Yuri Kuchinsky

Hello, Quentin,

I didn't mean to imply that I disagreed with the Bobiensis being dated to the 4c more recently. My Bobiensis example was merely meant to show that, generally speaking, the palaeographers very often don't know what they're doing.

Yes, there are certainly many MSS which have also been re-dated later over the years. One example is the Old Latin MS Vercellensis (abbreviated as "a"), which seems to have been pushed recently from 4c to late 5c. I don't think any ideological bias had played much of a role -- either way -- in these particular re-datings. These are all Western MSS, and they've never had too many fans, least of all in the more recent Anglo-German scholarship.

I oppose the French scholarship to the Anglo-German scholarship, because I see the French textual scholarship as a lot more reasonable and realistic.

As to Ptolemy citing John, I've certainly been aware of that. But we don't really know much about what sort of a version was used by Ptolemy. It could well have been a very early pre-canonical version.

In my view, Jn originated in Alexandria as a rather short gnostic gospel. But later it had been "cleaned up" and expanded to become our canonical Jn. And it also had been given a new home in Ephesus.

All the best,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Peter,

GThomas (GOT) is a very important text. It has great many links with the Old Syriac Christian textual tradition, and with the Diatessaron -- although most of our current GOT scholars don't like to dwell on this too much.

But it's not of course "the genuine words of Jesus, miraculously preserved". Just like the NT gospels, GOT has many editorial layers. The importance of GOT is in that it clearly had a separate line of transmission -- at least at a later period -- compared to the canonical gospels. So it preserves a lot of unusual stuff, some it quite late, but some very early.

Pretty soon, I'm planning to upload to the Net a study of GOT Logion 79 ("A woman in the crowd said to him, "Lucky are the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you.", etc."), that will clarify quite a bit about how the editors of GOT were working with very early texts, and adding stuff on top of that.

All the best,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Can't agree with you more, CX!

That's what I'm saying, the importance of P52 is widely overrated in NT scholarship.

Can you prove it? I don't think this is really the case...

But I'm saying that p52 is worthless for any purpose...

Yes, and I find it extremely curious that both p52 and p90 feature almost exactly the same passage in Jn Chapter 18/Chapter 19. This is a fragment of the Passion of Jesus. What a strange coincidence!

But maybe it isn't a coincidence? Could it be possible that, originally, both these Papyri only featured the Passion Narrative -- rather than the full gospel of John? After all, some scholars think that the Passion Narratives preceded the complete gospels. In any case, the Passion Narratives were often preserved separately even in the later centuries.

As to the "ivory tower conspiracy theory", I don't really need it at all. As I say, the mood in NT studies became a lot more conservative after WWII, and this is a fact, rather than conspiracy.

So there was a more conservative mood, and p52 may have just happened to come in handy to satisfy the desire of the scholars to date everything earlier than before. Where there's a will, there's a way.

All the best,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Greetings, all,

For anybody who might be interested, I'm now providing some additional reasons to doubt the very early status of P52. This time, the info comes from some conventional NT scholarly sources, the stuff that has been published recently.

In the other thread, CX already cited some material from the following book by Schnelle. But it looks like he may not have read the footnotes to p. 477! Because there's some important stuff there about the recent re-dating of p52 by Schmidt.

Recently, A. Schmidt (ZWEI ANMERKUNGEN ZU P.RYL.III 457, APF 35, 1989) dated the Rylands to ca 170 CE. A reference to this is found in U. Schnelle, THE HISTORY AND THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1998 / SCM, London, 1998, p. 477, n. 119.

According to Schnelle, A. Schmidt "dates p52 in the period around 170 CE (+/- 25) on the basis of a comparison with P Chester Beatty X."

Also, a recent article by C. Tuckett in THE NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES, "P52 and Nomina Sacra" (October 2001) can be noted here in this discussion. In this article, Tuckett tried to find the Nomina Sacra in our MS Rylands, by doing a detailed study of line-length and word-spacing, but was unsuccessful. So he concluded that "Jesus" was written in full in the two instances where one might have expected to find Nomina Sacra in MS Rylands. But it is generally believed that there was a regular practice of abbreviating nomina sacra in early Christianity. So this also seems at odds with a very early dating of p52.

And so, I have now presented quite a bit of evidence that tends to cast doubt on the very special status that p52 still enjoys in today's NT studies. I'm saying that almost everything to do with this little scrap of writing is really based on wishful thinking, rather than hard evidence. This is really a fraud, that's what it is. And moreover, in general, the early dating of the canonical gospels, that our crooked NT guild is still advocating almost unanimously, is likewise a clear and obvious fraud. These are not 1c documents. These are clearly very late and corrupt texts, that tend to portray Jesus as a Gentile Jesus.

Contrary to common perception, the really primitive gospel texts are not lost. These are the ancient Old Syriac Aramaic gospels, that have mostly been ignored and covered up in recent NT scholarship. And also, the Diatessaron is very important, because it comes from the same Aramaic textual tradition. The picture of Jesus that one finds in these Semitic-based texts is very different.

All the best,

Yuri.

CX

Then it is your assertion that the gospels are dated solely or mostly by the MSS evidence? HOw about you prove that

fair enough.


Actually If I'm not mistaken P90 completely includes the verses attested by P52. I don't find it curious at all and I suspect something very much like what you describe is precisely what occured. I wonder if we are addressing the different points here. I doubt very much that canonical John as we have it existed in the latter part of the first century. Most Johannine scholars conclude several revisions/redactions are attested by our current version. Thus canonical John could date to the 2nd century and the now lost autograph (or first revision) could easily date to the end of the first century but bear only some similarity to canonical John. This is equally plausible for all the gospels. They've all been redacted. Noone except the most obtuse fundamentalist argues otherwise.

So is your point that the gospels as we have them did not develop until the 2nd century or that the gospel genre did not exist at all in the first century? Certainly a strong case can be and is made for the former position. I think, however, the latter position would be much more difficult to establish though you are welcome to try.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Dear CX,

You will note that so far I've made no assertions whatsoever in regard to this matter. The general rules of the game would have it that whoever makes any specific assertion has the onus of proving it.

Not quite. Our two Papyri indeed overlap, but not completely, although these details aren't really so important.

Thank you.

Yes, it indeed looks like we're in full agreement here.

Well, what I'm basically trying to say is that the gospels -- as we have them now -- were not really finished until the second half of 2nd century. But this is not really my position only. In fact, I've borrowed this whole argument from Alfred Loisy. Have you ever read him?

As to the gospel genre as such, according to what Loisy said in his later years, this originated only ca 100 CE... Perhaps at the very end of 1c.

I don't necessarily agree with Loisy on everything, but I generally consider him as my main mentor in this whole NT field. IMHO, he's the last of the truly great -- and truly honest -- biblical scholars of the 20c. In all my years on the Net (as well as off the Net), I've never encountered even one professional biblical scholar who has read his two most important books, both written late in his life. (P. Kirby has these two books on his website in English translation.)

All the best,

Yuri.

Jayhawker Soule

It appears as if some of these specific assertions include:

• "... this "earliest gospel fragment" looks very much like a fraud -- a blatant deception that the New Testament scholars -- these modern-day apologists for the faith -- have been perpetrating on the unwary public."
• "... this absurd deification of P52 in today's NT studies may indicate much more about the professional honesty of these scholars -- or a lack thereof, as the case may be -- than about the real dating of our NT gospels."
• "... it sure looks like there's quite a bit of trickery that's going on in this field."
• "... if these bigots and con-artists think that I will remain silent about these blatant abuses in the NT profession, they are badly mistaken."

So here we have Yuri tilting at a cabal of NT "bigots and con-artists" lacking in "professional honesty" to insure the "absurd deification of P52", thereby engaging an a "blatant deception", etc.

In my opinion. it may be premature of you to talk about "onus" and/or the "general rules of the game".

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

Yuri Kuchinsky

Yes, in my opinion, P52 is for the most part a fraud, and I've already supplied quite a few arguments, including from recent academic literature, to demonstrate this. So what exactly do you want me to do now?

Or should I say things that I don't believe in, rather than saying what I believe to be true?

Yours,

Yuri.

Jayhawker Soule

No, I expect (and presume) you to be honest. I was looking for substantiation of the claim that at a cabal of NT "bigots and con-artists" lacking in "professional honesty" egaging in a "blatant deception". That seems to be a fairly extraordinary claim warranting exraordinary evidence. If evidence of fraud was, in fact, presented, I failed to recognize it as such and clearly owe you an apology.

CX

I can certainly accept that given the nature of the MSS evidence.

So then you consider it unlikely that anything remotely resembling the narratives in the gospels existed before 100 CE? It seems to me that issues and circumstances addressed point to the 3rd Xian generation or so (a view held by Udo Schnelle as well). I suspect the "stories" that the evangelists wrapped around Jesus words and some other traditions could have been around quite early, but I don't see a really strong reason to argue the point since we are mostly in agreement (except with regard to Shem Tob mentioned in another thread).