IS XS: No Jesus or Christ spelled out in early MSS

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Double jeopardy: LXX as a second layer to NT falsifications

Post by Leucius Charinus »

MrMacSon wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 1:15 am
mlinssen wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 7:40 am I don't get what you mean by this. Care to elaborate? I see the match in Greek letters but that's it

I wonder if those 'steps' outline the development of Chrestian +/- focus on the chrism ( a focus for some at least)

.
101 The Chrism is made lord over the Baptism. The chrism is superior' to baptism, for it is from the word "chrism"' that we have been called Christians. And (he) was called the XS because of the Chrism. For the Father anointed the Son, yet the Son anointed the Apostles, yet the Apostles anointed us.


biblehub on Strongs on chrio | χρίω has
For chraomai Strongs has

a chraó
(And we know Coptic developed in the first two centuries of the Common Era)
It would be useful to know what Philip's "Chrism" represented.


BCE
Homer's use of "chriso" ....

Christian theology has chosen and decreed that the name Christos
should be taken as derived from [chrio, chriso], "anointed with
scented unguents or oil." But this word has several significances.
It is used by Homer as applied to the rubbing with oil of the body
after bathing (Il. 23, 186; also in Od., 4, 252). Yet the word
Christes means rather a white-washer, while the word Chrestes
means priest and prophet, a term which on the surface may appear
to be far more applicable to Jesus, than that of the "Anointed,"
since, he never was anointed, either as king or priest.


470 BCE
Aeschylus (Cho. 901) we read of pythochresta
the "oracles delivered by a Pythian God"

460 BCE
Pindar (pp. 4-10) The words [chresen oikistera]
mean "the oracle proclaimed him the colonizer."
In this case the genius of the Greek language permits
that the man so proclaimed should be called Chrestos.
Hence this term was applied to every Disciple recognized by a Master,
as also to every good man.

420 BCE
Euripides (Ion. 1320) (Eurip. Ion, 1218)
Pythochrestos is the nominative singular
of an adjective derived from chrao .

420 BCE
Herodotus - The word [chreon] is explained by Herodotus (7,11,7,)
as that which an oracle declares, and See also Vide Herodotus, 7, 215; 5, 108;

XXX BCE
Pagan classics expressed more than one idea
by the verb [chraomai] "consulting an oracle";
for it also means "fated," doomed by an oracle,
in the sense of a sacrificial victim to its decree, or --
"to the WORD"; as chresterion is not only "the seat of an oracle"
but also "an offering to, or for, the oracle.'' (18)
Chrestes is one who expounds or explains oracles,
"a prophet, a soothsayer;" (19) and
chresterios is one who belongs to, or is in the service of,
an oracle, a god, or a "Master" (20);

010 CE
Philo Judaeus speaks of theochrestos "God-declared,"
or one who is declared by god, and of
logia theochresta "sayings delivered by God" --
which proves that he wrote at a time
when neither Christians nor Chrestians were yet known
under these names

http://mountainman.com.au/essenes/chres ... ristos.htm

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The utter futility of carbon dating

Post by mlinssen »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 3:04 am I agree with all that. What about Acts 26:28 in Papyrus 45 (P. Chester Beatty I) ?
I'll ignore that for now because I had all this and that in mind already including my next step, which is the highly annoying (and amusing) Columbo move...

One more thing Pete:

how exact would your dating precision have to be in order to be of any help here?

I'll help you on the way with your answer: it would have to be as exact as the average distance between sequential texts. In other words: if you have 10 MSS that together cover a century, your dating precision should have a margin of error of half the average: 5 years.
And even then you'd date the texts e.g. 5, 17, 28 and 31 CE which would then factually equate to 0-10, 12-22, 23-33 and 26-36 CE, and it is not hard to see (or predict) that texts whose difference is smaller than the margin of error haven't benefited at all from the entire dating feast

And even with all that, all it would say is something about the age of either the ink or the paper, none of which says anything about when something actually was written because both ingredients need to be finished products prior to the writing process taking place: I can carbon date your post but that says nothing about the time of origination of all its content.
So both tests would have to be 100% complete and accurate or your margin of error would explode, as the number of variables involved in any function greatly increases not only their mutual dependency but also the margin of error of the function(ality) itself.
Foobar the ink dating and even if you know for sure that the paper is 400 years old, the ink could easily be 600 or 800 years old, or 200, so your margin of error goes up from 5 to 400 (800-400) years

And even with all that, it would say absolutely nothing about anything because whatever the thing that was written, it could have been thought of e.g. a century earlier, and first published 98 years prior to this current insurance of writing that we managed to catch in the act

So. Let's make things up a (crazy) bit: and let no one quote this out of context or suffer the consequences in whole!

Thomas got thought of in 80 BCE.
Thomas got first published in 70 BCE, and caught on like wildfire.
But that was along the border of Southern Egypt and the entire region got decimated in 40 BCE when the Fartians invaded.
It nonetheless trickled down (or should I say up) to Thebes and Alexandria, around 50 and 30 CE, and the first copies in different languages were made there. Needless to say, I'm purposely being perfectly Thomasine and ambivalent about that location and thus time.
Around 10 BCE a Roman scribe made a copy and took that with him back to Madrid, but unfortunately his ship got buccaneered and the MS didn't survive - only half of it, which ended up in Basel in 140 CE.
5 CE saw to an explosion of ... etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.

And then finally in 380 CE the Romans / Christians had obliterated all copies of Thomas, save for the 5th transcription of the original which had managed to survive among the 10% down south, which they penned down in panic around 435 CE and stuffed into a jar.
And now we have it, a manuscript that dates to 385-485 CE and almost perfectly conveys the original which was created in 80 BCE

Now, my dear Pete - you can choose not to answer at all, which I would advise really, or you can try to answer precisely and decisively. Or anything in between of course, as all of that is your decision alone

Yet carbondating Chrestian and Christian documents, while entertaining, is only useful for establishing a baseline and backdrop to paleography.
LOL!
Last edited by mlinssen on Sun Jul 31, 2022 6:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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P45 Acts 26:28 ???

Post by mlinssen »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 3:04 am I agree with all that. What about Acts 26:28 in Papyrus 45 (P. Chester Beatty I) ?

The table of contents is as follows:
Mt. XX. 24-32, xxi. 13-19, XXV. 41—xxvi. 3, 6-10, 19-33.
Mk. iv. 36-40, V. 15-26, 38—vi. 3, 16-25, 36-50^ vii. 3-15, 25—viii. i,
10-26, 34—ix. 8, 18-31, xi. 27-33, xii- 5“^’ ^3-'^9y 24-28.
Lk.vi. 31-41, 45—vii. 17, ix. 26-41,45—x. i, 6-22,26—xi. 1,6-25,28-46,
50—xii. 12, 18-37, 42—xiii. i, 6-24, 29—xiv. 10, 17-33.
Jn. X. 7-25, 31—xi. 10, 18-36, 43-57.
Acts iv. 27-36, V. 10-20, 30-9, vi. 7—vii. 2, 10-21, 32-41, 52—viii. i,
14-25, 34—ix. 6, 16-27, 35—X- 2, 10-23, 3i-4i> xi. 2-14, 24—xii. 5, 13-22,
xiii. 6-16, 25-36, 46—xiv. 3, 15-23, XV. 2-7, 19-26, 38—xvi. 4, 15-21, 32-40,
xvii. 9-17

The particular CB hoard at hand for this is:

https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... -I-Opt.pdf - Fasciculus I, Introduction, text and plates
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... xt-Opt.pdf - Fasciculus II, Gospels and Acts (P45), text
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... es-Opt.pdf - Fasciculus II, Gospels and Acts (P45), plates
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... xt-Opt.pdf - Fasciculus III, Pauline Epistles and Revelation (P46 and P47), text
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... us-III.pdf - Fasciculus III Revelation (P47), plates
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... _Part1.pdf - Fasciculus III Supplement Pauline Epistles (P46), text part 1
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... _Part2.pdf - Fasciculus III Supplement Pauline Epistles (P46), text part 2
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... _Part1.pdf - Fasciculus III Supplement Pauline Epistles (P46), plates, part 1
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... _Part2.pdf - Fasciculus III Supplement Pauline Epistles (P46), plates, part 2
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... xt-Opt.pdf - Fasciculus IV Genesis (Codex IV and Codex V), text
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... es-Opt.pdf - Fasciculus IV Genesis (Codex IV), plates
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... -V-Opt.pdf - Fasciculus IV Genesis (Codex V), plates
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... -V-Opt.pdf - Fasciculus V Numbers and Deuteronomy, text
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... VI-Opt.pdf - Fasciculus VI Numbers and Deuteronomy, plates
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... VI-Opt.pdf - Fasciculus VI, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ecclesiasticus, text
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... VI-Opt.pdf - Fasciculus VI, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ecclesiasticus, plates
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... -Bible.pdf - Fasciculus VII, Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther, text
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... d-copy.pdf - Fasciculus VII, Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther, plates
https://chesterbeatty.ie/assets/uploads ... s-VIII.pdf - Fasciculus VIII, Enoch and Melito, plates

They are generally known as "Kenyon's editions of the Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri"

Wikipedia has a nice overview as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Beatty_Papyri
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Re: The utter futility of carbon dating

Post by Leucius Charinus »

mlinssen wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 5:27 am
One more thing Pete:

how exact would your dating precision have to be in order to be of any help here?

I'll help you on the way with your answer: it would have to be as exact as the average distance between sequential texts. In other words: if you have 10 MSS that together cover a century, your dating precision should have a margin of error of half the average: 5 years.
And even then you'd date the texts e.g. 5, 17, 28 and 31 CE which would then factually equate to 0-10, 12-22, 23-33 and 26-36 CE, and it is not hard to see (or predict) that texts whose difference is smaller than the margin of error haven't benefited at all from the entire dating feast
C14 results come with statistical error margins and a probability curve. The samples could be contaminated. We have no real choice to deal in chronological uncertainties by necessity.
And even with all that, all it would say is something about the age of either the ink or the paper, none of which says anything about when something actually was written because both ingredients need to be finished products prior to the writing process taking place: I can carbon date your post but that says nothing about the time of origination of all its content.
It is true that good material might sit on a shelf for many decades after the papyrus or velum has been harvested. It is also true that the copies of tracts that we have in the NHL could have a composition date centuries earlier than the mid 4th century date most scholars associated with the physical Coptic NHL and Tchacos codices. It is equally true they could have a composition date after the year 325 CE. We don't know for sure.
So both tests would have to be 100% complete and accurate or your margin of error would explode, as the number of variables involved in any function greatly increases not only their mutual dependency but also the margin of error of the function(ality) itself.
Foobar the ink dating and even if you know for sure that the paper is 400 years old, the ink could easily be 600 or 800 years old, or 200, so your margin of error goes up from 5 to 400 (800-400) years
C14 and ink analysis is not infallible but it does represent the best scientific advice available today. It should be used as a guide which is independent of church dogma.
And even with all that, it would say absolutely nothing about anything because whatever the thing that was written, it could have been thought of e.g. a century earlier, and first published 98 years prior to this current insurance of writing that we managed to catch in the act

So. Let's make things up a (crazy) bit: and let no one quote this out of context or suffer the consequences in whole!

Thomas got thought of in 80 BCE.
Thomas got first published in 70 BCE, and caught on like wildfire.
But that was along the border of Southern Egypt and the entire region got decimated in 40 BCE when the Fartians invaded.
It nonetheless trickled down (or should I say up) to Thebes and Alexandria, around 50 and 30 CE, and the first copies in different languages were made there. Needless to say, I'm purposely being perfectly Thomasine and ambivalent about that location and thus time.
Around 10 BCE a Roman scribe made a copy and took that with him back to Madrid, but unfortunately his ship got buccaneered and the MS didn't survive - only half of it, which ended up in Basel in 140 CE.
5 CE saw to an explosion of ... etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.

And then finally in 380 CE the Romans / Christians had obliterated all copies of Thomas, save for the 5th transcription of the original which had managed to survive among the 10% down south, which they penned down in panic around 435 CE and stuffed into a jar.
And now we have it, a manuscript that dates to 385-485 CE and almost perfectly conveys the original which was created in 80 BCE
Unlikely things sometimes do happen. When we try and reconstruct the date of authorship of any given text like Thomas anything is possible and we need to keep an open mind. You've read the great range of dates given to Thomas and the NT and the rest of the manuscripts of Christian literature by a great range of "academics".
Now, my dear Pete - you can choose not to answer at all, which I would advise really, or you can try to answer precisely and decisively. Or anything in between of course, as all of that is your decision alone

Yet carbon dating Chrestian and Christian documents, while entertaining, is only useful for establishing a baseline and backdrop to paleography. LOL!
Two different dating methodologies are more useful than one. That should be the maxim.

If you were to ask me how to suggest a proposition whereby Thomas could be dated before the canonicals maybe I'd suggest something like this:

1) The earliest Christian literature consisted of a long harmony gospel narrative and a list of the words of the IS (perhaps - but not necessarily = an abbreviation for Izates) as we find in the Gospel of Thomas. Dura parchment 24 could represent a mid 3rd century exemplar of an original harmony gospel.

2) Eusebius and Co broke up the harmony gospel into the tetrarchy of gospels and also break up the words of IS (in Thomas) and allocate them across the new official four gospels.

3) The canonical NT and LXX Bible Codex is published by the Nicene orthodoxy. At the same time the harmony gospel and the Sayings of IS are deemed heretical. As are all other non official stories about IS the XS.


But again I swear by Apollo that "certainty brings insanity" and nothing is certain in ancient history and especially for the history of Christian origins. By necessity and the woeful state of the evidence, ancient history is destined only to ever deal in hypotheticals. Any and all conclusions must forever and a day remain provisional.
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Re: IS XS: No Jesus or Christ spelled out in early MSS

Post by Leucius Charinus »

"If it be lawful" to cite a post over decade in the past. Nice one Mac.

The website of History Hunters International assembled by John Bartram is now defunct. There appears to be the same (or a related) article on Scribd (but I don't go there much). The original article was entitled "Acts of the Chresmologoi: the Role of Oracles and Chronicles in the Creation of Divine Men" and its address at HHI was "the-gospels-according-to-hadrian-the-magic-wars-and-the-massiah/

Part III of this is on scribd as well. I have written to John to see it he still has this article floating around the net. It was quite interesting. Thanks for the walk back down memory lane. Something may yet be relevant. Be well.


ETA:
Author: John Bartram
Active link: https://www.quora.com/profile/John-Bartram
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Re: IS XS: No Jesus or Christ spelled out in early MSS

Post by mlinssen »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:27 pm
"If it be lawful" to cite a post over decade in the past. Nice one Mac.

The website of History Hunters International assembled by John Bartram is now defunct. There appears to be the same (or a related) article on Scribd (but I don't go there much). The original article was entitled "Acts of the Chresmologoi: the Role of Oracles and Chronicles in the Creation of Divine Men" and its address at HHI was "the-gospels-according-to-hadrian-the-magic-wars-and-the-massiah/

Part III of this is on scribd as well. I have written to John to see it he still has this article floating around the net. It was quite interesting. Thanks for the walk back down memory lane. Something may yet be relevant. Be well.


ETA:
Author: John Bartram
Active link: https://www.quora.com/profile/John-Bartram
John has sunk some of his boats, or rather, he has sailed the remainder of his fleet to Quora

Ever since I did the Translation myself, it already drew my attention that there's a strong stress on Need - even Mariham conveys that:

ⲙⲁⲣ.ⲓ.ϩⲁⲙ - witness.to.necessity

Logion 63-65, the 3rd triplet in Thomas, absolutely screams of Need - to no surprise, as that is about the turning point in your Quest:

ⲭⲣⲉⲓⲁ Need Noun 21
ⲭⲣⲏⲙⲁ Need Noun 63
ⲭⲣⲏⲥⲓⲥ Employment Perseus, not CDO 65
ⲭⲣⲏⲥⲧⲟⲥ Kind-one Noun 90
ⲭⲣⲱ Use Noun 63

Yes, the lacuna in logion 65 says ⲭⲣⲏⲥⲓⲥ, certainly not ⲭⲣⲏⲥⲧⲟⲥ (which doesn't fit at all)

https://www.academia.edu/44902066/The_P ... _for_goals

https://www.academia.edu/44902109/The_P ... _strangers

https://www.academia.edu/44902212/The_P ... your_Quest
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Re: IS XS: No Jesus or Christ spelled out in early MSS?

Post by mlinssen »

There are a few exceptions, it appears. Some fragments have IHSOUS, XREISTOS - sometimes in combination with a plain ligature

Vaticanus appears to have plenty of IHSOUS, but uses that only 3 times in combination with XS

Yet Vaticanus consists of an awful lot of hands of course, so there is much more to it than that: the evidently 10th+ CE Genesis insertion (page 1-335) is dripping with IHSOUS, and what is labelled B3, page 675-1244, contains 13 counts of IS, 7 IHS, and 168 IHSOUS - it is evident what they were trying there.
And so on - but this thread has effectively come to a screeching halt with rediscovering Traube's Nomina Sacra:

https://archive.org/details/nominasacra ... ew=theater

The most magnificent research in there deserves a proper paper, not some silly thread - even though that thread is spot on with its OP and title.
I've merely glanced at Traube's, but he went through the earliest 100 MSS, it would seem. The especially attractive stuff will be in the Latin section in which he also discusses NS

All we have to do is to fill the gap from 1903 till now
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Re: IS XS: No Jesus or Christ spelled out in early MSS

Post by Leucius Charinus »

IHS CRISTOS in the late 7th century on coins

IHS CRISTOS appears on the coins of Justinian II (685=695 CE)
https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/byz/justinian_II/i.html

Justinian II. first reign, 685-695 AD. AV solidus, Constantinople. IhS CRISTOS REX RESNANTIUM, facing bust of Christ, with long hair and full beard, wearing pallium and colobium, raising right hand in benediction, holding book of Gospels in left hand, cross behind head / D IUSTINIANUS SERV ChRISTI, usually with officina letter placed vertically, Justinian standing facing, wearing crown and loros, holding akakia and cross potent on base; mintmark CONOP or CONOB. DO 7b; MIB 8; Sear 1248.

IMAGE of Coin:
Image
https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/byz/jus ... sb1248.jpg

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Re: IS XS: No Jesus or Christ spelled out in early MSS

Post by mlinssen »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 11:46 pm IHS CRISTOS in the late 7th century on coins

IHS CRISTOS appears on the coins of Justinian II (685=695 CE)
https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/byz/justinian_II/i.html

Justinian II. first reign, 685-695 AD. AV solidus, Constantinople. IhS CRISTOS REX RESNANTIUM, facing bust of Christ, with long hair and full beard, wearing pallium and colobium, raising right hand in benediction, holding book of Gospels in left hand, cross behind head / D IUSTINIANUS SERV ChRISTI, usually with officina letter placed vertically, Justinian standing facing, wearing crown and loros, holding akakia and cross potent on base; mintmark CONOP or CONOB. DO 7b; MIB 8; Sear 1248.

IMAGE of Coin:
Image
https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/byz/jus ... sb1248.jpg

Impossible. Absolutely anachronistic in all regards

Cristos versus Christos?! On one and the same coin? Could be a misprint but still, this doesn't compute.
It is very hard to really discern and I'd need a much better resolution

But if it really says IHS... it could be an attempt to herald the old and original?
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