Waheb in the Peshitta

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3412
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Re: Waheb in the Peshitta

Post by DCHindley »

Stephan Huller wrote:To DCH point the Valuate and the Targums read suphah as the Red Sea (ימא דסוף )

Sicut fecit in mari Rubro, sic faciet in torrentibus Arnon.

It is a very old interpretation because it was known to Origen
Origen also thinks that Josephus wrote that the city of Jerusalem was destroyed on account of the death of "the brother of Jesus, named James". The guy can be wrong, especially if his preferred solution is compatible with his own prejudices about them there crazy Judeans.

DCH
semiopen
Posts: 471
Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2014 6:27 pm

Re: Waheb in the Peshitta

Post by semiopen »

I was doing a little further looking -

It turns out the OP also posted this in another forum and the only reply is that his references are messed up.

Regarding the Peshitta -

George_Lamsa has an online translation of the Pershitta at

http://www.lamsabible.com/Lamsa%20Bible ... tament.htm
Wherefore it is said in the book of the wars of the LORD, a flame of fire is in the whirlwind and in the river of Arnon.
Therefore the Book of the Wars of the LORD speaks of "... Waheb in Suphah, and the wadis: the Arnon
(Num 21:14 TNK)
As we have discussed whirlwind is a reasonable translation of Suphah.

The OP suggests שלהבת for flame from וָהֵ֣ב - I don't get it. However, it is conceivable that the vav was actually a lamed which gives us לַ֖הַב from Numbers 28 - actually לֶהָבָ֖ה but the two renderings have the same meaning. This means flame or blade.

Based on this I think the Peshitta might be correct.
Stephan Huller
Posts: 3009
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:59 pm

Re: Waheb in the Peshitta

Post by Stephan Huller »

Lamsa is a fucking idiot.
semiopen
Posts: 471
Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2014 6:27 pm

Re: Waheb in the Peshitta

Post by semiopen »

Stephan Huller wrote:Lamsa is a fucking idiot.
Nonetheless, the line quoted in the original post is not from Lamsa and has שלהבת instead of וָהֵ֣ב and the only clear path to explain this is that the translator saw waheb and "fixed" it or saw לַ֖הַב in the text and put in the Aramaic equivalent.

I probably should have pointed out in my previous post that this error is considered impossible by traditional Jewish thought (which is a euphemism for something) because they claim that only vavs and yods were ever messed up.

I'm also not clear on how easy this mistake would have been to make, the letters look similar enough in the script here but who knows what alphabet the source was written in.

Also it is somewhat doubtful that the writers of the Peshitta used source Hebrew texts.

This translation of the Septuagint

http://www.ecmarsh.com/lxx/Numbers/index.htm
Therefore it is said in a book, A war of the Lord has set on fire Zoob, and the brooks of Arnon.
Pretty weird, but it doesn't look that the Peshitta used this as a source.
User avatar
spin
Posts: 2146
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:44 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Waheb in the Peshitta

Post by spin »

semiopen wrote:This translation of the Septuagint

http://www.ecmarsh.com/lxx/Numbers/index.htm
Therefore it is said in a book, A war of the Lord has set on fire Zoob, and the brooks of Arnon.
Pretty weird, but it doesn't look that the Peshitta used this as a source.
Zoob at least is not strange. Just confusion between zayin and waw, the latter has a slightly different head. The he has no Greek equivalent. WHB -> ZHB -> Zwob.

Look at 3rd line of middle section of this:

Image

First word is difficult, but follow this:

ב׃כנור ב׃נבל עשור
B:KNWR B:NBL E$WR

What's the first letter of the next word? I couldn't tell. * It could have been a waw, but it's a zayin. Text Ps 33, our verse is 2.

(* select the rest of the line after the asterisk.)

Struggling with this fragment, I noticed various interesting aspects. For example, the last word on the line looks like shin-waw-resh-waw, but the second letter in the word in the text is a yod: there seems to be no difference here between waw and yod! Next line down towards the right, you'll see waw-kaf-waw-lamed ("and all"), ie the waw is used as a vowel between the kaf and the lamed. Just imagine the confusion that such a text causes for a reader of "biblical" Hebrew! (I'm too ignorant to worry.)
Dysexlia lures • ⅔ of what we see is behind our eyes
beowulf
Posts: 498
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2013 6:09 am

Re: Waheb in the Peshitta

Post by beowulf »

Why numbers 21: 14 has been translated so differently by teams of experts is what needs explaining and I assumed that was the question behind the OP .

I will wait for the original poster to say whatever before posting again.
Post Reply