Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Didymus · 05-10-2006, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richbee

Who were the Apostles? (i.e. witnessess)

"Apostles" means messengers, not witnesses. None of the latter existed, except those who "bore witness" to what they believed, not what they saw.

Didymus

Julian · 05-10-2006, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

The problem is the variable of the accuracy, which is a reflection of how seriously the scribe took his task. If it was a casual copyist, copying a laundry list, all kinds of errors might intrude (but query if that would change the gist of the list). But if its was a sacred text and the scribe treated it as such, you might get very accurate copies indeed. Further, subsequent errors could be corrected by subsequent scribes (who aren't xerox machines but persons with reason and perhaps access to other mss for comparison).

Except that we have as many different NTs as we have MSS. Jerome was whining about this centuries ago which is why he made the vulgate. Not only do we have scribal errors, we also have deliberate alterations, harmonizations and so forth. Dictation, haplography, dittography, etc, etc... They may have taken their task seriously but that doesn't mean the same to us as it did to them. That being said, overall the copying was petty decent.

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Finally, whatever errors creep in, the notion that the text would morph from one meaning to some utterly different meaning seems well, unlikely.
Do you have an example of this happening in any extant mss. I'm unaware of this process being documented except in the speculations of certain scholars.

Except it happened more than you might think. Start with Hebrews 2.9 and the issue 'grace' versus 'apart.' Or maybe John 1:3, you can walk through that example here: http://www.earlham.edu/~seidti/iam/interp_mss.html

Don't have too much confidence in the scribes, they are fallible people with ideas.

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By the way, I know a great deal about paleography, at least as it applies to mediaeval mss in the OE and Norse contexts, which is my field of study. I'm very dubious of your narrative of how mss mutate.

They mutate quite a large amount, especially when they get re-written by someone with a christological agenda. I can give you thousands and thousands of examples.

Julian

Gamera · 05-10-2006, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julian

Quote:

Except that we have as many different NTs as we have MSS. Jerome was whining about this centuries ago which is why he made the vulgate. Not only do we have scribal errors, we also have deliberate alterations, harmonizations and so forth. Dictation, haplography, dittography, etc, etc... They may have taken their task seriously but that doesn't mean the same to us as it did to them. That being said, overall the copying was petty decent.

Yes, and query if any of the changes really altered the gist of the texts. That's all we care about (or at least all I care about, not worried about the fantasy of inerrancy).

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Except it happened more than you might think. Start with Hebrews 2.9 and the issue 'grace' versus 'apart.' Or maybe John 1:3, you can walk through that example here: http://www.earlham.edu/~seidti/iam/interp_mss.html

Don't have too much confidence in the scribes, they are fallible people with ideas.

They mutate quite a large amount, especially when they get re-written by someone with a christological agenda. I can give you thousands and thousands of examples.

Julian

But are there any clear examples where an known scribal interpolation or modification altered the meaning of the text in a way that is significant to Christianity and do we have any evidence of the frequency of this kind of permutation? I think that's the standard. Otherwise you may be simply engaging in a back formation in which you assume that christological agendas were alien to the original texts.

Gamera · 05-10-2006, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julian

Except it happened more than you might think. Start with Hebrews 2.9 and the issue 'grace' versus 'apart.' Or maybe John 1:3, you can walk through that example here: http://www.earlham.edu/~seidti/iam/interp_mss.html

I reviewed the examples. None of them result in any significant alteration in the gist of the texts at issues (except for simply transposition of letters that result in the wrong words being used, which is an obvious error, easily undone).

I think your argument goes more to the issue of inerrancy, which I find a useless concept unrelated to historical Christianity and limited to a late 19th century fundamentalist movement. I think the standard is, is there any evidence that any of the known copying errors and scribal modification substantially alter the meaning of these texts. I conclude they don't, but let's see some examples to the contrary.

Gamera · 05-10-2006, 01:36 PM

[QUOTE=Vorkosigan]
I

Quote:

don't know where these ideas of yours come from. There are no insiders or outsiders involved, it is part of the normal process of conversations across decades of time and a large empire. One person publishes a text, another publishes one in support or rebuttal in a different place at a later date. That's a normal process of creation of a corpus of documents. Do you think someone lived for 150 years and coordinated all this activity? Believe it or not, there are more choices than conspiracy and authenticity. You're riding a false dichotomy and it is not going to bring you home.

Well, except you have no evidence for this process, while I have evidence against it. There are certainly "insiders" as early as the mid-2nd century, when Tertullean reports that the miscreant author of the Acts of Paul (which included 3 Cor.) was punished for falsifying the work in Paul's name.

So the early church authorities disagree with you and didn't accept falsifications or "conversations" as you call them, among imitators as "normal". Indeed they punished the imitators.

Again, do you have any evidence of this purported process in any other culture relating to any other corpus of documents. And if you don't, why should anybody accept your narrative, given the early church's obvious disagreement with it.

Gamera · 05-10-2006, 01:48 PM

[QUOTE=Vorkosigan]

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Nope. There is no "Paul" persona -- that is purely in your mind. The first texts accepted as Paul's form the basis for subsequent forgery, which reveals itself as stylistically and theologically different than those first texts. Scholars accept that the 6-7 authentic letters are from Paul. The rest are frauds in imitation that use Paul as a figure to legitimate their own theological positions.

Provide us with an known example of this. Othewise the same argument could be made about James Joyce, reducing the argument to extremely unhelpful status.

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There is no "voice" we discern in the epistles. There are several voices, one in the authentic 6 letters, and others in the other epistles. The "voice" is purely in your mind. It is not in the text.

The problem with this is that the same argument can be made about any body of works, even those we know are by the same author. Stylistic analysis is pretty much conceptually adrift, and the real criterion in early attribution by those who are in a better position to know.

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Yes. That is why many of the epistles did not make it into the canon. The process of forging Paul is spread out over many decades and a wide geographic area. Since few, if any, had access to the entire collection of Pauline epistles -- the authentic ones and the forged ones together -- why would anyone question a document read out in a church and having the sanction of religion? Thus in some areas Third Corinthians was canonical.

Well, the reason the noncanonical letters didn't make it into the canon are complex, involving not only authenticity but relevance (i.e., purported inspiration). Thus, like I say, Tertullean rejects 3 Cor outright because he knows it was a fake. He had first or secondhand knowledge of the author and his punishment. The Epistle to Laodiceans was probably ignored not because anyone bothered to think it was a fake, but because it was so insubstantial. So you're rendition of how works got included or excluded into the canon is simplistic.

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No, the theology and stylistic and historical problems indicate different authors. The is why the overwhelming mainstream position is that only some of the NT writings attributed to Paul are actually from Paul.

Quite an assumption. Like I say, differences in texts is simply not a ground for assuming different authors. Any two texts are different, even texts by the same author, and those differences may have numerous sources -- topic, intellectual development, subsequent influences, age, the sheer randomness of human thought. Thus the whole textual critical project is ungrounded, in that it has no baseline to evaluate differences.

Gamera · 05-10-2006, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

Can you give any other known, documented examples of this? And if not, why not? Wouldn't we expect a lot of this and in historical times (like now) among semiliterate or newly literate people.

I take it Vorkosigan you can't give any examples. Is that what your lack of response implies?

Richbee · 05-10-2006, 08:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Didymus

"Apostles" means messengers, not witnesses. None of the latter existed, except those who "bore witness" to what they believed, not what they saw.

Didymus

LOL Didy

2 Peter 1:16 We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." [See: Matt. 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35] 18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

Richbee · 05-10-2006, 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Actually, lots of competent scholars doubt the historicity of Paul (see the Dutch Radical school and their modern successors, Hermann Detering and his school), and the Pauline letters (or affirm that Paul existed but argue the authentic Paulines are second-century products). No vast conspiracy required -- we already know that many extant Pauline works were fabricated -- including six or seven in the New Testament, along with works like Third Corinthians and others. Rather, what might have occurred is a natural evolution, since forgery was so widespread in early Christianity, with many different hands taking a dip, to develop a corpus of letters through the usual back-and-forth between rival groups. That is, after all, how we got two Petrine letters that are both forged in Peter's name.

Nor was the destruction of any authentic letters necessary, since your remark assumes that there were "authentic" letters to destroy.

Finally, as this thread amply evidences, many minds apparently possess powerful incentives to take anything with "Paul" on it and in a Bible as authentic.

Vorkosigan

I have never seen such rubbish like this, do you believe this crap?

A great and common canard is, that Paul didn't really know the Real, True, Jesus™.

<snip plagiarized material from Layman's blog>

Vorkosigan · 05-11-2006, 01:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

I take it Vorkosigan you can't give any examples. Is that what your lack of response implies?

No, it implies that I can't visit here every day. Hopefully I can get back to you later this week.

Michael

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