What is 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  |  What is the Aramaic Peshitta New Testament?

When people think of the New Testament, they usually think of a copy in their local modern language (English, French, or whatever). Most people will be aware that the New Testament was not originally written in those languages, but was translated (or so we are told) from Greek, or Koine (Common) Greek, as it is generally referred to (as opposed to the Classical Greek from works such as Plato).

Other people will have heard of the Aramaic New Testament or Peshitta. Obviously, this is a version of the New Testament written in Aramaic (rather than Greek). Now, if you dig a little deeper, you will find several interesting things about the Aramaic Peshitta New Testament. Prior to the 1850s (or about the time of Westcott and Hort), the Aramaic Peshitta in the West was universally believed and understood to be the following:
  • Dating to the first or second century, and therefore just as old as the earliest Greek manuscript fragments.
  • Essentially free from all the myriad of variations that are found in manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. Many of the variations in the multitude of Greek texts are very significant, often doctrinally important.
  • Containing idioms, puns, plays on words, which are idiomatic and natural in Aramaic.
  • As close to what the original words of Yeshua and his disciples must have been.
Evidence of this can be found in the detailed Appendix of the 1852 Murdock Translation of the Aramaic Peshitta. Even though Murdock believed the Aramaic Peshitta was a translation from the Greek, he pays the Aramaic Peshitta many amazing and surprising compliments such as those above.

In the East, however, all Christian churches, across all countries, universally hail the Aramaic Peshitta as the original version of the New Testament, handed over to them by the very apostles themselves, and thus not a translation from the Greek at all.

So which is it? Is the Aramaic Peshitta merely a translation from the Greek, or is it the original text from which the Greek was translated? That is the question which this website aims to answer. Please thoroughly read through the evidence and decide for yourself. Come back often, because assembling and presenting this evidence will take a long time. There is a lot of ground to cover. Subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter to keep informed of updates.

 
Home  |  Aramaic New Testament  |  Introduction  |  What is the Aramaic Peshitta New Testament?