Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Thanks for the references.

Just a point of info: the Council "in Trullo," not at Trullo, is so called because it was held in the great domed hall, the Τροῦλλος, of the imperial palace in Constantinople.

ficino wrote:

perseusomega9 wrote:

ficino wrote: I always assumed this means that Jesus' crucifixion was foreordained, before creation.

.

kind of hard to come to that conclusion when crucifixion or cross isn't even mentioned in that book.

True, but then, to what do you think the "slain" predicate refers, perseus? Do you take this as a reference to Jesus' ministry or to something else?

That's a good question and all I can say is I don't know. It could mean the crucified christ/jesus and the crucifixion may be an esoteric teaching for John's church, there are competing traditions of John vs Paul and Paul is the one that wants to know only christ crucified. We know that in the early church not everything was revealed to proselytes right away, you can still go to some Eastern Orthodox churches where they dismiss the catechumens after the Liturgy of the Word and before the Eucharist. Andrew Criddle has a great example here regarding:

It is therefore convenient to be given this in brief on the washing and on the offering because they have already been notified. But about the resurrection of the body and eveything else, as is convenient the bishop will reveal and explain when they are initiated. But in contrast this is not given to catechumens. And this is the white approval [mistranslation of stone] of which John wrote, that in it is found a new name which no one knows except he who is initiated.

ficino wrote:Revelation 13:8: "And all the inhabitants of the earth shall worship him [sc. the Beast], (everyone) whose name has not been written in the book of life of the lamb slain from (ἀπὸ) the foundation of the world."

Whenever I see all the ways that the ET will go to rearrange order of clauses to better "capture the sense," all you really get is something forced to mean something other than it was intended. It may be rougher to the ear and harder to interpret when a translation follows the original clause order, sort of like listening to Yoda from the Star Wars movies, but like Yoda, he kind of grows on you after a while and you one day realize you know exactly what he means when he says something.

Rev 13:8-9:

8a and will worship it
8a καὶ προσκυνήσουσιν αὐτὸν

8b all who dwell upon the earth,
8b πάντες οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς,

8c every one whose name has not been written in the book of [the] life *
8c οὗ οὐ γέγραπται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τῆς ζωῆς

8d of the Lamb that was slain
8d τοῦ ἀρνίου τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου

8e from (the) foundation of (the) world.
8e ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου.

9 If any one has an ear, let him hear.
9 Εἴ τις ἔχει οὖς ἀκουσάτω.

To me, at least, 8d and 9 sound like intrusions.

The final editor has introduced an interpolation about Jesus the Lamb of God from John 1:29 & 36, and in case anyone missed it, he draws attention to it again in vs 9, using a phrase otherwise used only in ch 2-3 (7 times). In effect, he is saying, names are continuously being written, since the very foundation of the world, in the Book of Life. I'd say that means that names, presumably of those individuals who are worthy of [eternal] life, have been continuously written in a certain Book of Life since the foundation of the world, when recording of names started, but I would say something like that. Of course, if you DO worship the Beast, well, then your name could not possibly be written in the Book of Life.

DCH

* Sometimes, though, you may have to rearrange words within clauses ...

DCHindley wrote: 8d of the Lamb that was slain
8d τοῦ ἀρνίου τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου
...
9 If any one has an ear, let him hear.
9 Εἴ τις ἔχει οὖς ἀκουσάτω.

To me, at least, 8d and 9 sound like intrusions.

DCH--

Do you get the same understanding when you read the Story of "Salt Losing Its Flavor"?

CW

DCHindley wrote:

ficino wrote:Revelation 13:8: "And all the inhabitants of the earth shall worship him [sc. the Beast], (everyone) whose name has not been written in the book of life of the lamb slain from (ἀπὸ) the foundation of the world."

Whenever I see all the ways that the ET will go to rearrange order of clauses to better "capture the sense," all you really get is something forced to mean something other than it was intended.

David, what is the ET? I translated this verse myself. So whatever rearranging, etc., you find here, is mine.

I
Rev 13:8-9:

8a and will worship it
8a καὶ προσκυνήσουσιν αὐτὸν

αὐτὸν is masculine, not neuter.

8b all who dwell upon the earth,
8b πάντες οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς,

8c every one whose name has not been written in the book of [the] life *
8c οὗ οὐ γέγραπται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τῆς ζωῆς

8d of the Lamb that was slain
8d τοῦ ἀρνίου τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου

8e from (the) foundation of (the) world.
8e ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου.

9 If any one has an ear, let him hear.
9 Εἴ τις ἔχει οὖς ἀκουσάτω.

To me, at least, 8d and 9 sound like intrusions.

The final editor has introduced an interpolation about Jesus the Lamb of God from John 1:29 & 36, and in case anyone missed it, he draws attention to it again in vs 9, using a phrase otherwise used only in ch 2-3 (7 times).

OK, I can't refute claims that a piece of text found in all the MS. tradition is, despite that, an interpolation. Nevertheless, it seems to me too common that people declare a passage an interpolation when they see something anomalous in it. We need principles, by which we can in general declare interpolations with some confidence. Do you have a methodology, David? Authorial intention, deduced only from the text that we have, covers a lot of bases and a lot of anomalies. I've looked in some discussions of textual criticism but haven't found general canons of prudence for cases of suspected interpolation.

ficino wrote:Just a point of info: the Council "in Trullo," not at Trullo, is so called because it was held in the great domed hall, the Τροῦλλος, of the imperial palace in Constantinople.

Thanks ficino.



LC

ficino wrote:We need principles, by which we can in general declare interpolations with some confidence. Do you have a methodology, David? Authorial intention, deduced only from the text that we have, covers a lot of bases and a lot of anomalies. I've looked in some discussions of textual criticism but haven't found general canons of prudence for cases of suspected interpolation.

I think I found the famous discussion of "Interpolazione" by the renowned Giorgio Pasquali. Haven't even read it yet - so excited to post the link!

http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/int ... aliana%29/

Aargh, I forgot that Neil had already proposed criteria for deeming a text an interpolation. Neil was summarizing William O. Walker, Interpolations in the Pauline Letters, London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1131&hilit=walker&start=20#p24535

Walker's criteria are:

1. text critical evidence — includes a study of other texts in which references are made to the document
2. contextual evidence — contextual flows or breaks within the document
3. ideational evidence — how does the idea at the heart of the questioned passage compare with the ideas throughout the main document?
4. comparative evidence — compare the thought expressed in the questionable passage with related thoughts expressed elsewhere.
5. motivational evidence — what do we know of the motivations of various interest groups relating to the thoughts expressed in both the larger document and the questionable passage?
6. locational evidence — what is the impact of the questionable passage being located at this point in the text?

Neil added, “Motivations can never be attributed to all suspected interpolations. Marginal glosses, for example. We simply have no way of knowing who might have been responsible for some interpolations. Where we can suss out motivations they can be factors in how we assess the probability that words are not original, but it's still a guessing game to some extent. The more different lines of argument come together the stronger the probability -- perhaps the best we can do?”

To these I would add, from the Enciclopedia Italiana article I mentioned above (not sure that it is in fact by Giorgio Pasquali):
logical. A contradiction points to a problem in the text.
Historical. The passage contradicts what is known of the principles of the author.
Linguistic. Terms, phrasing, etc. not of the purported time of the document.

There is an interesting discussion here
http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/q ... lation-138

Andrew Criddle

ficino wrote:

DCHindley wrote:

ficino wrote:Revelation 13:8: "And all the inhabitants of the earth shall worship him [sc. the Beast], (everyone) whose name has not been written in the book of life of the lamb slain from (ἀπὸ) the foundation of the world."

Whenever I see all the ways that the ET will go to rearrange order of clauses to better "capture the sense," all you really get is something forced to mean something other than it was intended.

David, what is the ET? I translated this verse myself. So whatever rearranging, etc., you find here, is mine.

Oops! I was wondering where that translation came from.

DCH wrote:Rev 13:8-9:

8a and will worship it
8a καὶ προσκυνήσουσιν αὐτὸν

αὐτὸν is masculine, not neuter.

To be honest I do not sweat that kind of thing. If one wants to interpolate something into an existing text, changing gender and number of some original words is to be expected.

DCH wrote: 8b all who dwell upon the earth,
8b πάντες οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς,

8c every one whose name has not been written in the book of [the] life *
8c οὗ οὐ γέγραπται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τῆς ζωῆς

8d of the Lamb that was slain
8d τοῦ ἀρνίου τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου

8e from (the) foundation of (the) world.
8e ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου.

9 If any one has an ear, let him hear.
9 Εἴ τις ἔχει οὖς ἀκουσάτω.

To me, at least, 8d and 9 sound like intrusions.

The final editor has introduced an interpolation about Jesus the Lamb of God from John 1:29 & 36, and in case anyone missed it, he draws attention to it again in vs 9, using a phrase otherwise used only in ch 2-3 (7 times).

OK, I can't refute claims that a piece of text found in all the MS. tradition is, despite that, an interpolation. Nevertheless, it seems to me too common that people declare a passage an interpolation when they see something anomalous in it. We need principles, by which we can in general declare interpolations with some confidence. Do you have a methodology, David? Authorial intention, deduced only from the text that we have, covers a lot of bases and a lot of anomalies. I've looked in some discussions of textual criticism but haven't found general canons of prudence for cases of suspected interpolation.

No formal principles, other than connecting parts of the text that appear to be telling one story and "bracketing off" what appears to intrude. The Revelation is a bit of a different animal than the Paulines, where I have the most interest, but Revelation has a large number of aporia (anomalies) that beg some sort of explanations.

I have very little confidence in criticism that assumes that the texts come directly from the hands of the legendary authors, and that we can work our way back to autographs. We have very little info about publication history. However, if Trobisch is correct, virtually ALL the NT books we have today seem to have derived from single master editions (e, a, p & r). Most if not all variants appear to have occurred after publication of those editions. Some of them, such as the Pauline writings, appear to have their own history preceding the master edition of p, but except for some variants revolving around 14, 15 & 16 chapter versions of Romans, there is little indication any of the variants found in the standard texts were influenced by versions that might have existed before the publication of the master edition. I think this is also the case with e, a & r as well.

DCH

e = Four Gospel set
a = Acts and general epistles set
p = Pauline corpus set
r = Revelation by its lonesome