Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, CX,

There's still a bit of an ambiguity in what you're saying. You see, the value of early patristic citations is precisely that they attest for us the early shape of the canonical texts, i.e. the proto-canonical text.

So, indeed, they are of _primary value_ for reconstructing and attesting the proto-canonical texts. As to the _canonical texts_, these don't really need much more reconstructing, since this is what's being printed in NA. (Or alternatively, it's the KJV, which likewise needs no further reconstructing.)

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You had me, then you lost me. I'm not much for conspiracy theories as they generally present far greater problems than they solve.

Oh, yeah, but they are fun sometimes...

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I don't think it's really disputed that the Western text is quite ancient (going back to perhaps the 2nd century or earlier as Metzger says).

Yes, this is widely accepted.

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Clearly the text we have today is a fully developed corpus which did not exist until the 4th century.

Yes, and, like I say, it doesn't really need any further reconstructing.

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That does not prove however that the Alexandrian text is not just as early. But I know your views on the subject and am not inclined to debate them.

Plenty of proof already exists that the Alexandrian text is late and corrupt. But the mainstream scholars are generally not interested in this evidence.

All the best,

Yuri.

Iasion

Greetings all,

thanks Jackalope,

Ah, my imagined dramatisation is probably wrong on the details..

Is there really fragments of Homer in Linear B?
I couldn't find any mention.

The writing material may actually have been wax or clay tablets after all, consider "Vatrachomyomachia" (The Battle of the Frogs and the Rats) begins with

"Here I begin: and first I pray the choir of the Muses
to come down from Helicon into my heart to aid the lay
which I have newly written in tablets upon my knee"

Iasion

Celsus

Iasion,

I hope you're not suggesting Homer invented writing? I think that's how Jackalope interpreted your post. To answer your earlier question, Homer would undoubtedly have written on papyrus, which has been discovered as early as 3000 BCE. The vast majority however, dates from the 4th century BCE onwards, much of it in Latin and Greek. Parchment, made from animal skins, was a 2nd century BCE invention.

Joel

lpetrich

What's written in Linear B is exclusively bookkeeping records, like how many chariots or how much wool or how much was offered to various deities. In fact, deities are only mentioned as recipients of offerings; there are no hymns or epics or anything of that sort in the surviving Linear B writings.

Iasion

Greetings Celsus and lpetrich,

Heh, No, but I thought the arrival of Phoenican script and the rise of Homer were related.

Firstly,
because they occured at roughly the same time - 8th C. (according to most authorities, some vary).

Secondly,
the usefulness of writing can be readily seen for those who have to remember 17000 long lines of a poem.

It seemed to me that that the flourishing of writing in the 8th C. contributed to this most important oral poem being written down - my dramatisaztion was a way of expressing that.

As for Linear B, I agree lpetrich, all my researches could not produce a single mention of Homer in LinearB - which seems to have been mostly or only used for record keeping. While Linear B was used mid-late 2nd millenium BCE - it appears to have faded out by Homeric times.

The 8th C. BCE apparently saw much migration in Greece - perhaps as well as a new Phoenician script, these migrations brought epic poetry into view. Perhaps Homer (or his school) was the first to realise how writing could be used for such poetry? Perhaps they were the first to realise a document could be larger than 1 page?


Certainly papyrus is in the right time frame, but the cost was very high - maybe a week's wages per page IIRC? Early copies would have cost a King's ransom.

Maybe wax tablets were used for drafts, later transferred to papyrus (if available or paid for?)

The author of the Wars of Frogs and Mice says it was "written in tablets".

Also, from
"Of the Origin of Homer and Hesiod", we see :
"When the hymn was ended, the Ionians made him a citizen of each one of their states, and the Delians wrote the poem on a whitened tablet and dedicated it in the temple of Artemis. "

Whitened tablet? Aristotle also uses this term - perhaps it means a tablet that has had some hardener sprinkled on the wax to preserve it?

And of course Homer himself mentions "folded tablets" :
"The king was angered, but shrank from killing Bellerophon, so he sent him to Lycia with lying letters of introduction, written on a folded tablet, and containing much ill against the bearer. He bade Bellerophon show these letters to his father-in-law, to the end that he might thus perish; "


This comment by Herodotus makes it clear how folding tablets were layered of wood and wax (Histories II, 239) :
"Now in no other way was he able to signify it, for there was danger that he should be discovered, but he [Xerxes] contrived thus, that is to say, he took a folding tablet and scraped off the wax which was upon it, and then he wrote the design of the king upon the wood of the tablet, and having done so he melted the wax and poured it over the writing, so that the tablet (being carried without writing upon it) might not cause any trouble to be given by the keepers of the road. "


Another fascinating comment from Euripides "Iphigenia At Aulis" :
"but thou, after letting thy taper spread its light abroad, writest the letter which is still in thy hands and then erasest the same words again, sealing and re-opening the scroll, then flinging the tablet to the ground with floods of tears"

This sounds like a wax tablet (held in the usual frame of wood), with a leather (?) cover which can be scrolled down to protect (or erase?) the wax, or scrolled up and out of the way to read and use the tablet.


I note tablets are mentioned in 8th-5th C. BCE by :
Homer, Aristophanes, Euripides, Herodotus, Lysias, Sophocles, Thucydides.

Whilst paper and/or papyrus is mentioned by:
Herodotus, Demosthenes.

I dare say the Illiad WAS written on paper at some stage, perhaps after being developed on tablets.

If you were Homer, would you write the version YOU learnt, or would you contact all your fellow poets and have a big meeting to thrash out the "correct, original" version?

Maybe "Homer" was actually a school of poets and writers who collected the various oral versions and collated the results into the master copy - as sponsored by a rich king who paid for the papyrus?

What do you think?

Iasion