I had a Little List, but alas forgot where I put it... the big "whitewash" item I do recall off the top of my head was portraying Pilate as an honest broker, putting the onus of Jesus' crucifixion onto the Temple heirarchy. (The "wash his hands" bit.) Historical records kept by the Romans themselves strongly suggest that a mass crucifixion to put down potential revolt was Pilate's standard practice. He was not a wise and saintly leader mediating between factions; that just wasn't the way he did business. Nailin' up rabble-rousers as an example to others was the way he did business.
The NT texts we have today were written decades after the events they portray, and only one testiment (Paul's IIRC) was written by the man himself while he was an old and sick man. The other testiments were collated from the Apostles' other writings by later editors, as were the much-later-written Epistles, and what went into those collations was in flux until late in the 4th century AD. (Hence the Dead Sea Scrolls' divergeance from the canonical texts, as well as that of the Gnostics.)
I haven't read them in person, but I have listened to scholars examining the exchanges of letters that went on during the writing of the King James Version as the translators agonised over choosing between preserving the poetry or the literal sense of the Latin text... and how often the poetics won in order to make the texts more appealing to English readers and particularly more useful to clergy preaching from the KJV.
-- Steve also suspects that the "original" texts were also translated; it's unlikely that an Aramaic-speaking son of a Nazarethian carpenter would be making puns that work in Greek but not in Aramaic, Hebrew, or Latin.
Historical records kept by the Romans themselves strongly suggest that a mass crucifixion to put down potential revolt was Pilate's standard practice.
Hence the following rewrite of what was the more-likely way that scene would've played out. (Granting, of course, that there was an historical Jesus which is a debatable issue.*)
TEMPLE PRIEST: Governor, we seem to have a problem with a heretic.
PONTIUS PILATE: Well, that's your problem more than mine, isn't it?
TP: Not really. I mean he once bust into the Temple and started trashing the place, preaching up a storm about the moneychangers and corruption and such.
PP: Your silly doctrines are not my problem so long as you don't make them Rome's problem. I'll put a stop to rabble-rousing in temples, though. That's nasty business.
TP: It gets worse. He's even claiming to be our people's chosen leader who will free us from bondage.
PP: Preaching rebellion, eh? [pounds desk] Not on my watch; I'll nail the bastard to the wall for that.
-- Steve suspects that his rewrite won't go over too well in certain circles.
*Myself, I think it's entirely possible that there may have been a Jeshua ben Joseph, carpenter's son turned radical rabbi, in the area at the time and maybe even crucified for acts against Rome. However, there are no supporting documents for this; no census record indisputably lists him, and there is no record of his execution.
I do think that Biblical texts tend to overemphasise how important such a person would be in a Roman province, and that much of the vitriol around the crucifixion reflects more the schism between early Christians and mainstream Jewish faith than anything else. One more support for the "Bible as fanfic" argument, I guess.
Granting, of course, that there was an historical Jesus which is a debatable issue. You do realise this isn't a position supported by scholars, right? And by that I mean conservative and liberal Christians, other theists, agnostics, and atheists...
There are only a handful of people who support this hypothesis and their methods and conclusions are not well regarded in academia. Quoting from the relevant Wikipedia article:
More recently, arguments for non-historicity have been discussed by George Albert Wells, Earl Doherty (The Jesus Puzzle, 1999), Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy (The Jesus Mysteries) and Robert M. Price and the idea has been popularized in the early 21st century by some of the writers like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, representing the New Atheism movement.
The scholarly mainstream not only rejects the myth thesis, but identifies serious methodological deficiencies in the approach. As such, New Testament scholar James Dunn describes the mythical Jesus theory as a "thoroughly dead thesis".
The NT texts we have today were written decades after the events they portray
True of the gospels, certainly.
and only one testiment (Paul's IIRC) was written by the man himself while he was an old and sick man.
Paul didn't write a testament (or a gospel): he wrote letters, or epistles as they're called. The authentically Pauline letters are generally believed to have been written in his lifetime :-) and the earliest (1 Thessalonians, around 50 AD) pre-dated the writing of the gospels.
what went into those collations was in flux until late in the 4th century AD
Well, yes and no: some stuff was always going to be in because everyone accepted that someone important in the very early church had written it. That said, it's worth asking how we know that Hebrews is meant to be in and 1 Clement isn't, for example.
how often the poetics won in order to make the texts more appealing to English readers and particularly more useful to clergy preaching from the KJV.
This isn't really relevant to the integrity of the Greek texts or the accuracy of the Greek originals, though. Almost everyone knows the KJV isn't a great translations (bar some bonkers Americans who think it was itself inspired by God or something). Better translations are available.
You do find eager atheists over-egging the pudding a bit with regard to both the transmission and accuracy of the NT (or rather, the lack thereof): I don't see any particular reason to treat it differently from other ancient documents or sacred texts: we're likely to have a fair bit of the original text with some interpolations, and the original authors probably made some stuff up. Herodotus is pretty reliable but also writes about dragons. I don't believe in those either: Hume's argument will do on its own, just as it will for resurrections (and zombies coming out of their tombs to accompany Jesus's own resurrection), water into wine, angelic visitations, talking snakes and all the rest.
In general, educated Christians are going to call atheists on their special pleading when dealing with the Bible. A better response than using that sort of pleading is to call Christians on their own: the NT stories are worse evidence than the evidence for a lot of other guff that Christians mostly don't believe. This seems to have been Chris Hallquist's approach, though I haven't read his book.
Thank you for your comments about Pilate. I'll look in to that, not thought about that before.
OK, so you don't actually mean that the text was rewritten, but you're referring to the formalisation of the canon at the Council of Rome in 382? Of course with some exceptions this was mostly a formalisation of the existing recognition of which books were considered to be special (in the sense that they were written at the time, by eyewitnesses / apostles, etc).
With respect to the dates the texts were written, is your issue that they were written later than you'd expect a modern historical account to be written (although of course we often do write historical accounts that sort of period after today, but not always)? Given that they had an aural tradition, some of the texts are based on earlier writings (that have not survived), they were written by eyewitnesses, and are excellent in terms of date of writing and copies available relative to other historical works of the period I take the mainstream scholarly opinion of considering them to be largely reliable documents.
On bible translation - I guess it doesn't matter very much (for most of the western world!) how the KJV was translated, as the majority of bibles used are more modern translations. The issue of how to translate (dynamic equivalent or formal equivalent) is an issue for all translation. I've written about it in some depth over here looking at the translation of hilasterion.
It seems to be extremely likely that Jesus spoke Greek, but it's also very likely that he primarily spoke in Aramaic. So if one wanted to get as close as possible to the exact words Jesus said you'd be right I think in thinking that some of the nuance might have been lost in the translation to Greek, but it'd be very foolish to overplay this.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
The NT texts we have today were written decades after the events they portray, and only one testiment (Paul's IIRC) was written by the man himself while he was an old and sick man. The other testiments were collated from the Apostles' other writings by later editors, as were the much-later-written Epistles, and what went into those collations was in flux until late in the 4th century AD. (Hence the Dead Sea Scrolls' divergeance from the canonical texts, as well as that of the Gnostics.)
I haven't read them in person, but I have listened to scholars examining the exchanges of letters that went on during the writing of the King James Version as the translators agonised over choosing between preserving the poetry or the literal sense of the Latin text... and how often the poetics won in order to make the texts more appealing to English readers and particularly more useful to clergy preaching from the KJV.
-- Steve also suspects that the "original" texts were also translated; it's unlikely that an Aramaic-speaking son of a Nazarethian carpenter would be making puns that work in Greek but not in Aramaic, Hebrew, or Latin.
no subject
Hence the following rewrite of what was the more-likely way that scene would've played out. (Granting, of course, that there was an historical Jesus which is a debatable issue.*)
-- Steve suspects that his rewrite won't go over too well in certain circles.
*Myself, I think it's entirely possible that there may have been a Jeshua ben Joseph, carpenter's son turned radical rabbi, in the area at the time and maybe even crucified for acts against Rome. However, there are no supporting documents for this; no census record indisputably lists him, and there is no record of his execution.
I do think that Biblical texts tend to overemphasise how important such a person would be in a Roman province, and that much of the vitriol around the crucifixion reflects more the schism between early Christians and mainstream Jewish faith than anything else. One more support for the "Bible as fanfic" argument, I guess.
no subject
You do realise this isn't a position supported by scholars, right? And by that I mean conservative and liberal Christians, other theists, agnostics, and atheists...
There are only a handful of people who support this hypothesis and their methods and conclusions are not well regarded in academia. Quoting from the relevant Wikipedia article:
no subject
True of the gospels, certainly.
and only one testiment (Paul's IIRC) was written by the man himself while he was an old and sick man.
Paul didn't write a testament (or a gospel): he wrote letters, or epistles as they're called. The authentically Pauline letters are generally believed to have been written in his lifetime :-) and the earliest (1 Thessalonians, around 50 AD) pre-dated the writing of the gospels.
what went into those collations was in flux until late in the 4th century AD
Well, yes and no: some stuff was always going to be in because everyone accepted that someone important in the very early church had written it. That said, it's worth asking how we know that Hebrews is meant to be in and 1 Clement isn't, for example.
how often the poetics won in order to make the texts more appealing to English readers and particularly more useful to clergy preaching from the KJV.
This isn't really relevant to the integrity of the Greek texts or the accuracy of the Greek originals, though. Almost everyone knows the KJV isn't a great translations (bar some bonkers Americans who think it was itself inspired by God or something). Better translations are available.
You do find eager atheists over-egging the pudding a bit with regard to both the transmission and accuracy of the NT (or rather, the lack thereof): I don't see any particular reason to treat it differently from other ancient documents or sacred texts: we're likely to have a fair bit of the original text with some interpolations, and the original authors probably made some stuff up. Herodotus is pretty reliable but also writes about dragons. I don't believe in those either: Hume's argument will do on its own, just as it will for resurrections (and zombies coming out of their tombs to accompany Jesus's own resurrection), water into wine, angelic visitations, talking snakes and all the rest.
In general, educated Christians are going to call atheists on their special pleading when dealing with the Bible. A better response than using that sort of pleading is to call Christians on their own: the NT stories are worse evidence than the evidence for a lot of other guff that Christians mostly don't believe. This seems to have been Chris Hallquist's approach, though I haven't read his book.
no subject
OK, so you don't actually mean that the text was rewritten, but you're referring to the formalisation of the canon at the Council of Rome in 382? Of course with some exceptions this was mostly a formalisation of the existing recognition of which books were considered to be special (in the sense that they were written at the time, by eyewitnesses / apostles, etc).
With respect to the dates the texts were written, is your issue that they were written later than you'd expect a modern historical account to be written (although of course we often do write historical accounts that sort of period after today, but not always)? Given that they had an aural tradition, some of the texts are based on earlier writings (that have not survived), they were written by eyewitnesses, and are excellent in terms of date of writing and copies available relative to other historical works of the period I take the mainstream scholarly opinion of considering them to be largely reliable documents.
On bible translation - I guess it doesn't matter very much (for most of the western world!) how the KJV was translated, as the majority of bibles used are more modern translations. The issue of how to translate (dynamic equivalent or formal equivalent) is an issue for all translation. I've written about it in some depth over here looking at the translation of hilasterion.
It seems to be extremely likely that Jesus spoke Greek, but it's also very likely that he primarily spoke in Aramaic. So if one wanted to get as close as possible to the exact words Jesus said you'd be right I think in thinking that some of the nuance might have been lost in the translation to Greek, but it'd be very foolish to overplay this.