Comparative Textual Criticism of the Peshitta of the Book of Psalms

پوختە

It is commonly agreed that the Syriac version “Peshitta” has its special place in the textual criticism of the Old Testament, although it differs in many places from the original Hebrew text, and with regard to the Book of Psalms, which belongs to the poetic literary genre and has its characteristics and necessities (the most important of which is transmission between persons, first, second, and third), we find, in addition to the difference in the division of the psalms themselves, that there are differences in the numbering and divisions of the verses and the subdivision of the verses, and because the text of the Psalter used in the book of liturgical prayers of the Church of the East (the Hudra) had relied on late manuscripts that amounted at best to mostly the twelfth century, for we have returned to the critical edition of Leiden according to the study of Walter (1980) and through critical comparisons we can re-read the Syriac text of the Book of Psalms used in (Hudra) according to the Eclectic approach, using principal critical criteria, the most important of which are: the closest reading to the first Syriac translation which is attested in the oldest manuscripts according to the critical edition of Leiden, the reading that most closely reflects the Hebrew text, the reading that is more correct in meaning and clearer contextually and linguistically.