brock, s. the bible in the syriac tradition

7/27/2019 Brock, S. The Bible In The Syriac Tradition

1/98


2/98

(f) m ttl (f) -I l> 2 -0 ttl :0 o nr;


3/98

- 4 OCT 1993

"

-- ,


4/98

The Bible in the Syr iac Tradi t ion

Introductory notc: This Coursecovering the following topic::

IS arrange d in eight sect ionsPage

Sec ti on I I ) How docs the Bible reach us? 52) Biblical translation- some general problems 83) A hird' s eye view of the Syriac Bible 13

Sec ti on II The Syriac Bible - a closer look: 17I) Old Testament

1. from Hebrew : Pcshitta2. from Greek: Syro-Hexap la

2) New Testament (From Greek) 251. Diatessaron(Harmony of the Gospels)2. Old Syriac .3. Pcshiua4. Philoxcn ian5'- I-Iar clcan

Section I I I How docs the Syriac Bible reach us? 33

SectionSection

IVV

1. Bihlical man usc ripts2. Lcc'ti onarics3. Printed editiotl s4. Translati ons based on the Syriac BibleBiblical interpretation in th e Syriac Trauition 54

Biblica l commentaries 62Section VJ The usc of the Syriac Bib le in preac hing 68Section VII The usc of the Syriac Bible in the li turgy 77Section VIII The Pcshilla as a bas is fur Syri ac spirituality B ~Q,ucsli ons 94

,


5/98

II;

.,

! :

I!.,

, , ' ; .! I

.

'. 1 i :;!

.,

., ,." : . I I ! I ' , ' j , J

.. , ",

.

,


6/98

':

/

Dear SCC Par ticipant ,vSlom!Welcome to .participate in . the SEERI. Correspondence

Course (SCC) which now offers a series of courses in Syriac Christian heri tage and in the Syr iac language . The ' Syriac Christian tra'clition is an impor tant stream of Christian traqition 'distiflct . fromthe Western (Latin) and thc ' E ,\s tcrn B y z a n t i n e t r a d i t i o n s Amongthe Oriental Christian Churches those within the Svriac liturgi-

I ,. .. " ,,.. " \ I .. Ical tradition, may be said to hold pride of place, since ' they arcrepresentative of, a nd 'to some degree, direc t h c i r to the Semitic

....: world out Qf which ,Q hrist ianity sprang. The Semitic world was .' ' , . I I 1 : ' t,the cradle ,of; h r i l i a n i ~ y " The, e o p l c ~ f I 1 p p g y.: homit was"born" and fir st spread and developed set the ma rk of their own gen iu son its first forms of expressio ll and natura lly enough they havecontinucd to bc the most fit to think and ,J ive it in accordancewith what it was from the beginning. T he 'West has lost 'a t leastsomething of the more humanly and re ligiously a mple c ha racter.of early, h i a r : t ~ c v e ~ o ~ a ~ d a r expression or its own originalfl avour which h ave bee l1 )bp.tter conservcd in the Scmitic ChristianEas t. 'fhe Bible itself is built on the Semitic tradition. Therefore an understanding of the Bible in the Syriac tradition is con 4ductive to 'a b etter understanding of ~ h e original Christian revelat ion and Christian life. So we begin our CorrespondenceCou rse with a course on 'Thc Bible in the Syriac Tradition' . Webelieve that wc cannot ge t a morc suitable person to guide thiscoursc than the Oxford Pro fe ssor of Semitic studies Dr. Sebastian1' . Brock.Auolll the AUlhor:

Sebastian P. Hrock was bor n in London, U. K. in 1938.After his ed ucation in Cambridge and Oxford, he taught in theDepartment of Theology at the University of Birmingam and. later in the Faculty of Or,icntal Studies at the University or Cam-

,


7/98

bridge. Since 1974 he is professor at the Orieintal Institute ofthe University of Oxfol"d, He has written extcnsively in learnedj ourna ls on Syriac subjects and has published several articles andbooks. Among his works are:- Th e Harp or the Spirit: Poem s or St. Ephrem (1975, 1983).- The Syriac Vcr"s ion of the Pscudo-Nonnos !'vlythol,ogica l Scho-

lia (Cambridge, 1976)- The Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal

(Syrian Churches Series 9),The Lumin,ous Eye (Rome 1985) .,

Tradition(Poona 1979).

- The Syrian Fathcrs on Prayer a nd the SpIritual Life (Ci stersianStudies Series 101) Michigan 1987.

- 'Thc Teaching of the Syrian Fathers on Prayer (Syriac Text)(Bar Hebraeus Verlag, Holland 19,87).

We hope that the SCC will lead you to the thrill or a great tradition of learning and spirituality.

"Rev. Dr. GEEVARGHESE PANICKERDirector or SCC

:


8/98

SECTION I 't .

,I . 'Ho'w doe 's the Bible "reach us?\ ,:.' '. When we reau thc Rihle toda y wc norm :\ lly read it ill a

,I" ' f n b d c r n priritc"d ed iti on and in a modern translation, whether iti" l:hc ' in 'English , or ;\Ldayalam, or some o ther ~ a n g - u a g e . It!s worth

l ' c f l c c t i n g how lhcse printed editions and translations camc into.being: what lies behind them , and how do they influence our"understanding of what the tBible' contains an'd says?

Printed -Bibles only go bacK to the sixteenth century. PreYlOUS to that ,Bibles had to be copied by hand, a laborious and.slow proccss. TIle invention of printing ha,d two impor tant consequences for the Bib'le: in the first place, printing has made it.possible for BiLles Lo be c irculated much more widely and much.more cheaply; an d secondly, printing has - he lped to standardize.the arrangcmcllt and contents of the Bible. \Ve shall be looking.at, Some of the ,consequences of this revolutionary invention b e l o ~

The manuscript Bible was rarely a complcte Bible, for nor,rnally a biblical manuscript would only contain part of the Bible,'such as the Gospels, or may be thc whcle New Testament. Each

, book would bc de vidcd into chapters, but severa ] different sy. .stems of chap ter divisions werc current; thu s, "for example, the

I, chapter division in Syriac and in Greek ma nuscripts differs fromrthat in OUI' printed Bibies. The chapter divisiun familiar to .us

today in printed Bibles in fact belongs to the Latin translation-by Jerome, known 'as tHe Vulgate; though 'the sys tem was only:devised in the ~ - 1 i d d l e Ages, " t was adopted in the printed text-of the Bible in all languages in the sixteenth centur y, and sothis particular system has now become universal. Manu script"Bibles in languages 'other than Hebrew also lacked any form of

,.' ""lverse division : our present verse divisions in the Old Testament'derive from the H ebrew Bible, and these were introduced into

, !printed Bibles in all languages in the r.oursc of the six teenth century. In the New Testament the verse divisions and numberingswere first illl roduced in some of the first printed editions of theGreek text.


9/98

iI

6 The Bibl e in the Syriae Traditio nt>.1anuscript Bibles in all languages exce pt Hebrew were in

book, 0 1- ' codex', form. For purposes of st ud y the Jews woulda lso write out the H ebrew Bible in codex form , but for litu rgic,dUji C in S)'n agoguc they always wrote out the text on scrollsJl"""'lcticc which still exists). The scroll is in fac t a m u c ~ older in4vcntion than the codex. The codex only came to be Widely usedfor literal'\" texts in the early centuries of the Christian era, Iandit seems tltat Chr ist ians httipcd popularize the new format by firstemploying i t ~ f o r writing Ollt biblical texts in Greek . The codexhas many advantages oyer the scro ll : in particular, the c o d c ~is much cas ier to usc, and it can hold vcry much more tC:


10/98

How does the Bible reach us 7{ . Jew s also translated thc Hebrew Bible into !Aramaic, andthese tra nslations arc known today as the Targum s. Fragments

. of-a pre-Christian Targum to J ob have been found at Q umran,but the other Targums which survive probably originatcQ in the

31 early centuries of the Christian era , a nd the manu scripts contain ing !them are "almost all late medieval (twc lfth to ' sixteenth cen

l-ur.y) . Jews may a lso have translated some . books ' of the Bible" , into an Aramaic di ,tlc c.t !resembling Syriac (Syriac or iginated :as

, h c loca l Aramaic dialec t of Edcssa), land these were then taken 'Qve l' by the : early Syriac-spcaking _Cllristian - :" community -to

: form t he beginnings of thc Peshitta Old 'Tcstamen,t. The earliestcomp lete manuscript of the Syriac Old Testament belongs to the

x t h or scventh century. -.' . H1 o d ~ r n 't ra nslations of the Bible a r ~ ~ a d e from particular

~ d i t i o n of the Hebrew ,Old T e s t a ~ e n t a nd ,Greek New Tc stai,:ent. Su rviving manuscripts of t h ~ Hcbrcw Bible ' I;ave a re

. a r k ~ b l y uniform text, and so there is very little 'differe!1ce bet' ,veen one edition ofth c Hebrew Bible a nd ano ther; it is likely Ithe

{ha t precise form of the Hebrew h ex t as we know it g


11/98

8 The Bib le in the Syri.c Tradi t io n2. Biblical t ransla t ion, some general problems

Fas hions in biblical transaltion change Q\"cr the course o ftime. Twentieth-ce ntury biblical translators approach their taskvery differentl y from t.he way in which th e anci ent translatol'3 'went ahout the ir work. The aims and the sc lf:'undcrstanding ofan cient and of modern biblical transla tors were radicallr d i r r ccnt. One can genera lize a nd say that the a ncient tran slator waso riented tow;rrcl s the origina l tex t, while the modern tra ns lator isoriented towa rd s th e read er. As a result of this different O r i C l l t ~a l ion the anc ien t transla tor transla tes with g rea t deference towards t,he original text, striving to render it (word for word ' ,even if this may some times result in fIlOnSCIl!iC tran slations'; inco ntras t , the mode rn tran sla tol' see ks to render the te xt intelligible to his reader and as a consequence he 'translates 'sense ror

~ c rather thap 'word for word '; and he will avoid at a ll costsallY nonsellse translations. Anc ient tl'anslati9 ns will thus tend tohe morc litcral , and mode rn ones more rree and interpreta tive.\Vithin each t\'pe or trallslation. th e more literal and the morefr ee, th ere is in 'fa ct the poss i!.,ili ty o i' ~ e a t va riet >, as we !-l hall seeI:Her 0 11 , in con nec tion with th e Sy ri ae Bible,

Vi rtuall y all earl r hiiJliea l tra nsla tiolls, intu "rhat c\'e r 1. -11-gl1agc , arl: basically tex t-ori ented . ra thcr than rea der-oriented .""hen d id biblical tra nsla tion cha nge its prac ticc a nd becomercader-ori ented ? Right up to th e cnd of the Europea n Middle Ageswo rd ror word trans lation remained th e norm for biblical translation, and it was onl y in th e sixtee nth cc ntur y that practice changed. The re are goo d reasons fo r linkil! :.{ this important !;hift withthe im 'cntion of pr inting,

Uclore the invention 0(' printing' tlte ma in context in whichthe Bihle was read was durioKchu l"c h sCI'vices, but aft er the i n v e n ~li on of printing it became much CII 0 l"C a vailable to he read brindividuals. at home . Since man y passag t':s in the Bible a re extremely obsc ure . this l I ew situation g-


12/98

B;bl;ca l Translati o n 9.l\ ,!tion . Once howeve r' the Bible had ,become readil )' , a vailaiJlc .ou t:;jde the liturgy the.re was no longer an y means of controlover how the Dible was to be interpreted, and in the course orthe Refo rmation peri od in Europe all sq rts of ext ra vagant interp r c t ~ t i o n began to circulate. There we re. t\yo main rC


13/98

Ii

III

iII,,I

i'.,1!

10 The Bib le in the Syriac Traditi o npart ic ular language a re rather inconsistent in ch a rac te r, since thf!trans lators lacked exper ience an d precedent; before long, however, Ipeop le noticed th a t there we re differences between ' the origin a land the translation, and so they sta rted to rev ise the original trans lation, bringing it closer into agreemen t w ith the original. This lprocess of revision might be repea ted, 01' go on Dvel: a period oftime . In every case we end up \vith a n ex tremely litera l r e n c l e ~ i ~ g 'nf the original text: This mo\'c!11cnl ' towards a morc and "morellitera l style of tran slat ion can be particu larly we ll documentedfrom the hi stor y of both the Gre ek and the Syriac Bible, for inhoth cases ;we have somewhat in con sisten t stylcs of translation atthc earliest stages, followed by a scries of revisions ,a imed to bringthe tran slations eve r closOf'" into line with e underl ying tcxt ofthe or iginal. .The end results o f this. process of revision were highlys.ophisticatcd mirror t ranslat ions.

But even the t ranslator who sets dut to provide such amirror rcndering cannot avoid being interpretative in places:quite rrequently (a nd especia lly in the H ebrew Old T estament )the orig ina l text is ambi guous or obscure. and so the transla tor is

, rorce d to make: a choice be tween two or more possibilities. I' Atcrea ti on (Gen, 1 2) is it ' the Sp iri t of God' or a ' mighty w i n dover the primordia l d eep? Both' ancient a nd m odern tra nsla tor sare divided over this a nd many other suc h ambiguities . Ind eed, ,somet imes the very c hoice or a litera l rendering might be co nsidered interpre tat ive: a good examp le is provided by the firstword of the angel Gabri el's greet ing to Mary in Luke I :28: in Engli sh the familiar rendering of the Greek Hchairc" is 'ha il (Mary)',The standa rd Syriac biblical text of the New Testament has . "shlamlek" 'Greetings to you', the equivalent Syriac form of the Greekg reeting (s imilarly, the New English Bible has, 'Greetings') , Th eve ry li teral seve nth-century Syriac version known as the H a rcleanprefers to g ive instead the etymologica l equiva le nt to the Greek ,Ilamely the imperative ' rejoice' , Should the tl'a llslator pay morcattention to th e form ('"rej oice ' ) or to t he content ('greetings' )?Ancjent tra nslators like the author of the Harclean New Testament thought that the fcrm was ~ o r ~ important, while moderntranslators conside r that the conten t ha s the greater impor tance.

\'\fe have jCt,;n how the in vention of pr int ing altered people 'satt ilU des toward s the na ture of bib lica l translation, Printing ha s


14/98

Bi b li cal Trans lat ion IIan importa nt effec t on the contents of the Bible; this is

~ ~ c a u print ing m akes possible the w idc cr iculat ion of a ' sing leedition or tra nslat ion , re sult ing in a kind of standard ization thatwas not possible before the invention of printing, \"ie have ai _ady seen one such censequence , namely the h l l r o d u c ~ n of a-..... ,s ~ a ~ d f l ~ d j z c d system of chapter and verse , numbering . Othcr

! ~ d of stand ar,dizat ion intro duced by. printing 'can be ~ e n byc o ~ p a r i n g the contents and order of books in differen t modernfranslations. Bibles produced ror the Catholic church 'will dirrerfl'om t hose produced for the various Reformcd Churches: th e

f o m e r wi ll contain the dc:utero-canonica l books, wh ile t he la tternormally not; and the o rde r. of certa in old T es tament ' booksbe differe nt. Or thodox Bibles wjli g a i n differ frOl'u both

t..;a tholic an d R eform ed Bib les. H ere we can sec th a t the invent ionr6( prinqng has stand a rdiz c:d the differe nces betwt.cn the v ~ r o ~.Qh'urch 1 t radit ions, '

W e Heed to (4).ns ider one m ore problem whic h needs to befaced by the mod crn biblica l tran slat ion, since this a lso has abeari ng on our att itude towards the Syriac Biblc : What biblica l

:text shou ld the tra nslator t reat as a utho ritative and translate'a bm? At first sight this see ms an easy qucstio,n to c.lnswe r: ' the'Hebrew tex t for th e O ld Testament and ;the GI:eek tex t ' far ' the,

Testam ent. As we shall see, however, this is by 0 means;the onl y answer. Certa illl y most m oder n tran sla tions c t out totrans late from the H ebrew and the Greek , but e,"en hereprob lems arise : the ed it ion of the Heb rew Bib le used is ih fac t amedieva l J ew ish one where the orig inally ' co nsonan tal text'has bee n :provid ed \';ith vowels; it is ' tr ue t hat the co nso nanta l"tex't goes bac k more or less in its present fo rm to the late fir stc'elltllI"Y AD , but in m a ny cases (especia lly ' in ' poct ic 'books) thisconsonantal text coul d be read with d irfcrc nt vowe ls., provid

"ing a somew ha t dilTerent meaning , 1vl odcrn translators nor ' malty follow the m edieva l Jewish tra diti on or understan din g'the text, but it wou ld a lso ue possible to take the consona nta l

.... text a s\tile star ting po in t, without necessarily follo{v ing the par, ~ u l a r intc l'lJrctat ion or read inu the vowe ls" which the m e d e v ~, 0" tradition prov ides, It would a lso th eoret ica ll y he poss ible to takeas a starlill lT point an ea rlier form df the Heb rew tex t, such astl?at p l ' e l l P l ~ u s c d by the Sep tuag int (which in som e. bouks mu st,


15/98

'12 The Bible in the 'Syriac Traditionhave differed considerably from the: Hcbl' cw text we know)'.Again, someo ne might 1:casonably ex pect a translator to try ' to , goback to the exact from of the H C t e \ V t'ext as fi rst wrilien ddwiiby tlie individual authors of the old Testament books. This,:howcver , is an im possible task, fo r we have no means of gettingbehind tHe variety of differen t form s of the He brew text wh ich wenow k llow to 'have been circu lating in the first few centuri es BC.. .] n ' response, to this state of affairs, we need to make u s ~of the distinction between 'literary authenticity' and scripturalau thent ic ity'. Literary authenticity refers to the exac t wordi,ng 'lotfthe odg inal author (which , in' the case of the H'cb;'ew 'Old Testa'H!t:nt is unattainable), whereas sc riptura l a uthentiCity refers ~ aform 'of thc biblical' text which has 'be'cll he ld by the religious com;

~ t l l l i t y as / authoritative, This distinction has i m p 0 1 . t ' t ~ t c o n ~ e q u e -lIees: litera ry a uthentici ty ca n only app ly :to a single for in 'of e xbut scriptura l authen t icity can a pply simulta neously to severa'l

,different fo rms of text. Thu s, as far as the Hebrew bible is concerned, it could be said that scriptural authentic ity applies , not'on ly to the medieva l Jewish e ditio n of the Hebrew , but also to

, its consonantal basis which goes back to the H c first centurya nd to lhe H o: bl'cw tcxt use d by the Jewish transla tors of the OldTestament into Greek . But scriptuntl authenticity is by no means 'confined to the Hebrew Old Testamellt and the Greek New T e s t - '.unent: i t applies just as much to the ancien t ' versions, the GrcekSeptuagint and the Syriac Peshitta, 'sincc both these translations: have been regarded as authoritative biblical texts by the commu-nities using them. ' " , "

Ouce we realize that scriptural authcntie ity is not necessarilyconfined to the odg inal biblical languages, it then becomes cleal"'that modcrn biblical tran sla tion's should not cxclusively be madefl 'om Hcb re w and Greek: fo r the Greek 'and Russian OrthodoxC hurch it wou ld be just a s ,desirable' (especia lly for l i t u r g c ~ usc)to use tran slations from the Septuag int ; likewise, in the c,ase.orthe Churches of Syriac liturgical tradition , it will be important ,tomake ava ilable translations from the Syriac Peshitta. T } ~ c s c trllnsbtions would 'primaril y be for usc in the 1iturgy (as we sha ll 'se c, the ' Syriac liturgica l tradition is rooted 'in the Syriac Bible);IJu t for other purposes too, lh ey cnu ld be profitably used a longside lhe existing tran slations from Hebrew a nd Gq:ck, thus pro- ,\' i


16/98

A Bird's Eye View... 13Eye View of the.Syrii lc Bible

~ I . " ' . "j ' o r a ll the Churches ofSyriac tradition the a uthorita tivc formofthe Bible is th e Svriac translation ' kno\vn' as the Peshitta. 'The, .}lc shitta O ld T es tament was t ranslated directly fr om the or iginalH ebrew text, and the Peshitta New T esta ment direcll y fi 'om theoriginal Greek; t he so-c: ;!Ilcd dcutcro-ca nonica l books or 'Apocry pha' were all trallsla ted fi 'om Greek, with the exce ption of BarSira (Ecclesiasticus), which was translated from H ehrew.

'. ' ~ I I I ' I, ' / ' f .The date of ; he Peshitta Old Testament is uncertain, and intallY case not a ll books will have been translated a t once, or b y t h c

same persons, Some books-may- have bcen inherited , by the youngSyriac Church from translations made by J ewish communities ill

.Ithc region of Edessa and Nisibis. I t seems likely that most liO-;'ks'of ,the Peshitta ' Old ,T es tament were translated during the period

,fl'o,m the .late first century A D to the ea rly thirc\ " century:A D. 'The Pesh itta New Testament is in fact a revision of an earlier

n a t o n , knmvn as the 'Old Syriae ' . The revision may havem a de over a period of time , but was completed sometime inthe learly fifth century. The c irculation of this revision provcd- . ,~ ~ t r c m e l y effective, for the Peshitta rapidly replaced the OldSyriac a nd haq become the authori tat ive Syriac text of the New

1, ,Testament before the sch ism between the S y r i a ~ l Orthodo:x. Church.. a l d t lie Church of the East, brought about by the chr istological~ I " -. , ,'Fp ntroversies 9f the mid fifth century. , , ~ ,J ).'1 l I,rOIl. I".A large numuer of manuscripts of the Pc;shitta s ~ r y i . v e , andthe oldes t of these date from the fifth and sixth I centuries: Since

an entire Bible written out by hand was very bulky and awkwardto manage, most manuscripts orily contain small groups 9f booksat a time a nd complete Bibles arc very rare. ' '-

: 1The rarity of complete Bibles before the coming of the printed"book has ha.d an important ,consequence: the ,precise contents and

, .order of books in the Syriac B i b l ~ has never become entirely fixed(even in modern printed editions 'the order i ~ which the biblical-books are printed may differ considerably, from . one edition to1anoth,er). As far as contents are concerned, , the most i m p o r t a n t

e a t l \ r ~ of the Syl'iac Bible is the absence ' from ' the , original. ~ ' l \ \ < \ tran slation of the New Testament of some of the C ~ t h o l i c


17/98

I:,",,I

ii"tI,1;i

14 The Bible in the Syriae Tradition(Apoca lypse); in most printed cditions of th c Syriac New T estament , however, the Syriac text of these boo ks has been suppliedfrom later Syriac translations.

Although the Peshiua is the sta ndard biblical text, It is notthe only Sydac translat ion of the Bible. '

J'o l' the Old Testament J there is a translation made fromth e Gree k Septuag int. This vers ion is known in Syr iac a s ' theSeventy' (IfShab' in" ); hut is called the ' Syro-hcxapla ' by moclchi

h o l a r it was m,tdc hy the S ~ r i a n Orthodox scTlo l


18/98

A Bird's Eye View . . , 15-for ce rta in whether he composed his Gospel harm ony in Greek 0 1';: in Syriac. In the e a Syriac Church, before th e birth of theJ)eshitla New Testam ent , the Diatessaron was evidently c O i d ~cred as a n a uthor itat ive Gospe l text, for St. Ephrem wrote a commentaryon it in the f"ourlh ce ntury. Once the Pcshitla ~ w Tcs t

~ ~ e n t had come into ex iste nce (cad y in th e rifth century) the~ D i a t e s s a o n fell out of v o u r and as a result no ~ o m p l c t e m a n ~sCl:ipts of i t survive:: .,

Next in t ime a fter the Diatessa ron c ~ " , ' ' ' ' ' ' ' \ h e : ' translation' known as the 'Old-Syriac! ,of-which only the Foul' ~ o s p c l s $urvivc .(preserve d in two very early manuscripts). The d ate when thistransla tion \Vas made remai ns uncertain : some scholars suggest

t h e late sccond or early thin] fc ntury while others prefer the.! ea rly four th century. In any case the Old Syriac seems to be later-th an the D i a t c ~ s a o a nd in many places it has ' been influenced, ', by the Diatcssaron. I t is likel y that the Old Syriac origina lly":' , .'extended to the Act s or t he Apostles a nd the Epistles, ' but no

" manuscr ipts conta ining th e Old Syriac version' of these books,surv ives . ._" ' ' ' 'e. have already seen that the Peshitta Nc.w Testament ision fact not a completely new translation from Greek, but a revi,..s ion of the Old Syriac, correc ting it aga in st thc Greek text. Over

the' pori od from the fifth to the seventh century Greek la nguageand culturc became morc and more prestigious in the eyes ofSyriac biblica l scho larsJ especia lly in the Syrian .Orthod oxChurch ; as


19/98

16 The Bible in the Sy riae Tradit ion

This los t Philoxcnian revision served as the basis fo i' yet afurtlier revision of the Syriac New Testament, co mpleted in 6 1G,in Alexandria by the Syrian Orthodox scholar Thomas of Harke I.

r h i s revision, known as the ' Harc1can' prov id es a remarkablemirror transla tion, reflec ting every detail of the Greek original.The Harclca n was widely circulated in Syrian Orthodox circles and was orlen used for Guspel lcctiona ries. The H a rclcan NewTestament surv ives comp lete, and include ::; dIe Minor CatholicEpist les and Revelation.

In tabular for IT} we have:OLD TESTAME NT Hebrew ...... ['e,hitta (c. 2nd cent, AD?)

Grcek (Septuagint) ..... Syro-hexapla (G IG)NEW TESTAMENT

. ,"11; '!

,! . . "; "

1 " 1 '

Gr?ck ..... Dia tc>saron (2nd cenLAD){Gos pel Harm ony),-> Old Syriac (c. 3rd ce nL)....... Pcshilla (C ' 400)....... l'hi loxen ian (508)- Ha"klean (G I6) . "

-', ' I !U : :

. . ; i :

' ./

'J f

:'

: ,n: ,,(

'",


20/98

SECTION IIHE SYRIAC BIBLE - A CLOSER LOOK '.. ,

Testament ,' ;.. .. 1 ) " j 'R.\NSLATED FROM HEBREW: "l 'ESHITTA" ,. . , ,"" --" ";iit . ,;' The name . 'Pcshltta' , I ] ~ c a n s ' 5 t r a i g h t f o r w a r d s i ~ P \ J;

w ~ given to the standard Syr iac version of tbe Bible (b.oth 'Olda:;td New Testaments) in orde'r to distinguish them ' from the

v ~ n ~ h ..century translations, the Syro .hexapla and the Harclean':h e n a m e is first encountered in a ninth .cc ntury writcr ; e a r l i ~ r

'authors had simply refcrred to thc Pl!shiua a s ' the Syriac'. ,, ! , ', .. "IThe orig,ins of ,the Pcshitta translation arC; 'vcl'y obscure and

~ Y l ' j a ~ al!thors had no clear mcmory of how an .d when "the w o r ~~ a c a r i c d out (3; ~ c w fm p, lausiblc guesscs wCl!e ' n c v e r t ~ e l ~ s s c i r ...A close study of thc tra nslation itself ca n' throw a, littlefrom such a stud y we can deduce the r l l o ~ n g : ;

- t h e Peshitta Old Testament tS not the work of a sing let r ~ n a t o l ' , bl!t mu st have been carried out by many different, PI' , : ' . 1transiator.!l, perhaps working ovel' a c o n d e r ~ b l e period of ,time., . ' . I'"'' .!, I , )

, - the ' translatOl's all worked basica lly from ,:H,c " tIcbrcwand ;this Hehrew text was basica llY the same as the c o n s o nur,o: " H b r e \ ~ t c x t o f o u r prin tcd H c b r c ~ v Bibles, S i , i ~ e \ ~ e k n ~ w~ . . , I, 1', " IIthjs,consonantal tcxt became l,the authoritativc' Hebrew text

,r\fprq.c: i ~ c i n t I ~ e lalc f i ~ c C ~ l t ~ r y 't;..P; t \ i . l ~ ~ Y ~ ~ . ~ 5 ~ ; ~ ~a l ~ w c r c ~ x o r k g ,after it h a ~ ~ f e I 1 yviqC;IYI ? r o ~ H g ~ ~ ~ ~ ::"1( I

~ H : 1 ' I I ' l ' n , " f." I I i ' ,I I " !t If" I! ,. . .. ,: t ' ,"," t; ,: .1," - in some books the t(ahslators seem to have consulted oruse of other t r a n a t i ~ n s thus at ' v ~ ~ i o u s P ~ B ~ ~ s in h ~~ P c n l a t e l l c h (Ge nesis Deuteronomy) " there a rc some remarkable )Jinks between the Peshitta and the Jewish Aramaic T a rgu ms; and J ;. 1 " I Jsome of' the ' Prophets and Wisdom ~ o o k t,h,e l tra1ls l,;l tors . pro .

. . : ~ b ~ b l y ,consulted the Septuag,int on occasion, in order to seck help,I'ver a difficult :paSsage in the Hebrew. The l i n ~ s with the T a rI f t i J l l ~ in ce rtain " books lcads ,us to suppose t h a ~ at e ~ s .. t l ~ e s c


21/98

11I,I'III,,

18 The Bible in the Syriac Traditionbooks the translator (s ) were probably Jewi sh , rather than Chris.tian. Inoliter hooks, however, the evidence perhaps points toChristian translators, though it is Ji kely that such people were ofJ ewi sh oigin , for a knowled ge of Hebrew would otherwise bedifficult to explain. , .

! '" . !For th e student of Bible translations it is of particu lar i i 1 ~

tcrest to look at the distinctive feature s of a translation. Herewe shall concent ra te all some unu sual interpretative renderings10 be fo und in differen t books of the Pcshitta Old Testament;lI1 a ny of these ha ve their roots in J ewi sh exege tical tradition.

I t was pointed out in Section I that even the t r ~ n s a t o rwho sets O ~ l t to provide a lite ral transla tion c.annot avoid choosingbetween two or more possible interpreta tions in cases where .the 'Hebrew origina I is ambiguous or obscure. The Hebrew text ofGod 's worel s to Ca in in Gen. 4:7, Hlf you do well, will you notbe accepted" (R evised Standard Version), is capable of severalpossible intc rpl-etations, owing to the ambiguity of the word Hs ' t" (ctwill you not be accepted?" in th.c RSV). Hs ' t" derive s frmn theverb Hnasa " which can have at least four different senses,' allpossible in the context:

(I) fraise up', in the s C e of ' oITer' . This is how the '.C reek Septuagint takes it (H If you o ffer well . .") .

( ~ ) ' lift up' , in the selJ,se of ' accept'. The Syriac transla tolopts for this undel'st.a,nding, and he gives emphasis to it by cha nging the tense: he translates using a past tense , Hqabblet" literallyr t I have received I accepted " , but in the context this wil1either haye the n u a n ~ e ttl win. certainly accept" (that ' is, ' if 'you (= Caill) act well iiI f l l t u r ~ ) , ai' HI- I would, have accepted!'(that is, if you had acted well on the first occasion).Two JewishGreek revisers ofthc. Greek Bible h a v e a similar understanding .,of the word : t 1 ' , ' :1 ( , . : " II ., :,r.JIL '.

, ., :1" 1- , ' , . j j ;' -, 1 ; ! 1 r { ~(3) ilift Up7 in t'he sense of'folrgive' .- This' js how the jewish' I

T a g 4 m understood . th e' ~ s s a g e ( /r1xou will be fOrgivcn").' ',' f ' n : :, J :idJJ.f -

(4) 'lift up" in the sense of ' suspend' . This understandingof the word was chosen by the author of the Samaritan Targum


22/98

Olp Testament 19(ut vi lll suspend" ). I t is in tercsting to find that most moderntranslators base the ir renderin gs on the second interprctation , thusfollowing in the foo tsteps of the Peshitta.- 'J f ! ) ' j" , t.,--: .. _, n the next Vcrse (4 :8) the Hebrew has evid e ntly lost somewords, fo r it rads "And Cain said to his brother ( :.. ),\ -'lnd

t ~ g i i t h c y W C I ' ~ in the field Cain rose lip again st his b r o t h e ~ bel~ i i ' " d killed him" _ All the ancient versions, including the Pesliittil

8 ~ p p l y s'ome appropriatc words, u'suall y fILet us go out into thefi eld 'l . But the Pcshitta translator d ocs somc lhing else as we ll:

t e a d of translating the Hebrew word "field" literally, he rend-"I . ' ,rs 'it b y' "valley" ' (C(pqa'ta" ) . What is the reason for this sce-'i{{ ing iy ~ ~ i l r l l l alteration? A clu e to th c anS,'ler is to be found in

E ~ ~ ~ i c 1 28 : 12 -14 , whct'e Parilclisc-:. is__descril'!t-rl- Rs a " mountain.t L. !.r ,. , '"fheic is no hint of this in the Hebrew te xt of Gene sis, but Jewish\ I l d Christian readers regularly understood the topog raphy of

S ~ n c 1 -4 ill the light of Ezekiel (the idea was also popularized~ th


23/98

20 The Bibl e in the Syriac Tr ad itionT argums. Thank s to this id entifica tion in the Pcshitta , mountQ a rdu h as bee n a place fo r loca l pilgr image even in tot i n ~ c s . .

Gene sis 22 , on Ab raha m 's sacrifice of Isaac , is a cha pterto wh ich we sha ll relurn la ter, in section 4. The Pcshitta tra nslation of the cha pte r a lread y has a nu mber of d istinc tive features .Th e t wo m ost prominct ones a re in verses 2 and 12 . Verse twoprov ides t he location where the sacrifice is to take place: th t; ..H ebrew tex t has ' the la nd of Nfori a h' . which a llowed la ter tradi,lion to identify the place as the sile of the T emple, since the onlyother occurre nce of 1vl oriah in the H ebrew Bible is at 2 C h r o n i c

3: 1, which te ll s h ow ' Solomon began to build , the H ouse otthe Lo rd in J erusalem on i\{OUllt lVl ori ah, wh ere the Lord hada ppeared to David hi s fa th er ' . !vl od crn transla tions follow the.Hebrew text ill speaking of tvlol'i ah in both pa!sages, but th'ea ncient tra nslators .knew of some qui te d iffe rent traditions: th t; :G reek Septuagin t has ' high a n ~ in Genesis a nd 'm ountain ofthe Amorite' ill C hro nicles, while the Sy riac Peshitta h as '1and ofthe Amo rites' in Genesis, and ' mounta in ' of the Amorites' inC hronicles. T he La tin t ra nsla tion known as"the Vulgate knowsyet a nothe r exege tica l t radition, and in Genesis ' it h as (land ofvisir)ll' , a n e tymologica l r en deri ng of iVloriah , Jinking i t 'with ' theH eb'rew verb ((ra 'ah," (to sec.; Jerome deri ved this rendering ...fro m the earlier J ewish Greek revision of the H ~ b r e w Bible by, I 'rSymm achus, . . ~ '(

Th e second distinctive feature of Genesis 22 in the PeshittaOCCllI' S in verse 12, where in the Hebrew (followed by the Septuagint and by all modern transla tiqns) the angel says ' fer now Iknow that you fear God'. By contrast the Peshitta rcads 'for now'"I h a v ~ mad e known tha t you fe ar God' (the text was often: la terread as ' for now you have made known that you ' fear God', . sinceth e consona nta l text Cfwd ' t'" can b e read either as ' u a w d ' e t '' I ~ a v e made known' , or as " a wda' t" , ' you ha ve ma de known ') .ThiS m igh t not seem a very important difference, but in facl itimplies a very different set ting for this tria l of Abraham: : Go da llows the tr ial to ta ke p lace, not to find out himself whe therAbra ha m 's love for God and his faith were stronger than - his lovefor Isaac hi s son; rather , God a llows it to ta ke p l a ~ e because some 'of the angels d oubt whether' Abraham is worthy of the ~ l . ' e c a


24/98

Old Tes tament '2 1:Ilitle given him of ' Fri end of God'. The setting for the ' trial of.tAb raha m is thus understood as being v.ery i m i J a ~ to the se tting '

the tria l of t ri a ls of J ob, which were init iated because Satan,,eAdversary' , likewise d ou'hted the streng th of J ob's ' fa ith., understa nding of the background to Ge nes is 22 is e'' ''plieitly

, found in cad y .Jewish exegetica l trad ition; the Peshi tta , howeve r.i s the only a ncient t ra nslation to have introduce d a hint of t h,. interpretati on into t he ac tua l biblical lext . ..

1 ~ ' \ ' I .. , ,, '. ' ;1\" T he Pcshitta translation of, Genesis, a nd indeed of the Pen-'S ta teuch as a w hole, is pa rticula rl y rich in links with contempora ry

U e w i h excge tica l tra dition, and this ma kes it likcly that t hese" books we re tra nslated by J ews ra ther th an by Christia ns., ,Another place where the Peshitta tra nslation has a greatdistin ctive renderings, oftcn J ewish in cha ra cter, is the twoof C hronicles. Here, for exam pic, ' a number of the placenames ha ve bee n u p d a t e d ' a nd identified with places in north

MesopGta mi a which will have been morc fa milia r to Syr iac read-- thus, for example., Aram 'Ma'acah- ( l -Chn 9:6 ) is i d e ~ ~as Ha rran,_a n.i Ca rccmjsIL ( 2-Ch r--35:20.)..with Mab buL .Q .uiteo f en , ill: Syriac tra nsla tor uses ph raseOlogy wh ich is' typica l of the,J.ewish T a rgu ms ( though there are very few, liQ,ks with -the surviv-

'.Jng T a rgum to C hronicles, which is proba bly la ter in date than.Ilte 'Peshitla), Thus were the H ebrew has .'In t ha t night ' God1 p ~ r i d to S o ~ m o n (and sa id to him, Ask what ' I 'shall giveSyriac; has ' In tha t night the Lord was revea,led i.ovcr

Th e wording , was. revea led over ' is ' charac teristic ofPa lestinian Targuffi tradition (a nd is occasionally a lso

Pcshitta P c n ~ a t e u c h ) , in contras t to the R ~ h y l o n a n.. _ r ~ ~ l a r usc .of 'was revea led t o Another case where~ p I I ' 1 d' h' 1 ' d" , 1 J 'h .;UtC ' C !; utt;t ~ m p o y s " , o r mg \I I ~ IstmC1IVey " eWlS ' J l l

, to lJe found in passages like' 2 , ChI' 33:7, where God. h i presence in the Temple ; in tha t I pa rticular passage :....!";.," ~ ~ b r e w h,as i ~ t.hi,s House.a nd in Jeru salem ... I will 'put my " 'name ~ o eve r , hut In the S Yflac the last phrase a ppears as .f I ' I

, ..." . Luse my Shekhina J the divine,prese nce) to reside for ever'.G c h h r a s e o o g y is chracteristic of the Jewish T a rgums,' and is "b e f o u n d in any -of the other , ancient , translations ' of the ., 1 :1 '

"


25/98

I

,

It'1,,10,'JII,

i'i

'IIIIIl'I"IiIIi

22 Th e Bible in the Syriac T raditio nOne othe l' book in the II'('!s hiua has close links \vith the

T argum , namc IY-Pl"oY..er.bs.- H crc the situation is u nique, for the])cshitta and the T a rguffi arc vir tua lly word ror word the ~ ~ m cmuch of the time , a nd onc must definitely derive from the other .. One would expect the Pcshitta to be derived (rom the T ar"gum ,but 0 11 linguistic grounds it can be shown that in fact the Targummust derive in this book from th e Peshitta. This means tha t thePcshitta translation o P r o v c r b also li kely to ' have been th 'c,work of Jews in north fv[csopotamia: it subsequently came;: to be ,

. taken over by Syriac.spcaking Christi a ns and by laier Jews (wholightly modi fied ,the d1" lec t) ,

In othel' hooks of the Pe, hilta O ldwith the Targums are muc }:l more tenuous, or ~ l t o g c t h c r absent:'In these o t c books the translators have introdu'cd mu c;: h fCM' c:;r''interpreta tive e l c m n t and their rend ering is usually rather close'LO the 'Hebrew, though in some books they occasionally . ma ke

~ c of the Septuag int in isolated passages .

(2), TRANSLATED FROM GREEK : ,"SYRO-HEXAPLA", , ,-Over the course of the firth to Scvc!lth ccntUl'ics AD Chri ..

sthi n litcl"atu re in G reek came to have great prc s,l ige in the ,t;ycs. ~the. Syriac Churches. This ' was ' due to a number , of differept,i'casons, but the' most irnpoi'ta nt or thrsc was t h ~ fa'ct that ' I e ~ I /t " , -'I 'was the ma in cultural language of the c a s t c r ~ l Roman E m p i ~ c ; . ~ ~ ~

~ o the theological controversies of the' fifth and fo llow ing ~ e n ~ } l 1r i c ~ WCI'C conducted primarily In Greek, Since Syriac readcrswere anxious to be brought up to date in theological deve lopments 1huge numbers of theologica l wOJ'''s \ve r c tl"a.nslated from Greek 'into Svr iac, 'and b\' th e end of thC"Sevcnth 'ce ntury 'a lmost all t h ~Greek'Fa thers had' been translated iuto Syriac , either in whole :C;;J, ' I tin part. > A time went on. translators tr ied to represent the Grcf':k ;" ITmore and morc exact ly in Syriac a l ~ d by the .Seventh c e n u ~they had . deve loped very sophis licatc'd mcthods of l T 1 j r r ola lion \ aimed at rcnecting' a ll th e- details of the Greek original)11. f . ~the Syri.tC tr:tnslation.


26/98

Old Te , tament , 23It is against this general b ~ c k g r o u n d of translation a:ctivit:t

that we shou ld look a t the Seventh-century Syriac bibli C:::fl l tra ns .lations,. the Syro;.hexapla for . the Old T C a m c n and ' the Hat' .clean for the Nc\-v . I,

The S y r o - h e x a p \ ~ was primarily :the work of Paul, bishop of'l,'el!a, a sch ola r working at the , monaster}" of . the Alltonincs ' at~ e EnnatoJ1 (or ninth milestone), just ', outsidc the great .citY ' ofAlt:xandria in Egy pt. W e know tha t he was' engaged in thearduous task over the pel"i,od 6,15 -617) . and these dates explainwhy I;e was ,wt o o k i ~ g after his . f1o ck in 'T ell,a , (in ,north Mesopotamia): in 6 14 the Persians had in vaded the Rom . n Empire and

\ . , 's i ~ z c d not on ly north Syria and ~ 1 e s o p o t a m i a , but also the holyg . , . " , . . . ; ' ' .city ' of Jeru salem . , Only shortly a fter ,Pa ul completed, his workthey a ~ ? to?k 'Akxandria,."nd , it i; ~ ~ u n a F \ h a t I!is. ~ n ~ t i o l lwas not Idst then, Paul was thu s a refugee, and' It IS worth I ' . ' .".' l'emcm.ber in g h a .t.his g r e a ~ work of scholarship w ~ s undertaken . .. ' . , r ' ,' ,at a um; o,f great p o h ~ a t u r m o ~ l and, uncer ta inty. .,; I , J

I t seems that the . tran slation was comm iss ioned by theSyrian Orthodox ' patriarch A t h a ~ a s s " .' Instead of using the,ord inary t ~ x t 'of the ' Sep tuag int, Pa ul worked f rom O , r i g e n ; ~revision of the ,:Septua gint, bringing it into closer line with ,theHebrew. original. Origen's revision, .undertaken in .the early .t1i irdcentury, was incorporated into a massive six columned' Bibleknown as the H exapla ('Six- fo ld ') , which " probably contained':

l,,

the H ebrew text)' \ f i r ~ t in H ebrew cha racters and then in Greek "transcription; two Jewish Greek translations ' (Aquila arid SymmU'"chus),; 'Origen's ' own ' revision of the Septuagint;! ,,,,d"'another 'Jewish Greek translation, by ' Th eodotion, ' '\' au t:' tra l1s1 a ted ' thefifth : o l u m n containing the ' revised Septuagint ..tcxt, (, but 'i'n" thell1argin< b e ,omet imes included information t"ken .from the othel,co lumns; , it is for this reason that his tra nslatio\t' ,lis ' knowntoday as the Syro-hexapla (Syriae writers themselves refer to ,itunder. another name , ' the Seventy') , that is, b lsed ' 01\ theSeptuagint. Paul's transla tion re flects the Greek ' very" closely;and this has proved most usefu l for modern 'J sCholars'i ",seeingthat Qrigt:n's l:'f.cxapla has been lost, apart from 'a few' fragments(As we shall see below, in Scctiol1 ,3, Paul's'own ' translation doelIot survive complete).


27/98

24 The Bib le in the Syri ac Tr ad it io nTh e Syro-hexap la enjoyed considerable popu larity ' in the

Syria n Orthodox Church a nd sometimes its text, ra ther than theP e s h i t t a 1 ~ was used in Old Tcstam '! nt Lec tionaries. AlthoughTimothy I , the patriarch of t he Church of the East, showed aninterest in having a manuscript of the Syrohcxapla copied a tthe beginning of the eighth ce ntury, this version \vas neve, ' usedin the Lcctionaric3 of the Church of the E'ls t; it is, hmvever,quite often r e l ~ l T e d to in severa l of the commt!l1tal' ics or the ninthce ntury (sec Ser. tiofl 5),

I t js important to rc'a lize that the S y r o - h c x a p l ~ was, notthe on ly source of knowledge of the Septuagint's biblical text .for Sy riac readers. In the sixth century there were translation9uf some individua l books of the Old Testament m d ~ from Greek.(fragments of a vers ion of Isa ia h survive), and it is p oss ible thatthese were commiss ioned by P h i l o x c n u bishop of Mabbug. ,Theilin his old a g ~ , jn thc early years of eighth ce ntury, the g reat 1


28/98

2, .; New Testa.mentf l ' , ' 1.,,( 1) DIATESSARON

New Testament .25

"'-, "I ' .\!,' - J:: The harmony of thc fOUl' Gospels known as the Diatessa ronis' assoc;iatcd with Tatian, an important Syrian theologian who

w r o t ~ in Greek just aftcr the middle of the second century ....Tatia nhad stud ied in Rom e under Ju stin !V[artyr before returning tothe .east ,(hi s exact home is unknown). I t is unce rtain when,' l ... ~ ..,. .- and in' what la nguagc, he composcd the ' Diatessa ron ; the

work is unfortuna tcly . lo:;t, but traces of it can be fo undChristian wcst as wcll as in the Christian east. As [;\1' as

S y r i ~ c C.hurc1;tes a rc concerned , it is certain t)la t the Dia tcss-n r o ~ circul ated w idely in Sy'riac ~ n d that i t ~ v a s rcgarded . as an ,

. authcirita.t ivc form of thc Gospc l text lIntil h c early fifth century,. . ' . ~ .I t was supprcssed In f a v o ~ r .of the s ~ p a r ~ t c four.:. Gosp,els. ,f o ~ ~ ~ h c e n L U ~ y ~ t Ephrem f vcn wrotq a .commcntary; on' ' il.tcsS31'On, and, it is this work which is our most impo rtant ;'1> , ",i i ' . ' - t , ,, . I. ;:..i'ivitncss to the ac tua l tcxt of the DialCSSal'On' l l . : I - ' f.... '''';..,;:" I r.:\ : ~ l f ' { '. " ; ' 'I I ." , ' . ' ' , ' 't

I . ' , . "At,t thc time wh er:t Tatian '\\Ias compiling the Diatcssaroncanonica l set of fOlll ' Gos'pels was P:oniy .in its infancy,'hi s /exp la ins why he fe lt ab le ' to take ccrta in ' libcrt ics' with the... In" !" d ' I ' d' I ' r " h ' I"""" ,l ~ x t 'eYl!n 'llltro .up ng, ~ r t ~ n . t .tete l c a t ! - 1 : 1 e W Ie 1, . r p l ~ O to. ,foUia ' ~ : t h ~ r o u r G o p ~ of ~ 1 a t t h c w ~ I a l k ~ u ~ e ~ } ~ , : , :

: f o l l o ~ v n g a ~ ~ . t h l C : ~ ~ a I ? - p 1 5 s .of ' suSh . c a ~ ~ : e s ~ l , ... . ':I f ! I.. In Ma tt, "f:4 'and M ~ r k 1:6. John the: ~ a p t i s t is , said ' tolived ! off ' locusts " and ' wild hOlley'. Many a t e ~ readc)'s !

that an asce tic' like John should have eaten ar' " , . " . I" , ; . ' ! . ' ,' Illo.n.-vegc tarlal1 ' dlct;' wlt h l ' ~ c u s t and vanqus, 1 I 1 ~ e r p r e t a t l q n st v c ~ ~ ~ P U t


29/98

26 The Bibl e in the Syriac Tra di ti onIn th e account of jesus' baptism in the jordan ' (Matt

3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22) Tatian introduced a detail whichis absent from the three Gospels: as Jesu s entered the w ~ t e r'a great light appeared'. This W.J.S certain ly not an entirelynew invention on Tatian's part; rather, he was simp ly adapting a tradition already in existence that fire had appeared at 'Jesus' baptism. In Tatian's theology ' (which" we know, of fromhis Oration to the Greeks) light is , a 'much ' morc I . importanttheologica l symbol than fire , and it is ' probably 'for ' thi f rcason "that he made the a ltera tiori (only o n ~ lette'r's difference -in Syriac:

r r n u t ' a ~ ' ' fire', .but u ~ l U h r a " 'light').The familiar tex t of j esus' words to Peter in Ma\t 16:1B

reads 'on this rock will I build my church, . an d the ga te s ofhell shall not' prevail against it'. Here the "precise meaning of'gatts of hell ' is fa r from clear; n l ~ modern ' trans lati.ons takeit as a metaphor and rcndc;!' it by "'powers ' of death' (thus e. g.Revised Stapdard Version, New English Bible). The Syrif1cDiatcssaron had a rather different wording, employ ing 'barsof Sheol' instead (Sheol i,s the H,ebrew and Aramaic ,term ,' fOI:'

( h ~ place of the de,ad).'!. At fir,st ' sight this leaves the passagejust as o b s c u r ~ ~ ~ t if. we rea lize tl]at the ' mcntion of 'bars' ,carries with it an a llusipn to two O ld Tes tament 'passages, Psalm]07:16 and Isaiah 45:2, then the int cntion behind the altera tionbecomes clear: these passages, w here God is described as 'sha ttering the doors of b r ~ n z e and breaking the bars of iron' , wereintcrpret,cd in t h ~ e ~ d y Church" l's l'cferring ~ o Christ's descentinto S.hF.91 By introc;h,lcin!j' ,tnF.!,llusiqn ~ o i h ~ & 1 ' Old Testameht ,

p a s s a g e ~ ~ h ware l ~ l t ~ n a ~ p r g w : i " g , Christ!s , descent intoShcol, ' fa tian is providing the reader with a ,clue , how to Interpret rvlatt '16: I8: C hrist is p;omising PetcI: that the bars and ,gates of Sheol will not be ,a ble ,to prcvail a g ~ i n s L thc Ch,urch,just as they w ~ u l d "not b ~ ' ab le , it? plevail ..aga.u,lst him " a t h ~com ing dcscent i n ~ o Sheol; just as, ,he would "fs hatter, the d oors'and 'break ~ c bars; ~ f She'ol as he, rose r o ~ the dead, ' SO too ,would thc ' Church at thc f i ~ ; ~ l . r c s u r r ~ c t j o n ~ '" , j, ' , '

: I 'In two of these changes to the wording of the text Tatianb as introduced a l l u s i o ~ l ; S ,to tQc ,Old Testament. "T his, is in itse lf . . . .

of intercst, for he was w d t i ~ g at a time when rvl arcion and his'


30/98

New Tes tament 27followel's wel'e throw ing out the O ldusc In the Church .

Testament a ltogct hcr fr om. ' ,.'.The fir st and third of th t st! : a lteratiolls are known so lely

fllom Syriac and othe r' eastern witnesses, and they ' h ave ,lc'ft notrace in the western Diatessaron w i t n c s ~ q , such c.S t h ~ 9 1 ~ d i c v avernacular ' Gospcl harmoni'es:':Thusl there is' poss ibilit,Y: : that

i t h ~ yarc the work of the author of the 'Syriac Diatessaron, r ~ t h e thanof. rratian. (supposing 1 that he wrote" the Dbtessaq:m ' in Greck,rathel: than Syriac). ' : : ',':: , . ! ':\ . I .:.I "-'I ! ',; 1., ;

, ! ; .. .. :J ';": 1 . '

". (2) OLD SYR1AC , " , ',n"'. ,. ," : :rhe Old Syriac ,version of lhc New T e t a m k ~ o W n t o\IS Qp ly Jfrom twd ancient J malluscript s, both ' co ,\'tairy.ing just h ~Gospels. , There must have been a Syriac translatib n"of the ~ s ' t o fActs and the Epistles prior to t h ~ t i ~ c of h ~ l p c ; 1 i t i a e v i i o ~(cAOO), sincc Ephrcm comments on th ese b o o k very tiui


31/98

28 The Bible in the Syriae TraditionThe text of the Old Syriac quite r. d 'ff.hom the Pcshiu a and th 's ' r . ~ ten J crs considerably

' . 3 I 15 101 two maIn reason s' ( I) hSynac trans la ti on was made from G ' k . . . t e O l d. a 1 cc text \\,]11ch cliffe aIn man y respects from the Greek t . re, revision; and (2) the style of tra e t ~ , un?erlYll1g the ' Peshittaleast in I) ' ns a JOn I S much morc free (atfelt that : n l i : ~ e ~ j d I ~ ~ t ~ n m t e r n e t s t i n ( p t 1 h ' ~ thel translator clearly. . . cs ltta lad great hnty for ' his readers than the Gl'eek Nc T t cr, aut 0"ada tO l d l ' w es ament for he. p s cstament quota tions .in the G 'of the Peshitta Old Testame t ' ' , b ospels to the wordingd' ~ . n In anum cr of cases 'h h'1 fer s from th(' form of the qU0 1::lt ion found ' I GV cre t JSTestament Th' . . r In 1 le reek ""w ,.,c. IS IS In lac t a practice adopt d b '

S)Tiac translators of Greek patristic writinlTs a ~ l d i ~ .manr ~ a r l yabOllt AD 500 that transla tors chan e t e:' . I S on y romto' tran sla tc bib!' I , , ' g heir attJlude a nd prefel'them ill thei r G ca kquotatJOns m the form in which they findree . text. evcn when this 'WOI'ding of thc Peshitta Bible, may go agamst theThc tcx t of the two man uscri pts is by no' m eans

though they have enough in common to ind o identica l,both witnesses to the same t . I ' Icate that they are, I ans a tlOn, Probably b tlcnpts have a tex t which lb . . . 0 1 manus-I las ecn rCV Ised or '"corrccted' 't lC. Greek hel'c a nd th . TI " agam stcrc, l i S wou ld explain f4 bwhy S has the shorter endin of lVI k " "or exam Ie,has the longe r ending (eoncluXing a t a ~ G : ; ~ ) , d m g at 16:8), while C

As one mjght exp t " h ' . ' .. (>Jof the Gospels the Old csc ~ n t e e a h e " surviving Syriae te",, '. ' ynac con tams a nu mbe f h'III gr'ammar and vocab I ' S. I ' 0 arc alsmsto reflect Pales t,'n,'a ll AU aJ y: r Ollletuncs these have been takenramalc .orms ( 'th th ' r 't ~ c transla tors . were eithcr of . ~ Imp IcatlOn that .,pDssiblY rhad access to oral t r a : ~ ~ e m : a n o n g l I ~ ~ h e m e l v e ~ o rthis suggest ' . I Ions 111 PaJestllllan , Aramaic):Y'Jon rests On . a mlsundcrsta d' r-are best e x p l a i ~ c d as . 1 Ii n mg, Jor, the archaism.! thistory of S ' , If survJVa s rom an earlier stagc in theynac lt se .

(3) PESHITTAThe]Jes hitta.t is sta nd al'd form of th e S ' N T. ynac ew estamcntnot a new translat ion from G k b ' "r e e , ut a reVISion of :


32/98

New Testament 29O ld Syrinc, bringing it into closer ' line with the Gree k. As

\ v e h a v e scen, the two Old Syriac manuscripts C and S themselves show traces of spora dic revision. I t seems likely, that the, . of revi sion which resulted in the Peshilta text as . we

it was a long ' one, rcaching its completion in the ,early. century. In its final form the revision seems to have bee n'Il:IaT'KC"C a ' very successfully, fer it evidently rapidly r.cplacedthc Old Syriac a nd Diatessaron and ,became ' the standard tcxtfor la U the Syriac C hurches. Traces of the older versions, the

ano Old Syriac, did nevertheless survivc here a ndboth as isola ted readings in a few Peshitta manuscripts,

!ld . in quota tions by later writers; thu s, for example, the readef the Syriac Diatessaron at Matt. 16:18; 'bars of SheaI'(as opposed to 'gates of Sheo l' in both the Old Syriac a nd theResh itta), is st ill known to many writers afte r the fifth century,long a f t e r the Diatcssaron il seif ha d been officially suppresse'd.h',,,.: It h'as been suggested tha t ~ e Pesilitta rcvision was act-. \ ,or Iu a!ly the work of the great bishop of Edessa, Rabbula ()v ho died, \ 435), .This, h oweve i, . now scrms unlik.cly, though Edcssa(w ith its fam ous th eo logica l school ) may 'h ave been ' the placetram which the fin al form of the rcvision was propaga ted . I t isinteresting th a t man y early Pcshitta manu scripts co ntain , the

~ ~ u s e b i a n canons' , which prov ide a convenient system of crossreferences bctween the different Gospels ' (each Gospe l is dividedinto numbered sections) : perha ps this was a specific fe a ture which

~ i ~ t p i n p a n i d the new {edition' . of the Syriac N ~ w T estarrtent.~ U ., 11 , II ' : :. . ' , ' " .,1 ; , : . } 't t : . , , .The Peshitta covers ollly those books which were regarde d.by. the Syriac Ch Luch as authoritative, na mely" the Gospels, Acts,

Raulinc ' Epistles, James" I Peter, a n.d I J ohl], In ,; eN;ly~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ : ; : : : ~ I ~ ; ~ : : : j : : the Catholic Epistles come betw l;Cn,Acts an,d~ , Epistles, a,n d not after ', tlle latter .,.,2 P e t ~ ~ " ~ ~ J q h

and R eve lation ) were n o t t r a n s l a t e d i n t o S y r . i a ~ Ut;l!il1 llis .century (possibly as part of the Philoxenian version , ' though '

,not at all certain). A number of isolated v e r s e s ~ familiar. . , , ,'''''fr'


33/98

30 The Bible in the Syriac TraditionThere is remarkably little var iation between different

manuscripts of the Peshitta New Testament: on ly a rather sma llnumber of Pcshitta manuscripts preserve a few isolated readingswhich go back to the Old Syriac. There arc , however, one or twopassages of theolog ical interest where variation has crept in . Themost famou s of such passages is the end of Hebrews 2:9, wheremanuscripts of Efist Syrian provenance regularly have 'for he(Jesus), apart from God, tasted death on behalf of everyone',while manuscripts of West Syrian origin have 'for by grace Godtasted death on behalf of everyone'. The variation has its originin the Greek: there the majority of manuscripts have 'by thegrace of God' (Uchariti theou"), but a very small number have'without God' r'choris theou"). Scholars have long argucd overwhich of these is the original reading, but as far a ~ the Pcsl)ittais concerned it 'would seem that, 'by grace God' (slightly differentfrom the Greek's ! by the grace of God') may belong to the originalSyriac translation, while 'without God' was pcrhaps introducedinto East Syrian ma nuscripts at an early date under the influenceof Theodo;c of Mopsuestia 's strong support for that readin g(which for him had the advantage of avoiding a,ny idea of theGodhead suffering at the crucifix,ion: it is on ly the Man who

a s t e d death', not-God the Word ) ,, . " (4) PHILOXENIAN

There has bcen much confusion among scholars over ther c l ~ t i o n s h i p between the Philoxcnian and the Harclcan versionsof the S ~ p r i a c New Testament , but some recently published c o m ~m e ~ t a r i c s on the Gospels by Philoxenus himself have provided adefinite so lution. Thu s we now know that the Philoxenianversion ' is lost, and that the very literal translation which doessurvive is the Hardean (despite the fact that it s 'editor unfor-tunately gave it the title 'versio Philoxeniana' ).

The Philoxenian N c ~ \ ' T e s t ~ m e n t was not a c o ~ p l e t e l y newtranslation, but a revision or the Pcshitta, commissioned byPhiloxe'nus of rvl ahbug ' anp carried o';lt by his c h o r c p i s c o ~ o sPolycarp. The work was completed in 508. Although no manu

s c ~ containing the Philoxcnian survive, a number of quotationsfrom it are preserved in Philoxcnus 's commentaries on the


34/98

New Testament 31Gospels; furthermorc, in one of these (the ' o m m e ~ t a . r y on thePrologue of J ohn) Philoxenus explains why he commlssloned ' thllreVISion. Philoxcnus, who lived at a time of heated theologica1controversy, W..lS unhappy with some rather free rende:ings inthe Peshilta of passages such as Matt 1:1,1 :18 , Heb 5:7, and10:5, a ll of which havt! important theological implicat ions for aproper understanding of the nature of thc_incarnation. Philoxenu5complained that the rather loose rendering of these verses in thePes.hiLta gave possible scope for 'a N e s t o r i a n interpretation ' (ashe called acco rdingly he saw .the need for a more e x a ~ t r e n d ~cring of the Greek ne\v Testamen t into Syriac: He himself p u ~it as follows: ' '" ' ' . I

.. r',, : When ' those of old ' undertook l ' to translate; these passagest'ti,ey ' made m i s t a k ~ s in many :thi'ngs, w h e ~ h ~ t i n t e r i t i o ~ a l l y0 1' through ' ignorance. These mistakes concerned not onlywhat' is ta':lght abrut the Economy iJ1. t ~ e flesh, hUf. v a r i o ~ sotne r t h i n ~ concerning different matters. I t was for thlsreason that we have now taken .the trouble to have theHoly Scriptures translated anew from Greek into Syriac.Philoxenus' 'corpments on Hcb 5:7 illustrate ! the sort : of

wording he was,' cancerned ,about. First of all he quote; what. he ,considers to bC 'the .correct translation of the Greek; 'He, who I in.the days of his flesh. ,, ' , he then 'goes on as follows:, "

In place of this they (the Pcshitta's tr!lnslators) tran.slated'whcn he was .clothed in the flesh', and instead ,l of trans. lating P a ~ i the); inclined to,,:ards .the p o t i ~ ~ ~ r N . e

t o d u who ca,st the body on,to , the Word 'as o ~ e d O F ~ ~'\gar"xnent 09to an ordinary body, or 'a,s purple is p ~ t on\emperors (these are both favourite analogies among Easl

Syrian writers).From these a ~ d o t h e r remarks by Philoxenus himself, ' we

can see that the prime motivation behind lthe Philoxenian ' NewTesta ment was provided by the theological controversies of thetime and ' the need for an accurate and )ite,ral t'i'anslation" of theGreek New Testament.

. I t ,is poss ible that the anony,ffious sixth .century translationof t h ~ minor Catholic Epistles (2 Peter, 2 -3 John, Jude) and


35/98

32 The 'Bible in the Syriac Traditio n-Re velation may belong to the Philoxcnian New Te sta ment inwhich case t h ~ y would be the only surviving reprcsc ntat{vesof this version. The style of translation would seem appropriate

______ for what we know of the ' Philoxcnian, but against this we needto weight the fact that Philoxenus him self never seems l o quotefrom these books, which would be a little surp r ising if he was theperson who had comm issioned thell' first translation into Syriac.

(5) HARCLEAN 'The Harclean version represe nts the cu lm ination of the

long proces's of r c ~ j s i o n of the Syriac translation of the NewTestament. Its author was Thoma.s of Harkei, who worked atthe same monastery as Paul of Tclla, outside Alexandria , and atthe sa me time ; he completed his work in 616. Their tec hniqueof high ly sophist ica..!..':.d li teral transla tion is very similar.,'. Thomas worked on the basis of the previous revision, the

'

P,hi loxcnian, and he covered the entire N ew Testament, includ-ing the minor Catholic Epistles and Revelation . In contrastto' the P h i l o x e n i a ~ .where the motivation seems to have beenprilharily theologica l, ' the H .lrcican displays ' a much greaterinterest in Philological detai l: every particle of th '.! Greek or igi-na} ' is n'f!cctcd in the translation. Thomas regula rly strives'\ to ..ach ieve a formal equivalence between the Greek and - the S yriac

~ e x t with ~ h c result that it is poss ible for the modt::rn scho lhr~ o . C C O l ~ s t n ~ the r' q reek text 'which he must h ~ v e us cr d !as thebasis for his' revision : As a matter I of fa ct, Thomas '!did' hot con .finc ' himse'If to ope Greek m inuscript, ' for t h ~ c o ~ p h o n , or note' .. at the end 'of .the text; in many H a J c l e a l l manuscripts "speaks ~ fhis,having u s ~ d . two or three different Creek m ~ n u s c r i p t s . It sohappen s that ' onc of ' the Greek m ~ m . i s r i p t s I \vhich I \ s e d inActs is of great interest for the study of the transmission ' of theGret;ki text' .pf. the New Testament, .since ,it l cont:dns . an ' .archaictype of, the textual . tradition which is: not we ll attested elsewhere,. ' . . . ." r ! : .. , ' , . ' " ! / , 1/; . " '."' . ' "

The Harclean vers!on soon became; popular ill the SY1:ianOrtl10dox Church and it was often used "in. Lectipnary. ma.1U

s c r i p ~ s instead of tl.le Peshitta. It was also used as the bas is'for a' harmon} ' of the :rour Gospels which covercd the . :Passionb ! . l r r a t i ~ e .- ... ; \, ' . ;. : :. :') . ' ~ - -''1 . .. \ . , , '1 : , . '


36/98

SECTION IIIHOW DOES TH E SYRIAC BIBLE REACH US?

. . , " . \ , . 1 J'jt' .. ,i' ; ' 1 . L ,! : In this sec tion we shall look at t l ~ e w ; ~ in I which;;thc'

Syriac Bible i! tr


37/98

---

34 The Bible in the Sy riae Traditionare; however, some undated ones which probablyfifth century ..

A few m a nuscr ipts contain more than one dirferent biblicalversion a t the sa m e time, arranged in parallel co llJmns. Thus Ithere is one fragmentary manu script co ntaining .the P e s h i t t ~and Syro-hexapla of Isaiah se t side by side . More f r e q u e n t l ~such manuscripts are genuinely polyglot, and havedifferent languages. O ne of the earliest polyglot m ; a n u s c r i i p t s - ; ~ la ninth-century Psa lter, 110\V in Lcningrad: this hasl hc-,-Syro-hcxa pIa, and the Ara bic texts set out in _threeiV[ore a mbitious in scope a rc a group ofmanu5cr.ipts evidently .:written in Egypt, for the most paTt

c ~ d e d for litUl-g ical use among the 'multi-lingual groups .monks in the Nitr ia l1 Desert. Two of these are Psa lters whlch3!lticipate the earlies't Elll-opean . polyglot Psalter of 151 6: one ithe m has th e text set out ill five columns, containingSYI-iac (Peshitta), Coptic, Arabic a nd Armenian ; the otherthe te xt in four co lumn s, and this time the languages arc AraSy riac (Syro-hcxap la), Greek and H ebrew . The inclusion "Hebrew in a Christian biblica l manuscr ipt at that time .. ,ce,ms to .;;he without para llel , and clear ly the monk who compiledmanuscript Inust have been a rema rkable scholar for his urne"",

As far as each ind ivid'ua l Syriac version is c o n c e r n ~ dhav.c the roll


38/98

Bibl ieal M a n u s e r i p t ~ 351:- ,the codex Ambrosianus, in t h e - A m h m . s i ~ n Library,

'Ita ly (ms B. 21 Inf.; 7al in the . Leiden edition of theil('''hitta OT) ;- ' this ' is written i n ~ b e a ~ t i r u l Estrange lo " script ,

can be dated to the sixth or seventh century .., -:- Pa ri s, Bibliothequc Nationale, S y ~ L m 341 (8al in the.

iI . in.n. edition); thiS- is written in a neat Estrangelo sc-ript belong-.. ,the .eighth cen tury, and it contains , so m e: i l l u t r ~ t i o n"nr .. " ;''< of Old Testament figures, and some scenes)., ! 1 ' - -- FIC?rence, Laurentian Library ms Or. 58 (9al in the

edition) ; this is written in st!rto script which can b ~ datedthe ninth centur y,

" .l /, ' " ,-C a mbridge, 'University Library ms 00. I. 1,2 (12aI'in ' theed ition); this is written in a neat E s t r a n g ~ l o script whichd ated to the twelfth century; it also contains some i l l u t r ~ ..in ' he form of sma ll 1 portraits of biblical persons : : This

has im portant co nnect ions with India, for it w ain K e r a ~ a , Although i t was written in north Mesopot(\mia Jmanuscript was taken to India, perhaps some time in thecentury, fOI in 1806 the Syrian Orthodox bishop Mar

ius I (Mar Thomas VI) presen tcd it to Dr . ClaudiusVice-Princ ipal of Fort William College, Calcutta.

Buchanan ' ha d spoken to him of plans to print the Syriac: i h ] I ~ England , and this was the reason for Mar Dionysius'gift. Usc was indeed made of ' the Buchanan Dible'

manuscript came to be ca lled ) in preparing the printed~ c < l i t : i o l 1 and when it was finally published (in 1823) copies werc

to Kcrala. (This ed ition has recently (1979) been rc-issued/

United Bible Societies), I I'. If we compare the c o n t e n t ~ and order of books in thesecomp lete Old !Testa ments , we will discover that they a U',in several respects hath in the books they contain and in

order in which they give them. I t is thus clear that neitherIlts ;[lOr ol: der of books was regarded as be ing at all fixed. '

fact hardly surprising when one remember s that"1'lrIlISCri])ts .co ntaining the complete Bihle arc the ' exception ,

.' that normally a biblica l manuscript will only con tain a!:r'o-up of books (such as the Penta teuch) at a t i m c ~


39/98

36 The Bible in the Syriac TraditionThe order of books in the old est of these complete

Peshitta Bibles, the codex .\Inbrosianu s, has a number of .csting features which are worth look ing at bricrJ y; theand contents a re as follows: Pentateuch, J ob, Joshua , luorr,eS!J1-2 Samuel, Psa lms, 1-2 Kings" Proverbs, Wi sdom of S o l l ' m l o ~ !Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, I sa ia h, J eremiah,Letters of Jeremiah a nd :of Baruch, naiuch , Ezekiel, 12Proph ets, Daniel, Bel an d the Dragon, Ruth , Susanna, R,a}',er'!'"Judith , Ben Sil'a, 1-2 Chronicles, Apoca lypse of Baruch, IV(E;;dras), Ezra, Nehemiah, 1-4 Maccabees. ,

The c o n t e n t have ;1 number of surpr ises, foreluded hcre scveral hooks , ... lti ch are considered by most wesl:c,"'lj'Churches to be outside the O ld Testament Canon, a nd .a mongthese are several which are not eve n to be found in the'Apoc rypha ' or D e u t c l ~ ) - C a ~ l o n i Books, This a.ppliesall to the Apocalyp:;.c of B ~ n . l c h and IV Ezra, both oflong apocalyptic works or .Je wish or igin and dating .p,pl,al, lythe latc first cent ury A D; t he codex Ambrosianus isDuly Syriac manuscripl to contain these two books inarc SOffit:: extracts included i n a few Lactionaries). Bothwere translated , into Syr iac from Greek, but the Greek text doesnot survive (apart fro m a few fragments for the Apocalypse ,ofBaruch ); for IV Ezra there is a lso a La tin and a Georgian ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' 'lation in existence, hut fo r the Apoca lypse of Baruch we haveother witness apart from this manusci"ipt and a ,Later ..J.>.. . - " ' ~tran5lation.

The orde r of the books a lso has a number of u r p r i e s ~Jn the first place, we can observe t.hat the scribe has for th e m opart tried to arrange them in historical order, a ~ c o r d i n g to tIledate of each book's supposed author . This explains why : Psalms(attributed to David) comes between Samuel and Kings; and 'why the variolls books attributed to Solomon follow Kings. fIalso explains why Job fol1ows immediately after thewhen one realizes that J ob has beell identified with Jobab (Cen10 :29); probably the same tradition was a lread y knowri byEssene Community at Qumran, for the only biblica l m a I 1 U S e I ' l l p t ~ 'from ' Qumran written in the Old Hebrew script arethe Pentateuch an d Job : ev idently this particu lar script,


40/98

Biblical Manuscripts 37for books ongma ting in the patriarchal period . . This

for J ob is in fact quit,e common in Syriac biblical m a n ~ . ,(thus it likewise follows the Pentateuch in both the ,Pan s

~ ~ . I . . Cambridge ~ o m p l e t e Peshitla Bibles). " ' ' r , ' , IIt: will be noticed that codex Ambrosi :mus groups , all t h ~

E ' o O k s on ' women toge ther (Ruth, Susanna, 'Es the.r, Judith ),seems to have been quite a widespread practice from the

sixth century onwards, and this group of books i s .oflCIl- given-thebook of the Women'. . .

East Syrian manuscripts from the ninth century opwardshave a group of books entitled Beth Mawtbc, or f S e s s i o n s ~reason for this title is obscure); this. consists of Joshua,

Samuel, Kings , Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, . Song ofBen Sira, J ob.

I ,I t is of interest to have some ' i d c ~ of the nU,mb,9." 'of~ ! a n , u s e r i p t eontamJOg pa


41/98

iII'

38 The Bible in the Sy ri ac TraditionFor the rather large number of early manuscripts we owe a specialdebt of gratitude to the abbot i\1oses of the Syrian Monasteryin the Nitrian D eser t (between Cairo and Alexandria in E g y p t ) ~for in the early tenth century he co ll ected toge ther a fine library 'of old Syriac manuscripts which he acquired in Mesopotamia.Subsequently most of the manuscripts in the Syrian Monastery 'g ,Jibrary came to the Vatican Library (in the eighteenthand the British Library (nineteenth century),

The earliest manuscripts arc divided up into unnumbereqparagraphs. IL is i n t r i g u ~ n g to discover that ill some books atleast (notably I sa iah) these paragra ph brea ks very frequently~ c c u r at the sante place astlfC paragraph breaks in the twoHebrew manuscripts of Isaiah from Qumran , as weil as those inthe traditional Hebrew text , reproduced in modern ed itions of..the Hebrew Bible (the two systems are not iden tica l, and the 'Peshilta represents a slightly different third tradition), Evidentlythe Syriac trallslator must have taken over the paragraph divisionsfrom the Hebrew text he was translating. Later manuscripts ofthe Peshitta often introd uce quite different paragraph breaks . , '_,.

The ear liest manuscripts have no chapter di visions. Thedivision of books of the ' Peshitta Old Tcstament into numbered'chapters (in SYI iac, usha he" ) js first attested in somc ' E a ~ tSyrian manuscl' ipts of the eighth century; subscq ucntly thissystem was adopled by V" cst Syrian scribcs as well. A few manuscripts (s uch as the ~ u c h a n a n Bible) havc two conCUrrent sys temsof numbering, the first being the standard sys tem, and the other'being a cumu lat ive system running right t h r o ~ g h the Old Testament (or group of books with in the Old Testament) , I t should be .noted that these chapte r divisions on ly very nlrc,ly co incide withthe chapter divisions familiar from, modern a n s a ~ n s of the. Bible (for whose origin, sec Section I ),

FiilalIy, before leavi ng the Peshitta' Old, Testament, weshou ld look at the way in which the text itse lf has ,been trans"mitted over the centuries. On the whole one can say that Syriac 'scribes were ge nera lly very carefu l when they copied the l,Jiblicaltext. As a result, we rind ren)a rkably little , variation between thedirfercnt manuscripts ( the situation is very c!iffercnt with the Scp::,


42/98

Biblical Manuscripts 3,' \vhcl'C great variation occur's); moreover , where var iants, they arc c ~ l y rareiy of much consequence. Nevertheless

pcshitta text is not entire ly uniform over the centuries, andstudies have suggested that the following is the general

~ t i a t t e r n of development in the histor), of the Pcshiua text for each"O ldest stage. Very few witnesses [ 0 this stage survive,~ d o f t e n they arc manuscripts which pose panicular problems.

~ s e e m s likely that in this oldest stage the text of the Peshitt,!i } V ~ ~ r a t h e r closer to the Hebrew origina l than is the case ,with the

during the later stages. If we had more manuscripts datingthe fifth century we would probably be in a better position

h h r e ~ ~ v e t ' morc of this archaic stage. .,[2] The next stage is represented by manuscr ipts. of the

to eighth centu ries (inclusive); since we are rather wellprovided with manuscripts li'om this time, this stage represen'tsearliest stage in the history of the Peshitta text \\thich we can

r ~ c o v e ; 'The difference between this stage and tl,1c oldest stage'fully recoverable) are probably the result of attempts to

~ ~ o o t h over the original translation here and there ,in the , inte,-of go?d Syriac i d j o ~ .

[3] The third stage is provided by man uscripts of thenin,th century and later, and is often referred to as the : Textus

f . d R e ~ e p t u s ' , or Received Text. The differences between theRcccptus and the text of stage 2 arc not very many (there

some 50 in the whole of Isa iah ) , and are rarely of great signi-It remains unclear how or why this development took

:--9 l i lC C ~ \\bs it a gradual process, c o n t i n ~ i n g the sort of changeshad alrea.dy taken place between stages I and 2, or was it

product of a conscious revision by a particular ' person (and if'by wbat criteria did he work)? .. . .' 1 ,. The following are a few typical examples of differences

stagt?s 2 and 3, taken ,from Isaiah:" 13:8 'their eyes will not have pity : on theirchildren') Textus Rcceptus h as (your children'.


43/98

40 The Bible in the Sy r iac Tradit ionI sa iah 5?' 18 ' t l ' '. T . lei C IS none who ta kes her by her hand']

exlus R cccptus adds 'and ' II . rai ses leI"sa . . h 66:2 1 'And I will also take rrom thl'm ,:L ." '] T PIICSl s andt CHtcs cxtU5 Rcceptus omits ' And '1\- ost of the changes arc very m ' , d' 't I . . 11101, an arc IP11"o d l d' do ac llcve smoother rC3.ding. . Ice 111 or cr

The Paris ma nuscript of the ) . .srr 34 1-8 al) is r ' , , ' , entire I esllltta BIble (P.lris. . 0 mtel cst 111 this connection r. . I , 'bv the ongll1al scribe be l . ) ol lie t ~ x t copIed. oags to sta ge? !Jut at Isomeone else has CO Ill C a l d " - , some ate !' datein order to make i t C O I ~ o ~ g an I y s ~ c m a t i c ~ y altered the text

01 m to t le 1 cxlUs Rcceptus (stage 3),[4] In the course or the late r M'dd - . -Rcccptll s itse lf underwent s I I 1 Ie Ages the 1 cxtus. omc uri ler cleve lm ~ o J v i n g very minor changes ( robab l . o p m ~ n t mostlyof scribes ) I t so hiP Y due to the madvertencc. appcns 11at the clIr t . dthe Svriac Bible em I . d I IC S prlllte editions of p 0 \ C' ate manuscripts d h 'rep resents the latest s t a g ~ i tl I ' ' an so t ell" text,Peshilta text. I t Ie t o r y of the development of the

OLD TESTAMENT [2] SYRO-I-JEXAI'LAAlthough severa l dirf.. t Ithe Syro-hexapla survh'c ~ n . ~ a r y manuscripts of pa n s of

Testament; the two earliest c s ~ , 0 1not cover the c!\l ire Old14442 . I Yl o- l exap la manuscripts (AddWIt I parts or Genes is' Add 121 34 ' " ,written in the sevcllth ccnt'ury tl' I " ."Ivlth ~ x o u u we re bothf ' lU S ess t Ian CI rh t ya\vay rom the date of Pau l of T -11 ' ," ;:, or so yea rsSvro-hexap la rn " ~ a 5 ollgma J tra nslat ion. Some~ . anuscllplS contam sinalc b k I 'have groups of books. ,:, 00 s, w lIle othersThe most famous S},ro-hexap la rna ,,' ,enormous manus ... r ipt co t . . I nusc llpt , however , IS an

mellt, in the A:nbrosiau a ~ ~ J I f ~ g t le e ~ o n d ha lf of the Old Tcsta usually dated to the laten , :h" l, ary, MI lan (ms C 313 Inr. ); it ish S elg t 1 or early ninth c t d .t e yro-hexapla is tran slated f r om ' . , n ury , an slllcethat the order of the b 'i I' lb' 1 eek, It IS not surpri sill'TI ) Ica ooks I S that ~ d' ' 0scr ipts of th e S. ou n I I I many manu-eptua(Tmt name ly r ' 1Ecclesiastes, Song of S ~ n O ' ; sa ms, Job , _Proverhs,

v, \IVisd om of Solomon, Bell Sira,


44/98

Biblical M a n u s c r i p t 4 112 Minor Prophets, .Jeremiah , Baruch, Lamentat ions, Le tter ofJ ere miah , Dan iel , Susanna , Bel and th e Dragon, Ez'ekicl andIsaiah. The manuscr ipt is written in a b e a u t i f ~ Estnmgclo hand,and in the m argins arc large numbers of notes, usually providingvariant readings derived from other columns of Origen'sHexapla . In the sixteenth century the Syriac ~ c h o a r AndreasNlasiu s had the use of another huge Syro-hexapia manuscript\vhich contained the fir st ha lf of the Old Te stament, ' but'unfortunately this precious manuscript has subsequently disapp,eared and must be presumed lost for good .

The Ambrosian manuscrip t of the Syro-hexap la has asystem of chapter numbering which is quite different from the 'onefound in Peshitta ma nuscr ipts; it derives from one of the severalcurren t Greek system s, and tbe Greek na me kepha laion ,'chapter' (li tera lly ' heading') , is emp loyed. R :n hcr surpr isinglya later scr ibe has introduced this system into the margin ofone famou s Peshitta ma nuscr ipt, the comp lete Bible, 7a l, alsonow in Milan.

We shall pass ,over here the two other tra nslations of theO ld T es tament , made from Greek, the one possibly sponsorec\by Philoxenus, the other made by Jaco b of Edessa in his o ld 'a ge. Both these surv ive in fragmentary form, in old manuscripts .NEW TESTAMENT [ I ] DIATESSARON

No biblical manuscript containing any part of the Syr iacDiatessa ,:on survives, and the text has to be reconstructed fromthe quota t ions from the Diatessaron incorporated into Ephrem ' sCommentary on the Diatessa ro l} (which itself d oes not survivt;comp lete in Syriac) .

\NEW TESTAMENT [2] OLD SYRIAC,""e haye a lready seen that Jhc Old Syriac survives in two

.fjfth-cen LU ry manuscripts" the Curet!lnian :and the Sinaiticu,s.Neither of t h c s ~ is p r e s e r v ~ d in a comp lete 'state. , .1

The Curetonian manuscript comes from the Syrian l\10IlaS h : : ~ y . . . i n the N i t r i a ~ I?esert, and p n ~ y ~ ft;w years ~ g o a. missing


45/98

42 The Bible in the Syriac Traditiondiscovered among the Syriac manuscripts sti ll rcma JJung in t h ~monastery (three furth er leaves found th e ir way to Berlin). TIleGospels arc arranged in an ullusua] orde r, :viatthcw, lVlark, John,.Luke.

The Sil1:\idcus CSt. Catherille' l\:{onastcry,S ina i, ms syr .30)was discovered in 1892 by f\1rs. / \ ~ I 1 C S Smith Lewis, a remarkableand very learned Scottish lad y who m:lde many discoveries ofbiblical and other manuscripts in the middle East during theceurse of her travels With her twin sister, Mrs Nlal'garet SmithGibson. The origina l manuscript containing the text of the OldSyriac Gospels was recycled iYy a certain John the anchorite inAD 779: the writing was sponged off, and the leaves were re used to form a. new codex in which a totally diITerent text wascopied (Lives of some women saints). The manuscript 'as we kno\o/it today is thus a palimpsest, with ,the Old Syriac as the under-

w n t m g ~ Fortunately, 1f certain amount of the underwriting stiJlshows th rough , and thanks to a great deal of patience, it waseventually possible to pul>lish quite a large amount ,of this under-writing containing the Old Syriac. I t is to be hoped that moderntechniques for reading p;t!impsests 'will before long enable scholarsto read rather more of this text which is of such interest forbiblical .tudics.

NEW TESTAMENT (3) PESHITTAQuite a large number 'of manuscripts fram the sixth (and

a few ] i 'OIn the fifth) century survive ; normally these contain justthe Gospels (and many of them survive on ly in a fragmentarystate), but one of the earliest dated manuscripts is ,one .containingthe Pauline Epistles (A D 533/4). Perhaps the mo,t famous ofearly Peshitta Ncw 'Testa'ment manuscripts 13 a Gospel manuscriptdated AD 586, in the Laurentian LibraryJ Florence; this containsla remarkable se t of illustrations., executed by the monk R abbula,.'(hence the manuscript is often referred to as tthe Rabbula Gos-pels'; . thi ..Rabbula- should of course bt: carefully distingui.h from.Rabbula, bishop of Edessa). '

The three Catholic Epistles (james, I Peter, I John) nor-m.lly come between Act. and the Pauline Epistles. The order


46/98

Biblical Manuscripts 43of the Pauline Epistles is the same as the order familiar from theGreek and from modern translations. Sometimes I at the endsof the individual Gospe ls and , Pauline Epis.tles short historicalnotes are given, such as 'Ended is the preaching of Mark, ~ y h i c hhe uttered'" in Latin in Rome', or tEnded is the Letter to theRomans, which was written [rom Corinth at the hands of Phoebethe deaconess" Though such notices are not historically reliable.,they arc ,of interest since they show what views wcrc current inthe sixth century or so.

' As is the case in the Pcshitta Old Testament, ' there is renl


47/98

~ 4 Th e Bible in th e Syriac TraditionNEW TESTAi\lENT (5) HARCLEAN

The vast ~ a j o r i t y of manuscri pts or the Harc1ean versioncontain only the Gospels. Sc.::vcral of these belong to the ' eight orninth centuries . Fol' the rest of the New Testament, by contrast,we arc not at a ll well off: for Revelati on a small number ofmanuscripts arc avai lab le, but only two l1ul1uscripts (Oxford,New College 333, of the eleventh ce lltury ,. and Cambr idge, Add.1700;o f 11 69/70) a rc definit e ly known to ha ve the Harelean textof Acts and the Epistles as well.2. Lect ionar ies

The Bible was r ~ a d in the context of liturgica l worshipfrom the very beginnings of the existence of the Church (at first,of course, it was just the Old Testament , before the written NeW'Testament had come into being). In the early centuries of theChurch's life biblical Inlnuscripts co nlainil),g the ~ e l e v a n t partsof Scripture were used. In the six th century some Syriacbiblical manuscripts p rov ided help in locating lections by inserLing l c c l i o n a ~ y hcadinl-{s (somcttmcs in red) at the beginlling ofpassages to be read on p trticula r fe as ts. Sometimes lis ts ofreadings throughout the lilU rgical year were compiled) but thesedid not include the text of the tlect ions; a sixth-ce ntury index oficctiohs of this sort survives in the British Library (Add . 14528).The practice of in corporating lectionary headin gs at a p p r o p r i a t ~places in ordinary bihlica l manuscripts continued in the seventhand ~ h t h centuries, and sometimes later as well) even after theadoption of the bright idea of hav ing separate books J conta iningjust the lections) and arranged in their liturgical order.

I t is unknown when this idea of having a spec ia l lectionarymanuscript for lectiol1s was first introduced; the earliest Greeklec tionary manuscripts (a ll very fragmentary) seem to belong tothe fifth century) but the idea does not appear to h ave becomepopu lar until some centuries later. Certainly in the S)"riac Churches it is the case that there a re no Syriac lectionary m anuscriptsdaling from earlier than the ninth century. It is ofcourse poss iblethou eadicr lectiollary manuscripts did once exist) a nd that theyhave disappeared simply because they had more wear and tearthan ordinary bib1ical manuscripts; this suggestion) however?


48/98

Printed ' Edjtions ~ Sshould jJrobably be reje.ctcd, for two reasons: ( I) since biblica lmanuscripts of th e sixth and seventh ce ntury were provided withlectionary headings , they too would .h ave been subject to the samewear and tear; (2) we suddenly have quite a lot of lec tionarymanuscripts dating from the ninth ccntury, and belonging to a llt hree Churches using Syriac as a liturgical language-the SyrianOrthodox, the Church of the East) and the Byzantine Orthodox(Melki te ) Church ill Syria and Palestine . It thus seems likelythat the practice of co llect ing together the lections into spec ialmanuscripts was introduced into all the Syriac Churches at sometimc around AD 800.

Since different parts of the Bi ble were read at differentp .J ints in the liturgical services, it became the usua l prac tice tohave separate lectionarics for O ld Testament 1cctions) for Gospellec tions and for Ie ctions from the Acts and the Epistles. The textemployed ill JJ.:..ctioifar ies was normally the Peshitta, but iin theSyrian Orthodox Church use was a lso some times made of. the

y ~ h e : x a p l a _ @ p of the .Harclean : In particular) there arc manyHarclcan Cospel lectionaries which survive: Ci some Gospollect ionary manusc ripts a harmony has been created for thePassion narrative, hascd on the text of the Harclean; two d i T e l ' ~ent sequences ~ r e attested J and one of these is asssociated (in acolophon) with the names of a certain Rabban t\'Iar Danici andhis disciple Isaac.

There appears to have been considerable variation' in theallocation an d al:rangement of lections , not" only between thedifferent Syriac Churches, but also within each of the Churches;In- the Church of the East two particular systems in due, coursecame to dominate the scene: firstly ~ h e (Cathedral' lectionarysys tem of the patriarchal church formerly in ScIeucia-C,tesiphon,and second ly the monastic lectionary cycle ' developed 'at theUpper Monastery in Mosul.3. Printed Edit ions

The first printed edition of the Syriac New Testa:ment "as publised by Johann Widmanstetter in 1555 at Vienna ..In the wOI:k of preparing the edition Widmanstetter , had bee,;,


49/98

46 The Bible in the Syriac Tr aditio nassisted by a Syrian Orthodox pi-iest , ~ 1 : o s c s of !vIaJ'din, whospent some time in Europe acting as tcacher of Syriac to va rioll sscholars. The te xt of this edition was of ell reprinted, sometimesin Hebrew ' charact ers.

For the Peshitta Old Tcstnmcnf the ea rliest printed editionswere of the Psalter; the first was prepa red by Martin 'frostiusin 1622, to be followed shortly afterwards by two other ,:ditionsboth of which were published in 1625, one in Leid en preparedby Thomns Erpcnius , and the other in Paris pre pa red by theMaronitc scholar Gabriel Sionita.

brock, s. the bible in the syriac tradition

Documents