Peshiṭta Old Testament: Part I

The Peshitṭa (Pšiṭtā or ܦܫܝܼܛܬܵܐ) Bible is the received tradition of Sacred Scripture in the Syriac Tradition, both Church of the East and Syriac Orthodox Church. Although Peshiṭta's versions of various biblical books have been well studied and employed in biblical studies, the textual tradition itself, the canon of the Peshitta, has gotten scant if any attention in the academic discourse. The Peshiṭta's Old Testament includes the full contents of the Septuagint but with additional titles making it Christianity's largest Old Testament canon. Before exploring the history that leads to the development of the Peshiṭta, or even explaining whence I derive its canon, let me present its table of contents in comparison to the received Protestant and Byzantine Orthodox traditions. This list follows the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament list in the SBL Handbook of Style, which presents the most common order in English language Bibles. Books not found in the 39 volume protestant canon are in red, and some of these are also found in the Latin or the Greek canon. The books in the Peshiṭta but not in the Protestant canon are placed thematically as they best seemed to fit.

The Books of the Peshiṭta Scriptures

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, 3 Ezra, 4 Ezra, Ester (16 Chapters), Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (Qohelet), Song of Songs, Ecclesiasticus (Bar Sira), Wisdom of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeramiah, Lamentations, Letter of Jeramiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Prayer of Azariah, Song of Three Holy Children, Bel, Dragon, Judith, Susana, , Young Daniel, 1 Baruch, 2 Baruch (Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch with Letter to 9 ^1/₂ Tribes), Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, 1-4 Maccabees, Book 6 of Josephus' Jewish War, Joseph and Aseneth, and Tobit.

This list does not follow any Syriac manuscript, but the order we are used to in English Bibles. Moving from the assumptions of modern Western Christianity, often adopted unawares by Eastern Christians as well, to the assumptions of ancient Christians, several points of disjuncture need to be addressed. In the church fathers, the word scripture chiefly refers to the Old Testament, to which is added the New Testament, which is why the phrase the Scriptures, Gospels, and Epistles is not uncommon. When Paul wrote "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," he could not have meant anything other than Old Testament because the New Testament did not yet exist (2 Tim 3.16). Necessarily, the early Christian mindset conceived of the Old Testament as the Scriptures before adding the New Testament titles and thus expanding Scripture. An understanding of an open canon of the Bible is implied by including New Testament works in the Bible. The New Testament conceives of scripture as the Old Testament, and the project of forming the bible canon is not concluded by any one final act, but as the result of several traditions coming to a lasting and permanent resolution.

Origins of the Peshiṭta

The two greatest examples of an Old Testament or Bible of the Hebrews--the Bible that those Jews we read about in the New Testament considered the Scriptures--are the Septuagint and the Peshiṭta. The Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek dates to about the mid-200s BCE, although some books may have been translated as late as 132 BCE. This translation was begun by an imperial request, and so representative scholars of the Alexandrian and Palestinian Jewish religious authorities oversaw and completed the work of compiling the Hebrew and translating it into Koine Greek. The books included are those books that the Second Temple Jewish, likely rabbinical-pharisaical, establishment considered scriptural. Form-wise, the Septuagint is the Hebrew Bible of the Mediterranean Jewish Community a century before Christ's birth.

While the Mediterranean world of Alexandria and Palestine had a growing Jewish community under Hellenistic and then Roman rule, further East, in Mesopotamia, the larger and generally more educated Jews of Babylon also continued to practice the faith, culture, and cultivate intellectual life. Babylonian Jews such as Hillel traveled West to re-introduce Jewish law and learning to Jerusalem as a generation prior two Assyrian royals--Shmaya and Avtlayon--had likewise traveled from Mesopotamia to Palestine to establish the School of the Pharisees. When Hillel was driven out, the head of the Jewish School in Nisibis, Judah ben Bethera, likewise moved to Jerusalem with the same goal of keeping the tradition of Rabbinical Judaism alive. Although not dwelt on in the Talmudic sources, it seems that the Rabbinical tradition was a graft from Babylon brought over to purposefully overtake the wild weeds of Sadducees and Hellenizers overgrowing the temple and its people until they be chocked by Hellenism and infidelity to the law.

Mesopotamian Judaism also translated the Hebrew scriptures, but into the Aramaic of Edessa, Syriac, instead of into Greek. This pre-Christian translation would remain an authority from its origins during the century or so on either side of Jesus of Nazareth's nativity until our current day. While any malpānā of the Church of the East had to know Greek, and the Greek Septuagint was translated into Syriac, it could never replace the Peshiṭta. The Peshiṭta is, like the Septuagint, a self-referential incarnation of God's word, and this is an unwritten doctrine very palpable in the past and present mentality of the Assyrian Christian. Rather than a xenophobic prejudice, this instinct is based on an implied but not always well understood respect for ancient authority: the Peshiṭta was prepared by the very institution that prepared the final edition of the Scriptures itself: the Babylonian rabbinical authority. Assyrians will not articulate it that way, but they articulate a maxim that survives though its supporting premises have faded, but can still be teased out. We know, somehow, that this version does not submit to correction to the Greek or the Masoretic. It came to us in this way, somehow. A product of the Mesopotamian Jewish community before the time of Christ, the Peshiṭta comes from the pre-Messianic period of the faith and continues into the Messianic period as a New Testament is added to it. However, the major event that concludes the scriptures, as viewed through Babylonian lenses, is the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.

Mār ʿAḇdišo dṢuḇā's Bible Contents

Fortunately for the history of the Peshiṭta, we have an excellent list of the books of the Bible from Mār ʿAḇdišo dṢuḇā (d. 1318), who was Metropolitan of Nisibis (Ṣuḇā) and Armenia. As the Metropolitan of Nisibis, he had access and knowledge of the best Church of the East library, which was that of the Academy of Nisibis, and, in addition, he was a prolific philosophical, dogmatic, and canonical author. He is the best resource possible for a Church of the East conception of the Peshitta, and he wrote a list of theological books, beginning with the scriptures. Thus, we have a table of contents for the Bible written by the very best last medieval Church of the East father possible. Here is his list, in a purposefully wooden translation:

Orāytā, the five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; then the Book of Joshua, Son of Nun; after this Judges, and Samuel and the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles and Ruth. The Psalms of David the King and the Proverbs of Solomon and Qohelet and the Song of Songs and Ben Sira and the Great Wisdom of Solomon and Job. And Isaiah, Hosea, and Joel; Amos, Obadiah, and Jonah; and Micah, Nahum, together with Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zachariah. Malachi with Jeramiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, and Judith, and Ester, and Susana, and Ezra, and Lesser Daniel. And the Letter of Baruch and the Book of the Tradition of the Elders, and of Josephus the Historian [maḵtḇānā], and the History of the Sons of Šmoni. And again the Book of Maccabees, and the History of Herod the King, and the Book of the Latter Destruction of Jerusalem at the Hands of Titus. And the Book of Joseph and Aseneth [Book of Asyaṯ the Wife of Joseph the Just Son of Jacob], and the Book of Tobit [Book of Ṭubyā and Ṭobiṭ], righteous Israelites. Now the Old [Testament] is complete and we begin the New that begins with Matthew...

This list is great. It is invaluable, but it leaves us many questions. We need a table of contents for our bible, so it does not help us to simply list Samuel and Kings, much less have Jeramiah without Lamentations or the likely implied Letter of Jeramiah. Careful but creative historical thinking will be required to go from Ma̱r ʿAḇdišo's list to a recovered Old Testament Peshitta canon as preserved in the Assyrian Church of the East. In my next post, I will delve into how I went from Mar ʿAḇdišo's list to the contents described above, and then to arranging the books of the Old Testament as they would appear in a yet unpublished Assyrian Church of the East Old Testament (in my own humble opinion, of course).

Sources:

ܡܪܝ ܥܒܕܝܫܘܥ ܡܝܛܬܦܘܠܝܛܐ ܕܨܘܒܐ ܘܕܐܪܡܢܝܐ. ܟܬܒܐ ܕܡܬܩܪܐ ܡܪܓܢܝܬܐ ܕܥܠ ܫܪܪܐ ܕܟܪܣܛܝܢܘܬ. ܐܨܚܬܐ ܬܪܝܢܝܬܐ ܕܩܫ܊ ܝܘܣܦ ܕܒܝܬ ܩܠܝܬܐ. ܡܘܨܠ: ܡܛܒܥܬܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܬܐ، ܐ݇ܨܟܕ.

Talmud Bavli: Shimoff Edition: Introduction to the Talmud. Danziger, Yehezkel, and Avrohom Biderman, eds. (Rahway: Mesorah, 2019), 471-473.

What is an Assyrian?

 

From the Rogation of the Ninevites (Bāʿuṯā dNinwayē):

"[Jonah] saw the old men weeping, While the aged of his people were living in luxury; He saw Nineveh was mourning, While Zion waxed wanton. He looked on Atour* and greatly despised Jerusalem, inflated with arrogance. Behold! The impure women had become chaste*, But the daughters of his people were defiled. He saw the devil possessed in Nineveh were changed, and had learned the truth; He saw the prophets in Zion were deceivers and full of falsehood. He saw the idols in public places were broken, among the heathen; He looked into and saw the secret chambers of his people were full of idolatry. He thus, being a Hebrew, received a proof in respect of the heathen; And laid aside the wonder that had held him. That the priest had entertained Moses, Or the widow woman, Elias, Or that David, when Saul persecuted him, Was honored among the heathen. He feared lest should now be falsified The preaching with which he was commissioned; For he knew that his
proclamation, Might become of no effect by repentance. He saw that the daughters of the heathen, Had renounced* the idols of their fathers; But he mourned that the daughters of his people, Were weeping for Tammuz. He saw that the soothsayers and diviners, Were abolished in Nineveh; But that enchanters and star-gazers, in Judea roamed at large. He saw the priests with their own hands Root up the altars of Ashur; But he saw every man in Zion Build his altar near his door. When Jonah looked on Nineveh, She gathered her sons together as a Church. Nineveh purified her womb and in her was honored the fast, But the Holy Temple of Zion, They had made a den of robbers. He looked on Nineveh, and the King Paid adoration unto God; He Looked on Jeroboam, And he was worshipping the calves. The sins of the Ninevites made them tremble, With loud crying before God; The Hebrews sacrificed their sons, And offered up their daughters to devils. In their fasting, the Ninevites Poured out their tears to God; But the Hebrews to their graven images Poured out their wines. From the Ninevites there was perceived The fair savor of mourning; But in the midst of Zion there breathed The perfume and incense of idols.[1][2]"

            Never has the locus of Assyrian identity been better placed and described than in these words of St Ephrem. Every year, twenty days before Great Lent, Assyrians reenter Nineveh and greet the Hebrew prophet as they put on the fast of Nineveh, Bāʿuṯā. Ephrem wrote these words in the 300s yet the first direct evidence of an annual liturgical commemoration of Bāʿuṯā is from the 500s. The book length poem from which I excerpted the above attests to the personal and powerful hold the Repentance of Nineveh had on Ephrem and, through him as the father of Assyrian prayer, on all Assyrians. Likely, a regular commemoration of the Repentance of Nineveh was popularly observed even in Ephrem's day, and the historical mention of the fast being instituted was not that of a new liturgical commemoration but of a popular devotion being revived or made mandatory on all believers. Aside from the universal Christian days of Wednesday, Friday, and Great Lent as mandatory days of fasting, only Bāʿuṯā is canonically binding. In the Assyrian Church, we have many Christian feasts and yet there is an intimacy, a raw naked reality to the nature of Bāʿuṯā. It is ours, rather, we belong to the sacred space of Bāʿuṯā.

            Bāʿuṯā takes us to the place where we become ourselves. We stop eating and drinking on a Monday morning and prepare for long services. Literally, we empty ourselves so we can be refilled. We do so as we approach lent as if to first be purified as Nineveh before entering the suffering, death, and resurrection of Our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ. We wash in Bāʿuṯā before entering the sacred space of Lent. Bāʿuṯā is our repentance but it is also our revival of identity, who we are in sacred history, which is the defining essence of who we ever were meant to be or who we may ever become. In Bāʿuṯā, the Assyrian finds himself back at the turning point of history as his eyes behold it.

            Before the Repentance of Nineveh was the story that leads to Nineveh’s Repentance with Jonah, and after it is the story that stems from the Repentance of Nineveh. It is sacred space writ large. We re-enter Nineveh in sackcloth and fasting and from that holy ground we enter the biblical narrative not only as a powerful, dominant, but idolatrous and lascivious people, but as a people of whom it can be said that though the flesh dominated them in their ignorance, in their repentance they vanquished the flesh.

            Bāʿuṯā is three intense days in which our expression of repentance to the God whom the reluctant Hebrew prophet preached reinvigorates our identity. From the locus of Nineveh’s repentance, we look back and see that Abraham is our father, perhaps more than anyone else’s. We call him, in the Lišanā Swadaya of everyday speech, Baban Awraham, ‘Our Father Abraham,’ and we have this connection to his arch-parental role in our family history so ingrained that most of us know his name as simply Babawraham, slurred so that his paternal role and his name become one compound word. To Sinai we go back, through the Repentance of Nineveh, and we stand with Israel receiving the law. In prayer, Assyrians identify with Israel to such an extent that I often get asked by parishioners why we constantly ask God to bless Israel, or we pray to him as the God of Israel. Of course, all who are baptized into Christ are members of Israel through the promised messiah, but for Assyrians it is deeper. We were the first fruits of the Messianic promise, a foretaste of God's blessings poured out upon all nations. Centuries before the incarnation, the birth of the Messiah, we were messianic heralds and this reality bears deep marks upon our Church ritual, interpretive tradition, as well as daily Assyrian life. 

            Assyrians struggle to identify with the modern western concept of church. We are as much members of a people as adherents of a faith in the western sense. It makes no sense to us to think of our faith as separate from our identity as our literature, calendar, law, diet, dress, family life, language, and philosophical outlook are all elements of our Holy Tradition of living out the principles of our faith. The most distinctive aspect of the Assyrian Church and the Assyrian people is that they emerge from an intensive experience with the God who adopted them in Nineveh, with Jonah as reluctant sponsor, and whose Messiah they expected. Generally, Assyrian liturgy does not speak of the nations as including themselves. We address God as Israel for God chose to send us Jonah and our fathers chose to receive his prophet and turn to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.

            This post opens up many issues, and they are all issues that deserve very careful and inquisitive study, and I hope to restart this blog with offering some reflection upon the fullness of our Assyrian heritage. The Assyrian Church that I am exploring is not only the human reality of people today, trying to workout their salvation in a confusing world, during a time in our history when most of our institutions have been ground to a nub, requiring much prayer and effort to reemerge. The Assyrian Church I seek is the one that emerges out of the books left us by our fathers, of commentary, poetry, canon law, liturgy, scripture, icons, architecture, and common life serving the God whom our fathers recognized as their true God. I cannot have pre-Jonah Assyria as an ancestor if I do not have the over two millennia chain of fathers as my more immediate parents.

            Before Jonah was one Assyria, and after Jonah was another. The two are the same people, the same matter, but they became baptized in repentance and, later in Christ. Our purpose was made heavenly rather than earthly. As an Assyrian, whatever my take on the biblical account, I cannot dismiss that it owns me. After two thousand years of knowing my fathers to have accepted the God of Abraham at the Repentance of Nineveh, the story is not longer merely factual but truth in the most enduring sense. From before the Gospel was announced in Mesopotamia, the Assyrians were following the God who called Abraham out of Mesopotamia, and who with us shared his will with our fathers at Sinai. Our lifestyle is replete with hallmarks of that journey. What Assyrian cannot recall how his grandparents kept the Sabbath, on Sunday, but with injunctions not to touch a scissors or needle? Or to mind themselves that they not desecrate their bodies by drinking water or bathing before the eucharist? These aspects of our experience become lost when we try to divorce our identity from our experience. We have two millennia and more of experience as Repentant Nineveh. One cannot find his grandfather without first knowing his father.

---

[1]Henry Burgess. The Repentance of Nineveh: A Metrical Homily on the Mission of Jonah by Ephraem Syrus. (Berlin: Blackader, 1853), 73-74. [I heavily amended Burgess’ translation according to the Syriac of

Edmund Beck. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermones II, (Louvin: Peeters, 1970), 21-22. [Lines 1101-1141]

[2] This text is chanted in the Assyrian Church of the East on the Tuesday of Bāʿuṯā dNinwāyē as the first Qeryānā of the second Mawtwā. See: Hudra, Vol. 1. (Trichur: Mar Narsai Press, 1962),  ܫܥܙ - ܫܥܚ. [I modified Burgess' translation above according to the critical edition of Beck, which matches that of the Ḥudrā in this section]

Christological Overview I

Christology plays an large role in captivating the interest of those who want to learn more about the Church of the East, and this especially includes our own members. While I can put up a bunch of Mar Baḇay and St Maximus and deal with Chalcedon, and I will, I think we need to take a step back and get a grip with the reality of the belief system at hand, the big picture sense of things. This is a first entry, and I have more planned. I hope to try and stay a bit more informal with this already complicated topic, even as I translate material not yet available in English. Also, I want to keep our perspective on the forest while understanding the various kings of trees therein, so instead of being overly technical, let's look at the theological understanding as a whole.

The Church of the East believes what it prays. The Ḥudrā, as the big book of daily prayers cycling over the year, contains our words of intimacy with Christ God. No saint, bishop, patriarch, or synod can match the authority of liturgy for it is the Holy Spirit speaking through and with the people of God, incarnating His Son in their community, in our community of the Church of the East. His Grace Mar Awa, Bishop of Modesto and California, has an excellent article 'A Survey of the Christology of the Assyrian Church of the East as Expressed in the Khudra.' Typical of His Grace, you will find loads of extra material packed into his article. Also, my liturgical translations of Annunciation texts available on this blog are all Christological, and you get two independent translations of the same texts to reference. So, let's look at the prayers of the Church of the East and see what Christ is worshipped.

The first hymn of the year: "God the Word from the Father did not take the likeness of a servant from angels but from the seed of Abraham, and in our humanity he did come in his grace that he save our race from error." Who is incarnate of the Virgin? God the Word who takes his humanity from her and unities it to his divinity. What is incarnate from the Virgin? The humanity of God the Word. This distinction is solid and unmistakable across Church of the East prayers. Who is born of the Virgin? Christ Jesus=God the Word=Son of God. What is born of the Virgin? The humanity of God the Word. It would be heretical to say that a human being was born of the Virgin Mary. The being is a divine person whose humanity is from His mother and whose divinity is from His Father. The 'His' in that sentence is always the one divine person of God the Word incarnate, Jesus Christ. 

But don't take that from me. Mar Babai the Great, who was the main force behind two qnomā language wrote in the Kṯāḇā dḥdayuṯā: 

Whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Behold here the exact understanding of the union of God the Word in his incarnation, for already he was considered “Lord”, and that one is the Lordship and worship of God and of his temple, unitedly and for ever. As it is written, “God has made Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucified...

I used the late Rev Michael Birnie's translation here, so that I am not influencing the translation to my own reading. Notice that God the Word in his incarnation is one Lord, object of Worship, temple of God, messiah, and Christ Jesus whom was crucified. Who was crucified? God the Word, the object of our Worship, the temple of the Word, the Messiah, Jesus.

Here is another example from the same Sunday: 

What mind can understand the sea of thy mercy, God? Oh depth of riches and understanding of eternal thoughts that were with God before time and so he desired in his love and his Word did he send us from the holy virgin, a garment of flesh to put on and go out into the world. And from the angels she so learned: Peace to thee, Full of Grace for from thee is born man and savior of the Worlds. Beyond comprehension, Lord of All, Glory to Thee! (ʿuniṯā dLelyā) 

Notice that God's Word puts on a garment of flesh and goes out into the world. Who is the agent? God the Word. What is the means of the incarnation? The flesh, carne, taken from the Virgin. Are there two Sons? Clearly no.

Frankly, I've translated enough of the Annunciation, really pre-Nativity, texts that interested readers can simply read them for themselves. Only one hymn I know of might vaguely be picked at, the ʿalām of the mawtḇā of Nativity:

Revealed truth did the Son of God disclose to his betrothed Church for in his love he desired and came to the world and preached and taught his divinity as well as his humanity. + As he was in the bosom of the Father before the worlds, and without beginning, He was truly God. + And he came to us in the end of times and put on our body by which he saved us, He was truly man. + The prophets preached him in their revelation, and the righteous revealed him in their mysteries, He was truly God. + He was conceived in a womb, nine months, and he was born as a man, for he was truly man....

Notice that the who/what distinction is maintained. Who is born? He was is truly God and truly man. The text takes pains to not say that a man was born of the Virgin, but that He was born "as a man." I am providing the most dualistic of texts found in our service books on purpose. It is the one I would use to counter the Church of the East. However, it is hugged by a massive amount of strongly Orthodox (as in the tradition of Chalcedon to Maximus the Confessor) language. There is much of the language of the Schools of Antioch and of Edessa with the incarnation described as indwelling, putting on humanity, or wearing a garment, but that goes back to St Ephrem and is very Antiochian as well.

Notice that I did not mention Christological language yet. That is for the same reason why it is wise not to introduce the liturgical expression Theotókos or 'Mother of God' without first explaining that God the Word is eternally the Divine Second Person of the Trinity who took humanity from the virgin, but Himself is eternal and begotten of the Father. If one does not understand the Christian belief about the incarnation, Theotókos can be mistaken for meaning that the Virgin originates Christ, conceiving him as Hercules or Persus had Zeus as father but a human mother. God forbid and forgive me the example, but I hope it illustrates that it is important to have a sense of the belief system before hyper-focusing on a single word or theological expression. I will go into qnomā and the other Christological terms as well as their use, but this post has its purpose to frame our scope and sense of the Church of the East regarding Christ as fully God and fully man.

A more personal note. 

To speak of the Church of the East, one must know its prayer life and whom it worships. It is an easy target today for ridicule because it is a martyred church whose texts largely remain untranslated and whose children are most often spoken of with derision and contempt by their fellow Eastern Christians. Assyrians have gotten used to that. For the non-Church of the East reader, I will share an insider bit of wisdom, like an inside joke. Assyrians know that most Orthodox Christians consider the Church of the East heretical. We expect to be condemned at first glance without a consideration or curiosity to know this tradition more deeply. At the same time, and this is my experience in 100% of my conversations with fellow Assyrians, we also know that God blesses those hated for his name. Honestly, when a Church that is the smallest, most isolated, and most persecuted in apostolic Christian history cannot be given the basic decency of being understood before being condemned by her fellow Christians of the East, this final blow seems more dull than the sword of the Califs, more empty than the legacy of Tamerlane, and more desolate than the heritage of ISIS. The standard Assyrian response is Alahā paḥel-lun, 'God forgive them.' I suspect that what our fathers said to others before. 

* Note the attached image is of Patriarch Mar Ruḇēyl Šemʾun and Mar Isḥaq Ḥnanišoʾ, Metropolitan inside Mar Šaliṭa̱ in 1886. These two men are the patriarch and the second most senior bishop in the Church. They are not in an Istanbul palace or cathedral but a mud-brick Church.