The Importance of the Aramaic Peshitta New Testament

This series of web pages provides free lessons on the Aramaic New Testament or Peshitta.


Home  |  Aramaic New Testament  |  Introduction  |  The Importance of the Aramaic Peshitta New Testament
 
In previous lessons, we have seen that Aramaic Primacy and Greek Primacy are competing beliefs. One of them must be right, and the other wrong. If the popular view in the West is correct, the New Testament was originally written in Greek, and somewhere in the first few centuries C.E., it was translated into Aramaic.

Let's imagine the popular view was correct. Where does that leave the Aramaic Peshitta New Testament? If nothing else, the Aramaic Peshitta New Testament is all of these things:
  • The Aramaic Peshitta is as close as you can get to the actual words spoken by Yeshua and the disciples, since they spoke in Aramaic. As we saw in the lesson Aramaic: Language of Josephus, following the Maccabean revolt, Jews had a revulsion to Greek learning and philosophy.
  • The Aramaic Peshitta is as close as you can get to the original Aramaic, Hebrew or Semitic idioms that underlie the Greek New Testament.
  • Time and again, the Aramaic Peshitta explains variant readings in the Greek New Testament.
  • The Aramaic Peshitta explains a multitude of difficult, obscure, problematic, or conflicting words in the Greek New Testament.
  • The Aramaic Peshitta comfortably and logically explains passages that are commonly attacked by Bible critics, because those conflicts do not occur in the Aramaic Peshitta.
  • The Aramaic Peshitta contains a whole slew of features that are missing in translations, such as poetry, puns, rhymes, plays on words, idioms, and similar features.
  • The Aramaic Peshitta means that you do not need to use the names of pagan deities in worship and Bible study, such as the names of Greek gods (Theos = Deus = Zeus!) and Kurios.
  • The Aramaic Peshitta is the only New Testament universally recognized in the Church of the East, and therefore essential for a complete understanding of Bible history. Ignoring the Aramaic Peshitta is therefore like breathing on only one lung.

If nothing else, the Aramaic Peshitta is all of those things, and more. And that is if the Aramaic Peshitta is only a translation.

However, although Greek Primacy is the popular view, it is not necessarily true. We have presented much evidence on this web site showing that Aramaic must have come first, and that Greek was translated from it (not the other way round). We have not even scratched the surface, but only supplied a few examples. Whole books have been written presenting this evidence in greater detail, with many more examples.

Aramaic Primacy is not the popular view in the West, but it is universally believed in the East. Bible believers all the way from Turkey to India and beyond, conduct their liturgies in Aramaic and have done so since their churches were founded. Those believers have only ever known the Aramaic New Testament. The Aramaic Peshitta is all their liturgies have ever known. They have simply never adopted Greek New Testament manuscripts. In fact, some early translations such as Armenian, were made from the Aramaic Peshitta because the translators could not find any Greek New Testament manuscripts in the country.

The evidence, therefore, points to the Aramaic Peshitta as being the original text in which the New Testament was given. At an early stage, Greek translations were made, and probably revised over time. This explains the preponderance of variations in the Greek New Testament, and the astonishing lack of them in the original Aramaic.

Just as Bible students go back to the Greek for clarity on their English translations, so we should go back to the original Aramaic for clarity on the Greek. Time and again, the Aramaic Peshitta clarifies the Greek text. The Aramaic Peshitta explains differences and textual variants. The Peshitta sheds light on the Semitic idioms used in the New Testament. Aramaic breathes life into Bible study like no other source.

If you believe the message of the New Testament, ignoring the Aramaic Peshitta means that you are floating adrift at sea. You have lost your moorings. Your faith will be battered by lower textual criticism, higher textual criticism, Bible skeptics, humanists, pagan philosophies, and much more. The Aramaic Peshitta is your anchor. The Aramaic Peshitta will correctly stabilize your faith and re-root your beliefs back to the Semitic origins of the New Testament. The Aramaic Peshitta will breathe new life into familiar passages, explain quirks and other obscure passages, and will withstand all the poison that Bible skeptics and critics throw at it.

Read the Aramaic Peshitta in the original Aramaic, and you will see an original beauty leap off the page that translations just do not have. It's like the difference between seeing a photograph of a loved one, and meeting them face to face.

Start learning Aramaic today, and put the Aramaic Peshitta at the center of your Bible faith. Reconnect your heart and mind to the Holy Scriptures, breathed by the Living God, and forming the words of the Aramaic Peshitta. A translation is just not the same, whether it be in Greek, Latin, English, or any other language.

Many will be unable to divorce themselves from the popular view that the New Testament was originally written in Greek. I was once like that. I dismissed out of hand any claims that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic. But one day I looked into the evidence. And it scared me how much that evidence started to mount up. Slowly, the barriers came down, and I started to see that the Aramaic Peshitta had to be the original text, not the Greek. Far from rocking my faith, and much to my surprise, my faith was enormously boosted and strengthened. When reading the Aramaic Peshitta, it was like reading the Holy Scriptures without a veil, coming face to face with the words of the Holy Spirit, not seeing through a glass darkly or through the words of a translation.

Learn the Aramaic Peshitta, dear Bible believer. Let yourself be guided by the Father, and you will see the words of the Living God, the pearl of great price. The Pearls of the Peshitta await you. Open its pages and read.

 
Home  |  Aramaic New Testament  |  Introduction  |  The Importance of the Aramaic Peshitta New Testament