Yuri Kuchinsky

Dear Clara,

What you're saying is based on a fallacy. It is wrong to assume that the date of a text should be the same as the date of its manuscript.

Please read my posts above in this thread, where I explain why the Byzantine text-type (the basis for the KJV) is very valuable. It's clearly more ancient overall than the Alexandrian text.

Regards,

Yuri.

Clara Listensprechen

Already did and I'm still not buying. The current Jerusalem has a reason to be valued, too, as an historical Roman-built city--but as far as religious value, that of the Byzantine texts and the current Jerusalem are equal. Zero.

Clara Listensprechen

P.S., I forgot to add that your estimation of the Byzantine texts as having more value than the Alexandrian only because the former resembles Western texts is not just a non-starter but is rather geo-arrogant on top of it. More reasonable: whichever version predates all others should be judged as the more authentic than subsequent versions given the time allowed between the two versions for human diddling.

Anything Byzantine automatically has the comingled state/religion corruption from the get-go in the form of Constantine's own religious diddling himself, and IMHO accounts for how so much of a Roman officer's writings got included in the Byzantine Bible despite the fact that this officer was no apostle. State religions tend to particularly glorify the virtues of its own officers, and the Byzantine form of state Christianity was no exception.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Clara,

I don't quite see what you mean by this.

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More reasonable: whichever version predates all others should be judged as the more authentic than subsequent versions given the time allowed between the two versions for human diddling.

Sure. And from this point of view, there cannot be much doubt that Western text was the earliest.

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Anything Byzantine automatically has the comingled state/religion corruption from the get-go in the form of Constantine's own religious diddling himself,

I'm not yet aware that anyone has claimed that Constantine, himself, was busy editing the gospels. Is this your own discovery?

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and IMHO accounts for how so much of a Roman officer's writings got included in the Byzantine Bible despite the fact that this officer was no apostle.

Did you mean Paul here? If so, what makes you think that his "writings" are really authentic?

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State religions tend to particularly glorify the virtues of its own officers, and the Byzantine form of state Christianity was no exception.

Well, many commentators have argued that the Alexandrian text is full of political corruptions. After all, our main Alexandrian MSS are all from the 4th century and even later. So what makes you think that the Alexandrian MSS are any less corrupt than the Byzantine MSS?

Please don't get me wrong here. I'm not some sort of a KJV-only fundamentalist. After all, I do admit that, in general, Byzantine text is quite late and corrupt. So all I'm really saying is that the Alexandrian text is even later (for the most part), and even more corrupt.

If it's accepted that Western text is the earliest, then it will become very clear that Byzantine text is superior to the Alexandrian. So perhaps you should read the basic analysis of Western text on my webpage. How about answering my arguments in this regard? Like this, for example,

Griesbach had it right!
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/griesb.htm

Regards,

Yuri.

Clara Listensprechen

Yuri, I tried to reply to your message once and the dang board keeps logging me out because it takes me too long to write a full response to your reply. Right now I'm fortunate enough to have a floppy handy with me to copy/past to and from, but I don't often have that luxury especially if I'm working from a library terminal. In the latter case, I need to warn you and others that I'll otherwise necessarily have to respond in a series of postings so as to promptly post and avoid getting logged out.
OK, to your message...

Your reasoning that something, anything, is best because it most resembles the Western version of things is geomyopic, and therefore geoarrogant, as there are non Western writings possibly more authentic and therefore possibly more accurate than the Western view. The Western view didn't spontaneously come to life, it was fabricated from a preceeding foundation...which was non-Western. The Western view is NOT the originating view. For accuracy and authenticity, one must pursue the originating view.

And because it's an exclusively Western point of view with total disregard for where it comes from, your premise is a false one.

Now, Yuri, I'm now running into a message length limit, despite my efforts to work off of a floppy. Second part of my response follows.

Clara Listensprechen

Part II

Constantine committed the same diddling that King James I did, and that's decide what does NOT go into "The Bible" as well as decided what did go in it like that truckload of Pauline material to the exclusion of other writings of Peter, for example. You have but to consult a detailed historical account of who all attended the earliest Ecumenical Councils, the first being of mostly the original apostles in 50 A.D. It goes downhill from there, with Constantine presiding over a number of the others; where he did not preside, a bishop (pope) of his choosing did. The first subsequent Council was in Arles, France, mainly addressing the Donatist issue, and attended by the English church (314 A.D.) After that, in 325 A.D. there was one in Nice and ostensibly presided over by Constantine, and at which Arius, Eusebius were condemned. This was the First General Council and First Nicene Council (they come in different flavors with different counts: General, Nicene, and Lateran). In the one of 359 A.D. in Rimini, Constantine compelled all 400 attending bishops to sign new "articles of faith". This was the council that immediately preceeded the Second General in 381 A.D.

The state diddling with religion didn't stop there, either. During the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" (which everybody nowadays has abbreviated to "Holy Roman Empire" and in some ways entertain mistaken concepts about it because of the abbreviation), there was such intermingling of church and state that simony was born; the monk that invented it under Emperor Henry IV was installed by the same as Pope Gregory XII. This is just the tip of a rather massive iceberg.

Yes I did, and I did NOT say that any of his writings were really authentic. However, some archaeological diggings have verified details about some of the landmarks mentioned in the Pauline scripture, foremost that comes to mind is the Freeman temple (Acts).

Again you put words in my mouth. Corruption level is a discussion outside of the one I'm pursuing with my postings. RESTATEMENT OF ISSUE: Authenticity, regardless of corruption level. Usually the standard is that the older the document the more authentic it is than its more recent version. Byzantine versions are preceeded by non-Western versions, not confined to just an Alexandrian, and may be taken to be more authentic than Western versions as well.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Clara,

What I'm saying is that the Western (Syro-Latin) text is the earliest. This view was held by many big textual experts in the past, and many still think so.

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as there are non Western writings possibly more authentic and therefore possibly more accurate than the Western view.

Nope. There are no such non Western writings.

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The Western view didn't spontaneously come to life, it was fabricated from a preceeding foundation...which was non-Western.

No, it was not fabricated.

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The Western view is NOT the originating view. For accuracy and authenticity, one must pursue the originating view.

So what was "the originating view", according to you?

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

I agree with you that there are many theological corruptions in the canonical gospels, as well as in "Paul's epistles". We should always be careful about that. But you're quite wrong if you think that the Alexandrian text was immune to corruptions. So the only question is which text is more corrupt. I'm saying that the Alexandrian text is more corrupt.

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[snip] In the one of 359 A.D. in Rimini, Constantine compelled all 400 attending bishops to sign new "articles of faith".

Hmm... Actually, Constantine the Great died in 337, so this would be quite surprising.

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[snip] Re: Paul I did NOT say that any of his writings were really authentic. However, some archaeological diggings have verified details about some of the landmarks mentioned in the Pauline scripture, foremost that comes to mind is the Freeman temple (Acts).

In my view, there are no "authentic letters by Paul". At best, some authentic material might have survived within various "letters of Paul" in the NT, but the rest is composed of later expansions.

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RESTATEMENT OF ISSUE: Authenticity, regardless of corruption level. Usually the standard is that the older the document the more authentic it is than its more recent version.

Yes, we can assume that the older the document the more authentic it is. But this of course doesn't imply that the age of the manuscript equals the age of the text that it contains.

Regards,

Yuri.

Clara Listensprechen

Yuri, your fixation on the subject of corruptions even after I clearly state that my postings are not in that regard.

You state that there are no non-Western texts that predate Western ones as if the Western ones spontaneously came into being in a vacuum. They didn't and there are precedent non-Western texts.

You offer no further discussion of texts other than your pontificate pronouncement of this opinion.

This topic is hereby dropped.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Well, I was still hoping to learn from you what those "precedent non-Western texts" might have been... But I guess it will now have to remain a state secret.

Yuri.