Charles Wilson wrote: ↑Wed Dec 14, 2022 1:46 pm
My point was that there are many who see Greek Priority as given from God. If, however, if the NT was "laid out" in other Languages pricemeal-fashion, Was this Proto-NT a proper NT? This tells us nothing except as a Commentary as to how the NT was Constructed. "THE NT WAS WRITTEN IN GREEK AND THE PROPER NT WAS ONLY WRITTEN IN GREEK". Great. Wonderful. Hope you live happily in your certainty.
Ta to all the rest, by the way
Greek priority is a fable - period. What we know as the NT was written in Greek, yes - yet horribly cringing Greek, to which the Parable of the Sower attests in so many horrible, tepid ways
For the Greek impaired among you: click the words, evaluate their grammatical classification
https://www.stepbible.org/?q=version=BS ... NTERLEAVED
ἄλλα - plural
ἔπεσεν - 3rd singular
ἐλθόντα τὰ πετεινὰ κατέφαγεν - plural subject, 3rd singular verb
ἐκαυματίσθη, (καὶ διὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν ῥίζαν) ἐξηράνθη. - two 3rd singular verbs that refer to the subject in the previous sentence - which was plural
And so on. Mark and Luke stick to singular subject, and it is not hard to see how Thomas confused them all with his plural, unnamed and unidentified, subject - while dropping the bomb of seed, singular, only once. When? In the third metamorphosis action, the only one that is successful
Greek priority? Check the Commentary where I go by each Greek copy, in detail (and proper translation) and the whole idea becomes hilarious - for Thomas
The Prologue: ἐλά]λησεν ιης
Logion 1: καὶ εἶπεν
Logion 2: [λέγει ιης]
Three consecutive logia, each using a different verb for "said" WTF?! Which ludicrous idiot did this?! There is no one on the face of the earth who writes stories like this unless he is a deranged bipolar lunatic.
Yet Thomas? Everything is perfectly consistent, every single word is correct, right, in place, blissful
Logion 6 to finish, although there are many more examples.
From the Commentary:
Logion 6 is the true nail in the coffin when it comes to the question of direction of dependence between Coptic Thomas and Greek Thomas, and Gathercole's quote says it all:
GTh 6.4 has an interesting divergence (the Coptic reads ⲙ̅ ⲡⲉⲙⲧⲟ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ ⲛ̅ ⲧⲡⲉ, i.e. ‘in the presence of heaven’) which can be emended: the Greek’s ‘truth’ perhaps becomes the Coptic’s ‘heaven’ by ἀληθεία → ⲧⲙⲉ → ⲧⲡⲉ.
That is a sentence that draws immediate attention for its key word "perhaps" that has no follow up in any other sentence that comes after it: a tentative question is posed but no answer is given other than a very brief "elaboration" that consists entirely of Greek, Coptic and a few arrows. Across the language barrier there is a change involving such a significant word as 'heaven' (or 'truth') and this is all that there's to it, it is merely 'an interesting divergence', which even can be 'emended' - and that statement is followed by a bit of a drawing that not many can grasp, as the number of people who can read both English as well as Greek and Coptic is rather small - yet fortunately I am one of the lucky few.
What Gathercole proposes here is - in my own words and with some imagination that is needed to fill this rather huge void that Gathercole leaves - that a (Coptic) scribe came, proficient in both Greek and Coptic, who properly translated the Greek word for 'truth' into Coptic: ἀληθεία became ⲧ ⲙⲉ, 'the truth'. What happened after that, however, is that another Coptic scribe came long and took the Coptic, mistook the ⲙ for a ⲡ (which in some texts sometimes is easily done, to be frank) and ended up with the word ⲧ ⲡⲉ, 'the heaven'. Yet that scenario has many issues, the largest one of which is the fact that I can relate to it, because I have made the same mistake once or twice - in the very beginning of my becoming acquainted with Coptic. And I made that mistake, naturally learned from it, and now will never make it again, because I know very well that this mistake can be made so I will actually be very alert towards it; and by now I am far more experienced in reading Coptic than I was at the beginning. So I can pretty much guarantee that I will never make that mistake, because I'm not only experienced (at Coptic), I'm also learned (I learned from my mistake) - and the chances of a Coptic scribe mistaking an ⲙ for a ⲡ are just non-existent, this is a very unlikely scenario - and it even depends on another scribe having made the Greek to Coptic copy prior to this mistake being made. And on top of that it not only depends on that first scribe translating Greek into Coptic, it also depends on this last scribe being unfamiliar with the text.
Not a single comment on how this "solution" is much more dependent, complicated and unlikely than a possible single misreading of the Coptic ⲡⲉ for ⲙⲉ by a Greek scribe and translating that properly to ἀληθεία, a perfectly likely scenario because a Greek-Coptic scribe would be much less familiar with Coptic hands (both letters exist in both languages, of course) than a Coptic one, and whereas a Coptic-Coptic scribe (the one who would have to mistake the ⲙ for a ⲡ) always is fluent in Coptic, a Greek-Coptic one (or a Coptic-Greek one for that matter) would be fluent in only one language, and (professional) translators usually are native in the destination language, and at best fluent in the source language - which still would say little about their reading capabilities or their affinity with Coptic or Greek "hands", their handwriting.
The Christian texts were written in Greek, true - either by Romans or baboons, and there is no other choice there.
Yet the original texts? Those originated in Egypt, with Coptic Thomas as the start. It is evident that the mistranslations started after that, for instance with the infamous "in the flesh" logion which got turned around in the Greek, evidence of which we hold in our very hands:
Logion 28
IS said: I stood to my feet in the middle of the World and I revealed outward to them
in Flesh
Etc
The Greek, literally translated?
καὶ ἐν σαρκ{ε}ὶ ὤφθην αὐτοῖς - and in flesh I-appeared to-them
A perfect example of a loose
adverbial clause - where does it belong? Neither Coptic not Greek have any method of conjugating here, so the only way to determine ownership is location.
Obviously, it is at the very end in the Coptic and turns up at the very beginning in the Greek - and there can be no debate about the enormous difference between the two.
I could go on, but we have enough to go on with the Greek to see the similarities with the NT:
John 1:14 The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the only born Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Was the very first John written in Greek? It couldn't possibly be any other way. Did Marcion take that Greek, or did he look at a Coptic translation, wrote in Coptic which later got translated into Greek? Possible, but unlikely - Ockham please
So yeah Charles, I go with Greek for the NT for sure, and for the first Chrestian gospels as well - and Thomas isn't a Gospel of course
