1852 James Murdock Translation of the Aramaic Peshitta

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One of the earliest translations of the Peshitta (Aramaic New Testament) into English was made in 1851 by James Murdock, an American scholar educated at Yale in 1797. He studied for the ministry and preached for 13 years in the Congregational Church of Princeton, Mass., before becoming Professor of Ancient Languages in the University of Vermont from 1815 until 1819. He then went to Andover Theological Seminary where he taught sacred rhetoric and Church history until 1829, after which he moved to New Haven where he devoted his last years to private study. Perhaps his greatest achievement was to translate the Peshitta from Syriac (Aramaic) into English. His Literal Translation of the Whole New Testament from the Ancient Syriac Version was published in 1852.

Murdock did a great service to study of the Aramaic Peshitta, and raised awareness of how important the Aramaic New Testament is. However, he was a Greek Primacist, and followed western academic beliefs at this time in believing that the Aramaic Peshitta was translated from the Greek, and not the other way round.

Despite this belief, his published Literal Translation of the Whole New Testament from the Ancient Syriac Version contains some remarkable statements about the Aramaic Peshitta. Taken at face value, those statements must surely be taken as evidence that the Aramaic is the original, and that Greek was translated from it. Let us consider a few examples taken from the Appendix to his Translation:

“The writer commenced reading the Peshito Syriac New Testament in January, 1845, and at every step he found increasing delight. The artless simplicity, directness, and transparency of the style,-the propriety and beauty of the conceptions of Christ and his followers, as expressed in a Shemitish dialect very nearly identical with their vernacular tongue,-the pleasing thought that the words were, probably, in great part, the very terms which the Saviour and his Apostles actually uttered in their discourses and conversations, and especially the full comprehension which the Syriac translator seemed to have of the force and meaning of the inspired original, served to chain attention and hold the mind spell-bound to the book.”

This is a remarkable paragraph coming from someone who believes the Aramaic Peshitta is a translation! Does the evident quality of the Aramaic Peshitta not suggest that it, not the Greek, is the original language in which the New Testament was written?

Or how about these remarkable quotations taken verbatim from the detailed Appendix in Murdock's Translation:

“In all these respects it [the Aramaic Peshitta] stands pre-eminent among the numerous versions of the New Testament.”

"Among all the versions of the New Testament, that which holds the first rank, and is the most exact, felicitous, and divine, is certainly the Syriac, which, undoubtedly, was most faithfully handed down by apostolical men, who remembered well the recently uttered words of Christ and his Apostles, and understood their meaning. For CHRIST himself used this language."

“[The Aramaic Peshitta] is very generally admitted to be the oldest version that has come down to us, of the New Testament in any language.”

“It is almost precisely the same with the Canon derived from the writings of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and others in the first ages of the Church. And this may be considered as evidence of the high antiquity of the version. It was made before the New Testament Canon was fully settled.”

“Among the Aramaean Christians the tradition is universal, and uniform everywhere, that this version was made at the time when Christianity was first preached, and when Christian churches were first established, in Syria and Mesopotamia: and, of course, that it was made by some one or more of the primitive Apostles and Evangelists, or by persons who were their companions and associates... Anterior to the present century, most of the Europeans who gave attention to Syriac learning, so far assented to this Syrian tradition, as to maintain, that the Peshito version must have been made either by an Apostle, or by some companion and assistant of the Apostles.”

“The more recent German writers content themselves with tracing back the existence of this version [the Aramaic Peshitta] to the latter part of the second century. But the English, and also the Germans before the year 1800, very generally believed, and argued, that it must have been made either near the close of the first century, or early in the second century.”

“We believe that most of the books called the Peshitta, or the greater part of those forming the proper Peshito Canon, were translated in the latter part of the first century, for so early they must have been well known in Syria, having, been written before the destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 70.”

In his Appendix, Murdock devotes about a dozen pages of evidence to demonstrate that the Aramaic Peshitta must go back to the end of the first century. There are copious more quotes that could have been provided from the Appendix to Murdock's Translation that provide evidence for the Aramaic Peshitta being the earliest and original text.

In other words, prior to the rise of Greek scholarship in the West around the 1850s (the time of Westcott and Hort), everyone in the East, and consensus scholarship in the West, believed that the Aramaic Peshitta was the original inspired text and that it went back to the first century. This started to change in the West when Greek scholarship became the fashion in universities and eclipsed everything else, including study of Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic. Nobody in the East changed their view, and they continued to believe that the Aramaic Peshitta came from the hands of the apostles themselves.

Ask yourself a simple question. Given the above statements of fact (which come from a Greek primacist!), does the evidence not point to the Aramaic Peshitta as being the original text in which the New Testament was first given? If not, what does the evidence point to? Because it certainly doesn't point to the Aramaic Peshitta being a translation from the Greek.

Murdock's Translation of the Aramaic Peshitta is therefore a critically important source for understanding the Aramaic Peshitta – both the text itself, as well as the Aramaic Peshitta's history and quality. Look into these things, dear reader. If you currently believe that the Aramaic Peshitta is a translation of the Greek because that is what Greek students are taught in today's universities, then examine the evidence for yourself. It is only in comparatively recent times that western 'scholarship' taught this view. It flies in the face of all the external and internal evidence.

Question what you are taught, and examine it thoroughly. If what you believe is true, you will become even more convinced of it. But if what you believe is a lie, then the sooner you find out and learn the truth, the better. What could be more important than knowing what the original inspired language of the New Testament actually was?

The James Murdock Translation of the Aramaic Peshitta, and the pages of detailed evidence provided in its Appendix, is such  an incredible resource that we have decided to newly typeset this awesome book, out of print for so many years. Within minutes, you can download the James Murdock Translation of the Aramaic Peshitta and start reading it for yourself! Don't wait!


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