Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 07-04-2013, 05:14 PM

Again this is veering away from the OP but I will respond as follows ....

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMacSon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

All those are dated ACCORDING To WHOM???

Good question. I thought they were dated by radio-isotope analysis, but there is no mention there, here or here.

These fragments are so dated by means of palaeography - hand writing analysis.

My research yields the fact that there has been one and one only C14 dating test ever advertised as being published in regard to the NT related manuscripts, and that is the C14 test on the gJudas commissioned by National Geographic and conducted by the University of Arizona c.2005.

I have collated a great deal of information about this C14 test at this page entitled Radiocarbon Dating the Gnostics after Nicaea.

Please be warned there is an error in the article that I have not yet corrected in that I was under the impression that the Nag Hammadi Codices (NHC) were also C14 dated to c.348 CE whereas this date was not the product of a C14 analysis but rather was derived from a number of other dating methodologies, the primary one being an analysis of the cartonage of the NHC.

The major claim in this article is that the C14 test on gJudas appears to be problematic on a number of counts:

(1) The final report on the C14 tests from UA has not been made public.

(2) A loose fragment dated to 333 CE (via C14 testing) was ignored.

(3) One statement made by the chief scientist Jull is serious in error. Namely that after providing the results of the tests as 280 CE +/- 60 years (i.e. between 220 and 340 CE) Jull then stated:

Jull said. "All date to the third to fourth century, clearly before the Council of Nicaea, which presumably would have suppressed such a document."

Clearly the stated upper bound of 340 CE is certainly NOT before Nicaea 325 CE.

Quote:

There is a view the papyri material is stable in dry regions such as the middle east and may be re-used, so the material date may precede the date of the writing on the material.

Yes.

I do not have my notes in front of me but I recall that Grenfield, one of the discoverers of the Oxyrynchus papyri gave a date in the 4th century for these fragments.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

DCHindley · 07-04-2013, 05:20 PM

Mac,

Those dates you see at that site are established by paleography (comparison of the handwriting with that on dated - business - documents found in the same kinds of trash dumps the NT papyri were found). Almost all of them were discovered in Egyptian trash dumps.

Papyrus rolls, which are only written on one side of the sheet, were sometimes reused, but the new text was written on the unused side and the scroll re-rolled in the opposite direction. This kind of text is called an opistograph. The original text on the other side of the roll is called an anopistograph.

However, I think almost every NT papyri is from a codex, in which papyrus sheets were stacked, folded and then bound into a book, forming individual pages which were written upon front and back.

The problem is that papyrus wouldn't stand up to washing or scraping, as it is basically strips of plant fiber glued together, so I doubt any pages of a papyrus codex have been reused (except as "scratch paper").

You may be thinking of vellum (treated animal skin) codices from which ink can be washed or scraped off in order to reuse the skin for another work. These vellum manuscripts are generally preserved in some monastery or patriarchal/Vatican library. The reused ones are called Palimpsests.

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMacSon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

All those are dated ACCORDING To WHOM???

Good question. I thought they were dated by radio-isotope analysis, but there is no mention there, here or here.

There is a view the papyri material is stable in dry regions such as the middle east and may be re-used, so the material date may precede the date of the writing on the material.

Duvduv · 07-04-2013, 05:54 PM

I guess some folks do consider paleographic opinions to be sacred despite the fact that they cannot be empirically proven even within their ranges ("give or take a century").

DCHindley · 07-04-2013, 08:29 PM

Duv,

They're just estimates. Accuracy +/- 50 yrs either way, but sometimes more precise. We are just not going to get an exact year, month, day, hour, minute & second. Just work within the limitations presented. You don't think Constantine salted the trash dumps of Egypt with fake papyri, including fake dated documents, as part of the vast conspiracy?

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

I guess some folks do consider paleographic opinions to be sacred despite the fact that they cannot be empirically proven even within their ranges ("give or take a century").

aa5874 · 07-04-2013, 09:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

There is no need to assume anything. See the mainstream Dating of Codex Sinaticus to the epoch 325-360 CE in which we find the Eusebian canons.

Quote:

The codex was written in the 4th century. It could not have been written before 325 because it contains the Eusebian Canons, which is a terminus post quem. It could not have been written after 360 because of certain references to Church fathers in the margin. This means that 360 is a terminus ad quem.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

I am extremely delighted that you now accept the dates provided by Wikipedia for writings attributed to Eusebius and the Codex Sinaiticus.

Now, I invite you refer to Wikipedia for the dates of New Testament manuscripts.

I invite you to start your own thread about the dates of the NT manuscripts. This OP is quite explicit. It does not concern the dating of the NT manuscripts, but rather the dating and the purpose of the so-called Eusebian canon tables. You are beginning to sound like Huller and others who attempt to attack other ideas I have expressed well outside the bounds of the OP.

The entire point of this OP is to acknowledge and discuss the 4th century invention of the "Harmony Tables" which were lavishly published in full colour as very expensive introductions to each of the 4 gospels in the earliest of the Greek bible codices.

I see this as a political propaganda exercise by the publishers.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Your response is most remarkable. It is extremely strange that you do not understand that the dating of Eusebian Tables is directly related to the dating of the Gospels which are NT MANUSCRIPTS.

You are claiming NT manuscripts were harmonised in the 4th century without presenting any actual evidence from antiquity that the NT manuscripts did really exist when Eusebius was alive

How in the world can I accept your claim that NT manuscripts were harmonised by Eusebius in the 4th century WITHOUT discussing the time when the very NT manuscripts were composed?

Plus, you have not even identified what in the NT manuscripts were harmonised in the 4th century.

The Eusebian Canon, based on Wikipedia, were merely tables to show at a glance the agreements and differences in NT manuscripts called Gospels.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusebian_Canons

Quote:

The Harmony of Ammonius suggested to Eusebius, as he himself tells us in his letter, the idea of drawing up ten tables (kanones) in which the sections in question were so classified as to show at a glance where each Gospel agreed with or differed from the others.

You have no corroborative evidence from antiquity that Eusebius harmonised NT manuscripts in the 4th century because you cannot show the contents before the so-called Eusebian Tables and cannot show when the NT manuscripts were composed.

If there were NO NT manuscripts in the 4th century then the Eusebian Canon could not be composed at that time.

mountainman · 07-04-2013, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

How in the world can I accept your claim that NT manuscripts were harmonised by Eusebius in the 4th century WITHOUT discussing the time when the very NT manuscripts were composed?

Irrespective of the date of the earliest NT manuscripts, AFAIK every scholar accepts that the harmony tables of Eusebius were a 4th century invention and that we have no earlier evidence for these tables.

Quote:

If there were NO NT manuscripts in the 4th century then the Eusebian Canon could not be composed at that time.

Codex Sinaticus containing these harmony tables has been generally dated to the epoch 325-360 CE.

The question in the OP is why did the publisher of the Codex Sinaticus, who presumably was either Constantine (325-337 CE) or his son Constantius (337-360 CE), decide to incorporate these harmony tables as expensive lavish colourful prefaces to every one of the 4 gospels.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman · 07-04-2013, 10:05 PM

This is getting away from the OP but ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

We are just not going to get an exact year ....

We would if any of these NT related papyri were physically dated by their authors. None are so dated

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

You don't think Constantine salted the trash dumps of Egypt with fake papyri, including fake dated documents, as part of the vast conspiracy?

It is logical that the overwhelming and dominant use of the 13-15 rubbish dumps at Oxyrynchus coincided with the population explosion of that city which occurred in the mid 4th century (and no earlier). This demographic fact has not been discussed by the proponents of early paleographic dating AFAIK, neither has it been discussed in this forum.

Additionally AFAIK Grenfell and Hunt personally (generally) dated the Oxy papyri to the 4th century. The further additional fact (you yourself pointed out above) that the fragments are from codices and not rolls also mitigates their dating to the 4th century, when the codex began to be used in earnest within the Roman empire.

Finally, AFAIK Colin H. Roberts in 1953 regarding P.64 was the first person to conjecture an early date for "Christian fragments". Since this time the list of CONJECTURED early datings has expanded by intrepid Christian scholars.

See Grenfell and Hunt on the Dates of Early Christian Codices: Setting the Record Straight by Brent Nongbri

Quote:

Roberts mentions “a note in the Librarian's report for 1901,” which contains the following statement: “Mr. Huleatt [the donor of thefragments] supposes them to be of the third century; but Dr. Hunt who recently examined the fragments thinks they may be assigned with more probability to the fourth century.”

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

aa5874 · 07-05-2013, 01:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

How in the world can I accept your claim that NT manuscripts were harmonised by Eusebius in the 4th century WITHOUT discussing the time when the very NT manuscripts were composed?

Irrespective of the date of the earliest NT manuscripts, AFAIK every scholar accepts that the harmony tables of Eusebius were a 4th century invention and that we have no earlier evidence for these tables.

Quote:

If there were NO NT manuscripts in the 4th century then the Eusebian Canon could not be composed at that time.

Codex Sinaticus containing these harmony tables has been generally dated to the epoch 325-360 CE.

The question in the OP is why did the publisher of the Codex Sinaticus, who presumably was either Constantine (325-337 CE) or his son Constantius (337-360 CE), decide to incorporate these harmony tables as expensive lavish colourful prefaces to every one of the 4 gospels.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Again, you keep on making mis-leading statements. The Eusebian Canons, "harmony tables" are not really about harmonization but merely tables to show the agreements and disagreements in NT manuscripts called Gospels.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusebian_Canons

Quote:

The Harmony of Ammonius suggested to Eusebius, as he himself tells us in his letter, the idea of drawing up ten tables (kanones) in which the sections in question were so classified as to show at a glance where each Gospel agreed with or differed from the others.

In the first nine tables he placed in parallel columns the numbers of the sections common to the four, or three, or two, evangelists; namely: (1) Matt., Mark, Luke, John; (2) Matt., Mark, Luke; (3) Matt., Luke, John; (4) Matt., Mark, John; (5) Matt., Luke; (6) Matt., Mark; (7) Matt., John; (8) Luke, Mark; (9) Luke, John. In the tenth he noted successively the sections special to each evangelist.

The usefulness of these tables for the purpose of reference and comparison soon brought them into common use, and from the 5th century the Ammonian sections, with references to the Eusebian tables, were indicated in the margin of the manuscripts.

Opposite each section was written its number, and underneath this the number of the Eusebian table to be consulted in order to find the parallel texts or text; a reference to the tenth table would of course show that this section was proper to that evangelist. These marginal notes are reproduced in several editions of Tischendorf's New Testament.

The Eusebian Canons are mere numbered reference tables where each section of the texts from NT manuscripts called Gospels in the Canon were given a matching reference number from 1-10.

There is no evidence that the text itself was altered to produce numbers for the tables.

mountainman · 07-05-2013, 04:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

The Eusebian Canons, "harmony tables" are not really about harmonization but merely tables to show the agreements and disagreements in NT manuscripts called Gospels.

See Epistula ad Carpianum (Epistle to Carpian) attributed to Eusebius.

Eusebius calls them a "harmonised account of the four gospels.".

I have highlighted where Eusebius speaks of agreements in blue and where he speaks of disagreements in red.

Quote:

Eusebius to Carpianus his beloved brother in the Lord: greetings.

Ammonius the Alexandrian, having exerted a great deal of energy and effort as was necessary, bequeaths to us a harmonized account of the four gospels. Alongside the Gospel according to Matthew, he placed the corresponding sections of the other gospels. But this had the inevitable result of ruining the sequential order of the other three gospels, as far as a continuous reading of the text was concerned. Keeping, however, both the body and sequence of the other gospels completely intact, in order that you may be able to know where each evangelist wrote passages in which they were led by love of truth to speak about the same things, I drew up a total of ten tables according to another system, acquiring the raw data from the work of the man mentioned above. These tables are set out for you below.

The first of them lists the reference numbers for similar things recounted in the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the second in the three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke; the third in the three, Matthew, Luke, and John; the fourth in the three, Matthew, Mark, and John; the fifth in the two, Matthew, and Luke; the sixth in the two, Matthew and Mark; the seventh in the two, Matthew and John; the eighth in the two, Mark and Luke; the ninth in the two, Luke and John; the tenth is for unique things recorded in each gospel.

Now that I have outlined the structure of the tables set out below, I will explain how to use them. In each of the four gospels, consecutive reference numbers are assigned to each section, starting from the first, then the second, and the third, and so on in sequence, proceeding through the whole gospel to the book's end. Every reference number has a numeral written below it in red that indicates in which of the ten tables the reference number is located. If the red numeral is a I, the reference number is clearly in the first table, and if it is a II, in the second, and thus in sequence to the numeral ten.

And so, suppose you open one of the four gospels at some point, wishing to go to a certain chapter in order to know what gospels recount similar things and to find in each gospel the related passages in which the evangelists were led to speak about the same things. By using the reference number assigned for the section in which you are interested and looking for it within the table indicated by the red numeral below it, you will immediately discover from the titles at the head of the table how many and which gospels recount similar things. By going to the other gospels' reference numbers that are in the same row as the reference number in the table you are at and looking them up in the related passages of each gospel, you will find similar things mentioned.[2]

The copy of this letter appears with the canon tables on the opening folios of many Gospel manuscripts (e.g. 021, 65, 108, 109, 112, 113, 114, 117, etc.). The epistle is also given in modern editions of Greek New Testament.[3]

So Eusebius mentions the contradictions once and calls them unique things . OTOH he mentions the agreements (i.e. the harmonies) on seven occasions. This letter appears to have been included in the earliest Greek bible codices. Its purpose was to serve as propaganda and to highlight the agreements while smoothing over the unique things which are now openly discussed as contradictions.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Duvduv · 07-05-2013, 04:49 AM

One wonders about the use of the word "unique" in contrast to "similar". Obviously the writer preferred not drawing attention to differences, and also suggests the different gospels that were part of a set were not deemed to portray contradictions when they were written.

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07-04-2013, 05:54 PM	#43
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	I guess some folks do consider paleographic opinions to be sacred despite the fact that they cannot be empirically proven even within their ranges ("give or take a century").

07-05-2013, 04:49 AM	#50
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	One wonders about the use of the word "unique" in contrast to "similar". Obviously the writer preferred not drawing attention to differences, and also suggests the different gospels that were part of a set were not deemed to portray contradictions when they were written.

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