Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Sheshbazzar · 10-29-2008, 07:37 PM

Yes, it is stated in Acts 17:10 that Paul and Silas went into a synagogue of the Jews.
But it is Acts 17:12 that I wish to draw your attention to.

Quote:

"Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few."

The "many of them believed" obviously by the context refers to the Jewish people attending that synagogue.
The "also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few." is a separate clause, and refers to Greek women, and to more than a "few" Greek men, also, in addition to that Jewish faction, believing what these preachers said.
Thus there is a distinction made between the Jewish faction that "believed" Paul and Silas's preaching, and the "also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few."
According to history, The LXX was widely used by the Jews of the diaspora, as many were fluent in Greek as it had became their natural and first language, but many were unlearned in the Hebrew, a now foreign language to them.

It is far more likely that anyone -who wanted his words to be understood- would be preaching in the local language, rather than Hebrew which would have a very limited audience actually capable of understanding what was being said.
And of course a clue here, is of the Greek women and men, (as distinct from the Jews) understanding and believing what was being preached.

The same still goes on in synagogues today, I have Jewish relatives who regularly attend synagogue services, yet can neither read, write, nor speak Hebrew, although they listen to it being read and recited weekly, yet virtually all interpretation, preaching, discussion, and normal conversation is conducted in English.

There have been proselytes to the Jewish religion for as long as there has been a Jewish religion.
Some believed and converted.
Some did not believe and did not convert.
Humanity being the diverse lot that it is, and always has been,
Some would believe, yet would not convert to the Jews religion, for a great variety of reasons.
Really, is this observation all that unreasonable?

In this case, It was these "Greek" men that would have had to make the choice of whether to undergo the Jewish ritual of circumcision or not, and we know that "Paul" writing in the NT epistles discouraged that practice upon, or by, Gentile converts to his form of religion.

As for going into the details of the "message" that Paul preached, it really would be straying even further off-topic for this thread, so I must decline.

mountainman · 10-29-2008, 08:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by patcleaver

What is the evidence of Dura Europos?

1) a depiction of two women visiting a tomb

2) a depiction of a guy with a magic wand, another guy carrying a bed and a third guy lying in bed.

3) a depiction of three people in a boat, and two other people wading in or walking on the water beside the boat.

4) a depiction of a man carrying a sheep over his shoulders.

5) a fragment that said:

· [ ]ee and Salome a[ ] the women
· [ ] those who followed him from
· [ ]ee to see the cr{....} And it was
· [ ]y of preparation [....] Sabbath was dawn-
· [ ] And as it was becoming [ ]ate on the prep-
· [ ] which is before the sabbath, there came
· [ ] a councilman [ ]
· [ ] from Erinmathaia, a city of
· [ ]a, Jo[ ] by name, good, right-
· [ ] who was a disciple of Je[ ], but in
· [ ]ing on account of fear of the
· [ ]s, and this man was awaiting
· [ ] k[ ] of G[ ]d. This man was
· not [ ]ing to the c[ ]

The fragment is being misrepresented. You have to indicate that STA, IH and QW were all indicated as sacred words with a line over them. They are not the results of lacunae. They are means of indicating the religious significance of the words, as can be seen in the fragments from Oxyrhynchus and later fragments.

Dear Pat,

At the head of this post, the scribal abbreviations on the fragment are being misrepresented. My detractors are either unaware of, or purposefully avoiding the issues related to a dispute about the nature of these "nomina sacra". Essentially, the question is whether these overlined words indeed bear a sacred meaning or whether in fact they represent a mere scribal shorthand, employed for the technological convenience of abbreviation (especially upon stone). See further some notes on these so-called nomina sacra These scribal abbreviations are just that. The abbreviation for example used in the fragment is an abbreviation of the name of Joshua, one of the foundational Hebrew sages of yore, who succeeded Moses. It need not be rendered Jesus, and thus the entire fragment could have been a story about the "Ascenscion of Joshua", which did not survive intact to this day (yet). It need not be "christian". End of story.

Returning to the question of whether these "abbreviations over-barred" are simply scribal conveniences or whether they have a deeper meaning (and of course they would to someone who was just learning to write, for example) I must say this. If there were to be in fact a religious association with these abbreviations, for example such as G-D for God, my position is simply that by what right of conquest do my detractors assume the God in question to be a "Canonical Christian type of god". Does anyone understand what I am trying to say here?

Finally Pat, and others, you may find the following article is interesting not only in relation to the issues relating to the use of these scribal abbreviations in antiquity as it relates to this thread, but also to the thread concerning the LXX, and the Jewish use of these abbreviations, and in citations to papyri citing the LXX, and using these abbreviations. (Of course it was all about Joshua).

Quote:

SBL Presentation, Toronto, 25 November 2002

NT Textual Criticism Section: Material Remains and Social History:
Books, Scrolls, and Scribes in Formative Christianity and Judaism

"Early Jewish and Christian Scriptural Artifacts:
Continuities, Discontinuities, and Social Significance"
-- by Robert A. Kraft

QUESTIONS

It has become a widely held opinion in discussions of ancient Greek literature that two of the main criteria for distinguishing "Christian" from "Jewish" scriptural fragments are (1) mega-format -- Christians tended to use the newly developed codex technology while Jews used scrolls -- and (2) treatment of nomina sacra -- while Jews had special ways of representing the tetragrammaton, Christians developed an entire system for abbreviating special words and names. Martin Hengel's recently translated book on The Septuagint as Christian Scripture (Clark 2002; with a long prehistory), which probably will attain wide usage in such circles as ours, states this position succinctly: "Long before there was a 'New Testament,' the Christian LXX was distinguished by the use of the codex rather than the Jewish scroll. Further, the tetragrammaton, as a rule continued in use in Greek scrolls of Jewish provenance, but in the Christian codices it was replaced by ku/riov, which was now written , like xristo/v and other nomina sacra, for emphasis with only the initial and final letters and a line above (KS, XS, etc.). This distinction must reach back into the first century and thus makes it possible to distinguish between Jewish and Christian manuscripts practically from the very beginning" (41). My presentation attempts to call such conclusions, which have now become widespread assumptions, into question by reexamining the ancient evidence now available.
Scholarly Context

The idea that Christians popularized the use of the codex has a long history in modern scholarship, and is probably most closely argued in the essay on "The Birth of the Codex" by the late Colin H. Roberts (Proceedings of the British Academy 40 [1954] 169-204), revised and supplemented by Theodore C. Skeat into a small monograph (The British Academy and Oxford University Press [1983] 1987). In discussing, and rejecting, various theories for why Christians so quickly adopted the codex format (cheaper, more compact, easier to use), Roberts and Skeat rather casually and without further discussion allude to the dilemma that I wish to explore more closely: "We would have expected the earliest Christians, whether Jew or Gentile, to be strongly prejudiced in favour of the roll by upbringing, education and environment" (53). That there was no appropriate first century CE codex environment for early Christians is simply assumed, and possible supporting evidence for the use of codices in Jewish contexts at that time is dismissed or ignored on the principle that "Jews used scrolls, Christians used codices" -- supported by the further assumption that only Christians used nomina sacra representations. Then they provide two alternate hypotheses to explain the virutally immediate adoption of the codex by Christians: (1) the Gospel of Mark was written in Rome where we know that the codex format was being experimented with for literature, was transported to Alexandria, and from there set a pattern for other early Christian writings [Roberts' original suggestion], and (2) the sayings of Jesus were transcribed on tablets (on the model of law codes in Jewish contexts in Jerusalem and/or Antioch) that came to constitute a proto-Gospel in codex form, and thence to be imitated from Antioch [Skeat's revision].

Socio-Religious Context

It should be noted that questions about Jewish scribal practices and bookmaking techniques are never thoroughly discussed. Indeed, it is assumed (1) that later rabbinic Jewish evidence about the use of scrolls and other media is immediately applicable to the first century Greek Jewish situation, and (2) that in the matter of literary production, as in some other areas, Christians were anxious to differentiate themselves from Jews. Note the following statements: "It may be further noted that, whether or not this was the intention, nomina sacra share the same characteristic with the codex of differentiating Christian from both Jewish and pagan books" (57). "The [Christian] missionaries to the Gentiles would have needed Greek manuscripts, initially perhaps only of the Septuagint, [which] ... cannot have made use of the Hebrew tetragram for the Name of God, and the necessity to find an alternative may have led to the invention of the nomina sacra" (59; what did Jewish Greek speakers use among Gentiles, we might ask?). "Jewish children, like Gentile children, started their education on tablets and continued to use them for memoranda. ... Tablets of the kinds just mentioned [for recording isolated rabbinic sayings of "Oral Law"], including tablets of papyrus, would have been in common use amongst the Jews there [in Antioch]" (59). "It could be argued that the Jews equally used tablets for recording the Oral Law, but in no case did this usage develop into the codex. ... The use of the roll in Judaism was so rooted in tradition and prescribed by the Law [sic!] that such a development would have been impossible. The Christians, however, would have had no such inhibitions, and to them the adoption of a form of book which like the nomina sacra would have differentiated them from both Jews and pagans, as already noted, might have constituted an additional attraction" (60). Ambiguous Evidence

The admixture of "social history" and "material remains" in such an argument is obvious. But does it make sense? To deny that Jews could or would have used codices under similar conditions is simply to beg the question. Indeed, even Roberts and Skeat admit to the existence of a Jewish codex of Genesis around the end of the second century (POxy 656 -- "in spite of the codex form we consider it to be of Jewish origin" [41] -- presumably because QEOS and KURIOS are written in full by the original hand?). But other codex fragments of Greek Jewish scriptures from the same period they automatically classify as "Christian," without discussion:

PBaden 56 [# 970 = PHeidelberg 8] Exodus & Deuteronomy (late 2nd CE)
PYale 1 [# 814] Genesis (around 200 CE ?) -- spacing and mid-dot; no nomina sacra contexts; "318" in ciphers (not spelled out)
PChesterBeatty 6 [# 963] Numbers & Deuteronomy (around 200 CE) -- rare paragraphing; has KS nom sac (found in association with other Christian MSS)
PAntinoopolis 7 [# 2077] Psalms (around 200 CE) -- has KS nom sac
PLeipzig 170 [# 2014] Psalms (around 200 CE ?) -- has KS nom sac, stichometric (sense lines)
PBodleian Gr bibl g.5 [# 2082] Psalms (around 200 CE, parchment) -- possibly had uncontracted QEOS and ANQRWPOS [both reconstructed], stichometric (sense lines, some continued on indented next line). Strangely, a couple of other codex fragments for which a Jewish origin seems quite possible are not included in this discussion, perhaps because they are dated slightly later -- Roberts did comment on them briefly in his 1977 Schweich Lectures on Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (British Academy and Oxford University Press 1979):
POx 1007 = PLitLond 199, Genesis 2-3 [#907] (3rd CE, parchment) -- abbreviated paleo-Hebrew tetragrammaton, QS nom sac but ANQRWPOS in full, frequent spacing
PBerlin 17213, Genesis 19 [#995] (3rd CE) -- spacing; blank where tetragrammaton is expected (?) Of course, if Jews were producing and using biblical codices in the late 2nd and into the 3rd centuries, the argument/assumption that "if it's a codex, it's Christian" is seriously jeapordized, and the unasked question of when Jews began to use codices becomes even more relevant. And the appearance of simple nomina sacra (for QEOS and perhaps also KURIOS) in these possibly Jewish codices is equally intriguiging.
Christian Scribal Activities

Furthermore, Roberts and Skeat admit that "The Christian manuscripts of the second century, although not reaching a high standard of calligraphy, generally exhibit a competent style of writing which has been called 'reformed documentary' [quote from Roberts] and which is likely to be the work of experienced scribes, whether Christian or not. ... It is therefore a reasonable assumption that the scribes of the Christian texts received pay for their work" (46). Apart from what we can infer from the extant remnants, we know very little about Jewish or Christian scribal practices including training and "commercial" production of texts in these early centuries, but it is an area that deserves some reflection. Were there Jewish booksellers and professional copyists who would make copies for paying customers? Was Jewish literature available through the non-Jewish book trade? Would professional copyists attempt to emulate formatting features in their exemplars? To what extent might "educated" early Jewish followers of Jesus such as Paul have made their own copies of materials useful to them? At what point might (non-Jewish) Christian leaders employ their own copyists, and how would they be trained (and/or religiously oriented)? When did an independent and selfconsciously "Christian" booktrade develop, and how did it operate?

These questions are basic to treatments of textuality, transmission, technique, and technology in the world in which early Christianity developed, yet are seldom even imagined, much less discussed. Since we have a growing body of relevant evidence, both Jewish pre-Christian in date, on the one side, and certifiably "Christian" by the 2nd century CE, on the other, it is possible to attempt to investigate details regarding possible continuities, and discontinuities, between these chronological and community poles. The evidence is not very widely distributed geographically -- north-central Egypt (Fayyum, Oxyrhynchos) and the Judean caves bear most of the weight. Nevertheless, some of the scribal phenomena are suggestive.

Unambiguously Jewish Fragments:
Pre-Christian fragments of Greek Jewish scriptures
and related literature: Features of note:

All are from scrolls, mostly on papyrus but also on leather/parchment Most are from the Pentateuch[list of non-pentateuchal] The quality of writing is generally good to excellent Scroll formats vary, from large "deluxe" to medium size/quality In some examples, the writing seems oriented to the top horizontal of the writing space Almost all examples use spacing between phrases or sections or even words Some display marginal indications for sectioning (ekthesis, enlarged letters, marginal marks) Tetragrammaton appears in a variety of ways, including an "abbreviated" form (IAW), but not KURIOS No instances of numbers (spelled out or in "ciphers") are recorded.

General Observations: It seems safe to speak of the existence of professionally prepared copies of Greek Jewish scriptures, surviving from a few locations in Egypt and Judea. There are scribal features in many of these fragments that are not typical, although perhaps not unique, in contemporary non-Jewish literary texts (especially the use of spacing, sometimes in conjunction with marginal sectioning markers). The special four-lettered name of deity receives a variety of special treatments, suggesting that perhaps no single or even relatively restricted Jewish scribal convention had been developed for that feature. If these generalizations are correct, it would seem presumptuous to ascribe similar features in "early Christian" manuscripts (e.g. use of spacing, marginal section markup) to "documentry" influence, as has sometimes been done, or even to consider special treatment of names associated with deity to be original or special to Christians. Quite the contrary, I would argue that the presence of such features in manuscripts of Christian date and/or provenance indicates continuity in scribal practice, if not misidentification or confusion of "Christian" and "Jewish" products and procedures. It is doubtful that in general "Christians" dissociated themselves from their "Jewish" predecessors in the production of manuscripts, or at least of copies of Greek Jewish scriptures.

Conclusions

Christians did, it is clear, develop their own scribal conventions as time went on. Even if Jewish practice gave impetus to the compression and/or abbreviation of special names, Christian scribes gradually created much more extensive and detailed "systems," tending to de facto standardization of nomina sacra in later generations. Even though the practice of marking blocks of text and/or of spacing between some sub-units is evidenced in some early Christian materials, Christian scribes also seem to have tended to employ the "scriptio continua" (uninterrupted flow of letters) format more common in the surrounding literary worlds, sometimes in combination with blocked format. But "Christian" scribal practice did not originate de novo with the emergence of selfconscious followers of Jesus who did not consider themselves "Jewish." It seems to have inherited, probably in a gradual and natural transition (as with many other areas of early Christian development!), features that already existed in pre-Christian Jewish circles. And I can't help but wonder whether the preference for the codex format may not also be attributed to the same process

Best wishes,

Pete

mountainman · 10-29-2008, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by avi

No.
It is NOT correct English, to write "falsified".
You may wish to express the same sentiment this way:
Is it possible that MM's theory can also be refuted by other evidence?

I understand that you are simply repeating the same word, the fault is not your own. Spin has employed a not so subtle psychological trick to reinforce his own preconception, that MM's theory is bogus, by writing "falsified", to encourage forum members to imagine that the theory itself is FALSE. To falsify something is to TAMPER with the evidence, or MISREPRESENT the implication of the data, NOT TO DISCREDIT the underlying hypothesis.

By way of simple illustration, here is an obvious falsification of MM's hypothesis:

Christianity was created by Tiberius.

This is not Pete's hypothesis, in writing this sentence above, I have FALSELY represented Pete's thinking. My construction represents the FALSIFICATION of Pete's hypothesis. It does not in any way repudiate his hypothesis, unless I also present evidence demonstrating the purported fact that Tiberius, rather than Constantine, invented Christianity.

But, even in that narrow circumstance, if I had presented evidence that Tiberius created Christianity, it would still be improper to write that I have falsified MM's hypothesis, because my assertion is that PETE himself believes that Tiberius created Christianity, when if fact, MM has written that his thesis is that Constantine, not Tiberius, created Christianity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

When you correct someone, try to know what you are talking about.

spin

In other threads, Pete has repeatedly referred to the Popperian notion of 'falsification' as an appropriate standard. Personally, I have reservations about Popperian falsificationism both in general and as it applies to this particular case, but even if my reservations are justified, it's not fair to blame spin for introducing the concept, as he's only following Pete's lead.

To whomever It May Concern,

The terminology that I have used in the many background articles at my website, and in the thesis.pdf of September 2007, and in discussions here and elsewhere over the years is as follows:

Quote:

The thesis that Constantine invented his own religion is eminently falsifiable, and can be refuted either in whole or in part with the provision of appropriate unambiguous evidence from the fields of archaeology and/or science. I have attempted to gather together and exhaustively review all this available evidence in this article, but as most researchers will acknowledge, information is still forthcoming from the field.

Thankyou Avi for being specific in this issue, and particularly for your references to the question of scientific methods. You may need to be aware that textual critics have their own methodology . I agree with your comments about this, and the above statement is what I formulated at the beginning of the road. Unlike my detractors I make no appeal to any perceivable authority and am willing to be refuted, as stated. My wavecount has drasticallly reduced since I embarked upon this research, and I'd like to get some more time to catch waves. Thanks Avi, and other too, for your support. Maybe we'll meet in the surf somewhere.

Best wishes,

Pete

mountainman · 10-29-2008, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Here is the evidence from the Boss himself:

There's nothing there about rewards, nor is there any explicit reference to 'satire'.

Dear J-D,

It has been a pleasure discussing things with you.

Best wishes,

Pete

mountainman · 10-29-2008, 09:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

If you accept that texts were written before Eusebius, then Acts shows that the term existed before Eusebius and therefore had significance before then.

Dear Readers,

If you accept that texts were written before Eusebius, then you do so without evidence. Look upon your acceptance as a form of faith.

Best wishes,

Pete

mountainman · 10-29-2008, 09:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Cyril changed the meaning of the church fathers from this, to the characters who appear in the Eusebian Historia Ecclesiastica

If you can demonstrate this to be true, it would be the first significant positive evidence of your hypothesis, IMHO.

Dear S&H,

If we were to examine the many references (extant) made by the people of the fourth century to the term the fathers of the church, we will see that in all references (that I have found) the people are all referring to the 318 Fathers of the church. Here is a good example from the year 381 CE. Clearly, "The Fathers" were The Boss's Boys.

Quote:

Second Ecumenical Council, held at Constantinople
The first canon of the council:

“The faith of the three hundred and eighteen fathers
assembled at Nicaea in Bithynia shall not be set aside,
but shall remain firm. And every heresy shall be anathematized,
particularly that of ......the Eunomians or Eudoxians,
and that of the semi-Arians or Pneumatomachi,
and that of the Sabellians,
and that of the Marcellians,
and that of the Photinians,
and that of the Apollinarians.”
etc
etc
etc
etc
etc
etc
etc
etc

I will collate some of these. I am sure there are a number of references to this, and that I have seen other commentators mentioning this. Cyril was given the title "The Seal of the Fathers" for a very good reason IMO.

Best wishes,

Pete

J-D · 10-29-2008, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Yes, it is stated in Acts 17:10 that Paul and Silas went into a synagogue of the Jews.
But it is Acts 17:12 that I wish to draw your attention to.

Quote:

"Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few."

The "many of them believed" obviously by the context refers to the Jewish people attending that synagogue.
The "also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few." is a separate clause, and refers to Greek women, and to more than a "few" Greek men, also, in addition to that Jewish faction, believing what these preachers said.
Thus there is a distinction made between the Jewish faction that "believed" Paul and Silas's preaching, and the "also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few."
According to history, The LXX was widely used by the Jews of the diaspora, as many were fluent in Greek as it had became their natural and first language, but many were unlearned in the Hebrew, a now foreign language to them.

It is far more likely that anyone -who wanted his words to be understood- would be preaching in the local language, rather than Hebrew which would have a very limited audience actually capable of understanding what was being said.
And of course a clue here, is of the Greek women and men, (as distinct from the Jews) understanding and believing what was being preached.

The same still goes on in synagogues today, I have Jewish relatives who regularly attend synagogue services, yet can neither read, write, nor speak Hebrew, although they listen to it being read and recited weekly, yet virtually all interpretation, preaching, discussion, and normal conversation is conducted in English.

There have been proselytes to the Jewish religion for as long as there has been a Jewish religion.
Some believed and converted.
Some did not believe and did not convert.
Humanity being the diverse lot that it is, and always has been,
Some would believe, yet would not convert to the Jews religion, for a great variety of reasons.
Really, is this observation all that unreasonable?

In this case, It was these "Greek" men that would have had to make the choice of whether to undergo the Jewish ritual of circumcision or not, and we know that "Paul" writing in the NT epistles discouraged that practice upon, or by, Gentile converts to his form of religion.

As for going into the details of the "message" that Paul preached, it really would be straying even further off-topic for this thread, so I must decline.

If the answer to the question I asked you is irrelevant to this thread, I fail to see how any of what you have been saying is relevant to this thread.

J-D · 10-29-2008, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

If you accept that texts were written before Eusebius, then Acts shows that the term existed before Eusebius and therefore had significance before then.

Dear Readers,

If you accept that texts were written before Eusebius, then you do so without evidence. Look upon your acceptance as a form of faith.

Best wishes,

Pete

If you accept that these texts were fabricated by Eusebius, you do so without evidence.

mountainman · 10-29-2008, 09:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

It is far more likely that anyone -who wanted his words to be understood- would be preaching in the local language, rather than Hebrew which would have a very limited audience actually capable of understanding what was being said.
And of course a clue here, is of the Greek women and men, (as distinct from the Jews) understanding and believing what was being preached.

Dear Sheshbazzar,

I too totally agree that It is far more likely that anyone -who wanted his words to be understood- would be preaching in the local language of the Roman empire which is, as everyone here knows, primarily consisted either of Greek (for the academics) and/or Latin (for the others). Anyone who could not converse in the common language was not going to be too successful, and anyone who could not speak in either Greek or Latin was considered as essentially uneducated.

Thus IMO the Acts of Philip has been authored by a satirist:

Quote:

[Philip] said:

I know not Latin or Greek,
and the people there
do not know Aramaic

Someone (Arius of Alexandria!) was taking the f**king mickey out of Philp.

Best wishes,

Pete

mountainman · 10-29-2008, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

What's the box?

Dear S&H,

It looks too small to be the James Ossuary

Best wishes

Pete

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