Bernard Muller's 'case'

[MrMacSon]

Huon, in another thread, flags an interesting older book by Bart Ehrman -

Bart D. Ehrman wrote a book entitled

• THE ORTHODOX CORRUPTION OF SCRIPTURE: the effect of early Christological controversies on the text of the NT
  New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

In this book, as a whole, Ehrman sets as his goal to determine which passages of the NT are likely to be "the orthodox corruptions of the Scripture",
ie. added by the later orthodox editors in order to counter various beliefs that they charged were "later heresies".
And he finds quite a few of these. Many such corruptions are to be found in the NT, or so it seems.

Quite a wide variety of Adoptionist Christians are attested in the early Christian times from various sources. Among them were both the Jewish-Christian groups such as the Ebionites, and the Gentile Christians, such as the followers of the "heretical teacher" Theodotus who was active in Rome at the end of the second century. So the Adoptionists' beliefs were clearly far from uniform.

The belief that Jesus was God already in his lifetime was still questioned even as late as in the fourth century. Indeed, Emperor Julian, writing ca. 361-3 CE, still claimed that:

(_The Apostate_, ix. 326)
At any rate neither Paul nor Matthew nor Luke nor Mark ventured to call Jesus God. But the worthy John, since he perceived that a great number of people in many of the towns of Greece and Italy had already been infected by this disease, and because he heard, I suppose, that even the tombs of Peter and Paul were being worshipped - secretly, it is true, but still he did hear this, - he, I say, was the first to venture to call Jesus God. And after he had spoken briefly about John the Baptist he referred again to the Word which he was proclaiming, and said, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."

[MrMacSon]

Steven Avery makes the point -

... And the simple fact that the localized papyri are transmitted through the sieve of heavy gnosticism in Egypt, as noted by Kurt Aland, should not be overlooked. The papyri end up being used as support for all sorts of contradictory textual theories, Burgonites and Hortians both claim vindication. Even the P75-Vaticanus alignment loses much of its cachet if P75 is dated around the same time as Vaticanus.

[Bernard Muller]

Please clarify this
Also, I explained the canonical gJohn is the result of a process along many years where an initial early text for added up several times and even reshuffled.
I also flagged at least one case on interpolation on an already interpolated passage.

For gJohn, I started to explain its making here: http://historical-jesus.info/jnintro.html.
On my intro page (http://historical-jesus.info/) I wrote:
For the next pages, please read according to the indicated sequence:
John's gospel, from original to canonical http://historical-jesus.info/jnintro.html
Introductory page and evidence for a progressive composition
=> The gospels according to "John" http://historical-jesus.info/jnblks.html
The successive versions, by blocks
=> The complete text of the original gospel http://historical-jesus.info/jnorig.html
COHERENT and well-ordered. Also about the authorship
<=> The latter additions http://historical-jesus.info/jnadd.html

The one case of interpolation on a previous interpolation is:
In 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 http://historical-jesus.info/9.html "for our sins" appears to be a later interpolation:
This is what I wrote in the aforementioned blog post:
Note: 1 Cor 15:3a-8a is about "factual" items: death, burial and many post-mortem visions ("evidencing" the resurrection). But one exception is among them: "for our sins" is a theological point, not an observable fact. And there is no "atonement for sins" in the rest of 1 Corinthians (and 1 Thessalonians), but it appears in later epistles (2 Cor 5:19a, 21a; Gal 1:3b-4a ;Ro 3:23-25, 4:25a). Was it inserted for sake of "homogeneity"?
Remark: it seems Tertullian (around 210) did not have "for our sins" in his copy of 1 Corinthians:
Against Praxeas (186): "[Paul] testifies that "He died according to the Scriptures,""
Against Praxeas (409): "For even the apostle, to his declaration-which he makes not without feeling the weight of it-that "Christ died," immediately adds, "according to the Scriptures,""

Cordially, Bernard

[MrMacSon]

"for our sins" is a theological point, not an observable fact. And there is no "atonement for sins" in the rest of 1 Corinthians (and 1 Thessalonians), but it appears in later epistles (2 Cor 5:19a, 21a; Gal 1:3b-4a ;Ro 3:23-25, 4:25a). Was it inserted for sake of "homogeneity"?
Remark: it seems Tertullian (around 210) did not have "for our sins" in his copy of 1 Corinthians:
Against Praxeas (186): "[Paul] testifies that "He died according to the Scriptures,""
Against Praxeas (409): "For even the apostle, to his declaration-which he makes not without feeling the weight of it-that "Christ died," immediately adds, "according to the Scriptures,""

Yes, it's a theological point; which is significant.

As is "according to the scriptures" - the NT was written to fulfill the [OT] scriptures.

[Bernard Muller]

As is "according to the scriptures" - the NT was written to fulfill the [OT] scriptures.

This is overly simplistic. The NT was also written for many other things, most of them in order to address the current situation in the Christian communities then.

Cordially, Bernard

[Stephan Huller]

As is "according to the scriptures" - the NT was written to fulfill the [OT] scriptures.

I am not sure that the 'Old Testament' can be argued to have expected a future visitation of the god of Israel in whatever year you identify the gospel to have taken place. The Pentateuch, the Book of Joshua and various other books have human's make contact with angels. But can it really be said that something in these scriptures - and especially the Pentateuch - 'expected' some final appearance of the god of Israel? What scriptural passage then?

[MrMacSon]

The NT was also written for many other things, most of them in order to address the current situation in the Christian communities then.

The NT reflects theologies evolving out of increasingly diversifying Jewish theologies, including various Gnostic theologies (such as the Docetics; Arianism, Montanism, Mythracism, Marcionism, etc.

The NT reflects the eventual dominant theology, and its elaboration. The Council of Nicea debated the merits of Christianity vs Arianism.

[MrMacSon]

As is "according to the scriptures" - the NT was written to fulfill the [OT] scriptures.

I am not sure that the 'Old Testament' can be argued to have expected a future visitation of the god of Israel in whatever year you identify the gospel to have taken place.

Sure the year was never specified.

The Pentateuch, the Book of Joshua and various other books have human's make contact with angels.

Sure, yet the NT seemed to make those contacts more plausible.

But can it really be said that something in these scriptures - and especially the Pentateuch - 'expected' some final appearance of the god of Israel? What scriptural passage then?

Expecting final appearances may not be the principle issue - fulfilling scripture is reflect in several places Daniel, Isaiah, etc.

Matthew 5:17: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them"

44 Prophecies of the Messiah Fulfilled in Jesus Christ

353 Prophecies Fulfilled in Jesus Christ

[outhouse]

As is "according to the scriptures" - the NT was written to fulfill the [OT] scriptures.

No. That is factually not why it was written. It used some prophecy though as needed.




They plagiarized the OT and cherry picked it for content that matched the theology found to be important, as Hellenism divorced cultural Judaism but kept the one god concept.

[outhouse]

The NT reflects the eventual dominant theology, and its elaboration. .

It does not reflect it. It was the most popular theology.

The Council of Nicea debated the merits of Christianity vs Arianism

which had nothing at all to do with the canon.