jakejonesiv

Hi Steven,

You are correct, the fingerprints of textual changes are often left behind. But i think you underestimate the suppression and destruction (or at least the failure to copy) alternative texts, especially those produced by heretics. Often times, the only mention we have of these alternate texts are within the rebutals of the Heresiologists. A prime example is that no source copy of of Marion's recension of the Pauline epistles survives. We have a mutitude of clues that it existed, and can recreate it with a good degree of accuracy (especially Ggalatians and Romans), but the fact remains that an entire alternate version of the PE disappeared from the textual record.

The Pauline epistles were allegedly written by a first century apostle by the end of the 50's CE. Yet we don't find any extant manuscript until 150 to 200 years later. Do you imagine that the apostle wrote the canonical version just as we read it translated in the KJV today? Well a few faith based scholars might. But during that centuries long gap, the great doctrinal wars of the second century raged concerning the nature of Christ, the nature of God, and place of the Hebrew Scriptures in Christianity.

Tertullian made a very frank admission. He accused Marcion of corrupting the gospel, and the Macionites accused the proto-orthodox of the same thing. And we can see the redactions that occurred as both sides modified the scriptures for secterian advantage.

Best,
Jake

Doug Shaver

My point was, when a writer says "I regard X from a Y point of view," he is not implying that he believes X is a Y.

As I recall, it was the notion of Christ's having been crucified that was a stumbling block to outsiders. That is, it was the manner of the messiah's death, not the death itself, that was hard for people to accept.

I'll have to put the rest of your post on hold for a while. I'll try to get back to it right away.

aa5874

But, it is not really known if the writer that used the name Tertullian was truthful when he made accusations towards Marcion since this writer did not acknowledge at any time, that the Pauline letters were corrupted by the Church.

Once you admit that the so-called proto-orthodox manipulated the Pauline Epistles without ever acknowledging their forgeries, then Tertullian's accusation against Marcion may indeed be false.

dog-on

BS...

The fact that the gospels are a collection of fairy tales is the leg, (more like a trunk...), that scepticism stands on.

The rest is simply observation based on the available evidence...

dog-on

I always wondered what the supposed first edition of Tertullians cited work, as cited by the author himself, read like...

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy So where is Marcion's canon? Where's the complete Egerton gospel? What about the Ebionite Matthew? The Valentinian version of John? You're operating under the assumption that every single MSS that was ever written by Christians is still extant,

Maybe you should reread what I wrote. The context is supposed modifications to existing manuscripts that ARE extant and were :

copied and translated and disseminated into multiple languages over wide geographical areas in the first two centuries of the Christian movement.

Why you think that is related to non-extant mss is the puzzle. You can develop 100s of theories about non-extant manuscripts .. and they would have absolutely nothing to do with my discussion.

If you can discuss the issue .. fine.
If not, please try to avoid strawman diversion.

At least try to note what I am actually referencing .. the supposed conjectured redactions (a major part of this thread) to the New Testament texts that have no extant manuscript evidence whatsoever, in any language. I am trying to see if anybody even has a theory of modification and transmission that addresses the humongous problems in these invisible redaction concepts.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

show_no_mercy

You should reign in your wanton accusations of "straw man". What you quoted me on was specifically what I responded to you about. If you weren't responding to my post then why did you quote me? You bringing up the extant manuscripts while I was talking about the doctrinal battles between the "orthodox" and the "heretics" is in itself a strawman.

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv You are correct, the fingerprints of textual changes are often left behind.

Ok, we agree on that. One language will have 90% of the manuscripts with one variant, while another language will have 90% or even 100% of the manuscripts with an alternative variant. In some cases you have closer to 50-50. The three principle languages being Greek, Latin and Syriac, yet extending to a number of other languages as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv i think you underestimate the suppression and destruction (or at least the failure to copy) alternative texts, especially those produced by heretics.

As in my discussion with show_no_mercy, that is irrelevant to my post. It might be barely relevant if you showed that those texts were copied into multiple languages and had wide geographical circulation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv an entire alternate version of the PE disappeared from the textual record.

This still does not address my discussion, although at least it is in the same league.

If you get around to explaining how a text that was circulating in Greek, Latin, Syriac and other languages over a wide-ranging area had sections added or removed or radically changed, without a trace, then we will be on course. What century ? What administrations ? What happened to all the earlier manuscripts in the diverse languages ?

It looks like you want to limit all the potential redactions given by the posters here to the early 2nd century, is that correct ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy If you weren't responding to my post then why did you quote me? You bringing up the extant manuscripts while I was talking about the doctrinal battles between the "orthodox" and the "heretics" is in itself a strawman.

That should be very clear from my post. Your theories, and those of spin and others, are predicated upon rewritings of the Pauline epistles and other NT writings, with no extant manuscript evidence whatsoever. I could go back in the thread and find multiple discussions of these conjectured "redactions" .. often posted as virtual factoids.

So I simply pointed out the major difficulty with this theory of redaction and asked how you would get around it (see my first post on thread).

e.g. you might say ..

"these redactions occurred by an unknown roman church edict that was accepted throughout north africa, spain, syria and armenia and other lands around 425 AD. The redactions were then put in place in Latin, Greek, Syriac and Coptic manuscripts, and others"

And the sense of the response, historically, textually, transmissionally, could then be considered.

Instead I have a received responses that have not remotely addressed my question.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

spin

OK. I pull my horns in a bit. The name of the document says a lot for you though, or at least it should. I use Liddell and Scott as a relatively neutral source.

It doesn't reflect what we can see in the LXX or in Josephus, does it?

Umm, what about an alliance?

Who are you to judge? What have you got against messianists who are telling you that the messiah is coming and will change everything and for you to be a part of it, you need to repent and be baptized, then you can share in the new future?

Bleating about this stuff does mean that you don't have any real problems against the scenario, right?


spin