (may God grant him favour), from Syriac into Arabic from an exemplar written by Isa ibn-Ali' al-Motatabbib, pupil of Honain ibn-Ishaq (God have mercy on them both). Amen.

Notice the "from Syriac into Arabic" part. Very, very important. No other version in any other language (not the Latin, not the Armenian, nothing) claims that it was translated DIRECTLY from the original language that Tatian (the ASSYRIAN) composed it in.

If, as you say, the Damkhaltey was "burned in the second century", what was that dummy ibn-Tayyib doing using it to make an Arabic translation in the 11th century?

C'MON, Akhi. Get your head out of Western encyclopedias. There are plenty of our own histories to tell our story, thank you.

So where is this "back breaker?" It's turned out to be more of a "back-scratcher!"
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
[Image: sig.jpg]
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#8
Quote:So what? You'd use the same argument to defend the accuracy and originality of the Quran.

<!-- s:lookround: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/lookround.gif" alt=":lookround:" title="Look Round" /><!-- s:lookround: -->


Quote:Neither do you have an original Quran. No Mohammaden signature (Mohammad couldn't read or write, anyway, but I'm just sayin'), no stamps, not even a postcard. Nada.

Excuse me?

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bar_khela Wrote:Therefore, accuracy in regards to letter-by-letter precision has no real weight in our discussion.

Quote:Don't be silly. Of course it does.

If you have one English Hamlet, and find hundreds of different Chinese translations.....it's a pretty good guess that hundreds of different Chinamen translated from that single English source.

I can't believe after all these years you still haven't "gotten" it.

Letter-to-letter accuracy of prototypes from a nearly mythologically archetype is irrevelent. I want to see these legendary sources of the Peshitta.

1) What happened to the source Gospels? (possibly "the Gospel of the Hebrews")
2) Why did the Church need use of the Diatessaron anyway if it had possession of these source Gospels?

3) How far back do these source Gospels date?


Quote:They were the same exact source Gospels that we have preserved today in the Peshitta.

Show them to me.


Quote:And no, the Diatesseron wasn't "burnt" in the second century AD. They still existed in 1043 AD, otherwise Ibn-at-Tayyib (a CoE monk, and an Arab for what it's worth) wouldn't have been able to translate it into your beloved and "proto-Semitic" Arabic. Here is the subscription from the Arabic manuscript, in case you were interested:

Quote:Here endeth the Gospel which Tatianus compiled and named Diatessaron, i.e., The Fourfold, a compilation from the four Gospels of the holy Apostles, the excellent Evangelists (peace be upon them). It was translated by the excellent and learned priest, Abu'l Fa??ra??j ??Abdulla ibn-at-Tayyib (may God grant him favour), from Syriac into Arabic from an exemplar written by Isa ibn-Ali' al-Motatabbib, pupil of Honain ibn-Ishaq (God have mercy on them both). Amen.

Notice the "from Syriac into Arabic" part. Very, very important. No other version in any other language (not the Latin, not the Armenian, nothing) claims that it was translated DIRECTLY from the original language that Tatian (the ASSYRIAN) composed it in.

What use did the Church have with the Diatessaron for so long once the Peshitta emerged in the fifth century?

What made the Peshitta "straighter" than the Diatessaron?

Let's talk about Tatian.

Irenaeus summarises the teachings of Tatian as follows:

"He invented a system of certain invisible Aeons [or powers], like the followers of Valentinus..."

"Like Marcion and Saturninus, he declared that marriage was nothing else than corruption and fornication..."

"...his denial of Adam???s salvation..." Irenaeus, Heresies, 1.28.1 (ANF, Series 1, Vol. 1, 353).

He was also the first Christian writer to declare that God created matter by the power of the Logos: "And as the Logos, begotten in the beginning, begat in turn our world, having first created for Himself the necessary matter..."Tatian, Address, 5 (ANF, Vol. 2, 67).

He also said "that the Logos, begotten by the Father, in turn 'begot' the creation" Robert M. Grant, "The Heresy of Tatian," Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. 46 (1954): 64.

The concept of Logos was first introduced by Philo of Alexandria who harmonized Jewish religion with Greek philosophical thought.. Certainly, Tatian, who was trained in "mythology, history, poetry, and chronology" who have studied it"Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, 1910. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 727. He later incorporated the concept in the Diatessaron as evident:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God is the 3 Word. This was in the beginning with God. Everything was by his hand, and 4 without him not even one existing thing was made. In him was life, and the life 5 is the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not."

Sound familiar? Sounds like alteration to me.

Ah, there's more---

Tatian, who maintaining the imaginary flesh of Christ, pronounces all sexual connection impure, who was also the very violent heresiarch of the Encratites, employs an argument of this sort: "If any one sows to the flesh, of the flesh he shall reap corruption;" but he sows to the flesh who is joined to a woman; therefore he who takes a wife and sows in the flesh, of the flesh he shall reap corruption.--HIERON.: Com. in Ep. ad Gal.

But Tatian, not understanding that the expression "Let there be" is not always precative but sometimes imperative, most impiously imagined concerning God, who said "Let there be light," that He prayed rather than commanded light to be, as if, as he impiously thought, God was in darkness.--ORIGEN: De Orat.

Tatian condemns and rejects not only marriage, but also meats which God has created for use.--HIERON.: Adv. Jovin., i. 3.

Is such a man qualified to "correct" and to "harmonize" the hypothetical source Gospels?
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???
Reply
#9
Akhi,

Firstly, there are no original Qurans that have a signature, either. And the oldest manuscripts of the Peshitta NT predate the earliest Quran manuscripts by at least 200 years. What's your excuse? Can't even preserve a 7th-century Quran? We have several 5th century Peshittas.......so what's your excuse?

PA-LEEZE.

Secondly, Tatian compiled the Peshitta Gospels into what was called the "Damkhaltey" very early on in his life. He became a nutcase later, who cares?

The Arabic translation of ibn-Tayyib, translated in the 11th century AD directly from the Aramaic Damkhaltey of Tatian, reads exactly like a harmonized version of the word-for-word Peshitta Gospels. It's in the British Museum, if you ever want to go see it.

Thirdly.....what use did the CoE have with a harmonized version, when it already had the distinct Gospels? They had no use of it - it was made by one man, it became popular for a while and then it died out. We didn't burn it in the 5th century, like Rabbula in the Western empire did, we kept it around for awhile - at least 600 years after it was burned everywhere else. It was alright. It was made from the Peshitta, after all. Why wouldn't it be alright?

Case clooooosed.
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
[Image: sig.jpg]
Reply
#10
Akhi

Quote:Firstly, there are no original Qurans that have a signature, either. And the oldest manuscripts of the Peshitta NT predate the earliest Quran manuscripts by at least 200 years. What's your excuse? Can't even preserve a 7th-century Quran? We have several 5th century Peshittas.......so what's your excuse?

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These are four Qu'ranic manuscripts dating back to the 1st century hijra. There is (of course) jot-by-jot accuracy in comparison to the copies of the Qu'ran on shelves today. Not 99 percent. Not 98.6752. 100. Moreover, there are six year old children in Arabia who can recite the Qu'ran backwards in its entirety.

Name a priest who has memorized the Peshitta.

The method of transmitting the Qur'an from one generation to the next by having the young memorise the oral recitation of their elders had mitigated somewhat from the beginning the worst perils of relying solely on written records . . " .John Burton, An Introduction To The Hadith, 1994, Edinburgh University Press, p. 27.

Those Arabs must have outsmarted the Church.

Quote:Secondly, Tatian compiled the Peshitta Gospels into what was called the "Damkhaltey" very early on in his life. He became a nutcase later, who cares?

He composed the Damkhaltey in 173 CE. He was excommunicated by the Western Church one year later. In Mesopotamia did he form his Gnostic sect called Encratites. Therefore, you cannot quite separate the sane Tatian from the heretic.

I noticed you did not comment on the Logos interpolation.

"The Diatessaron was composed at a time when the notion of canonical Gospels was so young that the composer of the Diatessaron felt free to introduce material not found elsewhere in what we now call canonical Gospels: Matthew 4:4 and Mark 1:6, for example, talk of John the Baptist having lived off 'locusts and wild honey,' which is unusual to an ascetic since locust is a non-vegetarian diet. Tatian felt free to resolve the problem by modifying the text. He substituted 'locusts' with 'milk of the mountains,' the food of the promised land which is mentioned in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 6.3)."

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The Greeks also "felt free" to revise, change, iron, soften, and polish their manuscripts. The East is equally guilty of alteration (especially the Syriac Orthodox Church).

....And the New Testament text continued to be a "living text" as long as it remained a manuscript tradition, even when the Byzantine church molded it to the procrustean bed of the standard and officially prescribed text. Even for later scribes, for example, the parallel passages of the Gospels were so familiar that they would adapt the text of one Gospel to that of another. They also felt themselves free to make corrections in the text, improving it by their own standard of correctness, whether grammatically, stylistically, or more substantively. This was all the more true of the early period, when the text had not been attained canonical status, especially in the earliest period when Christians considered themselves to be filled with the Spirit. As a consequence the text of the early period was many-faceted, and each manuscript had its own peculiar character"Aland & Aland, The Text Of The New Testament, p. 69.

As shown, the West is not the only side guilty of revision. I do not believe the Church of the East would have used the Diatessaron (a revision from hypothetical Gospels) for so long had they possessed the source Gospels. Hell, they won't even translate the Peshitta into English

Quote:The Arabic translation of ibn-Tayyib, translated in the 11th century AD directly from the Aramaic Damkhaltey of Tatian, reads exactly like a harmonized version of the word-for-word Peshitta Gospels. It's in the British Museum, if you ever want to go see it.

There's no way for me to verify that. Therefore, I cannot except it to be true.

Quote:Thirdly.....what use did the CoE have with a harmonized version, when it already had the distinct Gospels? They had no use of it - it was made by one man, it became popular for a while and then it died out. We didn't burn it in the 5th century, like Rabbula in the Western empire did, we kept it around for awhile - at least 600 years after it was burned everywhere else. It was alright. It was made from the Peshitta, after all. Why wouldn't it be alright?

Prove the Peshitta is the predecessor to the Damkhaltey. Open challenge.

Quote:Case clooooosed.

Don't submit just yet.
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???
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#11
bar_khela Wrote:Akhi

Quote:Firstly, there are no original Qurans that have a signature, either. And the oldest manuscripts of the Peshitta NT predate the earliest Quran manuscripts by at least 200 years. What's your excuse? Can't even preserve a 7th-century Quran? We have several 5th century Peshittas.......so what's your excuse?

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These are four Qu'ranic manuscripts dating back to the 1st century hijra. There is (of course) jot-by-jot accuracy in comparison to the copies of the Qu'ran on shelves today. Not 99 percent. Not 98.6752. 100.

Those aren't complete manuscripts, Akhi. For instance, the first link contains only Surah al-`Imran 45 to 54 and part of 55. So we don't know whether or not the number is 100, or 97%

If I were to use your tactics you tried to pull recently on another thread, I would claim that the rest is missing because I felt that Othman, Abu Bakr or someone else tampered with the other 99.9% of the Quran that is mysteriously missing from this tiny little fragment and somebody ripped out the pages so as not to be embarrased.

I would claim, like you did, that the Muslims had their "own little secret council of Ephesus" and edited the book.....and, of course, I would dare you to prove me wrong.

See, I don't work that way. You tell me this is 100% the same as other Qurans....and you tell me it's a signatured copy. However, I see no signature from Mohammad (not that he could write, anyway), nor can it be proven that the rest of it would have agreed "100%" with modern printed copies.

bar_khela Wrote:Moreover, there are six year old children in Arabia who can recite the Qu'ran backwards in its entirety.

Name a priest who has memorized the Peshitta.

This is itself irrelevant to the discussion, as we were discussing the structure of the text.

There are Mandeans in southern Iraq who have memorized the Ginza Rabba (their Aramaic holy writings) and there are Zoroastrians in Iran who have memorized their holy writings. I don't get your point, or the relevance to our discussion.

Islam is the only religion which places so much emphasis on memorization. That's because they were a bunch of illiterate uneducated barbarians. They had to memorize everything. Memorization is a skill at a personal level, and not everyone can do it.

And people's memory of the same event or text can be different. That's why Uthman had to "standardize" the disparate copies of the Quran, and suppressed the ones which difference in reading to his "authorized version."

There are people of all religions who have memorized their texts. The mnemotechnic poetry of the Vedas come to mind in particular. Those people were famous and had excellent techniques to memorize long epics, as happened in several other cultural milieus.

In any case, written texts are far superior to oral transmission. Otherwise, we might as well get rid of all books, after memorizing them of course, since they are unnecessary. Written texts create records which can be examined, whereas only silent arguments can be obtained from the history of oral transmission...we simply have no way to substantiate your claim.

This line of reasoning is silly....really.

bar_khela Wrote:The method of transmitting the Qur'an from one generation to the next by having the young memorise the oral recitation of their elders had mitigated somewhat from the beginning the worst perils of relying solely on written records . . " .John Burton, An Introduction To The Hadith, 1994, Edinburgh University Press, p. 27.

That's a bunch of doo-doo. "Mitigated somewhat?" C'MON. If you leave no written record, there is no way to verify either way. It's the pigs flying on Mars scenario again....."well, gee, we didn't leave a written record.....but PROVE that our text wasn't altered!"

bar_khela Wrote:Those Arabs must have outsmarted the Church.

Those Arabs couldn't outsmart themselves, a far easier task.

bar_khela Wrote:He composed the Damkhaltey in 173 CE. He was excommunicated by the Western Church one year later. In Mesopotamia did he form his Gnostic sect called Encratites. Therefore, you cannot quite separate the sane Tatian from the heretic.

He died around 180 AD, Akhi. He founded the sect of the Encratites in 172 AD. He was a student of Justin Martyr in Rome from 150-165 AD, during which time he composed the Damkhaltey in his native Aramaic. He composed the Damkhaltey before he became a heretic in 172 AD, and before he died in 180 AD.

In fact, in his "Address to the Greeks" he was still Orthodox. We can tells this because he clearly believed in Christ???s incarnation (Address 21), His suffering (Address 15) and bodily resurrection (Address 13).

At some point later, he became a heretic. So? His harmonization of the Peshitta Gospels took place long before that.


bar_khela Wrote:I noticed you did not comment on the Logos interpolation.

"The Diatessaron was composed at a time when the notion of canonical Gospels was so young that the composer of the Diatessaron felt free to introduce material not found elsewhere in what we now call canonical Gospels: Matthew 4:4 and Mark 1:6, for example, talk of John the Baptist having lived off 'locusts and wild honey,' which is unusual to an ascetic since locust is a non-vegetarian diet. Tatian felt free to resolve the problem by modifying the text. He substituted 'locusts' with 'milk of the mountains,' the food of the promised land which is mentioned in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 6.3)."

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I didn't comment because these things are not in the Arabic version, the only translation we know of for sure was made directly from the original Aramaic.

I don't trust any other version, not the Latin, not the Armenian...for not only do they differ greatly from each other, but even among themselves. Many "harmonies" were made by people which are mistakenly attributed to Tatian's work....but in fact are not his work at all. Others, as in the case with the Armenian, are in a completely foreign language. Arabic is the descendant of Aramaic....whereas the Latin and Armenian languages are quite foreign.


bar_khela Wrote:The Greeks also "felt free" to revise, change, iron, soften, and polish their manuscripts. The East is equally guilty of alteration (especially the Syriac Orthodox Church).

....And the New Testament text continued to be a "living text" as long as it remained a manuscript tradition, even when the Byzantine church molded it to the procrustean bed of the standard and officially prescribed text. Even for later scribes, for example, the parallel passages of the Gospels were so familiar that they would adapt the text of one Gospel to that of another. They also felt themselves free to make corrections in the text, improving it by their own standard of correctness, whether grammatically, stylistically, or more substantively. This was all the more true of the early period, when the text had not been attained canonical status, especially in the earliest period when Christians considered themselves to be filled with the Spirit. As a consequence the text of the early period was many-faceted, and each manuscript had its own peculiar character"Aland & Aland, The Text Of The New Testament, p. 69.

As shown, the West is not the only side guilty of revision. I do not believe the Church of the East would have used the Diatessaron (a revision from hypothetical Gospels) for so long had they possessed the source Gospels. Hell, they won't even translate the Peshitta into English.

There are several false statements here on your part.

Again, you try the "pigs on Mars" approach and boldly declare something you have absolutely no evidence of.....to wit, that the CoE was guilty of revision. What revision?

Don't be silly. You really think Tatian is the only one in the world who had the four distinct Gospels? That nobody else in Assyria had a copy of what he had made his Damkhaltey from?

C'MON, Akhi.

bar_khela Wrote:
Quote:The Arabic translation of ibn-Tayyib, translated in the 11th century AD directly from the Aramaic Damkhaltey of Tatian, reads exactly like a harmonized version of the word-for-word Peshitta Gospels. It's in the British Museum, if you ever want to go see it.

There's no way for me to verify that. Therefore, I cannot except it to be true.

You can promise to look into it. That you cannot accept something you cannot verify is a good trait to have, then why do you accept that the Quran is 100% accurate, and claim divine intervention for it....but then when it comes time where you are confronted with the evidence of an Aramaic NT that is also 100% accurate in all of its existing copies, that you reject it?

Is it because it flies in the fact of everything Islam has claimed about the NT? That Islam rightly criticizes the Greek transmission of these texts is a good thing. That it ignores, very conveniently by the way, the history and accuracy of the Aramaic side.......is very very sneaky.

And that's why the sudden reversal on your part, isn't it? That you can't have this Aramaic NT floating around without any tampering and with a pureness of textual transmission even more astounding than the Quran even....seeing that our oldest manuscript beats the Quran by at least 200 years.....and its the exact same as the ones that are printed today, because the ones that are printed today are these 5th-century manuscripts....only printed using modern equipment.

That's what scares you so, isn't it? That Islam's claim to being the only religion with an "uncorrupt" text is falling on its face now that the truth of the Aramaic NT comes out in the open and that Western Christians are re-discovering what fanatical Muslims like Tamerlane tried so desperately to obliterate.....the Aramaic NT and the Aramaic Church.

I get it now. <!-- sConfusedatisfied: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/satisfied.gif" alt="Confusedatisfied:" title="Satisfied" /><!-- sConfusedatisfied: -->

bar_khela Wrote:
Quote:Thirdly.....what use did the CoE have with a harmonized version, when it already had the distinct Gospels? They had no use of it - it was made by one man, it became popular for a while and then it died out. We didn't burn it in the 5th century, like Rabbula in the Western empire did, we kept it around for awhile - at least 600 years after it was burned everywhere else. It was alright. It was made from the Peshitta, after all. Why wouldn't it be alright?

Prove the Peshitta is the predecessor to the Damkhaltey. Open challenge.

OK - start by reading the "Diatesseron's Peshitta Pedigree" post in the Peshitta Primacy 101 forum, and then let me know what you want to be expounded.
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
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#12
Shlama Beloved,


Quote:Those aren't complete manuscripts, Akhi. For instance, the first link contains only Surah al-`Imran 45 to 54 and part of 55. So we don't know whether or not the number is 100, or 97%

If I were to use your tactics you tried to pull recently on another thread, I would claim that the rest is missing because I felt that Othman, Abu Bakr or someone else tampered with the other 99.9% of the Quran that is mysteriously missing from this tiny little fragment and somebody ripped out the pages so as not to be embarrased.

I would claim, like you did, that the Muslims had their "own little secret council of Ephesus" and edited the book.....and, of course, I would dare you to prove me wrong.

See, I don't work that way. You tell me this is 100% the same as other Qurans....and you tell me it's a signatured copy. However, I see no signature from Mohammad (not that he could write, anyway), nor can it be proven that the rest of it would have agreed "100%" with modern printed copies.

Thus, if the Qur'an had been transmitted only orally for the first century, sizeable variations between texts such as are seen in the had??th and pre-Islamic poetry would be found, and if it had been transmitted only in writing, sizeable variations such as in the different transmissions of the original document of the constitution of Medina would be found. But neither is the case with the Qur'an. There must have been a parallel written transmission limiting variation in the oral transmission to the graphic form, side by side with a parallel oral transmission preserving the written transmission from corruption.The transmission of the Qur'an after the death of Muhammad was essentially static, rather than organic. There was a single text, and nothing significant, not even allegedly abrogated material, could be taken out nor could anything be put inAdrian Brockett, "The Value of Hafs And Warsh Transmissions For The Textual History Of The Qur'an" in Andrew Rippin's (Ed.), Approaches of The History of Interpretation of The Qur'an, 1988, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 33.

Quote:And people's memory of the same event or text can be different. That's why Uthman had to "standardize" the disparate copies of the Quran, and suppressed the ones which difference in reading to his "authorized version."

The dispute was rivalry over the proper pronounciation of the Qu'ran, not memory.

Quote:In any case, written texts are far superior to oral transmission. Otherwise, we might as well get rid of all books, after memorizing them of course, since they are unnecessary. Written texts create records which can be examined, whereas only silent arguments can be obtained from the history of oral transmission...we simply have no way to substantiate your claim.

Written records must be complemented with memory. Otherwise, such records can be altered.

Quote:Again, you try the "pigs on Mars" approach and boldly declare something you have absolutely no evidence of.....to wit, that the CoE was guilty of revision. What revision?

Don't be silly. You really think Tatian is the only one in the world who had the four distinct Gospels? That nobody else in Assyria had a copy of what he had made his Damkhaltey from?

C'MON, Akhi.

You're right.

Quote:You can promise to look into it. That you cannot accept something you cannot verify is a good trait to have, then why do you accept that the Quran is 100% accurate, and claim divine intervention for it....but then when it comes time where you are confronted with the evidence of an Aramaic NT that is also 100% accurate in all of its existing copies, that you reject it?

Quote:Is it because it flies in the fact of everything Islam has claimed about the NT? That Islam rightly criticizes the Greek transmission of these texts is a good thing. That it ignores, very conveniently by the way, the history and accuracy of the Aramaic side.......is very very sneaky.

And that's why the sudden reversal on your part, isn't it? That you can't have this Aramaic NT floating around without any tampering and with a pureness of textual transmission even more astounding than the Quran even....seeing that our oldest manuscript beats the Quran by at least 200 years.....and its the exact same as the ones that are printed today, because the ones that are printed today are these 5th-century manuscripts....only printed using modern equipment.

That's what scares you so, isn't it? That Islam's claim to being the only religion with an "uncorrupt" text is falling on its face now that the truth of the Aramaic NT comes out in the open and that Western Christians are re-discovering what fanatical Muslims like Tamerlane tried so desperately to obliterate.....the Aramaic NT and the Aramaic Church.

I get it now. <!-- sConfusedatisfied: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/satisfied.gif" alt="Confusedatisfied:" title="Satisfied" /><!-- sConfusedatisfied: --> [/quote]

Dude, pick up a copy of Hyam Maccoby's The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity.
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???
Reply
#13
Shlama Beloved,

Do you believe the Hebrew Tanakh and the Peshitta NT are Divine manuscripts written by men filled with the Spirit?

If so, can you offer any proof to such a belief?

I ask because if those books are not divine, then they are of men.

If they are of men, they were many contradictions lying therein.

....so if I search the Bible and find a clear, "nothin-to-say-bout-it-" contradiction which you cannot refute or explain, then it is not from God.

1) If indeed the Holy Spirit is God and He "filled" the men who composed the NT, then there isn't a single contradiction since it was He Who wrote through them

2) If so, its style cannot be imitated as it is God's style.

3) Its content is consistent and without any discrepency between the Gospels

4) The Oneness of Alaha is stressed as it was in previous Messages without any addition or deletion to the essence of the Shema.

Accept my challenge, Paul. Search the Qu'ran to find ONE CONTRADICTION or logical inconsistency.

Produce one verse like it in Arabic without using it as your reference. Call on the Holy Spirit for aid.

But if you cannot, then recognize the Qu'ran's supremacy over the Bible.

Will you accept my challenge, Akha, or will you send me away?
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???
Reply
#14
Paul,

One hardly knows how to respond nor where to begin to the charge that there are no contradictions in the Koran. Obviously there are both internal and external contradictions in the Koran, any book written by a man is prone to this. How could it be otherwise? Let me give you a few brief examples, only a few of many contradictions found. My quotes are from ???The Meaning of The Holy Qur???an??? by Abdullah Yusuf Ali (a book I own).

Sura 39:4 ???Had Allah wished to take to Himself A son, He could have Chosen whom He pleased Out of those whom He Doth create: but Glory Be to Him! (He is above Such things.) He is Allah, The One, the Irresistible."

Sura 6:101 ???Wonderful Originator of the heavens and the earth; How can He have a son when He has no consort? He created all things, and He hath full knowledge of all things.???

These Suras agree in that they teach that God (Allah) does not have a son however the point is that Sura 39 says that it is possible for God (Allah) ???to take to Himself a son???. In other words, it is possible for God (Allah) to have a son ???had Allah wished???. On the other hand Sura 6 as the rhetorical question ??????How can He have a son when He has no consort???? This question requires the answer ???no??? to the question. Sura 6 asks a good question, however the clear message of the writer of this Sura is that it is impossible for God (Allah) to have a son.

Paul, the point is simple. One Sura says it is impossible for God to have a son (Sura 6) and another says it is possible for God to have a son, if God wished. Don???t let this young man fool you into believing that the issue of these two verses has to do with ???whether or not God has a son???. The issue is one of possibility not reality.

Furthermore, a book which purports that the earth is flat is clearly not from God. Sura 18:86 says ???Till, when he [the traveller Zul-qarnain] reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it going down into a muddy spring??? and Sura 18:90 says ???Till, when he reached the rising-place of the sun, he found it rising on a people for whom We had appointed no shelter from it.??? Paul, I can guarantee you that what is written here, as being true, is silly. This traveler never reached a ???muddy spring??? where the sun sets.

How???s this one? Sura 12:41 says that the Patriarch Joseph said ???O my two mates of the prison! as for one of you, he shall give his lord to drink wine; and as for the other, he shall be crucified, so that the birds shall eat from his head, the matter is decreed concerning which you inquired.??? Suppose you were the ???mate??? who was to be crucified; wouldn???t you have said ???Hey, Joseph wait just a cotton picking minute, what the heck is a crucifixion???? The Persians were the first to utilize this form of execution not the Egyptians and certainly not during Joseph???s time.

This young man implies that the author of the Koran is not the same author as the Bible. He is 100% accurate in his assumption. It???s as simple as that. The Bible and the Koran have different origins and very different authors.

Keith
Reply
#15
bar_khela Wrote:Shlama,

Now what's my point to citing that source?

My point is that the Gospels (handpicked at Nicea) were not double-checked by the Disciples of Jesus.

My point is that the Peshitta, like the Greek, was developed under its own little Council of Ephesus.

Damn, I'm good.
I have the documents of Nicea and Ephesus and there is not one word about which Gospels to use or the Peshitta.

Go to the source to substantiate claims of this sort.
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