Vinnie

Our canonical Mark was not the version used by Matthew or Luke who seemed to have had access to different versions (UrMarkus? or maybe Luke had a copy of Mark missing a few pages?). Mark seems clearly to have underwent redaction(s) after the authors of Matthew and Luke copied it and there are a very significant number of additions to the Gospel which is demonstrable by external evidence under the assumption of Marcan priority. How many alterations or how many progressive versions were there before Matthew and Luke copied it? It is impossible to tell and time is the only real major restricting factorof the number as I believe both matthew and Luke were written anywhere from 10 to 35 years after the general form of the gospel they cited appeared.

The argument that Mark was certainly altered after Luke and Matthew got a hold of it stems primarily from agreements of Matthew and Luke's copying of their versions of Mark which differ when compared to our canonical version. For a good demonstration of this see Koester (ACG, pp 275-284).

Nothing here is new though as Gospel composition was a fluid and continuous process in the formation of the Gospels (less so for Matthew and Luke in light of the 2ST) and continued through at least the first one hundred years after the Gospels were written. This is a cardinal point stressed by Margaret Davies and E.P. Sanders in Studying the Synoptic Gospels, p. 100:

"We must allow for evolution of the gospel material at all stages of its transmission, including after it was shaped into a distinctive gospel."

One the text become standardized its easier to locate textual corruptions. Before then its difficult to locate thespecifics of the original text or rather, the earliest version of it.

The more I am studying this the less secure some of the texts are becoming. Fortunately GMatthew seems to have pretty decent attestation. It helps (along with Luke) in evaluating and reconstructing the text of GMark at an early stage which is not aided by strong (early) manuscript attestation. We would be greatly disserviced without it.

It seems many apologists want to neglect the first hundred to two hundred years of theproduction, use and transmission of Christian texts. Very rarely do I see anyone ever address this or the high number of interpolations and redactions of all early Christian works. They usually engage in special pleading and forget that redactions of non-canonical works (if they know about them) have direct consequences for the canonical texts themselves which co-existed with them (and were not seen as "canonical" until much later) and cannot be assumed a priori as less likely to have been edited. Its simply NT bias or a canonical prejudice that should not be a part of critical-historical reconstruction.

I am in the process of compiling a list of suggested interpolations (that I find reasonably supported) and argued whole-sale edits and redactions of various Christian works up until about 200 a.d.

I'll post a listing later after I get some feedback to which I would be interested in any additions that anyone knows of (excluding the commonly argued here Gal, Cor and Ant 20 references which I do not see as interpolations) I'll relegate them to a footnote

On a side note I must strongly reccomend Helmut Koester's Ancient Christian Gospels. This is simply a must read. I am about 85% through it and I must say that it is probably the single best work in this area that I have read. If you don't read anything else, read this!

Vinnie

Vinnie

This is what I have on GJohn thus far:

Examples of Textual Evolution Up Until 200 A.D.

[1]. The Gospel of John 4

Sometime shortly after it was written the text of the Gospel of John was altered by a redactor. “The most awkward is the relatively clear ending of the gospel in 20:30-31 where the writer acknowledged that there was other material that he could have included but did not choose to do so. The presence of still another chapter (21) and another ending (21:24-25) raise the possibility that. After an earlier form of the gospel was completed (but before any preserved form of the gospel circulated), someone made additions. Presumably this someone was not the person who composed the earlier form and now had afterthoughts, for that person should have felt free to insert the material of chap. 21 before the ending he had earlier composed in 20:30-31. Accordingly the present gospel is thought to involve the work of two hands, an evangelist who composed the body of the gospel and a redactor who later made additions.” 5

The redactor is responsible for the entire 21st chapter of John. Other material which may also be the work of the redactor includes John 1:1-18, John 5:27b-29, John 6:39b, 40b 44, :51b-59 and possibly other verses throughout the gospel.

There also exists in the Gospel of John, two instances of major disorder. Chapter 4 ends in Galilee, the beginning of chapter 5 has Jesus go to Jerusalem, the beginning of chapter 6 has Jesus go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and chapter 7 reports that Jesus left Jerusalem and went about in Galilee.

On this basis some scholars would change the order of the chapters to 4, 6, 5, 7. This would solve some of the difficulties but more recent commentators are hesitant to engage in such reordering. As Brown argued, “John gives us a very schematic account of Jesus’ ministry, and does not worry about transitions unless they have theological purposes (e.g. the careful sequence of days in chaps. 1-2). In the series of feasts in chaps. 2, 5, 6, 7 and 10 that serves as the framework for Jesus’ ministry, little attention is paid to the long intervals that separate the feasts. Someone was responsible for the gospel in its final form; and unless one is willing to suppose incompetence, he could scarcely have missed the obviously imperfect sequence, if he regarded that as important.”6

Scholars disagree on whether the transition from chapter 5 to 7 is natural or awkward as well. At any rate, even if the original order was 4, 6, 5, 7 it would be hard to demonstrate this as an intentional change and that is our primary concern here. More likely to fit that category is the second major example to which I turn as argued by Helmut Koester:

“In spite of the clear “Rise, let us go hence” in John 14:31, chapters 15-17 continue the farewell discourses. It has been suggested that chapters 15-17 are a later interpolation. But in language, style, and content these three chapter belong with 13-14. It is clear, therefore, that they are not in the right place. Chapters 15-16 may have followed John 13:34-35, because 15:1-7 is a commentary on the commandment to love each other, and 13:36-38 seems a good continuation of 16:31. This leaves John 17, the fare-well prayer of Jesus. No satisfactory solution has been found for the placement of this chapter. That John 17 was added after the displacement of chapters 15-16 had already occurred, is also possible because chapter 17 is characterized by a theological interpretation of Jesus’ departure that differs markedly from the farewell discourses in chapters 13-16; its orientation is more explicitly Gnostic.” 7

Bultman has argued for the relocation of smaller sets of passages but it is impossible to conceive of a way for such small units of material to have become displaced. Such a hypothesis forces one to ask (with a hint of sarcasm) if John was written on tiny sheets of papyrus? The relocation of larger blocks of material as in the citation from Koester above can be justified by assuming that pages in a papyrus codex became displaced. So chapter 17 can plausibly stand as one possibility of a later interpolation of the Gospel of John.


Finally there is the issue of the fluid development of the Gospel of John itself. Numerous seems are evident which show that its author either inserted new materials or his own comments into an older document. Many scholars feel it is evident that the author is adding secondary interpretations to older written or oral materials. But, as Koester points out, “the style of the writing is uniform throughout (even including the secondary appendix chapter 21) so that it is very difficult to determine the exact extent of the source in each single instance.. Moreover, it is not possible to understand this work as the product of a single author who artfully brought together several sources, composing them into a new literary work. Whatever older written documents served as sources for this composition had already gone through a process of interpretation and commentary in the preaching, liturgy, teaching, and internal debates of the Johannine community—a process that must have been part of the community’s life over a period of several decades, probably of more than half a century. Several layers of interpretation that reflect the history of this community and the development of its theology had already been added to the more original materials when the author of the gospel began to collect them in order to compose the document that we now call the gospel of John. Moreover, the author of the fourth gospel is not likely to have been a stranger to the Johannine community; he must have participated himself in the effort of interpreting and shaping older traditions, ordering the community’s life, and debating opponents within and without its circles. Nowhere are we told that the author produced his work in one piece in a brief period. Several earlier drafts may have been used in the ongoing life of the community before the work finally reached the form in which it is preserved by the oldest manuscripts.”

This means reconstructing the “autographical text” of the Gospel of John is simply the wishful thinking of an apologist. In all likelihood, there never was an autographical text as such. We must remember the cardinal rule pointed out by Davies and Sanders above: ”We must allow for evolution of the gospel material at all stages of its transmission, including after it was shaped into a distinctive gospel.” It makes very little sense to speak of an autographical text of the Gospel of John. The more accurate and less misleading terminology would speak of the various stages of this Gospel’s text. For example, GJohn in its final stage before being redacted and GJohn in its early post-redaction form would be two examples.

4.Some readers might wonder why the pericope de adultera is not listed in this section. I am interested in the evolution of the texts up until the year 200 ad. The story of the woman caught in adultery first appears in the fifth century. Consequently, it does not serve any valid purpose in this listing.

5. Raymond Brown, Introduction to the New Testament, Double Day, p. 366

6. Ibid. p. 366

7. Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, Trinity Press, p. 249

8. Ibid., p. 251


Any early alterations that I missed?
Vinnie

Vorkosigan

<blinks> I have Koester on the way courtesy of Amazon....

What a great couple of opening posts. I can't wait to read more. You're an asset, Vinnie. :notworthy

Vorkosigan

keyser_soze

seconded, it was a great read!

Vinnie

I had to add to that:


This following paragraph which is a citation from Koester, was in my post above but the material following it has been added to it and the order of some of it changed:


“In spite of the clear “Rise, let us go hence” in John 14:31, chapters 15-17 continue the farewell discourses. It has been suggested that chapters 15-17 are a later interpolation. But in language, style, and content these three chapter belong with 13-14. It is clear, therefore, that they are not in the right place. Chapters 15-16 may have followed John 13:34-35, because 15:1-7 is a commentary on the commandment to love each other, and 13:36-38 seems a good continuation of 16:31. This leaves John 17, the fare-well prayer of Jesus. No satisfactory solution has been found for the placement of this chapter. That John 17 was added after the displacement of chapters 15-16 had already occurred, is also possible because chapter 17 is characterized by a theological interpretation of Jesus’ departure that differs markedly from the farewell discourses in chapters 13-16; its orientation is more explicitly Gnostic.” 7

Yet at the same time one must be cautious of this view as well. As Kummel wrote, “If it were simply a matter of displacement of sheets, then the contents of the must always have about the same extent . . . there are to be sure, isolated examples from antiquity showing that such displacement of sheets took place . . . but none of these examples involves a series of sections in the same work. The advocates of this view not only are forced to suppose that sections of varying length were dislocated, but they must also face the fact that there is no proof that drafts were generally written on separate sheets. But if we suppose that the sheets of the original manuscripts were promiscuously arranged, then it is strange that the sheets which allegedly have gotten into the wrong place still should always begin and end with complete sentences. It also strikes us as peculiar that the pupils, who themselves had these sheets in hand, were not able to restore these sheets to their proper order, whereas we are supposed to succeed in doing that, even though we do not possess the sheets.”8

Further, Bultman has argued for the relocation of smaller sets of passages but it is impossible to conceive of a way for such small units of material to have become displaced. Such a hypothesis forces one to ask (with a hint of sarcasm) if John was written on tiny sheets of papyrus? The relocation of larger blocks of material as in the citation from Koester above can, with the difficulties outlined by Kummel, be justified by assuming that pages in a papyrus codex somehow became displaced.

I think it is certainly possible that chapter 17 was inserted at a later stage and that the order of the material was displaced in this instance but this cannot be argued in many instances for the reasons outlined above. We cannot seriously envision the gospel being accidentally shuffled as if it were a deck of cards.

This leaves us with an unsolvable literary problem. The Gospel of John is contradictory as points and has numerous abrupt shifts in thought. Disorder and insertion may be possible to argue in the instance above but there is no valid way of explaining this problem. Some have posited that the author died before he had the opportunity to finalize his gospel. That certainly is possible. Or maybe two (varying?) versions (one unfinished?) of the Gospel were combined? Maybe there wasn’t one major authorbut several? Do we have the end-result of a hastily thrown together editorial composition? Any guess is as good as another. These serious textual difficulties seem to indicate a very complicated tradition history of the gospel of John which brings us to our final point.

Finally there is the issue of the fluid development ....

the rest of the post above has not been altered from that paragraph down.

I'm doing Gmark now.

Vinnie

Vinnie

I'm not so sure that its possible for the speculatation of John being "the end-result of a hastily thrown together editorial composition" either as several of its chapters are "masterfully composed literary pieces." Koester cites chapters 9 and 11.

The Gospel is framed by a tripartite intro and a three oart-conclusion. There are also two main section: public activity and passion narrative which are linked together. but within these sections there are strange sequences of which it is very hard to reconstruct a rationale for.

Of course some thinks its possible for 1:1-18 to have been a later interpolation. Ergo, could a redactor be responsible for some of this? Its hard to tell but its probably not likely. The Gospel of John as a whole is composed very carefully in such a way that several sections reveal strict correspondance to one another. There is a symmetry involved.

Within such masterfully composed material are order problems that virtually scream incompetence!

This one has me stumped

I think its best to say the composition of John has an extremely complex tradition history and leave it at that.

Vinnie

Peter Kirby

Strangely this gives me an image of hundreds of p52's flittering about inside a room with the caption: "Yuri Kuchinsky's Nightmare."

Maybe.

Frank Schleritt writes: "In all probability v. 29b is an addition by the later revisers formulated on the basis of 1.36. It introduces into the text a theology of atoning sacrifice which is not put forward by the evangelist, and moreover does not fit v. 30." (Jesus after 2000 Years, p. 426)



Frank Schleritt removes the parts of the text that presume the Synoptic descriptions of the Baptist and reconstructs this underlying narrative: "19 When [they] sent to John priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, 'Who are you?', 20 he confessed, 'I am not the Christ.' 21 And they asked him, 'What then? Are you Elijah?' And he says, 'I am not.' 'Are you the prophet?' And he answered, 'No.' 25 And they asked him and said to him, 'Why then do you baptize, if you are not the Christ, nor Elija, nor the prophet?' 26a John answered them and said, c 'In your midst stands one whom you do not know. 31 Even I did not know him; but so that he may be revealed to Israel, that is why I have come, baptizing with water.'" (Jesus after 2000 Years, p. 428)


Raymond Brown thinks that part of the third chapter was originally in the first. Brown writes: "Let us consider here the problems of sequence caused by the context. Jesus has been in Jerusalem of Judea according to ch. ii; yet now he comes into Judea. Verse 24 mentions that John the Baptist has not yet been arrested; the verse is a parenthetical addition of the redactor inserted to aovid objections based on a chronology like that of the Synoptics. According to Mark i 14 (Matt iv 12), Jesus went to Galilee to begin his ministry only after John the Baptist had been arrested; but in John, Jesus has already been to Galilee and to Jerusalem and still John the Baptist has not been arrested. It is true that the Synoptics do not tell us exactly when John the Baptist was arrested, so that all that John has narrated might have occurred before the official opening of the Galilean ministry (John does not fully describe a Galilean ministry). Nevertheless, the impression gained from the Synoptics is that the Galilean ministry opened immediately after the baptism of Jesus and that the arrest of John the Baptist also was closely associated with the baptism (especially Luke iii 19-20). An even greater sequential difficulty is raised by vs. 26. The disciples of John the Baptist have heard their master testify eloquently to Jesus in ch. i: Jesus is the Lamb of God; John the Baptist's whole purpose in baptizing was that Jesus might be revealed to Israel. Yet now they cannot understand why people are coming to Jesus and they resent it. Notice that this cannot be explained away by saying that these are other disciples than those of ch. i, for vs. 28 specifically identifies them as disciples who had heard John the Baptist's message about Jesus." (The Gospel According to John, v. 1, p. 153)



Raymond Brown writes: "Let us see how placing iii 22-30 in the same setting as ch. i solves the difficulties of sequence that we have mentioned. (In this theory the clause set off by dashes in vs. 26 and the whole of vs. 28 must be thought of as additions made by the readactor to adapt the scene to the final setting in which he placed it - see Notes.) Jesus comes into Judean territory (vs. 22), not after having been at Jerusalem with Nicodemus, but toward the beginning of the Gospel narrative. We hear similar statements in the Synoptic tradition in relation to the time of Jesus' baptism: 'Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan' (Matt iii 13); 'There went out to him [John the Baptist] all the country of Judea' (Mark i 5). The puzzled hostility of the disciples of John the Baptist toward Jesus can be understood if Jesus is just appearing on the scene and John the Baptist has not yet given to all his disciples the testimony to Jesus of which we hear in ch. i. Verses 27, 29-30 belong to the same general type of initial testimony to Jesus that appears in i 29-34." (The Gospel According to John, v. 1, p. 154)

Frank Schleritt writes of the first chapter of John: "The section displays some strange features. (a) Verses 37-39 report about two disciples of the Baptist who follow Jesus. The name of the first is given later in v. 40; it is Andrew, the brother of Peter. The other remains anonymous. This is strange, seeing that this is one of Jesus' first two disciples. (b) The little word 'first' in v. 41 is left hanging in the air. (c) Verse 43 mentions Jesus' intention to go to Galilee, but we hear nothing about his doing so. Rather, according to 2.2 Jesus is in Cana in Galilee, without any previous mention of his journey there. (d) Verses 36f., 41f. and 45ff. seem to want to emphasize that one can get to Jesus only through an intermediary - a principle which is expressed in a very similar way in 12.20-22. Verse 43 does away with this principle; instead, it contains a 'Synoptic' type call of a disciple (cf. Mark 2.14 parr.; 10.21 parr.; Luke 9.59; see also 21.19). (e) It is striking that there is n mention of a direct reaction on the part of Philip to Jesus' call to discipleship. Rather, althogh Jesus is in the process of departing (v. 43), he immediately seems to go away again, and then finds Nathanael elsewhere (v. 45). (f) Verse 45 is enigmatic in yet another respect. First, the question arises why Philip speaks in the plural, for according to v. 43 he alone has met Jesus. Secondly, his remark contradicts what has in fact happened according to v. 43; he has not found Jesus, but Jesus has found him." (Jesus after 2000 Years, p. 429)



Frank Schleritt continues: "All these difficulties are resolved if we assume that v. 43 is an addition by the later revisers and that the beginning of v. 44 originally did not run, 'Now Philip was from Bethsaida . . .', but, say, 'Now Philip, <i>the other of the two disciples</i>, was from Bethsaida' (cf. the square brackets in the translation). The structure of the section would then prove to be substantially clearer and more coherent: first one of the two disciples who has gone over to Jesus, Andrew, finds his brother Peter; then the second disciple, Philip, finds Nathanael. It is in keeping with this that the evangelist also makes Andrew and Philip appear as a pair elsewhere (cf. 6.5-8; 12.20-22)." (Jesus after 2000 Years, p. 430)



Frank Schleritt explains: "But what would have caused the revisers to make this aggravating intervention? An answer can be given only by looking ahead to the appendix, ch. 21. There the Gospel is put under the authority of the disciple whom Jesus loved; he is said to be the witness to all that is written in the Gospel and at the same time the author of the book (21.24; cf. the introduction, point 7). This conception now confronted the revisers with the problem that the beloved disciple must have been present as a witnesss from the beginning. But the Gospel did not mention him. So he had to be introduced in some way. This is what v. 43 achieves: the bright idea of the revisers was to make one of the two disciples from vv. 37-39 an anonymous figure by the insertion of this verse and thus make room for the beloved disciple. Now he comes to Jesus even before Peter." (Jesus after 2000 Years, p. 430)



Frank Schleritt comments on chapter 19: "Verse 35 is clearly an addition by the revisers. First, v. 37 sees the point of what is narrated in the lance thrust itself, whereas v. 35 is interested in the consequence of the thrust, the flow of blood and water. Secondly, the eye-witness brought into play in v. 35 can only be the beloved disciple, since according to the description so far he is the only male witness under the cross (cf. 19.26f.); but he was put there only by the revisers. Thirdly, v. 35 is manifestly formulated on the basis of the conclusion to the added chapter 21 (21.24: 'the disciple who bears witness ... and we know that his witness is true'). And fourthly, v. 35 addresses the readers directly, contrary to the usual style; the evangelist does this for the first and last time at the end of his work (20.31: 'that you may believe'--a passage which also seems to have been used here). It is unclear what deeper sense the revisers attached to the flow of blood and water from the wound in Jesus' side. Possibly they say it as a mysterious indication that the sacraments of baptism (water) and the eucharist (blood) are grounded in the death of Jesus (cf. 1.13; 6.51c-58)." (Jesus After 2000 Years, p. 572)

Schleritt also discusses the authenticity of John 1:13 (but not the whole prologue), 1:29b, 2:17, 2:22b, 4:2, 4:9b, 4:22, 4:44, 5:28-29, 6:4, 6:51c-58, 6:64b-65, 7:39, 10:1-18, 10:26-29, 11:2, 11:5, 11:51-52, 12:6, 12:24-26, parts of 13:1-20, 12:23-26a, 13:34-35, 14:14-15, 14:24, 16:2-4a, 16:15, 17:3, 17:12b, 17:16, 17:20-21, 18:13-14, 18:24, 18:28, 18:32, 19:26, and 20:2-10. So, yes, there may have been a lot of busy scribes working on John! I highly recommend Jesus After 2000 Years as the most helpful commentary on the gospels that I have come across.

But Vinnie, speculation is the soul of scholarship.

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

No, Peter, speculation is to scholarship what lingerie is to a marriage of 25 years standing.

Seriously.....I re-read John a bit and was struck by the Cana miracle. In it Jesus brusquely tells Mary -- Woman, what are you to me? And she immediately turns around and tells the servants to obey Jesus. Do you think that there is a section that has been moved/deleted between those two lines?

Vorkosigan

Yuri Kuchinsky

Good work, Vinnie!

I've read Koester's ANCIENT CHRISTIAN GOSPELS way back when the book was still hot off the press, over 10 years ago. And I did like it a lot.

So I guess this was the beginning of my journey behind the 2ST... I've never looked back since. And later, I discovered that Loisy was also advocating the UrMarkus theory long before Koester.

Here's a long article that I wrote about all this when the Synoptic-L was still young, and I was an active contributor there in good standing.

Synoptic Problem & proto-Mk
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/synp.htm

But now, I'm gone far beyond Koester, and even beyond Loisy.

Actually, when I wrote about that old "Protestant Bias" in NT studies recently, Koester can be seen as a very good case in point. In all his writings, he never raises the issue of the Church politics behind all those continuous textual changes. So this is a very serious weakness, AFAIAC.

Also, IMO, there's not enough stress in Koester on the textual issues. In my recent research, I focus almost entirely on Textual Criticism, the subject that is seriously neglected by 99% of biblical scholars currently. If you ask me, Textual Criticism is the only thing that really matters today in biblical studies. Everything else is fluff.

Cheers,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Yes, Vinnie, I guess it was very difficult to determine the exact extent of that early source in each single instance. But now, it's not so difficult any more. Why? Because the Magdalene Gospel preserves plenty of that early version of John! And here's the proof,

4 versions of TURNING WATER INTO WINE
http://www.styx.org/yuku/pepys/4vdt.htm

Diatessaronic Witnesses Preserve the Earliest Text of John's Gospel.

So far, this evidence has been avoided by every single professional Johannine scholar on the johannine_literature-L. They are still playing the little blind mice, all claiming to be too busy to look up the earliest text of John staring right into their little faces...

The whole thing is almost comical.

Quote:

It makes very little sense to speak of an autographical text of the Gospel of John. The more accurate and less misleading terminology would speak of the various stages of this Gospel’s text.

Yes, I can basically agree with this. The only thing that we can realistically hope to reconstruct is the early text of John as first issued from Rome ca 150 CE -- what I call the first Roman edition. And this is what the Magdalene Gospel seems to preserve -- more or less.

All the best,

Yuri.