GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 12:32 am
Leucius Charinus wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 7:04 pmFor many years I have been (unsuccessfully) looking a list or a collection that presents the earliest extant manuscripts for all forms of literature - Christian and "pagan" - in antiquity. I have found some short specific lists here and there but nothing comprehensive.
That's an interesting list, and one that might yield interesting results. As well as date, I'd like to see where the earliest extant version was actually located, i.e. which monastery and which library. A pattern might well evolve.
Actually that's a very worthwhile data element - and along with that,
the date of discovery. A good example of that is the text called Philosophumena; or The Refutation of All Heresies attributed by some to Hippolytus and by others to others. This was discovered in the mid 19th century and was added to the writings of "The Fathers" in the following century.
We often think of interpolations in terms of Christian writings and not pagan writings, with the odd exceptions of the passages referring to Jesus in Tacitus, Josephus and Pliny the Younger.
But the Church Fathers in the Second Century CE extensively quoted from the writings of many many Greek philosophers, especially writing to pagans, to ''prove' the validity of Christianity. It was a very important part of their apologies.
As those pagan writings went through the same copying process that Christian writings went through, they'd be subject to the same processes of interpolations and marginal glosses, where Christian copiers would 'helpfully' update the source pagan texts to reflect what they 'really' meant.
It resolves to a complex web of transmission - one often ignored.
Leucius Charinus wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 7:04 pmHowever this collection is not a complete collection / catalogue so it may be missing some data. On a now defunct link I found this information:
How Do Other Ancient Texts Compare to the New Testament? #10 Post of 2012
Homer Iliad --- c. 400 BC
Herodotus History === 10th C
Sophocles Plays === 3rd C BC
Plato Tetralogies === AD 895
Caesar Gallic Wars === 9th C
Livy History of Rome === Early 5th C
Tacitus Annals === AD 850
Pliny, the Elder Natural History === 5th C fragment
Thucydides, History === 3rd C BC
Yes, it makes me wonder about the provenance of those texts. How confident can we be that those works attributed to Pliny the Elder were actually written by him? Similarly, Tacitus, Julius Caesar. I think we are at the mercy of tradition, the same as we are for nearly all ancient writing, pagan and Christian.
There is certain degree of truth in that. My approach has been to look at the manner in which education systems have changed over the centuries since antiquity to the present and - most importantly- which organisation(s) have been responsible for running them.
By this I start with the Greek intellectual traditions (these can be listed - maths, geometry, astronomy. medicine, ect etc). These were originally collegiate. These effectively disappeared after the rise of the Christian state for a thousand years. The Christian education system was established and was run by the church. During the reformation and afterwards (when the Greek intellectual traditions returned to the education systems) the church began to lose its central control.
Leucius Charinus wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 7:04 pmHere FWIW to some here is my collection that I have gathered over the years. I cannot guarantee it is error-free but it is a start:
It's a very good start. Out of interest, IYO is there enough info there to impact your theory, either "for" or "against"? What differences would you predict to find between pagan and Christian writings with regard to assigning provenance, the 'earliestness' of any extant copies, if any? Might be worth it's own separate thread.
IMO the time capsule of the NHL has not yet been understood but when it is then a great deal of the "mystery of Christian origins" will be exposed. New discoveries have the ability to completely overturn paradigms and I think this is what will happen.
The Christian academics who have translated the NHL think these texts (or at least some of these texts) were composed by Christians. OTOH I believe the NHL texts were composed by pagans in complete reaction mode to the NT/LXX codex.
This 'earliestness' aspect of the NHL (and other codices) is very important. Its from the mid 4th century. We know this by many indicators include C14. This stuff is primary evidence of whatever was going down in the mid 4th century. Whatever we read in the "Fathers" of the supposed 2nd century has no guarantee of being anywhere near "early".
Like Mac says much is propaganda. Sorting through the (false) propaganda to find the historical truth is the task ahead. The historical method tells us to "stay with the primary evidence Luke".