A fragment of the primitive Syriac text of Luke 2v11

Recovered Aramaic text

The original text of Lk2v11 has been reconstructed from biblical manuscripts and quotations made by several early Syriac authors as follows:

)XY$M )YrM )NYXM nwKL dLYt)

English translation

'He has been born for you a Life-giver, LORD, Messiah'

Commentary

In this text the Christmas angels introduce Yeshu`a to the world as the Lifegiver from Gen2v7 who breathed life into Adam's nostrils, the God of the Syriac Old Testament who spoke with Moshe (Moses) from Ex3v15 and the Jewish Messiah. In announcing him so, the angels echoed Isaiah who proclaimed him much earlier, 'For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called, “Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” ' (Is9v6); In the reading from Lk2v11 we have an expression of the most ancient christology of the Syrian Church. The Syrians believed that Yeshu`a is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit who came to dwell with us for a while. In the west, typified by the creeds, we tend to distinguish the persons of the Godhead and understand Yeshu`a as a part of the Divinity, not as all of the Divinity. But the most ancient Syriac texts understand Yeshu`a as all of the Divinity and I confess that I also believe this.

I have already shown how the christology of this passage matches the predictions of Isaiah the prophet from the Old Testament. However, the same remarkable christology can also be found in Paul. Paul wrote to the Colossians, 'for in him, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.' Col1v19 RSV and compare Phil2vv6-11. The similar christology is very significant, but our passage has yet another point of contact with the great Apostle. For, in one of his earliest letters he wrote, 'Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.' 1Cor15v45 RSV. In this remarkable statement, Paul identifies Christ as 'a life-giving spirit'. In the Peshitta, 1Cor15v45 even uses the same terminology as is used in our passage from primitive Aramaic Luke, only the gender of the adjective is feminine to reflect the grammatical gender of the word 'spirit' in Syriac. Hence we read in Peshitta, )tYNYXM )Xwr = 'life giving spirit'. We therefore have theological evidence and textual evidence which both demonstrate that Paul knew Luke's gospel 2v11 in the form I have edited above. In contrast, the Greek text of Luke reads, 'a saviour who is Christ (the) Lord'. Again, Paul's terminology in 1 Corinthians is missing from the Greek version of Luke and is not found anywhere else in the New Testament, but his terminology is present in the primitive Aramaic text of Luke.

The theological significance of primitive Aramaic Luke is very great. It tells us that a life giver has been born for us, someone who can give us new life; Not a saviour who can save our existing lives. For flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God, (1Cor15v50) only those who have a new inner form of life given to them by Yeshu`a the Life-giver will live in the coming kingdom of God. Yeshu`a is the only hope for humanity because only Yeshu`a is the Lifegiver. No one and nothing else can give us this new inner life that Yeshu`a was born to give us.