Ignatz: Krazy Kat or Krazy editors?

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DCHindley
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Ignatz: Krazy Kat or Krazy editors?

Post by DCHindley »

I spent the weekend locating the shorter and longer Unicode Greek texts of Ignatius, in Bibleworks 8 (shorter Greek text) and online (both shorter and longer are there if you look reeeealy hard, seemingly based on Migne's reprint edition), along with the English translations of the shorter, longer and Syriac texts by Roberts & Donaldson in ANF volume 1.

Choosing the letter to the Ephesians as an example, I created a table with the shorter Greek text, shorter English translation, longer Greek text, longer English translation, in synopsis, and another table comparing the English translation of the shorter Greek, longer Greek, and Syriac and then picked it apart as best I could to see if I could make sense of them all.

All I can say is ... it's all crazy, man. The shorter and longer Greek texts seem to be almost like alternate translations of some different language original, although the longer text seems peppered by a large number of quotes from the OT and NT books, and sometimes bizarre digressions, although the shorter text has its bizarre moments as well. The Syriac version seems to relate best to the shorter Greek text, but is much more brief, but almost all the bizarre stuff is not to be found. I can see why it has been proposed that the Syriac version is closer to the original behind the shorter and/or longer Greek text.

Anyways, I attach these two tables for review by interested lurkers, even unqualified ones. Ephesians is the Ignatian text which describes a (bizarre) myth with stars, dragons, mysteries, you name it, that has some sort of relationship with some parts of the Apocalypse, which was a subject of a thread (on FRDB) on Ignatius Ephesians 19 & Revelation 12, back in late 2010. A table I saved for use in that discussion had:

Ignatius, Ephesians 19:
Revelation 12:
1a And hidden from the prince of this world were 3a And another portent [SHMEION] appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon,
1b the virginity of Mary Lxx Isaiah 7:14b behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb,
1c and her child-bearing Lxx Isaiah 7:14c and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel.
1d and likewise also the death of the Lord 5b but her child was caught up to God and to his throne,
1e --three mysteries to be cried aloud--the which were wrought in the silence of God. Revelation 10:7 but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God, as he announced to his servants the prophets, should be fulfilled.
2a How then were they made manifest to the ages?
2b A star [ASTRON] shone forth in the heaven above all the stars; 1a And a great portent [SHMEION] appeared in heaven,
2c and its light was unutterable, and its strangeness caused amazement; 1b a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet,
2d and all the rest of the constellations with the sun and moon formed themselves into a chorus about the star; but the star itself far outshone them all; 1c and on her head a crown of twelve stars;
2e and there was perplexity [TARACH] to know whence came this strange appearance which was so unlike them. See 1a "portent"
3a From that time forward every sorcery and every spell was dissolved, the ignorance of wickedness vanished away,
3b the ancient kingdom was pulled down, 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world -- he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
3c when God appeared in the likeness of man unto newness of everlasting life; Lxx Isaiah 7:14a Therefore the Lord [KURIOS, also in the Hebrew] himself shall give you a sign [SHMEION];
3d and that which had been perfected in the counsels of God began to take effect.
3e Thence all things were perturbed, because the abolishing of death was taken in hand. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come,

My recollection was that I suggested that an underlying myth, if that is what lies behind these parallels, could prove profitable to proponents of Mythicism, but predicted they would not do so on account of myopic vision.

I have not yet taken a second look at these parallels based on my efforts over the weekend, but would welcome anyone wanting to open a discussion about it. Mr Smith has included this text among "Potentially relevant references in later literature" in a July post here:
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... ion#p38314

I no longer sign my posts ... :silenced:

Edit 9/12/15: I replaced the PDF with the Greek-English analysis of the shorter & longer forms with a newer one that caught some errors and revised a section where I couldn't figure out what the ANF translator was actually translating.
Attachments
(Ignatius) Ephesians (Shorter & Longer G-E analysis).pdf
New and improved, but still pathetic, attempt at analysis as of 9/12/15, previous version downloaded about 11 times
(680.3 KiB) Downloaded 550 times
Ephesians, Short & Long Forms & Syriac, compared.pdf
Oh pleeease! Apologists are SO much more entertaining!
(368.45 KiB) Downloaded 565 times
Last edited by DCHindley on Sun Nov 29, 2015 9:06 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Ignatius: Crazy Man or Crazy editors?

Post by Secret Alias »

I haven't looked at this stuff in twenty years in any detail. I can still remember having the photocopies of the English translation where I tried to match the preservation of material from short and longer material in Greek. It was my 'window to the world' of Patristic writings - that and Against Celsus.

As far as I know I am the only person who has ever suggested the Syriac was near original. I think there was one additional layer likely written in Syriac. I think that was the original layer and then the Syriac and then the short Greek and then the longer Greek.

It is interesting that Irenaeus never names the author of the Epistle to the Romans 'Ignatius.' The name Ignatius is problematic too. Not a real name.

I hope you agree that there is something parallel here with the development of the Marcionite epistles to the orthodox ones. I think the expansion here (from Syriac to Greek) gives us some yardstick to measure how much the Marcionite were expanded.

When I was younger I did trace a motive for the expansion - i.e. the right of external churches (i.e. the community as a whole) to help name a successor to the deceased (or terminated) old bishop. I think this is the reason for the development of expansional material. Whoever created the Syriac text may well have done so for one reason and then the short Greek had another and then the longer Greek another.

My guess was that the additions tend to focus on Church authority (on the bishop level) but more importantly by the last expansion the right of Polycarp (because he is acting on Ignatius's behalf remember according to the letters) to organize a synod to replace Ignatius. I think this was the precedent being established so that helps identify our forger = Irenaeus. I think it is pretty plain when we look at this angle.
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Re: Ignatius: Crazy Man or Crazy editors?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

DCHindley wrote:I spent the weekend locating the shorter and longer Unicode Greek texts of Ignatius, in Bibleworks 8 (shorter Greek text) and online (both shorter and longer are there if you look reeeealy hard, seemingly based on Migne's reprint edition), along with the English translations of the shorter, longer and Syriac texts by Roberts & Donaldson in ANF volume 1.

Choosing the letter to the Ephesians as an example, I created a table with the shorter Greek text, shorter English translation, longer Greek text, longer English translation, in synopsis, and another table comparing the English translation of the shorter Greek, longer Greek, and Syriac and then picked it apart as best I could to see if I could make sense of them all.
Nicely done, David. Do you have plans to do the same for the other letters?

A handy source for the shorter and longer Greek forms, based (as you say) on Migne, is here: http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/pgm/PG_Mig ... _epist.doc.

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Re: Ignatius: Crazy Man or Crazy editors?

Post by DCHindley »

Ben C. Smith wrote:
DCHindley wrote:I spent the weekend locating the shorter and longer Unicode Greek texts of Ignatius, in Bibleworks 8 (shorter Greek text) and online (both shorter and longer are there if you look reeeealy hard, seemingly based on Migne's reprint edition), along with the English translations of the shorter, longer and Syriac texts by Roberts & Donaldson in ANF volume 1.

Choosing the letter to the Ephesians as an example, I created a table with the shorter Greek text, shorter English translation, longer Greek text, longer English translation, in synopsis, and another table comparing the English translation of the shorter Greek, longer Greek, and Syriac and then picked it apart as best I could to see if I could make sense of them all.
Nicely done, David. Do you have plans to do the same for the other letters?

A handy source for the shorter and longer Greek forms, based (as you say) on Migne, is here: http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/pgm/PG_Mig ... _epist.doc.

Ben.
Yes, given time (they can be a bit tedious, as I'm sure you know well).

I play around with the wording of my posts, trying to inject a little humor on subjects that are usually rather dry and tedious, but to be serious for a moment my interest is in seeing if a comparison might help enhance study of possible textual interpolations of the Paulines, or even the synoptic Gospels. I'm sure it is unrelated to my interest, but the longer text is wholly loaded with Pauline citations and allusions, as well as from the Gospel of John.

Unfortunately, the more I read of this letter the less sure I am that the longer is an interpolated version of the shorter. They seem like independent expansions of a common source. The verbal similarities of wording, which in a few places can be very exact, other times are very loose, and in some cases one version does what the other does, but in totally different ways. For instance, the oppositions. Even when they agree they are in a different order. Weird. In general, though, the longer version seems to be attempting to "out do" the shorter version at the shorter version's game.

And yes, the Greek text I used for the longer version was from the khazarzar site. Looks like Lightfoot added verses to the chapters, but the texts on the khazarzar site do not follow them, even for the "genuine" ones. The editor who originally published them was inconsistent in his adaptation of the text to the subdivisions of the more modern editions. I also am not at all sure how close the Lightfoot text in Bibleworks is to the "Migne" version of the genuine epistles on the khazarzar site.

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Re: Ignatius: Crazy Man or Crazy editors?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

DCHindley wrote:Yes, given time (they can be a bit tedious, as I'm sure you know well).
Tedious? The methodical manipulation -- line by line, word by word, at times letter by letter -- of ancient texts and modern translations -- over the course of dozens, even hundreds, of hours... tedious? Huh.

Both the shorter and longer Greek forms are also available on the TLG, under the titles, respectively, of "Epistulae vii genuinae (recensio media)" and "Epistulae interpolatae et epistulae suppositiciae (recensio longior)". (The "recensio brevior", of course, being extant only in Syriac, would not be on the TLG.)
I play around with the wording of my posts, trying to inject a little humor on subjects that are usually rather dry and tedious, but to be serious for a moment my interest is in seeing if a comparison might help enhance study of possible textual interpolations of the Paulines, or even the synoptic Gospels.
A worthy goal.

Say, does your own reconstruction of the Paulines bear any special relationship to the Marcionite version or take it into any special account? Does it predict Marcionite priority or posteriority?

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Re: Ignatius: Crazy Man or Crazy editors?

Post by DCHindley »

Ben C. Smith wrote:
DCHindley wrote:I play around with the wording of my posts, trying to inject a little humor on subjects that are usually rather dry and tedious, but to be serious for a moment my interest is in seeing if a comparison might help enhance study of possible textual interpolations of the Paulines, or even the synoptic Gospels.
A worthy goal.

Say, does your own reconstruction of the Paulines bear any special relationship to the Marcionite version or take it into any special account? Does it predict Marcionite priority or posteriority?
No, it does not. I'm quite convinced that there are two threads (strata) going on, in all 13 letters. However, the only coherent theme seems to be the argument that gentiles can be deemed righteous before God merely by having the same faith as Abraham did, that God would actually fulfilling his promise to provide him with many descendants who would inherit the promised land, thus extending the promise of that fruitful land to faithful gentiles as well, all without need to circumcise. His advice was "don't, you don't need to".

The other strata is more "noisy". It intrudes with alternate and often contradictory explanatory trajectories, basically overpowering the other strata's theme. It represents a rough and tumble kind of "high Christology" that doesn't seem to have any unified theme to it. Jesus is to this strata Christ, an exalted being, who accomplished a vicarious, propitiatory sacrifice of himself, which is universally valid because the victim happens to be divine. To be honest, I am kind of surprised that the persons who introduced it didn't just erase the text with themes that he/they seemed to object to.

So then I asked myself what Marcion would likely say if he had written the original Paulines, or alternatively revised or modified a pre-existing Pauline corpus. As I admitted to Stephan in another thread, I came in fully expecting to find that Marcion had modified a set of pre-existing Paulines that closely resemble the modern day text. However, it seems that a real life Marcion does not closely fit our modern conception of him. Anyhow, it seems that he accepted that the Judean God had a plan in effect to establish a just kingdom of God ushered in my his anointed one, but did not think that his Good God was behind it in any way. That doesn't mean Marcion hated the Judean God and wanted to destroy everything he represented. I think, through his Antitheses, which compared sayings of Jesus recorded in the gospels of Matthew and Luke with statements in the Judean scriptures, he came to the conclusion that were their direct opposites in meaning, temperament, and warm fuzziness. He deduced that this was evidence for a completely different kind of God than the one that the Judean God seemed present in his mind. It was the church leadership who had decided, wrongly in his opinion, that Jesus must be the anointed one of the Judean God AS WELL AS the representative of the Good God.

This idea that the Judean scriptures was a combination of true doctrine mixed up with bad human doctrine, was really not foreign to early Christians. The author(s) of the Pseudo-Clementine literature clearly thought that Judean scripture contained things that could not be true if uttered by God as they wanted Him/Her to be, and they thought they could divide the god from the bad by means of "philosophy". So, it seems Marcion seemed to be a thinker, not a do-er. He did not change the text, just commented on it. Did Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian and Epiphanius want to think he MUST have torn the Gospel of Luke and/or the Pauline letters apart? That is another story altogether, but I'd say "yes".

In this way of looking at things, Marcion would probably NOT have written the Paulines or "Gospel" as they come to us (or, for that matter, as I see them edited). He may well have commented on either the text largely as it has been handed down to present, or even as I see the "original strata" to be, because in his mind it was the early Christian leadership who introduced the idea that Jesus was the Judean God's messiah. He could have commented on a God counting faithful gentiles as righteous (in Paul), with or without thinking that the text had been altered to associate Jesus with Judean messianism, but we cannot really tell for sure as all the evidence was handed down exclusively through hostile witnesses. Calling attention to it was his way of protesting changes that he saw as damaging his conception of Jesus' role.

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Re: Ignatius: Crazy Man or Crazy editors?

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DCHindley wrote:As I admitted to Stephan in another thread, I came in fully expecting to find that Marcion had modified a set of pre-existing Paulines that closely resemble the modern day text. However, it seems that a real life Marcion does not closely fit our modern conception of him. .... So, it seems Marcion seemed to be a thinker, not a do-er. He did not change the text, just commented on it. Did Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian and Epiphanius want to think he MUST have torn the Gospel of Luke and/or the Pauline letters apart? That is another story altogether, but I'd say "yes". .... In this way of looking at things, Marcion would probably NOT have written the Paulines or "Gospel" as they come to us (or, for that matter, as I see them edited).
Just to be clear, I was using the term "Marcionite priority" of the suggestion that the Marcionite edition of the Pauline letters preceded the Catholic edition of the same. I personally think the chances that Marcion himself wrote or in some way commissioned the epistles as they stand, in either recension (Marcionite or Catholic), to be close to nil, just as I think that the chances that the Catholics themselves wrote either recension are close to nil. But the question of whether the (shorter) Marcionite edition preceded the (longer) Catholic edition or vice versa (that is, whether the Catholics took a Pauline text and added interpolations or Marcion took a Pauline text and mutilated it), or a combination of the two, is very much a live one.

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Re: Ignatius: Crazy Man or Crazy editors?

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it seems that he accepted that the Judean God had a plan in effect to establish a just kingdom of God ushered in my his anointed one
But let's back it up a bit. Today we take for granted that Yahweh = the cosmocrator, the one true God of everyone on the earth. Imagine how silly this must have sounded to Jews and the Marcionites. Let's be honest about the shell game that theologians play. Ever since the corrupted letters of Paul we have learned to speak of 'the promise' being transferred to the Gentiles. But let's look at the reality. It was Yahweh who became irreconcilably transformed into an illogical mess.

So let's go back in time to the Crossing of the Sea. The Egyptians chasing after the Israelites have to die. Why? Because they dared to disobey the god of the Israelites who told Moses to say 'Let my people go.'

Yahweh was now only 'originally' a nationalist god of the Israelites in the 'early period.' Jesus is born from a virgin and is god. Which god? Yahweh apparently who is the 'one God of everything in heaven and earth.' According to Irenaeus it was an angel who appeared in the fire to Moses who at once was the one true God Yahweh (presumably). But now in the end times Yahweh manifest himself in the womb of Mary and ministered the Word and was crucified - apparently. It is never really explained in any detailed way. It just 'is' - is true - in order to make all the things Justin and others said about Jesus with monarchian 'truth.'

The clearest way that Marcionism was pre-existent is the degree to which it DOESN'T conform to this monarchian 'pave over' that we see in Irenaeus's writings. Throughout Adversus Haereses there is a clear sense that older that things said by Justin, Theophilus, Polycarp and perhaps even Marcion have been repeated now and altered, made to conform to the belief in one heavenly ruler governing the universe. Notice the way Irenaeus positions himself as a student of these man (perhaps not Marcion) and so has the authority to 'correct' the views of those acknowledged students of Justin and Polycarp - Tatian and Florinus.

Yet it must have been plain to anyone who knew Justin that he didn't believe in this monarchian dogma. Nor did the Marcionites. This perhaps is the greatest proof that they were pre-orthodox.

For it is simply implausible - utterly implausible - that Yahweh was the cosmocrator. This doesn't get enough attention. Yahweh was quite simply - the god of the Israelites. The original understanding was that he - like the Jews - was a smaller divinity. An occultated, 'secret' god. Not the ruler of the world but something quite marginal and in the shadows in the same way that the Jews, thieves and bandits were marginal in worldly affairs. Instead Yahweh was something like 'the magicians god' (clearly portrayed as such in the Pentateuch) a great secret to be revealed to the world, to empower the weak to overcome the great powers in the world - terrestrial and heavenly alike.

The Jews IMO knew there was One great power. That being may have been Yahweh (I don't think they originally conceived him this manner but let it stand as such). But this Yahweh was not the cosmocrator. He couldn't be equated with the power (= Caesar) who ruled the world and Marcion knew that. I think this gets lost in these discussions.

That's why it is so important to 'time' Irenaeus's activities in Christianity with Judah ha-Nasi's in the Jewish community. They operate in tandem both 'corrupting' their traditions with monarchian bullshit. One almost gets the feeling that Judah is only serving to bolster Irenaeus's claim that Judaism is monarchian-centered in order to reshape Christianity into a 'world ruler' religion. Remember it was only in this period (late Commodian/early Severian) that the Jews begin to pray to the cosmocrator in their synagogues too. https://books.google.com/books?id=BjtWL ... gy&f=false

The Samaritans don't give in and are slaughtered en masse. Likely too the fate of the Marcionites. But their rejection of monarchianism is rooted in the same understanding of Israelite religion. The god of Israel is not the cosmocrator and so - and this is critical - cannot be manifest in the person of Caesar! Each worship a god who is the most powerful and greatest being in the universe but whose greatness, rule and authority are incompatible with the 'real' ruler of the world. Not so with the 'accepted' faiths of Judaism and Christianity. The courtiers from these religions flatter Caesar, help him into bed and escape his wrath ultimately.
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Re: Ignatius: Crazy Man or Crazy editors?

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For those who aren't familiar with Judah's innovation. Originally the Israelites only said Deuteronomy 6:4 (Talmud Sukkah 42a and Berachot 13b). This is the Samaritan practice. But Judah now had them read Deuteronomy 6:4 - 7 but with the addition of an important second verse which does not come from scripture but Judah's own imagination (or Caesar's):

בָּרוּךְ שֵׁם כְּבוֹד מַלְכוּתוֹ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד - "Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever”

The second line is universally acknowledged as a rabbinic addition and is recited silently during congregational worship (except on Yom Kippur, when it is recited aloud). It was a modification of "Baruch shem k’vodo l’olam", "Blessed be His glorious name" (Psalm 72:19). However, Judah added the words, "malchuto" ("His kingdom") and "va’ed" ("for ever and ever"). It was clearly a sign of subordination to the powers of Rome as divinely sanctioned (a theme repeated in Irenaeus over and over again especially in Books Three and Four).

The idea that the Jews blessed a kingdom that had yet to be is complete nonsense. Indeed when the messianic kingdom is referenced in the liturgy it is clearly acknowledged as not yet here. The existing political rule of Rome is what is being referenced. No doubt about that despite what Jewish apologists now say. The reason why the second line is said silently is probably that Jews couldn't stomach acknowledging Caesar - despite Judah's best efforts for his Imperial masters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv2kMTDLvPo
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Re: Ignatius: Crazy Man or Crazy editors?

Post by Secret Alias »

Just explain to the non-Jews WTF happened to Judaism under the flatter-sycophant Judah haNasi. The Torah became interpolated (in its public reading!). For now the Jews added a line to the reading of one of the most important parts of the Torah:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.

Impress them on your children.

Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. [Deut 6:4 - 9 (with addition from Judah haNasi)]
Think about that when you take about the expansion of scripture in Christian circles mostly read aloud to the congregation of New Israel in the same period. Hail Caesar!
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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