Roger Pearse

Variants are an inevitable part of copying things in an imperfect world, as anyone who has ever suffered a misprint knows. They are not relevant to a discussion of deliberate change, nor indeed significant of anything about the accuracy of transmission of a text. Texts extant in only a single manuscript have no variants, but it would be rather imprudent to consider that therefore they were the best preserved! The contrary is probably true.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

stephan huller

I hate to disagree with Roger, I love his site so much. But if you gave people a dollar for every time apostle argues AGAINST HIS ORIGINAL TESTIMONY in 2 Corinthians chapters 10 - 12 you could buy a very nice dinner for yourself at a fine restaurant. The entire section is full of interpolations. The REAL apostle originally said 'I am superior to the other apostles' (as a Marcionite certainly knew to be the true recension); the Catholic text has to fit this crazy 'boasting' apostle with someone essentially subordinated at Antioch so they start have him acting schizophrenic ATTACKING HIS ORIGINAL TESTIMONY and apologizing profusely for his hubris.

Among the most embarrassing series of chapters in the whole New Testament (the only thing more embarrassing is how many believers turn a blind eye to the corruption).

Let's not forget that Eznik explicitly confirms that the Marcionites said that these words were uttered by Marcion not someone named 'Paul.' But that's another story. The first step is to realize that this material has been corrupted AWAY from its original roots in Marcionitism .

DCHindley

Roger,

Could you be more specific? This is where the editor said this little segment was located in the manuscript. Check out Hermetica, vol 1, pg 275.

So I can imagine what you might be thinking, but I'd rather hear it from you.

G R S Mead 1906	Sir Walter Scott 1924
[Now] in the case of those professing the harmonious art of muse-like melody—	When musicians undertake to make harmonious melody,
if, when the piece is played, the discord of the instruments doth hinder their intent,	then, if in the performance their good intent is thwarted by the discordance of their instruments,
its rendering becomes ridiculous.	[[The writers argument is absurd;
For when his instruments are quite too weak for what's required of them,	for when the instruments are defective, and fail to do what is required of them,
the music-artist needs must be laughed at by the audience.	the musician is bound to be jeered at by the audience]]
For He, with all good will, gives of His art unweariedly;	one does not impute the blame to the musician's inspiration,
they blame the [artist's] weakness.	but one ascribes the fault to the unsoundness of the instrument.

It just seems to me that it is squarely in the middle of that discourse. You can see how Mead translated it, and how Scott translated it. They are basically using the same text, so neither one is eliminating anything the other has not eliminated as well (although both exclude a goodly chunk of the original Greek as interpolations not in the original treatis).

If anyone wants to know what the Greek text is, I can reproduce it on request.

DCH

Roger Pearse

We're at cross-purposes, I think. I'm not discussing what you think I am; and you're not replying to the point I am (evidently ineptly) trying to make.

You're saying "this portion of the text is not by the author but by a scribe." I'm not disagreeing with that. It's speculation, but certainly such things happen.

But you're also saying "the scribe who made that comment originally wrote that in the middle of the line in the copy as he wrote it". Here I disagree. I'm saying "Probably not - he probably wrote in the margin and a subsequent scribe copied it as if it was part of the original text and thereby embedded it in all subsequent copies".

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Clivedurdle

I like the non existant interpolations!

Like the one where Jesus says something to the criminals on the cross and you get two contradictory doctrines in catholicism and protestantism dependent upon where one puts emphases in the sentence.

And if I want to get really post modern, can something translated from an ancient culture actually be understood?

dog-on

Yup, in fact in a lot of ways...

John Kesler

Some of the copyists made deliberate changes, and this certainly is relevant to the discussion.

spin

I'm sure this is true, but I wonder is "deliberate" is such a useful notion.

When a translator gives a non-literal translation in an effort to render the idea that s/he thinks best captures the idea, but fails, is this a deliberate change?

When a scribe added a supporting word or phrase that wasn't in the source text because he thought it conveyed the intention of the source, is that a deliberate change?

Take the insertion of "of the lord" (του κυριου) at the end of 1 Cor 11:27 -- which may simply be creeping marginalia, though it may just as easily have been the work of the copyist rather than a marginal commentator -- would it be a deliberate change? Was there the intent to change the sense? It is certainly a form of corruption of the text, as it takes us further away from what the text actually said -- for whatever that's worth.

We have intentional and unintentional alteration. Unintentional can be any brainfart that changes the text, such as misreading, jumping a line, metathesis, unconscious substitution of words, mistaking marginal comments for dropped text reinserted, and so on. Intentional alteration can be a conscious effort to preserve the text as understood or to change the meaning. Perhaps sometimes the change did preserve the text


spin

Roger Pearse

We must also include "correction" here. When a scribe reading his exemplar "realises" that it contains a "mistake", a reading he is unfamiliar with from other copies, the temptation to "correct" it can creep in.

People jump rather too quickly from "this is different" to "some scumbag wanted by the police forged this". Most errors in most texts are innocent.

There was, after all, no real purpose in altering one copy of a text when no-one could say which copy would become the standard text of the next generation.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Johnny Skeptic

Sure, including Paul's vision, and many other innocent but false claims in the Bible and many other religious texts. There are not any good reasons to necessarily include 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 in the "innocent" category.

Intentional or not, and innocent or not, there is not sufficient evidence of reasonably provable independent attestations in the New Testament regarding many issues, including the miracles that Jesus performed, and Jesus' post-resurrection appearances.

Historically, many people have had innocent emotional needs that caused them to make up religions, and did so. They simply made some innocent mistakes, just like people did who accepted Christianity during the first half of the first century A.D., but rejected Judaism prior to accepting Christianity. You certainly could not make an intelligent case that those people were not honestly searching for the truth when they rejected Judaism, and were honestly searching for the truth when they accepted Christianity. A man can honestly search for the truth and reject Christianity. No man who honestly searches for the truth has anything to fear from a moral God.

Common sense indicates that if God wanted people to know about the Gospel message, he would have told people about it himself instead of allowing millions of people to die without hearing it. It would not make any sense for anyone to claim that God wants people to hear about the Gospel message, but only if they hear about it through human effort.