What is the Greek Primacy?

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Greek Primacy (the opposite of Aramaic Primacy) is the prevailing view in Biblical academic scholarship today. It is the belief that the New Testament was originally written in Greek.

To many, this view seems patently obvious. There is ample historical evidence that the New Testament was translated from Greek. New Testaments typically introduce themselves by saying "Translated from the Original Greek." There fact is not under dispute.

What is under dispute is just how far back the Greek New Testament goes. As it turns out, the Aramaic Peshitta goes just as far back in time as the earliest Greek manuscripts. The text of the Aramaic Peshitta was established just as early, and spread everywhere in the East. From as far back as it is possible to trace, the Aramaic Peshitta became the only text used by churches east of Israel, all the way from Turkey to India and beyond. It is still used by churches in the East today, who have never known anything other than an Aramaic New Testament.

In the West, by contrast, from the second or third centuries, the Greek New Testament became universally adopted. From there, it split into hundreds, actually tens of thousands, of variant readings in thousands of manuscript portions. By contrast, Aramaic Peshitta manuscripts have an astonishing harmony, differing only in minute differences such as the spellings of words. When you closely compare the Greek and Aramaic Peshitta texts, something amazing happens. It turns out that time and time again, in verse after verse, in passage after passage, in every single book of the New Testament, variations, problems and obscure passages in the Greek are explained by the Aramaic Peshitta. Variations in Greek MSS can be explained by puns in the Aramaic Peshitta. The Aramaic Peshitta contains poetry. The Aramaic Peshitta contains idioms that make sense only in Aramaic. The Aramaic Peshitta contains puns and plays on words. The Aramaic Peshitta often rhymes and has poetical rhythms. Time and time again, the Aramaic Peshitta has all the hallmarks of an original language text. The evidence points to the Greek being translated from the Aramaic Peshitta, not the other way round. See the lesson Which Came First – Aramaic or Greek? for an explanation of the significance of these points.

A close examination reveals what churches of the East have known all along – that the Aramaic Peshitta is the inspired Word of YHWH, delivered by the hands of the apostles themselves. Unlike the Greek New Testament which is full of contradictions and problems, the Aramaic Peshitta has been preserved intact down through the centuries.

The Aramaic Peshitta is a huge challenge to Greek Primacy. When you examine the two texts side by side, it becomes very clear very quickly, that Greek texts have been translated from the Aramaic Peshitta, not the other way round. The evidence for the Aramaic Peshitta being the original language from which Greek and hence all other translations have ultimately come, is simply overwhelming. No wonder Aramaic Primacists believe the Aramaic Peshitta is the inspired Word of YHWH.

If these things are true, the importance of the Aramaic Peshitta can hardly be over-estimated. The Peshitta is the original text of the New Testament. It needs to be understood and studied. You can now go back to the original life-giving fountain of life itself, rather than drink from a muddy brook that has been poisoned over centuries by systematic translation and re-translation, massaging and manipulation, of the text. Jew and Gentile, Hebrew and Aramaic - the two languages in which YHWH chose to reveal his message to mankind. It is the most supreme irony of all, that those are the two languages least studied by Bible students today, as the Greek Septuagint and Greek New Testament have been elevated above all other texts, in pursuit of the elusive original Bible texts. Those original languages are there all along – the Tanakh and the Aramaic Peshitta. Preserved without corruption, with hardly a change despite centuries of copying and across continents, down through empires, until the nations are judged and the Kingdom of YHWH is established on earth. Maranatha. Our Lord is coming!

 

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