In reply to message #0
Shlama Akhi Michael, You have a fantastic memory, buddy. >Paul, in a previous post you >mentioned that originally the peshitta >did not differentiate between singular >and plural (I think) and >that the plurals/singular differentiation was >added to the text at >a later date. (Hence giving >rise to the greek versions >sometimes giving the singular and >sometimes the plural in translation) Absolutely. By the way - the diacretical markings, or "dots", which later evolved to indicate plurality are called syame. Unlike Hebrew which typically has a special suffix (i.e., "-Im") to denote plurality - Aramaic words are usually spelled the same whether in the singular or the plural. I say usually because Akhi John Marucci will quickly remind me that it's not the case in the Absolute State - but only in the Emphatic. Well, 99% of the time the Emphatic case is used, anyway. A simple example is the word Fnydm ("city") - in the plural Fn^ydm Notice the two dots above the plural? Those are the syame markings that were invented much later. As you can imagine - this made reading a text much easier. > >Can you tell us exactly when >this happened in the peshitta? > It was very gradually implemented after the sixth century AD - long after the Greek versions with their disagreements on singular/plural issues were already in circulation. It's just another strong clue - as Akhi Dean pointed out with those splendid examples - that the Greek is a translation - or, more accurately - as series of independent translations. As Eusebius so truthfully put it - "...and everyone translated as best they could...." Fk^rwbw 0ml4
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