Re: What Bible?

I believe that Gordon's account is essentially correct. It may be worth
adding that the original addition of the "Johannine comma" was not
necessarily (as is often suggested) a deliberate fraud. It's the kind of
thing that a reader might have added as a marginal comment on (the present)
vv.7 & 8, & then were put in the body of the text by a later copyist on the
assumption that they belonged there - something not so easy for us to
picture today when a scribbled note in the margin would be easily
distinguished from the printed text.

Luther's comment on the addition (LW 30, p.316) is of interest: "The Greek
books do not have these words, but this verse seems to have been inserted by
the Catholics because of the Arians, yet not aptly, for wherever John speaks
about the witnesses, he speaks about those on earth, not about those in
heaven."

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

----- Original Message -----
From: "gordon brown" <gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu>
To: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 10:55 AM
Subject: Re: What Bible?

>I have a Greek New Testament that has variant manuscript readings in the
> footnotes. My impression is that the variant readings are rarely if ever
> at odds with doctrines taught elsewhere in the NT. Many times they are
> additions to the text that express truths that can be deduced from
> elsewhere. The addition in I John 5 would be an example of this.
>
> The story, as I recall, of how the expanded version of I John 5:8 made it
> into the Textus Receptus is that Erasmus lost a bet. He did not include it
> in his original edition in 1515, but a Catholic priest asked him why he
> had not. After all, it was in a revision of the Latin Vulgate (but not in
> Jerome's original version). Erasmus responded that he had never seen it in
> a Greek manuscript but that if the priest could show him one that
> contained it, he would include it in his second edition, which would be
> published in a few years mostly to correct typos. The priest produced a
> late Greek manuscript with the additional words written in the margin in a
> modern hand, and so, in spite of his suspicions, Erasmus included it. To
> this date, of all the hundreds of Greek manuscripts available, only four
> contain it, all of them of late date, and two of them have it in the
> margin in a modern hand. The case is clinched by the fact that in the days
> of the Arian controversy noone mentioned this verse even though it would
> have made the most convincing proof of the trinitarian position.
>
> Gordon Brown
> Department of Mathematics
> University of Colorado
> Boulder, CO 80309-0395
>
>
> On Sun, 12 Mar 2006, Robert Schneider wrote:
>
>> Bart Ehrman is not a Morman; in fact he was raised in an evangelical
>> household and attended Moody Bible College, though he's moved far from
>> that
>> tradition. He is presently on the faculty of the University of North
>> Carolina, Chapel Hill. Ehrman is a well-acknowledged expert on early
>> Christian movements and texts. He has compiled much material to support
>> his
>> thesis. There are a number of passages in the Greek NT that are not
>> attested to in major manuscripts and appear in the critical apparatus.
>> In
>> the NRSV I use as a college text, many of these appear in footnotes.
>> Some
>> are bracketted with double brackets; these appear in some major witness,
>> but
>> not in others. The brackets indicates that the editors could not agree
>> whether they should be included or omitted. One would have to examine
>> his
>> arguments for specific passages to see if one thought he had made a good
>> case for scribal doctoring in order to advance theological positions. In
>> the case of 1 John 5:8, omitted now in the NRSV, I think a good case can
>> be
>> made for scribal insertion.
>>
>> Bob
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "gordon brown" <gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu>
>> To: "Pim van Meurs" <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com>
>> Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
>> Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2006 8:50 PM
>> Subject: Re: What Bible?
>>
>>
>> >I don't know what Ehrman's background is, but the commentary you quote
>> >is
>> > from a Mormon, and so we know where he is coming from. Unless Ehrman
>> > has
>> > ancient manuscripts that most Biblical scholars have not seen, his
>> > ideas
>> > about the canonical books being doctored sound like mere speculation.
>> >
>> > Gordon Brown
>> > Department of Mathematics
>> > University of Colorado
>> > Boulder, CO 80309-0395
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, 12 Mar 2006, Pim van Meurs wrote:
>> >
>> >> Cool seems that Christians and non-Christians alike have found
>> >> something
>> >> in the writings of this author. Understanding the history of
>> >> Christianity
>> >> seems something we should be all interested in, even if the past may
>> >> show
>> >> something some of us may not like.
>> >>
>> >> I listened to some of the NPR interviews with Ehrman, he sounds like a
>> >> very interesting and well informed person.
>> >>
>> >> His book "The orthodox corruption of Scripture" (see
>> >> http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/orthodox.htm for instance) helps
>> >> us
>> >> all understand how history has shaped much of what we consider
>> >> nowadays
>> >> to be the canonical books of the Bible.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> <quote>Ehrman, perhaps better than any other scholar to date, shows
>> >> that
>> >> the manuscripts of the Bible were written and copied and recopied, not
>> >> by
>> >> emotionless machines, but by living breathing human beings "who were
>> >> deeply rooted in the conditions and controversies of their day." (p.
>> >> 3).
>> >> They could not have approached their task objectively, as they went
>> >> about
>> >> rewriting the Bible manuscripts to say what they already felt that the
>> >> Bible meant! "...theological disputes, specifically disputes over
>> >> Christology, prompted Christian scribes to alter the words of
>> >> scripture
>> >> in order to make them more serviceable for the polemical task. Scribes
>> >> modified their manuscripts to make them more patently "othodox" and
>> >> less
>> >> susceptible to "abuse" by the opponents of orthodoxy." (p. 4). "...it
>> >> was
>> >> the perception of their opposition that led scribes of the
>> >> proto-orthodox
>> >> party to change the sacred texts that they transmitted." (p. 14).
>> >> Ehrman
>> >> shows how the term "heresy" was sometimes the orig!
>> > ina
>> >> l
>> >> Christianity which later orthodoxy fought! And in the first three
>> >> centuries there was not an "orthodox" *original* Christianity, rather,
>> >> there were various sects all claiming original "Apostolic" teachings!
>> >> The
>> >> various sects fought each others' views and claimed their own was the
>> >> "original" and all others were "heresy". In other words, it won't do
>> >> to
>> >> just simply label the Gnostics as the heresy and throw out their
>> >> beliefs,
>> >> anymore than it will do to say the "orthodox" are the correct
>> >> Christian
>> >> teachings! Orthodoxy was in later times, what the earlier heresy used
>> >> to
>> >> be, and vice versa! It is an amazingly complex and utterly fascinating
>> >> issue which most of us are completely unaware of. We Mormons
>> >> particularly
>> >> would do much better to acquaint ourselves further with the history of
>> >> early Christianity. I say this more for my own benefit than for
>> >> others,
>> >> as I hold quite high standards for my own level of learning.</quote>
>> >>
>> >> Some video lectures
>> >>
>> >> http://www.yale.edu/divinity/video/convo2004/ehrman01.htm
>> >>
>> >> First Shaffer Lecture
>> >> Bart D. Ehrman
>> >> "Christ in the Early Christian Tradition Texts
>> >> Disputed
>> >> and Apocryphal I. Christ Come in the Flesh"
>> >>
>> >> http://www.yale.edu/divinity/video/convo2004/ehrman02.htm
>> >>
>> >> Second Shaffer Lecture
>> >> Bart D. Ehrman
>> >> "Christ in the Early Christian Tradition Texts
>> >> Disputed
>> >> and Apocryphal II. Christ The Divine Man"
>> >>
>> >> Thanks Janice, this really blows my skirts
>> >>
>> >> Pim
>> >>
>> >> Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net> wrote: At 03:19 PM
>> >> 3/12/2006,
>> >> Pim van Meurs wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Another addition to my reading list. Thanks Janice for encouraging
>> >> me
>> >> to research this book further. The history of early christianity is
>> >> quite
>> >> fascinating to me and help understand the evolution of Christianity
>> >> into
>> >> its present form
>> >> @ You're most welcome. Whatever blows your skirts.
>> >>
>> >> Here are some others who eagerly added his book to their reading
>> >> list:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>
Received on Mon Mar 13 11:32:56 2006