Are the Peshitta Gospels updated from the Old Syriac?

Steven Avery

Administrator
Research on the Old Syriac Heritage of the Peshitta Gospels: A Collation of Ms. Bibl. Nationalale Syr. 30 (Paris) -
Andreas Juckel
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/HV12N1Juckel

THE TEXT OF ACTS IN MS BIBL. NATIONALE SYR. 30. (2021)
Daniel L. MCCONAUGHY
https://web.p.ebscohost.com/abstrac...e&authtype=crawler&jrnl=10973702&AN=154447739

Facebook - NT Textual Criticism
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTT..._id=694423413977995&offset=0&total_comments=3

BVDB - (2007)
Peshitta - 2nd c ? how, when, why 5th c theory ?
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bib...tta-2nd-c-how-when-why-5th-c-theory-t756.html

Try to find IIDB in archives.

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Michaelis
http://books.google.com/books?id=9WAUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA24
p. 4, 5, 18, 23-24

The Earliest Versions of the Gospels in Syriac (1903)
https://books.google.com/books?id=W3BIAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA162

Reviewed Works: review by Bruce Metzger
Investigations into the Text of the New Testament Used by Rabbula of Edessa by Arthur Vööbus;
Researches on the Circulation of the Peshitta in the Middle of the Fifth Century by Arthur Vööbus (1950)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3261413?seq=1

Does the Peshitta stem from the Old Syriac? - Rabulla theory of Burkitt refuted by Voobus ( Rabulla recension similarl to Lucian recension )
http://www.superbook.org/LAMSA/FAQ/peshitta_old_syriac.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/2014030...tta.com/Peshitta FAQs/peshitta_old_syriac.htm

May be interesting even if by Baucher.

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OLD TESTAMENT

Syriac Old Testament in Recent Research (2000)
Richard A. Taylor
http://www.syriacstudies.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/37-Syriac-old-testament.pdf

The Syriac Version of the Old Testament (2005)
M. P. Weitzman
https://books.google.com/books?id=9DT03inkmTAC&pg=PA8
 
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ebion

Member
It's important to clearly distinguish (over simplified) between:

1. Church of the East PeshittA (Nestorian) This is the original
Aramaic, said to have been brought by the Apostle Thomas to India via
Persia with a shipwreck on the island of Socotra (Eastern). My favorite translation is
https://www.thearamaicscriptures.com with a couple of small corrections.

2. Old Syriac PeshittO, (Johnannite), affectionately/derisively referred to as
Old Scratch, said to have been translated from the Greek after the
Diatesseron, and westernized (Greeked) with added NT books (Western).
The added books are Revelation, Jude, 2Peter, 2John, 3John. I don't
know that these books were rejected: the CoE Canon may have been closed before
these later books were in wide circulation, which may show how old it was.

3. Codex Sinaticus Syriac, which is an oddball similar to the Cureton,
and considered to be an Old Syriac, although not a very good copy with lot's of
copyist errors; it is is Palimpsest. It is currently dated at 698 AD.

The Church of the East Peshitta reads very differently, and much more beautifully, than say a Erasmus based English translation, and has gently different content. A lot of the minor differences makes one ask: WastheNewTestamentReallyWritteninGreek, especially the wordplays and some things like Philemon 7 KJV. There are at least 4 or 5 Codicies of it
that have near perfect agreement regardless of the century they date from:
* The Yonan Codex,
* The Khabouris Codex,
* The 1199 Houghton Codex, and
* The Mingana 148 Codex

The differences to the TR are relatively small, and the Eastern PeshittAs
should also be free from Constantinunist or Roman tampering,
unlike the Westerns which were brought info alignment with Zorba.

I think the OT is considered to be from the Hebrew before 3 c.,
so neither Masoretic nor LXX.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
2. Old Syriac PeshittO, (Johnannite), affectionately/derisively referred to as
Old Scratch, said to have been translated from the Greek after the
Diatesseron, and westernized (Greeked) with added NT books (Western).
The added books are Revelation, Jude, 2Peter, 2John, 3John. I don't
know that these books were rejected: the CoE Canon may have been closed before
these later books were in wide circulation, which may show how old it was.

3. Codex Sinaticus Syriac, which is an oddball similar to the Cureton,
and considered to be an Old Syriac, although not a very good copy with lot's of
copyist errors; it is is Palimpsest. It is currently dated at 698 AD.

This is confusing. Old Syriac is used for the Alexandrian non-Peshitta Curetonian and Syriac Sinaitics (Syriacus) manuscripts. The scholars say they are pre-Peshitta but at any rate they are not Peshitta influenced.

The Peshitto has been used by some for the western Peshita, and that has nothing to do with Old Scratch.

Old Scratch may be used more for the palimpsest, which is Syriacus, than the Curetonian.

Aramaic Primacy of the New Testament
Jonathan Andrew Brown
https://www.torahapologetics.com/language--word-studies/aramaic-primacy-of-the-new-testament
The Old Scratch is the nickname for the Old Syriac, which was used before the language was standardized in the form present in the Peshitta. There are two primary Gospel manuscripts in Old Syriac: the Curetonian Gospels and the Syriac Sinaiticus, both of which are fragmentary.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
The differences to the TR are relatively small,

Only if compared to the differences between the TR and the Westcott-Hort recension.

On a straight comparison level the differences are rather large, starting with 1 Timothy 3:16, the Pericope Adulterae, John 1:18, Acts 8:37, the heavenly witnesses and much more. The Peshitta has quite a bit of corruption.

The Philoxenian and Harklean are also in the discussion, as Peshitta editions made more in conformity to the Byzantine Greek, around AD 500-600..
 
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ebion

Member
Only if compared to the differences between the TR and the Westcott-Hort recension.
You said that before, and I'm wondering if that is a "guilt by association" argument - if anything I say agrees with anything that's in a Westcott-Hort recension then it's wrong?

As I said before, if you look at the examples in the first 2 major sections of
WastheNewTestamentReallyWritteninGreek1e there is no pattern of opposition between KJV and NIV - in fact the opposite is true. Almost every example I looked at had the KJV and NIV saying the same thing in contrast to the Peshitta, and all flagrant bumps in the Greek. His first example is the most extreme: he cites 27 translations contrasting with the Peshitta!

ALT, AMP, ASV, BBE, CEV*, DARBY, Douay-Rheims, ESV*, Geneva, GodsWord, Holman, KJ21, KJV, LITV, MKJV, MSG, NASB*, NIV*, NIV-UK, NKJV*, RSV, TEV, WE (Worldwide English), Webster, Weymouth, WYC (Wycliffe), YLT​

On a straight comparison level the differences are rather large, starting with 1 Timothy 3:16, the Pericope Adulterae, John 1:18, Acts 8:37, the heavenly witnesses and much more. The Peshitta has quite a bit of corruption.

On my scales, those are relatively small.

On my scales, a relatively major tampering in the KJV was by King James I himself. When King James commissioned the King James Version, he decreed 15 principles of translation which were instituted by Richard Bancroft, the bishop of London in 1604. The 3rd rule was:
3. The Old Ecclesiastical Words to be kept, viz. the Word Church not​
to be translated Congregation et. cetera.​
Rule 3 is a travesty of Tyndale's life's work. Whilst running and hiding from the agents of a sadistic English Lord Chancellor who wanted him dead, he still took the time to write a book back at the sadist defending his translation of ekklesia as "Congregation" not "the Word Church". Tyndales book explains in detail his reasons for the critical choices of translation he made of the "et. cetera" words. These changes are major and systematic, and change the whole flavour of the KJV relative to a real Tyndale bible like Matthew's, which nonetheless are the root of the bibles that the KJV was made from (rules 1 and 14).

As James wanted.

As Tyndale gave his life to prevent.

The PeshittA uses "Assembly", which my Greek speaking friends tell me is just as valid
a translation for ekklesia as what Tyndale used, congregation, the former having less of a religious flavour. As in English: we congregate or we assemble, but our usage is not to congregate for a fire-alarm.

But do I understand you correctly: are you saying these are features of the KJV, not bugs:
1 Timothy 3:16, the Pericope Adulterae, (and I presume 1 John 5:7)?

I stand with Sir Issac Newton and Whiston on those. The KJV has quite a bit of corruption, as does Erasmus > v2. They're not in the Peshitta, which is a Good Thing AFAICT.

For John 1:18, my point is that PeshittA should not be swept under a Westcott-Hortian association rug, but be looked at carefully. In this case, for what they give as their literal translation...

The Philoxenian and Harklean are also in the discussion, as Peshitta editions made more in conformity to the Byzantine Greek, around AD 500-600..

Yes, I think those versions were intentionally Greeked - I guess early ecumenicalism? Or was it an early coordinated retranslation effort like we see with Tischendupe+Vaticanus -> Wescott+Hort -> NIV and no Matthew's or AV KJVs (with preface and notes) left. Pure PeshittAs are getting hard to find - I'm not sure if there are any hardcover English translations for sale right now.

Personally, I don't want conformance with the Byzantine Greek; I want the best text and translation free from corruption. See my choice and the reasons why.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
It's important to clearly distinguish (over simplified) between:

2. Old Syriac PeshittO, (Johnannite), affectionately/derisively referred to as
Old Scratch, said to have been translated from the Greek after the
Diatesseron, and westernized (Greeked) with added NT books (Western).
The added books are Revelation, Jude, 2Peter, 2John, 3John. I don't
know that these books were rejected: the CoE Canon may have been closed before
these later books were in wide circulation, which may show how old it was.

I pointed out above that this #2 was all mixed up.

Are you accepting the correction?
 

ebion

Member
Newton is historically important, but dated and weak in many ways. Covered on other threads.

Of course Newton is dated; he became dated for me when he failed to support Whiston against charges of being an anti-Trinitarian at Cambridge - a death-penalty charge. Whiston however I find to be quite timeless, and he was **very** courageous. Queen Anne kept loosing the file of chatges against him :)

I've been looking at his translation of the Apostolic Constitutions which seems to have the Didache buried in Book 7:
* http://ldsfocuschrist2.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/apostolic-constitutions-william-whiston.pdf
* http://books.google.com/books?id=xQ8aAAAAYAAJ

Do you have a "position" on the Constitutions? Are they "authentic", and to what time period?

Am I right in saying that the only complete copy of the Didache known is Hierosolymitanus?
(I'm getting that Deja Vu feeling about Hierosolymitanus All Over Again.)

PS: I came across a great 19th c. style quote on the Sinaiticus:

But whether or not the Sinaitic Ms. is the most ancient of all now known to exist, it is, beyond any doubt whatever, the most defective, corrupt, and untrustworthy. Our reasons for this assertion (reasons which are ample to establish it) will be given later on. We wish at this point merely to note the fact (leaving the proof thereof for a subsequent chapter) that the most serious of the many departures of the R.V. from the A.V. are due to the unhappy conjunction of an unsound principle of evidence and the fortuitous discovery, by a scholar who had accepted that principle, of a very ancient Greek Ms. of the N.T., a Ms. which, despite its unquestioned antiquity turns out to be about the worst and most "scandalously corrupt" of all the Greek Texts now known to exist.​
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
PS: I came across a great 19th c. style quote on the Sinaiticus:

But whether or not the Sinaitic Ms. is the most ancient of all now known to exist, it is, beyond any doubt whatever, the most defective, corrupt, and untrustworthy. Our reasons for this assertion (reasons which are ample to establish it) will be given later on. We wish at this point merely to note the fact (leaving the proof thereof for a subsequent chapter) that the most serious of the many departures of the R.V. from the A.V. are due to the unhappy conjunction of an unsound principle of evidence and the fortuitous discovery, by a scholar who had accepted that principle, of a very ancient Greek Ms. of the N.T., a Ms. which, despite its unquestioned antiquity turns out to be about the worst and most "scandalously corrupt" of all the Greek Texts now known to exist.​

Here is Philip Mauro's book online with urls possible to every page.
Lots on Sinaiticus, you can search Sinaitic and Sinaiticus.

Which Version? Authorized Or Revised? (1924)
Philip Mauro
https://archive.org/details/WhichVersionByPhilipMauro/page/n33/mode/2up
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
Do you have a "position" on the Constitutions? Are they "authentic", and to what time period?

Here is a 2019 thread, I post in there, and some rather well-informed other posters.

Facebook - Patristics for Protestants
https://www.facebook.com/groups/884609654958164/posts/2073755962710188/

GOOD INFO

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PBF usually has material relating to specific variants
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php?search/26911/&q=apostolic+constitutions&o=date

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William Whiston and the Apostolic Constitutions: Completing the Reformation (Studia Patristica Supplements, 11) Paperback – April 11, 2023

Also floating around in pirate mode.

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A Discourse of the pretended Apostolic Constitutions; wherein all the principal evidence ... brought by Mr. Whiston in his essay on those books, to prove them genuine, is examin'd and confuted (1715)
Robert Turner
https://books.google.com/books?id=6pLZMgEACAAJ

So far, not available.

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Review of Irah Chase (1847)

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