In the footnotes to some Bibles, you’ll find references to the “Syriac Text” of the Old Testament.
Well, what is that?
The “Syriac Text” typically refers to something called the Peshitta (more on that later). However, “Syriac” can be more general than that.
Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac
So, the Old Testament was written almost entirely in Hebrew. But, a few sections were actually written in a language called Aramaic. Hebrew and Aramaic are very similar languages. Think of how Spanish and Italian are similar to each other because they both come from Latin.
Now, Aramaic was originally the language of the Aramaeans, who were from the country of Aram. The Old Testament talks about these guys a lot.
Aram was located in what we now call Syria. After the Assyrians conquered Aram, the region began to be known as Syria.
Once the Assyrians controlled this area though, Aramaic, the language of Aram, began to spread as a common language throughout the Middle East.
By the time of Jesus it seems that Hebrew was mainly reserved for religious speeches and writings, while Aramaic was the language of the everyday man. So, the main language of Jesus’ day was Aramaic.
Great. Simple so far.
Now, what about Syriac?
Well, Syriac was a dialect of Aramaic that the people in Syria spoke. Think about how the English spoken in Australia is different from in Britain is different from in the United States. We all speak English, just different dialects of English.
This just means that the people up in Syria were speaking Aramaic slightly differently than the people down in Judea (the dialect in Judea we call “Palestinian Aramaic”). For some reason, scholars decided to make this into a big deal.
So, remember. Hebrew and Aramaic are similar but different languages (like Italian and Spanish). Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic (like Australian English versus British English).
Syriac Translations
Old Testament
Syriac only started to be a really recognizable dialect by around the time of Jesus in the First Century. However, at some point in either the First or Second Century, some people who spoke Syriac began to translate the Old Testament from Hebrew into Syriac.
Most scholars agree that these translations started in the city of Edessa, just north of modern Syria. Specifically, many scholars think that Jewish converts to Christianity made the translations (scholars have done some fancy analysis of different handwriting styles to make that guess; it’s not important, just roll with it).
So, at some point in the first couple centuries, some Christians in Edessa probably made translations of the Old Testament from Hebrew to Syriac. This would make it easier for everyone to learn from the Scriptures in their own language, so that’s good.
New Testament
But, around the same time, translations of the New Testament from Greek to Syriac also began to be made. The earliest specific translation we know of is something called “Tatian’s Diatessaron”.
Diatessaron comes from a Greek word meaning “out of four”. Basically, Tatian took the four Gospels (all originally written in Greek), Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and he lined up their timing to make one, single Gospel. So, this Diatessaron, made “out of four” Gospels, would show the story of the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in a single, clear narrative. I don’t know why Tatian did this. Maybe he just wanted to have the Gospel all in a single story, instead of having to refer to four different Gospels that say the same thing in different ways.
But, the important thing for us is that Tatian wrote his Diatessaron in Syriac around the year 170 AD. This is the earliest translation of the New Testament to another language that we know of (there might have been some other earlier translations; we just don’t know of any specific examples).
We also don’t technically have any copies left of the Diatessaron in Syriac. They were all lost or destroyed over time. The best we’ve got are some later translations of it to other languages.
Either way, this kicks off our records of translations of the New Testament to Syriac. We have two more manuscripts (rediscovered in the 1800s) which show translations of the Gospels into Syriac from around the 200s or 300s AD. These two documents do contain parts of all four distinct Gospels, not just Tatian’s combined telling of the Gospel story.
Vetus Syra
So, we’ve talked about translations of the Old Testament to Syriac, Tatian’s Diatessaron, and two more translations of the four Gospels dating from around the 200s or 300s.
Collectively, we refer to all of these old Syriac translations as “the Old Syriac” (man, wouldn’t you love it if everything was that simple?). Now, some scholars also call these translations the “Vetus Syra”. Vetus Syra is just “Old Syriac” in Latin. Latin was the language of scholars for a long time, so that name just kind of stuck.
Peshitta
Alright, so that leads us into the big point of this article: the Peshitta.
At some point, probably in the late 300s or early 400s, some scholars decided that they needed a new translation of the Bible in Syriac. The older translations might have been poor quality, or the scholars might have just wanted to make a standardized translation in Syriac that everyone could agree on.
Either way, by the 400s AD, there was a new, standardized translation of the whole Bible into Syriac. Well, technically not the whole Bible. These Syriac-speaking Christians did not use the Books of 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. But, they did make a translation of the whole Old Testament and the 22 remaining books of the New Testament.
When talking about this standardized translation, scholars always focus on one man: Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa. This guy, Rabbula, did not like Tatian’s Diatessaron one bit. He ordered that all the churches throughout the region get rid of the Diatessaron and replace it with the four Gospels.
It seems that, to go along with this, Rabbula either ordered for the new standardized translation to be made, or he actually made the translation himself. However, many scholars think that work on the translation was already started some time in the 300s.
But, What Does Peshitta Mean?
This new, standardized translation to Syriac had a couple special things about it.
First, it was written in pretty simple to understand language and was a very well known, common translation among Syriac speakers.
Second, it wasn’t any sort of study Bible. Even after this standardized translation was made, there were still some other translations made into Syriac. One of them was the Syro-Hexapla (more on that another day), which used loads of marks and footnotes, like our modern Bibles, to show where translations could be different. This standardized text, however, was very simple; it had none of these markings or footnotes.
So, for one reason or another, scholars began to call this translation the “simple version” or the “common version”. And that’s what the word Peshitta means in Syriac, “simple” or “common”.
The first record we have of people calling this the Peshitta is from around the late 800s AD.
Also, this isn’t the only translation of the Bible to be called “simple” or “common”. In Latin, the term Vulgata also means “common”. That’s why we call the Latin Bible the “Vulgate”.
So, What?
Alright, so that’s all really interesting (right? this is just fascinating, isn’t it?). But, why does it matter?
Well you see, the oldest complete copy of the Old Testament we have in Hebrew dates from 1008 AD. That’s really, really late compared to when the Old Testament was written.
But remember, Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic. And Aramaic is very similar to Hebrew. So, by looking at the older Syriac translations of the Old Testament, we can confirm that the Bible has been copied and translated correctly over the millennia.
Our oldest Syriac translations of the Old Testament are from around the 400s and 500s, and our oldest complete copy is from the 600s. Using the Peshitta, modern translators can make sure that they translate what the Bible originally said, even if some later scribes accidentally copied down the wrong word here or there.
Translators use this same idea with other old translations of the Bible, like the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate. But, since Syriac is so similar to Hebrew, we can get an even more precise understanding of certain passages by using the Peshitta.
Other Notes
There’s one other thing I wanted to mention just because I thought it’s kind of funny.
In the New Testament, there are a few sections where the authors explain that Jesus said this or that Aramaic phrase (like on the cross, when he says Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?, meaning “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
But, in the Peshitta, it doesn’t explain these phrases… because the Peshitta is written in Aramaic for Aramaic speakers. It wouldn’t make any sense to explain the term.
If the Peshitta did explain these terms, it would be like me saying to you “This is a dog. Dog is the English word for dog.”
I just found that little detail funny.
Summary
Alright, so we looked at how Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic. In the first couple centuries AD, some people (probably Christians in the city of Edessa) translated much of the Old and New Testaments into Syriac. Then, in the 400s, the Peshitta translation became the most popular, standardized version of the Syriac Bible. Peshitta is just the Syriac word for “simple”.
I hope that helps make things clear.