Roger Pearse

I'm not sure that I understand. Why would anyone suppose that scribbling in the margin of a book was intended forgery? Is that what we do, if we add a note to a book? Surely not!

Ancient books were all hand-copied. If a copyist forgot a sentence, he wrote it in the margin. A later copyist would restore it to its place. Thus marginal glosses find their way into texts.

I'm afraid that this makes rather a lot of assumptions, many of them theological. Perhaps you would lay them out openly and the evidence for each can be decided.

Whatever their content, books are books.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

djrafikie

The bible appears to have been written by a number of different people..
Some bits certainly look to have been inserted some time after the virtual completion of a chapter of it, due to the jarring difference in writing style.

But overall, as it was written and added to over such a long period, and seems to have sortof "evolved" as that happened, at what point do additions stop being part of the writing process, and become forged extras?

The fact that it was written by so many different people seems to mean that no part could neccesarily be called "forgery", unless you start from the viewpoint that it was all dictated by one person/being (god).. if nothing else the content and changes in style do prove that this is certainly NOT true.

Minimalist

Precisely, written by men, not gods.

You prefer to think that such "margin notes" are innocent. I wonder if the copyist's supervisor thought that a particular point needed a little reinforcing.

Both points of view are speculative.

Roger Pearse

These are good points, and become more so when we recall that we are not in the age of print, but of hand-written books; not in the age of the type-written manuscript sent to a publisher, but in the age of dictation and revision ad hoc with copies being taken at any stage of the process.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ben C Smith

It is my current understanding that some textual variants in some texts are demonstrably due to different editions published by the same author; would you say that is correct?

Ben.

djrafikie

Well, it would take a sloppy author indeed to re-repeat the same information in several confilicting ways, in the same book, on the basis that all are supposedly accurate.

More of a jilly cooper novel than a william shakespere methinks..

Quite aside from that, I have studied the monks scriptuary works from lindasfarne C700ad in great depth. Their methods were faulty, and they had no standardised spellings. It is also apparent reading some of The Venerable Beades works that the novices working in the sanctum were copying purely from sight, and could either not read at all, or very little.

Incidentally, the Lindasfarne Gospels are very significant because they represent the first consistent applications of Majura and Minora (Capital and lower case letters), and the , yeah, the ,
Lingually they are as prescious as gold, scripturally they are very revealing.

Roger Pearse

I believe so, although it is sometimes hard to be sure.

I believe that the Life of St. Columba by St. Adomnan is such an example. Basically Adomnan collected anecdotes of Columba for years, and expanded the work as he did so. Copies were taken at all stages, and some of the earlier versions still exist.

Tertullian certainly recast some of his works; his Ad Nationes was refined into the Apologeticum, but this has two variant traditions, reflected in a long passage in a now lost manuscript from Fulda in chapter 19 which is not present in the standard recension, but where both seem to be authorial.

No doubt there are others.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Can you give us more information on this? Certainly some 7th century manuscripts are drawn, not written. Where does Bede refer to this?

Interesting -- do you have a source for this?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

djrafikie

Uhu, read them???

Bede does not refer to it, you work it out really easily by reading early works attributed to him.. all by different scribes you see.

By the way, the lindisfare gospels are not just "some" early manuscripts, I think they are THE ONLY surviving manuscripts of their type from that period of british history.



For reference, and for anyone who is intersted, I'll bung a few links in, the illustrations are breathtakingly intricate, and gorgeous, the colours are vivid as hell despite their age.

Do take a peek..

http://www.lindisfarne.org.uk/gospels/index.htm << some really good colour images

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/featu...seminar4.html# <<< click on the little images and they enlarge, too ogle and drool over, gotta love the british library.



The refernce to Bede is due to the fact that he worked at the Jarrow monastery (692AD) and also on some occasions at the Lindasfarne monastery, at the same time of the writing of the gospels by Eadfrith in Lindasafrne. He certainly had an effect on their production, and this is easily seen when you compare the later sections of the Gospels with his work from the time. As bede more or less designed our current methods of recording date and time we can absolutely rely on those dates, in a way your really couldn't have hoped to with previous works. After all Eadfrith and Bede certainly has a few late night discussions about this over a few tankards of house ale.
They were the two powerhouses of monastic artworks at the time, their works were, Even then, priceless, and affordable only by the church and a very very select and wealthy few.

In reference to the punctuation and capitalisation, I wrote a paper on it for my eng lit and lang degree, and I can't find any source online (yeah, I used books, I'm virtually a cavewoman) which I would consider sufficiently clear, academic, unreligiously orientated, or not just a bunch of faf about how damn pretty they look.


I'll see if I can copy and paste something out of our university online library, but I'm not sure if it will let me

As I said, the best think to do is dig out a fairly full set of images online, and then just compare them to latin vulgate texts from the same period. All the extra dots, commas, and very modern looking paragraphing, sticks out as recognisable straight away, and the other more traditionally latin clerical works look like a big unbroken block of tiny, sloping, cramped writing.
It was a bit of a revelation for the english language, and the "way" of thinking and writing the jarrow and lindasfrane monks applied to written english style stuck like glue and is almost the template for our modern writing practices.

*gasp*
I am really into my early manuscript studies, as you can see.
I'll shut up now.

Iasion

Greetings,

Rubbish Roger,
you've seen me post the evidence several times :



The Epistle of the Apostles, 140-150CE :

The BOOK which Jesus Christ revealed unto his disciples: and how that Jesus Christ revealed the book for the company (college) of the apostles, the disciples of Jesus Christ, even the book which is for all men. Simon and Cerinthus, the false apostles, concerning whom it is written that no man shall cleave unto them, for there is in them deceit wherewith they bring men to destruction. (The book hath been written) that ye may be not flinch nor be troubled, and depart not from the word of the Gospel which ye have heard. Like as we heard it, we keep it in remembrance and have written it for the whole world.

This is obviously referring to a written Gospel, but gives no author's names.


Apology of Aristides, 138-161CE :

And it is said that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh; and the Son of God lived in a daughter of man. This is taught in the gospel, as it is called, which a short time was preached among them; and you also if you will read therein, may perceive the power which belongs to it.

This is obvious evidence of a written work which is specifically named "The Gospel" - but no name is given.

Furthermore, Aristides says this SINGULAR un-named Gospel was fairly NEW in the period 138-161 - clear evidence of the lateness of the Gospels, and the lateness of late naming.



Justin Martyr's 1st Apology, 150-160CE :

Ch. 66 : For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels...


Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, 150-160CE, 3 references :

Ch. 100 : For I have showed already that Christ is called both Jacob and Israel; and I have proved that it is not in the blessing of Joseph and Judah alone that what relates to Him was proclaimed mysteriously, but also in the Gospel it is written that He said: 'All things are delivered unto me by My Father;' and, 'No man knoweth the Father but the Son; nor the Son but the Father, and they to whom the Son will reveal Him.'

This is all clear and obvious evidence of written works called Gospels - but no names given, even though Justin explicitly tells us what they were named ("which are called Gospels".) If Justin knew of any author's names he would CERTAINLY have given them.



The Acts of Peter, 150-200CE :

And Peter entered into the dining-hall and saw that the Gospel was being read, and he rolled up the book[/b] and said: Ye men that believe and hope in Christ, learn in what manner the holy Scripture of our Lord ought to be declared: whereof we by his grace wrote that which we could receive, though yet it appear unto you feeble, yet according to our power, even that which can be endured to be borne by (or instilled into) human flesh.

This is obvious evidence of a written Gospel - but no author's name is given.



The Treatise on the Resurrection, 170-200CE, 1 reference :

What, then, is the resurrection? It is always the disclosure of those who have risen. For if you remember reading in the Gospel that Elijah appeared and Moses with him, do not think the resurrection is an illusion.

This is obvious evidence of a written Gospel - but no author's name is given.



Hegesippus Fragments, c. 170CE :

With show of reason could it be said that Symeon was one of those who actually saw and heard the Lord, on the ground of his great age, and also because the Scripture of the Gospels makes mention of Mary the daughter of Clopas, who, as our narrative has shown already, was his father.

This is obvious evidence of a written Gospel - but no author's name is given.


There are many more references than these - the first few dozens of referencss to the Gospels are as UN-NAMED works.

The evidence is clear,
the Gospels were originally un-named.



Iasion