Dating works in the Coptic language

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mlinssen
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Re: Dating works in the Coptic language

Post by mlinssen »

davidmartin wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:19 am one thing i recon is that challenging and shaking things up - about even cherished beliefs is it's not really doing anything except show people up for what they are and what they're made of.
True that. There's no value in debunking Christianity, that's already been done a thousand times. All I'm saying is that the room is too small for both the Jesus of the canonicals and the IS of Thomas - they can't co-exist, and Churchianity certainly agrees to that.
The Jesus of Thomas as he has been "revealed" by the Crossans and others of this world? Sure, he's no threat at all, and Crossan is equally as clueless as all others who have written about Thomas, save for Robert Wolfe https://nondualityamerica.wordpress.com ... of-thomas/ and Detlev Koepke - and only the latter poses a minor threat

Again, I will not actively pursue anything in that direction - it's just an inevitable side effect of continuing to publish parts of my Thomas Commentary

I test the waters here and there to see what effects that will have, and which arguments will be brought against my reading of Thomas.
And the silence is deafening.
Even when I poke a bit into Christianity when I react to someone else's alleged demonstration of Thomas being dependent on the canonicals, or at least the canonicals not being dependent on him - the silence is deafening

Like I said, Christianity has been debunked ages ago - it's just that no one wants to hear about it. And I can understand that, and I have contemplated for a long time whether I should continue my Thomas research or not, knowing what it would bring about - and I spent a whole chapter in that in my Absolute Thomasine Priority, and I think it is a pretty good chapter, although no words will ever be enough.
But that was almost 2 years ago, and I took that turn
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Re: Dating works in the Coptic language

Post by davidmartin »

ML, the silence of the response to Thomas is enough evidence in itself i recon
how is anything is more ridiculous that a Christian that rejects Thomas entirely when the same sayings form a considerable part of the synoptics?
How can they reject completely something that is a significant part of what they say they believe?
that is bonkers
I've heard some Christians say to me that everything Jesus said was straightforward and clear. That is such a false statement even with the pure canonical gospels
The problem that presents itself is more the apostle Paul if you ask me... he is the real stumbling block. Paul should be considered a source of information, a resource, and nothing more. All his dupes fall in line after him never thinking about what it was Jesus was saying
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Re: Dating works in the Coptic language

Post by mlinssen »

davidmartin wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 7:45 am ML, the silence of the response to Thomas is enough evidence in itself i recon
how is anything is more ridiculous that a Christian that rejects Thomas entirely when the same sayings form a considerable part of the synoptics?
How can they reject completely something that is a significant part of what they say they believe?
that is bonkers
I've heard some Christians say to me that everything Jesus said was straightforward and clear. That is such a false statement even with the pure canonical gospels
The problem that presents itself is more the apostle Paul if you ask me... he is the real stumbling block. Paul should be considered a source of information, a resource, and nothing more. All his dupes fall in line after him never thinking about what it was Jesus was saying
Yes it is, david. Some people even prefer to make a mockery of themselves rather than engage with the content offered, but the usual response is silence, at best a polite decline.
The core of the gospels is in Thomas, 13 of his parables make up their set of 28. And next to that there are 60 of his logia that made it into the NT

The only interesting thing about Jesus is the fact that his parables are allegories and rather cryptic (except for the self-invented ones like the 10 virgins and such, those are pathetic) - apart from that they make him say some dull things that are clear but not particularly enlightening

Paul? He picks the core "Judean themes from Thomas", such as the circumcision (what a great punchline that is, in Thomas!) and warns against "those who are self-seeking".
He so utterly clearly is selling an existing "Gentile" movement to his Judean audience (Romans 9:24-25, 30, 10:12, 11:11, 17-20, 22, 30, 14:14-18, 15:27, 16:4), all of Romans is one huge sales pitch. I do wonder where he gets his baptising from, that can't be from Thomas or Marcion. But Romans 6:4 evidently has him experimenting with it, "baptism into death". Enslaved to sin, freed from sin: that is Thomas applied to Judaism par excellence.
Romans 10:6-8 is logion 3 with a twist. 12:14 is logion 68/69 with a twist and utterly out of place. 13:6 is logion 100, and it is so extremely mightily interesting that Paul uses φόρον for tax, the exact same word that Luke has, while Mark and Matthew have κῆνσον - if we ever find logion 100 in Greek, it will say exactly that: φόρον. Which is just a general name for tax, and end census tax was in fact called syntaxis, part of the Roman laographia. I haven't come across census yet as a word for tax levied, let alone that it occurs in Greek

I have always wondered about 17:18

18 οἱ (-) γὰρ (For) τοιοῦτοι (such) τῷ (the) Κυρίῳ (Lord) ἡμῶν (of us) Χριστῷ (Christ) οὐ (not) δουλεύουσιν (serve), ἀλλὰ (but) τῇ (the) ἑαυτῶν (of themselves) κοιλίᾳ (belly); καὶ (and) διὰ (by) τῆς (-) χρηστολογίας (smooth talk) καὶ (and) εὐλογίας (flattery) ἐξαπατῶσιν (they deceive) τὰς (the) καρδίας (hearts) τῶν (of the) ἀκάκων (naive).

I imagine that Paul is stealthily hinting at Chrestians here, and that the followers of Marcion called themselves such, in accord with logion 90: "my yoke is a xrestos one", ⲟⲩ ⲭⲣⲏⲥⲧⲟⲥ ⲡⲉ ⲡⲁ ⲛⲁϩⲃ.
It is one of the 3 times that Thomas uses IHS instead of IS, and must have become a slogan of some sort

Anyway... thanks again, I finally went through Romans now in one go
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Re: Goodacre's missing middle in Thomas 1/2

Post by mlinssen »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sat Jul 17, 2021 2:58 am mlinssen, you wrote, in part, above:
"...the canonicals are heavily dependent on Coptic Thomas - and no one is contesting that...."

Yet, as you probably know, "contesting that" for example is:

Thomas and the Gospels : the case for Thomas's familiarity with the Synoptics
Goodacre, Mark S.
Grand Rapids, Mich. : W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2012.
That's what you said, and this was my reaction:
mlinssen wrote: Sat Jul 17, 2021 2:28 pm Well, 3 pics from the book. Seems to be max for a post

20210717_232954_1.jpg

Very bad translations, by the way.

First pic

1. The Zizanion is only plural on the last occasion. No comment from Goodacre on Matthew 13:25 changing the seed into wheat prior to it growing - pity hey

2. I will make-be Use [dop] my(PL) Need in-order-that I will sow and mow and plant and fill [dop] my(PL) treasure of Fruit So-that : (not) myself make-be need [dop] anyone

Need is my pick, possessions is a fine alternative. But "sow my field"?! ⲥⲱϣⲉ is Coptic for field as it appears throughout Thomas, and in 63 there's a scribal error: ⲱ{ϩ}ⲥϩ - the scribe first wrote the Sahidic variant ⲱϩⲥ and corrected it to the Akhmimic.
Barn with harvest?! It's the Greek loanword Karpos, how on earth can he mistake that for harvest - most definitely when he mentions both words on page 76...
Barn? Treasure!!! And that appears in 4 logia, 3 times in this exact form and 1 time in its plural:

treasure ⲁϩⲟ Noun masculine 45, 63, 76, 109

It is hilarious that Goodacre tries to make a case for Matthew creating this parable out of Mark's secretly growing seed. He is correct in that Mark's is conflated from that of the sower, and even asserts that Thomas could not do what Matthew allegedly has done in his eyes - but naturally Mark conflated his version from Thomas. The fact that only Thomas and Matthew have the Zizanion, of all the people in the entire world, is not mentioned by Goodacre, and that is more than suspicious because Goodacre is not a fool. Where on earth would Matthew get the Zizanion from, a unique and unknown word, never heard before?

3. On the missing middle: the superfluous middle in the canonicals naturally raises the question how the man knows that his enemy did it - and why then he didn't stop him. All those words add nothing but confusion.
It fits perfectly in the concise sayings of Thomas that someone just voices his thoughts without further ado, like the slaveowner who speaks only once in the dramatic logion 65 (heir / vineyard).
Regarding the rich man: what, pray tell, is so very crucial about the missing middle that the canonicals add? It's mere chatter

20210717_233006_1.jpg

Second pic

1. Caesar's agents? There's no noun there. Wordplay, and incredibly fun too. But no noun

100. did they show IS [dop] a(n) gold and said they to he : they-who be-valuing [dop] Caesar they demand of we [dop] the(PL) tax said he to they : give those-of Caesar to Caesar give those-of the god to the god and he-who mine is give! you(PL) to I he

It is of the ultimate importance that YOU give it.

2. The word is gold, and either you take it literally or figuratively, but not both. Gold coin is double

3. On the missing middle: again, nothing to add to the logion but the canonicals trip over their own words trying to demonstrate that it's Caesar's portrait on the coin, whereas that naturally follows in Thomas. Of course they use a denarius, because the average Joe wouldn't know a gold coin - whereas that detail is important in Thomas: whatever the price, just pay the deities, whether they're called Caesar or god - but You give to IS what is his

20210717_233022_1.jpg

Third pic

1. Goodacre picks the fragmentary Oxy version, where the word "is" is added at the end of the logion. He doesn't say why, although he does say that he does do so

26. said IS : the speck who/which in the eye of your brother you behold [dop] he the beam However who/which in your eye you behold not [dop] he Whenever if you "should" cast [dop] the beam from your eye Then you will behold outward to cast [dop] the speck from the eye of your brother

3. On the missing middle: again, again and again; what on earth is so incredibly important in the missing middle that the canonicals add? It's superfluous chatter and nothing else, and the sign of a first copier, and it's done over and over again (with the exception of copying Thomas literally) throughout the Synoptics

At the end of this logion Goodacre makes the surprising statement

"Producing a less coherent, secondary version" - but Thomas is perfectly coherent here and the canonicals only over explain by adding superfluous stuff.
A very disappointing book by Goodacre, where he utterly fails to make a case. But at least he has spotted that Luke and Thomas are closest, which comes to no surprise when one presumes that Luke is a copy of Marcion, who took Thomas and built a narrative around it

Goodacre, who is sharp enough, must know by now that Thomas is the original. Naturally, he can't say that. But it is telling that he doesn't say anything about some things that are truly untold and unheard of, like the wonderful Zizanion. Goodacre, so full of verbatim agreement, misses out on this alien anomaly?

Impossible
Plus a follow up on that. Will you keep up this little game of having me elaborate at length on my arguments, while you stay suspiciously silent?

Just say the word
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Re: Dating works in the Coptic language

Post by mlinssen »

StephenGoranson wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 7:25 am According to James P. Allen, A grammar of its Six major Dialects (Eisenbrauns, 2020) page 1:
“Coptic is the name of the final stage of the ancient Egyptian language, spoken and written from the third century AD until perhaps sometime in the seventeenth century. It is still used today in the rituals of the Coptic (Egyptian Christian) Church.”

According to Jean-Luc Fournet, The Rise of Coptic: Egyptian versus Greek in Late Antiquity (Princeton UP, 2020) page 3:
“The Egyptian Situation (250-550). During the first three centuries of its history, Coptic was limited exclusively to nonregulated written exchanges.”

According to Robert K. Ritner, “The Coptic Alphabet” in The World’s Writing Systems, ed. P. T. Daniels et al. (Oxford UP, 1996) page 287:
“’Coptic’ designates the final stage of the Egyptian language and script, which flourished in Egypt from the fourth through the tenth centuries C. E and still survives in restricted liturgical use by the Coptic Orthodox Church.”

I am not an expert in Coptic. I copy these statements above from those who are expert. I start a new topic. But anyone interested may read the end of the “Rabbi Wise” thread.

The question arose whether the Coptic “Gospel of Thomas” as dated by mlimssen is too early to be plausible.

At the end (or, specifically Tue Jul 13, 2021 12:18 pm), mlinssen wrote:
Indeed, Coptic Thomas is the original, and the Greek fragments that have been found are copies - and sloppy ones at that, as I set out in viewtopic.php?p=124634#p124634 - the evidence for logion 6 is very clear

I don't consider any gospels to precede Thomas, other than the DSS and Odes and such - but none of what we know today as "Christian"

Thomas is just a text, not a gospel. It most certainly is not about Jesus, his I(H)S is just a concept, a "helping hand". The only thing that it has to do with Christianity is that highly likely Marcion turned it into something like a Markan or Lukan narrative, after which "the whole Christian thing started"

Being awfully concise here, but that is my standpoint - as inconvenient as it is, because Coptic being written in 1st or 2nd CE is one of those things that isn't widely supported. But at least a dozen Thomas logia demonstrate absolute priority over their NT copies - it's not that I particularly like to put forth this view, it's just that it's the only plausible view, when looking at Thomas and the canonicals
Stephen, Hugo Lundhaug has dated 2 fragments of the NHL, via carbon dating: https://www.academia.edu/50918807/Datin ... ence_2021_

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Re: Dating works in the Coptic language

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Hugo Lundhaug has dated 2 fragments of the NHL, via carbon dating:
And?
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Re: Dating works in the Coptic language

Post by gryan »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Aug 18, 2021 9:14 am
Hugo Lundhaug has dated 2 fragments of the NHL, via carbon dating:
And?

In the linked paper, Hugo LUNDHAUG (University of Oslo) wrote:

"CONCLUSION
Each text in the Nag Hammadi Codices has a number of possible con-texts of interpretation, and we need to choose whether to read them in their hypothetical contexts of authorship, with all the problems that entails in terms of textual fluidity, or we may read them as texts in use, in the form in which they have been preserved to us, thus shedding light on the context in which the manuscripts were produced. Analyses of their cartonnage andcolophons indicate that the Nag Hammadi Codices were produced and used by monastics in the fourth and fifth centuries. Radiocarbon dating of the leather cover of Nag Hammadi Codex I is compatible with these indications when interpreted in light of Codex I’s scribal connections with Codices XIand VII, the latter of which contains the only certain
terminus post quem of any Nag Hammadi Codex. Radiocarbon dating does not, and cannot, provide us with a silver bullet for manuscript dating, but it does provide us with valuable added data that can fruitfully be used in conjunction with other dating methods. "
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Re: Dating works in the Coptic language

Post by mlinssen »

gryan wrote: Wed Aug 18, 2021 6:08 pm
Secret Alias wrote: Wed Aug 18, 2021 9:14 am
Hugo Lundhaug has dated 2 fragments of the NHL, via carbon dating:
And?

In the linked paper, Hugo LUNDHAUG (University of Oslo) wrote:

"CONCLUSION
Each text in the Nag Hammadi Codices has a number of possible con-texts of interpretation, and we need to choose whether to read them in their hypothetical contexts of authorship, with all the problems that entails in terms of textual fluidity, or we may read them as texts in use, in the form in which they have been preserved to us, thus shedding light on the context in which the manuscripts were produced. Analyses of their cartonnage andcolophons indicate that the Nag Hammadi Codices were produced and used by monastics in the fourth and fifth centuries. Radiocarbon dating of the leather cover of Nag Hammadi Codex I is compatible with these indications when interpreted in light of Codex I’s scribal connections with Codices XIand VII, the latter of which contains the only certain
terminus post quem of any Nag Hammadi Codex. Radiocarbon dating does not, and cannot, provide us with a silver bullet for manuscript dating, but it does provide us with valuable added data that can fruitfully be used in conjunction with other dating methods. "
Emphasis mine

Since both the terminus post quem of 348 for Nag Hammadi Codex VII, based on the dated cartonnage fragment, and the terminus ante quem in the 380s for Nag Hammadi Codex I, based on 14C, apply specifically to the covers, it is worth noting that these covers, like the other remaining Nag Hammadi covers, bear no evidence of reuse. There is also no evidence that any of the Nag Hammadi quires have been rebound45. The dates of the covers are therefore likely to reflect the dates of the codices

Clever. Produced in the 4th, only to add that they were used in the 5th. Mix that into one sentence and the last century named - and preserved into memory - is 5th

I have asked Lundhaug how he thinks that Thomas' "parable of the colostrum" could have survived in such a monastic environment, and am anxiously awaiting his response.
It will also be very interesting to see others comment on this study, and I'll be watching Askeland and Nongbri, and then some
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Re: Hold a candle to your ear? Or eye?!

Post by neilgodfrey »

mlinssen wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 10:07 am
You don't light a lamp and then hold it to your ear: to your eye, ya dummy! It is hilarious, but they didn't get it. The Coptic word is ⲙⲁⲁϫⲉ,
I suggest the joke is on the child of the electricity age. Hold a lamp to your eye and you see nothing but the flame. Hold it to the side of your eye -- say closer to your ear -- you get a good view of what is exposed by the light.



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Re: Hold a candle to your ear? Or eye?!

Post by mlinssen »

neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Aug 19, 2021 12:23 am
mlinssen wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 10:07 am
You don't light a lamp and then hold it to your ear: to your eye, ya dummy! It is hilarious, but they didn't get it. The Coptic word is ⲙⲁⲁϫⲉ,
I suggest the joke is on the child of the electricity age. Hold a lamp to your eye and you see nothing but the flame. Hold it to the side of your eye -- say closer to your ear -- you get a good view of what is exposed by the light.




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As this is yet another attempt by you to derail a thread or comment by me via adding some goofy picture accompanied by a meaningless comment, I will now ask you to refrain from behaving like a troll

If you want to add value to any thread or comment in here, fine.
If you merely want to give your own opinion, that's fine too. But these postings of yours are nothing but childish and foolish interjections that appear to be only aimed at trolling
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