12-12-2004, 09:45 PM
gbausc Wrote:Shlama akhi Steven,
Why are you so dogmatic when you are wrong ?
There are Aramaic mss. for the five. There is the Palestinian Syriac text which has them (5th century) as well as the Crawford manuscript of Revelation, published by John Gwynn, along with his edition of the Catholic epistles, which is incorporated into
the 1905 edition of the Syriac Bible we will be using as the base for transcription of the Khabouris.
The Eastern Church does not include these books, not because they do not exist in Aramaic , but because they do not exist in their mss. Some argue that the mss. containing them were translated from Greek. What difference would that make to anyone outside The COE ? Almost all believe that all Peshitta mss. were all translated from Greek. Nevertheless, the Harclean version and its predecessor , were translated from Greek and revised in the 6th & 7th centuries.
The mss. used in the 1905 edition are different in nature from the Harclean version, and do not look like a translation from Greek. I have tested word pairs (not codes) from Greek NT and Aramaic NT in the Catholic Epistles and Revelation in the article you referred to. The Greek text came from the Aramaic text, based on the 1000+ data I describe of Aramaic to Greek numbers. The Aramaic text of Revelation's Crawford manuscript is the original behind the sloppy Greek texts of Revelation.
Even Lamsa includes all 27 books in his translation and indicates that "later Aramaic mss. include them". Do you really
think these editions (1905 Syriac & Lamsa) would have five books without any Aramaic mss. behind them ?
Ask Paul to verify this if you don't believe me.
Blessings,
Dave
Hi Dave:
I don't think I'm being dogmatic at all. The Crawford Manuscript-Book of Revelation is translated from the Greek. To my knowledge, John Gwynn has only transcribed, the Book of Revelation, not the other four of the Western Five.
The Harklean 616 CE (Aramaic) version of The Western Five, II Peter, II and III John, Jude and Revelation is a translation from an unknown Greek text.
"The Apocalypse of St. John, in a Syriac version hitherto unknown (1897)."
The Crawford is the oldest complete Western New Testament we have for now, but in it's entirety it's a copy of a 7th century Western text of the New Testament (27 books). The Mosul text 1891 (Western Five) and the Crawford Western Five are virtually the same, and this proves that they are both translations from the Greek.
note:
virtually: slight differences appear in a comparison between the Crawford Revelation and the Mosul 1891 version, but in most places they are word for word and letter for letter the same.
Personally, I accept the Greek witness of the Western Five, because we just simply do not have an original Aramaic autograph. The 22 book Peshitta was closed before the Western Five were written, to the best of my knowledge. The Peshitta has had continual custodianship since the First Century in the Eastern Church.
The 1905 Eastern Aramaic text is without question the best Peshitta text to date, till the Khabouris Codex was found around the mid sixties, and brought to America.
Therefore, your published statistical research on "the names of God Experiment" using the Peshitta + the Western Five, my dear brother Dave, is not valid in proving Aramaic primacy.
If your research shows a higher incidence of "the names of God" in the Aramaic translation than in the Greek text, your experimental data is flawed, and so is your hypothesis. Also, if there is no significantly measurable difference in your statistical data between that of the Peshitta and that of the Western Five, this also reveals a serious flaw in your experimental apparatus. I'm simply stating the facts, Dave.
There are a number of Aramaic scholars that will affirm that the Western Five are translated from the Greek. I could name a few, Paul Younan, Andrew Gabriel Roth and Dean Dana.
Love in Christ,
Stephen Silver