Who axed Acts 8:37?

[andrewcriddle]

.........................
This all means that Acts has witnesses that go back to 2nd-3rd century (101-300) CE, whereas the earliest witness for vs. 8:37 date no earlier than 6th century. All those variants and the dates of the witnesses convinced W&H and NA to omit vs 8:37 as a scribal gloss. Since it serves as an expansion, it is surprising not to see it witnessed by Uncial D (Bezae, 5th century, the "western text"). IMHO, it may have been an expansion created in imitation of the western text type readings, which are usually expansions.

Codex Bezae is missing here.

Andrew Criddle

[DCHindley]

.........................
This all means that Acts has witnesses that go back to 2nd-3rd century (101-300) CE, whereas the earliest witness for vs. 8:37 date no earlier than 6th century. All those variants and the dates of the witnesses convinced W&H and NA to omit vs 8:37 as a scribal gloss. Since it serves as an expansion, it is surprising not to see it witnessed by Uncial D (Bezae, 5th century, the "western text"). IMHO, it may have been an expansion created in imitation of the western text type readings, which are usually expansions.

Codex Bezae is missing here.

Andrew Criddle

Well, codex Bezae (D) does have a gap of about 8 leaves, which includes 8.37, so I concede that this is likely why 8:37 is not supported by D.

Are you suggesting that the mss that do contain 8:37 are perhaps based on the same mss tradition as Codex D?

The sheer number of variants in vs. 37, IMHO, argue against this.

DCH

[JoeWallack]

.........................
This all means that Acts has witnesses that go back to 2nd-3rd century (101-300) CE, whereas the earliest witness for vs. 8:37 date no earlier than 6th century. All those variants and the dates of the witnesses convinced W&H and NA to omit vs 8:37 as a scribal gloss. Since it serves as an expansion, it is surprising not to see it witnessed by Uncial D (Bezae, 5th century, the "western text"). IMHO, it may have been an expansion created in imitation of the western text type readings, which are usually expansions.

Codex Bezae is missing here.

Andrew Criddle

Textual Healing's Good For Jews

JW:

Acts 8:37

And Philip said, If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.]

Yet another Thread here that is backwards from the start. The question should be how was 8:37 added to the original and not how it was deleted. Skeptical (the only kind I use) Textual Criticism relies more on Internal evidence and since the verse in question is a confessional statement omission of the verse would be a very difficult reading. As demonstrated by my related award winning:

Cumulative Weight of Early Witness for Difficult Readings

Very difficult readings need very little External support to be likely original. Here the External evidence also favors omission which makes the issue of 8:37 an uninteresting one.

Specifically for Bezae:

Codex Bezae

Lacunae
Matthew 1:1-20, 6:20-9:2, 27:2-12; John 1:16-3:26; Acts 8:29-10:14,

It's not a witness either way. We've seen in my related Thread that Bezae is about as good as any witness for very difficult readings. Bezae/Western text in general has a reputation for addition. Thus it would appear that Bezae's apologetic approach was to preserve the original reading and apologize through addition.


Joseph

http://skepticaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/

[Steven Avery]

This all means that Acts has witnesses that go back to 2nd-3rd century (101-300) CE, whereas the earliest witness for vs. 8:37 date no earlier than 6th century.

Selection fallacy. There are numerous early church writer references that are written in early centuries, even 180-250 AD.

There are some fairly early extant mss as well, but since the ECW are far more important, I will not check dates and languages at the moment.

==============

JW - where is Acts 8:37 an early confessional statement? You have any documents?
And, if true, you are arguing for authenticity, since confessional statements were built upon scripture.

However, since Acts 8:37 strongly supports believer’s baptism, and contradicts infant baptism, there would be a strong inclination od scribes to prefer the lacuna text. Note that this is different than the embedded confession.

[gmx]

It perhaps comes down to whether you accept an early or late (second century) date for the composition of Acts. If acts was composed at the extreme late end of the range, Ireneaus' citation is probably not far removed from the autograph.

On the subject of the difficult reading principle, it appears to be somewhat flawed to me, because it seems to assume a very early orthodoxy that had total control of the text. However, if there were multiple competing theologies represented in the early textual tradition, what might have been difficult for one sect may not have been for another.

[Steven Avery]

On the subject of the difficult reading principle, it appears to be somewhat flawed to me, because it seems to assume a very early orthodoxy that had total control of the text. However, if there were multiple competing theologies represented in the early textual tradition, what might have been difficult for one sect may not have been for another.

An excellent point that I was thinking about, when I posted above.

There were gnostics, with strong influence on Egyptian texts, there were Sabellians, Arians and orthodox and "un-orthodox" Trinitarians in the lead in various locales and times. There were differences on many doctrines, and often spectrums of belief.

The harder reading idea has numerous problems.

lectio difficilior and lectio brevior made easy
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showthrea ... 40#post140

[DCHindley]

This all means that Acts has witnesses that go back to 2nd-3rd century (101-300) CE, whereas the earliest witness for vs. 8:37 date no earlier than 6th century.

Selection fallacy. There are numerous early church writer references that are written in early centuries, even 180-250 AD.

There are some fairly early extant mss as well, but since the ECW are far more important, I will not check dates and languages at the moment.

==============

JW - where is Acts 8:37 an early confessional statement? You have any documents?
And, if true, you are arguing for authenticity, since confessional statements were built upon scripture.

However, since Acts 8:37 strongly supports believer’s baptism, and contradicts infant baptism, there would be a strong inclination od scribes to prefer the lacuna text. Note that this is different than the embedded confession.

Are you just making up fallacies at this point.

There is just one papyrus that has 8:34-9:6, which Ben S has already demonstrated, for the benefit of JohnT, could not possibly have included 8:37, and that was p45 (ca 250). 8:37 was not there. Period.

Steven, this is the kind of legwork that *you* should be doing.

Papyrus#	Approx Date	What's in it
P.008	350	Acts 4:31-37; 5:2-9; 6:1-6, 8-15
P.029	250	Acts 26:7-8; 26:20
P.033,58	550	Acts 7:6-10; 7:13-18; 15:21-24, 26-32
P.038	300	Acts 18:27-19:6; 19:12-16
P.041	750	Acts 17:28-31; 17:34-18:2; Acts 18:17-18, 22-23; Acts 18:24-25, 27; Acts 19:1-4, 6-8; Acts 19:13-16, 18-19; Acts 20:9, 10-13, 15-16; Acts 20:22-24, 26-28; Acts 20:28-30; Acts 20:30-31; Acts 20:32-35; Acts 20:35-38; 21:1-3, 26-27; Acts 22:11-14, 16-17
P.045	250	Acts 4:27-36; 5:10-21, 30-39; 6:7-7:2, 10-21, 32-41; 7:52-8:1, 14-25; 8:34-9:6, 16-27, 9:35-10:2, 10-23, 31-41, 11:2-14, 11:24-12:5, 13-22, 13:6-16, 25-36, 13:46-14:3, 15-23, 15:2-7, 19-27, 15:38-16:4, 15-22, 32-40; 17:9-17
P.048	250	Acts 23:11-17, 23:25-29
P.050	400	Acts 8:26-30, 8:30-32, 10:26-27, 10:27-30, 10:30-31
P.053	250	Acts 9:33-10:1
P.056	500	Acts 1:1-5, 7-11
P.057	400	Acts 4:36-5:2, 8-10
P.074	650	Acts 1:2-5, 7-11, 13-15, 18-19, 22-25, 2:2-4, 2:6-28:31
P.091	250	Acts 2:30-37, 2:46-3:2
P.112	450	Acts 26:31-32, 27:6-7
P.127	450	Acts 10:32-35, 40-45, 11:2-5, 11:30-12:3, 5, 7-9, 15:29-30, 34-41, 16:1-4, 13-40, 17:1-10
P.136	601-700	Acts 4:27-31; 7:26-30

DCH

[Ulan]

Are you just making up fallacies at this point.

I like how you didn't bother reaching for a question mark.

[Steven Avery]

DCHindley, one question I asked was this.. why is this list supposed to be relevant to the textual question in Acts?

If one wants to understand Who axed Acts 8:37, the question should be "Who's axing?"
....
** Acts has first order witnesses from papyri
p8 (4th cent),
p29 (3rd),
p33+58 (6th),
p38 (ca 300 CE),
p41 (8th),
p45 (3rd),
p48 (3rd),
p50 (4th-5th),
p53 (3rd),
p56 (5th-6th),
p57 (4th-5th),
p74 (7th),
p91 (3rd) &
p112 (5th).

As for the related chart of Acts papyri, very pretty, and it simply reinforces my questions.

You successfully showed what we know, that there is only one early papyrus fragment relevant to Acts.
And one later one, P74. Which you missed.

There is just one papyrus that has 8:34-9:6,

It is a bit ironic that you have good html skills, or good usage of the editor, and did not read correctly your own chart.

2:6-28:31

Steven, this is the kind of legwork that *you* should be doing.

An ultra-ironic lecture.

============================

While the selection fallacy was your talking about the earliest witnesses and omitting Irenaeus, Cyprian and other early church writings. You omitted the early church writers, when they are the most important witnesses.

Here was your assertion (fallacy phrase has emphasis added.) :

This all means that Acts has witnesses that go back to 2nd-3rd century (101-300) CE, whereas the earliest witness for vs. 8:37 date no earlier than 6th century. All those variants and the dates of the witnesses convinced W&H and NA to omit vs 8:37 as a scribal gloss. Since it serves as an expansion, it is surprising not to see it witnessed by Uncial D (Bezae, 5th century, the "western text"). IMHO, it may have been an expansion created in imitation of the western text type readings, which are usually expansions

As for Westcott and Hort, all they needed to see was Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.

[Secret Alias]

gMark was the first non-fiction account of the gospel of Jesus

What is the likelihood that an illiterate scribbling on a tablet in antiquity would match what we mean by 'non-fiction'? Clearly that's not the case. Even ancient historians who were inhibited by social 'shame' (i.e. if their exaggerations were identified) were notoriously prone to exaggeration, embellishment etc. The reason why you call the narrative 'non-fiction' is because you believe in the narrative and only 'non-fiction' is believable (or deemed worthy of belief in modernity). But clearly the opposite of what you suggest is true. If the gospel was written by a piece of shit (at least in the rankings of ancient society) the narrative would be shit and full of myths, legends, fables, made up stuff. Sorry, but it's true. The lower you go down the social ladder the more prone to lies. Hence the torture of slaves for admitted testimony.