vid

Do we have evidence for significant textual corruption in "undisputed" Pauline letters?

hjalti

Yes.

avi

And, then, the consequent question, how reliable is this evidence?

Here are the seven "undisputed" letters, with however, a date of origin, that I dispute (I would add 100 years to these dates):

* Romans (ca. 55-58 AD)
* Philippians (ca. 52-54 AD)
* Galatians (ca. 55 AD)
* Philemon (ca. 52-54 AD)
* First Corinthians (ca. 53-54 AD)
* Second Corinthians (ca. 55-56 AD)
* First Thessalonians (ca. 51 AD)

Here are some references to publications suggesting interpolation, redaction, or forgery for one or more of these seven epistles:

http://www.atheistalliance.org/jhc/a...s/RP1cor15.htm

James Moffat 1901

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/corinth3.html

But apart from that issue, there is another concern: the discordance between different primary Greek texts.

For example here is the same passage (Galatians 1:4) in two different collections of Paul's letters (passage selected because of its relatively non-controversial character):

a. b. ok, yes, the changes here are slight, and quite possibly insignificant, but, the point is: change has occurred--the two versions are not identical. Someone made a change in the original text....Why? Why should there be even a slight difference in the text, unless someone, somewhere was dissatisfied with the original version, and sought to improve it.....

avi

spin

There are both conscious and unconscious scribal alterations. Improvement deals with conscious alteration. Unconscious alterations include errors and inadvertent synonym substitution or word order change while passing from the source to the copy. Scribal art was not exact science. Play Chinese whispers and you'll see what can happen.


spin

avi

Thank you spin, for your reply. Well, I will acknowledge not knowing anything about whispering in Chinese, except under the sheets, and I doubt that's what you meant.

Sure, scribes erred. I am not disputing that point. But, these small differences in the two Greek texts of Galatians 1:4, written half a millennium apart, don't look to me like inadvertent, "unconscious" mistakes. Small, yes. Insignificant, theologically: probably. Unconscious: doubtful. By way of example, I could agree that perhaps the deletion of the personal pronoun "her" in Mark 7:30 in both Codex W and Papyrus 45 (and only those two versions) represents an unconscious scribal error (though I doubt that--because those particular two Greek texts are so similar!!), but in the case of Galatians 1:4, the difference in these two ancient Greek texts appears to represent more than just a casual, single word omission, i.e. more than a simple lapse due to scribal fatigue.

Is there a preferred method of writing this particular Koine Greek sentence in Galatians 1:4? Is one of these two versions (Byzantine versus Hort & Westcott) more in harmony with "authentic", or "legitimate", or "scholarly", or "literary" Koine Greek, than the other? Are we thus able to discern which version was changed from the original ink drying on the papyrus held in Paul's hands, if only one version represents change from the original text? Is it more likely that the "defective" version faithfully replicates the original text, (i.e. the original text was "defective") or does the "defective" version most likely represent a degradation of the original?

If this particular passage was ill-chosen by me, to address these questions, please feel free to illustrate an answer to these questions with any other single passage from the undisputed seven letters of Paul, in which the Byzantine version of the ancient Greek text is significantly different from the Hort & Westcott version.

avi

spin

Chinese whispers


spin

spamandham

Yes. The 6 disputed letters are significant evidence that everything has been doctored.

Can you think of any other case where 6 of 13 items are widely accepted as fakes, and yet everyone assumes the ones that haven't yet been proven fake must be genuine?

Toto

The digression on the purported accuracy of scribes has been split off here

gurugeorge

Yes, and what's really interesting is what's the genuine "message" of the genuine "Paul" writing (whatever it is)? I think the genuine "Paul" is the proto-gnostic one. I think that (if I had the time and the energy) I could go through the "genuine" Pauline letters, delete everything that looks like it's steering the text away from a gnostic interpretation, and then you've a solid, consistent hard core of proto-Gnosticism, written by a mystic and visionary.

The other interesting alternative for the "real Paul" I've seen here is DC Hindley's more complicated one - DC, take it away?

aa5874

You cannot TAMPER with the EVIDENCE.

You simply cannot CHERRY-PICK and DISCARD EVIDENCE just as you please to get some prior outcome.

You FIRST need external EVIDENCE of antiquity to support your views about the Pauline writers, you are not allowed to remove EVIDENCE that don't support your views.