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Aramaic Thoughts - The Peshitta and Textual Criticism, Part II
Genesis 4:8 is a curious text from a text-critical perspective. The Masoretic Text (MT) reads, "And Cain said to Abel his brother, and it happened when they were in the field, that Cain arose against Abel his brother and killed him." Some English versions, such as the ESV, try…
- May 11, 2012
- The Peshitta and Textual Criticism, Part 1
The Peshitta is generally considered to be of secondary importance in matters of textual criticism. This is due in large part to the fact that the Peshitta as it currently exists appears not to be a simple, straightforward translation of the Hebrew original into a related Semitic…
- May 4, 2012
- The Peshitta and Textual Criticism: An Introduction, Part 1
Cambridge University Press recently published the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with an accompanying volume by David Norton titled The Textual History of the King James Bible. The former book is a new edition of the King James Bible, while the latter…
- April 27, 2012
- Important Manuscripts and Editions of the Peshitta
Early on in the course of these postings, the question of the Khaboris (or Khabouris) Codex came up. The Khaboris Codex is a tenth-century codex (that is, it is in a form like that of a modern book, rather than in a scroll) that contains the New Testament written in the…
- April 20, 2012
- The relation of the Peshitta to the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and to the Aramaic Targums is a disputed point. In part, this is due to the fact that different manuscripts of the Peshitta give evidence of slightly different origins, or at least sources of influence. It is possible, perhaps even likely, that the Peshitta…
- April 13, 2012
- The Peshitta is a translation of the Bible (Old and New Testaments) into Syriac, which is a late dialect of Aramaic. It is to be distinguished from the Syro-Hexaplar version. The latter version was a Syriac translation based on the Septuagint text of Origen’s work known as the Hexapla. Origen was one of the early church…
- April 6, 2012
- Continuing the survey of the content of Daniel brings us to Daniel 4, which
is the account of Nebuchadnezzar’s second dream, and which ends with
Nebuchadnezzar’s humiliation and restoration. Chapter 5 recounts the handwriting
on the wall, the end of Belshazzar’s reign, and the triumph of the Medo-Persian
Empire.…
- March 30, 2012
- Apart from two short passages, (Gen 31:47 and Jer 10:11) Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; and Daniel 2:4-7:28 are the portions of the Old Testament that are written in Aramaic. The rationale for the two sections of Ezra that are in Aramaic is easy to determine. These are the passages that deal with official correspondence regarding…
- March 23, 2012
- The last Aramaic utterance of Jesus recorded by Mark is in 15:34, "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’" There are a number of interesting elements to this cry of Jesus. For one thing, the quotation in Mark does…
- March 16, 2012
- Mark 7:31-37 gives the account of Jesus’ healing of a deaf man. This miracle is not recounted in Matthew and Luke, the other two of the synoptic gospels. The man is identified as one "who was deaf and had a speech impediment (literally, "thick-voiced")." This would seem to imply that the man was born deaf, though that…
- March 9, 2012
- In Mark 15:22, Mark identifies the place where Jesus was crucified as "Golgotha, which means place of a skull (Gk: kranion)." The identical identification is made in Matt 27:33. Luke identifies is simply as "the place that is called The Skull" (23:33), using only the Greek. John also identifies the place as "the…
- March 2, 2012
- We noted before in passing that Mark uses more Aramaic vocabulary than the other gospels. We will look later at the possible reason behind that, but for now, I will look at some of those passages just to see how Mark makes use of the Aramaic. For this week we look at Mark 5:41. "Taking her by the hand he said to her, "Talitha…
- February 24, 2012
- There are three texts in the New Testament where the phrase "Abba, Father" occurs: Mark 14:36; Romans 8:15; and Galatians 4:6. Over the last couple of decades a particular understanding of the significance of the phrase has crept into Christian preaching. That understanding is the idea that the use of the Aramaic "Abba"…
- February 17, 2012
- First, my apologies to all for missing this column last week. We lost power due to a freak ice storm before I had the chance to complete and send the column. The power was just restored for us yesterday, and I still do not have internet service at home. It gives some sympathy for those on the Gulf Coast who are still suffering…
- February 10, 2012
- The third argument against an Aramaic, or Hebrew, original for Matthew is that it does not read like translation Greek. Admittedly this is a somewhat subjective argument, but it is not without its merits. Let me give an illustration. C. S. Lewis wrote a book titled The Literary Impact of the Authorized Version. In…
- February 3, 2012
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