JoeWallack

JW:
Before comparing the quality manuscript evidence for and against "son of God" let's also consider the non-Manuscript text evidence, specifically:

http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.b...k-11-2_10.html

The Amulet of Mark 1:1-2

JW:
The date than is c. 300 which would be the earliest known witness to Mark 1:1. It is generally thought to be from an amulet and not a manuscript and amulets are generally not included in the Novum Testamentum Graece even though it is generally thought that it should be.

So the quality evidence for addition is Sinaiticus (including Sinaiticus as evidence for change to "son of God") and the Oxyrhynchus papyrus. If you only have two quality pieces of evidence in the Manuscript category than the earliest and most authoritative manuscript and the earliest witness are very good ones to have.

So what quality witness stands for "son of God"?



Joseph

Church Tradition. Noun/Verb. A mysterious entity which unlike Jesus who was only able to incarnate once, can be magically invoked on demand by Apologetic whim as solid contemporary undisputed evidence by a credible institution or just as easily disincarnated by the same as merely the opinion of men and not Scripture.

ErrancyWiki

Sheshbazzar

Linguistically του χριστου would be the more correct reading as χριστου is not in this usage a proper personal name, no more than is τὸν μεσσίαν in Jn 1:41, 4:25
See also χριστοῦ and χρῖσμα in the LXX of Dan 9:25-26

The provision of capitals is not indicated by the actual sense or usage of the terms, a church tradition that causes them to be mistaken for proper personal names.
Whoever produced this rendering was attemting to give, or to restore the text to a more accurate rendering of what must have been its original sense.

tanya

Joe: thank you for the link to Novum Testamentum Graece.

Forgive my asking, but how did you get that fabulous copy of Mark 1:1 from Codex Vaticanus? Superb.

It is unclear to me, Joe, whether or not the amulet itself, has χριστου or Χριστοῦ. In other words, did the person who inscribed the amulet 1700 years ago, capitalize Χριστοῦ, or was that Tommy Wasserman's modification of the original text?

Thank you Shesh, well done, as always.

Here, I am lost. I simply lack sufficient understanding of the theological distinction between "The Christ", and "the anointed". In the minds of the Christians, i.e. true believers, wouldn't Jesus, the myth, have been regarded as "THE CHRIST", and not "the anointed"? I suspect that the average Christian, at least in USA, has no idea that Christ means anointed. His name, for them, is Christ.

Who lives over there? Oh, that is Joe Goldsmith.
In former times, the guy worked with gold, and now, it has become his family name.
Where does Sammy live? Oh, he lives in that hut in the north field. Now his name becomes Samuel Northfield.
I have a cowhide, where can I find a tanner, around here? Oh, go see Martin over yonder. Today, he is Martin Tanner.

Over time, descriptors, like anointed, can become names.

Thanks, Joe, for a very interesting topic on the forum. I look forward to that day when the whole of Vaticanus goes online. What beautiful writing! Any idea when that Oxyrhynchus papyrus discovered in 2009 will be available for scrutiny online?

Thanks also, Joe, for drawing to my attention the refutation of one of my favorite misconceptions: i.e. my prejudice, obviously false, now, that all later manuscripts copied "son of god".
I am impressed that the 8th century Codex Koridethi not only omits "son of god", it also omits the pericope of John 7:53.

Chili

The annoited is the promise and the arrival of the promise deserves name so that the NT can begin, no longer Jew but Christian, now who's first name can Pete, or John but never Sue as the firstborn son.

And does sanity not count for anything here?

Oh, and be sure to know what 'firstborn' means that is beyond the physical.

Sheshbazzar

That is the point. The omission of the direct object indicator 'the' alters the sense of the verse, which was not trying to tell us that his surname was 'Christ' but rather that he was 'the anointed', something of the original intent of the text that flies right over the head of the average casual English reader.
Even this unknown ancient Greek writer was aware of the distiction between noun and name, and provided us with his unusual rendering with the direct object indicator in place

The term or 'name' 'Christ' is extremely 'religiously' popular, and iconic. But in any of the verses in the NT where it appears it would more accurately and true to the original usages, be in English, rendered by the common noun as '...the anointed'.
Addmittedly this is not indicated in most Greek texts because even at that early date the term had already transitioned from its original noun sense into a popular formal TITLE reserved for only one anointed. Which kind of treatment is certainly not indicated by any of its usages within the more ancient exemplars.

Using the term 'christ' in the popular fashion is Hellenizing, and using the term 'messiah' is Hebrew-izing.
We are English readers and speakers and to accurately translate foreign words into English they should convey the same sense that they held within the original languages.

As we English speakers (for the most part) are neither Hebrews nor Greeks, the terms 'messiah' and 'christ' meaning anointed should be rendered into English as 'anointed', the meaning that was pefectly apparent to those that used the terms in the original tongues, but is lost, -not in translation- but rather through a lack of translation into proper English.
What is coming through into our the English texts in either case (messiah or christ) is NOT a translation, but crude, mistransliterated, and uninformative transliterations of foreign words.

And that is what happened. But with these being foreign terms, the English language lacks that frame of reference for these foreign words, unlike with your examples of 'gold smith', 'north field' or 'tanner'.

And let's face it, accurately understanding and dealing with the content and intent of these texts is not at all like simply reading an English language newspaper where names have little significance .
A proper grasp of the meaning of the terms, and of the significace of the names being used in these texts is of much higher import that wiithin any other common English usages.

This Forum should represent the best that our knowledge and scholarship can provide in the analysis of these texts, not reduce to the lowest common denominator because it is what is most common and popular.

JoeWallack

My Verse is Longgg.
My Concordance is Strong's.
And I Am down to get the religious friction on.
Hell Yah!

JW:
In the Manuscript category we've seen that the two best witnesses are against "son of God" as original (Sinaiticus and Oxyrhynchus papyrus). Proponents of Long ("son of God" as original) cite the quantity of Manuscript evidence for Long as key/decisive for their conclusion. But what is the quality evidence here for Long?

We've seen that Vaticanus is and next is:

Wieland Willker's:

A Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels Vol. 2 Mark TVU 1

A = Codex Alexandrinus c. 400

D = Codex Bezae c. 450

Comparing Manuscript quality than:

Short:

Sinaiticus c. 340 = oldest Manuscript and most authoritative

Oxyrhynchus papyrus = c. 300 = oldest witness

Long:

Codex Vaticanus = c. 365 = 2nd oldest Manuscript and second most authoritative

Codex Alexandrinus = c. 400 = 3rd oldest Manuscript and third most authoritative but moves away from the superior Alexandrian text type and is therefore a degree less authoritative

Codex Bezae = c. 450 = 4th oldest Manuscript but considered a relatively poor witness for its age.

2 Amulets c. 400 (per Wasserman)

Note that at this point there is a significant gap in quality between the evidence here for Short, Sinaiticus and Oxyrhynchus papyrus, and the remaining evidence for Long as the Age difference goes over 100 years and subsequent Manuscripts are considered significantly less authoritative. So comparing the quality evidence above the quantity difference is two for Short and five for Long.


Joseph

Church Tradition. Noun/Verb. A mysterious entity which unlike Jesus who was only able to incarnate once, can be magically invoked on demand by Apologetic whim as solid contemporary undisputed evidence by a credible institution or just as easily disincarnated by the same as merely the opinion of men and not Scripture.

ErrancyWiki

JoeWallack

JW:
Looking forward I Am going to have the following categories of evidence with brief comments for now:

External

Manuscript = 5 quality witnesses for original versus 2 for addition which are the best 2. Medium advantage to original.

Scribal = 4 Manuscripts, including Sinaiticus, show direct evidence of change to Long. No extant direct evidence of change to Short. Large advantage to addition.

Patristic = All of the quality (Age & Greek) witness is for Short. Large advantage to addition.

Authority = Quality authority (Ehrman, Metzger) tends to addition. Small advantage to addition.

Internal = The significance of the offending phrase, "son of God", in general and specifically before the baptism in "Mark", makes intentional change exponentially more likely than unintentional and the orthodox were more likely to intentionally add than subtract. Large advantage to addition.

We'll see what you think at the end of this Thread.


Joseph

ErrancyWiki

Diogenes the Cynic

The thing that makes me hesitate at saying it HAS to be an addition is the fact that the phrase "son of God" did not have a unique or necessarily divine connotation , but could just be used to mean a king or an especially holy person or even mankind in general. Luke calls Adam "son of God."

I think it could plausibly be original to Mark, especially in light of 1:11, but that Mark meant it in an adoptionist sense, not a literal sense.

JoeWallack

JW:
I've seen writers claim that the Sinaiticus 1:1 edit was Scriptorium produced but in their references, the only place I can find it is in "They Never Said That". For example, Wikipedia:

Sinaiticus Scribes and correctors

Metzger/Ehrman do say this here but they also say elsewhere that the "a" category includes contemporary changes. So Scriptorium changes would be a subset of contemporary changes. I have to confess that I am shocked that Missengers Pearse/Holding/Snapp are not all over this grievous error like Lechner on Miggs, but you and Carlson have my permission to correct Wikipedia here.

I've indicated that the current foremost champion of Long is Wasserman and he likewise claims Scriptorium here:

I asked him for a related specific argument and I would translate his attempted response as "Meh".

In Professor Jongkind's treatise Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus I see no mention of the offending Mark 1:1 issue. Regrettably this Professor is Long on evidence and Short on conclusions. I do find evidence here though that the Mark 1:1 edit in Sinaiticus was likely not Scriptorium. Scribe D, thought to be the main corrector (Scriptorium) of original copyist of "Mark" Scribe A, tends to spell out "son" for his NS, contra to 1:1 edit. Also, it's generally thought that most of Scribe D's corrections here were based on the exemplar and I think it unlikely that Scribe A would have accidently omitted the second NS (different from the first) from the start of "Mark". Seems like it would have been really hard to miss (assuming of course the exemplar had NS).

I'm open to the possibility that the script and or ink evidence points to Scribe D but I have not seen anyone demonstrate/claim that. Has anyone? So until someone does Stephen Colbert will assume that the Mark 1:1 edit here was not Scriptorium.

The next question is how do you weigh this contemporary edit as evidence. Predictably (a better descriptor here than "interestingly" I think) those who conclude Long see it as a lessening of Sinaiticus as evidence for Short. Wasserman/Wallace/Criddle see it not only as evidence of correction of an unintentional mistake but as a bonus, evidence of ancestors with "son of God" that was/were the source of correction. If the change of Mark 1:1 from/to "son of God" was intentional than it is not much of a textual criticism question. Of course change to "son of God" is more likely if intentional.

I see the edit of Sinaiticus as strengthening the argument for Short as it is direct evidence of the change in direction and also the earliest known Greek evidence for Long! I think the better question is whether an earlier or later edit to Long is better evidence for Short.

Anyway, my next category of evidence is Scribal where I will deal with the critical criterion Direction of Change and expand on the significance of the Sinaiticus edit.


Joseph

ErrancyWiki

aa5874

Your claim makes no sense. Adam was NOT a literal person and Adam had NO human father which is EXACTLY the same for Jesus.

Adam and Jesus are the Sons of God--without a human father.

Adam was made by Dirt in Jewish Mythology in a book called Genesis.

Jesus was the Son of God in gMark without any human father.