spin

I've just tracked down a Hebrew inscription from the "Caiaphas" ossuaries which yields inscriptions with the name qp', along with another qyp' which may be qwp' (there is a problem in the period with the writing of yods and waws). Although qof is a different letter from kaf in Hebrew they are both transliterated the same way into Greek, eg xlqyh (Hilkiah) becomes helkias. So, as one can transliterate kp' one would do the same with qp'. This is from an article by Wm Horbury: "The 'Caiaphas' Ossuaries and Joseph Caiaphas" (PEQ 126 pp 32ff).

Petros in Greek is not a name. It means stone, in the sense of something that can be thrown (as a weapon).

spin

Haran:
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As far as MS evidence, p46 is the earliest witness, dating to around 200 A.D. as CowboyX pointed out (although some, like Philip Comfort, date it to around 150 A.D.).
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Sadly, when, despite the fact that the unknown gospel fragments found at Oxyrhynchus were dated in the early second century, the Nag Hamadi texts popped up with the Gospel of Thomas which turned the unknown gospel into a seemingly heretical text, the Oxyrhynchus fragments suddenly got redated. I have no faith in palaeography in these fields. I have seen it too abused especially in the dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls. People use palaeography when there is insufficient criteria to give dating otherwise and the dates are treated as axiomatic. The problem is they're just guesswork.

Haran
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P46 includes Gal verses 7 & 8 using "Peter". So the earliest and best witnesses have these verses. Could there have been an interpolation before the texts were written down? Sure. However, this remains only a theory until physical proof is found. I do not believe it happened, so the MS evidence is final for me.
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So you also don't believe in Q or the two document hypothesis. The manuscript evidence must be final for you here as well. It just so happens that three writers writing at different times in different locations popped out texts with very coincidental verbal similarities.

Haran
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I don't see the problem with "tounantian" and feel that Spin is splitting hairs with his definition of "changing topics".
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tounantion is something like "on the contrary" or "to the opposite" which is inappropriate in the context it was found. Look at how it is used in Corinthians or Peter.

Haran
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Anyway, "tounantian" was used elsewhere by Paul, in 2 Cor 2:7 to be exact.
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It wasn't used for emphasis here. Where is your evidence that it was used for emphasis in Gal 2:8?

Haran
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It was used in Gal. 2:7 for emphasis. Since the word is used elsewhere by Paul, it is easy to conclude that he would have used it again here in Gal. 2:7. I don't think these verses are an interpolation.
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I do. And I'm not the only one.

The use of the two names in the short space without any warning is incoherent and unwarranted.

We cannot simply assume that they are the same name, especially when there is a text, the Epistle of the Apostles, which is blithely unaware of the possibility that they are the same name, including both Peter and Cephas in the same list of apostles.

That there were problems in antiquity over the names is evinced by the inconsistent manuscript evidence.

What we are told about Peter in v.8 is contradicted in vv 11-12 and by implication in the mention of Cephas to the Corinthians, who obviously knew Cephas, meaning that Cephas was not entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised. He was doing the same rounds as Paul, ie to the uncircumcised.

The text is interested in showing the difference between those reputed to be something and Paul who was something. The parenthesis in v.6 shows the point, whereas the parenthesis (which simply upsets the text after the previous one) has nothing to do with the subject (of those who seem and he who is) at all.

I haven't touched the Barnikol material because I haven't had the opportunity to read it seriously. The article is on the web, and cited by Michael earlier in this conversation. I'd recommend that you read it, as obviously he is much more up with the finer situation than I am. I would prefer to be talking about Tanakh, but there seems to be nobody up with that here.

CX

This will most likely be my last post in this thread since at this point we seem to be going around in circles.

The fact is your argument about TOUNANTION is a non-argument. There is little more that I can say about it. What is striking about 2:7-8 in Galatians and the usual reason for thinking it could be an interpolation has little to do with this issue and more to do with the "unpauline" language. It simply isn't that peculiar a transition if you read and understand the Greek. If anyone here who has a familarity with the language disagrees please chime in.

Now, the name change IS peculiar and awkward. I'm not denying that, but since we are not dealing with the autograph and since the manuscript evidence points to the possibility of either name being used at different points, the force of the argument is undermined. This, to me, bears the earmarks of sloppy or confused redaction and not wholesale interpolation. You dismissal of the manuscript evidence is another non-argument and one that would be rejected by most if not all New Testament scholars.

Certainly with any New Testament text there is the possibility of interpolation because we don't have the autographs, the manuscript witnesses we have are more often than not many generations removed from them and in some places we have clear evidence of interpolation. But the weight of this argument is not sufficient to conclude 2:7-8 is an interpolation. No modern critical Greek text I'm aware of (and certainly not NA26/27 nor UBS3/4 which are for all intents and purposes the same text with different critical apparatuses) shows any variant reading for Gal 2:7-8 aside from variants on the names PETROS and KHFAS.

Ultimately, I am merely a dilletante. My occupation is in software development and my knowledge and understanding of Koine is rudimentary (I'm only at roughly a 3rd semester college level). Consequently I defer to the scholarly concensus such as it is. The scholarly concensus stands emphatically behind my position in this debate. The Schnelle text I have already cited. In addition I believe Raymond Brown propounds the same scholarly concensus and in his book "St. Peter Vs. St. Paul" atheist scholar Michael Goulder when discussing this exact passage and the underlying historical motivation for it makes absolutely no mention of any controversy about the authenticity of the passage, rather such controversy is conspicuously absent.

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: CowboyX ]</p>

spin

CowboyX:
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The fact is your argument about TOUNANTION is a non-argument. There is little more that I can say about it.
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Cat got your tongue? Look at how it is used in 2 Corinthians, will you? It shows the significance well enough.

CowboyX:
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What is striking about 2:7-8 in Galatians and the usual reason for thinking it could be an interpolation has little to do with this issue and more to do with the "unpauline" language. It simply isn't that peculiar a transition if you read and understand the Greek. If anyone here who has a familarity with the language disagrees please chime in.
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If someone says to you on the other hand then changes topic, not giving you the other hand, you would notice it.

CowboyX:
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Now, the name change IS peculiar and awkward. I'm not denying that, but since we are not dealing with the autograph and since the manuscript evidence points to the possibility of either name being used at different points, the force of the argument is undermined. This, to me, bears the earmarks of sloppy or confused redaction and not wholesale interpolation.
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Right at the time where we get this harmonizing statement about Peter (smoothing the references only to Cephas into a tradition context where Cephas is usually known as Peter -- and who is Simeon bar Cleophas anyway?) whose gospel is to the circumcised, yet not three verses later is carousing with Gentiles in Antioch, makes you think of a confused redaction, eh? Hmmm.

CowboyX:
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You dismissal of the manuscript evidence is another non-argument and one that would be rejected by most if not all New Testament scholars.
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I'm not dismissing it. It says that at the time of the manuscripts the Peter reference was in the text. We already knew that.

CowboyX:
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Ultimately, I am merely a dilletante. My occupation is in software development

Serious software development? At the codefront?

CowboyX:
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Consequently I defer to the scholarly concensus such as it is. The scholarly concensus stands emphatically behind my position in this debate.
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Our problem is not a matter of four legs good, two legs bad. What we are doing is not democratic. We are trying to work out what things were like, not how one feels it should have been or how one has been taught to accept the literature. You can't afford to defer to anyone on the matter unless they have shown clear evidence, and as you see there definitely is a problem here and standing together won't change that.

DMB

Spin: You have been posting quite a lot on here and it is high time you improved the look and legibility of your posts by using UBB for quotes. If you don't know how to do it, have a look at FAQ or ask for help in Bugs, Problems and Complaints.

spin

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: spin ]</p>

CX

It is apparently self-evident to you which must be why you make only the vague assertion without explaining it. TOUNANTION is an extremely uncommon contraction used in the NT only 3 times, twice in the Pauline Corpus and once in 1 Peter, so it is difficult to establish a pattern of usage, even so let's look at these different occurrences.

In 2 Cor 2:7 we see:

hWSTE TOUNANTION MALLON

"So that on the contrary rather..."

We have Paul using the word with the conjunction hWSTE and then redundantly using the word "rather". The preceding clause linking to this "on the contrary" is, "The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient."

In Gal 2:7 as we have already seen Paul says:

ALLA TOUNANTION...

But on the contrary...

We have Paul using the word with the conjuction ALLA which stuck you as so redundant he obiously would have only used ALLA alone.

The preceding clause is "Those men added nothing to my message."

In 1 Peter we have

TOUNANTION DE

"But on the contrary"

So the author of 1 Peter is following essentially the same usage pattern, except that DE, being a postpositive conjunction, occurs after the 1st word in the clause.

The clause preceding this usage is, "Do not repay
evil with evil or insult with insult..."

So we see that in all 3 cases the word TOUNANTION is used consistently (with some type of conjunction and in two independent instances that conjunction being a variant of the word "but") and that semantically Paul's two usages are similar while it is only in 1 Peter that we see a starkly contrasting comparsion preceding the dependent clause "but on the contrary...". I fail to see your point here in that comparison of the 3 usages seems to support my position.

Agreed, but you have failed to establish that that is happening here. I don't read it that way, neither does another board regular familiar (moreso than I) with Koine nor do the majority of mainstream scholars. I think I have shown conclusively above why your conclusion is in error. If any one disagrees let him or her speak up. Haran?

I guess it depends on what you mean by "serious" and "codefront". I am Lead Staff Developer for a publishing company that develops diagnostic educational and intelligence assessments. Most recently I finished a research version of a new eTest using the .NET Framework and writing in C#. Prior to that I worked on a scoring and reporting engine for the paper based version of the same test using Visual C++ and MFC.

I see a problem with the name switch, but not a terribly serious one. I do not see that grammatical problem you seem to think is self-evident. And frankly since I'm just an amateur who studies part time and has only a basic understand of the issues I should, unless consumed with hubris, defer to those who do this for a living. It would be arrogant of me to suggest otherwise. Furthermore I haven't seen any real argument for my position because there is little controversy in the academic community.

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: CowboyX ]</p>

DMB

Spin: It isn't a matter of whether you think it's pretty or not. It's a courtesy to your readers to make your stuff legible, which can be done with spacing and indentation.

All your stuff is left-justified, with lots of "-------------". It is confusing to read and work out when you are quoting someone else or yourself and when you are adding new comments.

But perhaps you are not really bothered to make it easier to follow what you are writing. We can all read Cowboy's stuff, but maybe yours is better covered by a veil of obscure layout.

Not Prince Hamlet

DMB,

I agree with you. I found his posts on vegetarianism almost illegible because of his weird quoting system.

Jeff

x-member

It wasn't just his quoting system.