arnoldo

I see your point. In comparision to Constatine, Marcion had very little politcal power which allegedly would be necessary to canonize a paraticular religious text. Nevertheless, Marcion's doctrine may've highlited the need to examine early christian writings much more closely. Diarmaid MacCulloch, in his book entitled, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (or via: amazon.co.uk)writes that Marcion's alleged heretical doctrine, based in part on the rejection of certain gospels, may've motivated Tatian in part to write the Diatessaron (a harmonization of the four canoninical Gospels).

Doug Shaver

Yeah, the ones you hear about. For some reason, you never hear about any of the the hunches and theories that are considered way out and, after some investigation, turn out to be worthless.

Transient

Yep I would think that the vast majority are silent duds

avi

I do not understand this comment.

Can you please identify the people, opposed by Pete?

To my way of thinking, Pete is not opposing anyone. He is attempting, in my opinion, rather well, to introduce an alternative hypothesis for the history of the earliest Christian church.

Traditional view considers first Marcion, then "Irenaeus", as creators of the canon.

You, stephan, have several times, in recent weeks, pointed to "fragments" of A.H. which, in your view, support the theory that the canon was formalized in the second century. Since Pete hypothesizes a later date, does that mean then, that he is both opposing and imitating you?

I don't think so. I think that you, stephan, accept the historical validity of "Irenaeus", whereas, Pete has consistently argued, for at least the past three years (please read Philosopher Jay's excellent comment, #39, "first steps first"), on this forum, that the evidence of "Irenaeus" arises primarily via Eusebius.

The question of fragmentary Greek papyrus manuscripts attesting to the supposed validity of the extant Latin version of Irenaeus, has been addressed brilliantly, by Ben C. Smith. Ben has examined, letter by letter, the papyrus POxy405, with a view to validating the conclusion of Andrew Criddle and Roger Pearce, both of whom have offered helpful comments on this important document.

Ben, Andrew, and Roger had arrived at a conclusion similar to yours, stephan, however, I think there remain some unanswered questions about POxy405, including some referenced above by Pete, and some, which I will attempt to introduce, later today.

Bottom line: As far as I am concerned, the fragments are convincingly neither dated, nor assigned, (i.e. to "Irenaeus"), credibly.

Yes, I did read Ben's comments:

More to follow, but for now: WHAT?????

Are we to understand that two investigators uncovered THREE NEW FRAGMENTS of AH, which just HAPPEN to correspond to the same tiny fragment, POxy 405????

Can anyone describe the probability of finding a twelfth century FRAGMENT of papyrus, which just happens to overlap, among the five volumes of AH, the three dozen Greek letters found on POxy405?????

Does that make any sense at all???

avi

andrewcriddle

It may possibly clarify things if one explains what a Florilegium is. It is a deliberate collection of extracts from earlier writers. Substantial amounts of the works of early Christian writers only survive in much later florilegia.

Andrew Criddle

avi

Thank you very much, Andrew.

Your comment is both welcome, and instructive. Much appreciated.

I apologize for being very dense, but, does your interesting comment then imply that:

a. There existed in the twelfth century, at least, a complete text of AH in the original Greek, from which one could select the most instructive passages?

b. This particular passage, ostensibly from AH, Book 3:9, section 2-3, had ALREADY been acknowledged, 800 years ago, as of great significance??? (If so, what is that significance?)

Then, a couple of other questions spring to mind:

a. has this particular florilegium, dating from the 12th century, been discussed, or contested previously, in earlier centuries? Has anyone, in other words, validated the existence of this particular florilegium, before the 1960's? How large are the fragments? Are the fragments visible online?

b. Has anyone investigated the possibility that the two messengers, bringing this florilegium to light, in the 1960's, "cooked the books", as is spoken in the vernacular? How do we know that they did not "discover" this florilegium, by creating it?

With regard to the interesting web site, identified by Toto--(thanks!!!), in the "Irenaeus" thread, a couple of weeks ago, there appears this text:
Andrew: I don't quite understand. Sorry. What papyrus roll is being discussed here?

As far as I can figure out, POxy 3.405 consists of three little fragments--how does anyone know whether they were originally part of a roll?

Andrew, you, and Roger, and Ben have been reading AH for a few years, now, can either of you attest to the idea that this particular extract, POxy 3.405, supposedly representing AH 3:9, section 2-3, is truly a remarkable bit of writing, whose weight is of such significance, that it deserves to be included in a modern day "florilegium"? In other words, Andrew, if you were instructed by some great power, to collect the most significant handful of famous quotes from AH, would this particular bit of text, embracing Matthew 3:16-17, find its way into your own particular group of remarkable witticisms from the quil of "Irenaeus"?

In my opinion, it is a very mysterious circumstance, to have encounted in the 1960's, a florilegium that just happens to include AH 3:9 section 2-3. Bit too convenient, for my taste. Moreover, though I know and understand very little about Christianity, Judaism, or the Bible, this particular passage strikes me as a rather banal and ordinary bit of writing, not at all the sort of thing that would be considered especially noteworthy. For sure, there is nothing controversial, or anti-heretical in the substance of this quote....

I am picturing in my mind, as I write this, a textbook of fluid dynamics, with an illustration of the Wright brothers. Nothing wrong with such an illustration, but, does a photograph of them by their first airplane, adequately portray the essence of the subject matter, to the exclusion of other, more topical concepts? If we took a poll at the forum, of the ten most significant and most noteworthy quotes from the quil of "Irenaeus", would that passage, AH 3:9 rate mention?

avi

andrewcriddle

If the fragments are written on one side only, then this would indicate a roll not a codex.

Andrew Criddle

Toto

some posts on mountainman and other off topic posts split off here.

The discussion on Arius and the Marytium of St. Mark has been split here

Toto

I have tried to keep only the posts related to Jay's OP and the related discussion of Irenaeus in this thread. If you think a post landed in the wrong thread, please PM me.

avi

Thank you Andrew.

1. How does anyone know that these four small fragments all belong to the same roll?

2. Does the text on fragments labeled c, d, and e correspond to Irenaeus?

3. With regard to the largest fragment, bearing labels a,b, and f, what about the text to the left of the column marked "a"? Does it correspond to text found in Adversus Haereses (AH), by "Irenaeus"?

4. Since both Tertullian and Hippolytus apparently quoted from AH, how can we be certain that this text, abf, is not from one of those two authors, rather than "Irenaeus"?

5. If I can impose on your time, to have a look at Matthew 3: 16-17 at Codex Sinaiticus, I think you will agree with me, (perhaps not!) that the first letter Beta, in the second word of the passage, βαπτιϲθειϲ not only looks remarkably like the Greek letter kappa, but, also is the spitting image of the first letter of the three letter sequence in POxy 3.405: beta, alpha, pi, observed in line 4, labeled "f", just after τον, immediately preceding it.

What I am getting at, is this question: Was the handwriting of the late second century identical to that one hundred fifty years later, i.e. at the time when Codex Sinaiticus was created? Would this "anomaly", or characteristic deformation, or carelessness distinguishing Beta and Kappa, have been common, throughout all time periods of Greek history?

To my untrained eye, this similar misrepresentation, or sloppy writing style, or whatever else explains confounding beta with kappa, is too much of a coincidence to assume that the four fragments are separated in time, from the creation of Sinaiticus, by one hundred fifty years....

6. As I study this fragment, abf, symbol by symbol, I fail to observe some of the symbols noted by Ben.

For example, in this same line 4, Ben writes:
beta
alpha
pi
tau

Tau? Where does that come from? I fail to observe any symbol after pi.

Similarly, in line 3 (Ben's line 1, because he starts with the label "f" (for first?), Ben writes:
μη ζητουσιν (ten letters)

I can only decipher 8 letters:

? I can tell there is a symbol, but I have no idea which one
η
iota Ben has only a space, no symbol. I observe iota.
zeta
eta
tau
omicron
upsilon
chi Ben has sigma

That's all that I see in line 3, but Ben sees two additional letters--iota and nu, at the end of the line. Where are they?

In other words, two people look at the same fragment, but come away with different interpretations.

Can you perhaps explain this mystery to me?

Thanks,

avi