Terminology Tuesday: Peshitta
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PESHITTA. Probably between the end of the 1st and the beginning of the 3rd c., the first Syriac translation from the Hebrew OT was made, which from the 9th c. onward was called pšiṭtā‚ i.e., “simple” and “common,” to distinguish it from the version called “Greek,” i.e., the translation from the Hexapla of the LXX, made by *Paul of Tella and completed around the year 615–617. The Peshitta was not a monolithic translation, because some of its parts (such as the Pentateuch, Chronicles and the book of Proverbs) seem to have had close contact with the Targumic traditions. The text of the Peshitta already appears to have been stable in the NT citations of the OT as found in the Diatessaron and the Vetus Syra, the first “separate” translation of the gospels, which both date back to the 2nd half of the 2nd c. The Peshitta seems to have come from *Edessa, because it uses the writing and language proper to the territory of Edessa. There are many views with respect to the environments that produced the Peshitta of the OT. Recent study of the Diatessaron has strengthened the hypothesis of a pre-Christian formation, esp. for the most ancient books such as the Pentateuch, although the more recently translated books such as the book of Proverbs or the Psalms testify instead to a greater proximity to Christian thought.
The Peshitta of the gospels is more recent; not until the beginning of the 5th c. was the gospel text used in the Syriac-speaking churches added to that of the Diatessaron. A first Syriac version of what came to be called “the separate gospels” (evangelion damepharreše) is attested by two ancient MSS (the Syro-Sinaiticus and the Curetonian, respectively, from the 4th and 5th c.) and was called the Vetus Syra. This ancient version served as the basis for establishing the Peshitta’s text, although it in turn was based at least in part on the Diatessaron. The gospel text of the Peshitta, having become the sole authorized text in Syro-Western settings starting from the first decades of the 5th c. was then subjected to radical modifications before the beginning of the 6th c. by the *chorbishop Polycarp, who, commissioned by Philoxenus of Mabbug, made a new Syriac translation of the Greek text of the gospels (the Philoxenia), and then, in 616, by Thomas of Ḥarquel, who undertook a translation from the Greek text of the entire NT (the Harqulensis).
Peshitta Institute, The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version, Leiden, since 1972; W. Cureton, Remains of a Very Ancient Recension of the Four Gospels in Syrian, Hitherto Unknown in Europe, London 1858; A.S. Lewis, The Old Syriac Gospels or Evangelion Damepharreshe; Being the Text of the Sinai or Syro-Antiochene Palimpsest, London 1910; E. Pusey—G.H. Gwilliam, Tetraeuangelium Sanctum juxta simplicem Syrorum versionem, Oxford 1901 (text used in the current editions of the Syriac NT); University of Munich, Das neue Testament in syrischer Überlieferung, 1986 (critical ed. of the Syriac NT); G.M. Lamsa, Holy Bible from the Ancient Eastern Text, San Francisco 1985 (Eng. tr.). Studies: S. Brock, Syriac Studies. A Classified Bibliography (1960–1990), Kaslik 1996, 43–52 and 54–61; J.P. Lyon, Syriac Gospel Translations. A Comparison of the Language and Translation Method Used in the Old Syriac, the Diatessaron and the Peshitta, Louvain 1994; G. Lenzi, L’antica versione siriaca dei Vangeli dopo centocinquant’anni di ricerca: Annali di scienze religiose 3 (1998) 263–278; M. Weitzman, The Syriac Version of the Old Testament. An Introduction, Cambridge 1999.
Den Biesen, K. (2014). Peshitta. In A. Di Berardino & J. Hoover (Eds.), J. T. Papa, E. A. Koenke, & E. E. Hewett (Trans.), Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity (Vol. 3, pp. 154–155). Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic; InterVarsity Press.
