Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Thanks, Ben. Let's continue. Appreciate your jumping in, now we can go past the logic issues.

Let me start with a couple of questions.

First question .. did Holtz or anyone have any quote akin saying that any textual affinities thereby would :

"tie Irenaeus to a questionable/inferior manuscript tradition"

Anything at all even remotely of that nature in any of their writings ?

And do they even claim any general textual inferiority at all for the Irenaeus text ?
(Or even a specific inferiority - e.g they or you may consider Acts 8:37 in that light)

And, in your view, or that of JW, what is the unquestioned/superior manuscript tradition ?
Does it happen to be that mini-line that happens to not have the resurrection account in Mark ?

With the Irenaeus Bible in Greek, in the 2nd century, how significant do you see his scripture citations as an early textual witness ?

Is Ireneaus earlier or later than Vaticanus and Sinaiticus ? If the resurrection account of Mark was in 2nd century Greek manuscripts, why would a couple of manuscripts missing the ending almost two centuries later be particularly significant ? Especially since those manuscripts were far, far more full of corruptions that Irenaeus. Irenaeus has a few words off, quoting from memory, the alexandrian manuscripts have blunders galore, as described by Dean Burgon, throughout the manuscripts. Which is more significant ?

Can you help with the 16 references from Joe that he used to imply that Irenaeus quoted non-scripture as scripture ? (as frequently occurs in Bezae) "16 quotes of Irenaeus not supported by any extant manuscript." Yet from the examples, Joe gave us about two NT references that looked significant and this is out of 750 NT references in the Irenaeus apparatus. How does that compare to other writers of his time ?

=======================

"The question here is not simply what exactly Irenaeus' source was but the broader question of what exactly Irenaeus' evidence was. We have the following reasons to think that Irenaeus simply preferred the LE over the AE and that his selection was conclusion driven and not evidence driven" - JW

Do we have any direct evidence at all that this was even an issue for Irenaeus ? Has anybody else in textual history ever conjectured that Irenaeus had some sort of tortured decision to make about the Bible manuscript that he referenced for the resurrection account from the Gospel of Mark ? Should we apply psycho-babble to textual analysis ?

Irenaeus referenced Acts 8:37 as we know the verse in the Received Text (supported by some Greek and lots of Latin and Cyprian and about 5-10 later church writers). Should we then contemplate that maybe he had another manuscript that did not have the verse and he chose the manuscript with the verse to match a doctrinal flair ? Is such conjecturing textual analysis or playground ?

Lots of questions, Ben, only meant to help give a sound and real picture. Work with what you feel is salient and in your comfort zone.

Thanks.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Ben C Smith

Actually, I am not trying to jump into the debate. My only intent was to issue a point of clarification.

I have not read Holtz. I was quoting from Parker, who was reacting to Holtz.

What I do know are the following two scholarly commonplaces:

Irenaeus is tied into the western textual tradition.
The western textual tradition is considered questionable (Westcott and Hort, for example).

Put these two together, and it is easy to tie Irenaeus into a questionable textual tradition.

Again, to do so may be mistaken (and, again, I do not think it is), but it is frequently done, and Joe was hardly forging new ground to do so.

The other questions you ask are starting to pertain to the debate about the ending of Mark more generally. I am not interested at this time in participating in such a debate. My own view is that 16.9-20 is spurious; and I have given some reasons for that view on my Marcan endings page. You are more than free to disagree.

It was a debate between Joe Wallack and Jim Snapp II that sparked the current discussion on this board; I myself have defended my view of Mark 16.9-20 in correspondence with Jim. (It was an exceedingly polite exchange, incidentally, striking a tone that I wish were the norm for all internet discussions.) But the issue is not live enough for me right now to carry on a debate about it.

Ben.

spin

Parker tells an interesting anecdote about Matthew Black introducing C. Bezae to his first year students, "he used to describe it as a descendant of the Bible which Irenaeus brought with him from Syria".

spin

[*]mod note: Codex Bezae: studies from the Lunel colloquium, June 1994 By David C. Parker, Christian-Bernard Amphoux (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Thus, totally circular in this context.

Shalom,
Steven