Bathtime Stories: Ebion and Cerinthus

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John2
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Re: Bathtime Stories: Ebion and Cerinthus

Post by John2 »

Peter Kirby wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 5:34 pm
John2 wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 5:33 pm "each translated [the Hebrew Matthew] as he was able."
Nobody's that bad at translating.

"Honey? Where's my Hebrew dictionary? Whatever, I'll just write a new Gospel."


But Nehemia Gordon points out a number of apparent bad translations in the NT Matthew which make more sense in Hebrew (as they do in the extant later Hebrew Matthews) and were easy to make (like mistaking vav and yod or dalet and lamed, which are common scribal mistakes).
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Re: Bathtime Stories: Ebion and Cerinthus

Post by Peter Kirby »

John2 wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 5:54 pm
Peter Kirby wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 5:34 pm
John2 wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 5:33 pm "each translated [the Hebrew Matthew] as he was able."
Nobody's that bad at translating.

"Honey? Where's my Hebrew dictionary? Whatever, I'll just write a new Gospel."


But Nehemia Gordon points out a number of apparent bad translations in the NT Matthew which make more sense in Hebrew (like they do in the extant later Hebrew Matthews) and were easy to make (like mistaking vav and yod or dalet and lamed, which are common scribal mistakes).
I will grant you this:

(1) If the Gospel were first written in Hebrew
(2) If this Gospel were translated into Greek
(3) If the Hebrew Gospel survived for Epiphanius and Jerome to know about it
(4) Then, Matthew was the first Gospel
(5) And, then, the Greek Matthew was the first Greek gospel, at least of the synoptics (for which there is literary dependence)

Since all we know about the gospel in Hebrew is that it was near exactly the same as Greek Matthew.
John2
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Re: Bathtime Stories: Ebion and Cerinthus

Post by John2 »

I will grant you this:

(1) If the Gospel were first written in Hebrew
(2) If this Gospel were translated into Greek
(3) If the Hebrew Gospel survived for Epiphanius and Jerome to know about it
(4) Then, Matthew was the first Gospel
(5) And, then, the Greek Matthew was the first Greek gospel, at least of the synoptics (for which there is literary dependence)

Since all we know about the gospel in Hebrew is that it was near exactly the same as Greek Matthew.


All things considered, my guess is that the Hebrew Matthew was as "near exactly the same as" the NT Matthew as the NT Matthew is "near exactly the same as" Mark. In other words, just like most of Mark (with edits) made it into the NT Matthew, most of the Hebrew Matthew (in translation and with edits) made it into the NT Matthew.
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Peter Kirby
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Re: Bathtime Stories: Ebion and Cerinthus

Post by Peter Kirby »

John2 wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 6:13 pm
I will grant you this:

(1) If the Gospel were first written in Hebrew
(2) If this Gospel were translated into Greek
(3) If the Hebrew Gospel survived for Epiphanius and Jerome to know about it
(4) Then, Matthew was the first Gospel
(5) And, then, the Greek Matthew was the first Greek gospel, at least of the synoptics (for which there is literary dependence)

Since all we know about the gospel in Hebrew is that it was near exactly the same as Greek Matthew.
All things considered, my guess is that the Hebrew Matthew was as "near exactly the same as" the NT Matthew as the NT Matthew is "near exactly the same as" Mark. In other words, just like most of Mark (with edits) made it into the NT Matthew, most of the Hebrew Matthew (in translation and with edits) made it into the NT Matthew.
Maybe if you jettison assumption (3). If you still have assumption (3), then you have Greek Matthew = Hebrew Matthew to a 99% extent.
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Re: Bathtime Stories: Ebion and Cerinthus

Post by John2 »

And I don't know if the Hebrew Matthew was the fist gospel, but it was at least one of the two gospels that the first person to mention any gospels by name knew (no later than Trajan's time) and it was used by Nazarenes, who are said to have been the earliest Christians. I'm on the fence about it myself and don't see it as being important since they both seem equally early and espouse Nazarene ideas (like Torah observance).
Last edited by John2 on Thu Jun 01, 2023 6:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bathtime Stories: Ebion and Cerinthus

Post by John2 »

Peter Kirby wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 6:17 pm
Maybe if you jettison assumption (3). If you still have assumption (3), then you have Greek Matthew = Hebrew Matthew to a 99% extent.

Well, but the Hebrew Matthew (in translation) was 300 lines shorter (by my understanding) and had some interesting differences (like the James passage) and I think it likely wouldn't have included Mark (or if it did it must have been in Hebrew and likely wasn't edited exactly the same as the Greek Mark in the NT Matthew), so I'd go no higher than 85%, if I had to bet.
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Re: Bathtime Stories: Ebion and Cerinthus

Post by Peter Kirby »

John2 wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 6:27 pm
Peter Kirby wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 6:17 pm
Maybe if you jettison assumption (3). If you still have assumption (3), then you have Greek Matthew = Hebrew Matthew to a 99% extent.

Well, but the Hebrew Matthew (in translation) was 300 lines shorter (by my understanding) and had some interesting differences (like the James passage) and I think it likely wouldn't have included Mark (or if it did it must have been in Hebrew and likely wasn't edited exactly the same as the Greek Mark in the NT Matthew), so I'd go no higher than 85%, if I had to bet.
Alrighty then:

(1) If a Hebrew Gospel was translated into Greek multiple times in completely bizarre ways ... then
(2) But it wasn't
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Re: Bathtime Stories: Ebion and Cerinthus

Post by StephenGoranson »

new book:
A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse: Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean
Yaron Z. Eliav
"A provocative account of Jewish encounters with the public baths of ancient Rome"

Intro available at
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardc ... -bathhouse
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Re: Cerinthus

Post by billd89 »

Peter Kirby wrote: Sat May 27, 2023 6:43 pmAnd yet it's less often shown that Cerinthus is also a fiction, created for much the same reasons as Ebion. Recently, I think I came across the origin of the fictitious name. Recall that the "Gospel of the Ebionites" (called the Gospel according to Matthew) was used by those who, among other things, are attributed with vegetarianism and a rejection of sacrifices. And Epiphanius quotes from this text as follows (Panarion 30.12 ... So when the text talks about eating honey, as though shaped into a pancake, what could be more appropriate as a way to taunt them but to call them the followers of a certain "bee-bread" man? Such is the fictitious Cerinthus.
Well, Cerinthus either was or wasn't. Later apocryphal details do not prove fiction: no, that's illogical and throwing the baby out with the bath-water.

The falsehood you imagine would need to begin with Irenaeus (c.175 AD) and be carried over by Hippolytus (c.225 AD); difficulties in Epiphanius (c.375 AD) couldn't be the basis for "the Fiction of Cerinthus." No; that's all too great a stretch, fervid imagination.

The Catholics say: "Additional light has been thrown on the character of Caius's dialogue against Proclus by Gwynne's publication of some fragments from the work of Hippolytus "Contra Caium" (Hermathena, VI, p. 397 sq.); from these it seems clear that Caius (c.200 AD) maintained that the 'Apocalypse of John' was a work of the Gnostic Cerinthus." Any tradition of Cerinthus would therefore reasonably date back at least 60 years before Caius; nor does it seem plausible that Caius invented Cerinthus himself. (All these Church Fathers chattering about Cerinthus do not lend credence to the 'Fiction Thesis' either.) It seems most probable there existed a well-known Cerinthus tradition by 140 AD, therefore older.

The Epistle of the Apostles written about 160 AD would establish the personage as historical and explain/confirm how Irenaeus and Hippolytus both referred to a known heretic, not something (impossibly) of Epiphanius' creation. A book written 160 AD (naming Cerinthus) would also not necessarily be known by either Irenaeus or Hippolytus -- thus, it would be of an entirely independent tradition, and on the contrary, establishing the veracity of the heretic's existence (against the 'Utter Fiction' Thesis) as a contemporary of Simon Magus in then current tradition.

Cerinthus is admittedly obscure, as we would expect of such an ancient heretic/opponent of the Jesus Christ Myth. But obscure and problematic -- however frustrating -- does not equate to False.
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Re: Cerinthus

Post by Peter Kirby »

billd89 wrote: Tue Jun 20, 2023 6:46 pm
Peter Kirby wrote: Sat May 27, 2023 6:43 pmAnd yet it's less often shown that Cerinthus is also a fiction, created for much the same reasons as Ebion. Recently, I think I came across the origin of the fictitious name. Recall that the "Gospel of the Ebionites" (called the Gospel according to Matthew) was used by those who, among other things, are attributed with vegetarianism and a rejection of sacrifices. And Epiphanius quotes from this text as follows (Panarion 30.12 ... So when the text talks about eating honey, as though shaped into a pancake, what could be more appropriate as a way to taunt them but to call them the followers of a certain "bee-bread" man? Such is the fictitious Cerinthus.
Well, Cerinthus either was or wasn't. Later apocryphal details do not prove fiction: no, that's illogical and throwing the baby out with the bath-water.

The falsehood you imagine would need to begin with Irenaeus (c.175 AD) and be carried over by Hippolytus (c.225 AD); difficulties in Epiphanius (c.375 AD) couldn't be the basis for "the Fiction of Cerinthus." No; that's all too great a stretch, fervid imagination.

The Catholics say: "Additional light has been thrown on the character of Caius's dialogue against Proclus by Gwynne's publication of some fragments from the work of Hippolytus "Contra Caium" (Hermathena, VI, p. 397 sq.); from these it seems clear that Caius (c.200 AD) maintained that the 'Apocalypse of John' was a work of the Gnostic Cerinthus." Any tradition of Cerinthus would therefore reasonably date back at least 60 years before Caius; nor does it seem plausible that Caius invented Cerinthus himself. (All these Church Fathers chattering about Cerinthus do not lend credence to the 'Fiction Thesis' either.) It seems most probable there existed a well-known Cerinthus tradition by 140 AD, therefore older.

The Epistle of the Apostles written about 160 AD would establish the personage as historical and explain/confirm how Irenaeus and Hippolytus both referred to a known heretic, not something (impossibly) of Epiphanius' creation. A book written 160 AD (naming Cerinthus) would also not necessarily be known by either Irenaeus or Hippolytus -- thus, it would be of an entirely independent tradition, and on the contrary, establishing the veracity of the heretic's existence (against the 'Utter Fiction' Thesis) as a contemporary of Simon Magus in then current tradition.

Cerinthus is admittedly obscure, as we would expect of such an ancient heretic/opponent of the Jesus Christ Myth. But obscure and problematic -- however frustrating -- does not equate to False.
You present some interesting evidence that the gospel favored by the Ebionites/Cerinthians (the same group in two names) existed in the first half of the second century and that the legendary figure of Cerinthus would have been invented polemically as their founder (one of such creations, anyway) by that time. As to the rest, it seems to be based on a preference for believing legends to be traced to real people and little more.
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