Subject: Re: tc-list Mueller CPA

From: "Harold P. Scanlin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:42:08 -0400

I completed this short review several months ago, but due to a slip up,
probably on my part, it never found its way into e-print.  I have not seen
the NT volumes, but it would be reasonable to assume that the general
editorial principles are uniform for both OT and NT volumes.  I know
nothing about the availability of the font.

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Müller-Kessler, Christa and Michael Sokoloff, editors.  The Christian
Palestinian Aramaic Old Testament and Apocrypha version from the early
period.  (A Corpus of Christian Palestinian Aramaic, 1).  Groningen: Styx,
1997.

Müller-Kessler previously published an important grammar of the language
she calls Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA), but has also been called
Syropalestinian (by Goshen-Gottstein and others),  Palestinian Syriac
(Agnes Smith Lewis), or Christian Palestinian Syriac (Matthew Black).  It
was the discovery by Lewis of  several important biblical manuscripts at
the end of the 19th century that launched the modern era of interest in the
biblical witnesses written in this ancient language. Müller-Kessler and
Sokoloff prefer the name Christian Palestinian Aramaic which helps to
distinguish it from "standard" Syriac.  This is a useful linguistic
distinction which also helps to focus on the fact that this translation
into CPA is different than the better known Syriac translations.  Even
though the CPA version is chronologically earlier than the Syriac
version(s), it is translated from the Septuagint, and rarely, if ever, is
an independent witness for a Hebrew reading.  Thus, its primary value lies
in the textual criticism of the OG.  Even though Goshen-Gottstein supports
the essential character of CPA as a daughter version of the OG, he,
nevertheless, believes that "the translators from the Greek seem to have
availed themselves sometimes of certain current Targumic traditions.  On
the other hand, . . . secondary influences by the Peshitta cannot be ruled
out (VIII)."

The intention of the volume under review, however, is not to enter into
discussions of textual criticism, but to offer a corpus of all known OT
texts "from the early period."  For this purpose the editors have admirably
succeeded in providing the interested scholar with a reliable resource.  
The texts are presented diplomatically, including the preservation of the
columnar arrangement and line length of the originals.  The texts are
printed  in a CPA orthography which resembles, but is not identical to,
Estrangelo.  It should be remembered that the Cairo Geniza CPA manuscripts
were written in the Aramaic square script, but are here transcribed into
the same script used throughout the entire volume.  The editors point out
that their new edition has reexamined the manuscripts themselves, enabling
them to offer better, and especially in the case of the several palimpsest
manuscripts, previously undeciphered readings.  This reviewer is not in a
position to judge the accuracy of these new readings without examining the
manuscripts themselves, although a few palimpsest manuscripts are included
in the selection of twenty plates included in the volume.  On the other
hand, it is quite likely that the editors offer superior readings.

The primary interest of the editors seems to be linguistic, rather than
textual, borne out by the fact that the corpus intentionally includes "only
the texts from the earlier stage of  the language (5th - 8th cents. C.E.)
since this stratum of the language may differ considerably from the later
stage and is also more important for our knowledge of the LXX Bible (3)." 
Conceding the possibility of (significant) linguistic development of CPA,
the editors offer no specific evidence.  From a diachronic study of the
development of this Aramaic dialect, limiting the corpus to the early
period may be useful, but for those looking for a collection of all textual
witnesses the editors' choice becomes rather arbitrary.  Again, conceding
that earlier manuscripts are probably more interesting textually, the CPA
tradition is limited both in quantity and in textual development, so that
consideration of the textual tradition will need to look beyond this
otherwise valuable collection to get a more complete perspective.  We do
have Goshen-Gottstein's The Bible in the Syropalestinain Version, Part I,
Pentateuch and Prophets (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1973), and the publication of
voulme 2 has now been announced by the publisher as forthcoming.  Another
important manuscript of the Horologion containing many Psalm texts hitherto
unknown in CPA, as well as other biblical quotations, has been admirably
edited by Matthew Black in A Christian Palestinian Syriac Horologion
(Cambridge: University Press, 1954).  It is worth noting that Black
believes that the Biblical text was translated from a Lucianic type of
Greek text, with the Peshitta used as a help to the translators.

Within the chronological limits set by the editors themselves, this volume
should become the standard edition for CPA Old Testament and Apocrypha.  In
addition to the presentation of the texts themselves, the editors provide a
brief five page commentary, dealing primarily with linguistic issues, but
they do note a plus in Jer.

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Harold P. Scanlin
United Bible Societies
1865 Broadway
New York, NY  10023
[email-masked]