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Prof. Brock Speaketh With a Foot in his Mouth
#1
Guys,

Seriously, I shouldn't be posting this - but it is too hilarious for you guys to miss. OK - Prof. Sebastian Brock, at Oxford University - mind you - is involved in this debate I'm having with someone regarding the special name for God in Aramaic - Marya.

Only the seasoned professionals (like Larry, Dean and Andrew) will appreciate this - so if you're not a linguistics geek, press the back button here as you will be quite bored.

As as said - Prof. Brock, THE Prof. of Aramaic himself, writes back and supports my opponent by stating the following in response to a challenge I made asking him to provide an example where a lexical stem in the form of X-X-A (a stem containing a 3rd-weak radical - in this case, M-R-A) is altered to the form M-R-Y-A:

Prof. Sebastian Brock Wrote:I don't really want to waste more time with this, but you could cite ra`e, with emphatic ra`ya (shepherd), bare, with emphatic barya (creator) (and quite a number of other such cases).

Now, what Prof. Brock is mistakingly referring to is substantivization of participles (see Thackston 20:3). The word "raya" is, incidentally, treated in that section very thoroughly by Thackston. The summary of the grammatical rule is that the emphatic participles of verbs which contain a weak 3rd-radical (such as the Aleph) are formed on the pattern Xa-X-Ya, with the -Ya representing the weak 3rd radical (in this case, the Aleph in M-R-A).

This would indeed form M-R-Y-A from M-R-A - If M-R-A was a participle based on a 3rd-weak radical verb. HOWEVER, the lexical stem M-R-A (or, the proper title variant of M-R-Y) is NOT a participle derived from a verbal root, M-R-A is a noun - hence this rule does NOT apply.

Both the B-R-A and R-(-A roots that Brock mentioned are in fact verbal roots, with the participles "bare" and "rae" (respectively) being derivatives of those verbs. Hence, even Payne-Smith identifies both "Barya" and "Raya" as SUBSTANTIVES, exactly according to the rules specified in Thackston 20:3. In fact, "Raya" is used as one of the examples in Thackston 20:3.

M-R-A, however, is NOT (I repeat, NOT) a verbal root - nor does it have a participial "mare" derived from it. Hence, the rule as Brock suggested does NOT apply.

These are the people sitting on the "chairs" at the universities, folks. Honestly, most 10-year old Assyrian Sunday school students know this much Aramaic. <!-- s:biggrin: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/biggrin.gif" alt=":biggrin:" title="Big Grin" /><!-- s:biggrin: -->
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
[Image: sig.jpg]
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#2
Shlama Shamasha Paul.

Thank you for this important clarification.

I have a question or two.

First, Is it possible for the word Mara (lord) to be used as a verb, for example, to lord it over someone. If so, is there anyway you could argue from that that Mara can then be subjected to this rule he is speaking of? (I am sorry I am not knowledgeable enough to express this question any clearer)

Secondly, I have found this verse in the Peshitta Acts 10:36. It says that He is Marya of all according to the Khobouris Mss. In the 148 manuscript however it says he is Mara of all.

In the Khobouris Mss. it says that He is Marya of all, does the 148 reading make more sense?
I am interested in what you think, because it looks to me like the Khobouris Mss is using the name Marya as though it meant lord, as also in the Nicene creed it says "One Maryah Esho Msheekha" and so they use the word Maryah to translate the Greek word for lord, if this is not so can you help me understand?

Thank you

Sami
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#3
Sami Rabia Wrote:Secondly, I have found this verse in the Peshitta Acts 10:36. It says that He is Marya of all according to the Khobouris Mss. In the 148 manuscript however it says he is Mara of all.

In the Khobouris Mss. it says that He is Marya of all, does the 148 reading make more sense?
I am interested in what you think, because it looks to me like the Khobouris Mss is using the name Marya as though it meant lord, as also in the Nicene creed it says "One Maryah Esho Msheekha" and so they use the word Maryah to translate the Greek word for lord, if this is not so can you help me understand?

Thank you

Sami

b.t.w. I cannot find any '148 reading'

I'm not paul, but this looks like who's citing who?

1 Corinthians 8:6 "We have one God, the Father. For everything is from Him and we are in him and one mar-Yah, Jesus Christ. For everything is by him and we also are in his hands"

But, it might be true, that Kurios was translated to Mar-Jah, as in John 8:11 (palestinian syriac).

But according to Paul's explanation, Phillipians 2:9-11, we are speaking about a name, not about a title, 'kurios/lord'. As Aramaic speaking Christians knew this, it does not seem so strange to translate the 'kurios' from the Nicene creed and the khabouris have this issue.
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