Lamsa Bible:
Aramaic Peshitta Bible Repository
page XVIII
Bishop
Walton, in his Polyglot, Prol. xiii., sec. 16, says that "Syriac writers
state that 2nd Peter, 2nd and 3rd John, Jude, and Revelation, were not in the
ancient edition" of the Peshito.
J. WICHELHAUS says, "It is very well known that the Syrians did not
reject" the five books not contained in the Peshito. "We deem the sum
of the matter to be that by the tradition of the Syrians, the Peshito version
was made in the time of Abgar the King [of Edessa], at the time when the gospel
was preached there," (pg. 63) The Nestorian Christians deemed it "to
have been written by APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY," (pg. 153) At pg. 85, Wichelhaus
says of the five books which are not in the Peshito, that "by the consent
of all, they ought to be assigned to the end of the lives of the Apostles;"
and that some derive from their omission an argument for the antiquity of the
Peshito, as having been "written before the four epistles and the
Revelation were published" (pg. 85)
BISHOP HUET, in his learned work, "On the most illustrious Translators,
1683," remarks that the absence of those five books is "a great proof
of the antiquity" of the New Covenant Peshito (pg. 126)
The New Covenant Peshito-Syriac IS OF SPECIAL WORTH for two reasons; first, that
there is credible testimony that it was made in the lifetime of the Apostles;
and next, that the copies of it have been made with the greatest exactness and
care. Wichelhaus says "There was no doubt about its truth and perfectness;
and on that account the more effort and labour were bestowed on the text of the
version, to keep it pure and free from every taint of error and variation"
(pg. 153) "All persons testify, and the history of the Syrians itself
clearly proves, that the greatest care was taken from the most ancient times, in
order that the letter of the SACRED SCRIPTURE might be always perfectly
preserved in agreement with itself. For of the Peshito version, there was the
greatest veneration" (pg. 230)