Isaac Newton

Born: Sunday, 04 January 1643
Died: Monday, 31 March 1727

Sir Isaac Newton was a scientist, inventor, and student of the Enlightenment whose dedication to the principles of Freemasonry changed the course of human history.

https://www.universalfreemasonry.org/ en/famous-freemasons/isaac-newton

The Crawford Codex might be a surviving copy of the Philoxinian recension, which could be a copy of the original Aramaic writings, or at least contain some of the original Aramaic text. We can’t say for sure.

The Peshitta, in some cases lightly revised and with missing books added, is the standard Syriac Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition: the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syrian Catholic Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Maronites, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.

The believe that the new testament was originally written in aramaic is promulgated by the church of the east. Other churches that use the peshitta, have different opinions.

The Aramaic New Testament exists in two forms, the classical Aramaic, or Syriac, New Testament, part of the Peshitta Bible.^[] and the “Assyrian Modern” New Testament and Psalms published by the Bible Society in Lebanon (1997) and newly translated from Greek. The official Assyrian Church of the East (Nestorian Church) does not recognise the new “Assyrian Modern” edition, and traditionally considers the New Testament of the Peshitta to be the original New Testament, and Aramaic to be its original language. This view was popularised in the West by the Nestorian Assyrian scholar George Lamsa, but is not supported by the majority of scholars, either of the Peshitta or the Greek New Testament.

The traditional New Testament of the Peshitta has 22 books, lacking 2 John, 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude and Revelation. The text of Gospels also lacks the Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53-8:11) and Luke 22:17-18.^[] These missing books were supplemented by the Syriacist John Gwyn in 1893 and 1897 from alternative manuscripts, and included them in the United Bible Societies edition of 1905. The 1997 modern Aramaic New Testament has all 27 books.

https://textus-receptus.com/wiki/Aramaic_New_Testament

History of Peshitta. History of the Peshitta

The Peshitta is the official Bible of the Church of the East.  The name Peshitta in Aramaic means “Straight”, in other words, the original and pure New Testament.  The Peshitta is the only authentic and pure text which contains the books in the New Testament that were written in Aramaic, the Language of Mshikha (the Messiah) and His Disciples.

In reference to the originality of the Peshitta, the words of His Holiness Mar Eshai Shimun, Catholicos Patriarch of the Church of the East, are summarized as follows:

“With reference to….the originality of the Peshitta text, as the Patriarch and Head of the Holy Apostolic and Catholic Church of the East, we wish to state, that the Church of the East received the scriptures from the hands of the blessed Apostles themselves in the Aramaic original, the language spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and that the Peshitta is the text of the Church of the East which has come down from the Biblical times without any change or revision.”

Mar Eshai Shimun by Grace, Catholicos Patriarch of the East April 5, 1957

Folio 154 verso of Sinai Syriac 2
(Peshitta, V century), John 17:7-17.
Thanks to Jean Valentin.

Peshitta New Testament Ms.  Variously identified as 6th or 7th Century.

In reference to Aramaic, the Latin Patriarch Maximus at Vatican II, stated:

“Christ, after all spoke in the language of His contemporaries.  He offered the first sacrifice of the Eucharist in Aramaic, a language understood by all the people who heard Him.  The Apostles and Disciples did the same and never in a language other than that of the gathered faithful.”

Codex Ambrosianus – 5th Century
Ambrosian Library, Milan, Italy.
Thanks to Alan Aldawood.

These are claims that are highly contested in Western Christianity.  The common misconception that the New Testament was originally penned in Greek still persists today in a vast majority of Christian denominations.  Most scholars and theologians acknowledge that Eshoo Mshikha, the Apostles, and the Jews in general spoke Aramaic indeed many instances of Aramaic survive in the Greek New testament manuscripts.  However, they still maintain that the New Testament was penned in Greek by the Apostles and disciples of Mshikha.

Aramaic Lectionary – about
A.D. 550.  Pierpont Morgan Library
New York, N.Y.

The Church of the East has always rejected this claim.  We believe that the Books of the New Testament were originally penned in Aramaic, and later translated into Greek by first-century Gentile Christians in the West, but never in the East, where the Aramaic was the Lingua Franca of the Persian Empire.  We also hold and maintain that after the books were translated into Greek, the Aramaic originals were discarded, for by now the Church in the West was almost completely Gentile and Greek-speaking.  This was not the case in the East, which had a Jewish majority (especially in Babylon and Adiabene) for a much longer period.  Even when the Church of the East became mostly Gentile, the Aramaic was preserved and used rather than translated into the various vernacular languages of the regions to the East of the Euphrates river.

Peshitta Old Testament MS. – A.D. 464. Oldest dated Biblical Manuscript in existence. British Museum, Add. Ms. 14,425.  Thanks to Alan Aldawood.

Peshitta MS.
(Exodus. xiii. 14-16)–A. D. 464.
(British Museum, Add. MS. 14; 425.)

Four books or the Pentateuch, viz: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy according to the Peshitta version, in the Estrangela characters. Written in the city of Amid, Assyria A. D. 464: the oldest dated Biblical manuscript in existence. From the monastery of St. Mary Deiyara in the Nitrian Desert of Egypt.

Even to the West of the Euphrates river, in the Holy Land, the main vernacular was Aramaic.  The weekly synagogue lections, called sidra or parashah, with the haphtarah, were accompanied by an oral Aramaic translation, according to fixed traditions.  A number of Targumim in Aramaic were thus eventually committed to writing, some of which are of unofficial character, and of considerable antiquity.  The Gemara of the Jerusalem Talmud was written in Aramaic, and received its definitive form in the 5th century.  The Babylonian Talmud with its commentaries on only 36 of the Mishnah’s 63 tractates, is four times as long as the Jerusalem Talmud.  These Gemaroth with much other material were gathered together toward the end of the 5th century, and are in Aramaic.  Since 1947, approximately 500 documents were discovered in eleven caves of Wadi Qumran near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea.  In addition to the scrolls and fragments in Hebrew, there are portions and fragments of scrolls in Aramaic.  Hebrew and Aramaic, which are sister languages, have always remained the most distinctive features marking Jewish and Eastern Christian religious and cultural life, even to our present time.

Khaboris Manuscript.  4th Century A.D.  Hakkari mountains (Khda’Yab, “Adiabene”), Assyria.

Readings from the Book of Matti in the Khaboris Manuscript.

The Aramaic in which the Bible called “Assakhta Peshitta” is written, known as the Peshitta Text, is in the dialect of northwest Mesopotamia as it evolved and was highly perfected in Orhai, once a city-kingdom, later called Edessa by the Greeks, and now called Urfa in Turkey.  Harran, the city of Abraham’s brother Nahor, lies 38 kilometers southeast of Orhai.  The large colony of Orhai Jews, and the Jewish colonies in Assyria in the kingdom of Adiabene whose royal house had converted to Judaism, possessed most of the Bible in this dialect, the Peshitta Tenakh.  This version was taken over by all the Churches in the East, which used, and still use Aramaic, as far as India, and formerly in Turkestan and China.  The Peshitta Tenakh was completed during Apostolic times with the writings of the New Testament.

Sample page from an Aramaic manuscript in Estrangelo script (Beginning of 6th century AD)

For this diglot, I am using the Church of the East text of the Peshitta, in which I will be following the oriental sequence of the books, which places the General Epistles (Yaqub, Keepa and Yukhanan) immediately after the Acts of the Apostles, and before the Epistles of Sha’ul (Paul).  The Peshitta does not contain four of the General Epistles (2 Keepa, 2 Yukhanan, 3 Yukhanan and Yehuda),  the book of Revelation, nor the story of the woman taken in adultery (Yukhanan 8.)  These writings are not considered canonical by the Church of the East, and have never been included in the the Canon of the Peshitta.  The script used will be the original Estrangela, without vowel markings that were introduced during the 5th century.

Paul D. Younan

06/01/2000 https://syriacorthodoxarchdiocese .wordpress.com/history-of-peshitta/

The second major translation of the Old Testament was done from the Greek Septuagint (which in turn was translated from the original Hebrew and Aramaic). This translation is known in Syriac as dshab`in or ‘translation of the seventy’, a reference to the seventy translators of the Septuagint, according to tradition.

https://syriacorthodoxresources.org/ Bible/Translations.html

About the destruction of the Assyrian people https://www. atour.com/religion/docs/20000601a.html

http://nestorian.org/the_syriac-aramaic-assyrian_language.html they say the original was in Aramaic too

The Assyrian Church of the East^[a] (ACOE), sometimes called the Church of the East^[5][6] and officially known as the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East (HACACE),^[5][7][b] is an Eastern Christian church that follows the traditional Christology and ecclesiology of the historical Church of the East.^[9] It belongs to the eastern branch of Syriac Christianity, and employs the Divine Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari belonging to the East Syriac Rite. Its main liturgical language is Classical Syriac, a dialect of Eastern Aramaic, and the majority of its adherents are ethnic Assyrians who speak differing Akkadian influenced dialects of Eastern Aramaic in everyday life.

1.  Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ ܕܐܬܘܖ̈ܝܐ, romanized: ʿĒḏtā ḏ-Maḏnḥā ḏ-ʾĀṯūrāyē;^[4] Arabic: كنيسة المشرق الآشورية^[4]
2. ^ Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܩܕܝܫܬܐ ܘܫܠܝܚܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ ܕܐܬܘܪ̈ܝܐ, romanized: ʿĒḏtā Qaddīštā wa-Šlīḥāytā Qāṯōlīqī ḏ-Maḏnḥā ḏ-ʾĀṯūrāyē; Arabic: كنيسة المشرق الآشورية الرسولية الجاثلقية المقدسة^[8]

The Church of the East (Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ, romanized: ʿĒḏtā d-Maḏenḥā) or the East Syriac Church,^[14] also called the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon,^[15] the Persian Church, the Assyrian Church, the Babylonian Church^[13][16][17] or the Nestorian Church,^{[note 3]} is one of three major branches of Nicene Eastern Christianity that arose from the Christological controversies of the 5th and 6th centuries, alongside the Miaphysite churches (which came to be known as the Oriental Orthodox Churches) and the Chalcedonian Church (whose Eastern branch would later become the Eastern Orthodox Church).

^{[note 3]}

The “Nestorian” label is popular, but it has been contentious, derogatory and considered a misnomer. See the § Description as Nestorian section for the naming issue and alternate designations for the church.

1.  Paul, J.; Pallath, P. (1996). Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church in India. Mar Thoma Yogam publications. Centre for Indian Christian Archaeological Research. p. 5. Retrieved 2022-06-17. Authors are using different names to designate the same Church : the Church of Seleucia – Ctesiphon, the Church of the East, the Babylonian Church, the Assyrian Church, or the Persian Church.
2. ^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 3,4.
3. ^ Orientalia Christiana Analecta. Pont. institutum studiorum orientalium. 1971. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-06-17. The Church of Seleucia – Ctesiphon was called the East Syrian Church or the Church of the East .
4. ^ Fiey 1994, p. 97-107.
5. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 4.

CoE means Church of the east. http://peshitta.org/for/showthread.php?tid=2104&pid=11387#pid11387

Shlama Akhi Mike,

Mike Kar Wrote:

(concerning Aramaic Primacy)…There is no dispute about this within the CoE. Yes, on this??

Actually believe it or not I’ve had many arguments with CoE Bishops, Priests, Deacons as well as Congregants about this topic. In the CoE there are, indeed, Greek Primacists….especially here in the U.S. and in other countries outside of the middle east. When I was giving the Video-Conference presentation on the topic to the parish in Detroit, one of the Shamashe there stood up and openly challenged my views during the Q/A session.

Like any other institution, there are as many opinions as there are people. Unless it’s a cult, of course! =) I would be lying to you if I told you every single person in the CoE is an Aramaic primacist. And I would be lying to you if I said Aramaic Primacy was somehow codified by a Council or Synodal Decree.

Most people in the CoE (clergy and laymen) I’ve met and spoken to are Aramaic primacists, but not all. Both Qashe I’ve served with at St. John (Qasha Charles Klutz, and Qasha Antwan Latchin) are Aramaic primacists. But they never mention these topics in their sermons, other than an occasional “The Aramaic text says this” kind of statement.

I’ve found that it’s usually the younger clergy here in the West, particularly those who have studied in Western institutions like the Vatican, who are Greek primacists.

There is no debate on this topic within the CoE, simply because it’s not really something the Church places emphasis on. We as a body are like any other branch of the Church – primarily interested in preaching the Gospel of our Lord, ministering to the faithful and sick, and feeding the poor. The Great Commission has nothing to do with what language the scriptures were penned in, right? =)

Within the CoE, especially since after the Patriarch Mar Eshai was assassinated, there really has been no emphasis whatsoever on this topic. Personally I have never heard anything from the pulpit, in a sermon, epistle or any other communication about it.

Hard to believe from how much emphasis we place on the topic here, but being an Aramaic primacist is not a requirement to be a card-carrying member of the CoE.

+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de’Beth-Younan

The Syrian Orthodox Church believes that the Holy Bible, which comprises of the Old Testament and the New Testament, is the divine word of God. Its Fathers labored in translating the Holy Scriptures into Syriac since the very dawn of Christianity. These Syriac translations of the Bible are the oldest and most ancient in any language. Further, the Syriac New Testament is quite unique for it presents the teachings of our Lord in an Aramaic dialect (Syriac) which is akin and would have been mutually comprehensible with the Palestinian dialect of Aramaic in which Christ taught. Since the translation of the Bible into Syriac started as early as the first century, the Syriac version preserves the very ancient renditions of the original texts. In fact, the Syriac Church Fathers produced a number of translations of the Bible and revisions of these translations from the original languages of the Bible.

The words of Christ were first transmitted in his native language, the Palestinian dialect of Aramaic, either orally or in a written form. It is from this Aramaic tradition that the Greek Gospels were derived.

The Syriac New Testament as we know it today is an early translation of the Greek text back into Syriac, the Aramaic dialect of Edessa (Modern Urfa in Southeast Turkey). [This is true depending on what manuscript you are referring too. That’s why people are very intrigued and fascinated when earlier Aramaic new testament manuscripts are found.]

The Syriac Old Testament is a translation from the original Hebrew and Aramaic (a different Aramaic dialect from Syriac which is known by the name ‘Biblical Aramaic’).

The close similarities between the Palestinian dialect of Aramaic spoken by Christ and Syriac offer us a unique understanding of some of the Biblical readings. For example, in the English King James version of the Bible we read in Matthew 5:18 “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” What could jot mean? The Syriac Bible uses the word yod for jot in this verse. This word is the name of the tenth letter of the Aramaic alphabet, shown below in the Syriac Estrangelo script (read from right-to-left; yod is shown in color):

Note that yod is the smallest letter in size. The above verse means that not even the smallest of the letters shall pass from the law. This is rendered in the English New Revised Version as “not one letter.”

Another interesting reading appears in the Lord’s prayer. The King James reads “and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). The Syriac version reads “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” This implies that we must first forgive our debtors before asking forgiveness from God. The English New Revised Version agrees with the Syriac in this verse!

In many instances the Syriac language offers interesting interpretations of Biblical verses. An understanding of Syriac homonyms, for example, help us clarify the reading in Matthew 19:25 (also Mark 10:25 and Luke 128:25), when Jesus tells us how much easier it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. The Syriac word corresponding to camel is gamlo which means ‘camel.’ However, gamlo has other meanings as well, one of which is given by the Syriac lexicographer Bar Bahlul (10th century) in his Syriac dictionary: “gamlo is a thick rope which is used to bind ships.” Considering that Jesus was speaking to fishermen, this meaning of gamlo seems more appropriate.

The Syriac Fathers studied the Bible in a critical and scientific manner, though regarding it at the same time as a divine text. Witness to this are the numerous translations and revisions of translations and the massive body of commentaries that they have produced. Some of these translations were lost until they were discovered by Western scholars in the past 150 years.

Many old Syriac manuscripts of the Biblical texts survive and can be found in the major museums and libraries of the world and of course in the ancient Syriac libraries of the Middle East as well. The most famous manuscript is that of the Gospels which is written by a certain Rabbula, hence known as the Rabbula Gospels. It is famous for its decorative calligraphy and miniatures which are excellent representations of Syriac art.

The first printed edition of the Bible was an edition of the New Testament which was printed in 1555, soon after the advent of printing. It was published by Johann Widmanstetter, with the assistance of a Syriac Orthodox priest, Moses of Mardin. Moses was sent by the Patriarch of Antioch to meet with the Pope of Rome and served as a teacher of Syriac in Europe.

The Syriac Bible is available today from the United Bible Societies. The Peshitta Institute at Leiden is preparing a new annotated English translation of the Peshitta Old Testament (NEATSB, or The New English Annotated Translation of the Syriac Bible).

https://syriacorthodoxresources.org/ Bible/index.html

This Philoxenian Version, however, failed to supersede the Peshitta, and as a whole it has disappeared, itself superseded by the Harklensian or at most surviving only in its revised form as in the Harklensian. Introduction xiv REMNANTS OF THE LATER SYRIAC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE IN TWO PARTS. PART I: OF NEW TESTAMENT (SIXTH CENTURY VERSION) PART II: OF OLD TESTAMENT (SEVENTH CENTURY VERSION)

The Philoxenian version (508) is a revision of earlier Syriac versions of the Bible. It was commissioned by Philoxenus of Mabbug and completed by his chorepiscopus Polycarp. Philoxenos’ revisions were initiated by concerns that some of the Peshitto readings gave support to Nestorian theology.^[1] It became the received Bible of the Syrian Miaphysites during the 6th century.

It was followed by the Harklean Version, an Aramaic language Bible translation by Thomas of Harqel completed in 616 AD in Egypt which was partly based on the Philoxenian version, and partly a new and very literal translation from the Greek New Testament.^[2]

1.  – Syriac Orthodox Resources. George Kiraz, Ph.D. 2001 “The motivation behind this revision was theological in nature. Philoxenos contended that the rendition of the Biblical text in some of the Peshitto readings gave room for what he called a Nestorian interpretation. “When those of old undertook to translate these passages,” he remarks,”
2. ^ The Interpretation of the Bible: The International Symposium Jože Krašovec 1998 Page 496 “Ensuite, dans le monastère de l’Enaton à Alexandrie en 6l6, Thomas de Harqel retraduisit le Nouveau Testament en le révisant drastiquement sur un modèle grec. La lecture du colophon ne laisse point de doute que le texte de Philoxène a …”

New College MS 333: An Extraordinary Witness to the Harklean Syriac New Testament1
New College MS 333, a manuscript held in New College Library, Oxford, is an extraordinary masterpiece of medieval Syriac writing. The manuscript is a remarkable witness to the Harklean translation of the New Testament. Originally, it probably contained the entire New Testament, but today it breaks off, due to damage, at Hebr 11:27 (f. 272v). Unfortunately, nothing is known about the provenance of this manuscript. Although it is relatively late (undated, probably thirteenth or fourteenth century), New College MS 333 marks an important milestone in the development of
the Harklean translation and helps identify its various stages.

Today, we have no way of knowing when the introductory note was added to the Aramaic text of Revelation for the first time. The earliest would be in AD 616 and it could well have been added much later. This late addition to the Peshitta can hardly be said to be a very compelling argument for the early date of writing of the book of Revelation. The Objective Evidences for a Late Dating of John’s Revelation (1 of 2) 9/5/2021 https://www.triumphofmercy.com/blog/the-objective-evidences-for-a-late-dating-of-johns-revelation-1-of-2

Polycarp was a famous leader in the church at Smyrna and likely a part of the church at its founding or shortly thereafter. He wrote a document called “The Letter to the Philippians,” in which he mentions “But I have neither perceived nor heard any such thing among you, among whom the blessed Paul laboured, who are praised in the beginning of his Epistle. For concerning you he boasts in all the Churches who then alone had known the Lord, for we had not yet known him” [Polycarp, The Letter to the Philippians, 11:3]. Thus, it is concluded that Polycarp is saying that Smyrna had not yet known the Lord at the time Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written. Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written around A.D. 63. If John’s letter was written prior to A.D. 70, this would not have given a church much time to establish itself. https://www.lavistachurchofchrist.org/ cms/when-was-the-church-in-smyrna-established/

P.J. Williams 3/17/2007 7:47 pm The Syriac Peshitta NT (generally dated to the late C4 or early C5) lacked Revelation, 2 Peter, 2-3 John and Jude. Thus the translation of Revelation into Syriac is not part of the early Syriac tradition. Any tradition about the date of the Apocalypse needs to be treated in the light of this. http://evangelicaltextualcriticism. blogspot.com/2007/03/prologue-of-revelation-in-syriac-text.html?m=1

[This space in the MS. contains the closing words of St. John’s Gospel, with subscription.] About the wording prior to the beginning of the apocalypse in the Crawford Syriac version. The Apocalypse of St. John in a Syriac version hitherto unknown, ed. from a MS. in the Library of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres by Gwynn, John, 1827-1917

http://peshitta.org/for/showthread.php?tid=728&pid=2219&highlight=Nero#pid2219

02-10-2004, 01:33 AM

Shalom all–

In terms of Peshitto and Crawford Revelation, this is how I see it:

1) BOTH versions are translations from the Greek.

2) Crawford, in spite of heavy promotion to the contrary, has its own colophon and other evidence tag it as very late, like 12th century. Here is an excerpt on this topic from an essay I did a while back:

Evidence of the actual age and provenance of Crawford is not unknownTrimm begins his essay quite nicely, and does so in a style that seems open and honest. However, as with many things, it is what is not said that sometimes holds the key to true understanding. Take the statement “How this manuscript made its way to Europe in unknown” as an example. There is nothing untruthful in that fact at all. We don’t know, as Trimm says, the exact year the manuscript found its way out of the Middle East. Nor do we know if it went to any intermediary countries before settling in Britain.

Although, my point is this: Trimm neglects to include any reference to known history about the environment that gave birth to Crawford. Instead, he simply leaves his statement hanging which, while being accurate on its face, nevertheless presents a false impression that Crawford is so mysterious that it could be close to an original autograph of Revelation, or at least an ancient copy of one. I mean, gee, we don’t know how it got to Europe! Oh my! Why, it could have taken a steam ship in April (or was it October, since that could change our perspective of the facts)? The point then seems to be that, since it’s a mystery, it must therefore be so ancient as to come from the pen of Yochanan himself!

Instead, why not focus on what we do know about the manuscript, not the itinerary it may have taken in the 19th century?

First of all, Revelation was one of five books never included in the Eastern Peshitta canon, and so the Aramaic copies that have come down to us are translations from Greek sources. In the year 508, Philoxenius of Madbug did the first translation of Revelation into Aramaic for his Syrian Orthodox Church, an ancient body that had just aligned itself with Rome and changed their canon to reflect their new allegiance. However, Philoxenius’ work was hated and very quickly fell out of favor, resulting in the Harkalean revision of 616, which is the current accepted version of the Syrian Orthodox Church to this day. Also, due to the Syrian Orthodox Church’s alteration of their Aramaic dialect, the name of their New Testament is “Peshitto”, so as not to confuse it with the older “Peshitta” preserved in the East.

As a result, no Aramaic manuscript of Revelation existed before the sixth century, and this is according to the records of the Church that actually changed their canon to include it in the first place! We know why it was done, when it was done, and who did it.

Now Trimm will no doubt argue that Crawford is different, the “unique and little known version” as he says, tucked away like the seventh seal awaiting the Lamb to open it up. Well James, I’ve got news for you: Crawford is different, but not the way you want it to be. In fact, Crawford is later than the earliest copies of Peshitto Revelation.

This is what the John Rylands Library had to say about the manuscript:

Fol. 250b has a colophon also not all legible, in a Serto hand???

Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, p. 119

Let’s stop here for the moment so I can relate two key facts. First, the colophon is a kind of a bookmark that is kept with the manuscript, and it is used to tell us the author, age, and location of the document it is attached to. Now, while Rylands says it is not completely legible, what follows will be what they can clearly read from it.

However, a second key point is the notation that the colophon is in Serto script, a vowel-pointed system not developed until at least the fifth or sixth century. While this is also about the time of the split of the Church of the East and the Syrian Orthodox Church due to the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcidon (451), an older script, called Estrangela, was also used in colphons and special headings on religious documents. Therefore, the Syrian Orthodox Church still sometimes uses Estrangela, the script the Eastern Peshitta is preserved in. Although, the fact that even the colophon was then put in Serto shows it to come from a later time, when that script had more influence.

With this basic foundation established, we can now continue:

The scribe was Stephen, a monk of the monastery of Mar Jacob the recluse of Egypt and Mar Barshabba near Salah in Tur ‘Abdin. He mentions the names of some of his relatives and his teachers???

Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, p. 119
So, while we don’t know exactly when the manuscript came to Europe, we sure as heck know a lot about where it came from and can check the history and circumstances of its production. These facts, along with internal evidence in the text itself, caused the Rylands Library to conclude:

On the date of the manuscript see Gwynn, Apocalypse, where it is argued to be the end of the 12th century.

Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, p. 119

3) Many of the “original” readings that are alleged to be unique to Crawford are actually identical in the Peshitto version, which even Trimm admits was translated from the Greek.

Here are some examples:

Trimm:

2:22
Crawford: ???I will cast her onto a coffin (aore)???

Greek: ???I will cast her into the bed???

The Aramaic word aore is ambiguous. It can mean “bed” as the Greek translator mistakenly took it, or it can mean “coffin” (as in the Aramaic of Luke 7:14 and Targum Jonathan 2 Samuel 3:31). Here it actually means “coffin”.

Truth:

Trimm is correct about the word in question. However, here is what he does not say:

Crawford:
Haw rama ana leh b’airsa

Peshitto Revelation:
Haw rama ana leh b’airsa

These are identical! As a result, it is clearly to his advantage that James does not include Peshitto Revelation. If he did, then the reader might think Crawford was also a translation from the Greek!

Trimm:

4:8
Crawford: ???six wings filled round about, and from within, with eyes???
(anye Nylm wnl Nmw tyanrdwh Nypg ats)

The Greek translator mistranslates the passage:
??????six wings about [him]; and [they were] full of eyes within??????

Truth:

Let’s see what Peshitto Revelation says, and this time I will use Hebrew letters:

anye Nylm wnl Nmw tyanrdwh Nypg ats

Once again the two sources are identical. Also, the variance between the Greek and the Aramaic is so minor as to make it impossible to posit one as an original reading over the other. Instead, the variance more closely resembles the slightly different ways that two languages will express the same thought.

Trimm:

10:1
Crawford: ???and his legs like pillars of fire??? (yhwlgrw )
Greek: ??? his feet like pillars of fire???

The Aramaic lgr can mean ???foot??? but less often ???leg??? but in this case the context
demands ???legs??? (being like ???pillars???) The Greek translator was apparently unaware of
this less common meaning and took the phrase to refer to ???his feet???.

Truth:

Again, it is possible Trimm is correct. On the other hand, the other side also has a good argument. We could say, for example, that the base of these fiery pillars actually does look like feet, as opposed to looking up at the whole structure, which could resemble legs. The fact that the shape is outlined by fire would tend to support the Greek reading, with jets of flame resembling extremities in the feet.

Also, if the Greek were the original text, we could easily see how “feet” would get translated into yhwlgr, rather than the other way around, since the Aramaic word means both “feet” and “legs”, as Trimm also stated.

Finally, Peshitto Revelation again has the same reading:

arwnd adwme Kya yhlgrw (Crawford)
arwnd adwmg Kya yhlgrw (Peshitto)

As the reader can see, the only difference is a scribal error in Crawford, which has adwme rather than adwmg. The Hebrew fonts I am using don’t really showcase the confusion well. However in Aramaic script the difference between a gimel (g) and an ayin (9) is a lot subtler. Allowing for variations in individual scribes, it is easy to see how one might be mistaken for the other.

Now though let’s move on to Trimm’s favorite proof:

Trimm:

18:5

Crawford: Because her sins have reached (wqbdd) up to heaven???

Greek (literally): Because her sins have stuck (ekollhqhsan) (?!?!?!?!?) to heaven???

This may well be the plainest and most obvious evidence that the Greek Revelation is a translation from the Crawford Aramaic.

The Hebrew/Aramaic word qbd usually means “stick to” and is generally rendered in the LXX with Greek kollashai. However, the word wqbdd has a much broader meaning than its Greek counterpart, and can also mean “overtake” or “reach”. Similarly we read in Zech. 14:5:

Hebrew: the valley of the mountains shall reach (qbd) to Azel

LXX Greek: the valley of the mountains shall stick (egkollhqhsetai) to Azel

Thus the translator of the LXX makes the same mistake by translating qbd with kollashai even though its meaning is not “stick” but “reach”.

Truth:

Remember what Rylands said, Crawford is a thousand years younger than the Greek manuscripts that it is supposed to pre-date. The other consistent and vexing piece of evidence that Trimm continually ignores is this:

Mittil d’debaqaw khatehih aidma l’shmaya w’atdekar Alaha laiolih
(Peshitto Revelation 18:5)

Mittil d’debaqaw khatehih aidma l’shmaya w’atdekar Alaha laiolih
(Crawford Revelation 18:5)

So, once again we have identical readings in Peshitto and Crawford Revelation.

4) What I believe is that neither Crawford nor Peshitto Revelation is the long lost Aramaic original, or even close to it. Actually the Greek really is closest to what we probably lost. All three of these versions, I believe, hark back to the lost Nazarene Revelation. It gets murky when my favorite proof (COFFIN/BED) is actually in both versions, and also the famous 666 only works in Hebrew and Aramaic as a cipher for “Nero Caesar” and not in Greek.

That’s how I see it.

Peace and blessings
Andrew Gabriel Roth

Shlama w’burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth

The Crawford Aramaic New Testament manuscript is a 12th-century Aramaic manuscript containing 27 books of the New Testament. This manuscript is notable because its final book, the Book of Revelation, is the sole surviving manuscript of any Aramaic (Syriac) version of the otherwise missing Book of Revelation from the Peshitta Syriac New Testament. Five books were translated into Syriac later for the Harklean New Testament.^[1]

Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester. John Rylands University Library of Manchester – 1999- Volume 81 – Page 41 “Possibly what was actually exhibited in 1935, and indeed in 1925 as well, was Rylands Syriac 66, a Harklean Syriac … Among the Syriac manuscripts remaining in Manchester, the following two Crawford manuscripts are important: 1 Syriac 2. This is a full New Testament, a rarity among Syriac manuscripts, because the Peshitta lacks the lesser Catholic epistles (2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude) and Revelation. These books are absent from the Syriac church’s canon, although they were translated later, and are in the Harklean version. This manuscript of the twelfth century, has the Peshitta text of those books found in the Syriac canon and a later form of the Syriac for the rest. The Apocalypse found in this manuscript is unique; no other surviving manuscript contains is unique; no other surviving manuscript contains Revelation in this form. The manuscript has the texts in the following order: Gospels, the Harklean Passiontide Harmony, Revelation, Acts, Catholic …..”

The two main manuscripts are the Harklean and some would say the Philoxinian is the second most widely used translation. The Harklean (616 A.D.)) is believed by some scholars to be a revision of the Philoxinian (508 A.D.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ An_Historical_Account_of_Two_Notable_ Corruptions_of_Scripture NIV

Sharing is caringFacebookX / TwitterLinkedInWhatsAppTelegramRedditEmail6342 words · 193 views