Bible Books: An Unsimple Story

The name Peshitta, according to a majority of scholars, means “simple” or “straightforward.” For those who lived in the first and second centuries C.E. in the area that today is Turkey, Iran and Iraq, the name would have been plainly understood. The Peshitta is “simple” in contrast with the more elaborate and scholarly translation of the Greek Bible once used in the same region. But for today’s scholars, there’s not much simple about this ancient translation of the Old and New Testaments, which remains authoritative in the Church of the East, the Syrian Orthodox Church and other Near Eastern […]