If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Charles Wilson
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by Charles Wilson »

I apologize, Neil.
I was very impressed with your question.

Endings, Constructions and so on have played such a part in figgerin' out the Intentions in the Greek NT text. I have read that there are people who can read a Passage in the NT and guess the Primary Language of certain writers based on how they framed their thoughts - "Throw the horse over the fence some hay", etc. I have asked whether "TURN as a child" and "CHANGE as a child" have a common Base-Word in Aramaic and Greek, odd as it may seem. There are Latin Loan Words ("Soudarion") that point to what the Empty Tomb story is actually telling us.

I focus so much on the Story and the Logic that the thought of composing a complex Greek Argument on the fly seems a very difficult task if Greek is not your primary language. As an aside, you gave a very good Review of Jay Raskin's book and I find his ideas fascinating. I admire Maccoby for his Talent in this as well. I write with Capitals a lot to identify Labels as an aid to understanding. Currently, I find a tremendous amount of information in Teeple. You ask a great question for what it implies.

Cross-Cultural, Cross-Linguistic Questions and Word-Plays are important. My favorite is "Immar" - "Immer": "Lamb" => "16th Mishmarot Group", as in "Behold, the Immar-Yah, the "Lamb of God" (Pssst! This isn't about a savior-god, it's about something else...)". Possibly from a Latin Linguist composing in Greek about a Semitic Phrase that goes back over a 1000 years prior to the NT times to Sumer. There were some smart - and very cynical - people back then.

So when you wrote your question, my first thought was the quote above since there was an important Latin Historical figure who could compose an Argument in Greek on the fly and impress a Tacitus. Mucianus was a vicious man and formidable opponent. i believe he plays an important part in the creation of the NT (and not "merely" in the creation on the Flavian Dynasty.). Tacitus is telling something that he didn't have to tell. When Suetonius tells us that Vespasian confided in a common friend concerning Mucianus that, "I, at least, am a man...", he is communicating some Set of Facts that are important about this character Mucianus.

In effect, he is answering your question by providing an answer, not with a single example but with the implication that there were those who could accomplish this difficult Task as a matter of course.

I apologize for being so Opaque.

CW
Giuseppe
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by Giuseppe »

I see that the Mythicist Norman Simms agrees with the Mythicist Dubourg (precursor of both Mergui and Charbonnel) about the Earliest Gospel as allegory written in Hebrew.

It is interesting the Dubourg's idea that Pilate was introduced via PLT.
My problem with this view is that the idea that Pilate is The Releaser in the story, makes him strictly connected with Barabbas, the Released one. Now, Barabbas is probably a caustic anti-marcionite parody, hence possibly the original Releaser "released" Jesus "called Christ" himself to crucify him.


Again and again, even along the Dubourg's lines, the suspicion is raised that the original myth was something along the lines of this Gnostic tractat.

In other terms, the first euhemerizer wanted to domesticate a previous Jesus myth perceived someway as rival.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by neilgodfrey »

Giuseppe wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 8:33 pm I see that the Mythicist Norman Simms agrees with the Mythicist Dubourg (precursor of both Mergui and Charbonnel) about the Earliest Gospel as allegory written in Hebrew.
Can you narrow the reference down a bit, please? Page? Thanks.
Giuseppe
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by Giuseppe »

neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 10:05 pm
Giuseppe wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 8:33 pm I see that the Mythicist Norman Simms agrees with the Mythicist Dubourg (precursor of both Mergui and Charbonnel) about the Earliest Gospel as allegory written in Hebrew.
Can you narrow the reference down a bit, please? Page? Thanks.
p. 129 of this book (Teaching the Historical Jesus: Issues and Exegesis, Zev Garber, Routledge, 2014), Simms writes:

The so- called Champs de Midrash school in France, a Christian group, considers that they can pick apart the Gospels, Epistles, and other early Christian documents by two processes: one, by translating them back into Aramaic to find various word- plays, common idioms, and other linguistic turns that were either lost or mistranslated when these texts were published in Greek as canonical books; the other, by using various rabbinical modes of exegesis to re- assemble the narratives and rhetorical arguments into stories and speeches more appropriate to the political and religious beliefs at the time of Jesus’s putative life. It may seem possible therefore to
consider the daughter religion named after Christ as the product of seeing ancient and Second Temple Judaism through the filter of Hellenistic philosophies, from Stoicism through Neoplatonism. Reinach points out that Saul/Paul goes so far as to call the Judaism he supposedly learned from Rabbi
Gamaliel radix stultiæ, the root of all madness or foolishness. Moreover, throughout the period between the formation of the Church and canonization of its New Testament, other legends and mythical amplifications were put together to fit the official version of Jesus’s life and Christ’s Passion; and whereas some of these extra-Scriptural episodes were stripped away by the Reformation in its effort to focus on the canonical books, the result was hardly a version true to Second Temple or early rabbinical Judaism, or what Schmiedel called “the error of a religion of servility and from the error of a
religion of pretensions.”
The Jesus, like the Christ, that emerges from such historical procedures can only be taken as Jewish after a much more recent shift in sensibility and ideology that takes place to bring in the need for modern historicity of a
different kind altogether,...

(my bold)
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mlinssen
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by mlinssen »

I am reminded of the foolish idiot Nicholas Perrin who allegedly discovered treasures of catch words in Thomas after "translating it back into Aramaic"

Funny thing is that he missed the dozens of catch words already present, "discovered" ones that don't have any relation to anything, and just translated at will - with sometimes using different words to translate one and the same Coptic word

And people got really excited over all that incompetent tinkering
Charles Wilson
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by Charles Wilson »

Another View of "Peshitta Primacy":
http://aramaicnt.org/articles/problems- ... a-primacy/

I should add that Caruso is considered radioactive at Peshitta.org.
Everybody's a Critic...
John2
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by John2 »

Stuart wrote: Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:57 pm
There also would be a ton of phrases which would work as rhymes, meter, or puns in Hebrew/Aramaic but not work at all in Greek. Yet we see it the other way around. Even with Aramaic words transliterated, such as my favorite, (although pot gospel and probably a late) ἤτω ἀνάθεμα. Μαρανα θα from 1 Corinthians 16:22, the rhyme is in the Greek.

I'd love for somebody to refute this, and show me a bunch of examples of gospel phrases which are clunky in Greek but lyrical or make great puns in Hebrew. I'd love to practice saying a few of those and admitting I'm wrong. So go for it.

I don't know about "clunky" in Greek, and while I don't think it is the ancient Hebrew Matthew, Howard (in his Hebrew Gospel of Matthew on pages 184-191) notes a significant number of puns, word connections, alliterations and other elements in the Hebrew Matthew used by Shem Tov and concludes that, "A textual profile of Shem-Tob's Matthew reveals that it sporadically agrees with early witnesses, both Christian and non-Christian. Sometimes it agrees with readings and documents that vanished in antiquity only to reappear in recent times. The profile thus suggests that a Shem-Tob type text of Matthew was known in the early Christian centuries."

Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew is characterized by literary devices such as puns, word connecitons, and alliteration. These are numerous -the text is saturated with them, far beyond what appears in the Greek- and belong to the very structure of the Hebrew Text. Although their origin is a mystery, it does not seem probable that Shem-Tob created them in the fourteenth century. Being a polemist, intent on damaging the Christian message, he would hardly have attempted to beautify the text of Matthew at the same time he refuted it. The text's literary niceties appear to come from the hand of a believer, not a hostile polemist.


https://www.google.com/books/edition/He ... frontcover



Also, Josephus mentions a pun that works in Hebrew and not in Greek (or Aramaic) that is similar to Mt. 3:9.

Randall Buth has pointed out to me a fascinating indication that Hebrew was the spoken language in the first century. The Jewish historian Josephus describes an incident that took place during the siege of Jerusalem (War 5:269-272). Josephus relates that watchmen were posted on the towers of the city walls to warn residents of incoming stones fired from Roman ballistae. Whenever a stone was on its way, the spotters would shout “in their native tongue, ‘The son is coming!’” (War 5:272). The meaning the watchmen communicated to the people was: האבן באה (ha-even ba’ah, the stone is coming). However, because of the urgency of the situation, these words were clipped, being abbreviated to בן בא (ben ba, son comes). (This well-known Hebrew wordplay is attested in the New Testament: “God is able from these avanim [stones] to raise up banim [sons] to Abraham” [Matt. 3:9 = Luke 3:8].)


https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/6601/
Last edited by John2 on Fri Jun 18, 2021 5:57 pm, edited 4 times in total.
John2
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by John2 »

And as noted in this review of his The Hebrew Yeshua vs. the Greek Jesus (which I highly recommend), Nehemia Gordon, "a Karaite Jew or Hebrew Scripturalist, lays out the necessary background of Pharisaic Judaism and the basic tenets of Karaite Judaism, and outlines previous scholarship on Shem-Tov’s medieval copy of an ancient Hebrew text of Matthew. He also presents linguistic support for Hebrew as the original language for the Gospel of Matthew, then picks apart minor differences between the Hebrew and Greek in several key verses."


https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-revi ... eek-jesus/


One of these differences between Shem Tov's Matthew and the Greek (which is easily explained by the common confusion between the letters vav and yod) is noted here (I'd cite Gordon but I don't have his book with me at this moment):

Our Bibles (which are translated from the Greek Manuscripts) read in Mat 23:3 regarding the Pharisees as follows:

All therefore whatsoever they [i.e., the Pharisees] bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

The [Shem Tov] Hebrew Manuscripts of Matthew read the same verse as follows:

Therefore all that he [i.e., Moses] says to you, diligently do, but according to their [i.e., the Pharisees'] reforms (Takanot) and their precedents (Ma’asim) do not do, because they talk, but do not do.

If you are familiar with what the Pharisees taught and believed you would know what “Takanot” and “Ma’asim” refer to. These are traditions and customs that they added into God’s Word (The Holy Scriptures). “Takanot” and “Ma’asim” were sometimes even regarded more important or higher than God’s Word. Examples for Takanot and Ma’asim are, the “Washing of Hands” mentioned in Mat 15:2 and “The Breaking of the Sabbath by plucking corn” mentioned in Mat 12:2. The Hebrew Matthew gives us a better understanding of what went on in such instances, while our own Bible translations are silent on these issues.


https://biblethingsinbibleways.wordpres ... ag/maasim/
Carlos
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by Carlos »

Charles Wilson wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:28 am
Stuart wrote: Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:57 pm I'd love for somebody to refute this, and show me a bunch of examples of gospel phrases which are clunky in Greek but lyrical or make great puns in Hebrew. I'd love to practice saying a few of those and admitting I'm wrong. So go for it.
Stuart made an honest request for something from the Aramaicist Community concerning the Aramaic Primacy Argument. I suggested Peshitta.org and the result is underwhelming.

Given that I am not arguing for a bare Aramaic Primacy (It's appears much more complicated than that...) and offered it as an Introduction to the Eastern Thought on the matter I ask:

Did anyone look at the material? It doesn't have to be convincing to you but did anyone in fact look at it?

CW
Hi! I'm a new member who just registered. I think Peshitta.org is a bit abandoned and might have server issues, as I created an account there months ago but I cannot activate it. Now onto the subject, with a disclaimer: I'm not from the Aramaicist Community, but I wanted to answer Stuart anyways. It's not a good answer, truth to be told, as he asks for an example in Hebrew and I can't provide one, but there's an example in Aramaic that I can contribute: the Lord's prayer.
The Lord's prayer in Aramaic is actually a very nice poem with rhyming verses, and was probably composed this way as an aid for memorization. Here's a transliteration for you to see:
Nethqadash shmokh
Tithe malkuthokh
Nehwe ṣebyonokh
Aykano d-bashmayo
Of b-ar'o hab lan
Laḥmo d-sunqonan
Yawmono wa shbuq lan
Ḥawbayn wa ḥṭohayn
Aykano d-of ḥnan
Shbaqan l-ḥayobayn
W lo ta'lan l-nesyuno
Elo faṣo lan
Men bisho meṭul
D-dilokh hi malkutho
W ḥaylo w teshbuḥto
L'olam 'olmin,
Amin
Its Greek counterpart, contrariwise, is also one of the clunkiest parts of the gospels, as denoted by its use of the word 'Epiousios' which... is a word that doesn't really exist in Greek, and nobody knows what it means.
John2
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Re: If the synoptic gospels are three different translations of a common Hebrew or Aramaic source

Post by John2 »

Trimm notes another possible scribal error in the Greek Matthew that would explain the missing name in Jesus' genealogy (as based on the Du Tillet Hebrew Matthew).

There is a well known mistake in the Greek text of this passage. While the text itself claims to give three lists of fourteen names (Mt. 1:17), the Greek text contains only 13 names in the last list ... Now the DuTillet Hebrew manuscript of Matthew contains the missing Name "Abner" which occurs between Abiud and Eliakim in the DuTillet Hebrew text of Mt. 1:13.

In Hebrew and Aramaic "d" and "r" look very much alike and are often misread for each other. In this case a scribe must have looked back up to his source manuscript and picked back up with the wrong name, thus omitting "Abner" from the list. The Greek text must have come from a Hebrew or Aramaic copy which lacked the name "Abner." There is amazingly clear evidence for this. The Old Syriac Aramaic version of Matthew was lost from the fourth century until its rediscovery in the 19th century. This ancient Aramaic text has "Aviur" where the Greek has "Aviud" thus catching the error in a sort of "freeze frame" and demonstrating the reliability of the reading in the Hebrew.


https://nazarenejudaism.com/?page_id=1082
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