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The Age of the Peshitta
#1
I am a big fan of Rotherham's Emphasized Bible, which is a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament. Joseph Bryant Rotherham (the translator) makes mention of Aramaic primacy in his introduction:

"With regard to the New Testament, the only question that could arise would be whether some parts of it were not first written in Syriac, and then translated into Greek. But this is probably a pure academical inquiry, and inasmuch as the assumption of a Greek original for the whole of the New Testament does not exclude Syriac sources from contributing their quota towards evidence of genuineness and aids to textual purity..."

Here is what he says of the Peshitta Old Testament:

"Syriac Version: made from the Hebrew, and was old enough in the days of Ephrem (4th cent. A.D.) to need explanation of obscure terms. First Version from the Hebrew original made for Christian use; and indeed, the only version of that kind before Jerome, which was made subsequent to the time when Ephrem wrote. (Dr. S.P. Tregelles in Smith's Bible Dict. Amer. ed. 3883, ff.)"

While this isn't talking specifically about the Peshitta New Testament, this does add to our belief that the Peshitta is an ancient version that was made in Apostolic times. It also stands to reason that if they had an Old Testament translated, the Apostles themselves must have given them the New Testament. Whether they translated it or not is something we all are trying to figure out. I personally hold that the Peshitta is the closest we have to the original New Testament, if not the original New Testament itself, as it shows signs of independence from the Greek, poetry, wordplay, and the style of an original with it not having such a rigid and stiff reading style.
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#2
1st century, for the NT, and 1st century and maybe before it, for the OT.

Until that is proven wrong, I'm going to stand on it.

Blessings,
Chuck
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#3
The idea that the Assyrian Christians, who spoke Syriac Aramaic, surely would have been left without the New Testament writings by the Judean and Galilean Aramaic speaking Jewish Apostles is completely ridiculous.
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#4
Quote:the Assyrian Christians, who spoke Syriac Aramaic

Ok...this is for educational purposes.... What does the term "Syriac Aramaic" mean exactly, and is this what the Assyrian Christians, and those of Edessa, and the Mesopotamia area, like Babylonia would have spoken in, and is this what The Peshitta is written in?

I understand that there are many different dialects, but is "Syriac Aramaic" one of them?

Peace and Love, <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->
Chuck
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#5
ScorpioSniper2 Wrote:The idea that the Assyrian Christians, who spoke Syriac Aramaic, surely would have been left without the New Testament writings by the Judean and Galilean Aramaic speaking Jewish Apostles is completely ridiculous.

Really, it's the "Syriac" speaking Jews of Arbela, Edessa, Harran, Adiabene and Babylon they went to evangelize first.

Assyrians, Chaldeans and Arameans in those areas just happened to speak the same dialect as their Jewish neighbors. And that's true to this very day. There are many "Syriac" speaking Jews in Israel today.

The Churches in the East, like the West, grew out of those missions and expanded to us "Semitic Gentiles". Strange term, I know, but we *do* exist, and we outnumber the "Semitic non-Gentiles". <!-- sWink --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/wink1.gif" alt="Wink" title="Wink" /><!-- sWink -->

+Shamasha
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#6
Yes, that's what I call "Syriac Aramaic". I don't like using the term "Syriac" without using it in conjunction to "Aramaic". They're really synonyms but modern Greek primacists can't seem to help but distinguish "Syriac" and "Aramaic", when this distinction is quite unjustified. I agree with Akhi Paul's assertion that Jesus and the apostles could easily switch between dialects, as Jesus clearly had no problem conversing with Assyrians, as He spent a lot of His ministry in Syria. I put a lot of stock in Akhan Paul's linguistic statements, as he is a native speaker of the language of our Lord and God Jesus the Messiah. I'm thankful we have native speakers of this beautiful language working to preserve it.
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#7
Ok, Dylan...sort of like saying British English, and American English...same English/Aramaic language, just a bit different here and there.

And I know that the NT says that "all of Syria heard of His fame" Matt 4:24, but does it say somewhere that Jesus was actually ministering "in" Syria? You said "Jesus clearly had no problem conversing with Assyrians, as He spent a lot of His ministry in Syria."

Also, I think that "Syrians", those living in Syria, and "Assyrians", those living in Assyria, are not the same people group at all, nor did they live in the same place, though their language (Aramaic) may have been very similar...could be wrong though, still learning about these details.

Shlama,
Chuck
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#8
Quote:And I know that the NT says that "all of Syria heard of His fame" Matt 4:24, but does it say somewhere that Jesus was actually ministering "in" Syria? You said "Jesus clearly had no problem conversing with Assyrians, as He spent a lot of His ministry in Syria."

Matthew 15:21-28 and Mark 7:24-30 take place in the Syrian area of Phoenicia, when Jesus was leaving Tyre and Sidon. The Lord was also in Caesarea when Simon Peter confessed Him as the Son of God and the Messiah (Matthew 16:13-20).

Quote:Also, I think that "Syrians", those living in Syria, and "Assyrians", those living in Assyria, are not the same people group at all, nor did they live in the same place, though their language (Aramaic) may have been very similar...could be wrong though, still learning about these details.

If I'm not mistaken though, Syria was where the Assyrians were from. That's why Greeks called Aramaic "Syriac". The area that we refer to as Syria today is not the Biblical Syria, I don't think. I could be wrong. Someone else will have to check my statement.
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#9
"Syria" is the Greek word for "Aram", and "Syriac" is the Greek word for "Aramaic." Which is why most speakers dislike the term. It's foreign. We don't refer to our language as "Syriac."

Assyrians kinda had colonies all over the place. It was a military strategy. Many Assyrian cities have been uncovered in modern-day Syria. The empire covered the entire Middle East, including Egypt.

That being said, Assyrians took the Aramean language and made it an international lingua franca. Prior to that, it was a local language of a particular set of desert tribes. After that, it became the language of three world empires and dozens of nations, including the Israelites.

I think people tend to forget that it was the Assyrians that gave prominence to Aramaic. Had it not become the official language of the empire, Our Lord would probably have spoken Hebrew as His native language.

+Shamasha
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#10
I try to limit using the word "Syriac" so as to not offend the Assyrian brethren on this forum such as yourself. The very word "Syriac" has been used to make distinction as if the language of Jesus and the language of the Assyrians were different languages, rather than slightly different dialects of the same languages. In this article on CARM (to read, click here: http://carm.org/manuscript-evidence), the author says, "As you can see, there are thousands more New Testament Greek manuscripts than any other ancient writing. The internal consistency of the New Testament documents is about 99.5% textually pure. That is an amazing accuracy. In addition, there are over 19,000 copies in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages. The total supporting New Testament manuscript base is over 24,000." This an example of how much confusion has resulted from referring to this dialect of Aramaic as "Syriac". I only use the term "Syriac" in conjunction with "Aramaic" in order to make distinction between different dialects (like Galilean Aramaic, Judean or Hebrew Aramaic, Mandaic Aramaic), but I try to make it as clear as possible that it is only a difference between dialects (no matter how small), but not between multiple languages. I find you to be a very reliable source on Aramaic linguistics, as you are an Aramaic speaker. Scholarly inquiry isn't something that can exceed the experience of a native speaker of a particular language.
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#11
Oddly enough, the same "scholars" who label the language of the NT "Syriac", refer to our own modern dialects as "Neo-Aramaic" (not "Neo-Syriac"), despite the overwhelming evidence that the "Neo-Aramaic" dialects descend directly from what they refer to as "Syriac."

Asking for a little consistency isn't too much, is it ? Maybe it is, because I think you can clearly tell the motive behind calling the language of the NT something other than what Christ spoke, which to them all we have is a couple of phrases graciously preserved in the GNT, and which don't differ from the "Syriac" in one single letter.

+Shamasha

PS - ironically, the "Galileans" themselves were Assyrians. Military strategy at the time of the empire dictate that conquered peoples were taken captive and settled closer to the heart of Assyria (see the account of the Northern 10 Tribes), and native Assyrians were settled in their former towns. This helped to prevent another rebellion. This is why the Galileans were hated by the Judeans, because they weren't Israelites, they were Assyrians transplanted there after the Northern 10 Tribes were taken to Assyria.

The "Galilean" dialect of Aramaic was an Assyrian one.
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#12
Thirdwoe Wrote:Also, I think that "Syrians", those living in Syria, and "Assyrians", those living in Assyria, are not the same people group at all, nor did they live in the same place, though their language (Aramaic) may have been very similar...could be wrong though, still learning about these details.

just a side note:
I remember this to be a possible misreading from the original Judaic Aramaic which could be HA'AM while Syria would 'ARAM.
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#13
Paul Younan Wrote:Oddly enough, the same "scholars" who label the language of the NT "Syriac", refer to our own modern dialects as "Neo-Aramaic" (not "Neo-Syriac"), despite the overwhelming evidence that the "Neo-Aramaic" dialects descend directly from what they refer to as "Syriac."

Asking for a little consistency isn't too much, is it ? Maybe it is, because I think you can clearly tell the motive behind calling the language of the NT something other than what Christ spoke, which to them all we have is a couple of phrases graciously preserved in the GNT, and which don't differ from the "Syriac" in one single letter.

+Shamasha

Yes, I think that's grown to be a Greek primacy trademark

Paul Younan Wrote:PS - ironically, the "Galileans" themselves were Assyrians. Military strategy at the time of the empire dictate that conquered peoples were taken captive and settled closer to the heart of Assyria (see the account of the Northern 10 Tribes), and native Assyrians were settled in their former towns. This helped to prevent another rebellion. This is why the Galileans were hated by the Judeans, because they weren't Israelites, they were Assyrians transplanted there after the Northern 10 Tribes were taken to Assyria.

The "Galilean" dialect of Aramaic was an Assyrian one.

Jesus was clearly Jewish though, but the Judean people were mostly unaware of His Davidic lineage. The genealogies in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke show that quite clearly.
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#14
Shalama lakhon

In the Talmud, church fathers etc when the term is well used, "syriac" (leshan sosrsi) refers to western Aramaic (palestiana, west syria). Stricto sensu, judean Aramaic, galilean Aramaic are "syriac". But the syriac of the peshitta is "eastern" Aramaic with eastern features.

And the dialect of the Peshitta is classical syriac wich doesn't appears before the middle of the 3rd century A.D. Especialy the 3rd masc sing preformativ n- wich seemed to appear under akkadien influence; the old syriac had the y- like all the other dialects.
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#15
memradya Wrote:Shalama lakhon

In the Talmud, church fathers etc when the term is well used, "syriac" (leshan sosrsi) refers to western Aramaic (palestiana, west syria). Stricto sensu, judean Aramaic, galilean Aramaic are "syriac". But the syriac of the peshitta is "eastern" Aramaic with eastern features.

And the dialect of the Peshitta is classical syriac wich doesn't appears before the middle of the 3rd century A.D. Especialy the 3rd masc sing preformativ n- wich seemed to appear under akkadien influence; the old syriac had the y- like all the other dialects.

Good points.

Galilean Aramaic's autonym was /suriston/ (a Greek loan word) and Galilean is as Western as one can get, dialect-wise. However, Galilean is not anything near what we'd call "Syriac" today.

When all taken together, the 3ms imp. preformative /n-/, extensive compound cases with suffixed /)yt/ + /hwy/, strong reliance upon proleptic /-eh d-/ for the definite genitive, etc., are all things that are very characteristically Classical Syriac that distinguishes it from Old Syriac and earlier dialects.

Also, to follow up on earlier comments, the reason why modern Aramaic languages are called "Neo-Aramaic" rather than "Neo-Syriac" is because there is no confirmed direct descent between them and Classical Syriac, which is a complicated thing to discern as Classical Syriac -- as a liturgical language -- has influenced them in varying ways dependent upon dialect. One of the biggest complications towards such a link within NENA dialects, for example, are differences between sister-dialects in the same villages. Aramaic spoken by Christians and Aramaic spoken by Jews within the same towns are more often than not mutually unintelligible; however they both often have their roots solidly in a common dialect. It seems that one was over time influenced by Syriac, where the other was over time influenced by LJLA and others, and the two communities simply didn't talk to one-another so they diverged. :-) Out of all of them, the Lishana Deni clade has some intelligibility with Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, but only partial intelligibility with Assyrian Neo-Aramaic dialects (from reports of Lishana Deni speakers). Nearly all other Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect speakers have reported that other Neo-Aramaic dialects are simply not understandable.
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