Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I'm giving references for Baal and Inana I'll try and clarify my difficulty. It is quite possible that there was a Jewish myth in which Yahweh in primeval times battled with the forces of death and/or entered the realm of death, was initially defeated but finally victorious, in a way paralleled by t...

Constructions like "dying and rising gods" are basically junk DNA that keep discussions like these bogged down in obsolete 19th century thinking. In the Ugaritic texts, Ba'al apparently goes down into the underworld, is temporarily overwhelmed by death, but then defeats death and goes bac...

If I remember right, and there's a reasonable chance I'm not, reconstructed Marcion has all the so-called Western Non-Interpolations; that is, it agrees with the great majority against Codex Bezae and the Latin texts like it where the latter are missing certain lines. If you believe those lines are...

The Greek for most of the Recognitions is lost to us, but here is Rufinus' Latin for the phrase in question: "And, therefore, since amongst these philosophers are things uncertain, we must come to the true Prophet. Him God the Father wished to be loved by all, and accordingly He has been pleas...

Steven, I don't remember where I picked up the fact that the Peshitta is a revision, but I'll try to provide a few indications from Metzger... See http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=294&p=69120#p69120 George Kiraz's edition shows the clear relation between these different Sy...

Plus, the Egyptian provenance of the two desert Syriac manuscripts extant should be a warning sign. Aland emphasizes that papyri from Egypt should be considered very cautiously because of the strong gnostic influence. Why not apply this warning to the Old Syriac mss? (And Vaticanus for that matter,...

See http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=294&p=69120#p69120 George Kiraz's edition shows the clear relation between these different Syriac translations. Andrew Criddle There is nothing specific there on our earlier page. As for relations between Syriac translations, often the ...

.......................................................................... When the scholars turn to the Gospel of Thomas, which some think traces to 1st to early 2nd c. Christian teachings, they sometimes notice that it doesn't have the normal gnostic idea of a good Superior God and a lower demiur...

Because the Peshitta is a revision ... I've never seen any real evidence for this claim. If you have any, please share. The Peshitta is radically different from the Curetonian and Old Syriac manuscripts, so it is unlikely to be a revision (they are also very different from each other.) The fact tha...

(In John 21 it is implausibly unexpected given the previous appearances). I don’t see any statement that the resurrection appearance in Jn 21 is particularly unexpected. I see the normal resurrection motif that the disciples do not recognise Jesus (Jn 21:4, cf. Lk 24:16, Jn 20:14) because the earli...