RAFH

Oh, you are just too modest.

Johann Sin

Could be off-topic, but does anyone knows where are the original manuscript of the 4 Gospels and have it even gone through carbon-dating test like the Gospel of Judas did?

spin

Hmm, I guess you're right. :angel:

Julian

We have no original manuscripts, everything we have is quite late. Also, carbon dating is not very accurate, no more so than paleography, and would not settle any of the dating issues generally discussed.

Julian

Roger Pearse

True. There are a couple of other points that people might wish to consider, which pertain equally to all literary texts from antiquity.

The idea of an 'original manuscript' rather infers something like the modern process of producing a manuscript which is then sent to the printers for dissemination. Once we consider that no such thing was involved, in the era of hand-copying, it becomes obvious that a lot of questions are being begged here. For the "Life of St. Columba" by Adomnan, for instance, there isn't one; Adomnan worked on the text throughout his life and copies were taken at various stages, whenever anyone wanted one.

Likewise the idea of a manuscript reflects a written culture. But since most works of the period would have been dictated, possibly to several scribes, this also raises various questions.

No authorial manuscript of any ancient literary text exists for any work composed before the 13th century (so Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars).

All the best,

Roger Pearse

S.C.Carlson

True, and the various components of the NT certainly qualify as "literary texts."

Note that we do have the originals of various "documentary texts," such as personal letters, contracts, receipts, and other kinds of day-to-day records because they were buried in a trash heap and later excavated.

Stephen

Solo

I wonder how the appearance of the LXX changed the accessibility of the Bible among the Jewish literate classes in the Diaspora, not simply because language issues but because of proscriptions that existed among Jews to copy the texts in Hebrew. The scribal authority was traditionally part of the priestly functions of the tribe of Levi. I note the hostility of the synoptics to the Levite scribes whom it classes with the Pharisees. This is noticeable especially in Matthew (7 'woes' to Luke's 1), which would be the closest to the Palestinian origins of the movement.

I strongly suspect a 'democratization' of biblical studies took place among the Jewish intellectuals with the spread of the Septuagint, with the resulting greater confidence of laity (like Paul) to interpret the texts. This would likely become another spot of friction for cosmopolitan Jews repatriating, or having regular ties, to Palestine.

(I am reasoning along the lines of the spread of Protestantism through the vernacular Bibles - of course minus Gutenberg. I.e. Did Paul and Luther have both a highly developped sense of smell when it came to the sociology of the middle classes/lower ranks of nobility- and the psychology of the graphomaniac ?)

Has anyone looked at this aspect of literary creativity at the break of the ages ? Much obliged.

Jiri

Huon

From Catholic Encyclopedia :
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11446b.htm
The fact that we have the Greek versions of the gospels does not mean necessarily that their initial versions were written in Greek.

Ben C Smith

I have several of the patristic comments on the original language of Matthew, including the Eusebian account of Pantaenus that Huon alluded to, on one of my web pages. It is far from exhaustive.

Ben.

Malachi151

But the fact that there is direct word for word copying among them does.

Matthew couldn't have been written in Hebrew because it copies directly from Mark.

Even if Mark were written in Hebrew and Matthew and Luke copied from Mark in Hebrew, that all of them would have been translated identically is basically impossible.

Plus there are many other good linguistic reasons that show that Mark was originally written in Greek, probably by a Latin speaker, same goes for Luke. Since Matthew shares text identically with these, word for word, it too was originally written in Greek.