Steven Carr

Astonishing, John's Gospel contained a passion story! And here I was on my web site trying to persuade people that it did not! I bet almost everybody who visited my site walked away saying 'I always thought there was a passion story in John's Gospel, but Steven Carr's web site has shown me that I was wrong'.

I have posted a transcription. Anybody can see how much has had to be 'assumed'. Note that people had to 'assume' the name of Pilate. This is a very reasonable assumption, but people are forced to use later manuscripts of John's Gospel to assume the text on p52, when King Arthur would have us believe that p52 can be used as a support for later manuscripts of John's Gospel.

To quote the web page I cited , it writes about the earliest manuscript 'Cited in all the recent Nestle-Aland editions and the like; it should be noted, however, that P52 is so short that it plays no real role in the critical apparatus.'

Let me repeat that - the earliest Biblical manuscript ever found 'plays no real role in the critical apparatus.' Pretty significant , wouldn't you say, more so than the startling news that there was a passion story in John's Gospel.

King Arthur

<a href="http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?id=DavWalh&tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed" target="_blank">http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?id=DavWalh &tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed</a>

"Hans took the child in his arms for a moment, and kissed him. When he gave him back to his mother his eyes were full of tears. Then the carriage drove on."

Well, unless I screwed up again, here is your phrase and I read it quickly so may have missed it, but it looks like it beats your website by a few years since it appears to be from a book published in 1880. And, no, I didn't conjure this one up. I don't cheat, I just know better.

This is a common phrase whether you like it or not Steven. If I had the time, I'd find more examples for you.

Finally, to say the p52 plays "no real role" in the apparatus is questionable. It can be found in the critical apparatus of the Nestle-Aland 27th ed. as part of the basis for the editors choice for his greek text. So, it could be said to play a "real role", in my opinion.

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: King Arthur ]</p>

King Arthur

Aw dang! I know. I missed the "and" again. I keep doing searches on engines and it leaves the dumb "and" out.

Well, you get the point. This phrase is so common it is ridiculous. It is something that happens in life.

Steven Carr

Where is the phrase 'and he gave him back to his mother.'? I still can't find it in your posting.

It is surprising that such a common everday idiom, used by Luke (unconsciously, of course), is so hard to find in the literally billions of Web pages that have been written.


The web site I gave did say that p52 was *cited* (and indeed pointed out the trivial differences between p52 and later manuscripts), but it still plays no real role. The accepted text of Johns' Gospel changed not one iota after the discovery of p52.

Steven Carr

It is so common that you cannot find it? Perhaps you can produce lexicon entries for 'common' , showing that it actually means something that happens extremely rarely.