Bede

You are correct in this. The texts in the garbage dumps are mainly fragments preserved by the special dry conditions of being buried undisturbed in sand. Any text that remained in use would have fallen to bits centuries ago. It is not just heretical writings that have disappeared. We have NOTHING WHATSOEVER from before the fourth century from the manuscript tradition. This is proof enough that the loss of these works was not caused by anything other than wear and tear because otherwise books considered harmless would have survived.

You are, I think, referring to the Nag Hammadi library. We actually have no idea why these were hidden. It is quite possible that it was the same reason that Jews used a Genizah to dispose of sacred writings (and which practice is responcible for the preservation of lots more stuff in Egypt). They were preserved for the same reason as the garbage papyri - lying undisturbed in very dry conditions.

As I explained, no writings on papyrus exist at all from this period except those thrown away or buried in Egypt. Noting, nadda, zilch. Therefore, it is utterly unnecessary for you to suggest any sort of campaign to suppress literature that we know for an absolute fact would not have survived this long anyway. Almost all the works that they did try to preserve have disappeared. We have two bibles and that is it from the countless number that were produced.

Best wishes

James

dog-on

Thanks James, but it is also possible for much older papyrus to survive even if it was not buried in Egypt. Have you seen this?


http://www.crystalinks.com/derveni_papyrus.html

If this is truely a document from 340 B.C., that is.

Robert

Bede

OK. And there's the Villa of the Papyri near Vesuvius as well. So much for trying to keep things simple. What all these have in common is that they were buried and left undisturbed. Do you see the difference between this and a document remaining in use? Only those that are buried and lie undisturbed (the vast majority of which come from Egyptian rubbish dumps) survive. This means that we can read nothing into the lack of survival of early bibles. No suspension of disbelief is necessary.

Best wishes

James

dog-on

The suspension of disbelief is not required due, in and of itself, to the lack of early bibles per se, but does seem to be an a priori requirement of mainstream NT scholarship regarding the validity of the texts that have actually survived. This, especially being the case with regards to the accuracy of the older texts, of which we have no examples, from which the NT canon was derived.

Just a thought. If one were to remove all of the Hebraisms from the Pauline Epistles including the idea that Paul was himself a Jew, would the theology that was left in such redacted writings stand on its own? Would Paul's basic theology actually change?

Bede

Hi Robert,

Well, luckily for NT scholarship, this isn't quite true. Remember all those rubbish dumps? They contain a few early fragments of the NT texts from well before Eusebius's time. Here's a list of them all: http://www.kchanson.com/papyri.html. More are turning up all the time.

Basically, this means that we have coverage of most of the NT up to a century before the Council of Nicea. There are decrepancies but on the whole the text seems to have passed through Nicea pretty much untouched.

The big question is, what happened before 250AD? Here it gets harder because we have so few direct witnesses. Instead, we rely on early quotations of the NT from church fathers like Clement of Alexandria. Before about 200AD it all gets very dark and mysterious and we have few clues as to what might have happened to the NT writings in their first century or so of existence. The thing is that this early, the Christian church was so marginal and fragmented that there was no central authority in a position to suppress texts it didn't like. So really, it becomes quite implausible that the Church could have engaged in a campaign to alter texts which we never hear about. It is true that many early heretical writings didn't survive but we do have references to them, quotations from them and records of what the Church thought was wrong with them. None of this evidence exists for largescale changes to the NT itself.

I'm a historian, not a theologian, so I can't really help with your Paul question. Sorry.

Best wishes

James

gregor

Thanks Stephen and Iasion. I guess I ought to stop being lazy and read several of Metzger's books.

dog-on

Thanks again for you responses James.

So, as a historian, would you admit to the possibility that the NT writings as they existed as of 200 A.D. could have been edited by one branch of the fragmented Christian church based on their own particular theological viewpoint, that through a stroke of good luck, (the Supreme Emperor Constantine), this particular branch then became the preeminent religion of the Roman Empire at which point, any writings they felt were inappropriate could have been, by the power of the Supreme Emperor, suppressed?

Isn't it the case that the victors usually write the history?

Bede

Hi Robert,

As a historian, I can say your suggestion is extremely unlikely. I explained how we have many witnesses to the NT text dating from before Constantine. If what you suggested is true, then many of these pre-Constantine witnesses would be substantially different to our own post-Constantine version.

Also, you are going backwards. It is not up to me to disprove your speculations. Instead, you must produce positive evidence for your theory. I have gone to considerable trouble to explain to you the positive evidence that means NT scholars are fully justified in believing our text is basically reliable. Please could you give me the positive evidence that you have that the NT writings were substantially edited by a particular group?

Yes, there are issues with the NT text that some people tend to land on. But scholars can and have examined these and improved our texts. What you seem to be implying is that there are loads of other problems they haven't corrected. You need to give me evidence for these problems and explain how they got into the text.

Alternatively, you could just admit you were mistaken yourself and have learned something new.

Best wishes

James

dog-on

James, I don't mean to be obtuse and excuse me if I come off that way. Here you say that "we have many witnesses to the NT text dating from before Constantine". How many would that happen to be? How many of these wrote prior to 200 A.D.? Of those, how many are first hand sources? Are there any witnesses to the NT text who were not part of the early church? If these witnesses were all part of the same tradition, even if there was substantial editing of the older source materials, why would you expect their stories to differ?

I know that Marcion's text's can be partially reconstructed using Tertullian and others. His reading disagreed with the church. How do you as a historian know that his writings weren't closer to the originals.

Joseph Smith had about 11 witnesses to his golden plates and that was within the last 200 years. Do you, as a historian think it is possible that these plates never existed?

Bede

I explained all this a couple of posts ago. I also gave you a link to the full list of papyri witnesses to the text. I also explained how quotations from the early fathers are used.

I don't think we can go much further Robert. You seem determined to cling to your idea when you have no evidence to give to to justify it.

Best wishes

James