Subject: Luke written in Aramaic or Greek? |
Bible Note: "TEXTUAL EVIDENCE While the historic evidence favors a Greek origin of Luke, the Textual evidence does not. So either Luke was written in Aramaic, or the original Greek has been lost. Because the existing manuscripts believed to be the Greek version of Luke point to an Aramaic origin. It is likely that the Aramaic version was translated into Greek and became so widely circulated, that any possible "original Greek version" has since been lost to antiquity. The Textus Receptus is a composition of Greek manuscripts that read as the majority of Greek manuscripts read, and if the translated version from Aramaic outnumbered the "original Greek" enough, it would be the version included in the Textus Receptus. ERRORS IN ONE VERSION ONLY The name "Cainan" appears in the Greek version of Luke 3:36, which appears to be a mistake. In this passage the name appears but not in the corresponding Masoretic genealogies in Gen. 10:24; 11:12 and 1Chron. 1:18,24. The Old Syriac does not contain this reading, but reads "Elam" a name which appears in the Masoretic genealogy of Gen.10:22 and 1Chron. 1:17 as a brother, who apparently is inserted into this family line based on Deut. 25:5-6. ARAMAIC POETRY IN LUKE Also, there's always certain amounts of "loss of thought" in originally writing something in one language that happened in another. Zechariah's prayer would certainly seem to be originally uttered in Aramaic and displays the value of studying Luke from the Aramaic. A certain level of poetry comes through that does not comes through in the Aramaic version of Luke that does not appear in the Greek version. I have to credit Andrew Roth, author of Signs of the Cross, for the following poetic observance of the Aramaic Luke. But the poetry in Aramaic is so complex, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to have reconstructed it from just a Greek text." SUMMARY While evidence can be cited for some translation in both directions, the greater weight of evidence favors the Aramaic text as more authoritative. The evidence suggests it may be possible that Luke was written in Greek, translated to Aramaic, and then translated back to Greek. Or the bilingual Luke may have written in both languages at the outset. This would certainly take care of the reason for the name "Theophilus" in even the Aramaic text. But then the Greek version of Corinthians calls Peter by his Hebrew name of "Kefa", so this is not a conclusive issue. But it seems that there are enough places where the Greek version of Luke shows mistranslation from the Aramaic that its hard to accept the Greek version of Luke as having any original link to an "original Greek" version of Luke. If Luke was originally written in Greek, the Greek version of Luke we have today is not it and the Aramaic version is probably therefore more authoritative." Part 2 of 2 (Taken from my friend's essay on Luke) |
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Questions and/or Subjects for Luke | Author | ||
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billsisson | ||
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EMILY | ||
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Makarios | ||
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Makarios | ||
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Makarios | ||
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Doris | ||
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Doris | ||
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Leroy | ||
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Leroy | ||
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dltlshines | ||
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Raychel |