Juliana

The manuscripts of the gospels do not even accord in half of all the words. They show more variants than there are words in the gospel (cf. Aland-Nestle "Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine"). The manuscripts show that the copyists continued making the same mistakes that can be found comparing the Caesar sources with the gospels. Textual criticism does nothing else than trying to get back from the multitudinous different variants and "lectiones" to the original version - without always succeeding, however.

Amaleq13

Does this answer any of my questions? If so, I need you to be more explicit.

Does Carotta offer examples of the same scribal errors from other literature or are the errors he suggests unique to the Gospels?

Are these common errors that are discussed by scholars or are they unique errors that have no parallels?

Is there a pattern to the errors that would connect them to a single copyist?

Juliana

The gospels are not the only example for this kind of copyist errors and revisions. It was no different with the Homeric texts as Fotis Kavoukopoulos writes in his introduction :

"The presentation of Mr. Carotta has the advantage of recognizing the major importance of dislocations and slips from one form to another and from one meaning to another in the transmission of an ancient oral or written text. The fault that was opened due to technical failings of the means of oral transmission, has allowed, e. g. in the dynastic courts of Ionia of the eighth century BC, the appropriation of ancient Mycenaean oral poetry and from it the making of those Homeric poems that glorify the ancestors of the princes and even the colonization of Ionia; the failings in the transmission of manuscripts would have allowed certain dominant groups in the orient at the time of the Imperium Romanum to make the cult of Caesar a Judaizing and Hellenizing religion."

Aquila Pacis

Yes. Hebrew Scripture "here" and Greek novels "there"! Sorry, but pun intended...seriously now:

This is highly questionable, although one can definitely say that the Markan author must have known Jewish scripture, but probably only to the same extent as Asinius Pollio (see below). As part of the Roman Empire, the Eastern Mediterranean was subject to cultural - and that also means religious - hegemony, Roman hegemony. The article by Kim Tae Hun (Biblica, 1998) suggests that the Markan readers (or better: audience), i.e. the first Christians, were familiar with the Julian cult. Maybe they were even practising it. Furthermore, apocryphal writings like the Gospel of Peter partially show that early Christianity was mentally close to the sacral and intellectual environment of the Romans (cf. Bussmann, 2000). On the other side, the Caesarean source, Feldman (1953) has shown that "there appears to be considerable evidence for Asinius Pollio's interest in and knowledge of Judaism. This may even serve as a clue to possible Jewish sources for the famous Fourth Eclogue, which Virgil dedicated to Pollio." The Jews themselves didn't know of a "king of the Jews" (which every sane Jew would have rejected right away) named Jesus. A "wise king" is mentioned in the letter of Mara bar Sarapion, and this "testimony" is extensively used by modern scholarship to underline Jesus' hypothetical jewishness, for instance in Theissen & Merz (2000). But connecting this "wise king" to Jesus is plain jibber-jabber. There is not a thing to back this thesis. The rest is mockery, Jesus is portrayed as the son of a Roman soldier (Talmud, Bab. Sabbath f. 104 b. etc.). One would have expected at least a tiny Jewish uproar, if someone from the midst of their religious community tried to rise as their king, and moreover as son of God. The Gospel of Mark would surely have resonated in anti-Christian writings of the Jewish community. But there is nothing. So chances are that the early Christians were an autonomous group, independent of but nonetheless inspired by Judaism. The top-down approach, i.e. Roman religion as part of imperial structures diffusing into every-day life, enforcing Roman practises, liturgy and the like, would be the one natural assumption. In addition, Caesar and the young Caesar had resettled a lot of the veterans from the civil wars (!) in that area, who were practising the new cults anyway. The bottom-up approach, i.e. one small man - or in the case of Mark a little group of early Christians - in a very heterogenous region, up against other preachers and of course massive religious competitors, namely Judaism and Julian cults including the consecutive ruler cults, doesn't seem very convincing.

As I stated in my previous post, the Markan author consciously chose the romanized version of the Greek biography, the Latin Vita as his genre for the Gospel.

You're right, the latter is true. But one would first need to decide which theory of origin is the more complicated one...and as I stated above, only when looking at the big picture, there are many reasons to reject the bottom-up theory as being the less complicated one.

Juliana

To give only one exemple: One of the innumerable passages discussed in the textual critic is Jn. 3:25-28:
"Then there arose a question between some of John’s disciples with a Jew about purifying … John answered and said … Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ…"
The fact that the text here says "meta Ioudaiou," ‘with a Jew’ (in some manuscripts: "meta Ioudaiôn," 'with the Jews'), and not, as one would expect 'with Jesus', has irritated many commentators. Accordingly there are numerous conjectures that suggest 'with Jesus', cf. Aland & Nestle (18/1957): meta Iêsou Bentley cj : meta tou Iêsou Baldensperger cj : meta tôn Iêsou Osc. Holtzmann cj.

When Carotta is supposing (cf. Jesus was Caesar, p. 175 and note 354) that "meta Ioudaiou", was based on an original "meta Iouliou", 'with Iulius', his conjecture is not more adventurous as the common ones, on the contrary: it requires fewer letters to be changed.

Vorkosigan

Because you're selectively reading them, and because your "methodology" allows you to make any Latin word you want into any Greek word you want. Since you selectively read with the a priori conclusion that it all relates to Caesar, and you can read any word that you want in any way you like, it's no problem to relate the two.

What you're really doing is playing a "What would Mark's origin be if it were taken from Pollio?" game rather than deducing the origin of Mark by studying Mark.

Of course, Carotta is not the only person to play this exact same game.... Jesus was Buddha does the exact same thing with Sanskrit "parallels" with the same utter lack of method.

• "It could then be shown how "Matthew" first had cut these two sources to little pieces and then pasted them together anew. In this way he had preserved nearly all the original words but created a new whole, a collage, a mosaic. The result therefore, was purely fictitious. "Matthew" displays a most artificial way of "translating" - a fact that has lead to much confusion. Sometimes he translated the sense of the words or sentences, sometimes he translated the sound of words and sentences, and sometimes he tried to combine the sound and sense of the original Sanskrit in the Greek. Nearly all the motives had been taken over from the two Sanskrit sources - e.g. the crucifixion and the Eucharist - but combined anew."

...and this should not be missed:

• "Lindtner also pointed out how the names of the four evangelists could be traced back to the original Sanskrit. For instance, the evangelist Mark is in Greek called Markos. The Sanskrit word is Kumâras, a name for the Buddha as a child. As can easily be seen, the consonants are the same in both languages, namely m-r-k-s. Each of these four consonants has a given numerical value, in this case 40+100+20+200. The numerical value, of course, remains the same, even if the original order of the individual consonants is changed. This rule is technically known as gematria, and gematria was extremely common in ancient Hebrew writings. Gematria also allows the use of anagramas, of course. And thus it can easily bee seen that San. Kumâras has the same value as Greek Markos, namely 360. Hence it is formally perfectly correct to “translateâ€? Sanskrit Kumâras by Greek Markos. Such examples are extremely numerous, providing us with cumulative evidence to establish the direct historical relationship. For instance, the first disciple of the Buddha is called Putras. In Greek this person becomes the first disciple of "Jesus", namely Petros. Here, as often, not only are the original consonants retained, but their original order is likewise retained. Nearly all personal names and names of places in the Gospels can be accounted for in this way. Many such examples were provided during Lindtner´s presentation.

And thus Amalek's desire is fufilled....

• Such "translations" surely strike us as funny or artificial. Perhaps we can hardly believe that the evangelists translated from the Sanskrit into Greek in this irresponsible and unserious fashion.
  
  But the fact is that such funny and artificial translations were quite common not only among the ancient Jews but also among the Indian Buddhists. So seen in a historical perspective, the four Gospels have been “translated� according to the rules common in those days. Good parallels to this curious way of “translating� can still be found among the remaining fragments of the Greek version (Septuaginta) of the Hebrew Bible done by Aquila who lived during the reign of emperor Hadrian (117-138). Aquila aimed to be faitful to the syllables and the letters of the Hebrew even if the Greek translation became meaningless. For instance, making use of homophony, he rendered the Hebrew ´elôn, meaning “holm oak� by the Greek aulôn, meaning “hollow, ditch, gully�. Aquila´s “translation� was very much in favour with the rabbis! One must, in other words, know the original in order not to misunderstand the translation. (For more such examples, see N.F. Marcos, The Septuagint in Context. Introduction to the Greek Versions of the Bible, Leiden 2000, pp. 115-118.)

The Sanskrit really explains it much better. I mean, take this can't-be-beat explanation of Matthew:

• Matthew 17: 5. Jesus takes Peter et al. up on a high mountain, where a transfiguration takes place. Peter offers to set up three shelters (Gr. skênê). From the context one does not understand why Peter would want to set up such shelters. Candidly, Luke 9:33 admits that Peter did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a bright (Gr. nephelê phôteinê) cloud envelops them. The Buddhist source solving the problems is CPS 6. Bhagavat is staying with Mucilindas, the nâgarâja. Then a saptâhiko ´kâlameghah samupâgatah, CPS 6:2. To protect Bhagavat from the rain of the a-kâla-megha, lasting seven days, Mucilindas offers his hood (phana) as a shelter. Matthew, clearly, has inverted the order of events. Also, he has “mistranslatedâ€? a-kâla, which either means “out of seasonâ€?, or “brightâ€?. To make sense he should, as the CPS, first have mentioned the dark rain cloud, and then Peter´s offer to put up shelters (San. phana becoming Gr. skênê). He confuses his reader by translating a-kâla as “brightâ€?, though the sense required here is “out of seasonâ€?. All the other details are also in the Buddhist source: The seven days become six days in Matthew and Mark, about eight days in Luke. Muci-lindas inspires to Moses and Elias; the description of Jesus is based on that of the Buddha in CPS 10; Peter (Gr. Petros) etc. were originally Tripusa etc., CPS 2. (p-t-r-s/t-r-p-s, same numerical value and consonants). 2.

And if you don't like that, there's these Gospel Parallels from the Pali texts. There's a whole literature on this. And if that doesn't hit you, type "Samghabhedavastu" in google and start looking at the Sanskrit play that started it all.

Clearly Carotta is wrong. The Gospels are not bad translations of Pollio. They are bad translations of the Buddhist scriptures.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

You mean a text cited by the writer of Mark. Ezk 17 is cited in Mk 4.

Vorkosigan

Juliana

Coming back to your posting concerning the parabels, Aquila Pacis.
I've asked the author to elaborate a little on it. The following is his response.

What Aquila Pacis wrote is indeed correct. The problem he addresses consists in there being two different steps. First one has to establish what it was that Mark confused, then what he made of it and how he came to his solution, what his procedure was.
Detecting the former is easier than the latter, the more so since this can have occured in stages, by different successive hands.
It is clear however, that a confusion takes place, that the text becomes incomprehensible. Then it must be reorganized to make sense again. Apparently Mark (resp. the process of redaction we call 'Mark') in doing so has at one time divided a single passus into different pericopes, at another time he added something from the next to it.
It is complicated particularly when he makes a parabel out of it because, as Aquila Pacis correctly notes, a parabel becomes independent and therefore cannot use all requisites, possibly needs new ones, using one and the same requisite twice or several times, one time in this sense another time in that one.
How could this have occured? It is conceivable that a first hand wrote several possible interpretations for one and the same incomprehensible word as an apostil and then a copyist tried to put in as many of the listed variants as possible making parabels out of them or by planting known parabels where they just happened to fit in.
In case a requisite could not be used the Evangelist, as a rule, tried to to fit it in the next pericope. Sometimes he simply lost one, however, mostly when he found it to be too warlike. The rule which he seems to usually follow, that the miraculous victories of Caesar became the vitorious miracles of Jesus thus having the bellicose of the battle give way to the peacefulness after the victory could have affected the parabels as well. This could explain that the birds fighting each other become peaceful ones nesting in the palm of victory, yes that even the victory is being camouflaged by the palm mutating into a mustard plant. This could have happened all the more easily if the primary confusion was precisely the one between the palm and the mustard.

Having said this, it could also be a first approximation and on taking a closer look one could establish something else. The whole book is a work in progress and thus a construction site. Some things will be revised in the next edition.
For example, taking another detail observed by Aquila Pacis, where he says that Servilius Casca, the first attacker of Caesar should appear in the gospel and asks where he has got to. He is there (Mk 14:47) in the guise of the servant of the high priest, for "Servilius" comes from "servus" and means "servant". We wanted to add this in the text where it says: "If we leave the servant in Mark's account out of consideration for a moment …" and then it remained in the pen, however.
Thanks to Aquila Pacis for reminding us, we shall catch up on that.
The same applies to the shortcuts we took especially in the beginning of the book where the topic is being treated as an investigation. Not everything has been made clear later in the Synopsis where we actually should have done it.
E.g. - as Aquila Pacis correctly noticed - not only is the record for the dagger of Cassius Longinus with Caesar and the lance of the soldier Longinus with Jesus missing in Mark, which should be explained, but an intermediate with Caesar has not been mentioned: that is the lance Antonius uses at Caesar's funeral with which he lifts the blood-stained garment and lets it flutter. This became the lance of Longinus, who could appear at this place, called by the word "lonchê", lance – even if only in an apokryphon.
This too, will be catched up in the next edition. Thanks for that to Aquila Pacis also.

Vorkosigan

Sure....if you can switch anything around any way you like, you can make Mark into Caesar. Or into the Pali scriptures. Or into The Fanny Farmer Cookbook

Vorkosigan

spin

The Fanny Farmer Cookbook? Nosh it? C'mon, Vork, let's see ya do tha-at.


spin