E. Jan Wilson, The Old Syriac Gospels: Studies and Comparative Translations, with Syriac Transcriptions by George A. Kiraz (Eastern Christian Studies 1-2; Piscataway, NJ: The Notre Dame University, Louaize, Lebanon, and Gorgias Press, 2002). ISBN 1-931956-17-0 (Volume 1, Hardback), 1-931956-18-9 (Volume 2, Hardback). lxv + 850 pages.
P.J.
Williams
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2002
Vol. 5, No. 2
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv5n2prwilliams
P.J. WILLIAMS
E. Jan Wilson, The Old Syriac Gospels: Studies and Comparative Translations, with Syriac Transcriptions by George A. Kiraz (Eastern Christian Studies 1-2; Piscataway, NJ: The Notre Dame University, Louaize, Lebanon, and Gorgias Press, 2002). ISBN 1-931956-17-0 (Volume 1, Hardback), 1-931956-18-9 (Volume 2, Hardback). lxv + 850 pages.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol5/HV5N2PRWilliams.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2002
vol 5
issue 2
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
Syriac Studies
Syriac
Old Syriac Gospels
New Testament
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[1] These
volumes are the first in a new series for which we can have
high expectations and Gorgias Press is to be congratulated on
the high quality of physical production of these books. They
contain the fine text of the Old Syriac produced by George
Kiraz and it is to be hoped that this publication will
encourage further study of these important documents. To the
texts supplied by Kiraz, the author has added fifty three pages
of Introduction and Notes, a translation, and a number of
footnotes.
[2] It is
argued in the Introduction and Notes at the beginning of the
first volume, that the Old Syriac Gospels were not translated
from our current Greek Gospels, but are original productions in
Aramaic. The chief support for this is sought in the wording of
Old Testament quotations found in the Old Syriac Gospels, which
the author gives the impression of listing completely, though a
number of important quotations are not considered (Matthew 3.3,
9.13, Mark 1.2–3, 4.12). The author argues that
similarities between the Old Syriac and the Masoretic Text must
indicate direct dependence of the Old Syriac on the Masoretic
Text. However, Wilson fails to consider the possibility that
Old Syriac quotations have been influenced by the Old Testament
Peshitta. He does not consider this because ‘The OT of
P[eshitta] was clearly written later’ (p. xxxix). But
this appeal to the self-evident runs counter to the
overwhelming weight of published scholarship on the issue and
the author offers no justification for his claim. Since his
premise is baseless none of his conclusions need follow.
[3]
Unfortunately, Wilson has introduced some errors to the Syriac
text he received from Kiraz. For instance Luke 15.13
Curetonianus is missing the last word. I casually noted further
in the Syriac texts of Matthew 3.10, 19.25, 21.31, 25.22, and
Luke 15.13, though I made no systematic attempt to check his
text.
[4] The
translation contains a number of different types of errors.
(a) A large number of mistakes result simply from
misreading Syriac letters. The following sample is merely
illustrative. In Matthew 3.7 ’kdn’ is
mistranslated as ‘Perdition’ (i.e. reading
’bdn’); in Matthew 9.15
’bl’ is mistranslated as
‘eating’ (i.e. reading ’kl’); in
Luke 1.49 mshbh
is mistranslated
as ‘capable’ (i.e. reading mshkh
). In both Luke 4.27 and 17.16 the word
grb
’
‘leper’
is taken to be gbr
’
‘man’. In Matthew 17.20 the
translation ‘because of the blindness of your
faith’ seems wrongly to connect the first word in
zcwrwt
hymnwtkwn ‘your little
faith’ with the root
cwr
‘blind’. In Matthew 14.30, ‘take hold of
me’ seems to misunderstand ’hny as connected with the root
’hd. In Luke 14.32,
‘letters’ misreads ’yzgd’
‘ambassador’ as
’grt’. In John 18.25 shhn ‘keeping warm’ is misread as the
proper name ‘Hannan’. Often, unfortunately, the
author’s failure to grasp the sense is not limited to
mere misreading of individual words, but covers a whole
construction. In Luke 3.3 (Sinaiticus) bklh
’tr’ dhdry
ywrdnn is translated ‘and everywhere John
went’ instead of ‘in all the region around the
Jordan’. The author seems to have misread
‘Jordan’ as ‘John’ and construed the
phrase to make sense round that supposition. In Luke 9.57
(Sinaiticus) wkd
’zlyn b’wrh’ ’mr lh ’nsh ’t’
btrk l’tr d’zl ’nt should be
understood as ‘And when they were going on the road, a
man said to him, “I will come after you to wherever you
go”’. Wilson, however, reads ‘And when they
were going on the road a man said to them, Come with me to a
place where I will go.’ This misreads lh ‘to
him’ as ‘to them’, and systematically
confuses second and first person. Wilson then notes that
Curetonianus reads the same, when it is actually rather
different. It has wkd
’zlyn
b’wrh’ ’t’
gbr’ hd ’mr lh
’t’ btrk l’tr d’zl ’nt, which
means ‘And when they were going on the road, a certain
man came (and) said to him, etc.’
[5]
Sometimes the sense of a word is completely mistaken. In Mark
11.16 he translates bgw ‘inside’ as
‘outside’, and in Mark 14.68 npq
ldrt’ bryt’ ‘he went out to the outer
court’ is understood as ‘he went out of the
courtyard into the country’. In John 18.3 (Sinaiticus)
knsh
’ dcm’ ‘a
crowd of people’ is understood as ‘the crowd with
him’.
[6] There
are also some problems with numbers. In Mark 14.61
dtrtyn
zbnyn ‘a second time’ is
understood as ‘three times’ (no doubt helped by the
fact that the Syriac number bears some resemblance to English
‘three’), and in Luke 24.13, where Emmaus is said
to be ‘sixty stadia’ from Jerusalem, Wilson
translates ‘sixty’ as ‘two’. One
suspects here some confusion with the Hebrew feminine word for
‘two’ which looks similar to the Syriac word for
‘sixty’. Wilson then compounds the mistake by
adding a footnote saying that the distance was ‘about 1/4
of a mile’. One thus has to envisage the whole Emmaus
road conversation taking place over a rather short
distance.
Some mistakes show a lack of appreciation of basic
points of grammar. Wilson’s translation for Luke 22.22
Sinaiticus (and not dissimilarly for Curetonianus) reads
‘And the Son of man goes, as was decreed on high, but woe
to him by whose hand he is betrayed’. The words
translated ‘on high, but’ are brm
dyn, a pair frequently used as a strong adversative.
Even if Wilson’s translation of brm had been
possible, dyn does not take the first position in a
clause.
[7] (b) In a
few places the vagaries of poor translation make rather odd
reading: ‘While they were sitting they wrote some
nonsense (and) put it over his head’ (Matthew 27.37 in
Sinaiticus, though it is better translated in the parallel in
Mark 15.26), ‘if you had the faith of a grain of
mustard’ (Luke 17.6); ‘Father, if you can,
take this cup from me’ (Luke 22.42 in Curetonianus,
mistaking a feminine participle as referring to God);
‘The Lord truly stood and appeared to Simon’ (Luke
24.34, taking qm as ‘stood’ rather than
‘arose’, despite the surrounding resurrection
context); ‘But he was something that was’ (John 1.3
in Curetonianus); ‘but you seek to kill me because my
word proceeds into you’ (Jesus speaking in John 8.37 in
Sinaiticus, a problem partly caused by the omission of a
negative); ‘I rejoice for your sakes that you may believe
that I was not there’ (John 11.15 in Sinaiticus).
[8] (c)
There are at least forty omissions, including Mark 6.56 where
twelve words are left untranslated.
[9] (d) The
translation is quite irregular. Important details are ignored,
and unimportant ones are made a centre of focus. Thus in Luke
19.13 and throughout the parable that follows, the word
‘mina’ is translated ‘talent’.
Meanwhile the author carefully distinguishes whether Sinaiticus
or Curetonianus have dyn ‘now’ or w
‘and’ at the beginning of a verse (Luke 20.5).
[10] (e)
As well as the mistakes in translation there are also many
typos, some of the more heinous sort: p.
‘hermaneutics’ (p. xvii), ‘emporer’ (p.
xxi), ‘the forth century’ (p. xxiv),
‘site’ for ‘cite’ (p. lviii),
‘council’ for ‘counsel’ (p. 98),
‘Hale, king of the Jews!’ (p. 372). Some words are
consistently misused: ‘rather then’ for
‘rather than’ (p. lx) and ‘more then’
for ‘more than’ (p. 552), ‘it’s’
as a possessive (pp. 58 and 290), ‘greated him’ for
‘greeted him’ (p. 456, twice). Sometimes the author
does not write in proper sentences, and commas are often used
to join sentences. The author also misspells words in German,
Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac.
[11] The
footnotes do not fare much better than the translation. They
are usually banal, and very often incorrect. For instance, on
p. 330 a five line footnote considers the implications of the
fact that whereas the Greek has a feminine, the Syriac
‘is clearly masculin’ [sic]. Yet it is
feminine!
[12]
Despite the cataloguing of error necessary to make readers
aware of the deficiencies of the work, the news is not all bad.
The method used to produce these books means that print runs
are small and corrections can easily be introduced. Although
the volumes would need an enormous amount of work to make the
translations reliable, there is still a niche in the market for
a good English translation of the Old Syriac Gospels. The
author should therefore rise to the challenge of acquiring the
proper knowledge of the language(s) and of meticulously
revising these translations for a future edition.