Choosing the letter to the Ephesians as an example, I created a table with the shorter Greek text, shorter English translation, longer Greek text, longer English translation, in synopsis, and another table comparing the English translation of the shorter Greek, longer Greek, and Syriac and then picked it apart as best I could to see if I could make sense of them all.
All I can say is ... it's all crazy, man. The shorter and longer Greek texts seem to be almost like alternate translations of some different language original, although the longer text seems peppered by a large number of quotes from the OT and NT books, and sometimes bizarre digressions, although the shorter text has its bizarre moments as well. The Syriac version seems to relate best to the shorter Greek text, but is much more brief, but almost all the bizarre stuff is not to be found. I can see why it has been proposed that the Syriac version is closer to the original behind the shorter and/or longer Greek text.
Anyways, I attach these two tables for review by interested lurkers, even unqualified ones. Ephesians is the Ignatian text which describes a (bizarre) myth with stars, dragons, mysteries, you name it, that has some sort of relationship with some parts of the Apocalypse, which was a subject of a thread (on FRDB) on Ignatius Ephesians 19 & Revelation 12, back in late 2010. A table I saved for use in that discussion had:
Ignatius, Ephesians 19: |
Revelation 12: |
---|---|
1a And hidden from the prince of this world were | 3a And another portent [SHMEION] appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, |
1b the virginity of Mary | Lxx Isaiah 7:14b behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, |
1c and her child-bearing | Lxx Isaiah 7:14c and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel. |
1d and likewise also the death of the Lord | 5b but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, |
1e --three mysteries to be cried aloud--the which were wrought in the silence of God. | Revelation 10:7 but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God, as he announced to his servants the prophets, should be fulfilled. |
2a How then were they made manifest to the ages? | |
2b A star [ASTRON] shone forth in the heaven above all the stars; | 1a And a great portent [SHMEION] appeared in heaven, |
2c and its light was unutterable, and its strangeness caused amazement; | 1b a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, |
2d and all the rest of the constellations with the sun and moon formed themselves into a chorus about the star; but the star itself far outshone them all; | 1c and on her head a crown of twelve stars; |
2e and there was perplexity [TARACH] to know whence came this strange appearance which was so unlike them. | See 1a "portent" |
3a From that time forward every sorcery and every spell was dissolved, the ignorance of wickedness vanished away, | |
3b the ancient kingdom was pulled down, | 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world -- he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. |
3c when God appeared in the likeness of man unto newness of everlasting life; | Lxx Isaiah 7:14a Therefore the Lord [KURIOS, also in the Hebrew] himself shall give you a sign [SHMEION]; |
3d and that which had been perfected in the counsels of God began to take effect. | |
3e Thence all things were perturbed, because the abolishing of death was taken in hand. | And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, |
My recollection was that I suggested that an underlying myth, if that is what lies behind these parallels, could prove profitable to proponents of Mythicism, but predicted they would not do so on account of myopic vision.
I have not yet taken a second look at these parallels based on my efforts over the weekend, but would welcome anyone wanting to open a discussion about it. Mr Smith has included this text among "Potentially relevant references in later literature" in a July post here:
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... ion#p38314
I no longer sign my posts ...
Edit 9/12/15: I replaced the PDF with the Greek-English analysis of the shorter & longer forms with a newer one that caught some errors and revised a section where I couldn't figure out what the ANF translator was actually translating.