archibald

No thanks. I'm having enough trouble not getting sucked into any more interpretation theories as it is. :]

Not that I can't see the fascinating attractions of having personal hypotheses about this general Jesus topic. But I'm hoping to draw a line at some point and get out. I'm already indulging more than I intended. It's kind of addictive.

Incidentally, it is, er, tickling (without getting into the details of whether it is a reasonable thing to say or not) to see the holder of one (surely highly unorthodox) theory describe another's as 'fringe'. :]

Incidentally, I think I have addressed Stephan as Stephen at one point, so apologies for that Stephan, if you read this.

archibald

On a general note, regarding interpolations, one thing which always puzzles me is the mechanics. On another forum, several posters (better informed about this sort of thing than me) used to refer to a hypothetical 'Odo the Supermonk' when discussing what seemed to be a proliferation of interpolation citings from unorthodox quarters as explanations for inconsistencies in texts, in the absence of any 'hard' evidence.

Surely it couldn't have been that easy, especially early on (say, during the 2nd century) to either get hold of an 'original' ms and doctor it, and additionally to get your interpolation to make it into all subsequent ms, or at least all extant ones.

This '500' case, which I accept is odd, is possibly one of the more obvious candidates in Paul, given that it seems so exaggerated to us now. But on the other hand, wouldn't it have sounded equally exaggerated in the 2nd C? So, why, if some monk put it in, would it have persevered, in the absence of any evidence (correct me if I am wrong, quite possibly I am) that it was widely used by anyone else until things had receded much further back in time? The 'Acts of Pilate' as I understand it, is usually dated from the 4th C. for example.

Maybe it was just an unsubstantiated, overstated rumour in the first place, and so was dropped by Gospel writers. It is possible for estimates closer to events to be exaggerated as much as later, when things have settled down, and are verified. then, if the overstatement is left in the text, some clever chap comes along in the 4th C. and picks up on the number.

Just speculating. Shoot me down if necessary. It won't hurt.

Solo

There is an old maxim where I come from which roughly translates as : 'Do not use silk patches to mend sack-cloth !'

Best,
Jiri

TedM

I understand all that, but your link doesn't address the very reasonable possibility that it is not limited to that kind of transmission. A creed that is part of a tradition would absolutely require a word that 'covers' a master/student relationship but what about when that same creed is passed along between people that don't have that relationship but are still intending to instruct and pass along something that should continue from generation to generation? Would they then use the short word? I suspect the answer is NO. IOW, one may use the short word to 'receive' a conversation about the weather, but I suspect the long word would still be used for receiving something that is meant to be retained as an important piece of information, and then passed along. It really wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to use a different word for the same content depending on who is talking to who. What if it was a father to son transmission? What if it was uncle to nephew? What if it was older brother to younger brother? What if it was smarter student to dumber student? You get the picture...

TedM

Well, as I said I'm not your enemy here. This isn't war or even a chess game where I require that I win and you lose. I'm just trying to figure out if what you say has any real substance to it or not and of course I am coming into the issue with my own biases and filters just like you are so I won't immediately agree with you on everything.

TedM

Exactly. There no doubt were many honest writers and skeptical people at the time who drew the line at certain things. If Luke, Paul's travel companion at times, really wrote Luke-Acts, and there is little reason to believe otherwise, then the mere fact that he said that he investigated everything carefully in the beginning lends some plausibility to the idea that he just couldn't find enough support for the 500 people claim--there is no indication of where that occurred. His account in Acts of what sounds like a smaller group could have been what he was able to come up with that others would corroborate.

Good point about Acts of Pilate--unless parts of it really were written earlier, as (I think) some say. Tertullian references it--so possibly there is a core of authenticity even--which would put us back to an early tradition on the 500..not all traditions are retained however for many reasons.

Solo

There is nothing in the saying about enemies, war or chess, Ted. It addresses your incredulity as to why I should be condescending to you.

Jiri

Toto

There are quite a few reasons to believe otherwise, which is why the general consensus of non-evangelical scholars is that the author or at least the final editor of Luke-Acts did not know Paul....

This is wild speculation. Nothing in Acts sounds like a similar group - Acts has Jesus not just appearing, but spending time as a resurrected teacher for 40 days with a small group of his followers. No skeptical investigation would have corroborated this.

Not that there were a lot of skeptics in the early Roman Empire.

Not such a good point. "Wouldn't it have sounded equally exaggerated in the 2nd C?" - no, it would more likely have been treated as a sort of numerology.

And there are several different Acts of Pilate. The one that we have is late and unlikely to have any core of authenticity.

archibald

Maybe. And I'm not making any strong case against interpolation here (if anything, on balance, I'm tempted to think it might have been added, or at least I'm confident I'm undecided :]). But to clarify, what I meant was, it wouldn't as far as we know, have been substantiated or corroborated in any other text, or at least none that we now have (I'm assuming). And it would have contradicted the (later NT) gospels. If a 2nd C. monk wanted to sneak in a plausible citation of witnessing which wasn't there before, isn't it more likely that in order to be more persuasive, he would have put in something less hyperbolic which had corroboration in other texts?

Like I said, I'm not sure if hyperbole isn't at least as often more flagrant closer to events than later (though both would seem to be possible, obviously). Coincidentally, I read in today's Telegraph Newspaper that a team of German historians have just spent 5 years researching the likely accurate number of casualities during the bombing of dresden in WW2. Perhaps if something like that, in the 20th Century, isn't clear for 70 years, and subject to gross exaggeration by some in the interim, then maybe a highly exaggerated/unsubstantiated rumour about numbers of people in the 1st Century could have floated about for a while, and been picked up on or used by an ardent supporter. Just saying it's a possibility. :]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...-conclude.html

Iskander

Arguing with divorce lawyers is fruitless.