Lakuna Markata. The Relationship of Lacunae to Difficult Readings

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Secret Alias
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Re: Lakuna Markata. The Relationship of Lacunae to Difficult Readings

Post by Secret Alias »

Maybe not the Mar Saba letter per se but 'something like' the 'secret Mark' text mentioned in the Mar Saba document. The point would surely be an 'expanded' Mark is not out of the question or possibly even likely. I don't know why there is this reflexive 'defense' of any evidence which supports at least the possibility that the Mar Saba isn't a forgery. Since there isn't solid evidence that the text was forged - there is at best circumstantial evidence that there is 'something odd' about the discovery or that the discovery wasn't carried under in a 'controlled' situation (i.e. it wasn't a team of scholars standing around as witnesses) and at worst a lack of direct evidence that its central premise viz. the existence of a longer version of Mark is sustainable - once the situation being discussed comes up you have to admit that the situation is 'suggestive' of a longer text of Mark which in turn 'resembles' the situation described in the letter to Theodore. No we don't know that Clement wrote the letter to Theodore (although the letter is clearly 'Clementine' in character) and we don't have any direct evidence for a longer Mark (although Irenaeus and the author of the Philosophumena hint at this situation). But what is being discussed here is suggestive of the existence of a longer text of the gospel of Mark. That seems to be the most straightforward interpretation of the evidence.
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Re: Lakuna Markata. The Relationship of Lacunae to Difficult Readings

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Many consider him to be the best papyrologist on the planet.
I have the very, very best papyrologists working for me. Total winners.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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Re: Lakuna Markata. The Relationship of Lacunae to Difficult Readings

Post by Blood »

10:46 And they come to Jericho: and as he went out from Jericho, with his disciples and a great multitude, the son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the way side.
Jericho was really dead on the weekends. Not even Jesus could find something to do there.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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A Codicological Analysis of the Chester Beatty Papyrus Codex of Gospels and Acts (P45)

Post by JoeWallack »

andrewcriddle wrote: Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:04 am Skeat argues on a codicological analysis that a whole number of quires are missing. I.E. either 2 leaves (4 pages) or 4 leaves (8 pages). Adding 2 extra leaves (4 pages) is far too many.

On the other hand there is apparently enough room on the missing quire for 3 to 4 more verses than are found in canonical Mark. However, I don't think this is anywhere near enough to include the material from the Mar Saba letter.

Andrew Criddle
JW:
Thanks Andrew:

A Codicological Analysis of the Chester Beatty Papyrus Codex of Gospels and Acts (P45)

Interesting info:
the manuscript was made up of quires of two leaves (four pages) only, formed by folding a single sheet of papyrus in two
an average page of the codex contained text equivalent to about 36 lines of the edition of the Greek New Testament by Alexander Souter4.
Kenyon (introduction, p. viii) states that "with regard to the order of the books, the only evidence lies in the fact that Mark and Acts were closely associated in the papyrus as brought to England. This makes it probable that Mark stood last among the Gospels, as in the Freer MS. at Washington (W), where the order of the books is Matthew, John, Luke, Mark, the so-called Western order, which is found in the Codex Bezae and several MSS. of the Old Latin version".
the slanting strokes added by a later hand (Kenyon, p.ix) appear in all the fragments of Mark and in all the fragments of Acts, but nowhere else in the codex
The first extant fragment of Mark (f. 3) would thus have formed pp. 142-143
Quire --------35-----------------36------------------37-----------------38
Page 136 137 138 139/140 141 142 143/144 145 146 147/148 149 150 151
Quire --------39------------------40------------------41------------------42
Page 152 153 154 155/156 157 158 159/160 161 162 163/164 165 166 167


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I'm Just Searching For Clues At The Scene Of The Crime

Post by JoeWallack »

JW:

1st half GMark (P45):

Quire --------35---------------------------36------------------------------------------37-----------------------------------------38----------

Page 136-137-138-139/140------141------142-------143--/----144--------145------146-------147--/--148--------149-------150--------151
Verse----------------------------------------4:36-40---5:15-26--5:38-6:3--6:16-25--6:36-50--7:3-15--7:25-8:2--8:10-26--8:34-9:8--9:18-9:31

Note = In the early portion of GMark the last difficult reading is 3:5 (Jesus angry). This part of GMark also contains the most Difficult Readings. Because of the shortness of Chapter 2, 3:5 would probably have been on page 139 which would be part of Quire 35 and Quire 35 would have been a complete sheet of papyrus. Thus the only missing Quire for the first half of GMark corresponds exactly to the area of GMark with the most Difficult Readings (in terms of quantity).

Conclusion = The evidence is there to suspect that Quire 35 was deliberately exorcised. Remember, the evidence is extant that a later scribe edited P45's GMark.



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Reading The xT Leaves

Post by JoeWallack »

JW:

(P45):

Quire ---------------------------38--------------------------------------------39---------------

Page---------148--------149-------150--------151-----/-----152-----153-----154----155/
Verse-----7:25-8:2--8:10-26--8:34-9:8--9:18-9:31-----[Chapter 10]-------------------

Note = Quire 39, which is where GMark Chapter 10 would have been is missing.

Reasons to suspect that Quire 39 was intentionally exorcised:
  • 1) There are five consecutive surviving fragments before this quire.

    2) The five consecutive fragments are relatively large survivors.

    3) The surviving fragments continue with the next quire, 40.

    4) If Chapter 10 of P45 included Secret Mark material it would have been a very difficult reading.

    5) The absence of the quire with the most difficult readings (quantity), quire 35, has already been noted.


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Not So Secret

Post by JoeWallack »

JW:

(P45):

Quire --------------------39-----------------------------------40--------------------------------------------41----------------------------------------42

Page/-----152-----153-----154----155/-----156--------157-----158-----159/--------160-------161-------162--------163/--------164-------165--
Verse--[Chapter 10]---------------------11:27-33--12:13-28--[Chapter 13]------[Chapter 14]-------[Chapter 15]-------[Chapter 16]

Note = Acts is said to start on Page 168, which would be the first page of quire 43. So it looks to me like the last two pages of quire 42, pages 166 and 167, would be a complete mystery as to what was on them. Maybe an inventory of endings and related commentary like Codex Regius has or maybe just blank pages with Acts starting on a new quire (this goes against the evidence though). The best explanation though may be that P45 Mark contained about a Chapter of additional information, such as Secret Mark.

The explanation in the related article sounds like an Apology to me:
there can be no doubt that the scribe is beginning to reduce drastically the amount of text on the page
[based on the (mis)assumption that P45 = orthodox Mark]




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Re: Lakuna Markata. The Relationship of Lacunae to Difficult Readings

Post by Secret Alias »

Very interesting. Thank you.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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Re: Lakuna Markata. The Relationship of Lacunae to Difficult Readings

Post by andrewcriddle »

I suspect that the apparent room for a few extra verses in the missing quire is partly due to P45 having the longer version of the last verses of chapter 9 i.e. containing verses 44 and 46 and probably other expansions. P45 was compared by Elliott to a largely Alexandrian text which is abbreviated in the last verses of chapter 9 compared to other text traditions.

Andrew Criddle
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