10-21-2004, 03:37 PM
gbausc Wrote:Even weak arguments for Peshitta primacy are better than no arguments for Greek primacy. Most of what I have heard for Greek primacy is not arguments, just noise.
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Most arguments for Greek primacy I've heard have actually boiled down to these few points.
1) the earliest manuscript evidence is in Greek.
2) superficially speaking the places where the episltes etc. were written have Greek names, which implies Greek was dominant and thus the language of the epistle, or Gospel.
3) Greek primacists are ignorant of the Targums. So they have theorized that it would be unweidy to have translated the scriptures, from Hebrew To Aramaic then into Greek to have made the Greek NT.
4) They claim when faced with Aramaic literary arguments that "Text evidence" shows an Aramaic finger print, when speaking of Aramatizions, offer alterative hypotheses.
a) that their are some dialects of Kione that have similar word order and syntax.
b) the word order resembles something that was read and translated by dictation. (Paul or whoever read the epistle or Gospel to a translator who put it into Greek).
5) They find construction of a hypothetical text, a Q gospel in Aramaic, to be a bogus manipulation and fabrication. A twisting of the text etc. They have jumped on some leap of logic from this web site I have put forth, to show that people here don't really know Greek. They basically when offered a mountain of evidence against Greek, will point out and make a mountain of weak point, or bad conclusion of Greek Grammar to basically filibuster the overall empiricial argument against Greek.
Well these have been the chief objections I have encountered so far, none of them are linguistic except some of point 4. My expereince is that when you confront hard core primacists with proof with comparing greek and aramaic verses. They either ingnore you, or look at it with disbelief, beleiving you are quoting a sloppy Greek translation. Sometimes they are somewhat interested and amused. But not enough to seek out or investigate. At best they admit that yes, Aramaic is a biblical language and has had some influence on the Bible, but they then after making that admission go down a litany of why the Bible really was almost entirely first recorded in Greek. Matthew being the possible only exception.