CX

And I certainly wasn't faulting you for that. I knew why you were giving a literal translation. I was simply pointing out that differences in word order amount to trivial variants in Greek much more so than in English.

Haran

BTW, I contacted Waltz about the two errors that I observed in his information about p52. He kindly responded and said that they were indeed errors.

He corrected the following:

18:37 egw gegennhmai P52 (or other reading omitting 5-10 letters); rell egw eis touto gegennhmai

Waltz said that he simply lost track of which "eis touto" had been omitted.

It should have read as follows:

18:37 kai elhluqa P52 (or other reading omitting 5-10 letters); rell kai eis touto elhluqa

Perhaps CX can tackle the Greek and witness issue on this one if he so desires. I'm flat outta time lately.

Finally, as I mentioned in my earlier post, this one should have been 18:38 instead of 18:37, a typo to which Waltz graciously admitted:

18:37 legei autw P52 rell; P66 legei oun autw

So far, Waltz does not seem to have had the time to update his website.

Spin? Get tired of the topic? Oh well, it's interesting even if virtually useless...

Haran

CX

What was the question? I forgot what we were talking about.

CX

Seriously though, back to the original issue. What do you make of the fact that there is so little attestation to the NT prior to the 3rd century with a substantial portion unattested until the 4th century? Don't you find that significant? It seems clear that Xianity was undergoing substantial transition between the death of Jesus and it's establishment as the religion of the empire.

Essentially, it seems to me, we know pretty much what Xianity was by the time it enjoyed some preeminence, but we have precious little evidence prior to that period. That we have virtually no evidence of competing theologies is explained by the vociferous repression by the orthodoxy of anything considered heretical once they had the power to do so. How can we possibly reconstruct what the first Xian adherents believed?

Haran

The small attestation of early NT texts does not really surprise me much and seems to fit right in with history.

Obviously, I can't offer much more than speculation on the issue, obviously, but this is how I see it...

There were probably not a lot of literate people among the early followers of Jesus and the apostles, so the teaching was probably initially done orally until the need for written texts became great. Later, texts (Gospels, etc.) were written but probably very few copies were initially made due to expense, etc.

Then we have a Jewish revolts in 70AD and 132AD during which the Jewish (and possibly Gentile) Christians would have been persecuted (maybe even in other parts of the empire because they were perceived to be similar to the Jews). At the least, these revolts and their results probably hampered manuscript production for the tiny but growing religion. At the most, they were persecuted and their few manuscripts destroyed.

The religion remained relatively small though it had spread to many parts of the empire. In each part of the empire, if they were lucky enough to have a copy or original manuscript, they probably only had a few at most. The majority of teaching was probably done via the elders who had learned tradition descended from the apostles.

There were several more persecutions during this difficult time for Christianity in which many more manuscripts were destroyed. The Christians doubtfully still had the resources to create many copies. Finally, the Diocletian persecution definitely destroyed many of their manuscripts. There are actual documents that have been discovered that mention the local administrators of the law going to the churches and even to the Christians' homes until they found all the manuscripts they had and burned them up. What an incredible loss this must have been.

Finally, the 4th century rolls in, Constantine becomes the Emperor, a Christian, and makes Christianity the official religion. At this point, everything changes. There are suddenly vast resources available to the Christians. Copies galore of the church works are made and brought together. They are stored away in better places that wind up preserving them when other older manuscripts sadly weather away elsewhere in the empire from overuse and/or lack of care.

There you have it...my sketchy hypothesis of how it all happened.

One can certainly say that they believe one of the heretical sects was the true Christianity, but I think that orthodoxy prevailed because it was derived through something akin to apostolic succession / the handing down of tradition.

As far as gnosticism, montanism, etc., being the true Christianity, well, I find that unbelievable. Most of these heresies were mystical and/or extrememely allegorical. Looking at other religions, one can see that mystics usually develop later, preserving only fragments of the truth. Take for instance Islam. It has a mystical side to it that obviously developed later. The same thing can be said of Judaism. I think the same thing happened with Christianity. Jesus was real. His disciples were real. They passed on their teachings. The Gnostics and other heresies twisted the teachings and formed their own mystical religions based on orthodoxy.

Oh well, of course I can't prove any of this. However, to me it is reasonable and even probable.

Thanks,
Haran

(P.S. - Where did Spin go? I guess he didn't like being wrong. )

CX

I think you're analysis of why we have so few MSS from the 1st centuries is spot on. I don't that's really very controversial. We should not expect to see many MSS from the early part of the XIan era for the reasons you laid out (unless of course an omnipotent god made a point of supernaturally preserving his word during that period). My question is really about text critical analysis of the texts. Since the MSS we have are so late I think we are safe in presuming a significant amount of theological development is already part of the Xian text legacy by the time of the evidence we have. As such it is difficult to say what original Xian believers thought and whether or not the current orthodox position is the same as that of Jesus' original followers. I don't think there is conclusive evidence either way, but ti is an interesting question.


Ah, but finding something unbelievable makes it no less true. Personally I find quantum mechanics unbelievable, but it seems to be well supported by the evidence. I would tend to hypothesize that "true Christianity" is a later product of orthodox historical revisionism. I'm willing to bet there was no uniform conception of Xianity in the first few centuries, but rather several competing ideologies all vying for the orthodox role. I consider it somewhat an historical accident that what we currently view as the orthodox position emerged as it did. It seems pretty certain that Jesus was not a gnostic. But I think the Pauline notion of a "new convenant" that supercedes the law given under the Abrahamic covenant is equally unlikely to have been part of Jesus' original program. At the same time I think it is Paul's elimination of the most ascetic parts of Jewish law (i.e. Kasrut, circumcision etc.) that allowed it to flourish in the Gentile world.

Unfortunately we don't have any real evidence that that is the case. I suspect that Marcionite gnosticism is far removed from the historical Jesus, but there are other early sects that may not have been (such as the Ebionites). I think if the Pauline conception of Xianity had not gained the power of being the religion of the Empire, Pauline Xianity could just as easily have become a "heresy". Arianism was rejected on the basis of a vote. The truth is not democratic.

Anyway I respect your position and find the whole thing fascinating.


Perhaps he just got bored. This thread has been a little slow of late. As far as him not liking being wrong, he should be used to it given how often that is the case.

[ April 29, 2002: Message edited by: CX ]

[ April 29, 2002: Message edited by: CX ]</p>