A friend had recently sent me an article that claimed that the modern Greek texts and English translations alter key doctrines that are present in the King James/Textus Receptus. Of course, that assertion is not new, and much has been written on the subject. But because I did not want my friend to be deceived by this type of argumentation, I wrote a response. I've posted it here in case readers of this blog would benefit from it as well.
Given that we were recently charged with "cosmic sophistry" for noting the spurious nature of Mark 16:9-20, this discussion of the textual information is relevant.
LTNS brother May.
ReplyDeleteThe long ending of Mark is not evidence that the KJV is unreliable.
ReplyDeleteWhy?
Because the long ending of Mark was included in the KJV.
Therefore, the long ending of Mark is the inspired true Word of God.
Since the long ending of Mark is the inspired true Word of God, it is no evidence that the KJV is unreliable.
QED.
Cosmic circularity trumps cosmic sophistry!
The factual question of whether the critical text has implied a change or (what amounts to the same thing for a Protestant) removed a necessary support for any important doctrine is one thing, but we also need to reflect on the hypothetical question, WHAT IF THE RESULT OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM one day did do so, even if it has not yet?
ReplyDeleteIt seems like the standard argument from Providence ("in the Providence of God, none of the textual uncertainties has led to an alteration of orthodox doctrine") is a dangerous one, since it also presumes to know what the future of Providence will be. Moreover, even as to the current state of affairs, it seems like this qualification introduces a sly "mental reservation" when taking the oath of loyalty to textual criticism. One is really saying "I pledge allegiance to text criticism [ssh... provided it does not lead to a significant change in doctrine]." I wonder how honest this is?
There is also the question, who owns the text? Does the church (or the People of God) own it, or does the scholarly community? If the scholarly community one day did conclude that the best text reconstruction no longer (say) supports the divinity of the Spirit, would we go along with that, or reject it?
This line of inquiry has slowly led me to believe that there is a lack of full transparency and self-conscsiousness in the standard Old Princeton acceptance of Westcott and Hort, as well as for their modern conservative followers.
I am not saying all textual criticism should be rejected, but I am suggesting that (a) the Church needs to be involved in this, and (b) there has to be a sense that the matter is settled at some point. The Comma Johanneum would be an example where we could say, "this is not part of the text AS SETTLED AND RECEIVED up to 1500 (or name the date, experts); moreover, it is understandable as a marginal comment by someone that was orthodox, based his doctrine on the received Word of God, and never intended it to be copied into the text." There is something somehow more satisfying in this solution than what we often find is going on.
Tim Harris said:
ReplyDelete---
but we also need to reflect on the hypothetical question, WHAT IF THE RESULT OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM one day did do so
---
Why do we need to reflect on that instead of, say, what if one day we discover unicorns dancing on Pluto? Hypothetical questions are almost always fairly void.
I also think you've got a miscomprehension of what textual analysis is. It's basically saying, "Here's what all these texts say, and here's where they differ from one another. Can we explain the differences and extrapolate back to the original text?" You can't make those texts go away just by a fiat declaration. They are points of data that must be reconciled with other points of data. You can't simply wave your hands and make the Alexandrian text include things that the Byzantine texts do when, in fact, the Alexandrian texts do NOT include those things, etc.
I think the ultimate problem I have with your approach is that you resort to an appeal to authority in an area that is actually quite easy to provide arguments for one's position. Sure, it's the "easy" way out--simply have someone in the pulpit declare X and make the congregation believe it with the threat of excommunication. But why do that when a simple Sunday school semester could actually train those interested in the basics of textual criticism, and there's an abundance of material for learning more on the subject freely available both on-line and at your local library?
Hey Tim,
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by. I’m not sure if your questions were directed toward me or if you were just “thinking out loud.” I don’t have much time for interaction, but to respond to some of the questions you posed:
“we also need to reflect on the hypothetical question, WHAT IF THE RESULT OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM one day did do so, even if it has not yet?”
Perhaps that is a useful hypothetical question, but it is nonetheless hypothetical. We might also ask the question, “What if one day they discovered Jesus’ bones?” It is our conviction (indeed, presupposition), however, that such an occurrence is impossible. Likewise, we are convinced that God has spoken an inerrant revelation to his people and has preserved this word through the manuscript tradition.
“It seems like the standard argument from Providence ("in the Providence of God, none of the textual uncertainties has led to an alteration of orthodox doctrine") is a dangerous one, since it also presumes to know what the future of Providence will be.”
It is a doctrine of providence, certainly, but not merely providence. It is also a doctrine of revelation and inspiration. Not simply of God’s control over the universe, but his control with a particular design and intent.
“it seems like this qualification introduces a sly "mental reservation" when taking the oath of loyalty to textual criticism.”
“Taking the oath of loyalty to textual criticism” is not an accurate description of the situation. It is commitment to God’s method of revelation, which is the written Word, with a realization of the means of our access to that revelation (the manuscripts). It is no more “taking the oath of loyalty to textual criticism” than reading an English Bible is “taking the oath of loyalty to specialists in the ancient languages.” Do you object to the use of scholarship in accessing the Scriptures when it comes to translating them?
“There is also the question, who owns the text? Does the church (or the People of God) own it, or does the scholarly community?”
What do you mean by “the text”? If by that you mean the propositional content of God’s revelation, then, of course, God owns it.
“If the scholarly community one day did conclude that the best text reconstruction no longer (say) supports the divinity of the Spirit, would we go along with that, or reject it?”
What would be the basis of that conclusion? Are you talking about textual analysis of the current manuscript inventory or discovery of new manuscripts? In either case, please describe the process that would lead to such a conclusion.
And if I could respond to your question with questions:
1) Do you believe that God has preserved His Word?
2) If so, by what means?
“This line of inquiry has slowly led me to believe that there is a lack of full transparency and self-conscsiousness in the standard Old Princeton acceptance of Westcott and Hort, as well as for their modern conservative followers.”
Please be more precise about what you mean by “acceptance of Westcott and Hort.”
“I am not saying all textual criticism should be rejected, but I am suggesting that (a) the Church needs to be involved in this,”
What do you mean by this? What do you have in view?
If you are saying that faithful, evangelical Christians need to be involved in the discipline of textual criticism, then I agree! And they are! Furthermore, if you are saying that the local church has been entrusted with God’s truth and should promote the accurate handling of it and the training of others to so, then I am right behind you.
If, however, you are implying some sort of ecclesiastical legislating of NT scholarship, I’m not sure that I can be on board for that idea.
“and (b) there has to be a sense that the matter is settled at some point.”
I do believe it is settled.
Greetings in Christ.
ReplyDeleteAbout Mark 16:9-20:
In the Comments-section that followed the earlier “Catholic Judaizers” post, Saint-and-Sinner wrote:
"It is well known that the long ending of Mark is not found in the earliest manuscripts and is missing from many of the major later manuscripts (Sinaiticus, B, Sinaitic Syriac, etc). Clement of Alexandria and Origen appear to not have known about it. Eusebius, Jerome, and Severus also record that it was not found in the majority of Bibles in their day."
Some "well known" claims seem to be in need of re-examination. Let’s consider the statement by S&S step by step.
Mk. 16:9-20 is . . . “Not found in the earliest manuscripts.”
The earliest MS of Mark is P45. Due to mutilation, P45 has no text of Mark beyond 12:28. So the statement by S&S is technically true, but it is just as true that P45 does not support the abrupt ending at 16:8 either. Also, Mark 16:9-20 was almost certainly used by Justin Martyr (in 160, in First Apology ch. 45), and Mk. 16:19 was cited by Irenaeus (in 184, in Against Heresies Book 3), and Tatian incorporated the entire passage in the Diatessaron (c. 172). The MSS used by these three writers from the 100’s are not extant, but obviously they existed and contained Mk. 16:9-20.
Mk. 16:9-20 is . . . “missing from many of the major later manuscripts (Sinaiticus, B, Sinaitic Syriac, etc).”
When you list Sinaiticus and B, you’ve listed every Greek MS that has nothing but a closing book-title after 16:8. That’s all the Greek MSS that clearly support the ending at 16:8 – those two. Not many. Two. Both of these two MSS have highly unusual features at the end of Mark: in B, there is a prolonged blank space between 16:8 and Luke 1:1, including an entire blank column. This is the only deliberately placed blank column in the MS. (There are three other blank spaces in the OT-portion, but they are production-seams; this is not a production-seam.) It’s as if the copyist knew Mk. 16:9-20 and attempted to reserve space for it. In Sinaiticus, all four pages containing Mk. 14:54 to Lk. 1:56 are not the pages initially written by the main copyist; they are replacement-pages. Furthermore, as no less a scholar than J. K. Elliott has affirmed, the copyist who made these replacement-pages in Sinaiticus is very probably one of the copyists who produced Vaticanus.
The Sinaitic Syriac is, well, a Syriac copy, not a Greek MS, and so one should call it versional evidence, not manuscript-evidence. It’s still important; it’s just not Greek. It comes from the late 300’s or early 400’s, and it certainly belongs on the scales, so to speak. But so do the patristic writers who are just as early, or earlier, who utilized material from Mk. 16:9-20 as Scripture.
Regarding Mk. 16:9-20, “Clement of Alexandria and Origen appear to not have known about it.”
The evidence from Clement and Origen is too sparse to justify the presentation of such a claim as if it is significant. If we were to approach Clement and Origen with the assumption that failure to use a passage means that they apparently did not know about it, then Clement only knew about five or six verses of Mark outside chapter 10, and Origen only knew less than half of Mark’s 12-verse sections. No matter how much Metzger’s claim about Clement and Origen is repeated, it still crumbles when one notices how little of the Gospel of Mark is used by Clement and by Origen.
(Continued in another post. Hey, I wouldn't write if I didn't care! :-)
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
(Picking up from where I left off)
ReplyDeleteNow about the claim that "Eusebius, Jerome, and Severus also record that it was not found in the majority of Bibles in their day." If you compare the statements by Eusebius, Jerome, and Severus, you'll discover that Severus, in his 77th Homily, was borrowing (today we'd say plagiarizing) material from Eusebius’ “Ad Marinum.” You will also discover that Jerome, in Epistle #120, To Hedibia, also borrowed material from “Ad Marinum,” spontaneously translating it into Latin as he dictated the letter. A lot of Jerome's Ep. #120 is an extract from “Ad Marinum.” It contains not only Eusebius’ answers but even three of Marinus’ questions! Neither Severus nor Jerome adopted the abrupt ending at 16:8. Severus casually quoted Mk. 16:19 toward the end of his 77th Homily; Jerome included Mk. 16:9-20 in the Vulgate (which, he claimed, he compiled using old Greek MSS), and cited Mk. 16:14 in another composition. The cited testimonies of Severus and Jerome, in this case, owe their existence to the testimony of Eusebius – whose testimony should considered with the understanding that he was describing MSS at Caesarea.
(Plus, Severus doesn’t make a claim about "the majority of Bibles;" he only uses the part of Eusebius' claim that refers to "the most accurate copies of the Gospel of Mark.")
Someone wrote, "I guess that the longer ending of Mark is one of Catholics' favorite Bible passages that's not in the Bible." (Do I hear an echo of Daniel Wallace?) It was also a favorite passage of Luther. Calvin commented upon it, as did many others. Spurgeon defended it rather forcefully. And its place in Mark is also affirmed not just by Justin, Tatian, and Irenaeus, but also by dozens of other patristic writers including Epiphanius and Augustine, and by over 99% of the Greek MSS, including Codex A, Codex W, Codex C, and Codex D.
Jason mentioned all the Bible publishers, New Testament scholars, textual critics, etc. "who agree with my conclusion." I dunno about the sophistry-charge, but I can claim, because I observe, that quite a large number of Bible publishers (hello, NavPress and Broadman & Holman), scholars (hello Ben Witherington), and textual critics (hello, Bruce Metzger and Daniel Wallace) have displayed remarkable carelessness and one-sidedness as far as this particular textual variant is concerned.
I could address some of Jason's other questions, but in the interest of brevity I will skip to the end, where he asked if we should ignore "the evidence against every other false ending of Mark (there were multiple false endings)."
Statements like that make me suspect that perhaps Jason has not looked into this particular subject very thoroughly. For if we are to speak realistically, rather than to see how deceptively we can say what is technically true, there are really two ending in the MSS, after 16:8; they are Mk. 16:9-20, and the "Shorter Ending" (a.k.a. the "Intermediate Ending"). All the other endings are either (1) Mk. 16:9-20 with an interpolation between v. 14 and v. 15, or (b) combinations of Mk. 16:9-20 and the Shorter Ending.
There is much more that could be said and documented about Mk. 16:9-20 and its mistreatment by various Bible footnotes, commentators, and so forth, but this is already a pretty long comment so I will stop here. You're welcome to write to me for more info.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
You gotta admit, "cosmic sophistry" is at least a funny insult. hehe
ReplyDeleteBen
James E. Snapp, Jr. wrote:
ReplyDelete"Statements like that make me suspect that perhaps Jason has not looked into this particular subject very thoroughly. For if we are to speak realistically, rather than to see how deceptively we can say what is technically true, there are really two ending in the MSS, after 16:8; they are Mk. 16:9-20, and the 'Shorter Ending' (a.k.a. the 'Intermediate Ending'). All the other endings are either (1) Mk. 16:9-20 with an interpolation between v. 14 and v. 15, or (b) combinations of Mk. 16:9-20 and the Shorter Ending."
Whether there are "two endings" depends on how the variations are classified, and you haven't given us an argument for concluding that there are only two. And why would you assume that I'm "seeing how deceptively I can say" something if it's "technically true"? I regularly use the term "multiple" to refer to more than one, and more than one was all that was needed to make my point in the context I was addressing. There was nothing deceptive in what I said. If you thought my language was too unclear or misleading, you could have offered a clarification without accusing me of being deceptive.
You say "perhaps Jason has not looked into this particular subject very thoroughly". I'm not a textual scholar, and I haven't studied the ending of Mark in much depth, but I do have some familiarity with some of the issues involved. I'm unconvinced when you make claims such as the following:
"Also, Mark 16:9-20 was almost certainly used by Justin Martyr (in 160, in First Apology ch. 45), and Mk. 16:19 was cited by Irenaeus (in 184, in Against Heresies Book 3), and Tatian incorporated the entire passage in the Diatessaron (c. 172). The MSS used by these three writers from the 100’s are not extant, but obviously they existed and contained Mk. 16:9-20....The cited testimonies of Severus and Jerome, in this case, owe their existence to the testimony of Eusebius – whose testimony should considered with the understanding that he was describing MSS at Caesarea."
Justin Martyr doesn't attribute his material in First Apology 45 to Mark. And he uses material outside of the New Testament texts elsewhere in his writings. There's no way to know what Justin's source was or what he thought of its origins. Your conclusion that Justin's manuscripts "contained Mark 16:9-20" is dubious.
(continued in next post)
(continued from above)
ReplyDeleteHow would the comments of Eusebius make sense if he was only addressing a local situation? He was writing to somebody else, Marinus. If the person lived close by, why didn't he just speak to him rather than writing? Jerome was writing to a woman living in Gaul. His use of Eusebius' material suggests that he didn't think Eusebius was just addressing a local situation. And how would a local manuscript situation settle a textual dispute? Eusebius was in contact with many sources from many locations, so his unqualified comments on the manuscripts of Mark shouldn't be taken in the qualified sense you're suggesting. I see no reason to conclude that Eusebius was just addressing "MSS at Caesarea". And men like Jerome and Severus wouldn't have been dependent on Eusebius for all of their knowledge of the manuscript record. Even where they depend on Eusebius, they do so because his claim was credible to them in their context.
Regarding Jerome's inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 in the Vulgate, as James Kelhoffer notes:
"Such an inclusion in the Vulgate, of course, says nothing about Jerome’s own view of the Longer Ending, for Jerome translated also books like Judith and Tobit under protest." (p. 100, n. 87)
The fathers often allude to, quote, or even cite as scripture documents that they elsewhere deny to be scriptural. And they sometimes attribute passages to the wrong source, thinking something comes from one document when it actually comes from another. The sort of use of Mark 16:9-20 that you refer to in sources like Justin Martyr and Jerome's Vulgate, or a mere usage of the passage in other contexts, doesn't prove much.
Kelhoffer, in the article linked above, also discusses some other problems with the longer ending. I agree with the scholarly consensus in rejecting the passage as inauthentic.
James E. Snapp, Jr. said:
ReplyDeletein B, there is a prolonged blank space between 16:8 and Luke 1:1, including an entire blank column. This is the only deliberately placed blank column in the MS. (There are three other blank spaces in the OT-portion, but they are production-seams; this is not a production-seam.) It’s as if the copyist knew Mk. 16:9-20 and attempted to reserve space for it.
Readers can view a scanned version of Codex Vaticanus here:
http://www.biblefacts.org/church/pdf/Codex%20Vaticanus.pdf
James is correct that there is a blank column after the ending of Mark (see p. 70 of the PDF). However, Mark concludes near the end of the middle column, so perhaps the extra space was created for that reason (though, admittedly, the copyist did not do so with Luke. See p. 116). Readers should compare the ending of Mark with the ending of Matthew (p. 44) or John (p. 149) or Acts (p. 192). All of these contain a good portion of space after the conclusion of the particular book. Furthermore, “kata markon” appears at the conclusion of Mark, as is the case with the other Gospels (kata loukan, etc.). If the copyist believed there was more to add, why didn’t he place the “kata markon” after the blank column?
Moreover, if the copyist knew of Mark 16:9-20, why was it not available in his master copy(ies)? Its absence from B here indicates absence from parent MSS in the family. Perhaps he included the blank column because he believed the current ending was too abrupt, but he had no other text available to him. In any case, the absence of Mark 16:9-20 is not evidence of its authenticity, any more than the blank column is evidence of the authenticity of any of the other endings of Mark that occur in the manuscript tradition.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteThanks for engaging my comment.
The argument that we have essentially two endings of Mark (after 16:8), rather than numerous or various endings, is a simple matter of evidence: the only endings after 16:8 are 16:9-20 (in over 1,500 Greek MSS and in second-century sources), 16:9-20 with the Freer Logion between v. 14 and v. 15 (in Codex W), and the Shorter Ending (in Old Latin Codex Bobbiensis by itself with the last bit of 16:8 removed and with an interpolation inserted earlier between 16:3 and 16:4), and combinations of the Shorter Ending and the Longer Ending (in Greek codices L, Psi, and four others).
My statement that we should express ideas clearly and realistically instead of in technically true but misleading ways was meant as an encouragement, not an accusation. I don’t see why a writer trying to write clearly would describe two endings as “multiple endings” or as “various endings” – unless the writer was merely passing along a statement that he had mechanically absorbed elsewhere without careful scrutiny.
About Justin Martyr: your statement that Justin does not attribute his material in First Apology ch. 45 to Mark is correct; however, you know that’s Justin’s normal way of using the Gospels. He probably relied largely on a Synoptics-Harmony (and here, in the interest of brevity, I must refer you to the book by Bellinzoni about Justin’s use of the Sayings of Jesus, and to Petersen’s 1990 article on the relationship of Justin’s source and the Diatessaron). Justin uses verbiage from Mk. 16:20, including PANTACHOU, in exactly the sort of way that one would expect it to be used by a writer who sees, in the passage’s description of Jesus’ ascension and the spread of the word, a fulfillment of Psalm 110:1-3. The pertinent sentence in First Ap. 45 is exactly what would result from a writer using a Synoptics-Harmony that, by combining Mk. 16:19-20 and Luke 24’s closing verses, resembled the Diatessaron-minus-John. The evidence from Justin is cumulative but nevertheless quite strong, not dubious. I invite you to look into it further.
You asked, “How would the comments of Eusebius make sense if he was only addressing a local situation?”
They make perfectly good sense: in reply to the question from Marinus (who seems to have no doubt about the legitimacy of Mk. 16:9), Eusebius looks over his MSS at Caesarea and passes along the observation that almost all the MSS end at 16:8, especially the “accurate” ones, i.e., the ones he esteemed the highest, which were probably the ones descended from copies used by Origen and/or Pamphilus. Do you really think that Eusebius, or anybody at all a couple of decades after the Diocletian persecution, had the means to make an assessment about the contents of all the copies of Mark throughout the Roman Empire?
As for Jerome, his use of Eusebius’ material suggests that Jerome wanted to dismiss Hedibia’s question by putting her in touch with the statements and opinions of an earlier writer – a practice which, in another letter, he plainly states is something to which he often resorts.
You asked, “How would a local manuscript situation settle a textual dispute?”, and so forth. Eusebius did not settle the textual dispute; he diplomatically mentioned that the MSS he considered the most accurate did not contain 16:9-20, but he then explained to Marinus (as I already said) that an adjustment in punctuation will show that 16:9 is in harmony with Mt. 28:1-2 – a step that could only be taken by someone retaining 16:9-20.
(Continued in the next comment)
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(Continued from previous comment)
You stated, "I see no reason to conclude that Eusebius was just addressing "MSS at Caesarea"."
Eusebius worked mainly at Caesarea and cherished the library there. What other MSS in what other place do you have any evidence that he used?
Regarding Jerome and Severus, you stated, “Even where they depend on Eusebius, they do so because his claim was credible to them in their context.” Of course they considered his claim credible; that does not mean that they considered it decisive. Neither one did so; both promoted the harmonizing option that Eusebius offered to Marinus.
As for Kelhoffer’s statement, it may be briefly dispensed with by noting that Jerome appealed to Mk. 16:14 in Ag. Pelag. 2, free from any ecclesiastical pressure. (Plus, there are obvious differences between a situation in which someone gave Jerome books to translate, versus a situation in which Jerome was entrusted to compile the text of a book.)
It is more troubling than amusing to read the paragraph where you stated, “The sort of use of Mark 16:9-20 that you refer to in sources like Justin Martyr and Jerome's Vulgate, or a mere usage of the passage in other contexts, doesn't prove much.” You seem ready already to eject or minimize whatever evidence disagrees with your current view. How can Tatian’s inclusion of Mk. 16:9-20 in the Diatessaron in 172 not be enormously significant to you?! How can you not feel the weight of Irenaeus’ explicit quotation of 16:19 as part of Mark’s Gospel pressing down on the shoulders of your current view? Again, I must invite you to take a closer and more careful look at the patristic evidence.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteAt www.curtisvillechristian.org/Vaticanus.html you can see my analysis of the last page of Mark in Codex Vaticanus. Throughout the NT (and in the OT, except at the production-seams I mentioned), when the copyist ends a book, he begins the next book at the top of the very next column. That’s why he leaves those spaces after the ends of books, whether they end at the first line of a column or the last line of a column or somewhere in-between. But that does not explain the blank column after the end of Mark. Here he abandons that treatment.
You asked, “If the copyist believed there was more to add, why didn’t he place the “kata markon” after the blank column?” I can’t read the copyist’s mind. But, he probably put the subscription below 16:8 because that’s where the subscription was in his exemplar.
And, “If the copyist knew of Mark 16:9-20, why was it not available in his master copy(ies)?” Again, I can’t fully re-create the copyist’s situation, but there are several ways to account for this: he was from one locale and his exemplar was from another, or, more likely, he was, at the time, merely an underling copyist, working with an exemplar assigned to him by a supervisor.
And, “Its absence from B here indicates absence from parent MSS in the family.” It indicates its absence from the exemplar he was using.
And, “In any case, the absence of Mark 16:9-20 is not evidence of its authenticity, any more than the blank column is evidence of the authenticity of any of the other endings of Mark that occur in the manuscript tradition.” In case anyone thinks that I was trying to say that the blank column in B proves that 16:9-20 is authentic, let me spell out what I intended to show: the blank column in B, combined with other details about B and Aleph and their connection to Caesarea, attests to B’s copyist’s remembrance of 16:9-20. In light of this, it would be a one-sided and tinted presentation which simply referred to B as a witness to the abrupt ending at 16:8 without mentioning the blank column and its implication, and without mentioning the high probability that a copyist who worked on B also oversaw the production of Aleph.
This may not answer every possible question about this passage and its transmission-history. For more info, download and read the essay
“The Origin of Mk. 16:9-20, Email Edition,” which you can find near the bottom of the page at
http://www.textexcavation.com/jimsnapp.html
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteThis comments-section is already pretty crowded, but I would like to get back to the question of whether or not modern translations have a significant impact on important doctrines. I'd also like to interact with the essay you wrote about Mr. Freeman's claims. Perhaps you could revisit the subject sometime. I'll stay tuned.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
At www.curtisvillechristian.org/Vaticanus.html you can see my analysis of the last page of Mark in Codex Vaticanus.
ReplyDeleteThat link isn’t working for me. Is it the correct url?
I can’t read the copyist’s mind. But, he probably put the subscription below 16:8 because that’s where the subscription was in his exemplar.
That seems unlikely if he was intentionally leaving space for what he believed belonged in Mark’s Gospel.
let me spell out what I intended to show: the blank column in B, combined with other details about B and Aleph and their connection to Caesarea, attests to B’s copyist’s remembrance of 16:9-20.
Why does it attest to his remembrance of 16:9-20, over, say, his remembrance of this ending of Mark: “And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those with Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from the east and as far as the west, the holy and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. Amen.” What’s the evidence that he was aware of the one over the other?
James E. Snapp, Jr. wrote:
ReplyDelete"The argument that we have essentially two endings of Mark (after 16:8), rather than numerous or various endings, is a simple matter of evidence: the only endings after 16:8 are 16:9-20 (in over 1,500 Greek MSS and in second-century sources), 16:9-20 with the Freer Logion between v. 14 and v. 15 (in Codex W), and the Shorter Ending (in Old Latin Codex Bobbiensis by itself with the last bit of 16:8 removed and with an interpolation inserted earlier between 16:3 and 16:4), and combinations of the Shorter Ending and the Longer Ending (in Greek codices L, Psi, and four others)."
And those variations can be considered more than two endings. Regardless, there was no deception in what I said earlier.
You write:
"I don’t see why a writer trying to write clearly would describe two endings as 'multiple endings' or as 'various endings' – unless the writer was merely passing along a statement that he had mechanically absorbed elsewhere without careful scrutiny."
Or because he uses the term "multiple" to refer to two or more, as I explained earlier, and because he doesn't consider the variations in Mark's ending to constitute only two endings anyway.
You write:
"About Justin Martyr: your statement that Justin does not attribute his material in First Apology ch. 45 to Mark is correct; however, you know that’s Justin’s normal way of using the Gospels."
It's also his way of using extra-canonical sources. His use of a portion of Mark 16 wouldn't tell us what he thought of the origins of the text.
You write:
"They make perfectly good sense: in reply to the question from Marinus (who seems to have no doubt about the legitimacy of Mk. 16:9), Eusebius looks over his MSS at Caesarea and passes along the observation that almost all the MSS end at 16:8, especially the 'accurate' ones, i.e., the ones he esteemed the highest, which were probably the ones descended from copies used by Origen and/or Pamphilus."
Again, Eusebius doesn't mention any "at Caesarea" qualification. And it's unlikely that he would so limit his comments, for reasons I explained earlier.
You write:
"Do you really think that Eusebius, or anybody at all a couple of decades after the Diocletian persecution, had the means to make an assessment about the contents of all the copies of Mark throughout the Roman Empire?"
He had the ability to make general assessments based on the knowledge he had, as he did on many other subjects (how widespread the acceptance of particular New Testament books was, etc.). We frequently do the same in our everyday lives.
You write:
"As for Jerome, his use of Eusebius’ material suggests that Jerome wanted to dismiss Hedibia’s question by putting her in touch with the statements and opinions of an earlier writer – a practice which, in another letter, he plainly states is something to which he often resorts."
I doubt he would have cited Eusebius, and have expected others to accept his assessment, if Eusebius' claim didn't seem credible. And, as I said before, why would Jerome cite Eusebius if he thought that Eusebius was only addressing a situation in Caesarea? You're multiplying improbabilities.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"Eusebius did not settle the textual dispute"
The issue is why somebody would expect it to be viewed as significant evidence. Is it more likely that Eusebius would cite the manuscript record in Caesarea to support his argument or the manuscript record in general? You're reading a qualification into the text that Eusebius neither mentions nor implies, and that qualification renders his argument highly insignificant.
You write:
"Eusebius worked mainly at Caesarea and cherished the library there. What other MSS in what other place do you have any evidence that he used?"
Manuscripts wouldn't be his only sources. He would also have information about manuscripts from other individuals. Eusebius does that sort of thing frequently. His church history repeatedly makes generalizations about church practice, canonical disputes, etc., even general assessments of earlier generations.
He traveled widely. "After his teacher's death in 310, Eusebius traveled through Palestine and Egypt. The result of his experiences was a remarkable work, The Martyrs of Palestine (later incorporated into the History), an eyewitness account of the torture and heroism of Christian martyrs." (Rebecca Lyman, in Everett Ferguson, ed., Encyclopedia Of Early Christianity [New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1999], p. 401) Anybody who has read that work knows that Eusebius goes into a lot of detail. He had to have spent a lot of time with his sources. And it was time spent among Christians. He probably would have seen manuscripts, heard them read, discussed Biblical passages with other Christians in those areas, etc. Paul Maier writes of Eusebius' presence in Tyre, at the Council of Nicaea, in Constantinople, etc. (Eusebius - The Church History [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 1999], pp. 11, 15)
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"Of course they considered his claim credible; that does not mean that they considered it decisive."
That's irrelevant to the point I was making. I wasn't addressing how much weight they assigned to Eusebius' assessment. I was addressing their acceptance of his assessment.
You write:
"As for Kelhoffer’s statement, it may be briefly dispensed with by noting that Jerome appealed to Mk. 16:14 in Ag. Pelag. 2, free from any ecclesiastical pressure."
The same section of Jerome's treatise cites 2 Maccabees and other texts he considered non-canonical. Are you reading a summary of that section of Jerome's treatise, like the ones at ccel.org and newadvent.org, or the original? In his commentary on Mark, William Lane cites the original, in which Jerome refers to variants in the manuscripts and cites a different longer ending of Mark than the one you're defending (The Gospel According To Mark [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1974], p. 606). I haven't seen the original section of Jerome's treatise, but have only read excerpts from it. Do you have the original? The quotations I've seen from the original, in Lane and elsewhere, don't support your conclusion. Rather, the quotes I've seen suggest that Jerome qualifies his use of the passage by noting that it's only in some manuscripts.
You write:
"You seem ready already to eject or minimize whatever evidence disagrees with your current view. How can Tatian’s inclusion of Mk. 16:9-20 in the Diatessaron in 172 not be enormously significant to you?!"
How do you arrive at the conclusion that I "eject or minimize whatever evidence disagrees with my current view"? I didn't say anything about Tatian. You aren't the first person I've discussed this issue with. I've acknowledged the acceptance of the text as early as the second century in previous discussions, and nothing I've said here suggests your conclusion that I "eject or minimize whatever evidence disagrees with my current view".
The comment I made, which you're responding to above, is correct. You haven't refuted it, and you can't. It's a fact that the fathers often misremember their sources, cite books as scripture that they denied were scripture elsewhere, etc. That's why Roman Catholic apologists will often cite somebody like Athanasius or Jerome using books of the Apocrypha, even referring to them as scripture, even though those men denied the canonicity of those books elsewhere. The fathers often mistakenly attribute a saying of Isaiah to Jeremiah, mistake one gospel for another, etc. That sort of data has to be taken into account.
You write:
"How can you not feel the weight of Irenaeus’ explicit quotation of 16:19 as part of Mark’s Gospel pressing down on the shoulders of your current view?"
Irenaeus also refers to The Shepherd Of Hermas as scripture, for example, but we know from other sources that he was in the minority on that issue. The evidence suggests the same about the ending of Mark.
The point of raising a hypothetical is simply to isolate the sense of what is being asserted. I would like everyone that accepts textual criticism to qualify whether there is an implied mental reservation, along the lines of "of course, assuming early texts are not discovered from which the Trinity would not follow" versus an acceptance of it that would be willing to follow wherever it might lead.
ReplyDeleteOf course if Jesus' body were discovered that would falsify Christianity. I do not think that is possible, and will gladly state as much clearly up front. Thus, I am not conceding an autonomous body-science whose deliverances we must follow in order to be "intellectually honest" or whatever.
Hi Evan,
ReplyDeleteThe link isn't working, alright. Looks like it's time to feed the meter again.
You said that you think it was unlikely that a copyist would put a subscription below 16:8 if he was intentionally leaving space for what he believed belonged in Mark’s Gospel. Why do you think that would be unlikely? It's not as if the subscription couldn't be erased (or, rather, scraped and rubbed off).
Also, you asked, "Why does it attest to his remembrance of 16:9-20, over, say, his remembrance of" [the Shorter Ending]?
For two reasons: first, the SE can fit in the space between the end of 1:8 and the bottom of the second column. There would be no reason to leave a whole column blank if the copyist was thinking of only the SE. Second, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are connected to Caesarea, and Eusebius, writing at Caesarea in the early 300's, commented about the contents of the MSS, and never mentions the SE; he seems to have had no clue that it existed. Figuring that the *bishop* at Caesarea didn't know about the SE, it seems unlikely that this copyist would know about it.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteTypo alert: that shouldn've been '16:8," of course, not 1:8.
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote, "Those variations can be considered more than two endings." Let me frame a question/comparison which may be helpful. I have one picture of Dr. Abel, 1,550 pictures of Dr. Baker, two blank picture-frames, one picture of Dr. Baker and his dog, and six pictures of Dr. Abel and Dr. Baker standing beside each other. Assuming that the dog is not a doctor, are there more than two doctors in these pictures?
Now regarding Justin Martyr: Justin used three words together that occur together, in a different order, in Mk. 16:20 (and he used PANTACOU again, as if he was alluding to an authoritative precedent), describing the same events that are related in Mk. 16:20. Normally nobody would question such a strong verbal parallel. If you were to ask commentators, "Why do you hesitate to affirm that Justin used Mk. 16:20?" the answer would probably almost always be, "Because Metzger considered it probable but not certain." The thing is, Metzger was just echoing Hort. And the basis for Hort's reluctance to affirm Justin's use of Mk. 16:20 dissolved in 1888 when the Arabic Diatessaron was discovered and its blend of Mk. 16 and Lk. 24 was observed.
Finding Mk. 16:20 in Justin’s Synoptics-Harmony implies the same thing that finding Mk. 3:17 in Justin’s Synoptics-Harmony implies: Justin’s text of Mark included 3:17, and 16:20. How could you consistently /not/ acknowledge this while presenting Clement's *silence* as if it is evidence?
Regarding Eusebius: Eusebius doesn’t mention any “at Caesarea” qualification because it would be redundant. Just ask yourself what MSS Eusebius’ contemporaries would expect him to be commenting about. The expectation that Eusebius would comment on all MSS everywhere, or that he would be expected to do so, is somewhat anachronistic.
When I asked how Eusebius is supposed to have known about all MSS everywhere, a few decades after the Diocletian persecution, you answered that “He had the ability to make general assessments based on the knowledge he had.” Boil that sentence down, Jason, and your answer is essentially, "He just knew that sort of thing."
Regarding Jerome, you said that you doubt that Jerome would have cited Eusebius if Eusebius’ claim didn’t seem credible. I’m not sure that you’ve noticed how Jerome wrote many of his letters: via rapid dictation. The part of his letter to Hedibia where he mentions Mk. 16:9-20 (and recommends that it be retained) is a small section of a large loosely translated extract from Eusebius; Jerome is following the pattern that he described to Augustine in Epistle #75: “I have dictated to my secretary sometimes what was borrowed from other writers, sometimes what was my own, without distinctly remembering the method, or the words, or the opinions which belonged to each.” Does it sound to you as if Jerome was taking the time to carefully verify the claims in the materials he was borrowing?
Plus, it is demonstrable that Mk. 16:9-20 was not in just a few MSS when Jerome wrote to Hedibia: Jerome himself knew the passage in 383; Ambrose used it; Wulfilas used it; Old Latin translators used it; Didymus (or Pseudo-Didymus) used it; the writers/compilers of “Apostolic Constitutions” used it; Augustine (who cited 16:12 from Greek and Latin MSS) used it.
You asked, "Why would Jerome cite Eusebius if he thought that Eusebius was only addressing a situation in Caesarea?" Mainly to save himself time and trouble. Like I said, the part about Mk. 16:9-20 is a little piece of a big extract.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(Continued from the previous post)
You asked, “Is it more likely that Eusebius would cite the manuscript record in Caesarea to support his argument or the manuscript record in general?”
It's not only likely but it's evident that Eusebius referred to the MS-evidence at Caesarea. Look at his statements in "Ad Marinum." First he says that a person who rejected Mk. 16:9-20 could say that it was not found in all the copies. Or, a person could say that the accurate copies, at least, round off the text at the end of 16:8. Or, a person could say that the Gospel of Mark ends there in almost all the copies. Or, a person could say that it is in some copies but not in all. Does that sound like any sort of precise result to you? Do you think the person who wrote so inconsistently could have stated precisely, "In copies that I saw in Egypt, Constantinople, Syria, Gaul, North Africa, Egypt, Cyprus, Asia Minor, Antioch, Jerusalem, and several other places, thid pericope was absent"??
You wrote that Eusebius "would also have information about manuscripts from other individuals." Again you're saying that he would just know these things. And again, when you say, "He probably would have seen manuscripts," and so forth, that's just another way of re-asserting the claim; it substantiates nothing. Meanwhile, it is entirely logical to see Eusebius of Caesarea's statements as statements about MSS at Caesarea. Nobody at the time would expect anybody to be able to make a statement about the contents of all MSS everywhere.
Regarding Jerome's and Severus' acceptance of Eusebius' description of the MSS: if all you mean by "acceptance" is that they assumed that Eusebius had told the truth, no problem. Their plagiarism is still merely plagiarism, and their uses of material from Mk. 16:9-20 in comments that they made as independent authors still weigh in.
Regarding Jerome's use of Mark 16:14 in Ag.Pelag., here's the Latin text:
In quibusdam exemplaribus et maxime in graecis codicibus iuxta Marcum in fine eius evangelii scribitur: 'postea quum accubuissent – crediderunt (v. 14).' Et illi satisfaciebant dicentes: Saeculum istud iniquitatis et incredulitatis sub Satana [or substantia] est, qui non sinit per immundos spiritus veram Dei apprehendi virtutem. Idcirco jam nunc revela justitiam tuam.
Jerome took it for granted that 16:14 was in his readers' copies; he used 16:14 as a marker for the location of the interpolation that we nowadays call the Freer Logion. So, as you say, "Jerome qualifies his use of the passage by noting that it's only in some manuscripts," but the passage of which he speaks is not Mk. 16:9-2; it is the Freer Logion.
You asked, "How do you arrive at the conclusion that I "eject or minimize whatever evidence disagrees with my current view"?"
I don't. I said that you seem ready to do so. Without going into detail about what gives this impression, let me just say that I meant that as constructive advice, not as part of the argumentation.
You wrote, after mentioning Irenaeus, that "the evidence suggests" that Irenaeus' acceptance of Mk. 16:9-20 was a minority view. No it doesn't. The evidence shows that the MSS in which Mark ended at 16:8 were limited to a narrow transmission-stream, first in Egypt and then in Caesarea; meanwhile in Ireland, Britain, Gaul, Spain, Italy, Asia, Antioch, Egypt, Constantinople, North Africa, Egypt, and Syria, Mark 16:9-20 was used as Scripture.
Btw, I think the website I linked to before is working again:
www.curtisvillechristian.org/MarkOne.html
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
James E. Snapp, Jr. wrote:
ReplyDelete"Let me frame a question/comparison which may be helpful. I have one picture of Dr. Abel, 1,550 pictures of Dr. Baker, two blank picture-frames, one picture of Dr. Baker and his dog, and six pictures of Dr. Abel and Dr. Baker standing beside each other. Assuming that the dog is not a doctor, are there more than two doctors in these pictures?"
Whether the comparison holds up depends on what the doctors are supposed to represent, which you haven't explained. And even if there were only two doctors, two would constitute "multiple" under the definition I told you I was using and which I've used in other contexts. Your charge of deceptiveness on my part was wrong, and so was your objection to my terminology.
You write:
"Now regarding Justin Martyr: Justin used three words together that occur together, in a different order, in Mk. 16:20 (and he used PANTACOU again, as if he was alluding to an authoritative precedent), describing the same events that are related in Mk. 16:20. Normally nobody would question such a strong verbal parallel. If you were to ask commentators, 'Why do you hesitate to affirm that Justin used Mk. 16:20?' the answer would probably almost always be, 'Because Metzger considered it probable but not certain.' The thing is, Metzger was just echoing Hort. And the basis for Hort's reluctance to affirm Justin's use of Mk. 16:20 dissolved in 1888 when the Arabic Diatessaron was discovered and its blend of Mk. 16 and Lk. 24 was observed. Finding Mk. 16:20 in Justin’s Synoptics-Harmony implies the same thing that finding Mk. 3:17 in Justin’s Synoptics-Harmony implies: Justin’s text of Mark included 3:17, and 16:20."
Justin tells us that Mark 3:17 is part of the gospels (Dialogue With Trypho, 106), something he doesn't say about Mark 16:20. As I said before, Justin's use of a text wouldn't tell us what he thought of the origins or current status of the text.
You write:
"How could you consistently /not/ acknowledge this while presenting Clement's *silence* as if it is evidence?"
I didn't say anything about Clement.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"Regarding Eusebius: Eusebius doesn’t mention any 'at Caesarea' qualification because it would be redundant. Just ask yourself what MSS Eusebius’ contemporaries would expect him to be commenting about. The expectation that Eusebius would comment on all MSS everywhere, or that he would be expected to do so, is somewhat anachronistic."
No, it isn't anachronistic. As I said before, Eusebius repeatedly issues general assessments of Christianity throughout the world, even Christianity in previous generations. Origen, who also lived in Caesarea and lived there shortly before Eusebius did, made comments about Christian textual practices in general (Against Celsus, 2:27). Dionysius of Corinth (cited in Eusebius, Church History, 4:23), Irenaeus (Against Heresies, 5:30:1), and other patristic sources comment on textual practices in areas of the world they weren't living in at the time. The patristic criticism of Marcion was largely about textual alterations being made by him and by his followers in other parts of the world. One of the arguments against Marcion was a contrast between his altering of texts and the absence of such altering among Christians in general (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1:27:4; Origen, Against Celsus, 2:27; etc.). Augustine appeals to different texts found in different churches around the world (On Christian Doctrine, 2:15). In the same section of his work, Augustine appeals to other sources for knowledge of past versions of the Old Testament text, which is an example of how Eusebius could have reasoned his way to a conclusion about the general state of the Markan text. Justin Martyr even claims to be aware of variants in Jewish copies of scripture (Dialogue With Trypho, 71-73, 120). Even though Justin didn't know Trypho prior to their debate (Dialogue With Trypho, 1), he attributes the textual practices of Jews in general to Trypho and his teachers, assuming that they're representative of the norm. Justin's reasoning in Dialogue With Trypho depends upon the sort of general assessment you're arguing against. The patristic sources often make such general assessments, both on textual issues and other matters.
But even if we limited ourselves to the locations where Eusebius spent time himself (though you've given us no sufficient reason to do so), he spent time in locations other than Caesarea, as I mentioned earlier.
You refer to "what MSS Eusebius’ contemporaries would expect him to be commenting about", but people wouldn't expect an argument about the text of Mark 16 to be based on the textual record of one city. And Jerome, who lived shortly after Eusebius, uses the same argument Eusebius had used, which makes even less sense under your interpretation. Why would Jerome, who wasn't even living in Caesarea and who was writing to somebody who also didn't live there, think that the manuscript record in Caesarea should be considered a significant line of evidence?
Your interpretation assumes a qualification that's not stated or implied and doesn't make sense, and it diminishes the argument of Eusebius and Jerome to absurdity.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"When I asked how Eusebius is supposed to have known about all MSS everywhere, a few decades after the Diocletian persecution, you answered that 'He had the ability to make general assessments based on the knowledge he had.' Boil that sentence down, Jason, and your answer is essentially, 'He just knew that sort of thing.'"
No, I gave you some examples of other issues he addressed in such a manner, and I gave you some examples of how he could acquire knowledge of manuscripts in other parts of the world. You aren't refuting the examples I cited. Instead, you're vaguely and inaccurately summarizing my argument as "'he just knew that sort of thing".
You write:
"Does it sound to you as if Jerome was taking the time to carefully verify the claims in the materials he was borrowing?"
He would have had different levels of knowledge about different subjects. Since the gospels were of high importance to him, since he was himself a translator of scripture, and since he often discussed textual issues, he'd probably have an above average interest in and knowledge of an issue like the text of Mark. He would have had many opportunities to gather information on the subject, for reasons like those I mentioned with regard to Eusebius.
If Jerome had thought that Eusebius was addressing the manuscript record in Caesarea, not the record in general, why would he consider such evidence significant? If he thought that citing one city was sufficient, why didn't he just refer to the text of Mark in his own city rather than Eusebius' city?
Again, you're assuming a qualification that's neither stated nor implied by Eusebius or Jerome and which makes less sense of their appeal to the textual record, to the point of absurdity.
You write:
"Plus, it is demonstrable that Mk. 16:9-20 was not in just a few MSS when Jerome wrote to Hedibia: Jerome himself knew the passage in 383; Ambrose used it; Wulfilas used it; Old Latin translators used it; Didymus (or Pseudo-Didymus) used it; the writers/compilers of 'Apostolic Constitutions' used it; Augustine (who cited 16:12 from Greek and Latin MSS) used it."
A term like "few" is relative.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"First he says that a person who rejected Mk. 16:9-20 could say that it was not found in all the copies. Or, a person could say that the accurate copies, at least, round off the text at the end of 16:8. Or, a person could say that the Gospel of Mark ends there in almost all the copies. Or, a person could say that it is in some copies but not in all. Does that sound like any sort of precise result to you?"
The distinction between an accurate reading and a majority reading was made by other ancient sources as well, and it's one made by modern textual scholarship. There's nothing wrong with the distinction Eusebius makes.
And the level of precision in Eusebius' comments is a different issue than what manuscripts he was addressing. Objecting that his comments aren't precise enough doesn't lead us to the conclusion that he was only discussing manuscripts in Caesarea. To the contrary, a lack of precision is better explained if he's addressing the manuscript record in general. Similarly, there isn't the sort of precision you're asking for in comments Justin Martyr, Origen, and other sources made about the textual record in general. See my documentation above.
You write:
"You wrote that Eusebius 'would also have information about manuscripts from other individuals.' Again you're saying that he would just know these things. And again, when you say, 'He probably would have seen manuscripts,' and so forth, that's just another way of re-asserting the claim; it substantiates nothing."
Historians regularly draw conclusions about what individuals probably would have experienced based on the general tendencies of their day. If scripture was usually read in church services, for example, then we assume that somebody who attended church services at that time most likely heard scripture being read. In the case of Eusebius, we know that he traveled widely, was in frequent written communication with other Christians, had researched the writings of other Christians extensively in the process of producing his church history and other works, had produced gospel harmonies himself (sometimes using the material of other people, like Ammonius, which would bring him into contact with their text of Mark), had worked on producing copies of the Bible himself, etc. He cites the Biblical commentaries and gospel harmonies of other writers, including ones not extant today, and it would be common for the text of Mark to be addressed in such works. Not only would he form general impressions about the manuscripts of his day, but he would also have sources of earlier generations giving him relevant information.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"Nobody at the time would expect anybody to be able to make a statement about the contents of all MSS everywhere."
General assessments are common, both in ancient sources and in our everyday lives. I've already given some examples from Eusebius himself and other ancient sources. Other examples can be found in your own posts. Just today, you wrote:
"If you were to ask commentators, 'Why do you hesitate to affirm that Justin used Mk. 16:20?' the answer would probably almost always be, 'Because Metzger considered it probable but not certain.'"
You're making an assessment of commentators in general. Have you consulted every commentator? Have you read all of their writings or spoken to them, for example? No, you haven't. Yet, you make a general assessment based on the evidence you have.
Or should we assume that you were just referring to commentators in your own city?
And here's the first sentence of the introductory article at your web site on Mark 16:
"More misinformation has been spread about Mark 16:9-20 than has been spread about any other passage of Scripture."
Is that a general assessment? Or were you just referring to your own city? What would you think of people who went with the latter interpretation?
You write:
"Regarding Jerome's and Severus' acceptance of Eusebius' description of the MSS: if all you mean by 'acceptance' is that they assumed that Eusebius had told the truth, no problem. Their plagiarism is still merely plagiarism, and their uses of material from Mk. 16:9-20 in comments that they made as independent authors still weigh in."
They would have had relevant information independent of Eusebius. They lived in different locations than Eusebius, were in contact with different people, etc.
You write:
"Regarding Jerome's use of Mark 16:14 in Ag.Pelag., here's the Latin text"
I don't know Latin, and I don't know why you would post the Latin text. And you haven't addressed the issues I raised regarding this passage in Jerome in my last response to you.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteThe doctors in the question/comparison represent endings of the Gospel of Mark, of course.
Jason: “Two would constitute "multiple" under the definition I told you I was using.”
Well there it is, folks. According to Jason, it’s entirely non-deceptive to refer to two endings as "multiple endings" and as "various endings."
Regarding Justin Martyr again: you did not address the point of my description of the parallel between Justin's blend of Mk. 16:20-and-Luke-24:52-53, and the Diatessaron. Do you see the implications of that parallel? When you say that "Justin’s use of a text wouldn't tell us what he thought of the origins or current status of the text," it makes me think that you don't see that the inclusion of Mk. 16:9-20 in a Synoptics-harmony would imply the inclusion of the passage in Justin's Gospels-text. This is not a small snippet, like the "fire on the Jordan" phrase; it’s an entire pericope.
When I asked, "How could you consistently /not/ acknowledge this while presenting Clement's *silence* as if it is evidence?" you answered that you didn't say anything about Clement. You’re right; it was Saint-&-Sinner who did so.
Onward to Eusebius. When I presented his comments in "Ad Marinum" phrase by phrase, and asked if they sounded like the sort of things that a person would say if he had been capable of stating things more precisely, you did not really answer my question; you suddenly turned to Eusebius’ statements and generalizations about other things, and to other people's statements which are tangential here. Inasmuch as the doctor-illustration seems to have been too opaque, I will take this slowly.
First, you stated, "People wouldn’t expect an argument about the text of Mark 16 to be based on the textual record of one city." Marinus’ question was not about the text of Mark 16:9; he asked about how to harmonize Mark 16:9. And he expected an answer from Eusebius, of course, not from people in general. And since Eusebius was at Caesarea, it would be the most natural and logical thing to figure that when Eusebius described books, he was describing books at Caesarea’s library, not books in general -– especially since, only a couple of decades after the Diocletian persecution, nobody had the means to take inventory of all the church-libraries elsewhere.
Second, Eusebius describes the manuscript-evidence in several ways, presenting them rapid-fire as he tells Marinus what someone who rejects the passage might say. (I’ll summarize the descriptions, to conserve words.) #1: “The words in question do not appear in all copies of the Gospel of Mark. At least, the accurate copies round off Mark’s account at ‘efobounto gar.’” #2: “In almost all the copies, the end of the Gospel of Mark is demarcated at that point.” #3: "The material after ‘efobounto gar’ is in some copies but not in all of them.”
At no point does Eusebius indicate to Marinus that he is describing MSS that are in any library other than the library at Caesarea. It is easy, in these days when we can routinely consult materials on the other side of the world, to casually interpret Eusebius’ words as if when he said, “the manuscripts,” he meant all extant MSS, as if we were reading Bruce Metzger. But that was not the way his words would be taken by his contemporaries. The library at Caesarea was highly esteemed, and a review of its contents was not to be lightly dismissed. But that does not allow us to confuse Eusebius’ description of the MSS in the library at Caesarea with a description of the contents of all libraries in all churches everywhere. Nobody had the sort of requisite database for such a statement in the early 300’s.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
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ReplyDeleteYou asked, “Why would Jerome, who wasn't even living in Caesarea and who was writing to somebody who also didn't live there, think that the manuscript record in Caesarea should be considered a significant line of evidence?”
I already explained this: Jerome lifted a large extract from “Ad Marinum” to save himself time and energy when dealing with Hedibia’s questions.
Raising a point about generalizations, you noted that I have made generalizations about commentators and about the spread of misinformation about Mark 16:9-20. But this does not help your case; showing that I can make generalizations about statements in commentaries (which I feel qualified to make, having read a lot of commentaries) does not show that Eusebius’ comments were about MSS beyond the walls of the library at Caesarea. You asked some other questions – "Is that a general assessment? Or were you just referring to your own city? What would you think of people who went with the latter interpretation?" – but a little thoughtful consideration of the differences between Eusebius’ historical context and my historical context should sufficiently answer such questions.
Regarding Jerome and Severus, you wrote, “They would have had relevant information independent of Eusebius. They lived in different locations than Eusebius, were in contact with different people, etc.” All of that is true, and that’s all the more reason why, when we can see where, in their writings, they have merely borrowed someone else’s claims about MSS, and where, in their writings, they are using their own MSS, it ought to be the independent voice, rather than the echo, to which we give our greater attention when citing them as separate witnesses. And in the case of Jerome and Severus, they both independently used material from 16:9-20 as part of the Gospel of Mark, even though they both echoed Eusebius’ statements in “Ad Marinum” /as they advocated the inclusion of Mk. 16:9-20./
About Jerome’s statements in Against the Pelagians 2:14: as Jerome gives examples of the shortcomings of highly respected Christians, he says that “in some exemplars and especially in Greek codices of Mark in the end of his Gospel,” there is a passage that shows the shortcomings of the disciples themselves. He proceeds to quote Mk. 16:14, and then the first half of the interpolation known as the Freer Logion. An English translation of the Freer Logion can be found in Metzger’s TCotGNT in his comments on Mk. 16:9-20 (on p. 124 in the edition I have).
Previously you wrote, “I haven’t seen the original section of Jerome’s treatise, but have only read excerpts from it. Do you have the original? The quotations I've seen from the original, in Lane and elsewhere, don't support your conclusion.” Now I have provided the Latin text, and you write, “I don’t know Latin, and I don’t know why you would post the Latin text.” I posted it because you asked if I had it, and because you implied that its contents did not support what I was saying. Dr. Lane, btw, comes extremely close to plagiarizing Metzger throughout his discussion of Mark 16:9-20, and he makes careless mistakes when he isn’t parroting Metzger. I highly recommend consulting other resources.
I think that about covers Jerome’s contribution to this question. Jerome says that the interpolation known as the Freer Logion is found in some exemplars and especially in Greek codices of the Gospel of Mark, in its ending; Jerome, when borrowing material from “Ad Marinum,” still endorses the inclusion of Mk. 16:9-20; Jerome, when making the Vulgate Gospels, included Mk. 16:9-20 (and as I explained earlier, Kelhoffer’s observation is a non sequitur). Did you have any other questions about Jerome’s acceptance of Mk. 16:9-20?
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
James E. Snapp, Jr. wrote:
ReplyDelete"The doctors in the question/comparison represent endings of the Gospel of Mark, of course."
Then it's an analogy that assumes your conclusion. That's not an effective way of trying to persuade me that your conclusion is correct.
You write:
"Well there it is, folks. According to Jason, it’s entirely non-deceptive to refer to two endings as 'multiple endings' and as 'various endings.'"
Which is what I said in my first response to you. And you acknowledged that what I said was "technically true". You have yet to demonstrate that I was being deceptive.
You write:
"When you say that 'Justin’s use of a text wouldn't tell us what he thought of the origins or current status of the text,' it makes me think that you don't see that the inclusion of Mk. 16:9-20 in a Synoptics-harmony would imply the inclusion of the passage in Justin's Gospels-text. This is not a small snippet, like the 'fire on the Jordan' phrase; it’s an entire pericope."
Justin would have had access to the gospels in multiple forms. Mark 16:9-20 is included in modern Bibles composed by scholars who don't consider the passage authentic, and many sermons, books, and other sources of our day draw from passages like John 7:53-8:11 and Mark 16:9-20 without believing in the textual originality or even canonicity of the passages. Despite my rejection of both passages as non-scriptural, I own many Bibles with both passages in them, as well as Bibles with Apocryphal books and other material I disagree with in some sense, and I sometimes cite, quote from, or allude to that material. A source like 1 Maccabees or Mark 16:9-20 can have some value, in many contexts, without being canonical. You still haven't bridged the gap between Justin's use of material in Mark 16:9-20 and his belief in the originality and/or canonicity of the passage. Justin uses other extra-canonical material as well, and the fact that Mark 16:9-20 is lengthier than the "fire on the Jordan" passage, as you call it, doesn't prove that Justin considered the former original to Mark and/or canonical and the latter non-canonical. Besides, it's misleading to compare the entirety of Mark 16:9-20 to only those portions of other extra-canonical sources Justin uses. A better comparison would be between only the portions of each that he uses or the entirety of each.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"And he expected an answer from Eusebius, of course, not from people in general. And since Eusebius was at Caesarea, it would be the most natural and logical thing to figure that when Eusebius described books, he was describing books at Caesarea’s library, not books in general -– especially since, only a couple of decades after the Diocletian persecution, nobody had the means to take inventory of all the church-libraries elsewhere."
Here's the opening of Eusebius' comments, as quoted by James Kelhoffer:
"Having already formerly labored over two compositions made up of perplexing questions in the divinely-inspired Gospels near the beginning and [their] resolutions, I am now, skipping over the middle parts, proceeding next to the questions that are always being raised by everyone at the end of the same texts. [I do so] without much delay since the will of God spurs us on to this through your commands, Marinus, my most honored and most industrious son." (pp. 83-84)
Eusebius is using Marinus' questions as an opportunity to expand on gospel issues relevant to "everyone". To assume that he would limit his comments on the textual record to the manuscripts of Caesarea is dubious. Eusebius would have had knowledge of more manuscripts than those in Caesarea, and the ones in Caesarea wouldn't do much to convince Marinus or "everyone" that Mark ends at 16:8. Eusebius goes on to refer to what "someone might say to avoid and completely do away with a superfluous question" (p. 85). How would appealing to the manuscripts of one city "completely do away with" the issues in Mark 16:9-20 for Marinus and the "everyone" Eusebius is addressing? Eusebius is suggesting an argument that can be used by Marinus and others, not just people living in Caesarea. And even for those living within that city, why would they think that their city's manuscript record "completely does away with" the difficulties of Mark 16:9-20? Your reading of Eusebius is highly unlikely.
And your reference to the Diocletian persecution is insufficient, largely for reasons I've already explained. Eusebius was born long before that persecution, he had read many of the writings of Christians from past generations, he traveled widely after the time of that persecution, etc. He didn't need to "take inventory of all the church-libraries elsewhere" in order to make a general assessment based on a large variety of sources. As I said and documented earlier, such general assessments are common in the patristic sources, in our everyday lives, and in your own writings.
You write:
"At no point does Eusebius indicate to Marinus that he is describing MSS that are in any library other than the library at Caesarea."
The surrounding context suggests that more than Caesarea is involved, as I've demonstrated. And libraries aren't the only relevant sources. See my earlier comments on other ways of discerning what is and isn't in manuscripts.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"It is easy, in these days when we can routinely consult materials on the other side of the world, to casually interpret Eusebius’ words as if when he said, 'the manuscripts,' he meant all extant MSS, as if we were reading Bruce Metzger."
There's a large gray area between only having the resources of Caesarea and having the knowledge of Bruce Metzger. I'm not assuming a modern perspective. I've cited examples of other patristic sources making similar general assessments of the textual record and other aspects of life outside of the city in which they lived. I've cited examples of Eusebius himself making such general assessments on other issues. Your limitation of Eusebius' comments to Caesarea is irrational.
You write:
"The library at Caesarea was highly esteemed, and a review of its contents was not to be lightly dismissed."
So were libraries, churches, individuals, and other resources in other locations with which Eusebius was in contact. That's one of the reasons why it's doubtful that Eusebius would limit his comments on the textual record to the city where he was currently residing.
You write:
"But that does not allow us to confuse Eusebius’ description of the MSS in the library at Caesarea with a description of the contents of all libraries in all churches everywhere."
Not only are you reading the "at Caesarea" qualifier into the text for no good reason, but you're also adding an "in the library" qualifier. As if Eusebius only had information about manuscripts from the library? What about his discussions with people from previous generations in Caesarea, manuscripts possessed by individuals and churches, etc.? Even your assessment of what was available to somebody in Caesarea is unreasonable.
You write:
"Nobody had the sort of requisite database for such a statement in the early 300’s."
You keep acting as if a general assessment would have to be meticulously investigated prior to its publication. As I've documented, and as common knowledge should have told you, such general assessments are frequently made, both by ancient sources and modern ones, without the sort of "database" you're suggesting. I documented some examples, and you're ignoring them.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"I already explained this: Jerome lifted a large extract from 'Ad Marinum' to save himself time and energy when dealing with Hedibia’s questions."
How would citing the manuscript record in one city resolve a textual issue for people who didn't even live in that city? Under your scenario, Jerome was "saving time and energy" by telling somebody who didn't live in Caesarea that the manuscript record in that city was against Mark 16:9-20 in an earlier generation. In other words, he was making a highly insignificant point that his audience was unlikely to consider persuasive or even particularly relevant.
Under my scenario, on the other hand, Jerome was making the same sort of general textual assessment that many other ancient sources made, one that would be highly significant if true. It would have major relevance to people living outside of Caesarea, such as Jerome and the woman to whom he was writing.
Which scenario is more likely?
You write:
"All of that is true, and that’s all the more reason why, when we can see where, in their writings, they have merely borrowed someone else’s claims about MSS, and where, in their writings, they are using their own MSS, it ought to be the independent voice, rather than the echo, to which we give our greater attention when citing them as separate witnesses."
I didn't say that all of the sources are "separate". I said that they offer evidence for my position. People often borrow phrases, arguments, and other material from other people, even to describe their own experiences. People will refer to how they were "born again" at the time of their conversion, using Biblical terminology, or "asked Jesus into their heart", using the terminology of an Evangelical culture in which they live. It's widely believed that Matthew used much of the material in Mark's gospel, even among scholars who believe in Matthean authorship of the first gospel or at least take it to be a reasonable possibility. Jerome can allude to or quote Eusebius' material, yet still be considered an additional source supporting Eusebius' conclusions, since it was Jerome who decided that Eusebius' material was worth using. Thus, the judgment of both men is involved. As Kelhoffer put it in the article I linked earlier, "The important point here is that, for both of these authors [Eusebius and Jerome], the testimony was regarded as credible enough to be reproduced." (p. 100)
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"About Jerome’s statements in Against the Pelagians 2:14: as Jerome gives examples of the shortcomings of highly respected Christians, he says that 'in some exemplars and especially in Greek codices of Mark in the end of his Gospel,' there is a passage that shows the shortcomings of the disciples themselves. He proceeds to quote Mk. 16:14, and then the first half of the interpolation known as the Freer Logion."
How do such comments suggest that Jerome accepted the originality and/or canonicity of Mark 16:9-20?
You write:
"I posted it because you asked if I had it, and because you implied that its contents did not support what I was saying."
I wasn't asking for a Latin quotation. People don't normally begin with a default assumption that English speakers know Latin. Why would you post a Latin quote in an English language forum? If you know Latin, then why didn't you just post your own English rendering? If you don't know Latin, but had reason to consider the passage relevant on the basis of some other line of evidence, why didn't you cite that other line of evidence?
You write:
"Dr. Lane, btw, comes extremely close to plagiarizing Metzger throughout his discussion of Mark 16:9-20, and he makes careless mistakes when he isn’t parroting Metzger. I highly recommend consulting other resources."
I have consulted other sources, as I've told you. And given the weaknesses of your own argument, you ought to be less critical of others instead of so often referring to them as "deceptive", "plagiarizing", "careless", etc.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteThe reason why the two-doctors analogy appears to assume my conclusion is that the analogy and my conclusion both fit the evidence. Two equals two, not “multiple” or “various.”
Jason wrote: “You have yet to demonstrate that I was being deceptive.” You’ve demonstrated that on your own, via your commitment to refer to two endings as “multiple” or “various” endings. Look, the ordinary reader who reads your statement will be deceived. Please describe the endings more precisely in the future.
Regarding Justin: it looks like you still don’t see the significance of his inclusion of Mark 16:20 in his Synoptics-Harmony. You said that I "haven't bridged the gap between Justin's use of material in Mark 16:9-20 and his belief in the originality and/or canonicity of the passage." But this is not initially a matter of discerning Justin’s beliefs; it is mainly a matter of observing that Mark 16:20 was in his Synoptics-Harmony. With that being acknowledged (as Kelhoffer acknowledges Justin’s use of Mk. 16:20 in footnote 72 (page 95) of his essay on “Ad Marinum”), we can turn to the question of whether or not Justin regarded Mark 16:9-20 as canonical. Whatever else we may suppose about Justin’s concept of canonicity, he obviously would not have retained Mk. 16:9-20 in his Synoptics-Harmony if he had regarded it as spurious.
Now let’s take a closer look at the quotation from Eusebius provided by Kelhoffer: Eusebius stated that he was “proceeding next to the questions that are always being raised by everyone at the end of the same texts.” Jason, how can “everyone” have been asking how to harmonize Mk. 16:9 with Mt. 28:1 if (as you propose) their MSS did not contain Mk. 16:9?
Also, you called it “dubious” to think that Eusebius’ comments about MSS are about the MSS at Caesarea, on the grounds that the MSS at Caesarea “wouldn’t do much to convince Marinus or "everyone" that Mark ends at 16:8.” You’re overlooking three things: first, when other collections of MSS had been devastated in the Diocletian persecution, the library at Caesarea had been spared. Second, Caesarea was famous as a center of Christian scholarship; an observation about its MSS had clout, sort of like when one speaks of the Oxford edition of a classic book. Third, Eusebius was not determined to convince Marinus that Mark ends at 16:8; he showed Marinus how to retain 16:9-20.
You wrote, “Eusebius is suggesting an argument that can be used by Marinus and others, not just people living in Caesarea.” To the extent that anyone anywhere could refer to the MSS stored at Caesarea, yes. But Eusebius comprehended from Marinus’ question that Marinus believed Mk. 16:9-20 to be genuine, and that is why Eusebius also provided the option of harmonizing Mk. 16:9 with Mt. 28:1 via a simple punctuation-adjustment.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post)
You asked, “And even for those living within that city, why would they think that their city's manuscript record "completely does away with" the difficulties of Mark 16:9-20?” Because the adoption of MSS without Mk. 16:9-20 immediately does away with all harmonization difficulties presented by the passage, of course. (Perhaps you should read Eusebius’ comments again?)
You wrote that Eusebius “didn't need to "take inventory of all the church-libraries elsewhere" in order to make a general assessment based on a large variety of sources.” Your “large variety of sources” is a hypothetical thing that you’ve dropped into Eusebius’ lap. The fact is that anyone who claimed “most MSS throughout the Roman Empire have this or that reading” would need to first examine most MSS throughout the Roman Empire, or else acquire a data-base of MSS throughout the Roman Empire, neither of which Eusebius did or was capable of doing. Meanwhile, Eusebius *was* capable of resolving the question, “How can Mk. 16:9 be harmonized with Mt. 28:1?” (which he lists among the questions that everyone was asking) in two ways: (1) by appealing to the cherished MSS at Caesarea descended from MSS used by his heroes Origen and Pamphilus, and (2) by using the MSS familiar to Marinus.
You wrote, “You keep acting as if a general assessment would have to be meticulously investigated prior to its publication.” When the assessment consists of a matter of whether or not a passage is present or absent in MSS, how else can one make an accurate assessment if not by carefully investigating the MSS?? Eusebius could do this easily where the MSS at Caesarea were concerned, but an enterprise of the sort that you are attributing to him – taking a census of all MSS everywhere – would be quite impossible.
Unless you have some additional facts about this (instead of more should’ves and could’ves), I think I’ve given the question about the location of the “accurate” MSS to which Eusebius referred all the attention it deserves.
You asked, regarding Jerome’s extract from “Ad Marinum,” “How would citing the manuscript record in one city resolve a textual issue for people who didn't even live in that city?” Jerome didn’t resolve the textual issue; he resolved the harmonization-question by advocating the inclusion of Mk. 16:9-20, succinctly emphasizing Eusebius’ solution-via-punctuation while reducing Eusebius’ statements about the MSS to a short parenthetical phrase. You were more correct than you thought when you said that the phrase about “almost all the Greek MSS” would not be persuasive; it did not persuade Jerome (no Majority Text advocate he!) and he did not expect it to persuade Hedibia; rather, he guided her toward the inclusion of Mk. 16:9-20.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continied from the previous post)
You stated, “Jerome can allude to or quote Eusebius' material, yet still be considered an additional source supporting Eusebius' conclusions, since it was Jerome who decided that Eusebius' material was worth using.” The fact that Jerome borrowed material from “Ad Marinum” is evidence that Jerome considered the material worth sharing, but it is not necessarily additional independent evidence for the claims in “Ad Marinum,” any more than when Ben Witherington III shares the statements of Bruce Metzger. Plus, while Jerome preserved a piece of Eusebius’ comments about MSS, Jerome’s conclusion about the significance of that comment is clear: while credible, and worth mentioning (like the statements of other earlier writers whose works Jerome borrowed), it was not decisive as far as Jerome was concerned.
You asked, regarding Jerome’s statements in Ag. Pelag. 2:14, “How do such comments suggest that Jerome accepted the originality and/or canonicity of Mark 16:9-20?” Jerome translated the Gospels in 383/384. He wrote Ag. Pelag. in around, iirc, 417. The presence of Mk. 16:14 in the Latin text was not an issue. It is the remainder of the material which is notably found “in certain exemplars and especially in Greek codices of Mark.” He treats the Freer Logion as a notable reading, while he takes for granted that his readers will know what he is talking about when he says that the Freer Logion is found “in the end of Mark.”
Regarding my presentation of the Latin text of Jerome’s statement, I think anyone reading over this can discern why I provided the Latin text: you asked if I had the original, so I provided it. And I have provided an English translation of it, too, so let us not drone on about this. No matter how you slice it, Jerome’s citation of Mk. 16:14 (and the first part of the Freer Logion) is clear; he embraces 16:14 as part of the ending of Mark.
Finally, instead of thanking me for offering a note of caution regarding a commentary that spreads false claims (Lane’s claims that 2386 is a valid witness against Mk. 16:9-20, and that "a number of MSS of the Ethiopic version" lack Mk. 16:9-20, and that Codex B provides evidence for the existence of the shorter ending, and that MS 274 has the Shorter Ending after 16:20) you wrote, “given the weaknesses of your own argument, you ought to be less critical of others instead of so often referring to them as "deceptive", "plagiarizing", "careless", etc.” My brief comments about the treatment of Mark 16:9-20 by commentators such as Lane, Witherington, and Geisler can be easily verified. As for the arguments I have shared with you, if they are weak, then yours must have been weaker, inasmuch as at every point my case stands, while, if you stop writing long enough to notice, nothing much is left of yours.
Could you do me a favor? Before replying, wait three days to reflect on my observations, and to study the sources we’ve reviewed. I sense a sort of automatic defense-mode in your comments, and I would really appreciate a sign that you are listening carefully to what I am saying.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
James E. Snapp, Jr. wrote:
ReplyDelete"The reason why the two-doctors analogy appears to assume my conclusion is that the analogy and my conclusion both fit the evidence."
That's an assertion of your position, not a demonstration of it. Your analogy has done nothing to further your case. Somebody else could put forward an analogy involving three or more doctors. Your analogy neither proves your position nor clarifies it.
You write:
"Two equals two, not 'multiple' or 'various.'"
Earlier, you said that my use of "multiple" was "technically true". Now you're suggesting it's not true.
The term is sometimes used as you're suggesting, but it's also used as I used it. See here, for example. As I've told you repeatedly, I've regularly used "multiple" to refer to more than one. It's not a definition I began using when discussing Mark 16. Your accusation that I was being deceptive is ridiculous.
You write:
"But this is not initially a matter of discerning Justin’s beliefs; it is mainly a matter of observing that Mark 16:20 was in his Synoptics-Harmony."
I haven't denied that Mark 16:9-20 was in existence and used at the time of Justin Martyr. What's in dispute is how the passage was viewed by the sources in question, including Justin.
You have no way of knowing that Justin was drawing from "his Synoptics-Harmony". He draws from multiple sources in his writings, and he would have come across multiple renderings of the gospels in his lifetime. As he tells us, the gospels were read in Christian church services (First Apology, 67), and he sometimes refers to them collectively as "the gospel" (Dialogue With Trypho, 10, 100), but as "the gospels" elsewhere (First Apology, 66). The gospels probably circulated both individually and together at the time, and different versions would have been used in different churches and in other contexts. The idea that every allusion or quotation has to come from one gospel harmony he possessed is unreasonable. And his use of a gospel harmony as one of his sources wouldn't tell us what he thought of the originality and/or canonicity of every passage within that harmony. Justin knew that the gospels were originally written as separate documents, so he may not have equated a later gospel harmony, in its harmonized form, with scripture. You're making assumptions you can't justify.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"Whatever else we may suppose about Justin’s concept of canonicity, he obviously would not have retained Mk. 16:9-20 in his Synoptics-Harmony if he had regarded it as spurious."
His use of the passage wouldn't suggest that he was getting it from a gospel harmony, and his use of a gospel harmony wouldn't suggest that it's his gospel harmony other than in the sense that it's one that he used as a source. People often use sources they don't consider canonical, even placing them in Bibles. See the examples I cited earlier: Jerome's inclusion of Apocryphal books in the Vulgate, modern Bible translators who include Mark 16:9-20 without considering it canonical, etc. Oskar Skarsaune writes:
"He [Justin Martyr] sometimes quoted directly from manuscripts of the Gospels or made allusions to one of the Gospels in such a way that it is possible to say which Gospel he was alluding to. In other cases he seems to quote Gospel material from Christian sources other than the Gospels....Nothing indicates that we have to do with anything like a full-fledged Gospel harmony like Tatian's Diatessaron. At best, Justin's compendium or compendia are small beginnings of that ambitious project....Justin was heavily indebted to a prior encounter with the Jewish Scriptures through selected testimonies quoted and interpreted in Christian books: the Gospels, Paul, one or more tracts similar to the Kerygma of Peter, perhaps Aristo of Pella's Controversy between Jason and Papiscus....unlike Tatian, Justin never thought of his harmonistic sources as replacing the four Gospels....The fact that these fulfillment reports on occasion contain noncanonical details should therefore not be used as an argument concerning Justin's own Gospel canon. Koester is probably right in claiming that this is true also for Justin's postcanonical Gospel material, since the noncanonical details are sufficiently explained as being called forth by the scriptural prophecies behind the fulfillment reports." (in Sara Parvis and Paul Foster, edd., Justin Martyr And His Worlds [Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2007]. pp. 64, 67, 75, n. 56 on p. 183, n. 58 on p. 184)
Skarsaune also notes that Justin sometimes cites different texts for the same passage of a book, suggesting that he was relying on more than one version (pp. 55-56). And he notes that Justin seems to rely more on intermediary sources, not the New Testament books themselves, in his First Apology, which is the document containing the passage you've appealed to (p. 64). In other words, the work you're citing is one in which Justin tends to use more non-canonical sources.
We don't know much about the relationship between a potential gospel harmony used by Justin and Tatian's gospel harmony. (Was Justin using a source, or one similar, that would later be incorporated into Tatian's harmony, but wasn't yet part of a harmony when Justin wrote?) Even if Mark 16:9-20 was in a gospel harmony used by Justin, it doesn't follow that he considered that passage scripture.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"Jason, how can 'everyone' have been asking how to harmonize Mk. 16:9 with Mt. 28:1 if (as you propose) their MSS did not contain Mk. 16:9?"
Even under your own theory, some manuscripts didn't include the passage. The reason why it would be widely discussed is because it was widely known. Similarly, Protestants will discuss inconsistencies between an Apocryphal book and a book from their own Old Testament, even though they don't accept the Apocryphal book as scripture. People will discuss how to reconcile their view of judgment, forgiveness, or some other issue with John 7:53-8:11, even if they don't think the passage is scripture. On Mark 16 in particular, I've heard Hank Hanegraaff, for example, answer a question about baptism in Mark 16:16 by both arguing that the passage isn't canonical and explaining how it can be reconciled with justification apart from baptism. He was interested in harmonizing the passage with scripture, even though he (apparently) doesn't consider Mark 16:16 scripture. Harmonizations of the resurrection narratives will sometimes include references to Mark 16:9-20, even if the passage isn't considered scripture. (See here, for example.) Etc.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"You’re overlooking three things: first, when other collections of MSS had been devastated in the Diocletian persecution, the library at Caesarea had been spared. Second, Caesarea was famous as a center of Christian scholarship; an observation about its MSS had clout, sort of like when one speaks of the Oxford edition of a classic book. Third, Eusebius was not determined to convince Marinus that Mark ends at 16:8; he showed Marinus how to retain 16:9-20."
I've already explained why your appeal to the Diocletian persecution doesn't have much significance. And the scholarship of Caesarea doesn't imply that the manuscripts in that city would be considered sufficient to settle a textual dispute. You're not arguing for such an implication. You're just asserting it. Under your theory, most of the Christian world didn't agree with Caesarea's manuscripts regarding Mark 16. Yet, you want us to believe that Eusebius and Jerome thought it sufficient to cite Caesarea's manuscript record. Apparently, then, multiple generations of Christians thought that citing Caesarea's manuscript record, without discussing manuscripts elsewhere, was sufficient, even though Christians elsewhere kept rejecting Caesarea's textual readings for generation after generation. That doesn't make sense. You're following a far less natural reading of Eusebius and Jerome in order to reconcile their comments with your conclusion. And the fact that Eusebius goes on to explain how Mark 16:9-20 could be harmonized with the other gospels, if one accepts the passage, doesn't change the evidence he cited as to why one could reject the passage. He's far more likely to cite the manuscript record in general than he is to cite the manuscript record of one city in order to justify such a conclusion. He would have been familiar with more than the manuscripts in Caesarea, for reasons I've already explained, and limiting himself to that city's manuscripts in this context wouldn't make sense. We don't assume a qualifier like "in Caesarea" as our default assumption. I've cited examples of how absurd it would be to assume such a city qualifier in other instances. That's not how language is normally interpreted. Neither the text nor the context suggests your interpretation.
When Jerome wrote his letter, he wasn't in Caesarea, and neither was the woman to whom he was writing. And he doesn't mention Caesarea in the letter. Was Caesarea's role in settling textual disputes so well known that he and his audience would assume an "at Caesarea" qualifier without its having been mentioned? Are we supposed to believe that such a qualifier would be widely assumed, even though Christians outside of Caesarea kept rejecting Caesarea's textual readings?
Your interpretation is highly unlikely even if we limit the discussion to Eusebius. And your view becomes even more unlikely as we apply it to Jerome, who made similar comments while writing from and to locations outside of Caesarea.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"To the extent that anyone anywhere could refer to the MSS stored at Caesarea, yes."
If people outside of Caesarea could know about that city's manuscript record, then Eusebius could know of manuscripts outside of his city. I've given examples of other patristic sources, as well as Eusebius himself, making such general assessments on textual and non-textual issues. You keep ignoring those examples.
You write:
"Your 'large variety of sources' is a hypothetical thing that you’ve dropped into Eusebius’ lap. The fact is that anyone who claimed 'most MSS throughout the Roman Empire have this or that reading' would need to first examine most MSS throughout the Roman Empire, or else acquire a data-base of MSS throughout the Roman Empire, neither of which Eusebius did or was capable of doing."
I've already given some examples of how Eusebius would have acquired information about manuscripts outside of Caesarea. I'm not just "dropping a hypothetical". And we regularly apply the same sort of reasoning in other contexts, as I explained earlier. If a Christian is known to have visited churches in other cities, particularly if he's known to have spent a long time in those locations, then some implications follow. He probably would have spoken with some of the Christians in those locations, would have observed some of their practices, etc. Historians don't limit themselves to what their sources directly tell them. They also follow the implications suggested by one fact or another. And all of us do the same in our everyday lives.
As I explained earlier, your suggestion that Eusebius would have to have "examined most MSS throughout the Roman Empire" is inconsistent with your own behavior. As I documented earlier, you've made generalizations about subjects you've discussed without "examining most" of each piece of the relevant data. See the examples I cited in my 8:17 P.M. post on January 7.
Furthermore, I've documented that Eusebius and other patristic sources made general assessments, on textual and non-textual issues, without "examining most" of each piece of data. You're making an unreasonable demand of Eusebius (and Jerome or anybody else who would make a similar claim), a demand that he didn't think he had to fulfill and which you don't demand of yourself when you make claims similar to his.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"by appealing to the cherished MSS at Caesarea descended from MSS used by his heroes Origen and Pamphilus"
Origen lived in more than one location, not just Caesarea, and Eusebius' "heroes" weren't limited to men who lived in that one city. There were multiple cities that were more prominent than Caesarea in the church of Eusebius' day, and Eusebius often discusses such cities, including cities where the apostles themselves had resided. By the time Jerome wrote his Letter 120, he had already begun the process of distancing himself from Origen in light of the Origenist controversies of his day. You've given us no reason to think that Jerome would have viewed Caesarea's manuscript record as sufficient to cite by itself.
You write:
"Eusebius could do this easily where the MSS at Caesarea were concerned, but an enterprise of the sort that you are attributing to him – taking a census of all MSS everywhere – would be quite impossible."
You keep ignoring the evidence I cited earlier regarding other general assessments made by Eusebius and other patristic sources. When Eusebius spoke of how most churches viewed the canonicity of various New Testament books, for example, did he visit or otherwise communicate with every one of the thousands of churches in the world to ask each one what view they held? Do modern scholars require Eusebius to have done such a "census", as you call it, in order to accept his general assessment as reliable? When you make general assessments in your own writings, such as in the examples I documented earlier, should we require such a "census" of you?
You write:
"You were more correct than you thought when you said that the phrase about 'almost all the Greek MSS' would not be persuasive; it did not persuade Jerome (no Majority Text advocate he!) and he did not expect it to persuade Hedibia; rather, he guided her toward the inclusion of Mk. 16:9-20. "
Jerome, like Eusebius, proposed more than one potential solution to the difficulty. The issue under dispute, in the context of our discussion, is whether his first proposed solution, an appeal to the manuscript record, should be interpreted as an appeal only to the manuscripts of Caesarea. That interpretation is far less likely than mine, for reasons I've explained.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"The fact that Jerome borrowed material from 'Ad Marinum' is evidence that Jerome considered the material worth sharing, but it is not necessarily additional independent evidence for the claims in 'Ad Marinum,' any more than when Ben Witherington III shares the statements of Bruce Metzger."
Making a vague comparison to Witherington and Metzger doesn't address the evidence I cited for Jerome's access to additional relevant information. He lived in different locations than Eusebius, he produced his own translation of the Bible, etc. If Jerome considered Eusebius' assessment accurate, then Jerome's acceptance of Eusebius' assessment does add some significant credibility to it.
You write:
"The presence of Mk. 16:14 in the Latin text was not an issue. It is the remainder of the material which is notably found 'in certain exemplars and especially in Greek codices of Mark.' He treats the Freer Logion as a notable reading, while he takes for granted that his readers will know what he is talking about when he says that the Freer Logion is found 'in the end of Mark.'"
You still aren't addressing what I asked you about earlier. The issue is whether Jerome treats Mark 16:9-20 as scripture, not whether he expects his readers to be familiar with it. His readers also should have been familiar with 2 Maccabees, which he also cites, but he didn't consider it scripture. And a phrase like "in the end of Mark", without more context, is inconclusive.
I don't know whether Jerome considered Mark 16:9-20 part of scripture in the document we're discussing or elsewhere. I haven't yet seen any convincing evidence that he did. I'm asking you to provide evidence to that effect, and you aren't doing so.
You write:
"Regarding my presentation of the Latin text of Jerome’s statement, I think anyone reading over this can discern why I provided the Latin text: you asked if I had the original, so I provided it."
I also told you, in the same context, that I had read a quote of the original in William Lane's commentary on Mark, and Lane quotes Jerome in English, not Latin. Since you've read Lane, why would you think I was asking for Latin?
Do you have the entirety of Jerome's original treatise in English? Have you consulted the original, whether in English or another language? Or are you relying on quotes from it and summaries? So far, you haven't quoted anything in English that would lead me to your conclusion that Jerome was referring to Mark 16:9-20 as scripture. He may have considered it scripture. I don't know. But you need more of an argument to get us to that conclusion.
You write:
"Could you do me a favor? Before replying, wait three days to reflect on my observations, and to study the sources we’ve reviewed. I sense a sort of automatic defense-mode in your comments, and I would really appreciate a sign that you are listening carefully to what I am saying."
I've already told you that you've misrepresented me on some of the issues we're discussing, and you didn't think you needed to take three days off from the discussion. I don't think I need to either.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteLet’s look at what the two-doctors illustration represents: Codex Bobbiensis has the Shorter Ending; over 1,500 MSS have Mark 16:9-20; Codex W has Mk. 16:9-20 with the Freer Logion; Vaticanus and Sinaiticus stop at the end of 16:8; six Greek MSS have combinations of the Shorter Ending and Mk. 16:9-20. How many independent endings after Mk. 16:8 are in these witnesses?
I amazed that it requires so many words to bring you to the realization - at least, I hope you realize it by now - that it is more accurate to describe the two endings of Mark as two endings rather than as “multiple endings” or “various endings” or in other ways which will cause readers to imagine that the number of extant independent endings is more than two. I hope you will conscientiously describe the two endings accurately in the future.
You wrote, “What's in dispute is how the passage was viewed by the sources in question, including Justin.” We just reviewed, step by step, the evidence that leads to the conclusion that Justin used Mk. 16:9-20 as part of the Gospels. He would not have done that if he regarded the passage as spurious or non-authoritative.
You wrote, “You have no way of knowing that Justin was drawing from “his Synoptics-Harmony”.” Yes I do, and so do you: compare Justin’s use of Synoptics-materials to the arrangement of Synoptics-material in the Diatessaron made by his student Tatian. When you do this, you’ll see, among other things, that Justin’s use of Mk. 16:20 and Luke 24:52-53 in First Apology 45 elegantly fits the Diatessaron’s treatment of Mk. 16:20 and Lk. 24:52-53.
You raised some speculative objections about Justin: maybe this was just one version that he used! Maybe he regarded this as extracanonical material but tossed it in anyway! Maybe he didn’t equate the Synoptics-harmony with Scripture! But each one can be muted by raising the opposite speculation. Our ability to speculate does not reduce the evidence, and the evidence shows that Justin incorporated Mk. 16:9-20 in his Synoptics-Harmony.
William Petersen, who was one of the few true specialists on the Diatessaron, affirmed that Justin used a Synoptics-Harmony; see (as I mentioned earlier) his 1990 article about the relationship between Justin’s Apostolic Memoirs and Tatian’s Diatessaron. Plus, the author of the brief excerpt that you provided expressed his agreement with Koester, and Koester has affirmed that Justin used a Synoptics-Harmony. And, you presented a statement that Justin used “intermediary sources;” that's right; his Synoptics-Harmony is such an intermediary source.
When faced with the implication from Eusebius himself that everyone was asking how to harmonize Mk. 16:9 with Mt. 28:1 – a scenario that does not fit your contention that only a few people had copies that contained Mk. 16:9 – you wrote, “The reason why it would be widely discussed is because it was widely known.” How could a question about Mk. 16:9 become widely known by the early 300’s if Mk. 16:9-20 was attested by only a few manuscripts in existence anywhere? It should be obvious by now that your assumption, and your interpretation of Eusebius, both need adjustment.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post)
You wrote, “I've already explained why your appeal to the Diocletian persecution doesn't have much significance.” No you haven’t; you’ve offered could’ve/would’ve speculations; meanwhile in the real world, the disruption of MS-production, combined with the destruction of MSS in various locations, would simply make it impossible for anyone two decades later to know whether or not Mk. 16:9-20 existed in only a few copies throughout the Roman Empire. And this is reflected in the comments of Eusebius: he is confident about the contents of the “accurate copies,” which he has seen at Caesarea, but he resorts to generalizations - not just one – when describing the quantity of copies.
You wrote, “The scholarship of Caesarea doesn’t imply that the manuscripts in that city would be considered sufficient to settle a textual dispute. You're not arguing for such an implication.” The only writer who settled the question about Mk. 16:9-20 was Eusebius, who valued the MSS at Caesarea very highly and settled the question about Mk. 16:9-20 to his own satisfaction on the basis of their contents; the others who chime in have borrowed Eusebius’ statement but they did not settle the question about whether or not Mk. 16:9-20 should be retained or rejected on the basis of Eusebius’ statement about the MSS; they settled the question by adopting Eusebius’ punctuation-adjustment and retaining Mk. 16:9-20. There is no need to argue this because the evidence is plain.
You wrote, “Under your theory, most of the Christian world didn’t agree with Caesarea’s manuscripts regarding Mark 16.” Considering that 99.9% of the extant Greek copies of Mark contain 16:9-20, as do the thousands of Latin Vulgate copies, and so forth, and considering that early patristic writers far and wide throughout the Roman Empire used Mark 16:9-20, that's an accurate description of how things stood. Even the MSS used by the non-Christian Porphyry disagreed with the “accurate” copies at Caesarea.
You wrote, “Yet, you want us to believe that Eusebius and Jerome thought it sufficient to cite Caesarea’s manuscript record.” Eusebius regarded the input from the “accurate” copies at Caesarea to be sufficient because he esteemed them so highly; they settled the issue as far as he was concerned. Jerome considered Eusebius’ statement to be worth preserving, but he did not consider it sufficient grounds to reject Mk. 16:9-20.
You wrote, “Apparently, then, multiple generations of Christians thought that citing Caesarea’s manuscript record, without discussing manuscripts elsewhere, was sufficient, even though Christians elsewhere kept rejecting Caesarea's textual readings for generation after generation. That doesn’t make sense.”
Newsflash: other manuscripts were discussed. See, for example, the comments of Victor of Antioch, and the references to “the old copies” and to “most copies” in the annotations in, for example, Codices 1 and 1582. (Beware of Metzger’s rather misleading description of these annotations, btw.) Plus, it should be obvious that Jerome and Severus, both of whom summarized Eusebius’ remarks, also both preferred copied that contained Mark 16:9-20, inasmuch as Jerome included 16:9-20 in the Vulgate, and Severus explicitly cited Mk. 16:19.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post)
You wrote that Eusebius is “far more likely to cite the manuscript record in general than he is to cite the manuscript record of one city in order to justify such a conclusion.” It is quite beyond me why you keep proposing this, inasmuch as the MSS that Eusebius considered accurate were the ones at Caesarea – and who, having obtained evidence he regards as superior, adulterates it with evidence he regards as inferior? There is no evidence that Eusebius did such a thing. But, on top of that, it was physically impossible for Eusebius to have knowledge of the contents of all extant copies of Mark in the early 300’s, and no one would expect him to have such knowledge. Try (harder!) not to read his statement as if he had a MS-census-report in front of him.
You wrote, “He would have been familiar” – enough speculative testimony; Eusebius is our witness, not Mr. Would’ve. We don’t really know that Eusebius knew or did the things you want him to have known and did. He doesn’t tell us that. And when we look at what he /does/ tell us in “Ad Marinum,” his proposed descriptions of MSS are not the sort of precise and consistent statements that would be consistent with a large sampling of MSS from various locales. If a large sampling of MSS informed Eusebius that 16:9-20 was missing in almost all MSS, then this one point would be the only one that needed stating. But instead, Eusebius states several ways to describe the evidence.
You’ve seen, in some NT translations, text-related footnotes: “Some MSS do not contain this verse,” or, “Some MSS omit this word” or similar short phrases. But none of the footnotes say, “Almost all MSS omit this verse, or at least some do.” And why not? Because the footnote-writer has consulted a very extensive source of information about all extant catalogued MSS; he feels no need to hedge his words. It is the lack of such a source that would be expressed by the provision of two or more descriptions of the MS-evidence. And this lack is evident in “Ad Marinum” where Eusebius lists ways in which one could describe the quantity of MSS, ranging from “almost all the copies lack the passage” to “the passage is in some copies but not in all.” Regarding the quality of his favorite MSS, he is confident; regarding the quantity of MSS with one reading or another, he has no idea, apart from what he can surmise from his collection at Caesarea.
Regarding Jerome’s letter to Hedibia, it looks like you’re still failing to see the significance of the observation that a large chunk of this letter is simply an extract from “Ad Marinum,” spontaneously translated and freely edited by Jerome. He was passing along material that he felt was worth passing along, without feeling any sense of obligation to double-check each claim it contained.
You wrote, “Your suggestion that Eusebius would have to have "examined most MSS throughout the Roman Empire" is inconsistent with your own behavior.” No; the problem is not that Eusebius makes a generalization; Eusebius makes generalization/s/ about the same thing, as he suggests ways in which a person who rejects 16:9-20 could describe the MS-evidence. There would be no reason to provide those several possibilities/options if he had extensive knowledge of MSS throughout the Roman Empire.
When I wrote that Eusebius consulted “the cherished MSS at Caesarea descended from MSS used by his heroes Origen and Pamphilus,” you wrote, “Origen lived in more than one location, not just Caesarea, and Eusebius' "heroes" weren't limited to men who lived in that one city.” All true, but the depository of the MSS of Origen and Pamphilus (who Eusebius specially admired) was the library at Caesarea. Right? Right. Moving along.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post)
You wrote, “You keep ignoring the evidence I cited earlier regarding other general assessments made by Eusebius and other patristic sources.” No; I keep ignoring your Could’ve/Would’ve speculations and obfuscation-attempts. The resources required for Eusebius to make an accurate assessment of general opinions about the NT canon are not the same as the resources that would be required to make an accurate count of MSS throughout the Roman Empire.
You asked, “When you make general assessments in your own writings, such as in the examples I documented earlier, should we require such a "census" of you?” If you find me saying, “You could say that less than 100% of the copies of Mark contain 16:9-20, or you could say that it is absent from some copies, or that it is absent from almost all the copies,” then, yes, while all three suggested statements can be simultaneously true, it would be a good idea to verify the database that is being used by the person who says such a thing.
You wrote, “Jerome, like Eusebius, proposed more than one potential solution to the difficulty.” Rather, Jerome mentioned two possible solutions, but edited “Ad Marinum” in such a way as to end up advocating the harmonization-solution – which is consistent with his inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 in the Vulgate.
You wrote, “If Jerome considered Eusebius’ assessment accurate, then Jerome’s acceptance of Eusebius’ assessment does add some significant credibility to it.” I already explained this; as Jerome himself tells us, he had a way of efficiently dealing with questions by answering them with the words of earlier writers, and that is what he is doing here. Whatever significance may be given to Jerome’s repetition of part of Eusebius’ claims (that “almost all of the Greek copies are lacking the passage”), it is far outweighed by the consideration that Jerome himself considered this non-decisive, and proceeded immediately to favor the option of retaining Mk. 16:9-20. In addition, the presence of Mk. 16:9-20 in MSS used by several of Jerome’s contemporaries is demonstrable; this shows that Jerome was preserving, as he knew, a century-old statement, rather than spontaneously creating a new statement about MSS known to him personally.
You wrote, “The issue is whether Jerome treats Mark 16:9-20 as scripture, not whether he expects his readers to be familiar with it.” As Jerome expects his readers to find Mark 16:9-20 in their copies of Mark, he is treating it as Scripture. In addition, Jerome had already included Mk. 16:9-20 in the Vulgate; wouldn’t you say that /including a passage in the Gospel of Mark/ qualifies as treating it as Scripture? (Kelhoffer’s baseless objection that Jerome could’ve translated Mk. 16:9-20 under compulsion is merely a demonstration of imagination; inasmuch as he offers no evidence that Jerome was under compulsion to include Mk. 16:9-20, that is an exercise in speculation.)
I hope all this has registered. Did you have any other questions about Mark 16:9-20?
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
James E. Snapp, Jr. wrote:
ReplyDelete"How many independent endings after Mk. 16:8 are in these witnesses?"
You've added the qualifier "independent", once again without arguing for it.
You wrote:
"I amazed that it requires so many words to bring you to the realization - at least, I hope you realize it by now - that it is more accurate to describe the two endings of Mark as two endings rather than as 'multiple endings' or 'various endings' or in other ways which will cause readers to imagine that the number of extant independent endings is more than two. I hope you will conscientiously describe the two endings accurately in the future."
You aren't being conscientious when you ignore the link to a dictionary that I provided in my last post, ignore what I've told you about my prior use of the term "multiple", and ignore your own initial acknowledgment that what I said was "technically true" (in contrast to your recent suggestion that what I said was false). When you ignore a citation of a dictionary and ignore your own comments earlier in the thread, you're not in much of a position to ask that I be conscientious.
You wrote:
"Yes I do, and so do you: compare Justin’s use of Synoptics-materials to the arrangement of Synoptics-material in the Diatessaron made by his student Tatian. When you do this, you’ll see, among other things, that Justin’s use of Mk. 16:20 and Luke 24:52-53 in First Apology 45 elegantly fits the Diatessaron’s treatment of Mk. 16:20 and Lk. 24:52-53."
Which wouldn't tell us about the status of the material prior to Tatian's Diatessaron or what Justin thought of the material. You keep making assumptions you can't justify.
Earlier, you cited some scholarship on Justin's use of a gospel harmony, and I've cited more recent scholarship on Justin that disagrees with your assessment. Making a reference to how some of Justin's material "elegantly fits" Tatian's is too vague, it doesn't tell us whether the alleged common material existed in the form of a gospel harmony before Tatian used it, and it doesn't tell us what Justin thought of that harmony if there was one.
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ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"You raised some speculative objections about Justin: maybe this was just one version that he used! Maybe he regarded this as extracanonical material but tossed it in anyway! Maybe he didn’t equate the Synoptics-harmony with Scripture! But each one can be muted by raising the opposite speculation."
First of all, I'm not the one claiming that we know what Justin's source was and what he thought of it. You're the one making that claim. If speculations can be raised in either direction, and neither can be demonstrated, then that favors my position rather than yours.
Secondly, we have evidence of Justin's use of extracanonical material elsewhere. You acknowledged that fact earlier, though you dismissed the extracanonical material on the basis that what Justin cited from it was shorter than Mark 16:9-20. I replied to that argument, and you didn't interact with what I said.
You wrote:
"Our ability to speculate does not reduce the evidence, and the evidence shows that Justin incorporated Mk. 16:9-20 in his Synoptics-Harmony."
Actually, as Oskar Skarsaune explains in the work I cited earlier, Justin seems to have utilized multiple sources consisting of scripture collections and extrascriptural material. His material differs from Tatian's and has some similarity with other extracanonical sources that existed around the same time. To refer to "his Synoptics-Harmony", as if we know that he had one gospel harmony that he consistently used, is misleading. It's even more unreasonable to assume that you know that Mark 16:9-20 was part of that harmony and that Justin considered the entire harmony (or the Mark 16 portion of it) equivalent to scripture.
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ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"William Petersen, who was one of the few true specialists on the Diatessaron, affirmed that Justin used a Synoptics-Harmony; see (as I mentioned earlier) his 1990 article about the relationship between Justin’s Apostolic Memoirs and Tatian’s Diatessaron. Plus, the author of the brief excerpt that you provided expressed his agreement with Koester, and Koester has affirmed that Justin used a Synoptics-Harmony. And, you presented a statement that Justin used 'intermediary sources;' that's right; his Synoptics-Harmony is such an intermediary source."
I cited Skarsaune's agreement with Koester on a different point, one where you disagree with both of them. Even if we assume Justin's use of a harmony of the Synoptics, along with other sources, your conclusion doesn't follow, for reasons I've explained.
You wrote:
"When faced with the implication from Eusebius himself that everyone was asking how to harmonize Mk. 16:9 with Mt. 28:1 – a scenario that does not fit your contention that only a few people had copies that contained Mk. 16:9 – you wrote, 'The reason why it would be widely discussed is because it was widely known.' How could a question about Mk. 16:9 become widely known by the early 300’s if Mk. 16:9-20 was attested by only a few manuscripts in existence anywhere?"
You keep attributing arguments to me that I haven't made. I didn't argue that "by the early 300’s Mk. 16:9-20 was attested by only a few manuscripts in existence anywhere". Saying that Mark 16:9-20 was in a minority percentage of Greek manuscripts isn't the same as your misleading description of my position.
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ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"No you haven’t; you’ve offered could’ve/would’ve speculations; meanwhile in the real world, the disruption of MS-production, combined with the destruction of MSS in various locations, would simply make it impossible for anyone two decades later to know whether or not Mk. 16:9-20 existed in only a few copies throughout the Roman Empire."
You aren't interacting with what I said about the Diocletian persecution. Eusebius was born long before that persecution, he had read many of the writings of Christians from past generations, he traveled widely after the time of that persecution, etc. You keep suggesting that he would have to "take an inventory", conduct a "census", etc. in order to make a general assessment of the manuscript record, but that's an unreasonable demand, for reasons I've explained. You don't hold yourself to the standard you're demanding of Eusebius (and Jerome). You make general assessments without conducting the sort of "inventory" or "census" that you claim would be needed.
And since you're claiming that Eusebius would have limited his comments to Caesarea's manuscripts, it wouldn't take knowledge of all manuscripts worldwide to overturn your dubious claim. It would be ridiculous to conclude that Eusebius never acquired information on the ending of Mark outside of Caesarea when he traveled outside of the city, corresponded with contemporaries who lived outside the city, read the writings of past Christians who lived outside the city, etc. As I explained earlier, the work that Eusebius did included producing Bibles and reading and composing gospel harmonies. And in the passage in his writings we're currently discussing, he was working on a gospel harmony and was specifically asked about an issue pertaining to the ending of Mark.
Even if he hadn't come across relevant information outside of Caesarea prior to that time, he would have had the motivation to do so in the context we're addressing. Not only do you want us to believe that he didn't previously acquire relevant information on the circumstances outside of Caesarea, but you also want us to believe that he didn't seek such information in the process of researching his response to Marinus. Yet, his correspondence with Marinus is itself an example of communication with somebody outside of Caesarea on an issue relevant to the ending of Mark. It's an example of how he would be able to acquire such information from sources outside of the city where he was currently residing. The idea that he never acquired such information at any other time, even when reading Ammonius' gospel harmony, producing Bibles for Constantine, and doing other such work, doesn't make sense. If he had been as ignorant of the circumstances outside of Caesarea as you suggest, it's doubtful he would have even mentioned the manuscript record as a possible solution to the harmonization issue he was addressing. The manuscript argument makes far more sense if it's an appeal to the manuscript record in general, not just in one city. And your suggestion that Marinus would assume that Eusebius only had information on the circumstances in Caesarea is even more unlikely in light of the fact that Marinus himself was discussing the manuscript record outside of Caesarea with Eusebius.
As I documented earlier, Eusebius tells us he's addressing "the questions that are always being raised by everyone" concerning the endings of the gospels (p. 84). His interests went beyond Caesarea, and the man he's exchanging letters with lives outside that city.
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ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"the others who chime in have borrowed Eusebius’ statement but they did not settle the question about whether or not Mk. 16:9-20 should be retained or rejected on the basis of Eusebius’ statement about the MSS; they settled the question by adopting Eusebius’ punctuation-adjustment and retaining Mk. 16:9-20. There is no need to argue this because the evidence is plain."
Later sources don't have to use Eusebius' manuscript argument in order to acknowledge the accuracy of his manuscript assessment and present his argument as one of the options that Christians can choose from.
You wrote:
"Considering that 99.9% of the extant Greek copies of Mark contain 16:9-20, as do the thousands of Latin Vulgate copies, and so forth, and considering that early patristic writers far and wide throughout the Roman Empire used Mark 16:9-20, that's an accurate description of how things stood."
The vast majority of the extant manuscripts come from later centuries. And even the ones that contain one of the multiple false endings of Mark sometimes note the disputed nature of the text. James Kelhoffer, in the article I linked above, gives a more balanced assessment of the evidence than you do.
You wrote:
"Eusebius regarded the input from the 'accurate' copies at Caesarea to be sufficient because he esteemed them so highly; they settled the issue as far as he was concerned."
You keep making that claim without demonstrating it. There is no "at Caesarea" qualifier in Eusebius' comments. The qualifier would render his argument highly insignificant. He would be far more likely to use the argument that I'm suggesting. And his correspondence with Marinus was itself a form of exchanging information on Mark 16 with a source from another location. Neither he nor Marinus would have assumed that Caesarea was the only relevant source or the only source Eusebius could get information from.
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ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"Jerome considered Eusebius’ statement to be worth preserving, but he did not consider it sufficient grounds to reject Mk. 16:9-20."
You keep ignoring a third category. Even if Jerome didn't use Eusebius' argument to reject Mark 16:9-20 himself, he could still cite it as an option that other Christians could use. And that's what he does in his Letter 120. And he wouldn't cite it as an argument that Christians could use to answer the difficulty he was addressing if the manuscript record in question was only the record of Caesarea. Jerome didn't live there, and the large majority of Christians, including the woman to whom he was writing, didn't live there. Just as Eusebius doesn't mention an "at Caesarea" qualifier when writing to Marinus, Jerome doesn't use such a qualifier either. Why should we think, then, that the woman to whom Jerome was writing would assume that qualifier? As I said earlier, you keep multiplying improbabilities.
You wrote:
"Try (harder!) not to read his statement as if he had a MS-census-report in front of him."
In my 8:15 P.M. post on January 7, I documented examples of other patristic sources making comments similar to what you're claiming Eusebius wouldn't have said. I've also cited such comments in Eusebius himself and in your own writings. No "MS-census-report" would be needed to make such general assessments.
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ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"We don’t really know that Eusebius knew or did the things you want him to have known and did. He doesn’t tell us that."
Why don't you interact with what I said earlier on that subject? Historians regularly draw implications from the context in which historical figures lived. They don't require a direct reference to every event in order to conclude that each event occurred.
And, once again, you aren't consistent with your own professed standards. Your argument that Eusebius limited his comments to the manuscript record of Caesarea, for example, isn't derived from something Eusebius directly tells us. Rather, you draw a series of implications from the information you have on other subjects in order to reach your conclusion about what manuscript record Eusebius was addressing. You object to my conclusions on the basis that Eusebius "doesn't tell us that", yet your own assessment of Eusebius is something he "doesn't tell us". When you trust what Irenaeus, Augustine, or some other historical source tells you, you're trusting that source based on a series of implications you draw from their background, their circumstances at the time they wrote, etc. Why do you criticize me for doing what you've been doing and continue to do?
Even if we were to (irrationally) limit ourselves to what Eusebius "tells us", your argument would still fail. To cite an example I mentioned earlier, which you ignored, Eusebius tells us that he used the gospel harmony of an earlier source, Ammonius, who lived in Alexandria, when composing his own material on gospel harmonization (see here). Here we have an example of Eusebius "telling us" that he consulted the gospel harmony of a man who lived outside of Caesarea.
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ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"And when we look at what he /does/ tell us in 'Ad Marinum,' his proposed descriptions of MSS are not the sort of precise and consistent statements that would be consistent with a large sampling of MSS from various locales."
You're ignoring what I said earlier in response to that argument. I've documented examples of other patristic sources making comments similar to those of Eusebius. And a general assessment of the manuscript record makes more sense of the lack of detail in Eusebius' comments. If he was only commenting on manuscripts in his own location, and he thought the sort of "census" you refer to would be needed before commenting on any group of manuscripts, then why would he be as vague and inconsistent as you accuse him of being? Your argument works against your position rather than for it. A vague assessment by Eusebius makes more sense if he's addressing the manuscript record in general and doesn't think he needs the sort of "census" or "inventory" you keep demanding.
You wrote:
"If a large sampling of MSS informed Eusebius that 16:9-20 was missing in almost all MSS, then this one point would be the only one that needed stating."
You're, once again, ignoring what I said on that subject earlier. The distinction between quality and quantity of manuscripts is reasonable and is a part of mainstream modern textual scholarship. Eusebius' distinction between the two not only isn't unreasonable, but actually reflects well on him. In contrast, your suggestion that quantity is "the only one that needed stating" is unreasonable.
You wrote:
"You’ve seen, in some NT translations, text-related footnotes: 'Some MSS do not contain this verse,' or, 'Some MSS omit this word' or similar short phrases. But none of the footnotes say, 'Almost all MSS omit this verse, or at least some do.'"
That's not what Eusebius says either. You keep misrepresenting what he wrote.
And Jerome doesn't use the same wording as Eusebius. Your criticism, if accurate, would only weaken the credibility of one of the sources, not both of them. But your argument misfires even as far as Eusebius is concerned.
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ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"Regarding the quality of his favorite MSS, he is confident; regarding the quantity of MSS with one reading or another, he has no idea, apart from what he can surmise from his collection at Caesarea."
Where does Eusebius say or suggest that he "has no idea"? He doesn't. Your paraphrases and summaries are inaccurate. You need to document your position from what Eusebius actually said.
And if he was only referring to the manuscripts in Caesarea, and he didn't want to address such an issue unless he first had "census" knowledge of the manuscripts, then why would he have "no idea" what the manuscripts contained? You keep contradicting yourself. On the one hand, you tell us that Eusebius would only be expected to address the manuscripts he was highly familiar with, and you suggest he would need detailed knowledge of all of the manuscripts involved, the sort that an "inventory" or "census" would provide. On the other hand, you suggest that he had "no idea" about the quantity of manuscripts with particular readings. And now you refer to him "surmising from his collection at Caesarea", as if he's addressing the manuscript record in general, not just in Caesarea. Are you now acknowledging that he's addressing more than the manuscripts in that one city?
You wrote:
"Regarding Jerome’s letter to Hedibia, it looks like you’re still failing to see the significance of the observation that a large chunk of this letter is simply an extract from 'Ad Marinum,' spontaneously translated and freely edited by Jerome. He was passing along material that he felt was worth passing along, without feeling any sense of obligation to double-check each claim it contained."
Jerome would have had some knowledge of the manuscript record himself, independent of Eusebius, for reasons I explained earlier. He wouldn't have been limiting his evaluation to the city of Caesarea. The woman to whom he was writing didn't live in Caesarea and wouldn't have interpreted his unqualified reference to the manuscript record as a reference to only Caesarea's record.
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ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"All true, but the depository of the MSS of Origen and Pamphilus (who Eusebius specially admired) was the library at Caesarea. Right? Right."
Origen and Pamphilus also lived in Alexandria, and other men Eusebius admired lived in other cities outside of Caesarea. Since you claim to only want to accept what Eusebius "tells us", then where does he tell us that he only concerns himself with the manuscripts of Caesarea, since two of his "heroes" had the library there as their "depository"?
You wrote:
"No; I keep ignoring your Could’ve/Would’ve speculations and obfuscation-attempts. The resources required for Eusebius to make an accurate assessment of general opinions about the NT canon are not the same as the resources that would be required to make an accurate count of MSS throughout the Roman Empire."
Both would involve gathering information outside of Caesarea and making judgments about numbers. You haven't explained why Eusebius would do such work with regard to the canon, but not with regard to the text. And you're still ignoring the examples I cited of other patristic sources commenting on manuscripts outside of their own city.
Why don't we apply your reasoning about manuscripts to the canon? Why did Eusebius appeal to scripture canons outside of Caesarea? Surely nobody would expect him to know about such things. After all, he didn't have a "census report" on the subject. Why didn't he just follow the canon of his "hero" Origen? (Eusebius disagreed with Origen's canon.)
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ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"As Jerome expects his readers to find Mark 16:9-20 in their copies of Mark, he is treating it as Scripture."
You still aren't quoting what Jerome said. I asked you if you've consulted the original treatise of Jerome. You keep trying to avoid addressing the subject.
Expecting your readers to be familiar with Mark 16:9-20 doesn't prove that you consider the passage scripture. As I said before, I don't know whether Jerome considered the passage scripture, and I'm willing to consider evidence to that effect. But you aren't providing it. Instead, your responses to my questions on the subject are highly evasive.
You wrote:
"In addition, Jerome had already included Mk. 16:9-20 in the Vulgate; wouldn’t you say that /including a passage in the Gospel of Mark/ qualifies as treating it as Scripture?"
No, for reasons I've explained. Modern Bibles, gospel harmonies, etc. often include the passage without thereby affirming its scriptural status.
You wrote:
"Kelhoffer’s baseless objection that Jerome could’ve translated Mk. 16:9-20 under compulsion is merely a demonstration of imagination; inasmuch as he offers no evidence that Jerome was under compulsion to include Mk. 16:9-20, that is an exercise in speculation."
Kelhoffer refers to Jerome's inclusion of Apocryphal books in the Vulgate "under protest" (n. 87 on p. 100), not under compulsion. He may be suggesting a precise parallel with Mark 16, but not necessarily. He may only be noting that Jerome could include something in his Bible that he didn't consider scripture, regardless of whether he did it under protest, under compulsion, or in some other manner. We need only look to the Bibles of our own day to see examples of how Mark 16:9-20 could be included without compulsion and without an intention of affirming the passage's scriptural status.
Anybody who has read much of the writings of Eusebius and Jerome should know that both men traveled widely and were frequently in written communication with people in other parts of the world. And both men were often involved in discussions of textual issues, gospel harmonization, and other issues relevant to the ending of Mark's gospel. I want to give some examples from the writings of Jerome.
ReplyDeleteIn Against Helvidius (8, 18), Jerome appeals to manuscripts of multiple languages in multiple locations. He tells his opponent, who lived in a different location, "You will certainly find this in your manuscript." (18)
In his Preface To The Books Of Samuel And Kings, Jerome wants his audience to compare his textual work with other manuscripts in other locations. He also mentions that they can consult other individuals who are knowledgeable of textual issues.
In section 3:2 of his Against The Pelagians, Jerome refers to a copy of a book in the library at Caesarea, even though he didn't live there.
In his Preface To The Book On Hebrew Names, Jerome says that a work he's translating "is well known in the Greek world, and is to be found in all libraries". He's commenting on what's available in libraries in other parts of the world, not just his own city. He goes on to comment that "I found that the copies were so discordant to one another, and the order so confused".
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In his Preface To The Four Gospels, Jerome refers to how Damasus, a bishop of Rome, wants him to consult manuscripts from around the world to produce his (Jerome's) own rendering of New Testament documents. Jerome agrees to do so. He writes:
ReplyDelete"You urge me to revise the old Latin version, and, as it were, to sit in judgment on the copies of the Scriptures which are now scattered throughout the whole world; and, inasmuch as they differ from one another, you would have me decide which of them agree with the Greek original. The labour is one of love, but at the same time both perilous and presumptuous; for in judging others I must be content to be judged by all; and how can I dare to change the language of the world in its hoary old age, and carry it back to the early days of its infancy?...Now there are two consoling reflections which enable me to bear the odium—in the first place, the command is given by you who are the supreme bishop; and secondly, even on the showing of those who revile us, readings at variance with the early copies cannot be right. For if we are to pin our faith to the Latin texts, it is for our opponents to tell us which; for there are almost as many forms of texts as there are copies. If, on the other hand, we are to glean the truth from a comparison of many, why not go back to the original Greek and correct the mistakes introduced by inaccurate translators, and the blundering alterations of confident but ignorant critics, and, further, all that has been inserted or changed by copyists more asleep than awake?...I pass over those manuscripts which are associated with the names of Lucian and Hesychius, and the authority of which is perversely maintained by a handful of disputatious persons. It is obvious that these writers could not amend anything in the Old Testament after the labours of the Seventy; and it was useless to correct the New, for versions of Scripture which already exist in the languages of many nations show that their additions are false. I therefore promise in this short Preface the four Gospels only, which are to be taken in the following order, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, as they have been revised by a comparison of the Greek manuscripts. Only early ones have been used. But to avoid any great divergences from the Latin which we are accustomed to read, I have used my pen with some restraint, and while I have corrected only such passages as seemed to convey a different meaning, I have allowed the rest to remain as they are."
Jason,
ReplyDeleteJason,
Yes, I added the word “independent,” which should make it even easier for you to answer the question. How about answering the question? I’m not ignoring the dictionary-definition of “multiple;” you are ignoring, it seems, the impression that the word “multiple” will give to the ordinary reader, and the scope of the extant Greek-MS testimony for each ending (over 1,500 Greek copies with only Mk. 16:9-20; one Greek copy with 16:9-20 plus the Freer Logion; six Greek copies with the Shorter Ending and 16:9-20; zero Greek copies with only the Shorter Ending. Let’s add the Old Latin codex k into the mix, so that we also have one witness with only the Shorter Ending.) How many independent endings after Mk. 16:8 do you see?
You still don’t seem to grasp the significance of the dovetail between Justin’s use of Mk. 16:20 and Lk. 24:52-53 in First Ap. 45, and the blend of the same two passages in the Diatessaron. Tatian, as Justin’s student, modeled his work after the pattern of Justin’s Synoptics-Harmony; this accounts for the shared features that Petersen noticed (such as the “fire on the Jordan” phrase in both works). This is a justified deduction. Since you claimed that “making a reference to how some of Justin’s material ‘elegantly fits’ Tatian’s is too vague,” I will present the evidence in more detail here. Justin, in First Ap. 45, interprets Psalm 110:1-3 as a Messianic prophecy. Noticing that a reference to the Lord being seated at God’s right hand is common to Ps. 110:1 and Mk. 16:19, we proceed to Justin’s statement that Ps. 110:2 “is predictive of the mighty word, which His apostles, going forth (exelthontes) from Jerusalem, preached (ekhruxan) everywhere (pantacou). And though death is decreed against those who teach or at all confess the name of Christ, we everywhere (“pantacou”) both embrace and teach it.”
Already we observe that Justin speaks of the word (mentioned in 16:20), and about the disciples going forth and preaching everywhere (also mentioned in 16:20); furthermore Justin uses the same three words, transposed, found in Mark 16:20, and uses “pantacou” yet again. Normally such a close parallel would be considered a demonstration that Justin was familiar with Mk. 16:20, but back in 1881, Hort expressed a doubt about this (and he has been echoed by Metzger, who has subsequently been parroted far and wide): Justin sees Psalm 110:2’s reference to Zion fulfilled when the apostles went forth *from Jerusalem* preaching everywhere, but, since that detail is not in Mk. 16:20, Hort supposed that the parallel might be fortuitous. But seven years after Hort published his influential notes, the Arabic Diatessaron was published by Ciasca, in which Mk. 16:19-20 is blended with Luke 24:50-53 as follows (in 55:12-16):
“And our Lord Jesus, after speaking to them, took them out to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And while he blessed them, he was separated from them, and ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and at all times they were in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen. And from thence they went forth, and preached everywhere; our Lord helping them, and confirming their sayings with the signs which they did.”
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post.)
When we picture Justin using such a Mark-and-Luke blend, the basis for Hort’s hesitation disappears; the blended text displays precisely the point specially urged by Justin. Following the publication of the Arabic Diatessaron, J. Rendel Harris (in 1890) and Frederic H. Chase (in 1893) both confirmed that this evidence showed that Justin knew Mk. 16:20.
So, when you claimed that it is misleading to refer to Justin’s Synoptics-Harmony (even though Petersen and Koester both affirmed its existence, and Bellinzoni’s work dovetails with Petersen’s findings – the reference for which, btw, is “Textual Evidence of Tatian’s Dependence Upon Justin’s ‘APOMNHMONEUMATA’” in New Testament Studies, Vol.36, 1990; see also Koester’s 1990 “Ancient Christian Gospels”), you were simply incorrect; this factor elegantly accounts for the blended nature of Justin’s citations of Gospels-material.
Onward to Eusebius: you stated that you didn’t argue that by the early 300’s Mk. 16:9-20 was attested by only a few manuscripts in existence anywhere. Such an argument is implicit in your claim that Eusebius was describing all manuscripts everywhere. If you now are saying that Eusebius’ statement didn’t describe all MSS everywhere, then you concede the point.
You wrote, “You keep suggesting that he would have to "take an inventory", conduct a "census", etc. in order to make a general assessment of the manuscript record, but that's an unreasonable demand, for reasons I've explained.” You haven’t given reasons; you’ve given speculations. And none of them can resist the simple obvious fact that a person who said, “Almost all manuscripts lack the passage,” and who intended for his sentence to refer to all MSS everywhere, would require knowledge about all MSS everywhere, which could only emanate from an extensive MS-census, as I said. Eusebius had a very good collection of MSS, but he did not have such extensive knowledge, and no one expected him to have it. In addition, you can see from his list of a series of different descriptions of the ratio of MSS with or without 16:9-20, and from his use of the optative mood, that he is not working from knowledge of the contents of all MSS everywhere; if he had, we would expect a single description.
You wrote, “It would be ridiculous to conclude that Eusebius never acquired information on the ending of Mark outside of Caesarea” – But I am not making such a conclusion; that is a caricature. My conclusions are that Eusebius did not have anything near exhaustive knowledge of MSS throughout the Roman Empire, and that his answer to Marinus was based on his consultation of the MSS at Caesarea which he regarded as “accurate.” From Marinus’ letter alone Eusebius had knowledge of at least one MS outside Caesarea (Marinus’ text with 16:9-20); plus Eusebius himself clearly had a copy of Mark with 16:9-20 from which to quote.
The idea that Eusebius to have made some an exceptionally thorough investigation of MS-evidence about the ending of Mark from all over the Roman Empire is essential to your case, but you are missing evidence that he ever made such an investigation. You just keep speculating in several slightly varying ways about how Eusebius could have acquired information from outside Caesarea; meanwhile, the only verifiable instance of Eusebius encountering a text of Mark 16 from outside Caesarea consists of his encounter with Marinus’ text, which contained 16:9-20. Everything else that you’re saying about Eusebius’ extensive research outside Caesarea is speculation.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from previous post.)
You wrote, “The idea that he never acquired such information at any other time, even when reading Ammonius’ gospel harmony, producing Bibles for Constantine, and doing other such work, doesn’t make sense.” Yes it does. Consider the two historical things you just mentioned: reading Ammonius’ harmony and producing Bibles for Constantine. We don’t know enough about Ammonius’ Matthew-centered cross-referenced text to know if it contained material from Mk. 16:9-20 or not. And as for Eusebius’ Bible-production, which copies would Eusebius use as exemplars at Caesarea, if not the ones he considered accurate? So we have in the one case an unknown quantity, and in the other case, another instance of Eusebius’ reliance on his favorite copies at Caesarea. Plus, even if we were to suppose that Ammonius’ harmony indicated that its base-text lacked Mk. 16:9-20, and even if we were to suppose that Eusebius used ten exemplars of Mark when he supervised codex-production at Caesarea, this would be 11 copies out of so many that were extant at the time.
You wrote, “If he had been as ignorant of the circumstances outside of Caesarea as you suggest, it's doubtful he would have even mentioned the manuscript record as a possible solution to the harmonization issue he was addressing.” Rather, this exemplifies the saying, “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” No one expected Eusebius to have knowledge of all MSS everywhere, but his access to MSS descended from MSS used by Origen and Pamphilus lent his assessments a high authority.
Returning to Eusebius’ statement that Marinus’ questions “are always being raised by everyone,” I again ask you (and I hope for a non-evasive answer!), how could everyone in the early 300’s be asking a question about Mk. 16:9 if it was in only a few MSS?
You wrote, “The vast majority of the extant manuscripts come from later centuries.” That is true, but they all had parent-MSS, which had parent MSS, and so forth. Their writing-material is younger than the early uncials, but not necessarily their contents. The papyri have demonstrated this again and again by testifying to Byzantine readings.
You wrote, “And even the ones that contain one of the multiple false endings of Mark sometimes note the disputed nature of the text. James Kelhoffer, in the article I linked above, gives a more balanced assessment of the evidence than you do.” Your choice of words could mislead an uninformed reader; in real life, “one of the multiple false endings” is Mark 16:9-20, attested as Scripture by leaders of the church from the second century onward and used as Scripture throughout Christendom. And in real life, “sometimes” is about 20 out of 1,560, and several of those 20 are in a closely related group. And in real life, the annotations in most of those copies defend the passage (by noting its presence in many copies, or in the ancient copies, as you can see in Kelhoffer’s essay), and the remaining annotations are not independent statements but lines from a catena.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post)
You expressed some doubts about the idea that when Eusebius referred to “accurate copies,” he thus referred to a specially cherished group of copies at Caesarea. In the interest of brevity (and to save myself the trouble of digging up obscure references), I’m going to let those doubts stand for the time being; I am confident that in the course of time as you continue to study patristic writings you will allow the evidence to convince you that Eusebius had a special regard for the MSS at Caesarea, particularly those used by, or descended from exemplars used by, Origen and Pamphilus.
You proposed that Jerome, in his letter to Hedibia, didn’t use Eusebius’ argument to reject Mark 16:9-20 himself, but could still cite it as an option that other Christians could use. You’re not far off. Jerome’s treatment of Eusebius’ comments resembles an approach that still frequently occurs in apologetic writing: the author mentions an alternative solution before offering the one he advocates. It is unwarranted, however, to assume that a writer who builds on one foundation, without demolishing the unfavored one, declares them both to be equally sound. Rather, by choosing between two paths, he leads by example.
You wrote, “Your argument that Eusebius limited his comments to the manuscript record of Caesarea, for example, isn’t derived from something Eusebius directly tells us.” My claim is not that Eusebius wore blinders that allowed him to see only MSS at Caesarea; it is, rather, that his reference to “accurate copies” is a reference to cherished MSS at Caesarea and that his other statements about how the MS-evidence could be described are not, and were not intended to be interpreted as, based on extensive knowledge of MSS throughout the Roman Empire. The evidence for this is indirect but not unclear. When Eusebius produced copies for Constantine, he worked at Caesarea; this demonstrates where the copies were which he considered the most trustworthy. That point alone should resolve the question. But if further confirmation is requested, consult the colophons of OT MSS descended from the copies collated by Pamphilus and Eusebius, which are not difficult to track down online. And, in addition, one may consider Eusebius’ expression of admiration for Pamphilus in Eccl. Hist. 6:11; he states that Pamphilus “excelled all in our time in most sincere devotion to the divine Scriptures,” and in a few sentences preserved by Jerome in Book I of Against Rufinus, he describes work of Pamphilus: “He would not only lend them copies of the Holy Scriptures to read, but would give them most readily, and not only to men but also to women, if he saw that they were given to reading. He therefore kept a store of manuscripts, so that he might be able to give them to those who wished for them whenever occasion demanded.” And this collection of MSS was inherited, so to speak, by Eusebius as Pamphilus’ student and successor.
Regarding the work of Ammonius: yes, Eusebius used Ammonius’ harmony as the inspiration for his Canons and Sections. But that’s in “Ad Carpianus,” not “Ad Marinum.” This has nothing to do with what the subject at hand. (And that is why I did not comment on it earlier; it is mere diffusion.) Must I state the extent of my case yet again? I am not claiming that Eusebius exclusively used resources which originated at Caesarea. My claim is that his reference to “the accurate copies” is to his specially cherished MSS at Caesarea, and that his subsequent comments about how one could describe the MSS are not based on extensive knowledge of MSS throughout the Roman Empire.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post)
You said that you have “documented examples of other patristic sources making comments similar to those of Eusebius.” No; none of the generalizations that you provided were what we see in “Ad Marinum,” that is, a series of different generalizations that describe the same thing. We don’t see, for instance, statements like, “One could say that Second Peter is not accepted by 100% of the bishops, or, one could say that Second Peter is rejected by almost all the bishops, or, one could say that some bishops reject Second Peter but others accept it.”
You asked, “If he” (i.e., Eusebius) “was only commenting on manuscripts in his own location, and he thought the sort of "census" you refer to would be needed before commenting on any group of manuscripts, then why would he be as vague and inconsistent as you accuse him of being?” Easy: he was not concerned with the details of the case because he saw that Marinus already used Mk. 16:9 and would retain it. He is not particular about the details (except when mentioning the actual grounds for his own view, namely, the “accurate copies”) for the same reason that a guide is not particular about describing to a traveler the path that will not be taken.
You seem to have misunderstood my statement that “If a large sampling of MSS informed Eusebius that 16:9-20 was missing in almost all MSS, then this one point would be the only one that needed stating.” This was not meant as something that would leave no reason for Eusebius to mention the “accurate copies;” it was meant as something that would leave no reason for Eusebius to describe the quantity of copies in three different ways, or to frame those three different descriptions as things that one could say.
After I wrote, “But none of the footnotes say, 'Almost all MSS omit this verse, or at least some do.'” You wrote, “That's not what Eusebius says either. You keep misrepresenting what he wrote.” If you have trouble seeing the veracity of my statement, consult Kelhoffer’s essay on pages 84-85: Eusebius says that a person who rejects the passage “might say that it does not appear in all the copies of the Gospel according to Mark.” Further on, after the reference to the accurate copies, as Eusebius continues to present what a rejector of the passage could say, he says, “For in this way (i.e., at 16:8) the ending of the Gospel according to Mark is defined in nearly all the copies. The things that appear next, seldom [and] in some but not all [of the copies] may be spurious.” Eusebius thus gives Marinus three ways that the quantities involved in the MSS-evidence could be described: (a) the passage does not appear in all the copies, (b) the passage is absent from nearly all the copies, and (c) the passage is in some copies but not all.
Now about Jerome: it’s obvious that Jerome, writing in Latin and condensing and editing as he goes, does not use the same wording in Eusebius’ Greek composition. But that’s merely an effect of Jerome’s function as translator/editor. Quite similarly, some commentators dependent upon Metzger have shortened his comments. That does not mean that they have actually looked into the issue, and if we were to notice that their abbreviated statement about the MSS was part of a huge abridgement of several pages of Metzger’s Textual Commentary, we would realize that we were reading an abridged paraphrase, not an independent composition. And that is what we should do with the entire section of “Ad Hedibiam” that is a distorted echo of “Ad Marinum.”
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post)
Back to Eusebius: you asked about where Eusebius says or suggests that he has no idea about the quantity of MSS with one reading or another. He indicates this by providing three different ways to describe the MSS-evidence, which I listed above. His statements are, as I said, surmises based on the non-extensive knowledge that he had.
I’m not sure why you said that I was contradicting myself; the two statements that you regarded as contradictory – (a) Eusebius’ reference to the accurate copies is a reference to cherished copies at Caesarea, and (b) Eusebius’ generalizations about MS-quantities are surmises based on the MSS at Caesarea – are not contradictory.
You asked a question about the point that Eusebius’ most cherished MSS, which he regarded as the “accurate copies,” were the ones at Caesarea which were passed along to him from Pamphilus: “Where does he tell us that he only concerns himself with the manuscripts of Caesarea, since two of his "heroes" had the library there as their "depository"?” This ought to be pretty clear from the statements of Eusebius that I cited earlier about Pamphilus’ MSS, the colophons in the OT MSS that mention Pamphilus and Eusebius, and about Eusebius’ high regard for Pamphilus and his work.
Regarding all that you said about Eusebius’ statements about the NT canon, what I said before still applies: first, you’re resorting to desperate obfuscation, and second, there is an obvious difference between Eusebius’ generalization about current opinions in Eccl. Hist. 6:25, and a series of different generalizations explicitly presented as things that one might say.
Back to Jerome: you said that I’m still not quoting what Jerome said; however, I have provided the relevant text in Latin and in English! You can dig up the text in PL 23, c. 491ff.
You wrote, “Expecting your readers to be familiar with Mark 16:9-20 doesn't prove that you consider the passage scripture.” It does when you refer to the passage as the end of the Gospel of Mark.
When I asked, “Wouldn’t you say that /including a passage in the Gospel of Mark/ qualifies as treating it as Scripture?”, you answered, “No.” Let’s contemplate this for a minute, Jason: you just said that the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 in the Gospel of Mark does not qualify as treating it as Scripture! The subject at hand is not the treatment of the passage in the NLT or ESV or NASB or TNIV; it’s the treatment of the passage by Jerome in the Vulgate, where it receives the same treatment as the rest of the text of Mark, and where its components are given their own section-numbers. The fact is that Jerome, by including Mark 16:9-20 in the Vulgate text of Mark, treated this passage as Scripture, after collecting Old Latin manuscripts and compiling the Latin text so as to conform it, where conformation was necessary to express the sense of the text found in the old Greek copies that he had acquired, as he explains in the Preface to the Four Gospels which you helpfully cited. It would be ridiculous to deny this.
Finally, I hope that you will notice the difference between Eusebius’ statements about MS-quantities in “Ad Marinum,” and the sort of definite statement that you provided from Jerome regarding copies of the Onomasticon: as Jerome describes MSS that he has seen with his own eyes, he says, “I found that the copies were so discordant,” and so forth; this is an altogether different species of statement from Eusebius’ statement that “a person could say” this or that.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
James E. Snapp, Jr. wrote:
ReplyDelete"I’m not ignoring the dictionary-definition of 'multiple;' you are ignoring, it seems, the impression that the word 'multiple' will give to the ordinary reader"
Earlier, you said "Two equals two, not 'multiple' or 'various.'" Now you acknowledge that my definition of "multiple" is correct, but object that it's unpopular and that, therefore, it's deceptive for me to use it. You offer no evidence for that conclusion. You just assert it.
You write:
"How many independent endings after Mk. 16:8 do you see?"
You should either document that I referred to independent endings, as you're defining that term, or acknowledge that you were wrong.
You write:
"When we picture Justin using such a Mark-and-Luke blend, the basis for Hort’s hesitation disappears; the blended text displays precisely the point specially urged by Justin. Following the publication of the Arabic Diatessaron, J. Rendel Harris (in 1890) and Frederic H. Chase (in 1893) both confirmed that this evidence showed that Justin knew Mk. 16:20."
I haven't denied that Justin used Mark 16:20. Rather, what I've denied is a conclusion such as the following from your latest series of replies:
"You still don’t seem to grasp the significance of the dovetail between Justin’s use of Mk. 16:20 and Lk. 24:52-53 in First Ap. 45, and the blend of the same two passages in the Diatessaron. Tatian, as Justin’s student, modeled his work after the pattern of Justin’s Synoptics-Harmony; this accounts for the shared features that Petersen noticed (such as the 'fire on the Jordan' phrase in both works)."
As Oskar Skarsaune explains in his article I cited earlier, Justin seems to have used multiple collections of scripture quotations and extrabiblical sources, sometimes combining Biblical passages with material outside of the Bible. Even where there's similar material in Justin and Tatian, we don't know what form that material existed in at the time of Justin. The fact that the material existed in the form of a gospel harmony produced by Tatian doesn't prove that it existed in the form of a gospel harmony earlier. We don't assume the existence of a gospel harmony whenever a source combines two or more passages of scripture or when a later source uses a similar combination in a gospel harmony. Justin's use of such material in his writings that aren't gospel harmonies is an example of how material of that nature can be used in other contexts. Your assumption that a gospel harmony was involved is unjustified. To take the further step of assuming that Justin must have considered every passage in that harmony scriptural, or must have considered Mark 16:9-20 scriptural while rejecting the scriptural status of other portions of the harmony, is even more unreasonable. You still haven't addressed what I said earlier about Justin's use of other extrabiblical sources. You dismissed his use of such sources because of the brevity of the material, but I explained why that dismissal is insufficient.
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ReplyDeleteCraig Allert notes, regarding a passage in Justin about Jesus' baptism:
"Justin's reading may come from the Gospel of the Ebionites, which was then used by Tatian - either directly or indirectly - when he compiled his Diatessaron, or Tatian and the Gospel of the Ebionites were both dependent on Justin's harmony." (A High View Of Scripture? [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007], pp. 117-118)
We don't know what Tatian's source was, and if he did use Justin, we don't assume that Justin therefore considered the Gospel of the Ebionites scripture.
You write:
"a person who said, 'Almost all manuscripts lack the passage,' and who intended for his sentence to refer to all MSS everywhere, would require knowledge about all MSS everywhere, which could only emanate from an extensive MS-census, as I said."
You're contradicting yourself. I've given examples of general assessments you've made in your own writings, and you haven't had knowledge of "all relevant evidence everywhere" when you've made those assessments. Another example is your claim about how the term "multiple" is commonly understood. Did you take a "census" or "inventory" or in some other manner ask every person who speaks English how he understands the term "multiple"? All of us make such general assessments in our everyday lives. We rely on such reasoning when reaching historical conclusions, as you've done in this thread. Why should we accept the reasoning behind your objection when you don't accept it yourself?
If somebody like Eusebius or Jerome traveled, communicated with people in other locations through letters, read the writings of people in other locations and other times, etc., he would form impressions of what was generally believed and how popular various views were on a particular subject. Such evaluations appear frequently in patristic writings and in human communication in general. If Eusebius reads a gospel harmony composed in Egypt, receives a letter from an associate in another location that addresses the text of Mark, visits a church somewhere else and sees their edition of the gospel or hears it being read, etc., he'll form impressions about the state of the manuscript record. I've given some examples of the qualifications that make Eusebius and Jerome's testimony on this subject significant. Their testimony isn't as significant as a census of the manuscripts would be, but it doesn't have to be. Similarly, if Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, or some other source makes a general assessment of how widespread a particular belief is or how widely a document has been distributed, for example, historians don't assume that he's only referring to the circumstances within his own city or dismiss what he's said because he didn't have something like a census to base his beliefs upon.
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ReplyDeleteIn one of your articles on Mark 16, you refer to Victor of Antioch's assessment of manuscripts he was aware of (in favor of Mark 16:9-20) as "strong testimony". Did you require that he conducted something like a census before reaching that conclusion?
Even a modern textual scholar only has access to a small portion of the manuscripts that have ever existed, and much of his knowledge of the extant documents comes from what other sources have said about those documents. Some of the manuscripts known to exist haven't been catalogued, exist only in a language the textual scholar doesn't know, or are known only by means of a summarizing description by some other source. Textual scholars make generalizations about the textual record without the sort of "exhaustive knowledge", "census" of "all manuscripts everywhere", etc. that you keep referring to with regard to Eusebius and Jerome. You yourself make general assessments of the textual record without having examined "all manuscripts everywhere". You extrapolate from the small percentage of manuscripts in church history that are extant, extrapolate from what other sources have said, rely on other sources to give you summaries of the data they've gathered, etc.
You write:
"You wrote, 'It would be ridiculous to conclude that Eusebius never acquired information on the ending of Mark outside of Caesarea' – But I am not making such a conclusion; that is a caricature. My conclusions are that Eusebius did not have anything near exhaustive knowledge of MSS throughout the Roman Empire, and that his answer to Marinus was based on his consultation of the MSS at Caesarea which he regarded as 'accurate.'"
He doesn't limit his comments to the copies he refers to as "accurate". Yet, earlier you said that he was discussing manuscripts in Caesarea, and you didn't qualify that assessment by saying that only some of his manuscripts were from that city. If you're now including that qualifier, then you've changed your argument. Either way, you still haven't justified limiting any of the categories Eusebius discusses to Caesarea.
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ReplyDeleteHere's what you said early in the discussion, in your post at 12:04 P.M. on January 5:
"Eusebius looks over his MSS at Caesarea and passes along the observation that almost all the MSS end at 16:8, especially the 'accurate' ones, i.e., the ones he esteemed the highest, which were probably the ones descended from copies used by Origen and/or Pamphilus."
You were claiming that Eusebius was only addressing Caesarean manuscripts, not just that the "accurate" ones were Caesarean. You still haven't justified that highly unlikely assumption.
You write:
"The idea that Eusebius to have made some an exceptionally thorough investigation of MS-evidence about the ending of Mark from all over the Roman Empire is essential to your case, but you are missing evidence that he ever made such an investigation."
The document in question is itself evidence. He comments on the manuscript record without an "at Caesarea" qualifier, and assuming such a qualifier wouldn't make sense, for reasons I've explained. And I've given some examples of activities and circumstances Eusebius was involved with that would have brought him into contact with knowledge of manuscripts in other locations and times.
You write:
"We don’t know enough about Ammonius’ Matthew-centered cross-referenced text to know if it contained material from Mk. 16:9-20 or not."
Here's what Eusebius wrote:
"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."
A phrase like "harmonized account of the four gospels" seems to make more sense if Ammonius attempted a harmony of the entirety of all of the gospels, not just the portions that say the same thing Matthew said. Nobody denies that the gospels have some material in common. Even an atheist will acknowledge that point. What would be more significant would be to bring everything together, including the parts that allegedly are different or contradictory. But even if Ammonius was only citing passages in other gospels that are similar to what Matthew said, there are some similarities between Matthew and Mark 16:9-20, such as the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:15). Eusebius would have seen whether Ammonius cited such material.
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ReplyDeleteAnd, as I said before, Eusebius consulted many works of past generations and was in frequent communication with Christians of other locations in his day. He often discusses issues of gospel harmonization, including when commenting upon sources of past generations. He probably would have come into contact with other information relevant to the ending of Mark, not just sources like Marinus and Ammonius, for whom we have more direct evidence. As I noted earlier, Eusebius refers to his work on gospel harmonies in his letter to Marinus, and he comments that he's addressing questions about the ends of the gospels that "everyone" has been asking. It seems that Eusebius had researched issues pertaining to the conclusions of the four gospels and had some familiarity with the issues that were generally being discussed in that context. He wasn't just acquiring information on the subject occasionally as somebody like Marinus would happen to bring it up. Rather, he was interested in the subject and was researching it in the process of working on another gospel harmony.
You write:
"And as for Eusebius’ Bible-production, which copies would Eusebius use as exemplars at Caesarea, if not the ones he considered accurate? So we have in the one case an unknown quantity, and in the other case, another instance of Eusebius’ reliance on his favorite copies at Caesarea."
You keep assuming something you haven't demonstrated. Why should we think that Eusebius only consulted Caesarean sources? If you're going to produce Bibles for the emperor, with all of the resources he would provide, why would you limit yourself to Caesarean material? Do modern Bible producers limit themselves to the translations they grew up with or translations used by people they admire, for example, even if a publisher provides them with resources to put together a more accurate version? Did Jerome, when producing the Vulgate, limit himself to the manuscripts of the city he lived in at the time or the city of some historical figure he admired? Since Origen and Pamphilus also spent time in locations other than Caesarea, and other men Eusebius admired lived outside of Caesarea, why didn't he use the manuscripts in those places?
The emperor asked Eusebius to provide the Bibles for churches outside of Caesarea, and he committed to Eusebius the resources for "all things necessary for the preparation of such copies" (Eusebius, Life Of Constantine, 4:36). Even if Eusebius had put together the Bibles only from Caesarean manuscripts, he would have been in contact with the emperor, the churches that received the Bibles outside of Caesarea, and other sources involved during the process of producing the Bibles and afterward. The same can be said of his gospel harmonies. Even if he composed them without consulting any sources outside of his own city, he would have come into contact with outside sources once the gospel harmonies began circulating outside of Caesarea. To keep assuming that he never discussed such issues with sources outside his city, unless he tells us so directly in one of his extant writings, doesn't make sense.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"No one expected Eusebius to have knowledge of all MSS everywhere, but his access to MSS descended from MSS used by Origen and Pamphilus lent his assessments a high authority."
There's a large gray area between "knowledge of all MSS everywhere" and "MSS descended from MSS used by Origen and Pamphilus".
And your reference to what "no one expected" was addressed in my 8:15 P.M. post on January 7. You keep ignoring the examples I cited of ancient sources making general assessments about the textual record and commenting on manuscripts outside of their own city. You haven't given us any reason to conclude that people would expect Eusebius to only be aware of manuscripts within Caesarea. Marinus was writing to Eusebius from outside Caesarea. His own letter was an example of how Eusebius could have knowledge about manuscripts outside that city. Marinus wouldn't have been expecting Eusebius to only know about Caesarean manuscripts. And an appeal to the manuscripts of that one city would be a highly insufficient way of addressing Mark 16. Yet, Eusebius presents his manuscript argument as an acceptable option for Christians in general, not just Christians who for some reason believe that Caesrea's textual record alone can settle the issue.
You write:
"I again ask you (and I hope for a non-evasive answer!), how could everyone in the early 300’s be asking a question about Mk. 16:9 if it was in only a few MSS?"
Eusebius uses the plural, "the questions that are always being raised by everyone at the end of the same texts" (p. 84). He's referring to questions about the endings of the gospels in general. But even as far as Mark 16:9-20 in particular is concerned, the term "a few", which you keep using, isn't used by Eusebius. He refers to a small portion of the manuscripts, but a small percentage of a large number would constitute more than "a few" in number. We have to distinguish between small numbers and small percentages. Five percent of the world's population today is a small percentage, for example, but it constitutes hundreds of millions of people.
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ReplyDeleteThe ending of Mark would receive attention not only through manuscripts containing a longer ending, but also through the abruptness of the ending at 16:8, through discussions of alternate endings by people who had access to one or more, through gospel harmonies, etc. If Mark 16:9-20 originally circulated as a separate text, as is widely believed, and was part of early Christian testimony collections (perhaps one of the ones used by Justin Martyr, for example), then it would have circulated in more forms than just manuscripts of Mark's gospel. At a minimum, it would have circulated in some gospel harmonies and would have been known through references to it by sources like Irenaeus. If Eusebius had never seen a manuscript with that ending, he could have found out about it by means of his exchange with Marinus, by reading Irenaeus, etc. There are many ways for people to become aware of different endings of Mark without possessing manuscripts with those endings.
You write:
"Your choice of words could mislead an uninformed reader; in real life, 'one of the multiple false endings' is Mark 16:9-20, attested as Scripture by leaders of the church from the second century onward and used as Scripture throughout Christendom. And in real life, 'sometimes' is about 20 out of 1,560, and several of those 20 are in a closely related group."
Kelhoffer discusses some of the factors that produced the manuscript record you're referring to (pp. 105-108). You arrive at phrases like "throughout Christendom" and the number 1560 primarily through sources from generations living after Eusebius. Similarly, John 7:53-8:11 and the Johannine Comma in 1 John 5 are now in a much higher percentage of Bibles than they used to be. And many of the people, like me, who produce or use such Bibles and use such material within them don't consider those passages scripture. The popularity of those passages in recent centuries doesn't tell us much about their early history. The evidence for Mark 16:9-20 is better than the evidence for those other two passages, but the principles I just mentioned still apply.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"I am confident that in the course of time as you continue to study patristic writings you will allow the evidence to convince you that Eusebius had a special regard for the MSS at Caesarea, particularly those used by, or descended from exemplars used by, Origen and Pamphilus."
I don't deny that Eusebius highly regarded those men, nor do I deny that his regard for them would have extended to their textual associations. But those two men didn't just live in Caesarea, and he also highly regarded other men. And a belief that Caesarea's manuscripts represent the most accurate text wouldn't exclude the accuracy of texts elsewhere. A high view of Caesarea's manuscripts on Eusebius' part doesn't get us to the conclusion that Eusebius was referring only to Caesarean manuscripts in his letter to Marinus.
You write:
"It is unwarranted, however, to assume that a writer who builds on one foundation, without demolishing the unfavored one, declares them both to be equally sound. Rather, by choosing between two paths, he leads by example."
As I said before, I don't know what Jerome thought of the scriptural status of Mark 16:9-20. But I cite his comments for what he observes about the Greek manuscripts, not what he thought about the significance of his observation.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"And, in addition, one may consider Eusebius’ expression of admiration for Pamphilus in Eccl. Hist. 6:11; he states that Pamphilus 'excelled all in our time in most sincere devotion to the divine Scriptures,' and in a few sentences preserved by Jerome in Book I of Against Rufinus, he describes work of Pamphilus: 'He would not only lend them copies of the Holy Scriptures to read, but would give them most readily, and not only to men but also to women, if he saw that they were given to reading. He therefore kept a store of manuscripts, so that he might be able to give them to those who wished for them whenever occasion demanded.' And this collection of MSS was inherited, so to speak, by Eusebius as Pamphilus’ student and successor."
The first passage you've cited is from The Martyrs Of Palestine, sometimes included in book 8 of Eusebius' Church HIstory, not book 6. And it's a passage about Pamphilus' devotion to scripture. How are you getting from a high view of Pamphilus' devotion to scripture to the conclusion that Eusebius would limit himself to Caesarean manuscripts?
The second passage you've cited is one in which Jerome is arguing that "Pamphilus never wrote a single book" (Against Rufinus, 1:9). He goes on to quote Eusebius' description of the work Pamphilus did instead of writing books. Eusebius, quoted by Jerome, does refer to how Pamphilus gave away copies of scripture. But just before what you quoted, he also refers to how Pamphilus was a friend of "lovers of books" in general. In other words, the "manuscripts" he refers to seem to include books in general. Scripture would be included, but so would other literature. How does a passage in which Eusebius refers to Pamphilus' lack of writing, and emphasizes his giving away of books instead, lead us to your conclusion about how Eusebius viewed Caesarean manuscripts? Eusebius can admire Pamphilus for his devotion to scripture and his giving away of copies of scripture (and other books) without an implication that he (Eusebius) would view the Caesarean manuscript record in the manner you've suggested. All that you're doing is citing passages in which Eusebius commends Pamphilus for something related to scripture, then you're expecting us to reach your specific conclusions on the basis of such vague comments.
You write:
"No; none of the generalizations that you provided were what we see in 'Ad Marinum,' that is, a series of different generalizations that describe the same thing."
The sources I cited earlier don't have to resemble Eusebius in the way you're describing in order to be relevant. You've claimed that nobody would expect a general assessment of the manuscript record from somebody like Eusebius. The general assessments I've cited from other sources don't have to be identical to Eusebius' comments in the way you're referring to in order to constitute the sort of general assessment you claimed people wouldn't be expecting. Claiming that Eusebius' assessments are "different" doesn't change the fact that other sources of the patristic era often made such general assessments. The evidence suggests Eusebius was doing the same.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"Easy: he was not concerned with the details of the case because he saw that Marinus already used Mk. 16:9 and would retain it. He is not particular about the details (except when mentioning the actual grounds for his own view, namely, the 'accurate copies') for the same reason that a guide is not particular about describing to a traveler the path that will not be taken."
If you're going to argue that Eusebius refrained from mentioning details he knew about concerning the textual record in Caesarea, because he didn't expect Marinus to have much interest in those details, then the same reasoning could be applied to explain why he didn't mention more details concerning the textual record in general. The lack of detail in Eusebius' comments isn't a significant objection to my position. Other patristic sources have a similar lack of detail in their general assessments, and, as I've documented, you sometimes make general assessments without going into much detail.
You write:
"Eusebius thus gives Marinus three ways that the quantities involved in the MSS-evidence could be described: (a) the passage does not appear in all the copies, (b) the passage is absent from nearly all the copies, and (c) the passage is in some copies but not all."
And none of those descriptions are inconsistent. It's doubtful that he was contradicting himself within a few sentences. It's more likely that he was appealing to minimal facts that would be conceded, which is a common from of argumentation. (For example, a scholar who believes in the inerrancy of scripture and many lines of evidence for Jesus' resurrection may at times limit himself to some minimal facts that are commonly acknowledged or give that common ground more emphasis than the other relevant facts.) Eusebius, when discussing how often Mark 16:9-20 appears in the manuscripts, uses the phrases "seldom" and "not in all" within the same sentence. As unlikely as it is that he would contradict himself within a few sentences, it's even more unlikely that he did it within that one sentence. Rather, he seems to be using understatement at some points in order to emphasize the minimum that would have to be conceded. An alternative reading that has Eusebius repeatedly contradicting himself, including within a single sentence, is less likely. And if we take him to be referring only to Caesarean manuscripts, as you originally argued, then such a series of contradictions would be even more difficult to explain.
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ReplyDeleteBut even if we assumed that Eusebius was being inconsistent, that inconsistency would weaken his testimony regarding he manuscript record in general, not eliminate it. It's unlikely that he would include references to a large majority of manuscripts not having Mark 16:9-20, even unlikely that he would include those references inconsistently, if the number of such manuscripts was actually far from being a majority. For reasons I've explained, Eusebius was in a good position to make a general assessment of the manuscript record. Even if he wasn't confident about his conclusion, his conclusion would still carry some significant weight.
You write:
"Now about Jerome: it’s obvious that Jerome, writing in Latin and condensing and editing as he goes, does not use the same wording in Eusebius’ Greek composition. But that’s merely an effect of Jerome’s function as translator/editor. Quite similarly, some commentators dependent upon Metzger have shortened his comments. That does not mean that they have actually looked into the issue, and if we were to notice that their abbreviated statement about the MSS was part of a huge abridgement of several pages of Metzger’s Textual Commentary, we would realize that we were reading an abridged paraphrase, not an independent composition. And that is what we should do with the entire section of 'Ad Hedibiam' that is a distorted echo of 'Ad Marinum.'"
We have good reason to think that Jerome "looked into the issue". See the examples I cited in my 5:37 P.M. and 5:44 P.M. posts on January 12. I also gave other examples earlier.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"I’m not sure why you said that I was contradicting myself; the two statements that you regarded as contradictory – (a) Eusebius’ reference to the accurate copies is a reference to cherished copies at Caesarea, and (b) Eusebius’ generalizations about MS-quantities are surmises based on the MSS at Caesarea – are not contradictory."
Apparently, you've changed your argument. Earlier, you claimed that Eusebius was discussing Caesarean manuscripts throughout the passage. But now you seem to be arguing that he's discussing Caesarean manuscripts during part of the passage, but is generalizing on the basis of those manuscripts elsewhere in the passage. Below are some examples of your earlier comments in the thread, in which you referred to Eusebius as addressing manuscripts in Caesarea throughout the passage. After you made those comments, I explained how I was understanding you, and I replied accordingly. You didn't tell me I was misunderstanding you on that point. Rather, you continued to argue with me as if I was understanding you correctly. Here are some examples of what you wrote:
"The cited testimonies of Severus and Jerome, in this case, owe their existence to the testimony of Eusebius – whose testimony should considered with the understanding that he was describing MSS at Caesarea."
And:
"You asked, 'How would the comments of Eusebius make sense if he was only addressing a local situation?' They make perfectly good sense: in reply to the question from Marinus (who seems to have no doubt about the legitimacy of Mk. 16:9), Eusebius looks over his MSS at Caesarea and passes along the observation that almost all the MSS end at 16:8, especially the 'accurate' ones, i.e., the ones he esteemed the highest, which were probably the ones descended from copies used by Origen and/or Pamphilus. Do you really think that Eusebius, or anybody at all a couple of decades after the Diocletian persecution, had the means to make an assessment about the contents of all the copies of Mark throughout the Roman Empire?"
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ReplyDeleteAnd:
"Eusebius worked mainly at Caesarea and cherished the library there. What other MSS in what other place do you have any evidence that he used?"
And:
"Regarding Eusebius: Eusebius doesn’t mention any 'at Caesarea' qualification because it would be redundant. Just ask yourself what MSS Eusebius’ contemporaries would expect him to be commenting about. The expectation that Eusebius would comment on all MSS everywhere, or that he would be expected to do so, is somewhat anachronistic....Meanwhile, it is entirely logical to see Eusebius of Caesarea's statements as statements about MSS at Caesarea. Nobody at the time would expect anybody to be able to make a statement about the contents of all MSS everywhere."
Yet, now you act as though my documentation of other patristic sources making general assessments of the textual record isn't problematic for your position. You aren't being consistent.
You write:
"Back to Jerome: you said that I’m still not quoting what Jerome said; however, I have provided the relevant text in Latin and in English! You can dig up the text in PL 23, c. 491ff."
No, you didn't provide the relevant text in English. I told you what I wanted to know about the passage, and you kept ignoring what I requested. As I told you earlier, I have access to some English quotations from the passage. But those quotations don't provide the context I requested from you. I doubt you'd be avoiding the issues I asked you about if your information on the passage was sufficient to demonstrate your argument.
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ReplyDeleteYou write:
"The subject at hand is not the treatment of the passage in the NLT or ESV or NASB or TNIV; it’s the treatment of the passage by Jerome in the Vulgate, where it receives the same treatment as the rest of the text of Mark, and where its components are given their own section-numbers."
I have a New King James version that includes the passage without distinguishing it from the rest of Mark. I don't conclude that the people who produced that Bible or have used it believe in the scriptural status of Mark 16:9-20. When an audio Bible I listen to doesn't end at verse 8 or doesn't include a qualifying comment after that verse, but instead goes on to include verses 9-20 without qualification, I don't conclude that the people who produced that audio Bible or have used it believe in the scriptural status of the passage.
You write:
"It would be ridiculous to deny this."
Then why does James Kelhoffer, who probably knows more about the history of Mark 16 than you do, think that the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 in the Vulgate "says nothing about Jerome’s own view of the Longer Ending" (n. 87 on p. 100)? The Vulgate was a result of a combination between Jerome's views and the views of his supporters and other audiences. He accommodated other people to some extent. If he was undecided on the ending of Mark, or even if he opposed 16:9-20, he could include it in order to accommodate his audience.
You write:
"as Jerome describes MSS that he has seen with his own eyes, he says, 'I found that the copies were so discordant,' and so forth; this is an altogether different species of statement from Eusebius’ statement that 'a person could say' this or that."
You reject both of their assessments of the manuscript record, even though you're distinguishing between them at this point.
But your distinction is misleading. Eusebius' qualification about what "a person could say" is about which approach to take toward the ending of Mark, not whether the manuscript record is as he's describing it.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteDespite your apparent reluctance, I’m confident that you can answer the question about how many independent endings after Mark 16:9-20 appear in our extant witnesses. Even if you don’t express your answer here, I believe that the answer has occurred to you.
Regarding Justin’s Synoptics-Harmony, I (again) refer you to Petersen’s 1990 essay and to Bellinzoni’s book. It is true that the presence of a passage in the Diatessaron does not *prove* that it existed in Justin’s Synoptics-Harmony, but when we consider that Justin served as Tatian’s teacher for a while, and when we notice that Justin’s Synoptics-Harmony and the Diatessaron share several special or exclusive features, a connection between the two cannot be realistically denied. Also, the objection that Justin would not necessarily have considered everything in the Synoptics-Harmony as Scripture is cancelled by the observation that Justin does not explicitly enunciate his views on the canonicity or non-canonicity of any of the component-parts of the Synoptics-Harmony; the objection is thus based on speculation.
Plus, your attempt to equate Justin’s use of brief phrases with his use of a 12-verse pericope (which is obviously implied via his use of 16:20 and, probably, 16:14 in another part of First Apology) was not valid; I declined to dismantle it in the interest of brevity, because its invalidity is so obvious. You’ve said, “We don’t know what Tatian’s source was.” Thus you acknowledge that your objection is based on speculation.
You made some comments about generalizations and the term “multiple.” It looks like we’re going to have to agree to disagree about how misleading it is to describe two endings as “multiple” endings. Which is sad, to me. Perhaps you agree, at least, that the following two sentences would be extremely likely to mislead readers, if they appeared in a Bible translation as a note before the Shorter Ending and Mk. 16:9-20: “Some manuscripts include various endings to the Gospel. Two of the most noteworthy endings are printed here.” In your opinion, is that footnote accurately worded?
I’m going to skip most of your speculation-based objections, such as the paragraph stating that if Eusebius traveled, communicated, read, and so forth, that he would do this or that. We can imagine a world of could’ves and would’ves. Meanwhile I’ve provided real-world observations to support the premise that Eusebius specially valued the MSS at Caesarea which he received from Pamphilus, and that those MSS are the “accurate copies” to which he refers in “Ad Marinum.”
You asked, referring to Victor of Antioch, “Did you require that he conducted something like a census before reaching that conclusion?” Actually, yes, something like that: his comments show that he conducted considerable research before deciding that Eusebius’ claim was not sufficiently strong. Like all patristic statements, Victor’s must be taken with an awareness of its historical context and of the author’s limitations, but with such qualifications in place, it is clear that he made a thorough review of the MSS available to him.
Regarding what you said about modern scholars’ limited access to the extant witnesses: that is not a valid comparison to the situation of Eusebius in the early 300’s. On the one hand, the typical Christian bishop in the 300’s would have access to a greater number of copies of the Gospels made in the 300’s than the typical Christian scholar has access to today; on the other hand, the typical Christian scholar today has access to a far greater range of copies from more locations than any Christian bishop had in the 300’s.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post)
When I wrote, “My conclusions are that Eusebius did not have anything near exhaustive knowledge of MSS throughout the Roman Empire, and that his answer to Marinus was based on his consultation of the MSS at Caesarea which he regarded as ‘accurate,’" you replied, “He doesn’t limit his comments to the copies he refers to as “accurate”.” He frames the quantity-related comments in tentative terms, as things that a person could say, as I have already explained. Do you not see the significance of the optative mood there? The tentativeness of Eusebius’ expression reflects the nature of the claim(s).
You wrote (about my post at 12:04 p.m. on Jan. 5), “You were claiming that Eusebius was only addressing Caesarean manuscripts, not just that the "accurate" ones were Caesarean. You still haven't justified that highly unlikely assumption.” The point that MSS considered accurate by Eusebius were stored at Caesarea is explained elsewhere in my posts.
When I objected that we have no evidence that Eusebius made some an exceptionally thorough investigation of MS-evidence about the ending of Mark from all over the Roman Empire, you replied, “The document in question is itself evidence.” In respect to Eusebius’ knowledge of the “accurate copies,” yes, but in his statements about the quantities of MSS, no, because (as I explained already, and will not go on explaining forever) he posed those statements tentatively, as things that one might say if one rejected the passage. And he proceeds to say that one might say that the passage creates a contradiction, but then he proceeds to show how that alleged contradiction can be resolved; this also shows the tentative nature of the one-could-say statements.
Regarding the harmony of Ammonius: frankly I don’t think you know much about this. I will skip your amusing speculations, except to grant that it is possible, even probable, that Eusebius would have seen whether Ammonius cited Mk. 16:9-20, or at least portions of it. However, we don’t know what he saw.
I will also ignore the testimony of Mr. Would’ve and Mrs. Could’ve about Eusebius’ consultation of many works of past generations about the end of Mark (since Eusebius is the very first patristic writer to mention the abrupt ending at 16:8), and about the things that his fellow Christians told him about the end of Mark in their copies of Mark (since no such things are extant), and so forth. That is all s-p-e-c-u-l-a-t-i-o-n.
You asked, “Why should we think that Eusebius only consulted Caesarean sources?” We do not think that; Eusebius did not use the MSS at Caesarea exclusively, but mainly, and he attributed decisive authority to them by considering them “accurate copies.”
You asked, “If you’re going to produce Bibles for the emperor, with all of the resources he would provide, why would you limit yourself to Caesarean material?” For a few simple reasons: (1) you want to make the best possible product, so you use the best available exemplars, which, from Eusebius’ point of view, were the copies from Pamphilus. (2) You want the codices you produce to be uniform, and therefore the exemplars must be uniform, which they would not be if they came from different locales. (3) You are in a hurry, having been instructed by the Emperor to get the job done without delay.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post)
You claimed that if Eusebius, in the process of producing Constantine’s 50 Bibles, had used only the copies at Caesarea as exemplars, “he would have been in contact with the emperor, the churches that received the Bibles outside of Caesarea, and other sources involved during the process of producing the Bibles and afterward.” There’s Mr. Would’ve again! That speculation is without merit. Aside from ordering and financing the project, and arranging for the transportation of the codices to Constantinople, Constantine was not involved in the production of the 50 codices. Nor is there evidence that the churches of Constantinople were involved directly in the codices’ production; had they already possessed enough MSS there would have been no need for Eusebius to produce any for them.
Also, you wrote that even if Eusebius composed his gospel harmonies (did you mean his Canons, or his compositions on the harmony of the Gospels?) “without consulting any sources outside of his own city, he would have come into contact with outside sources once the gospel harmonies began circulating outside of Caesarea.” There’s Mr. Would’ve again. I don’t see how this speculation of yours applies or could apply to the question at hand.
Moving along: you said that I haven’t given you any reason to conclude that people would expect Eusebius to only be aware of MSS within Caesarea. It is not a matter of awareness, but of preference. Clearly as we have both said, Marinus’ mention of Mk. 16:9 requires that Eusebius be aware of at least one MS (known to Marinus) from outside Caesarea. Eusebius’ knowledge of Irenaeus’ Book III of Against Heresies (in which Irenaeus identifies part of Mk. 16:19 as part of the ending of Mark’s gospel-account) also provided some knowledge about the passage. But, if you want evidence that Eusebius did not thoroughly survey the MSS of his time outside Caesarea regarding the end of Mark, just notice that he makes no mention of the Shorter Ending. And, in his harmonization-questions, he does not address the Alexandrian form of Mt. 27:49, even though it was extant in his time. His unfamiliarity with a text-type that was represented fairly nearby, in Egypt, tells you that the scope of his knowledge was narrow.
You wrote, “Marinus wouldn’t have been expecting Eusebius to only know about Caesarean manuscripts.” There’s Mr. Would’ve again! Such claims about Marinus’ expectations are speculative; one can just as easily claim that Marinus expected Eusebius to use the cherished exemplars that had been handed down to him.
When I asked how everyone in the early 300’s be asking a question about Mk. 16:9 if it was in only a few MSS, you answered that Eusebius uses the plural to refer to “questions about the endings of the gospels in general.” Here’s the direct quote, using Kelhoffer’s translation: “I am now, skipping over the middle parts, proceeding next to the questions that are always being raised by everyone at the end of the same texts. [I do so] without much delay since the will of God spurs us on to this through your commands, Marinus, my most honored and most industrious son. You asked first,” – and the first question is about how to harmonize Mt. 28:1 and Mk. 16:9. (Notice, too, that Eusebius plainly states that he is answering Marinus’ questions spontaneously, that is, “without delay,” a point which burdens the speculation that Eusebius’ answers reflect extensive research.) There is really no way around the plain impression that Eusebius stated that everyone was asking about how to harmonize Mt. 28:1 and Mk. 16:9. There must be an inaccurate generalization either in his description of the quantity of people who asked this question, or in his description of MSS that lacked the passage, or both.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post)
You wrote that Eusebius does not use the term “a few” to refer to MSS. The meaning of Eusebius’ statements-that-one-could-say cannot be missed, no matter how you slice them, and in one of those statements - “The things that appear next seldom appear, in some copies but not in all” - the description is congruent to “a few.”
You also wrote that Eusebius “refers to a small portion of the manuscripts, but a small percentage of a large number would constitute more than “a few” in number.” That is true, but it does not affect the argument. Plus, even more obvious is the point that the statements (a) Mk. 16:9-20 “does not appear in all the copies of the Gospel according to Mark,” and (b) “nearly all the copies” end at 16:8, and (c) Mk. 16:9-20 appears “in some but not in all,” do not picture equal ratios of attestation. That is because they are tentatively proposed.
Your paragraph that begins, “The ending of Mark would receive attention not only through manuscripts containing a longer ending, but also through the abruptness of the ending at 16:8,” is an exercise in speculation, overpopulated by the If and Would’ve families and their cousins. The evidence does not support your claims.
When I mentioned that Mark 16:9-20 has been used as Scripture throughout Christendom, and that it is attested by 1,560 Greek MSS, you wrote, “You arrive at phrases like “throughout Christendom” and the number 1560 primarily through sources from generations living after Eusebius.” We both found out about Eusebius from sources living after Eusebius, too, but that does not invalidate any of our statements.
About Jerome, you wrote, “I don’t know what Jerome thought of the scriptural status of Mark 16:9-20. But I cite his comments for what he observes about the Greek manuscripts, not what he thought about the significance of his observation.” Jerome included Mk. 16:9-20 in the text of Mark in the Vulgate, a text that he compiled by conforming the Latin text to old Greek MSS (that is, MSS which Jerome considered old in 383). Plus, we should not consider the statement in “Ad Hedibiam” about the Greek MSS to be a result of “his observation,” because it is one small bit of a paraphrased and condensed extract from “Ad Marinum;” it is Jerome’s preservation of part of Eusebius’ composition; it is not Jerome’s own independent observation.
You asked, regarding the quotation from The Martyrs of Palestine (which you rightly identified; I speedily gave an incorrect reference), “How are you getting from a high view of Pamphilus’ devotion to scripture to the conclusion that Eusebius would limit himself to Caesarean manuscripts?” Again, it is not a matter of complete limitation but of preference. And how are you not getting there? Everything about the relationship between Pamphilus and Eusebius as teacher and student, and as co-workers in the production of OT exemplars at Caesarea, supports the conclusion that Eusebius specially cherished the copies at Caesarea inherited from Pamphilus.
You stated, regarding the second description of Pamphilus I mentioned, that Jerome claims that Pamphilus never wrote a single book, and that Pamphilus was a friend of book-lovers. Agreed. But then you seemed to draw from that, or rather, from thin air, the idea that because Pamphilus was a friend of “lovers of books” in general, and that his books were books in general, not Bibles. Now, of course Pamphilus owned books besides the Bible; Eusebius says this. But did you not notice the explicit reference to /copies of Scripture/? Did you not notice the colophons I mentioned?
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post)
You asked, “How does a passage in which Eusebius refers to Pamphilus’ lack of writing, and emphasizes his giving away of books instead, lead us to your conclusion about how Eusebius viewed Caesarean manuscripts?” Are you reading what I’m reading? Pamphilus is not known to have composed his own compositions, but that is not the same as copying and editing other authors’ works, including copies of the Scriptures. The colophons show that Pamphilus oversaw the production of MSS of Scripture; Eusebius identifies the location of the collection of these MSS: Caesarea. Yet you seem to imagine that Eusebius, after being trained by Pamphilus, and after assisting Pamphilus, and after praising Pamphilus’ learning and piety as the best of all, inherited Pamphilus’ collection of MSS and considering the copies of books of the Bible among them to be no better than any other group of MSS. Isn’t it about time that you acknowledge this point?
You wrote, “Claiming that Eusebius’ assessments are “different” doesn't change the fact that other sources of the patristic era often made such general assessments.” I have not merely claimed that Eusebius’ statements are different from other writers’ generalizations; I have shown the difference. If you disagree, and think that statements resembling Eusebius’ comments about statements-that-one-could-say are commonplace, then please present a general assessment by any patristic writer (other than one using Eusebius’ material) who, arguing for the inclusion or exclusion of any variant-reading, says that one could say that the disputed words are not in all MSS, or that almost all copies do not contain them, or that they appear in some copies but not in all.
You wrote, “The lack of detail in Eusebius’ comments isn’t a significant objection to my position.” Well, I’m glad to see you acknowledge the lack of detail in Eusebius’ comments. And this lack of detail weakens your theory that Eusebius’ comments are the result of a thorough investigation of MS-evidence about the ending of Mark from all over the Roman Empire; you must picture Eusebius as a rather strange fellow: first, instead of informing Marinus that he (i.e., Eusebius) is reporting on the basis of extensive research, Eusebius prefaces his remarks by saying that he is writing without delay, and, despite having this supposed store of knowledge showing that almost nobody has Mk. 16:9-20 in their MSS, Eusebius tells Marinus that “everyone” is asking four questions, one of which is about Mk. 16:9. And, Eusebius proceeds to not only tolerate the use of Mk. 16:9-20 as Scripture but to assist Marinus by harmonizing Mk. 16:9 to Mt. 28:1!
Regarding the different ratios of attestation in the different descriptions of the MS-evidence provided by Eusebius, you wrote, “Even if we assumed that Eusebius was being inconsistent, that inconsistency would weaken his testimony regarding the manuscript record in general, not eliminate it.” I agree, somewhat: his testimony still stands as evidence that MSS at Caesarea which he considered the “accurate copies” did not contain Mk. 16:9-20.
You wrote, “It's unlikely that he would include references to a large majority of manuscripts not having Mark 16:9-20, even unlikely that he would include those references inconsistently, if the number of such manuscripts was actually far from being a majority.” But he frames each of the descriptions of MS-quantities as things that one could say, not as a thing that he says. The distinction is important, for it allowed the reader, if he considered rejecting Mk. 16:9-20, to adopt whichever statement seemed to best conform to the evidence which the reader knew or knew about – including, as of the reading of “Ad Marinum,” the “accurate copies” mentioned by Eusebius.
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post)
You wrote, “Even if he wasn’t confident about his conclusion, his conclusion would still carry some significant weight.” I agree; although he does not really draw a firm and uncompromising conclusion about what should be done with Mk. 16:9-20, his statement about the absence of Mk. 16:9-20 in the “accurate copies” would be influential, and this is proven by how his comments have been borrowed by other writers.
Regarding my statement, “The cited testimonies of Severus and Jerome, in this case, owe their existence to the testimony of Eusebius – whose testimony should be considered with the understanding that he was describing MSS at Caesarea”: if that is not clear or appears different from other statements, add the words “when he referred to “accurate copies”” after “understanding that” and before “he was describing.”
You wrote, “Now you act as though my documentation of other patristic sources making general assessments of the textual record isn't problematic for your position.” That's brcause you have not documented any patristic writer (who is not parroting Eusebius) describing first-hand evidence by saying that a person could say (a) the passage is not in all the MSS, or (b) almost all MSS do not contain it, or (c) it is in some MSS but not in all of them. Those aren’t one generalization; those are three possibilities, describing three ratios, and no one able to offer one accurate description of all the MS-evidence would settle for offering three possibly accurate descriptions.
Regarding Jerome’s use of Mk. 16:14 in Against the Pelagians 2:14 as the means of describing where he had found the Freer Logion in some exemplars, especially in certain Greek codices, you wrote that I didn’t provide the relevant text in English. Just backtrack a bit, searching for “Pelagians,” and you will find my presentation, which I repeat: “As Jerome gives examples of the shortcomings of highly respected Christians, he says that “in some exemplars and especially in Greek codices of Mark in the end of his Gospel,” there is a passage that shows the shortcomings of the disciples themselves. He proceeds to quote Mk. 16:14, and then the first half of the interpolation known as the Freer Logion. An English translation of the Freer Logion can be found in Metzger’s TCotGNT in his comments on Mk. 16:9-20 (on p. 124 in the edition I have).” It’s not a lengthy passage, and there isn’t much context to consider because Jerome jumps from one proof-text to another pretty abruptly. But you can see (in Migne’s PL, Vol. 23, colum 576), at least, that the prefatory formula here is, “Ex aliis in Evangelio historiis” – “From another story in the Gospels.”
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Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Jason,
ReplyDelete(continued from the previous post.)
You wrote, “I doubt you’d be avoiding the issues I asked you about if your information on the passage was sufficient to demonstrate your argument.” I hesitate to provide an English translation because I suspect that no matter how carefully it was done, you might say that the translation was tinted. Let some outsider translate it for you, taking care to notice the material at the foot of the column. (You can get pretty far, but not as far as a full translation will take you, by consulting the commentaries on Mark by Alfred Plummer and by Swete.)
You wrote, “I have a New King James version that includes the passage without distinguishing it from the rest of Mark. I don’t conclude that the people who produced that Bible or have used it believe in the scriptural status of Mark 16:9-20.” You don’t conclude that people who fully include Mark 16:9-20 in Scripture believe that it is Scripture???
I don’t mean to pursue this tangent too far, since my question was meant rhetorically; Jerome’s full inclusion of Mk. 16:9-20 in the Vulgate is as full an expression of acceptance of the passage as any translator could be expected to express, short of an explicit declaration. But your statement may raise a question of integrity among Bible-producers.
You asked, “Why does James Kelhoffer, who probably knows more about the history of Mark 16 than you do, think that the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 in the Vulgate “says nothing about Jerome’s own view of the Longer Ending”?” I cannot read Kelhoffer’s mind, but I suspect that if he could adjust that statement that appears in his dissertation, he probably would. Jerome shows no sign of having been under external pressure of any kind to adopt any particular variants in the Gospels, and as he states in the preface, he was not intimidated by the prospect of criticisms of his work. Dissatisfaction with Jerome’s inclusion of the passage in the Vulgate, as if it is insufficient testimony to his acceptance of the passage, amounts to special pleading; it's as if Jerome has kicked the football through the uprights, but because he did not kick the football out of the stadium, no points are awarded.
You wrote, “The Vulgate was a result of a combination between Jerome's views and the views of his supporters and other audiences.” That’s certainly not what Jerome said about the Vulgate Gospels. Just re-read his Preface, and consult his Letter #27, to Marcella.
And you wrote, “If he was undecided on the ending of Mark, or even if he opposed 16:9-20, he could include it in order to accommodate his audience.” If, if if! Are you referring to the same audience that, per your interpretation of the statement in “Ad Hedibiam” as an observation by Jerome, is supposed to have had almost all its Greek copies lack Mark 16:9-20??
And, finally, you wrote, “Eusebius’ qualification about what “a person could say” is about which approach to take toward the ending of Mark, not whether the manuscript record is as he's describing it.” Incorrect; he resorts to this phrase for both purposes. Again quoting Kelhoffer’s rendering, Eusebius brackets the statements about the contents of the MSS at the beginning -- “The one who rejects the passage itself, [namely] the pericope which says this, might say” – and at the end – “This then [is what] someone might say to avoid and completely do away with a superfluous question.”
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.