Transient

The problem is that the evidence against his theories is not very strong. As I have said, I think his theory re Constantine is wrong for more logical deductive reasons than evidence but to argue against it on the basis of evidence alone is hopeless atm. It is better to admit that and move along.

I might add tho that it was evidence that I sought originally when checking out the church foundations and good evidence for support or otherwise of the church is lacking to a large extent.
By applying the same deductive reasoning that got points away from Pete's theory I seem to be going a full circle back to where I started. It would appear that Eusebius did very little tampering with the existing books and letters - otherwise surely he would have done a much better job.
Therefore, going backwards it would seem that they originated in the first century mostly and seem quite authentic.

spin

That still makes it compelling though, doesn't it? There is no evidence in favor of his theories.


spin

spin

When Stephan has shown a certain knowledge of the available evidence and the analysis of that evidence, it's not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with Stephan, but dealing with "the hurricane force winds of reason".

I frequently don't agree with Stephan Huller, but I find no reason to disagree with him here. It would be useful to read up on the material that is being discussed before mocking it.

Nothing is beyond question, but one needs to have sufficient background knowledge in the field to question meaningfully. The mountainman theory of the origin of christianity is fundamentally a retrojection of the notion of a modern conspiracy theory, one that has no positive evidence to support it, and one that has sufficient evidence against on many fronts.

Dura Europos clearly shows christianity 70 years before Eusebius.

Arias shows a rift in christianity over interpretation of the position of Jesus that has a heritage that takes us back well before Eusebius.

The christian religious documents show a vast diversity of quality of Greek in the writing of them. Mark is much less knowledgeable than Luke in the use of the language, yet both Matthew and Luke are based on Mark plus another document and other unique sources. All this doesn't allow hope for a scribal school popping out the literature.

The record of early heresies is fundamentally meaningless if the heresies didn't exist. Also the church fathers who reputedly existed before Eusebius would require invention at what benefit?

This is such a silly issue. It is someone who hasn't taken the time to try to understand the context he is dealing with before concocting a crock of swill based solely on a relative silence of literary sources. Palaeographic datings have to be dismissed because a substantial number of the Oxyrhynchus christian texts date from before Eusebius.

It would be more fruitful putting aside our cultural baggage and studying the texts for what they actually say to us before inventing fanciful scenarios that reflect modern times rather than the past.


spin

avi

Was that rejoinder, Toto, supposed to address my question? If so, allow me to venture, that it did not accomplish that task.

I asked you, WHY Professor Gardner's text includes the GREEK word, anastrofi, written in GREEK symbols, if the Coptic fragment does not contain it?

The implication of his essay, in my opinion, if no one else's, is that the Coptic fragment contains a GREEK word, now, if that is incorrect, please explain WHY his text embraces the Greek word, in Greek symbols, rather than the Coptic word, (borrowed from Greek, perhaps), written in Coptic symbols, which you assert, and I accept, without knowing anything about Coptic, just because you write it, that it appears there, in footnote 12.

If I have understood your post, above, you believe that there exists NO Greek words in the Coptic fragments, only Coptic words, including some words, written in Coptic, originally from Greek, such as anastrofi.

FINE.

GOOD, then, can you please explain Professor Gardner's text, which I quoted for you? Why does the text of his article explicitly employ the Greek word, anastrofi, rather than the Coptic word, anastrofi, written in Coptic symbols?

I hope you do understand that there exist TWO different words,
anastrofi, a Greek word, and
anastrofi, a Coptic word, quite likely borrowed from Greek.

They may well have identical meanings, I don't know.

What I do know, and you seem not to grasp, is that Professor Gardner's text, refers to anastrofi, the GREEK word, not anastrofi, the Coptic word. I am not writing anything about the footnote, #12, which is utterly incomprehensible to me. I am writing about Professor Gardner's text.

If there exists no Greek in the fragments, why do these Greek words appear in his article?

Imagine you are examining the fragments of Mani's text from DunHuang. Imagine that they are all written using HanZi, and someone, some expert, comes along and inserts into his explanation of the contents of the fragments, a word written in Sanskrit. Wouldn't you then imagine that the fragments from DunHuang contain that word? What other reason could there be for explaining the meaning of the fragments, except that they contain a word written in Sanskrit. If they didn't contain that Sanskrit word, then, why was the expert using Sanskrit vocabulary?

avi

Toto

At this point, you need to address that to Professor Gardner, if he will answer your email.

The Coptic word is borrowed from Greek, and is written virtually the same, but you insist that the word in the text is Greek and not Coptic, and you insist on finding some meaning behind that. I can't help you.

stephan huller

I haven't read the article thoroughly enough, and I have absolutely no familiarity with the subject matter. Nevertheless my experience with Coptic manuscripts is that even if Greek loan words are present (i.e. written out in Coptic letters in the MS) it is fairly typical for scholars to write them out in Greek letters.

Why so? There are a lot of reasons for this. One of the obvious reasons is cost and difficulty (ask Roger Pearse about how much fun it is to deal with Coptic fonts and typsetting issues). Also most of the people reading these articles can't read Coptic.

Again I have no familiarity with this material. Nevertheless I think Gardner would make a bigger deal about finding a text written out in Coptic by a scribe who selectively decided to write out certain words in Greek. My guess is that he would have made a footnote or some reference in the main body of the work to make that clear to the reader.

I know in the DSS literature publishers will take special note in their translation if certain words were written in a different script.

Let me give you another example.

I happen to have this book on my shelf:

http://books.google.com/books?id=VhH...ed=0CDMQ6AEwAQ

There is no Google preview. The original text is in Coptic but when Greek loan words are present in the Coptic text the translator spells out those words in Greek letters in the translation. It's his way of alerting his readership that a word which is familiar to them (and has specific theological implications) is present in the text.

Remember, these monographs appeal to a very erudite readership. Most can at least read Greek letters and make out what the words are and know their meaning. Most can't read Coptic.

Anyway what would be the point of spelling out the words in Coptic? The concepts go back to Greek theological or philosophical concepts anyway.

stephan huller

Some more Greek loanwords in Coptic -why would someone need to write the caption in Coptic?



Question 1. the original Greek phrase is? _______________________

Answer - Χριστός ἀνέστη! Christ is risen!

Do you see where we are going with this?

stephan huller

Another example - I know very little about Coptic grammar but I am aware that 'pi' is the definite article so I can read 'pi apostolos' across the top 'apostle' and then pi hagios = 'saint' on the left and 'Markos' on the right.



Getting the hang of this?

stephan huller

saint Maurice

Sheshbazzar

And these date to when?