In reply to message #1
Shlama Akhi Iakov, PT and LXX which may point to a common source text along with Samarian Pentateuch. OT "Q" source.] None-the-less it has been demonstrated before and now again that PT and LXX have shown some similarity. Very true, but please keep this in mind - it is universally held and accepted that the Peshitta NT has no relation whatsoever with the LXX. It is translated from the Hebrew directly, something which Burkitt even admitted. We can argue the timelines, but the fact is that the PT is dependent only on the original Hebrew. Whenever the PT and the LXX agree against the MSS, it can be reasoned that perhaps these two versions reflect an older and more accurate reading that a pre-Masoretic Hebrew text contained, but not always. From our own tradition within the East, the Peshitta Tanakh represents an Aramaic translation from a pre-Masoretic Hebrew text sometime after the Captivity in Babylon. As we know from history, a significant population of Jews chose not to return to the Holy Land after King Cyrus gave them the go-ahead. A large population of Jews lived in Babylon even up to the Arab conquest. Even in 1970, large numbers began to emigrate to Israel from Baghdad. Anyway, sometime between the Captivity and the coming of Christ, the Jews of Babylon (and of Mesopotamia in general) produced an Aramaic version which later, in the 9th Century AD, became known as the "Peshitta (Tanakh.)" This version was inherited by all the Aramaic-speaking Churches, including the CoE. The date is obscured because the CoE had no involvement in the production of this version...it simply inherited it from the Jews in the area of Persia-Babylon. This version was not known in the West (Levant, Egypt, etc.) until much later. The Jews who chose to remain in Babylon and Adiabene needed a version in their vernacular Aramaic, hence the Peshitta Tanakh is written in Eastern Aramaic, much in the same way the Jews of Alexandria needed a version in their vernacular Greek. The largest population of Jews outside of the Holy Land during the time of Christ was not in Rome, nor in Alexandria....but in Babylon and Adiabene. Therefore, Mar Shimun Keepa (the 'Apostle to the Circumcized') wrote his Catholic Epistle from Babylon. (Keepa 5:13) Fk^rwbw 0ml4
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