Word play in aramaic and syriac

[SteveCaruso]

Mar Ishodad of Merv agrees with your assessment. However, the corpi we have of the Dialect of Jesus or Mary is extremely limited. Could you at least acknowledge the possibility that it may have existed in their dialect, but is simply not attested to in any extant manuscript?

Paul, you misunderstand. It's not just a matter of it not being attested in the dialect of Jesus. It's not attested in *any* other dialect other than Syriac (not even in dialects heavily influenced by Syriac like CPA). Even within Syriac it is a very rare word to begin with. It's a quintessential shibboleth (i.e. no doubt its a Syriac word and a Syriac word alone).

To be consistent, I must admit that there is indeed a *possibility*; however, I believe that possibility is so shrinkingly small that I would sooner expect to be struck by lightning on a sunny day (and would be just as surprised). :-)

The fact that the Sinai Syriac palimpset has "Rabbuli" for Mark 10:51 is interesting. I haven't done a thorough search, but there may be other instances. In your viewpoint, the Peshitta is a revision of the Old Syriac. If so, then why did the Peshitta correct "Rabbuli" in the OS Mark 10:51, but not in this case?

First, under the current model the Peshitta was not just a straight revision (of course under the model towards more Byzantine readings) but also a consolidation. The two OS MSS we have in many places disagree with each other more than they do the Peshitta. (Remember that old "/xad/ idiom" debacle all those years back with James Trimm? Ugh..)

/Rbwly/ only occurs in Syr(s) in Mark 10:51 and John 20:16, and in doing so agrees with the Greek tradition, making the Peshitta's reading there another outlier. I only wish that we had that portion of Mark preserved in Syr© for comparison. It might have been able to shed some light.