rival conjecture of "aphraates readings"

[Dawid]

Peace and Blessings,

Distazo, I understand where you're coming from. Moreover, I appreciate the tone of your post.

I do think that there are parts in the Gospels, particularly in a few of Jesus' sayings, that have a genuine Aramaic origin. On the same coin, there are many parts thereof that are legitimately koine Greek, as I have demonstrated. As far as the poetry in the Syriac is concerned, while it sounds beautiful, it remains correlational.

I am inclined to agree.
Note also that, while Distazo is certainly correct in saying that there is no law saying it must be translated poetically, it would not necessarily rule out that possibility. Others have used poetic elements to argue for extremely bizarre conclusions. Take, for example, Nehemiah Gordon's books about the Shem Tov Hebrew Matthew. Because it has some poetic elements he says it must be original. That's hardly rational. Translators are not required to make their translations poetic, but they sometimes do. It is a way of respecting the text they are working with.