judge

This article by Richard Carrier contains some information which I believe may be improved upon, so I thought I would post some comments in this regard. Excerpts from Richard's article are in olive.


For centuries the Diatessaron of Tatian, along with Acts and the Pauline
Epistles (except Philemon), comprised the only accepted books in the Syrian churches,

This statement does not seem to really be accurate, and I think the problem is that there is/was no such group as the Syrian churches, inasmuch as there was no group of Syrian speaking churches who were united geographically or theologically.
This might be akin to referring to english speaking churches.

There is evidence in the doctrine of Addai that this was the case in Edessa, in the Roman Empire amongst a community that was to become the Syrian Orthodox Church during in Rabulla's time.
This community in Edessa was quite separate the the Church of the East centred over the border in Arbela and Babylon.


meaning that Tatian's stricter views, resulting in the rejection in 1 Timothy, did not win out.* Moreover, after the pronouncements of the 4th century on the proper content of the Bible, Tatian was declared a heretic and in the early 4th century Bishop Theodoretus of Cyrrhus and Bishop Rabbula of Edessa (both in Syria) rooted out all copies of the Diatessaron and replaced them with the four canonical Gospels (M 215).

Rabbula in Edessa, had no jurisdiction over the churches in persia. In fact in persia he was referred to as the Tyrant of Edessa. Rabbula may have rooted out all copies from some geographical areas in the Roman Empire but it does not make sense to think he would have done the same thing in area in Persia where he was hated.

In fact a COE monk Ibn-at-Tayyib, later translated the diatessaron into Arabic , indicating it does not seem to have been rooted out in Persia.(c.f., Ciasca's Introduction, p. xi. f. and Steinschneider's Polemische and apologetische Lit. in Arabische Sprache, pp. 52-55)



* Thanks to them, no early copies of the Diatessaron survive--although a very early fragment suggests it would have been crucial evidence for the true state of the early Gospels (see IX).

By the fifth century the Syrian Bible, called the Peshitta, became formalized somehow into its present form:

This does not tell us much really, especially in light of the fact Mar Aphrahat appear to quote the peshitta word for word long before this (against the old Syriac readings as well).


Philemon was accepted, along with James, 1 Peter and 1 John, but the remaining books are still expelled (2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Revelation, and Jude).* After the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D., the Eastern Syrian church, in turn divided between the Nestorian and the Syrian Orthodox Churches, broke away, and retained this canon of only 22 books (the Peshitta) until the present day.* However, to confuse matters, a monument erected by a Nestorian in China in 781 A.D.* states that there were 27 holy books (the number in the standard Western Bible of today), although they are not named and there is debate over what books are meant.

Although the official canon of the COE is only 22 books and only these ones are used liturgically, long before the 781 A.D. the "disputed five books" were none the less accepted as "holy" writings but were never accorded the same status as the peshitta.

judge

As it seems this article on the Infidels site contains information which is wrong, I wonder if we might be able to let Richard Carrier know.
Perhaps I have missed something and Richard can clear things up

Toto

You can email Richard Carrier at rcarrier@infidels.org and include a link to this thread.

Richard Carrier

Since I am simply summarizing what Metzger says (and I state this explicitly in the intro to that essay), your beef really is with him, not me. Unless you find that I mischaracterize what he says somehow, in which case I definitely want to revise the text to make it accurate. Otherwise, I am not in a position to choose you over Metzger as a source.



When Metzger says Syrian churches, I say Syrian churches. When he says "Syrian church" in some abstract sense, so do I. Whether he means by either phrase a coherent organized entity doesn't seem to matter for anything he says that I summarize--it simply means churches in Syria (the Roman Empire east of Greece and Egypt, and on into the Parthian and New Persian Empires, south of Armenia and north of Arabia) who often employ a Syriac bible. Note that I do repeat some of the divisions within the Syrian church in my essay, when Metzger brings them up himself. But I cannot claim more than he does. On the other hand, whether any of Metzger's generalizations about all these churches are false would be important. Please let me know if you have any evidence of that. Otherwise, I don't see any actual dispute here.



I don't know to what extent Metzger even implies the Syrian Church went so far in scope as that. He does not speak much of Christian canon beyond the Tigris. But at any rate, where he means to draw any border is between you and him. I took no position on this in my summary of his book. For example:



Since I never mention Persia, again I don't understand what statement of mine you are objecting to.



Again, I never said he did. My claim was only that Metzger reports that the record shows that two (not just the one) church leaders in Syria (the Edessan church, as I state) rooted out all copies--though I meant those they could find and will have the essay emended to show that. Whether they "missed some" that slipped over the border (eastward or westward) is a matter for speculation. Their campaign succeeded within the known Syriac textual tradition all the same. No bible after the 4th century contained any Gospels other than the canonical four--not even in China, despite the fact that Nestorians got there as early as the 8th century. Though certainly some fragments of the D. have survived, extra-canonically, as I explicitly state.



Metzger does not discuss this, so I cannot assess it. It certainly has no bearing on the canon, which is what my essay is about.



And that's why, if you want to know more, you go beyond a summary and read the actual book the summary is summarizing. You know, as a rule of thumb.



As my essay explicitly states. So I don't see a dispute here, either.

It seems to me like you missed the crucial sentence at the beginning where I said my essay is a summary of another book. All the quibbles above are about points of detail that obviously are skipped over in a summary--I am sure there are hundreds of similarly skipped details about all the canonical traditions I summarize from Metzger. That's the nature of the genre. For the whole juice, read Metzger. My one misleading remark I'll have corrected, though. Thanks!

judge

Richard , thank you for your response. Your points are well taken. I really should respond to Metzger here. I will try to put something together at some point and will let you know when I do.

Thanks again for your time and response. :notworthy

Richard Carrier

That would be useful. Please take the trouble to cite sources / scholarship as much as possible in whatever you produce--then I can insert a new endnote linking to your essay on the subject, if you get it online anywhere.