CX

BTW questioning things never makes one look like a dullard. I ask questions all the time. You could a fill volumes with what I don't know about text criticism, papyrology, paleography and all that stuff.

beachbum

CX

Thanks

CX

Just for kicks I started doing the math and here is what I have so far. MSS dating solidly in the 2nd century and before account for a total of 22 verses or 0.00277% of the entire NT canon. MSS dating from the turn of the 3rd century (200 C.E.) and before account for 2,374 verses or 29.84% of the entire NT canon. In addition there are 7 books in the NT (the pastorals except Titus and 5 of the catholic letters) which have no manuscript evidence prior to in the 4th century. The manuscript evidence undergoes a bit of an explosion (28 MSS vs. 6 before the 3rd century) in the 3rd century. I haven't worked out the percentages yet, but I am willing to bet I'll come up with 50% or less of the NT canon being attested to prior to the 4th century. Looking at these numbers it becomes easy to see how difficult it is for us to have a clear and reliable picture of what the original texts might have said.

[ April 17, 2002: Message edited by: CX ]</p>

Vorkosigan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Alexis Comnenus:
Tortonm,
Actually, the Res Gestae is carved around the base of Augustus's altar of victory in Rome and is also extant on some temples in Turkey so I think we mean the same thing. Interesting to hear texts are frequently rock carved in the East. Obviously this is rarer in the West.

Yes. I don't know why westerners never did this. I wish I had my Needham with me, so I could fill this post with interesting factoids.

Note, I am not disagreeing that the Gospels are substantially fictions but rather making clear that the date of manuscript attestation is not in itself a strong argument for this.

Oh yes, I agree.

Michael

spin

Alexis Comnenus:
----------------
CX, ignoring the apologetics stuff, I think we can agree that the NT documents are better attested than any other ancient work excpet something like the Res Gestae of Augustus (and let's face it, we don't believe much of that either!)
----------------

Unfortunately, this is apologetics.

Such baldfaced, one-eyed, uninformed drivel can only be expected from a religionist who doesn't have sources outside the religion. The same places that supplied numerous early copies of the nt materials also supplied tons of other documents as well. Amongst the numerous fragments of Euripides for example, there are a number of exemplars of his Orestes, one of which goes back to the 2/1 century BCE. Thucydides is very well-represented amongst the Oxyrhynchus finds, as is Herodutus, literary works of Pindar and Apollonius of Rhodes, works by Demosthenes and even of Strabo (a few fragments one a century after his death).

Look at Christian sites which want to marvel over the good representation of the christian works, you'll find no knowledge whatsoever of the other Oxyrhynchus finds. Strange isn't it?

Yet, we are dealing with texts of the "winners" when it comes to the survival of christian literature, and we expect much more of the winners' stuff to endure, especially when the christians were known to burn those works they didn't like (remember Porphyry for example).

If we want a sure-fire historical document which is extremely hard to place any doubts upon, think of the treaty between the Hittites and the Egyptians agreed to by Ramses II and Hattusilas III. There was a copy found at the capital of the Hittites and a copy preserved in Luxor on Ramses mortuary temple. Thus, there are two contemporary versions of the document from two very distant locations. Good historical data does exist. One needs to know something about history though.

Alexis Comnenus:
----------------
Consequently, I think that pointing towards the gap between complete manuscripts in the 4th century and the original authors is as weaker argument as the apologists going on about their 10,000 odd.
----------------

Contemporary reports are what is important for attempt to reclaim the past. The earliest father to show what cannot be other than gospel text knowledge is Justin.

Incidentally, whatever p52 was, it cannot have been part of a gospel. it is written on both sides of the fragment, and what is written in Jn 18:31-33 and 37-38. This would imply an extremely tiny page size (given that such close texts are back to back), that we can discount that possibility. Also, p52 does not accord with the current versions of the text. Yet further, palaeographers almost never give such tight date ranges for palaeographical datings: now given such a small sample of text as found on p52, how can one give such an exact dating?

Alexis Comnenus:
----------------
Yes, there are interpolations etc which textual critics can work on but it does seem we have a fairly high degree of confidence in the texts and that they are not the issue. The issue is do we have any confidence in what the texts say?
----------------

As there is such a gap between the repute times of writing and the majority of the earliest texts, one has plenty of time for interpolations, and what we find in the earliest manuscript tradition is that interpolation was still going on. We therefore should have a prima facie case for interpolation going on before the preserved texts. One cannot say to what extent this interpolation was going on, so one simply can't dismiss the possibility of large interpolations during a formative era. I cannot therefore support Alex's unwarranted claim of "a fairly high degree of confidence in the texts". This is only apologetic.

Alexis Comnenus:
----------------
Iasion, open a thread on you dating the Gospels to the second century. You'll need to do a lot better than the lack of surviving papyri and paupacity of quotations. You'll need internal evidence to show that the Gospels address second century concerns and have a christology and theology consistant with that date.

As there is nothing that particularly deals with the first century in the gospels, beside a few references to Augustus and a few other notables, then obviously the texts weren't written in the first century. But looking closely and working from the information supplied by Josephus AJ 18,5,1-2, as to the date of the death of John the Baptist, ie shortly before the death of Tiberius who died in 37 CE, we have an indication that John the Baptist died after the reputed date of the death of Jesus. Obviously the story of John the Baptist as related to Jesus must either be spurious, as the writer is unaware of the events, or written long enough after the events to get all the datings screwed up.

Working from the facts that there are no clear early references in the fathers to support an early date for the first gospel writings, the lack of early manuscript evidence and the problem of dating relating to John the Baptist, we should think that the gospels are untrustworthy until shown otherwise.

Further evidence of their untrustworthiness is the conflict between the two "genealogies" (which Alexis Comnenus has palmed off because of the weak efforts by apologists to deal with it), the inventiveness of such efforts as the garden of Gethsemane and the interview with Satan, both literary rather than historical, the misunderstanding of the old testament literature the gospels attempt to appropriate, eg Daniel's "one like a son of man" description of the angel who defended Israel suddenly becoming a titular reference to a messianic figure the gospels want us to believe is Jesus. There's a very cute "prophecy" about Jesus's entry into Jerusalem, in which Matthew, rewriting Mark, has placed Jesus on two animals because the Mattheean writer didn't understand Hebrew parallelism in poetry (21:7).

We are dealing with evolving literature. (We can see traces of it in the comparison between one gospel and another.) Our friend Alexis is trying to turn it into something that it never was, ie history.

Haran

Why? It seems to at least be a piece of a complete passion story nearly identical to what is found in the Gospel of John...

Discount what possibility? I think you are straying out of your expertise, Spin.

Oh really? In what way does it stray? From looking at the Greek, I say it is nearly identical to what we have today in the Gospel of John. What is different? Here is my <a href="http://dreamwater.org/bccox/P52trans.html" target="_blank">webpage translation of p52</a> and picture with transliteration at the bottom. Can you point out to me how it does not accord?

What do you mean by "tight date ranges"? Palaeographers seem to date this MS somewhere in the 1st quarter of the 2nd century. Why? They compare the "look" of the text with other dated MSS. There are some influential scholars that are and have been behind this date range for p52, like C.H. Roberts (see his An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel in the John Rylands Library), Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, W. Schubart, Sir Harold I. Bell, Adolf Deissmann, Ulrich Wilcken, and W.H.P. Hatch. Deissmann thought it was written at least in the reign of Hadrian (A.D. 98-117) and perhaps during the reign of Trajan (A.D. 98-117).

Here is an exerpt from Comfort and Barrett's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0842352651/qid=1019096777/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-6769049-5205717" target="_blank">The Text of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts</a>:

This is how the date of a MS is figured. Palaeographers familiar with many ancient texts, and knowing how handwriting styles have changed over time, are able to approximate the date of a MS like p52.

Finally, spin, your "atheological axe grinding" is pretty visible in your last post. Why not be more scholarly? You can make your case without labeling everything "apologetic" when it is obviously not.

Haran

spin

First how many letters are there in total on p52?

That should tell you if there is a reasonable sample of the font to make a hard palaeographical dating. If I remember there are about 120 characters in total. Do all the letters come up?

With such a minimal content of letter exemplars, how can one make a solid dating of a quarter century??

Fonts are a strange thing. As an indication, if you look at my mother's handwriting (she's 81), it reflects a style of before the 20th century she is now using it in 2002, giving the font style she uses at least 100 years.

As Driver once said, palaeography is the handmaiden of history, not history of palaeography. The dating of p52 is simply overhopeful.

Whatever p52 was part of, think about how much text there was between that which is on recto and that which is on verso. I don't have the info at hand because I'm involved in doing something else at the moment, but if I remember correctly there are six verses or something, suggesting a total of only about 8 verses per page -- from a point on the recto to a point on the verso -- perhaps fewer (as a rough indication of the length of the page). Does that accord to you as a normal page size from other texts you know about?

I remember that there are interesting differencs between p52 and other texts. I may be remembering wrongly.

Haran:
-------
Finally, spin, your "atheological axe grinding" is pretty visible in your last post. Why not be more scholarly? You can make your case without labeling everything "apologetic" when it is obviously not.
-------

I get tired of false claims such as those about how marvelously attested the gospel materials are in comparison to other things. It would be not so strange if it were 100% true (as christianity is the winner religion from Roman antiquity), but it isn't. In fact, people who make such claims seem to be oblivious of the other texts as I stated in the message you are responding to. That obliviousness speaks of data that doesn't come from an unbiased source. Hence apologetics. If you don't like that claim, you need to do more than simply whinge "atheological axe grinding". I think you are wrong, but you've given nothing to support the claim.

Iasion

Greetings all,

P52:
I seem to recall reading on Jesus Mysteries group, that someone dated P52 to 100-160, and some other earlier writer dated it possibly as late as 190. For the life of me I cannot find the reference now, and I cannot vouch for their accuracy - I just wanted to remind everyone that P52 is not as firmly dated as some think.

Anyway, (as spin rightly points out), there are problems with P52 proving GJohn' dating :
* it may not be from GJohn at all
* it may have been added to GJohn later
* it may have been part of an ur-Gospel which LATER became GJohn


Gospel dating:
Much of what is said here about P52 and the Gospel dating is pure apologetics, wishful thinking based on pre-conceptions that Jesus DID exist, a hang-over from the early NT 'scholars' (many of them faithful Christians) who worked from the assumption there WAS a real Jesus and tended to date the Gospels as early as possible.

Now that its clear just how flimsy the evidence for a historical Jesus actually is, the dating of the Gospels needs to be revisited based on the actual evidence, not the preconceptions and consensus of faithful believers.
(Compare P64 (Magdalen) which is now dated by the faithful to c.60CE based on the wildest speculation of Kirsten Thiede)

There is NO solid evidence to date the Gospels to the 1st century, and much to suggest they date to 2nd century -

* No mention of Gospels till early-mid 2nd century
* No quotes from Gospels till early 2nd century
* No mention of their being FOUR Gospels till mid 2nd century
* No mention of the Evangelists names till late 2nd century
* No detailed knowledge of the Gospels till late 2nd century

The Gospels' contents show no particular 1st century characteristics, and the traditional dating argument is of the weakest kind - merely later interpretation of internal evidence (references to the fall of Jerusalem).

But, the Gospels fit right in with the many writings that appeared in early 2nd century - which matches the evidence of the Gospels being unknown till just after this time.

Thos who claim a 1st century dating for the Gospels have to explain the total lack of knowledge of the Gospels and their contents in all the early Christian writers.

Quentin David Jones

CX

Haran & Spin,

I find myself squarely in the middle on this discussion (not unusal since I think I am probably in the middle of you both philosophically). I agree that P52 may not be a fragment of a full gospel maunscript, but we have no real reason to think it isn't and good reason to think it may be. In answer to spin's question there are roughly 118 legible characters on P52. This is a tremendously small sample for dating it paleographically and most critical scholars express caution in giving a small date range.

If we look at the fragment we can reasonably conclude that P52 originally comprised 18 lines per page with 32 characters per line. At present I don't have handy what the average lines per page was for a manuscript from the period in question. In any case based on the NA27 text there are approximately 11 lines missing between the end of the text on the recto and the beginning of the text on the verso. This would accord with this fragment originally being one continuous page making it likely that this was a leaf from a complete manuscript rather than a quotation or some other text.

I think it is an error to say P52 "does not accord" with the canonical text. Given it's fragmentary nature it either attests to the canonical version (there is nothing to indicate it doesn't) or some idiosyncratic or trivial variants. Regardless there simply isn't enough text to aid in the analysis of variants to the canonical text. At best P52 is an historical curiousity which, while fascinating, aids us little regarding text critical issues.

[addendum] I did some checking and the early papyri appear to range between 15 or 16 lines per page and 25-32 lines per page. It is certainly within the realm of possibility that P52, at about 18 lines per page, was a gospel manuscript.

[ April 18, 2002: Message edited by: CX ]</p>

Haran

112

3/4 of the letters come up (18 of the 24 - only beta, zeta, xi, phi, chi, and psi do not make an appearance). The more common letters are represented, some more than once.

There is enough information to make a judgement. If you look at it, you too can get a feel for the style of the more common letters of the Greek alphabet. Scholars have made more of less. I see no reason that a bounded date range cannot be given to this piece of MS.

I understand your point, but this is not a good example. Scribes were professionals who went to school and learned a particular style. They then practiced this style. Lifespans were not necessarily as long and script styles not necessarily as long-lived. Palaeographers seem to give a range of about 50 years for handwriting styles. Again, this is based on looking at the styles of dated MSS. If a scribe was from a particular school during a particular time, his writing would reflect a character very similar to that of other dated MSS.

Spin, your reading about the DSS should tell you this as well. Perhaps you haven't looked into palaeography much on the scrolls, but if you do, I imagine you'll find something quite similar - perhaps up to 100 year window around a handwriting style, maybe. Seems to me that I remember palaeographical datings of some of the dead sea scrolls by scholars to be borne out by carbon dating.

Overhopeful? Remember that you are talking about many honest and excellent scholars with much more knowledge than us, Spin. I can see something of a trend, myself, so I would imagine that they are not being overhopeful but reasonable in putting a window around the date.

Both of the most prominent and relatively unbiased (the Alands seem somewhat late on some of their datings to me and seem rather liberal and dogmatic in their views compared to Metzger) introductions to NT textual criticism present a dating of c. 125 for p52. Here is an exerpt from the Alands' Text of the NT:

I seem to recall you mentioning something about p52 not being in accord with our text... Yet, the Alands of the Nestle-Aland critical edition of the NT text say that p52 attests the text of today! Indeed, I see no significant difference.

Can you point out how it is not in accord, since you hate it so much when people state things that aren't true and are only apologetical in nature?

Books were not all 8 1/2" by 11" inches back then.

They came in all different sizes. No scholar I have read seems to think that the size (18 lines of text per side) is a problem.

You might check your sources...

However, Spin, by "atheological axe grinding", I mean that you overreact in the opposite direction - to the point of error and false information, IMO, and I (and probably others) get just as tired of that.

For Iasion, your mind is made up, however wrong. I have a severe problem with your idea that the scholarship I and others present is old and tainted by Christianity. It is current and honest scholarship. The things I have seen you presenting lately are mostly not from good and reputable scholars and I would imagine that the late dates you have seen for p52 are not from palaeographers, at least not well-known ones. Well-backed theories are one thing, but dogmatic and biased conclusions are quite another.

Haran