avi

Thanks Andrew. I appreciate both the link, and also the explanation, which I had muddled.

Lucian of Antioch, mentor to the leaders of the Arian movement, including Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia, apparently revised the original Greek versions of the four gospels, circa 260 CE. Do either Codex Sinaiticus or Codex Alexandrinus reflect Lucian's editing?
There is certainly a difference between these two fourth-fifth century documents:

Here is my attempt to provide roman letter equivalents of the Greek lower case version, (very legible) of the same two passages (John 14:28), one with, the other without, moy:

ekoysate oti ego eipon umin upago kai erchomai proz umaz ei eegapate me echareete an oti poreyomai proz ton patera oti o pateer (moy) meizon moy estin.

Here's my feeble attempt to transpose the Codex Sinaiticus to Roman letters for the same passage (John 14:28):

ekoysate oti ego eipon umin upago kai erchomai proz umaz ei
eegapate me echareete an oti poreyomai proz ton patera oti o pateer m meizon moy estin.

Note that there is some kind of disturbance of the "moy" following pateer, it is not quite legible, apart from the "m". Perhaps this is a recognized contraction of "moy"? Alternatively, perhaps this is the very spot which (as Andrew sought to explain above,) had received at least two corrections.

Here is my even more feeble attempt to convert the poor quality image of the Alexandrine text:

ekoysate oti ego eipon umin upago kai erchomai proz umaz ei eegapate me echareete an oti poreyome proz ton pra oti o peer meizon moy estin.

Looks like the Alexandrine text may have a couple of contractions: Perhaps everyone in those days understood that "pra" = patera, and "peer" = pateer. I don't observe any "moy" following pateer, or, in this case, "peer". Perhaps I have simply erred in attempting to romanize the Greek handwriting, which is a mixture of lower case and upper case Greek symbols.

avi

Thanks again for your patient explanations. Sorry to be so thick.
Ok, so in summary, with regard to John 14:28, there are three papyrus codices from the 4th-5th centuries, and two of them have no "moy", i.e. Vaticanus and Alexandrinus, while Sinaiticus has something resembling "m", perhaps it is a simple contraction for "moy", else, as Andrew has suggested, it represents repeated editorial alterations over the centuries? That the passage would be repeatedly edited, suggests to me, at least, that this passage is not unimportant.

avi

And what I want, is to understand what the original author of this gospel was trying to explain. I don't think it is wrong to guess, and estimate, in fact it is probably the intelligent thing to do here, two millenia later, but I am more interested, at this point, in a LITERAL translation, unclouded by English grammar. I am perhaps too simple minded for this inquiry, but I see this issue in simple, political terms: someone wrote some text, someone else embellished it, altered it, edited it, and changed it. I sure don't want the Greek text further embellished in an English translation. I am grateful to Thentian and Andrew for providing excellent links and romanizations of the Greek text. Unless some further inspiration strikes, I shall content myself with attempting to learn, now, a bit of Greek, so that I can compare John 14:28 with John 10:30 in all three early codices, and attempt to reconcile the Greek meaning of the two apparently contrary sentiments. For sure, if the Greek is concrete, (and perhaps it is, on the other hand, not solid, but rather fuzzy, that's what I need to learn,) the same two entities (God, and his "son", Jesus) cannot be both equal and unequal concurrently--even two millenia ago, when Boolean Algebra had not yet been invented. Does introduction, (or subtraction,) of "moy" strengthen or weaken this distinction between John 10:30 and John 14:28? The problem, I believe, is simple: the original "apostles" were fishermen, artisans, workers, and shepherds, not educated literati. There should be, and are, contraries in the Gospels, because the original, very simplistic, rustic stories were embellished, redacted, and revised repeatedly for many centuries. What I need to do now, is search through the writings of Justin Martyr, and the earliest Christian writers, looking for any passage that is also found in these three old papyrus texts, to see if there is even ONE passage which has not been changed.

whichphilosophy

If the father and I are the same as one etc, then perhaps we could question how one can be greater than the other.

If we are all matter; and matter is condensed energy then we are condensed energy.

Of course if energy is life then we could even suggest this is a deity of sorts. If energy causes life then there is a non live cause of life, hence no deity.

The question is what divides us and what makes us as one.

Chili

Because only Truth is real wherein the Father is greater but the Son is, or potentially is presence that is needed to make the Father known.

We are not matter if we have destiny that is based on our past but we have future into the Father wherein we are one. Hence "all roads lead to Rome sweet home of Christendom" where the perpetual wisdom and beauty of Mary [in the TOL] is the attraction . . . wherefore there is Beauty in Truth that we may be seekers of the Ultimate Truth that makes us one.

The bottom line here is that Eternal Life belongs to Rome in our mythology and we are the continuity of that Deity.

andrewcriddle

There is a lot of disagreement over Lucian's edition of the NT.
Probably Codex Alexandrinus represents it in the Gospels but not in the rest of the NT.

Andrew Criddle