Syriac
New Testament Studies
(And why
should we bother to study the Syriac New Testament?)
Syriac
is an ancient language, a dialect of the Aramaic spoken in Babylon
and Assyria between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers since the dawn of
historic times. The Palestinian dialect of Western Aramaic was the
language spoken by Yeshu`a, (Jesus' real name) and His twelve
disciples. The prose and idioms of this language and dialect have
filtered through into our own language through the English
translations of the New Testament. Most New Testament scholars now
seem to admit that the gospels we have in Greek were translated and
possibly also collated from Aramaic origins. Indeed, relics of the
Aramaic original language and culture are sprinkled throughout the
New Testament. Despite all this, very little attention is given to
the Aramaic scriptures which offer Christians everywhere a fruitful
and ancient resource of knowledge about Jesus.
One example of a Palestinian
Aramaic text still visible in the gospels comes from the last
words of Jesus recorded in Matthew and Mark. In the Peshitta ancient
Syriac New Testament, in both Matthew 27v46 and Mark 15v34, Christ's
last words are recorded as:
Click on the Syriac words to read the
article
There are many more Palestinian
Aramaic relics hidden in the Greek and Syriac gospels and many more
which can be seen in Syriac gospels that cannot be seen in the Greek
text. This example has been featured because it is visible in the
Greek text and in the ancient Syriac text. As the eminent scholar
Arthur Vööbus states in his 'Researches on the circulation
of the Peshitta in the fifth century', Publ.: Baltic University,
Pinneberg 1948, p. 57:
Some very valuable clues are to
be found in the specific Palestinian Aramaic terms, idioms and
grammatical forms preserved by Old Syriac gospels. These are unknown
in pure classical Syriac and constitute an alien element. Certainly
Tatian has not made use of them, but these linguistic anomalies
together with other remarkable idiosyncrasies and relics of
Palestinian provenance tend to prove the existence of an archaic
and heterogeneous layer in the Old Syriac gospels. It seems to be
the fact, that in a more careful analysis of these elements lies the
best hope to go forward here.
As Arthur Vööbus hints,
there are two approaches which can be used to isolate Palestinian
Aramaic readings hidden in the Old Syriac text. The first tool is
based upon the language. Palestinian Aramaic readings can be
recognized when a Syriac source contains words, phrases or grammar
used in the Palestinian dialect but not in the Syriac dialect. The
second tool is the historical method. Some Palestinian Aramaic texts
can be recognized because they contain extra details pertinent to the
Judaism which was practised at the time of Christ, or to the
geography or social conditions which were known to exist in
Palestine. Thus, both linguistic and historical tools are available
to help identify Syriac sources which contain material of Palestinian
origin. Once such sources have been identified, other unexplained
textual variants common to the same sources are very likely to be
Palestinian also.
In addition to the reconstruction
of Christ's last words in Palestinian Aramaic given above, I have
included another example,
showing how another Palestinian Aramaic textual relic has been
identified in the Syriac gospel tradition using a similar linguistic
approach.
There are also some good external
historical reasons why the Syriac Bible, and in particular the Syriac
New Testament, is worthy of our attention:
Eusebius
of Caesarea in Palestine, a Greek speaking ecclesiastical historian
who died in AD 339, mentions that Papias, who was bishop of
Phrygian Hierapolis during the reign of Trajan, (Roman Emperor
between AD 97 and 117) wrote five books in this period, (see
Eusebius H. E. book 3, section 39) . One of his books was called
'Expositions of the sayings of the Lord' in which Papias mentions
Mark and Mark's gospel by name and says that 'Matthew compiled the
sayings in the Aramaic language, and everyone translated them as
well as he could'. These remarks mean that in about AD 110,
Matthew's Aramaic 'sayings of Christ' had no standard Greek
translation. Eusebius also tells us that an early Syriac gospel was
used by Hegesippus, a Christian writer who lived around AD
130. Eusebius quotes his writings which show that Hegesippus lived
during the reign of Hadrian Caesar between 117 and 137 AD, (see
Eusebius, H. E. book 4, sections 8 and 22). These two historical
records of early Aramaic gospels by a Greek speaking historian
provide strong evidence for Aramaic as the original language of the
gospels. This historical evidence is corroborated by archaeological
evidence that Aramaic was the spoken language of the Jews in first
century Palestine, (see my Aramaic
linguistics article on
this site).
A
copy of the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Syriac around
AD 150. The Peshitta Old Testament is an extremely important witness
to the Hebrew text because (unlike the Hebrew) the Syriac Peshitta
Old Testament is preserved in numerous early manuscripts. The oldest
dated OT manuscript in the world contains a Syriac copy of the first
five books of the bible from the Peshitta Old Testament. This
manuscript is dated AG 775 which is equivalent to AD 464. The
manuscript is kept in the British Library, London, UK where it is
designated Cod. Add. 14425.
A
Syriac harmony of all four gospels called the Diatessaron was
created in AD 172. In Syriac this gospel was called 'The Gospel of
the Mixed'. The Diatessaron was attributed by ancient writers to
Tatian. Eusebius, Epiphanius and Theodore bar Koni all
mention the Diatessaron and they report that Tatian was a Christian
from the land of Assyria who studied in Rome as a disciple of Justin
Martyr. No manuscript copy of the Diatessaron gospel survives.
However, many thousands of quotations from the Diatessaron can be
found in Syriac biblical commentaries, liturgies and Syriac and
Armenian patristic writings dating from the 4th to the
13th centuries AD.
The
early date of the four gospels translated from Greek into Syriac,
(before 323 AD). These were called 'The Separated Gospels' in Syriac
to distinguish them from the earlier Diatessaron gospel harmony. In
the main, both the Separated Gospels and the Diatessaron preserve
much older Syriac texts than the Peshitta separate gospels.
The fact that Syriac is an
Aramaic dialect, so that the gospel written in Syriac is written in
a language very similar to the language and dialect that Jesus
spoke. Most world religions have preserved and taught their
scriptures in the language of their founders. Aramaic was the
language of Christ and the Apostles and yet Christians have paid
little or no attention to the Syriac scriptures and vast amounts of
patristic literature which survive in numerous manuscripts.
From the historical evidence,
Syriac gospel texts existed from the early second century AD onwards,
this means that the earliest known Syriac texts are about the same
age as the oldest known Greek New Testament fragments! And yet,
compared to the effort applied to the Greek New Testament text, very
little work has ever been done to investigate the Aramaic versions of
the New Testament.
If you are interested to know more
about this subject or perhaps to help improve the Syriac pages on
this site, by all means contact me.
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