Important Notice to Foundation Members

21 January 2008

As many of you know by now, The Peshitta Foundation has been undergoing a change in administration and ownership. The Foundation, once associated with the Church of Jerusalem (CoJ) in Pisgat Zeev, Jerusalem, Israel, received a notice in December 2007 in regards to The Foundation's charter possibly not being renewed with the CoJ. On 16 January 2008, the director received an official notice from the Synod of the CoJ notifying us of the fact that the renewal of the charter was denied and that as of 30th September 2007, the CoJ no longer considered itself as being affiliated with The Peshitta Foundation.

This may have come as a surprise to some members of The Foundation, however, after convening a conference on the 20th of January, 2008, the members came to a unanimous agreement that this decision was an honorable one and that we would have no complaints against the Synod or the CoJ as a whole, and that, now, being an independent association, The Foundation will be able to provide additional resources that it previously was unable to do so under its former association.

In this regard The Foundation is required to make public notification to all executive members, that their membership, if they were on the board of directors before 20th January 2008, is no longer valid. The Foundation will no longer be accepting requests for membership and has organized a new body of directors by majority vote of the former executive members. All individuals interested in the ancient Biblical languages are welcome to utilize any of the translations and literature provided by The Foundation, as long as it complies with current copyright laws of one's country; such use of these materials does not require any type of membership with The Foundation.

As of the 20th of January 2008, the Translation Committee for the Aramaic English Standard Version (AESV) has also changed administration and a list of names and contact details will be provided in the months ahead.

Through an agreement with the original translation committee, The Peshitta Foundation will retain the copyright to the older edition as well as all subsequent updates and/or revisions. Appropriate revisions are already under way with the English text of the AESV and announcements will be made in our monthly newsletter and on our Web site www.standardversion.org when such revisions are available.

And as a final note, The Foundation's Web site will be undergoing some updates since it has been over a year since any major materials have been added to the site, for which we apologize.

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact us.

This notice supersedes any previous announcements and/or statements in previously published newsletters and Web site pages.

Sincerely,
Stephen Pingha
The Peshitta Foundation
Jerusalem, Israel
21 January 2008

P.S. Since December 2007, The Peshitta Foundation has terminated several Web sites once used for hosting files related to the translation work. We now have two domain names which are "standardversion.org" and "standardversion.com". Any other domain names formerly associated with The Peshitta Foundation may now be held by other individuals or institutes and if this is the case, the opinions or statements on such sites may not necessarily be held by the staff of The Peshitta Foundation. We have no control of the content of Web sites that are not owned or maintained by The Foundation.