Peshitta

The Peshitta ( Syriac: " the Simple ") is a translation of the Bible in the Syriac language (" Ostaramäisch "). Your oldest manuscripts date from the 5th century, but its origins date back to the 1st century. Today it is used in the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Assyrian Church of the East.

Term

The name comes from later legends of Syrian Christianity, who traced the Peshitta to King Solomon. Its meaning is uncertain: With "simple", the generally ordinary, Ordinary be meant in the sense of the Latin vulgaris. Perhaps this translation should be thus distinguished from interpretative paraphrases, multiple translations such as the Hexapla or larger Kanonici as the Septuagint.

Old Testament components

The Peshitta translates some of the Jewish scriptures, the canonized Judaism 100 as the Tanakh and the Old Church had called and taken over since 180 as the Old Testament, very similar to the oldest Palestinian Targums.

Concluded that the complainant Arthur Vööbus 1958 translators had been a such a Targum, which was based in turn on a standalone original Hebrew. Ernst Würthwein other hand, adopted a direct Jewish origin of the Peshitta, the beginnings of which he dated to 40 to 70. Because before the Jewish uprising in Syria, there was a dynasty converted to Judaism; for them and their supporters this translation has become necessary. Other researchers attribute the Peshitta back to Jewish Christians of the first centuries, which would have the Levitical commandments of the Torah translated carelessly, as they no longer obeyed.

In any case, the Peshitta was revised several times, and very different in the various books. The oldest Peshitta manuscript to the AT from the year 464 contains the books of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Later manuscripts resembled the wording with more and more Greek translations and show particularly the influence of the Septuagint. The Codex Ambrosianus from the 6th or 7th century contains all the writings of the Septuagint.

New Testament constituents

The Peshitta New Testament originated in the region of Syria in the 4th century, according to some authors, however, already up to 145 combines all four Gospels in a book and thus replaced the previously used Diatessaron from. Other Syriac NT translations such as the evangelion - mephareshe (Gospel of the separated ) containing these, but were not used in the Syrian Church. Until the inclusion of Syrian Christianity in the Byzantine Empire Church (ca. 325-400 ), there were only the Diatessaron and the Pauline Epistles as canonical. After that, the stronger the Greek New Testament Peshitta NT oriented supplanted the Diatessaron. Bishop Rabulas ( 411-435 ) gave her sole validity by leaving burn the Diatessaron. For a long time he was also regarded as their author.

Expenditure

• MP Weitzman (ed.): The Syriac version of the Old Testament. University of Cambridge Press, Oriental Publications, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 0521017467
• Peshiṭta Institute of the University of Leiden ( ed.): Peshitta. The Old Testament in Syriac. Brill Publisher