05-15-2020, 08:58 PM
Great day Peshitta enthusiasts. The Peshitta has a totally rare (and awkward) reading (or mistranslation?) in Acts 23:10, Acts 23:23, and Acts 23:31. The Peshitta literally reads "Romans" in those verses, while all known Greek and Latin copies read "soldiers."
Isn't it awkward and redundant to read "Romans" in those passages, since everybody knows that the soldiers involved were Romans ?!? Brooke Foss Westcott also uses this point to suggest that the Peshitta was "translated," stating the following.
"The Acts are more loosely translated (Wichelhaus, p. 86); but it is to be remembered that the text of the Acts presents more variations than any part of the New Testament. The Epistle to the Hebrews is probably the work of a separate translator. (Wichelhaus, pp. 86 ff.) 4 That it was made at some place out of the Roman Empire is shewn in the translation of "stratiotai" by "Romans" in Acts xxiii. 23, 31. [Cf. Acts xxviii. 15: Appim Form.] But this is not the case in the Gospels, which, as I have conjectured, were translated earlier, and in Palestine. Cfi Wichelhaus, pp. 78 ff." (A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament, 242).
Isn't it awkward and redundant to read "Romans" in those passages, since everybody knows that the soldiers involved were Romans ?!? Brooke Foss Westcott also uses this point to suggest that the Peshitta was "translated," stating the following.
"The Acts are more loosely translated (Wichelhaus, p. 86); but it is to be remembered that the text of the Acts presents more variations than any part of the New Testament. The Epistle to the Hebrews is probably the work of a separate translator. (Wichelhaus, pp. 86 ff.) 4 That it was made at some place out of the Roman Empire is shewn in the translation of "stratiotai" by "Romans" in Acts xxiii. 23, 31. [Cf. Acts xxviii. 15: Appim Form.] But this is not the case in the Gospels, which, as I have conjectured, were translated earlier, and in Palestine. Cfi Wichelhaus, pp. 78 ff." (A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament, 242).