jgibson000

My "posting skills"?? Have I shown any inability in posting messages??

JG

Amaleq13

First, discussing moderator action (or alleged lack thereof) is prohibited. Second, a process for reporting alleged personal attacks is readily available to all IIDB members. Please avoid the first and utilize the second in the future.

ETA: And it would be just great if Steven and Jeffrey would take their exchange to PM's so as to avoid derailing the thread.

Thanks in advance,


Doug aka Amaleq13, BC&H moderator

Vinnie

I thought of another instance I had forgotten...I mentioned Mark under the 2DH but failed to mention the putative sayings document Q. It also, under the 2DH, was rapidly inscribed, independently, by two evangelists shortly after its composition. Q can be dated anywhere from 40 through 70 and even if an earlier dating is preferred for a layer of Q, the final version used by Mt and Lk is not dated this early. Q and Mark present us with an extremely rapid use of source material by Christians. A more complete evaluation would require discussing the potential origin of each. I will add a note to this effect and also a note about paleographic datings and the use of ca. and my comment above to spin about the plethora of examples...

Vinnie

spin

I'm a little shocked here, Andrew. On what exactly do you base your VHO? Seriously, I get the idea so far that your VHO has no basis whatsoever, so please correct me.

I have looked for more recent direct analysis regarding the fragment and the only person to have done so to my knowledge was the A. Schmidt I cited who found from a comparison with a Chester Beatty papyrus that P52 was perhaps half a century later than the Roberts dating. Then again, soon after Roberts' article, a review I cited found the 150 CE dating could at best only be tentative and that one couldn't really close the door on later than 150 CE. Where is all the scholarship to contradict Schmidt and Colwell?


spin

PhilosopherJay

Hi Ben,

Andrew Criddle gave a fuller quote from Origen in his message #2744022 and I repeated it in post #4205127. I put it at the end of the message, perhaps I should have put it earlier. I apologize for any confusion this might have caused.

Here is the fuller text:

Quotation marks are an Eighteenth century invention, so one always has to be careful before one assumes that the modern translator of an ancient text has used them properly. If the logic of the passage makes no sense in the place he has put them and only makes sense in another place, we have to assume the translator has made a mistake.

Note that Origen says that "Basilides...has related the Apostle's statement to "irrelevant blasphemous tales." However, if we accept the quotation marks as accurate, then Basilides has not only related the Apostle's statement to "irrelevant blashphemous tales," he has actually changed the Apostle's statement. Origen does not say that he changed the Apostle's text.

The charge only makes sense if Origen is noting that the Apostle (Paul) has said "I was once alive apart from the law" and is saying that Basilides related this sentence to "irrelevant, blasphemous tales" by adding "That is before I came into this body I lived in the kind of body that is not subject to the law; the body of a domestic animal or a bird" to it.

One has to ask, "What is "the Apostle's statement" that Origen is referring to?

Is it a) "Indeed the Apostle has said 'I was once alive apart from the law' at some time or other. That is before I came into this body I lived in the kind of body that is not subject to the law; the body of a domestic animal or a bird"
b) I was once alive apart from the law at some time or other

If we choose 'A,' as the translator's punctuation suggests, then Origen is tacitly agreeing that the Apostle talked about being in the body of a domestic animal or a bird, and Origen is making an unsubstantiated charge against Basilides.

On the other hand, if we pick 'B,' Origen's charge of relating the Apostle's Statement to "irrelevant and blasphemous material" makes perfect sense.

It is obvious that in order for the quoted sentence to make sense, the sentence has to have been:

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay


[/QUOTE]

jgibson000

Whether or not your claim about when inverted commas (= "... ") came to be used to indicate a quotation is true, it is simply not the case, contray to what you seem to be asserting, that Greek writers did not have a, let alone a standard and recognized, means of indicating that they were quoting someone.

Please, Jay! Before you make even more of a fool of yourself than you have been doing when it comes to saying what is and is not in a Greek text, or what a Greek text says, learn Greek!

andrewcriddle

There was an article published in 2005 by Brent Nogbri in HTR called something like "the use and abuse of P52" which, while itself claiming that the dating of P52 is deeply uncertain, provides good photographs of P52 and various dated papyri that maybe relevant to dating.

I spent some time comparing the handwriting of P52 to the other photographs and IMVHO and IMS the good matches spread over a range from around 100 CE or maybe slightly earlier to around 160 CE or slightly later. I ended up thinking that the best guess for a date was 135 CE with a rather wide range either side. Maybe 100-170 CE.

(I discussed this briefly with Brent at Philadelphia in 2005 and IMS he said that his case may have been weakened by the reviewers of his paper insisting he used only dated manuscripts for comparison with P52. He said there was a manuscript which was almost certainly late ie 3rd century and which was a good match but which in the absence of a firm date he had to omit.)

Stephen Carlson has blogged on Brent Nogbri and P52.

Andrew Criddle

PhilosopherJay

Hi Doug,

I apologize. I was unaware of the process. I shall use it in the future.

Warmly,

Philosopoher Jay

Ben C Smith

I agree completely. You may have noticed that my rendition omitted quotation marks altogether.

I fear I did not comprehend the rest of your post. The translation that I am aware of has this order:

[Basilides] says: Indeed the apostle has said: I was once alive apart from the law at some time or other. That is, before I came into this body I lived in the kind of body that is not subject to the law, to wit, the body of a domestic animal or a bird.

You, however, gave the following translation:

Indeed the Apostle has said: I was once alive apart from the law at some time or other. He says, That is before I came into this body I lived in the kind of body that is not subject to the law; the body of a domestic animal or a bird.

Again, I unfortunately do not have access to the Greek, but are you saying that you have some cause for postponing the phrase he says like that?

Ben.

jgibson000

If you give me he actual text reference, I'll post the Greek. Then "Philosopher" Jay can tell us what it really says and whether or not he's engaged in selective quotation.

Jeffrey