Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
The Age of the Peshitta
#61
So the Yonan and Khabouris are copied from the same 2nd century manuscript?
Reply
#62
memradya Wrote:
Quote:Scholars say that the Greek language was spoken in Israel primarily by the higher class

I don't see why the galilean who could speak in Eddesan Aramaic, couldn't speak Greek when there were Greek towns 3 miles further. And the business with that.

Quote:ONE LETTER. FIVE CENTURIES.

I put the exact terminology. And one of the difference between old Syriac (132 BC - 242 AD) and classical Syriac is this -n. The same way someone who says "neighbour" will be reconized as "British", and the others who say "neighbor",as "American". I never said that the difference would be incredible.

But first, I have to find in my thousand of files the ones about the evolution of the syriac, overall the inscriptions...

Akhi.

I can put any of those ancient inscriptions from the first century until the fifth century in front of any of dozens of students at Sunday school Aramaic class at Mar Gewargis church at Chicago, and explain a couple of little nuances (like the Y vs N) for the imperfect 3rd person masculine, and within five minutes these 12-year olds will explain to you in English what the inscription says.

If you're an Aramaic speaker of any modern dialect of Aramaic, and you cannot understand my transcription above from 6AD, then it is a shame.

NOW find anyone who can understand English, German or Greek from 6AD. See how much those languages have changed in the last 2,007 years.

I bet you it's a lot more than just a few rules like Y vs N for the imperfect.

It's not much harder to understand "y'shbekh" than it is to understand "n'shbekh". The root, shbekh, "praise", is the same root with the same meaning. Only the prefix indicating the imperfect 3rd person masculine is different.

This is not rocket science Akhi.

Do you not know how much more my dialect differs from the Tyari dialect my brother in law speaks, than these tiny little variances? And we have no problem communicating, and switching back and forth.

I honestly am perplexed at how much of a big deal you all make about these silly little quirks that vary even more from village to village today.

+Shamasha
Reply
#63
Scorpio,
From what I researched, colophon of Khabouris text is a copy of a text from approximately 164 AD. I found the information from below website.
Here is the link - <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.whyagain.com/khabouris_history.php">http://www.whyagain.com/khabouris_history.php</a><!-- m -->

But the link does contain some inaccurate information. For Example, the link says Estrangela was created in 100 AD when we already have an inscription written in Estrangela from AD 6.
Reply
#64
SteveCaruso Wrote:Still chipping away when I have the odd hour to spare. :-)

konway87 Wrote:On the top of that, Khabouris Manuscript is a copy of manuscript which can date as early as 2nd century AD.

The interpretation of the colophon from the Khabouris codex is suspect. It is worn and severely damaged damaged and difficult to make out. No one has actually produced a transcription of it to date due to this difficulty, but seem to intrinsically trust the interpretation of Norman Yonan. Where Yonan (a teller of fantastical tales who was trying to hype and sell the codex to the tune of $1.5 million in 1955) insisted it read 165 AD, after his death this was questioned thoroughly. Most conventional scholars reject this interpretation completely.

Quote:"The Society of Biblical Literature at its annual meeting in New York City on December 28?30, 1955, wishes to go on record as opposing some of the publicity attending the efforts currently being made to raise by popular subscription $1,500,000 for the purchase of the so-called Yonan Codex. This codex is a manuscript of the Syriac New Testament which is reported to be ?the oldest surviving complete New Testament written in Syriac-Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus? (Washington Evening Star, March 25, 1955).

According to members of our Society who have examined the manuscript, the Yonan Codex is a copy of the Syriac Peshitta, a version which was made from the Greek New Testament at about the beginning of the fifth century and which contains twenty-two of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. Edessene Syriac, the language of this version, differs considerably from the Palestine Aramaic used by Jesus more than four centuries earlier. About three hundred manuscripts of the Peshitta version are known to exist in the libraries of this country and Europe. Several of these are older than the Yonan Codex, which some of our members who are expert in Syriac palaeography date to the seventh or eighth century. According to certain members of the Society who have frequently arranged for the purchase of biblical manuscripts, a fair estimate of the value of a manuscript like the Yonan Codex is about $5,000."

What was instrumental to this declaration was that Yonan was using Dr. Bruce Metzger (of Princeton)'s name (and other scholars' names) in promotion of the codex to gain approval (from the then Governor of Virginia to Library of Congress officials) and Metzger was not aware of it. When he was made aware, he told Yonan to stop and he turned on him and Yonan sent lawyers after him to shut him up. He wanted his $1.5 million dollars, truth be damned.

Will respond to more when I have another hour to spare.

Shlama Steve:
As I have said, The Yonan Codex is not the Kaboris Codex. Nevertheless they are in close agreement (virtually verbatim) at least in the areas that I have transcribed. It's true that the Colophon of the Kaboris Codex is somewhat illegible. Also another error is still to be resolved and publically announced, and that is the date given internally that it was written during the time of the persecution. Specifically, was it Roman persecution or Persian. If so the date would be different. Rome was technically at war with Persia, during the so-called "conversion" of Constantine and this was a major factor in the persecution of Assyrian Christians by Shappur II in 341, a few years after Constantine ascended the throne. The Khaburis Codex as well as the Yonan Codex appear to be copied from an extant 4th century Peshitta manuscript, which I believe was transcribed into Estrangelo from K'tav Assuri, also called "Herodian Script". This script was common in the Dead Sea Scrolls from sometime before the First Century. K'tav Assuri seems to me to be a consistent Jewish scribal media, used from before the First Century, and is the fore-runner of all Hebrew Scrolls of the TaNakh, as it is this day. Estrangelo appears to have been perfected into its beautiful calligraphy, in Edessa during the second half of the First Century and widely used in the Second Century. The 6 A.D. inscription at the citadel was a pre-curser of Estrangelo. Yes it was rounded, as opposed to the square script (K'tav Assuri), but it's my understanding that Estrangelo had a makeover some 30-50 years after the 6A.D inscription. Hence we have the testimony of the Assyrian Church of the East receiving at least the Gospel accounts of the Peshitta around 52-53 A.D., sometime before the first Greek New Testament fragments were found. The devil is in the details and I will stand corrected if shown to be wrong on any point.

Quote from Wikipedia (Persecution of Christians)
In 341, the Zoroastrian Shapur II ordered the massacre of all Christians in the Persian Sassanid Empire. During the persecution, about 1,150 Assyrian Christians were martyred under Shapur II in Assuristan (Sassanid ruled Assyria).[17] In the 4th century, the Terving king Athanaric in ca. 375 ordered a persecution of Christians.[18]

Quote from Wikipedea (Khaboris):
"The Khaboris Codex was obtained by Mr. Norman Malek Yonan, who had previously tried to sell the Yonan Codex in the United States with the claim that it was the earliest New Testament manuscript, from the Assyrian Church of the East in Iraq in 1966. When Yonan died in 1970, the manuscript was purchased by Dan MacDougald for use in his holistic healing programme, which had previously sold transliterations of the Yonan Codex's text of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5.3?12, and identical to the standard Peshitta text) to be recited to improve mental health."

This statement is simply not true.

As I said, it's time to set the record straight.

P.S. please read "the Saga of the Yonan Codex" by Bruce Metzger at dukhrana. There is no mention of the term Khaboris. Khaboris refers to the Kabor River, a tributory of the Euphrates River in modern Syria.

I hope you find this helpful, Steve.

Shlama,
Stephen Silver
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.dukhrana.com">http://www.dukhrana.com</a><!-- m -->

this post has been edited, corrected and added to for clarification.
Reply
#65
Thank you so much for the information, Silver. We need people like you to correct the wrong information.
Reply
#66
Akhi Stephen wrote:
Quote:Hence we have the testimony of the Assyrian Church of the East receiving at least the Gospel accounts of the Peshitta around 52-53 A.D., sometime before the first Greek New Testament fragments were found. The devil is in the details and I will stand corrected if shown to be wrong on any point.

Brother Stephen, where can we substantiate this statement? I haven't heard of it being given to the Church of the East that early, only the witness saying that the date of 78 A.D. is found in the colophon of the Gospels, which was seen on the altar of a Church of the East parish in Baghdad showing that date, as mentioned by Assamani, in his Bibliotecha.

Do you know if the Younan Codex is still in the exhibit in Florida?

Also, I have learned recently where The Khabouris Codex can be seen currently, if you are interested in knowing where to see it on display in a public exhibit.

Here is a new picture of it, showing it on display.

[Image: 21bd9054f5298bbe820ff672a45c1e7c.jpg?itok=yeOW4fMG]


Shlama,
Chuck

.
Reply
#67
Here is what is said to be an "old syriac" manuscript page, is there any difference here with what is found in the Khabouris, scribed about the 10th century from an older copy perhaps from the 2nd or maybe really from the 4th century.

[Image: page1001.jpg]

.
Reply
#68
Shlama Akhi Chuck,

That is Luke chapter 17, the passages dealing with adultery in the case of marrying a divorced woman or leaving your wife for another woman. Also, the ending is the story of the rich man and Lazar.

And no, there are no linguistic differences here to qualify it as any older than the language of the Peshitta.

Their first criteria, the Y for 3rd-p imperfect, is N instead of Y, just like the Peshitta. N-mla (to fill) his stomach, instead of Y-mla. (Speaking of Lazar being hungry)

But then again, they throw around terms loosely so I can't be sure which "old" one they are talking about. Certainly I had no problem understanding any of this page, word for word.

+Shamasha
Reply
#69
Quote:Galileans didn't speak Greek, because Jewish Nation didn't encourage the learning of Greek. Like Josephus pointed out, Greek was an unaccustomed language to Jews in first century AD.

I don't think that jewish nation had to encourage the learning of Greek, in order that Galilean try to speak with their neighbor: when you have fish to sell, you go and trade. And the Galilee was till about 100 BC an "unjewish" nation, sometime still seen as such. They don't share the same point of view as the Judean, and are more tolerants with the foreigners.

Steve Caruso wrote
Quote:Middle Aramaic starts in the 3rd century AD, not 200 BC.

That's why I've given this exemple, because Konway mistook classical Syriac for old Syriac



Quote:If you're an Aramaic speaker of any modern dialect of Aramaic, and you cannot understand my transcription above from 6AD, then it is a shame.

I'm not. I don't think that there's anybody who couldn't understand it. But the Israeli who speak modern Hebrew could say the same thing about the tongue of the Bible.

That make me think : I can't hardly understand what someone coming from Quebec says, and he speaks French like me, but with an accent very different from mine. It's a matter of habbit... I have no doubt that a 4 Century Aramaic speaker could understands what the 1st Century one says ^^. It doesn't mean that there is not difference between first and four Century Syriac.

Quote:I can put any of those ancient inscriptions from the first century until the fifth century in front of any of dozens of students at Sunday school Aramaic class at Mar Gewargis church at Chicago, and explain a couple of little nuances (like the Y vs N) for the imperfect 3rd person masculine, and within five minutes these 12-year olds will explain to you in English what the inscription says.


There is more that one difference (and I agree nothing of very incredible).

Orthography : old syriac is rather litteral. By contrast classical Syriac is rather historical. We see it with the linea occultans, where the orthography doens't represent the pronunciation.
Phonology : The use of shin instead of samkath to indicate a voiceless palatal fricative which will be pronunced in classical syriac exactly as the samkath.

Some features which differenciate old Syriac from classical Syriac.
It would be like " Peshitto is a 1st Century book "!!! . No, it doesn't because it is written in western Syriac, and in the first Century the division in two diallects didn't occur. It's not a matter of content, but of form...
Reply
#70
Shlama Akhi Memradya,

memradya Wrote:
Quote:If you're an Aramaic speaker of any modern dialect of Aramaic, and you cannot understand my transcription above from 6AD, then it is a shame.

I'm not. I don't think that there's anybody who couldn't understand it. But the Israeli who speak modern Hebrew could say the same thing about the tongue of the Bible.

Totally different, your analogy does not hold water. A modern Israeli who speaks modern Hebrew is speaking a reconstructed language, largely resurrected by Theodore Hertzl and other Zionists during the 19th-20th centuries. They did not speak this language for nearly 2,000 years before it was resurrected as a native tongue. It is very different from Biblical Hebrew, especially in pronunciation.

That is *not* the case with Aramaic, which has been continually spoken for at least 3,000 years. Up until today - an unbroken line.

memradya Wrote:That make me think : I can't hardly understand what someone coming from Quebec says, and he speaks French like me, but with an accent very different from mine. It's a matter of habbit...

Again, your analogy doesn't correlate. A French Speaker from Quebec or even the West Indies has a large distance and cultural difference from the mainland. Same thing with modern Spanish and it's various children dialects in Latin America. There is no cultural tie, a descendant of an African slave in the West Indies can be speaking a totally unrecognizable language to you, even if based somewhat on French. I'm assuming you're not by heritage, an African ?

memradya Wrote:I have no doubt that a 4 Century Aramaic speaker could understands what the 1st Century one says ^^. It doesn't mean that there is not difference between first and four Century Syriac.

Of course there were differences. There still are today. A language that is stuck in time is a dead language, like Latin. Aramaic is not dead, yet.

memradya Wrote:Orthography : old syriac is rather litteral. By contrast classical Syriac is rather historical. We see it with the linea occultans, where the orthography doens't represent the pronunciation.

The linea occultans came much later in the written manuscripts of Classical Syriac, based on the interpretation of the scribe, which at times showed differences in geography. The oldest manuscripts do not contain any markings.

memradya Wrote:Phonology : The use of shin instead of samkath to indicate a voiceless palatal fricative which will be pronunced in classical syriac exactly as the samkath.

I don't know who you've been talking to, maybe a "Syriac Orthodox" speaker, but under no circumstance do eastern speakers EVER pronounce the Shin as a Semkath. Ever.

memradya Wrote:Some features which differenciate old Syriac from classical Syriac.
It would be like " Peshitto is a 1st Century book "!!! . No, it doesn't because it is written in western Syriac, and in the first Century the division in two diallects didn't occur. It's not a matter of content, but of form...

Those two you listed aren't anything that differentiate the "Old" Syriac from the "Classical" Syriac. You find one inscription from 6AD that was from another city, at another time, that has a slight variation on how the 3rd-person imperfect is formed, and you've created a mountain from a mole hill.

There are far more variances between modern dialects from two villages in Iraq that are right next to each other, within walking distance, than there are from these mole hills you keep trying to paint as mountains.

Being more literal than another manuscript can be the result of the preference of the scribe/translator. Again, as I've told Steve Caruso before .... absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence.

Your pool of primacy sources is small to begin with, and coupled with loose criteria like "literalism" or "markings" - makes for some wild assumptions on your part. Yes, there are valid differences from 1st-century Aramaic dialects and those from later centuries. Are they significant enough to warrant a change in the name of the dialect? No. They aren't.

We don't call Corinthian Greek, "Doric" - simply because it different slightly from the Attic base of Koine Greek. Neither do we call the language in the United States - "Americaic", simply because it differs slightly from the English spoken in Great Britian (including the large variances there.)

Your classification of the Aramaic dialect of Edessa as "Syriac", an intentional differentiation in order to draw distance from it and the language of Christ, is simply unwarranted and (perhaps unintentionally) deceitful.

+Shamasha
Reply
#71
Quote:I don't know who you've been talking to, maybe a "Syriac Orthodox" speaker, but under no circumstance do eastern speakers EVER pronounce the Shin as a Semkath. Ever.

Quick note as I have 1 minute to spare:

He's referring to the Shin/Sin distinction. In Classical Syriac, Sin is written with Semkath. In Old Syriac it's written with Shin (same with most early Jewish dialects; and -- as it's my focus -- Galilean does this, too, and there's strong evidence it was preserved in speech).
Reply
#72
You need to provide examples, Caruso. Not just words.
Reply
#73
Paul Younan Wrote:Your classification of the Aramaic dialect of Edessa as "Syriac", an intentional differentiation in order to draw distance from it and the language of Christ, is simply unwarranted and (perhaps unintentionally) deceitful.

And one more minute to spare between after cleaning up dinner:

It's not "his" classification, Akhi. It's the conventional classification, come about by thorough study by many thousands of individuals who have dedicated their lives to studying the Aramaic language family over hundreds of years. It's not something to throw away lightly.

Although it's a smidgeon tongue-in-cheek, as the saying attributed to Max Weinreich goes: /)a $prak )yz )a dy)al(q+ my+ )an )armyy )wn Pl)A+/ = "A 'language' is a 'dialect' with an army and navy." <!-- sSmile --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /><!-- sSmile -->

The dialect of Osroene Edessa kinda fits that "rule of thumb," which is why its own separate designation is not unwarranted. It coalesced originally as the dialect of a pagan kingdom that shared a very different culture from the various Jewish sects that were contemporary to Jesus, and had a very different culture after the dialect was effectively Christianized afterwards. This causes some understandable differences that are enough to draw a distinction for the sake of discourse vis-a-vis the greater body of Aramaic languages.
Reply
#74
konway87 Wrote:You need to provide examples, Caruso. Not just words.

You're not aware of the Shin/Sin distinction within Northwest Semitic languages?

---

Ok, back to work with me. More later. :-)
Reply
#75
Quote:You need to provide examples, Caruso. Not just words.

Slight differences in dialect shouldn't make someone get all up in arms. I'm sure an Assyrian could understand a Galilean means when he says "d'b'smaya" instead of "d'b'shmaya". It's a very minute, albeit noticeable, difference in dialect.
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)