Subject: Re: tc-list Has anyone attended Westar Institute Fall Meeting

From: Michael Holmes <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 07:46:19 -0600 (CST)

At 06:37 PM 11/1/98 -0000, Julio Anjos inquired:
>Fall 1998
>October 2125, 1998
>Flamingo Hotel, Santa Rosa, California
>
>Paul A. Mirecki and Charles W. Hedrick  upcoming book on the recently found
>papiry ( a previouslly unknown dialogue-sayings gospel ) in a german
>Egyptian Museum was suposed to be presented there.
>
>Anyone has any info?
>

In March, 1997, there was an announcement in the press about a "new find" by
Mirecki and Hedrick; I pass along the following as I received it.  Sounds
like it is the document Julio is inquiring about

Mike Holmes
Bethel College

*************************************************
>
>KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuter) - In a rare finding that could
>shed light on the origins of Christianity, an American professor
>said Tuesday that he and a colleague have identified fragments
>of a ``lost gospel'' that contains conversations between Jesus
>Christ and his disciples.
>         Paul Mirecki, associate professor of religious studies at
>the University of Kansas, said he is confident the text is an
>authentic early account of the teachings of Christ. If true,
>this would mark the first time since 1945 that a so-called lost
>gospel has been identified.
>         Mirecki said that apart from the New Testament's four
>Gospels, scholars recognize approximately six other lost gospels
>that detail Christ's teachings. The gospel of Thomas, discovered
>in Egypt in 1945, was the last such text to be identified,
>Mirecki said.
>         Mirecki happened on this manuscript in 1991 in the vast
>holdings of Berlin's Egyptian Museum, but it has taken him until
>now to piece together the document's content. He does not know
>how the manuscript found its way to the museum.
>         A specialist in paleography, or ancient modes of writing,
>Mirecki said he was confident the item was not a fraud or a
>forgery. ``It's definitely an ancient manuscript -- fourth or
>fifth century,'' Mirecki told Reuters in an interview.
>         The newly found gospel was written in the first or second
>century, he said. ``The context here is there were many gospels
>written in the first two centuries,'' Mirecki said. ``This text
>is ... identical to similar texts that are called gospels. It
>fits the literary pattern and the contents.''
>         Mirecki has been editing and translating the manuscript with
>Charles Hedrick, professor of religious studies at Southwest
>Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri.
>         Each man studied the manuscript independently while working
>at the Berlin museum. After a chance encounter at a 1995
>convention in Philadelphia they realized they were working on
>the same project and decided to collaborate. Their book on the
>new gospel will be published this summer by Brill Publishers in
>the Netherlands.
>         Mirecki said the manuscript is written in Coptic, an ancient
>Egyptian language that uses Greek letters. It was probably the
>work of a Christian minority group called Gnostics, or knowers,
>he said, and recounts a rare ``dialogue gospel'' of
>conversations between Jesus and his disciples that supposedly
>took place after Christ was resurrected.
>         He said the text and its message indicate Christianity's
>origins were more diverse than what medieval historians have
>described.
>         ``This is simply evidence of minority groups that existed
>and that either were brought into the larger church -- the
>Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches -- or died out. Quite
>often they were persecuted to the point of death,'' he said.
>         Only 15 pages remain of the manuscript. Mirecki said it was
>probably the victim of an orthodox book burning in about the
>fifth century.
>         Specifically, the gospel espouses a stronger focus on
>individual knowledge, urging its readers to reject the confines
>of institutional religion. ``It's a non-orthodox text ...
>Salvation comes to these people through knowledge rather than
>faith,'' Mirecki said.
>         ``They see orthodox Jews and Christians as being duped by
>the evil creator of the material universe. They had a very
>different mythology ... one that could not be incorporated into
>the larger Catholic church and had to be rejected.''
>         For example, one passage unique to the gospel reads, ``I
>have overcome the Cosmos, so don't let the Cosmos overcome
>you.''
>         ``That type of theology is not what developing orthodoxy
>wanted to hear,'' Mirecki said. ``They wanted to promote
>salvation in the Church, not in one's personal experience.''
>         Mirecki said he will present a paper on his findings at  an
>academic symposium in November in San Francisco.
>
**********************************

---

From: "William L. Petersen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 10:19:48 -0500

Michael Holmes is correct:  Mierecki and Hedrick announced this papyrus
more than a year ago.  It was noted in some major newspapers both here and
abroad.  In the Netherlands, I know the NRC Handelsblat (their equivalent
of the NYTimes;  the paper of record) ran a piece on it in their weekend
"CS" ["Cultural Supplement") section, and interviewed--among others--Prof.
Henk Jan de Jonge of Leiden for his reaction.  He, along with virtually
everyone else I've spoken with, have described it as another secondary,
derivative, apocryphal text (akin in many ways to some of the Nag Hammadi
stuff, qua genre), with nothing new (at least insofar as can be determined
now) to contribute to research.  This is why few have heard of it:  it
doesn't appear to be significant, despite the discoverers' excitement.

My recollection is that the "symposium in San Francisco" where the
presentation was made not the Westar Institute "fall meeting," as Julio
Anjos suggested, but the annual AAR/SBL meeting.

--Petersen, Penn State University.

---

From: Yuri Kuchinsky <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 13:20:59 -0500 (EST)

Dear friends,

I'm now trying to determine who exactly were the opponents criticised in 1
Jn 4:1-3. 

Here's the RSV translation:

1                                                          
       Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the  
       spirits to see whether they are of God; for many    
       false prophets have gone out into the world.        
2                                                          
       By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit    
       which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the   
       flesh is of God,                                    
3                                                          
       and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not
       of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which  
       you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the  
       world already.                                      

The text of v. 2 seems quite clear, and according to this, the opponents
of the writer seem to be Docetists (or Marcionites) who claimed that Jesus
Christ only "appeared" to come in the flesh.

But in the case of v. 3 the Greek text seems to be rather uncertain. I've
looked at the variants, but I'm still not sure which variant may be the
more reliable.

English translations of v. 3 are divided. Some, like RSV above, and the
more recent translations in general, say

"...every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God"

But KJV, Darby, and YLT translate more like

"...every spirit which does not confess that Jesus Christ came in flesh is
not of God"

Perhaps someone can clarify this for me. Why has RSV chosen to go with
"...every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God", and not the
other translation?

Thanks in advance.

Yuri.

---

From: Bart Ehrman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 13:40:59 -0500 (EST)

Don't think the opponents could be Marcionites, unless you *really*
late-date the letter (or prefer not to follow the
still-standard-and-for-good-reason line on the dates of marcion).

   I've dealt with the textual problem at length in my _Orthodox
Corruption of Scripture_  pp. 125-35, if you want to see the evidence,
arguments, and counterarguments.  (I push strongly for _me homologei_
against _luei_).

-- Bart Ehrman
   University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

---

From: lakr <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 10:44:19 -0800 (PST)

> "...every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God", and not the

I do not have my Nestle Aland with me at the moment, but the translatins
are different because the textus receptus which underlies the KJV
is different that the texts which are derived from the science of
Textual Criticism.

I can give both texts here but cannot comment on exactly which
manuscripts follow which tradition.

1Jo 4:3  TR
KAI PAN PNEUMA O MH OMOLOGEI TON IHSOUN 
[ XRISTON EN SARKI ELHLUQOTA ]
EK TOU QEOU OUK ESTIN KAI TOUTO ESTIN TO TOU ANTIXRISTOU O AKHKOATE
OTI ERXETAI KAI NUN EN TW KOSMW ESTIN HDH

1Jo 4:3  W&H
KAI PAN PNEUMA O MH OMOLOGEI TON IHSOUN 
EK TOU QEOU OUK ESTIN KAI TOUTO ESTIN TO TOU ANTIXRISTOU O AKHKOATE
OTI ERXETAI KAI NUN EN TW KOSMW ESTIN HDH

Notice that  in the top example the words 'Christ in flesh came' are inserted
into the Textus Receptus.

The RSV does not follow the TR Greek text.

Hope this helps,
Larry Kruper

---

From: "Prof. Ron Minton" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 14:11:23 -0600 (Central Standard Time)

On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, lakr wrote:
> Notice that in the top example the words 'Christ in flesh came' are
> inserted into the Textus Receptus.

Can someone check to see if the few mss. Erasmus used have the words or
did he use another source?  They are in Aleph [kurion instead of christon]
which, of course, he did not have.

Ron Minton
5379 North Farm Road 179
Springfield, MO 65803
(417)833-9581

---

From: "Prof. Ron Minton" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 14:46:58 -0600 (Central Standard Time)

We have all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters
will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare.
Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

Ron Minton

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 15:51:11 -0600

>Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

While I heartily agree with the sentiment, I have to point out that
this has not actually been tested. The key word is *eventually*.

I won't go into the math -- my calculator doesn't run that high --
but the odds of the monkeys doing the job in any given period of
time are extremely low. We'd need something like the lifetime of
the universe to conduct the test.

While we have our million monkeys, and more, we haven't had the time.

Besides, the monkey are supposed to type *random* letters. The people
driving the Internet don't type random letters. They type things they
think are meaningful. Net result: They will probably *never* manage
the complete works of Shakespeare. The average Internet user isn't
nearly as smart as random chance. :-)
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

                        Robert B. Waltz
                     [email-masked]

Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn
(A site inspired by the Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism)

---

From: Yuri Kuchinsky <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 12:09:21 -0500 (EST)

> arguments, and counterarguments.  (I push strongly for _me homologei_

Dear Bart,

I have read your treatment now, and I agree with you on some points, while
disagree on others.

We agree that the opponents in 1Jn 4:1-3 are docetists. But your treatment
of this passage focuses primarily on _me homologei_ against _luei_
problem. For all I can see you're right on this, but this does not really
seem relevant to the issues I'm dealing with at this time.

There are many interpretative problems with 1Jn. I've just read Anchor BD
(1992) article on the Johannine epistles by Robert Kysar, and he admits
that plenty is disputed as to authorship, context, and dating. According
to him,

"The dates of the documents can be fixed only approximately." 

He, himself, gives ca. 100, but other opinions are possible. 

Now, the question as to whether the opponents in 1Jn 4:1-3 are Marcionites
is not directly relevant to my larger thesis, and depends on the dating. I
think it is possible to date the epistles to mid-second century, and I
prefer such later dating.

My larger thesis is that there are two distinct sets of opponents
discernable in 1Jn, and this has been argued by a number of commentators.
You mention Smalley yourself. According to such a view, some opponents are
Ebionites, and have low Christology. These are the opponents in 1Jn
2:18-23. Others, in 1Jn 4:1-3, and in 2Jn, are docetists with high
Christology.

You don't like this sort of an interpretation, but I disagree on this. I'm
just taking the most literal reading of these passages, and this is what
the texts seem to say to me. I have a more detailed treatment of these
matters that I posted to Synoptic-l in the last few days.

http://www.egroups.com/list/synoptic-l/1253.html

and 

http://www.egroups.com/list/synoptic-l/1259.html

Johannine correspondence is only a part of my larger argument in these two
long articles that deal mostly with Papias and Irenaeus.

I see no real need to conflate the opponents in 1Jn 2:18-23, and in 1Jn
4:1-3 like you tend to. But this question is very complex, since it
involves the exact understanding of various Christologies. In spite of
many apparent similarities between the two, I think there was a pretty
clear distinction between the much earlier group of
Ebionites/Adoptionists, and the rather later docetists, although this
distinction is often neglected by scholars.

On this, see M. Goulder, ST. PAUL VERSUS ST. PETER: A TALE OF TWO
MISSIONS, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1995, p. 117. (Goulder uses the
term Possessionist to describe Adoptionists.) He points out that, while in
mainstream academic literature "Adoptionists" are often conflated with
"Docetists", according to him this is confusing, and he advocates defining
these terms more precisely.

It was the Adoptionists/Possessionists who resisted identifying Jesus with
Christ, just like the opponents in 1Jn 2:22.

Now, the question that I posted to tc-list originally only focused on the
reading of 4:3a, which, in itself, is a rather narrow problem that does
not need to involve larger issues, since the interpretation of 4:2 is
already pretty clear. 

According to Kevin, the longer reading comes mostly from the Byzantine
mss. Whether or not XRISTON EN SARKI ELHLUQOTA was added later, or was
edited out later, still seems not too clear to me. In any case, the phrase
just seems to fit the meaning of the passage rather well.

Best wishes,

Yuri. 
                                                         
Yuri Kuchinsky || Toronto
                                
http://www.trends.net/~yuku/bbl/bbl.htm