Means, Motive and Opportunity

[dog-on]

How difficult would it have been to actually make changes to existing works during the 2nd century and to have all exisiting evidence of such changes disappear over the course of the next few hundred years?

How many copies of Mark do modern scholars suppose where actually penned from the original? How about Paul?

An example from modern times of significant changes to a published work, in a similar genre would, of course, be the Book of Mormon. I will admit, that the changes to this work have been very difficult to hide do to the fact that the original edition still exists. The Mormons use the phrase "continuous revelation" to try and limit the cognitive dissonance, I suppose.

Would the early church have had the means, motive and opportunity to rewrite the holy books, based on their own, then current, theological understanding and make the evidence of such rewriting simply disappear?

[sschlichter]

Would the early church have had the means, motive and opportunity to rewrite the holy books, based on their own, then current, theological understanding and make the evidence of such rewriting simply disappear?

I tend to think this is unlikely. What would have been the motive? The thrill of being killed for an illegal religion. They decided to ignore what Jesus originally taught, in a conspiracy, teach something else that they all agree on and results in their likely death. They managed that and to decieve another generation (or couple generations) whom also faced death. In only looking at the motive, I cannot see one.

~Steve

[Steven Carr]

I tend to think this is unlikely. What would have been the motive? The thrill of being killed for an illegal religion. They decided to ignore what Jesus originally taught, in a conspiracy, teach something else that they all agree on and results in their likely death. They managed that and to decieve another generation (or couple generations) whom also faced death. In only looking at the motive, I cannot see one.



'That they all agree on'?

Have you read the bitter hatred of Christian-on-Christian in 2 Peter and Revelation?

But not even those works think many Christians are being killed.

To rectify the fact that their Christian enemies were just not being killed, some of the authors looked forward to the Lord coming and killing the Christians they themselves hated.

Revelation 2:20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.

21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.

22 So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways.

23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

I guess the author is really telling us that these other churches preached the same thing he himself did, and that it was the Roman Emperors who searched the hearts and minds of Christians, killing them if they departed from what he believed.

Who knows?

[GakuseiDon]

Would the early church have had the means, motive and opportunity to rewrite the holy books, based on their own, then current, theological understanding and make the evidence of such rewriting simply disappear?
Celsus certainly believed so:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen162.html
After this he [Celsus] says, that certain of the Christian believers, like persons who in a fit of drunkenness lay violent hands upon themselves, have corrupted the Gospel from its original integrity, to a threefold, and fourfold, and many-fold degree, and have remodelled it, so that they might be able to answer objections.

[JEST2ASK]

I tend to think this is unlikely. What would have been the motive? The thrill of being killed for an illegal religion. They decided to ignore what Jesus originally taught, in a conspiracy, teach something else that they all agree on and results in their likely death. They managed that and to decieve another generation (or couple generations) whom also faced death. In only looking at the motive, I cannot see one.

~Steve

I have often wondered about the accuracy and scope of such claims that a significant percentage of early "Christians" were martyred for their faith. I also wonder if the orginal letters which circulated were accurately and completly transmitted and complied. I think the idea of a unified conspiracy (except with relation to Saul / Paul) is highly unlikely.

That however does not say say that so called heratical groups did not exist from the very earliest stages. There seems to be some crediable evidence that there were other jewish (& non-jewish) messiahs, god-men in the region considerable before and after the time of the biblical Jesus.


GakuseiDon & Steven Carr Much covered my thoughts , quicker and more in details ...
I should have been patient.

[dog-on]

Would the early church have had the means, motive and opportunity to rewrite the holy books, based on their own, then current, theological understanding and make the evidence of such rewriting simply disappear?

I tend to think this is unlikely. What would have been the motive? The thrill of being killed for an illegal religion. They decided to ignore what Jesus originally taught, in a conspiracy, teach something else that they all agree on and results in their likely death. They managed that and to decieve another generation (or couple generations) whom also faced death. In only looking at the motive, I cannot see one.

~Steve

I do not understand the relevance of your answer to the question I asked.

Here's a hypothetical:

2nd century AD;

Church A has some books;

Church B has some other books;

These books are similar, but do have certain significant theological differences.

Church A absorbs Church B, but in doing so must, initially, take Church B's "baggage".

How difficult would it be for Church A to then "adjust" Church B's books to better fit Church A's view of things, using terms like "heresy" to help convince the former Church B's membership that any such edits, (if such changes where even realized by the mass congregation itself, which is another question entirely), where in fact, a restoration?

How long would it then take for the old Church B books to simply disappear?

[Toto]

From William Walker on interpolations in the Pauline epistles (my summary) (http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=72218)In support of the possibility of interpolations, Walker cites Ehrman, who says that the early years of Christianity were a period of creativity, while later years tended towards strict reproduction. He also cites Aland and Aland, The Text of the New Testament: "until the beginning of the fourth century the text of the New Testament developed freely" and "this was all the more true of the early period, when the text had not yet attained canonical status, especially in the earliest period when Christians considered themselves filled with the Spirit". Koestler apparently agrees.

In short, there was ample opportunity, means and motivefor interpolations.

Why is there no surviving text critical evidence of variant readings? Walker replies with a question. Why are there no early texts of any Pauline letters? And no earlier collections? It is clear, he says that Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp and the author of 2 Peter were acquainted with more than one letter [unless, of course, those references were forged, something that should be considered, especially with Ignatius] and the early appearance of the pseudo-Paulines suggests that Paul's letters were known outside the communities they addressed. No earlier forms of any letters have survived, although 2 Cor is widely regarded as composite.

Walker lists two possibilities: the final edited version of the letters made all earlier versions obsolete, or Christians suppressed all earlier versions.

The idea that Christians suppressed all variant texts of Paul's letters is rejected by some as a conspiracy theory, but Walker points out that Marcion's version is missing. [If Marcion's version of Paul?s letters could be suppressed, so could other variant texts.]

Marcion accused his opponents of interpolating material; his opponents accused him of deleting material. "As a matter of historical principle, we cannot simply reject the word of Marcion about this." P-L Couchoud argued that Marcion preserved the original text. It seems at least possible that Marcion deleted some material, and his orthodox opponents added some.

All we know is that the surviving text is the text promoted and perhaps produced by the winners in the struggles of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The capacity of Christians to suppress manuscripts is shown by the example of Tatian's Diatesseron, which the Syrian episcopate made a determined effort to put an end to, so that no copy has survived except for a single leaf of vellum.

An additional factor supporting the possibility that orthodox Christians successfully eliminated any variant copies of Paul's letters is that the church of 180 was more centralized and united that it had been before or after, so the emerging orthodox leadership was in a position to standardize texts.

[Malachi151]

I don't think that much of this went on. It went on a little bit, but not out of any conspiracy.

First of all, there are so many contradictions between the scriptures and places where they contradict the teachings of the people using them that if they had really been making major revisions then these issues would have been resolved long ago.

Some changes crept in for a variety of reasons. The Johannine comma is a good example for a change to a Gospel work, but then again, we know about this don't we...

I think the place where there was the most revision was in the letters of Paul. This is also the place that's hardest to completely discern the changes because we don't have copies of the text that are as early or as complete as we do for the Gospels. In the case of the letter of Paul, though, these weren't even considered "scripture" for the first couple hundred years of their existence, so changes to them were not viewed as anything out of the ordinary. I think that different groups edited them to suit their own needs, which was considered perfectly fine and above board to a certain extent.

We have a good suspicion about some of the changes today, but we have little in the way of solid proof.

Also, look at the various epistles that we have traditions for which contradict the letters themselves. If they really wanted to make all of this stuff fit together they would have done a better job. For example the epistles of James don't actually state they they were written by "James the brother of Jesus", in fact the letters actually contradict that notion. However the tradition has always been that they were written by the actual brother of Jesus. So if people were intent on making the material fit the beliefs they would have changes those letters to make them more consistent.

So, overall, I think that what you are talking about is a very minor issue and didn't happen very much.

[dog-on]

So, overall, I think that what you are talking about is a very minor issue and didn't happen very much.


I'm not really asking what was done or was not done, I am asking if it was actually possible to do so.

[Malachi151]

So, overall, I think that what you are talking about is a very minor issue and didn't happen very much.


I'm not really asking what was done or was not done, I am asking if it was actually possible to do so.

Well I'm sure it would have been possible. It may not have been possible to completely and 100% cover the tracks, but at the time it wouldn't have mattered much and they would have still been able to make it not completely possible to absolutely prove later on.

I think its pretty clear that no one in the 2nd century that we have any knowledge of today had access to "the originals" of any of these works, nor did they actually have any idea of where they really came from. Given that environment it must have been impossible to determine what was the "true text" and what wasn't, so they could have made changes and claimed their text as the true one I would think.

As I said though, all of the evidence indicates that this didn't happen, or at least didn't happen to any meaningful degree.

[Ben C Smith]

There are two different questions that must be separated, at least in principle:

1. Was it possible for the early Christians to make changes to existing works?
2. Was it possible for the early Christians to make changes to existing works without having left any evidence of them at all in the manuscript record?

My answer to the first question is of course. Toto already mentioned the accusations exchanged between the proto-orthodox and Marcion. We also have Tertullian complaining that his first edition of Against Marcion had been very incorrectly copied and circulated. There are dozens of significant manuscript variations (that is, variations related to real changes in content rather than slips of the pen or spelling variants) in the gospels and epistles. The longer and shorter endings of Mark are spurious. The Testimonium Flavianum has been tampered with if not added wholesale. Galen complained that his books had been abused.

My answer to the second question is also of course (so much evidence from century II has been lost)... but it is naturally much harder to track down the particulars of something for which no evidence remains. If we spot a fairly clear example of change (as on the above list), it is clear only because we have evidence for it. Postulating changes for which we have no extant evidence is a matter of probability and analogy.

It is important, BTW, to bear in mind that the manuscripts are not the only avenue of investigation; the testimonies of the fathers also count. Is the Marcionite gospel lost to us? In its fullest form it is. But we can still investigate some of its particulars through Tertullian, Epiphanius, and others.

Ben.

[Malachi151]

Ben: I think a more interesting question, and perhaps the only one that matters for what I perceive the line of thinking in the OP to be, is whether it would have been possible for changes to the manuscripts to have been in the 2nd century and gone undetected in the 2nd century. I think the answer to this is even yes, it would have been "possible". Again, I don't think this was widespread, at least in terms of the Gospels. Probably a little more-so in terms of the letters of Paul.

Again I think the contradictions and deficiencies in the various texts points to the notion that these texts are relatively representative of the originals. If there were some agenda to "fix the texts" then they would have been "fixed", but the fact is that they aren't fixed, they are full of contradictions and discrepancies, which points to there not having been too much tampering with them.

[dog-on]

Ben: I think a more interesting question, and perhaps the only one that matters for what I perceive the line of thinking in the OP to be, is whether it would have been possible for changes to the manuscripts to have been in the 2nd century and gone undetected in the 2nd century. I think the answer to this is even yes, it would have been "possible". Again, I don't think this was widespread, at least in terms of the Gospels. Probably a little more-so in terms of the letters of Paul.

Again I think the contradictions and deficiencies in the various texts points to the notion that these texts are relatively representative of the originals. If there were some agenda to "fix the texts" then they would have been "fixed", but the fact is that they aren't fixed, they are full of contradictions and discrepancies, which points to there not having been too much tampering with them.


Good Christians see no contradictions. Do you think things were different in the past?

[aa5874]

How difficult would it have been to actually make changes to existing works during the 2nd century and to have all exisiting evidence of such changes disappear over the course of the next few hundred years?

I think Justin Martyr's writings give some insight into your questions.

In Justin's extant writings, he constantly referred to a document called "memoirs of the apostles" which seems to have completely disappeared.

Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen, all writing within 25-60 years of Justin Martyr, did not refer to these "memoirs of the apostles", they all made mention of certain documents that Justin Martyr did NOT mention by name at all.

Now, the "memoirs of the apostles", as stated by Justin, contains many passages that appear to be identical or very similar to the gMatthew and gLuke and gMark[KJV], yet Justin did NOT ever call these "memoirs" by the names of the gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.

In chapters 15,16 and 17 of 'First Apology by Justin', there are over fifty verses from the 'memoirs of the Apostles" that are found in the Gospel of Matthew, Mark or Luke [KJV] and there are many more similar verses in other chapters of "First Apology" and "Dialogue with Trypho".

What happened to Justin Martyr's documents called "memoirs of the apostles''? Why did they just disappear?
Were they re-written and then called the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?

[andrewcriddle]

How difficult would it have been to actually make changes to existing works during the 2nd century and to have all exisiting evidence of such changes disappear over the course of the next few hundred years?
.........................................................................
Would the early church have had the means, motive and opportunity to rewrite the holy books, based on their own, then current, theological understanding and make the evidence of such rewriting simply disappear?
Once copies of the texts were available to churches in Syria Egypt Italy etc it would be dificult for them to be rewritten in ways that left no evidence. At least one of the local texts would be likely to preserve evidence of the original reading.

Andrew Criddle

[Huon]

The oldest NT manuscripts (of which I know the name) are :
Codex Vaticanus, fourth century, considered to be the oldest extant copy of the Bible,
Codex Alexandrinus, beginning or middle of the fifth century or possibly the late fourth,
Codex Bezae, probably belongs to the fifth century,
Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, first half of the fifth century,
Codex Sinaiticus, experts place it in the fourth century, along with Codex Vaticanus and some time before Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Ephræmi Rescriptus,
Codex Amiatinus, beginning of the eighth century.

There are also three New Testament manuscripts that are part of the Chester Beatty Papyri. These fragments are palaeographically dated to the first half of the 3rd century.

The Sinaiticus is different from the other versions, on many important points.

[Gamera]

Even assuming some uncanny efficiency of orthodox harmonizers, if even one unaltered version of a NT text slipped through their clutches, and survived, we would all know about and be able to identify the subsequent alterations that were made. So they had to alter or distroy all unharmonized versions. 100% efficiency was required.

Query whether they had such power and whether a 100% success is likely.

[sschlichter]

I tend to think this is unlikely. What would have been the motive? The thrill of being killed for an illegal religion. They decided to ignore what Jesus originally taught, in a conspiracy, teach something else that they all agree on and results in their likely death. They managed that and to decieve another generation (or couple generations) whom also faced death. In only looking at the motive, I cannot see one.



'That they all agree on'?

Have you read the bitter hatred of Christian-on-Christian in 2 Peter and Revelation?

But not even those works think many Christians are being killed.

To rectify the fact that their Christian enemies were just not being killed, some of the authors looked forward to the Lord coming and killing the Christians they themselves hated.

Revelation 2:20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.

21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.

22 So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways.

23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

I guess the author is really telling us that these other churches preached the same thing he himself did, and that it was the Roman Emperors who searched the hearts and minds of Christians, killing them if they departed from what he believed.

Who knows?

Well, I don't know for sure but I do not guess that. The 'I' is not a christian, it claims to be the words of Christ. The message of warning against a woman (Jezebel is probably a reference to the same type of undue influence that Ahab's wife had over Isreal). This tells me that the author was directing the church and wanted the prophetess thrown out. I think the allegory in Revelation is meant to hid the message from Roman government.

I am not suggesting that christians are not capable of hating each other as much as anyone else but I do not see that in this message.

As to how this pertains to the original question - I think it speaks to means. The apostles and post-apostolic church fathers exerted authority over the churches across Rome and beyond. I think they did have the means as they controlled the message and made sure alternate messages (such as gnosticism) did not take root in the church. I think they did have the means. It is the motives that I do not see.

[sschlichter]

I tend to think this is unlikely. What would have been the motive? The thrill of being killed for an illegal religion. They decided to ignore what Jesus originally taught, in a conspiracy, teach something else that they all agree on and results in their likely death. They managed that and to decieve another generation (or couple generations) whom also faced death. In only looking at the motive, I cannot see one.

~Steve

I do not understand the relevance of your answer to the question I asked.

Here's a hypothetical:

2nd century AD;

Church A has some books;

Church B has some other books;

These books are similar, but do have certain significant theological differences.

Church A absorbs Church B, but in doing so must, initially, take Church B's "baggage".

How difficult would it be for Church A to then "adjust" Church B's books to better fit Church A's view of things, using terms like "heresy" to help convince the former Church B's membership that any such edits, (if such changes where even realized by the mass congregation itself, which is another question entirely), where in fact, a restoration?

How long would it then take for the old Church B books to simply disappear?

Well, you asked 3 questions. I was addressing motive. I think what you described is exactly what happened. If you beleive the message then you see it as protection of the truth. If not, you see it as a conspiracy. The process of canonization itself was a response to the disparate gospels and heresies that arose. the books never did disappear. You can find many of the books and teachings they excluded today.

I think your question also assumes an independance between church A and B that never existed.

Since motive was in your question, what do you suppose the motive for conspiracy was for two centuries? Where do you suppose it most likely started? Christ? Apostles? Later?

[sschlichter]

The Sinaiticus is different from the other versions, on many important points.

Can you give me an example of a difference that is important? How are you defining important?

~Steve

[RParvus]

Here's a hypothetical:

2nd century AD;

Church A has some books;

Church B has some other books;

These books are similar, but do have certain significant theological differences.

Church A absorbs Church B, but in doing so must, initially, take Church B's "baggage".

Your hypothetical is very similar to what I propose in my book “A New Look at the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch and other Apellean Writings.” I argue that around 155 CE there was a reconciliation between the proto-orthodox church and a group of Apelleans, i.e. followers of Apelles. As part of the reconciliation, the Apelleans agreed to a review/revison of their sacred writings (i.e. proto-John and I Corinthians) by the proto-orthodox church.

Roger Parvus

[Huon]

The Sinaiticus is different from the other versions, on many important points.

Can you give me an example of a difference that is important? How are you defining important?

~Steve

You can find a translation of the Sinaiticus at :
http://www.sinaiticus.com/

I have found this on the net :

After years of dedicated New Testament research, Dr Tischendorff expressed dismay at the differences between the oldest and newest Gospels, and had trouble understanding...
"...how scribes could allow themselves to bring in here and there changes which were not simply verbal ones, but such as materially affected the very meaning and, what is worse still, did not shrink from cutting out a passage or inserting one."
(Alterations to the Sinai Bible, Dr Constantin von Tischendorff, 1863, available in the British Library, London)
After years of validating the fabricated nature of the New Testament, a disillusioned Dr Tischendorff confessed that modern-day editions have "been altered in many places" and are "not to be accepted as true" (When Were Our Gospels Written?, Dr Constantin von Tischendorff, 1865, British Library, London).

[Huon]

Here is another link :

www.bsw.org/project/filologia/filo15/Fil15Art04.pdf

In this article (in french), the author Alain Martin (possibly a Catholic) analyses a variant reading of Matt. 1:16 that only appears in a Syriac palimpsest of St Catherine in Mount Sinai and which concerns an important issue of the Christian dogma: the virginal conception of Jesus.

This syriac palimpsest was discovered in 1892 by Agnes Smith Lewis and should not be confused with the greek manuscript discovered by Tischendorff in 1859.

Agnes Smith Lewis published her discovery in The Old Syriac Gospels (London 1910).

There is also another Old Syriac text, published by William Cureton in 1858, which can be compared with the other Syriac, and also with the Peshitta.

The Peshitta is the official Bible of the Church of the East. The name Peshitta in Aramaic means "Straight", in other words, the original and pure New Testament. The Peshitta is the only authentic and pure text which contains the books in the New Testament that were written in Aramaic, the Language of Mshikha (the Messiah) and His Disciples. So says the Church of the East. This version of the New Testament is used by both East Syrians (Nestorians) and West Syrians (Jacobites) and therefore certainly predates the division of the Syriac church along political, geographical, and theological lines during the mid-5th century.

I cannot give a translation of these 8 pages, because a translation from syriac to french, and then from french to english, is rather risky. But the core of the question is this : what were exactly the relations of Joseph, Mary, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost ?

And in this text, the author Alain Martin writes that in the Syriac palimpsest, Joseph is the biological father of Jesus, and that Joseph and Mary had later some other children.

I don't want to develop this further, because it is not the goal of the OP. I simply wanted to show that the oldest manuscripts of the NT are later than the 4th century, post Nicaea, and that there are some other Eastern sources.

[Solo]

From William Walker on interpolations in the Pauline epistles (my summary) (http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=72218)

Interesting. I think the standardization of the texts came as a result of two closely related issues. One, as Walker says, it was imposed by the church to present an invariant, sacred canon, which would be the basis of the Christian faith and support the episcopal hierarchy of the church around the major centres, i.e. Rome, Alexandria, Antioch. The obverse side of this process was the elimination of the Holy Spirit as "authority" for writing new "eyewitness" reports of Jesus. The original "witness" of the canonical Jesus was the Spirit who entered in the gospel writers who then envisioned Jesus through their (Spirit) experience. The "ecclesiastical fixation of Christianity", as Tillich called it, replaced the (living, present) Spirit with apostolic authority and the scriptures were edited as aposolic memoirs in a literalist mold.

Tillich writes of the failed attempt of the Montanist Johannines to revive the original MO of the faith:


The Montanists had two basic ideas: The Spirit and "the end". The Spirit was supressed by the organized church. There was a fear of spiritual movements because the Gnostics had claimed to have the Spirit. It was denied that prophets necessarily have an ecstatic character. A churchman at this time wrote a pamphlet to the effect that it is unnecessary for a prophet to speak in ecstasy. The church was unable to understand the prophetic Spirit any more. It was understandable to be afraid of the Spirit because in the name of the Spirit all kinds of disruptive elements entered the church. (Note: it occured to me after reading this, that John 10 Jesus parabolic discourse of the thieves and robbers in the sheepfold looks like an anti-Montanist pamphlet even though it is directed at 'the Pharisees'- a by-word for hypocrisy by then).

The other idea was that of the "end". After the expectations of Jesus and the apostles that the end was very imminent had been disappointed, the apostolic fathers began to establish themselves in the world. The disappointment that the end did not come caused great difficulties and led to the necessity of ...church that is able to live in the world. But the Montanists experienced what the earlier Christians had experienced; the end they expected did not come. So they also had to establish themselves in the world; they also became a church. It was a church with a strict discipline, and to a certain extent it was an anticipation of the sectarian tyoe of the church that arose during the Reformation and in later Protestantism.

It happens, however, that when the attempt is made to fix the content of what the Spirit teaches, the result is extreme poverty. This happened, for example to the Quakers after their initial ecstatic period. When the content is fixed it turns out that there is nothing new, or what is new is more or less some form of rational moralism. This happened to George Fox and his followers, and to all ecstatic sects. In the second generation they became rational, moralistic, and legalistic; the ecstatic element disappears...The Montanists...adopted the idea of a prophetic succession. Of course, this is self-contradictory, because succession is an organizational principle, whereas prophecy is anti-organizational principle. The attempt to combine the two was unsuccessful, and will always be unsuccessful.

Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought, Simon & Schuster, N.Y. 1968, pp 40-41


In other words, the Christ and the Inquisitor, in Dostoyevski's Brothers Karamazov.

On the orthodox redaction of Paul writings: Paul, in the manner simply and elegantly described above by Tillich, was an ecstatic who operated his own church as he could not come to terms with the Jerusalem group of Jesus original followers. In Tillich's terms, Paul was unique in that he provided in an uncanny degree the "second generation" rational morality as complement to his visions and with it the foundation of a new, organized religion. It is for this reason - mostly that, I believe - Paul was a sought-after commodity in the succession churches - Marcion's, the Valentinians', the patristic Church. The proto-orthodox Christianity, I believe, started to co-opt Paul's moral and organization model without much of Paul's original "paradox" theology, which was diametrically opposed to Jesus' teaching on the coming kingdom. There was to be no kingdom on earth, Paul taught.

In essence, in the emerging Proto-orthodox church Paul had to be shown as a part of the apostolic Church, its orderly succession, as compliant to the original message of Jesus, and agreeable to the Palestinain traditions about Jesus (e.g his royal Davidic pedigree).

Jiri

[sschlichter]

The Sinaiticus is different from the other versions, on many important points.


You can find a translation of the Sinaiticus at :
http://www.sinaiticus.com/

I have found this on the net :

After years of dedicated New Testament research, Dr Tischendorff expressed dismay at the differences between the oldest and newest Gospels, and had trouble understanding...
"...how scribes could allow themselves to bring in here and there changes which were not simply verbal ones, but such as materially affected the very meaning and, what is worse still, did not shrink from cutting out a passage or inserting one."
(Alterations to the Sinai Bible, Dr Constantin von Tischendorff, 1863, available in the British Library, London)
After years of validating the fabricated nature of the New Testament, a disillusioned Dr Tischendorff confessed that modern-day editions have "been altered in many places" and are "not to be accepted as true" (When Were Our Gospels Written?, Dr Constantin von Tischendorff, 1865, British Library, London).


that's helpful, thanks.

I am curious, since the post was related to theological differences (between church A and church B) how you (or Tischendorff) are determing what is theologically "important". The woman, in John 8 is a great story but it does not provide grounds for substantive theological disagreement (except for those that just like to disagree). you listed 8 sources starting at 400 (or so) + and they are widely consistent. The fact that history "caught" people adding or altering tells me that the answer to the question of opportunity is unlikely. The sheer volume is how we know what attempts have been made.

Maybe 1 John 5 is a good example of an attempt to add something deceptive that is "important" but that person / persons got "caught" as well. Interestingly enough, they were changing the text to support the orthodox view so I do not even think it is an instance of the scenario supplied in this post.

I would argue that this points to the fact that the manuscripts(s) were early enough and of sufficient volume to protect against deceptive transcription.

~Steve

[Huon]

I am curious, since the post was related to theological differences (between church A and church B) how you (or Tischendorff) are determing what is theologically "important".
~Steve

What is theologically important to me is what was a source of quarrel between different groups of Christians, for instance the Arians and the Catholics. These quarrels were an important element of the history of Western Europe between 300 and 500 CE. But I will not side with any group. Except Wulfila's gothic Bible, where are the arian documents ? I know the answer.

[sschlichter]

I am curious, since the post was related to theological differences (between church A and church B) how you (or Tischendorff) are determing what is theologically "important".
~Steve

What is theologically important to me is what was a source of quarrel between different groups of Christians, for instance the Arians and the Catholics. These quarrels were an important element of the history of Western Europe between 300 and 500 CE. But I will not side with any group. Except Wulfila's gothic Bible, where are the arian documents ? I know the answer.

I agree (as to the importance) and I am sure you are right about where the Arian writings are? However, if you establish the new testament writings were consistent "enough" prior to this period, then what the Arians beleived really doesn't matter, theologically. Is there enough pieces prior to that period to know that what we have is consistent with what the apostles taught? What date does that reliability not exist among theologically important passages? I beleive for things that I care about (as an orthodox christian) that it bumps right up to the time of the Apostles.

In fact, Arianism/Orthodoxy was debated from specific passages. John 1, Col 1. The Arian argument is still compelling in some cases so whoever supposedly purged / altered them would have done a bad job.

Out of curiosity? Do you know if Wulfila's translation is consistent with others? I know he skipped violent OT books (Kings maybe) intentionally but am curious otherwise?

~Steve

[andrewcriddle]

Out of curiosity? Do you know if Wulfila's translation is consistent with others? I know he skipped violent OT books (Kings maybe) intentionally but am curious otherwise?

~Steve

According to Metzger "The Early Versions of the New Testament" Ulfilas was a very literal translator. The only clear example of bias may be Philippians 2:6 where "equal with God" is translated "similar to God."

Andrew Criddle

[Huon]

... if you establish the new testament writings were consistent "enough" prior to this period, then what the Arians believed really doesn't matter, theologically. ...
~Steve

It is not my concern.
What the Protestants believe does'nt matter.
What the Catholics believe does'nt matter.
What the Orthodoxes believe does'nt matter. Etc... Theologically, I mean.
All of them follow what the apostles taught. Paul and the "pillars", of course.
And the Muslims (every sect) also have the true religion.

[gurugeorge]

Even assuming some uncanny efficiency of orthodox harmonizers, if even one unaltered version of a NT text slipped through their clutches, and survived, we would all know about and be able to identify the subsequent alterations that were made. So they had to alter or distroy all unharmonized versions. 100% efficiency was required.

Query whether they had such power and whether a 100% success is likely.

Well orthodox Christianity was pretty close to 100% successful in destroying, say, Gnostic stuff, and it's only by a remarkably lucky find (Nag Hammadi) that we have even some later representatives of that. No reason why they couldn't have been about as successful in destroying evidence of other heretical viewpoints, surely?

(Sure, Nag Hammadi proves they weren't 100% successful (and there were even a few fragments before that). But so would some other cache, as yet unfound, and probably never to be found, of other heretical texts! Chances are there are a few of those sorts of things that we'll never ever find.)

Given how people here are constantly emphasising how sketchy the concrete basis on which we theorise history is, and how careful we have to be in committing ourselves because of that, you seem remarkably insouciant in saying "we would all know about and be able to identify the subsequent alterations that were made." :)

[sschlichter]

... if you establish the new testament writings were consistent "enough" prior to this period, then what the Arians believed really doesn't matter, theologically. ...
~Steve

It is not my concern.
What the Protestants believe does'nt matter.
What the Catholics believe does'nt matter.
What the Orthodoxes believe does'nt matter. Etc... Theologically, I mean.
All of them follow what the apostles taught. Paul and the "pillars", of course.
And the Muslims (every sect) also have the true religion.

I may have misunderstood the subject of the thread, but I thought we were dsicussing the means, motives, and opportunity that early church fathers might have had in altering texts to suit what they believe. I am not concerned about what they beleived either. I am concerned about establishing that what they beleived was consistent with what the Apostles beleived. writings that pre-date each of these conflicts is the only way to get around the viewpoint of the winner of the conflict.

I do not need to trust Athanasius copy of the bible, because I can get around him to an earlier copy. Wouldn't you agree?

~Steve

[sschlichter]

Out of curiosity? Do you know if Wulfila's translation is consistent with others? I know he skipped violent OT books (Kings maybe) intentionally but am curious otherwise?

~Steve

According to Metzger "The Early Versions of the New Testament" Ulfilas was a very literal translator. The only clear example of bias may be Philippians 2:6 where "equal with God" is translated "similar to God."

Andrew Criddle

thanks,

I guess that would be expected. If he was going to change something, that would be a place to start.

~Steve