Proof of the Priority of the Aramaic Book of Baruch

The original Hebrew of the book of Baruch has been lost, however in my recent work on the Hebraic Roots Version of the Apocrypha I have found evidence that the Aramaic Peshitta text of Baruch was translated directly from the original Hebrew of Baruch and not from the Greek translation.  This is important because Aramaic is a cognate language to Hebrew sharing much of the vocabulary and much of the same grammar.  Thus the Aramaic gives us a far better idea of the original Hebrew than the Greek text does.

How have I determined the Aramaic was translated from the lost Hebrew and not the Greek?

In the Greek text Baruch 1:8 references the 10th of Sivan however the Aramaic has not "Sivan" but "Nisan".  Certainly had the Aramaic been translated from the Greek, it would have "Sivan" in 1:8 and not "Nisan".

This, however, does not tell us which reading is more original, we have no idea from this evidence alone when and where the change was made, we only know that the two texts do not agree, and that the Aramaic is therefore not simply a translation from the Greek.

There is however another reading, which gives us some more insight on the origin of the Aramaic text of Baruch.  In 1:4 the Greek references the river "Sud" in Babylon, however there is no such known river.  However the Aramaic references not a river "Sud" but a river called "Tzur".  Now ancient non-Biblical texts discovered in 1952 refer to a river named "Tzur" in a similar context.

Now the scribal error whereby "d" and "r" are misread for one another is a very common Scribal error in Hebrew and Aramaic (in which the letters are very similar in appearance) and not in Greek (in which they do not look alike).

So here we have a Scribal Error which must have originated in the Hebrew or Aramaic and in which the Aramaic appears to have the original reading.

Now since the Aramaic was not translated from the Greek, and since it contains a reading that had to have originated in the original Hebrew, we have in the Aramaic of Baruch a much better witness to the original Hebrew text of Baruch that we have in the Greek.

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