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Open Forums for ExChristian.Net > Debating with Christians > Looking for a timeline

Posted by: Aspirin99 Feb 24 2005, 07:48 AM

I'm looking for a timeline that shows the emergence of NT manuscripts - the chronology of which were found first, etc. Anyone have a link? Thanks.

Posted by: SOIL-ITU Feb 24 2005, 12:48 PM

Aspirin99, I realize this is not really what you are asking for - but you may find if useful at some point: http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/GNT/books.html There are a bunch of places on the net where one can find the Textus Receptus - but it took me a while to find this. Here is a quote out of a little PDF file http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/Preface-3.pdf (just one of many interesting pages at this site) : QUOTE "We should always try to clarify and strengthen our opponent's position as much as possible before criticizing him, if we wish our criticism to be worth while." Sir Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery Most of the things there are in PDF form because of the Greek characters - the fellow Wieland Willker in his commentaries compares a lot of the early MSS - for instance see : http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/TC-John-PA.pdf This site contains very detailed analysis of differences between various MSS. -Dennis

Posted by: Bruce Feb 24 2005, 12:58 PM

In general: The Pauline Epistles are considered the first written. Paul has no knowledge of any of the events or parables told in the Gospels. Mark is considered the first Gospel and it is considered to be a formalized version of a lost or oral gospel known as Q. Matthew and Luke are basically expanded versions of Mark, with major contradictions, for instance in the nativity accounts, resurrection accounts, etc. Gospel of John is considered to be the last Gospel and is completely different than the first three. John focuses upon a Neo-Platonic divine Jesus and not the human Jesus. The other epistles were written around the same time as John. Revelation is considered to be a much later document and was only accepted as conon by one vote. There are many other books that are not considered canon. All of the books that make upo the existing New Testaments (RC, GOC and protestant versions differ) were voted on at councils and most early Christian books were discarded as heretical. //Bruce//

Posted by: SOIL-ITU Feb 24 2005, 01:09 PM

Aspirin99, Maybe this is a little more related to specifically what you are asking for : Copied from http://www.centerce.org/ENGLISH%20BIBLE/EnglishBibleDefault.htm : QUOTE Introduction to Text Families Manuscripts are grouped by scholars into "text families". These text families represent manuscripts or texts that manifest similar characteristics that indicate some connection in their history or development. 1.  Text Families: a.  The Byzantine Family – tend to be secondary sources (copies of other manuscripts).  Sometimes called the Koine family.  Favored by the Greek Orthodox Church, hence the term Byzantine, but since it combines elements form earlier types of texts, is considered inferior in part to other families. b.  The Western Family – Considered by Hort to be inferior and the result of undisciplined growth and combination of other texts sources.  Favored by the Western church fathers.  Codex D (Bezae) and the old Latin manuscripts are represented in this family. c.  The Caesarean Family – Probably originated in Egypt and eventually found its way to Jerusalem. Represents a mixture of Byzantine (Koine) and Western texts influences. d.  The Alexandrian Family – Generally considered the most carefully prepared manuscript or text types.  Found in Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, P46, P66, P75, et al. 2.  Major Manuscripts: a.  Codex Sinaiticus – 4th century – Discovered at St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai.  Once contained the complete Bible, but only the New Testament survives in the present form of this manuscript. b.  Codex Alexandrinus – A, 5th century – Seemingly found in Constantinople.  Represented the Alexandrian text type, hence its title.  Old Testament and most of the New Testament.  A valuable text type which ranks highly along with both Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. c.  Codex Vaticanus – B, 4th century – Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha.  One of the most valuable of all manuscripts of the Greek Bible.  Found in the Vatican library in Rome. d.  Codex Ephraemi – E, 5th century Palimpsest (found under the writing of a later manuscript).  Contains only part of the Old Testament and 145 leaves of the New Testament.  A mixed text type. e.  Codex Bezae – D, 5th or 6th century Greek and Latin manuscript.  Contains some remarkable variations and inconsistencies. f.    In addition to these major manuscripts there are many other valuable textual resource manuscripts. 3.  Important Greek Papyri of the New Testament: These papyrus manuscripts  or manuscript fragments date from as early as the 2nd century, with many from the 3rd and 4th century.  They form a valuable witness to the original autographs. a.  P52 The John Rylands Fragment of the Gospel of John, only 2 ½ inches by 3 ½ inches is the oldest papyrus fragment  known to exist.  It dates from the mid 2nd century.  Its value lies in the fact that it was discovered in Egypt, indicating that he Gospel of John was known in Egypt as early as the mid 2nd century of Christianity, possibly only 60 years after the gospel was written. b.  P45, the first Chester Beatty papyrus, originally containing the Four Gospels and Acts dates from the first half of the 3rd century,  approximately 250 AD. c.  P46, the second Chester Beatty papyrus originally contained ten of the Pauline Epistles, also dates from the first half of the 3rd century, approximately 250 AD. d.  P47, the third Chester Beatty papyrus is a mutilated fragment of the Book of Revelation dating from the latter half of the 3rd century, approximately 275 AD. e.  P66 , in the Bodmer Library in Cologny, Geneva, is perhaps the most important papyrus manuscript, is of the Gospel of John dating from approximately 200 AD. f.    Many other early papyrus manuscripts or manuscript fragments that are available add to the large and impressive textual base available to textual scholars. 4.  Important Early Translations or Versions: a.  Several Old Latin Versions (translations) date from the last quarter of the 2nd century (175 AD). b.  Several Syriac translations date  from the 4th and 5th centuries.  They originated in Syria.                         i.    Noted among these Syriac Versions are the Curetonian Syriac, the Sinaitic Syriac, and the Peshitta. c.  Coptic Versions in which the text was written in the Egyptian language, but using the Greek alphabet.  The Sahidic and Boharic Versions are the most important and date from at least the 4th century. d.  Gothic, Armenian, Georgian, and Ethiopic Versions, although much later, add to the impressive library of early translations available to the text scholar. 5.  One final important source of textual evidence available to the textual scholar are the many quotations and references to Biblical texts in the Patristic  or Early Church Fathers.  These quotations reveal which Biblical texts were readily available and used as early as the 2nd century of Christianity.  The provide a rich textual resource for the text scholars to use in comparative studies with the manuscripts, papyri, and versions of early Christianity. 6.  Concluding Comments on Text Families and Manuscripts: a.  Text scholars have at their disposal an enormous pool of manuscripts, versions, and other resources with which to work as they reconstruct the autographs of both the Old and Testaments. b.  It is interesting to note that when Wycliffe, Erasmus, Tyndale, and the King James scholars were developing their text base and making their translations, most of the major manuscripts and papyri had not yet been discovered.  The earliest manuscripts and these early scholars had at their disposal were 10th century manuscripts and the 4th century Latin Vulgate.  Erasmus worked with approximately 6 manuscripts, and the King James Version and Textus Receptus were based on approximately 10 manuscripts, all later than the 10th century. c.  In spite of the limited resources available to these early scholars, their work was exemplary, and produced Bibles of high and excellent quality. d.  Modern discoveries have smoothed out and corrected some early problem areas, yet in spite of this, not major Christian doctrine has been seriously challenged by the new discoveries. Like I have mentioned several times earlier - I have never been to either a Bible College or Seminary, (there are others on this site who have though) - so I may not really understand if you are actually looking for something totally different than I am pointing you at (I have just used Google a few times and have run into some of this stuff in the past). -Dennis

Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Feb 24 2005, 01:13 PM

Here is a site that may help: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible4.html

Posted by: Reality Amplifier Feb 24 2005, 02:32 PM

http://www.sacred-texts.com/time/timeline.htm

Posted by: Aspirin99 Feb 24 2005, 02:38 PM

Thanks to all. I'm sure I'll find what I'm looking for in there.

Posted by: Karl Feb 24 2005, 07:39 PM

QUOTE (Aspirin99 @ Feb 24 2005, 10:48 AM) I'm looking for a timeline that shows the emergence of NT manuscripts - the chronology of which were found first, etc. Anyone have a link?  Thanks. Here's another good site: http://home.freeuk.com/jesusmyth/page6.htm Regards, K

Posted by: Aspirin99 Feb 25 2005, 07:52 AM

Yes, that is a helpful link. Thanks.

Posted by: Lokmer Feb 25 2005, 08:39 AM

Paul's Epistles are generally held to be written (by their internal statements) between 55 and 65. This is arrived at by taking the date of Paul's vision (which Acts places at 3 years after the crucifixion was supposed to have taken place), adding 17 years (Paul's words on how long it took him to actually start preaching - Galatians IIRC), which puts us at between 47 and 53 (as Jesus' alleged crucifixion happened between 27 and 33), and then stipulating that it would have taken a couple years for the kind of doctrinal and social issues to arise in the churches Paul planted to merit the letters he wrote. Romans is the earliest Pauline Epistle, by tradtional dating. Revelation is the next earliest, as it is written before the Jewish war and is a veiled anti-Roman tract with heavy Jewish revolutionary overtones. Its own internal chronology (talking about the 7 beasts, 5 who were, one who is, and one who is to come - referring to the Julio-Claudian dynasty of Caesars) puts it firmly at 62-63 during the reign of Nero. It is quite possible that it was heavily redacted during the brief persecutions in Asia Minor in the 120s (JAT Robinson made this argument in his otherwise radically early dating scheme in the book "Redating the New Testament" where he argues, from unfulfilled prophecy, that all NT books were written before 70CE). Mark comes next, at 70CE or later, as it refers to the destruction of the Temple but does not get the details right, meaning that either it was written during the Jewish War anticipating the fall of the temple, or it was written afterwards and by someone who had not been back to Jerusalem. Some scholars have argued that the details fit more closely with the second Jewish Revolt in Jerusalem early in the 2nd century. Mark contains no Resurrection account. Matthew was written at least 20 years after Mark, allowing for time for the document to disburse throughout the churches and for usage to dictate the need for a rewrite/expansion. Matthew is organized around the Jewish holy calender, but despite his Jewish audience he quotes (badly) from the Septuigent (and not from the Hebrew bible) and gets his geography very wrong, so it is clear that Matthew was writing to a Diaspora Jewish Christian congregation, and had never been to Israel himself. Among his great blunders, he invents the town "Nazereth" out of a bad reading of an Old Testament blessing for a "Nazerite." Matthew uses over 70% of Mark, verbatim. Luke also comes several years/decades after Mark, and also uses ~70% of Mark. Matthew and Luke also share a common "Sayings source," called "Q" by scholars, posited because they share about 10-20% of their material verbatim, but it doesn't come from Mark. http://home.freeuk.com/jesusmyth/lukejose.htm, but did not have a copy of Josephus in front of him as he wrote (as he quotes from Josephus, but makes numerous errors in doing so). This means that Luke could not have written earlier than 94CE, the publication date for the last of Josephus' works that Luke relies on. Marcion included an early version of Luke (proto-Luke) in his canon in 120CE, so it is very possible that Luke was not written in its present form until much later in the 2nd Century. Acts is the sequel to Luke, apparently written by the same person. Acts is a catholicizing fictional account of the early church, in which factions that violently disagreed with each other are made to perform the same actions, say the same words, and get involved in situations that echo each other like a choral hymn. Nevertheless, it contains a different account (irreconcilably different) of the crucifixion/resurrection/aftermath than does Luke (written by the same author), two different conflicting versions of Saul/Paul's conversion, and a great deal of material borrowed from Homer. Acts also relies heavily on Josephus, and can thus be dated no earlier than 96CE. The differences with it's prequel means that it was likely written a few years later and to address different problems than was Luke, so it can be confidently dated into the 2nd Century. John is a semi-gnostic gospel, which is hard-dated to no later than 120-140 (we have a manuscript fragment that dates to that time). It relies somewhat on Mark, and so must come after Mark, though how far after is an open question. It has little by which it can be dated, though its omission from Marcion's cannon suggests that its authorship is later than 110 (as it is theologically well in line with Marcion's position - moreso than Proto-Luke was), or that Marcion did not hear of it. None of the Gospels have manuscript remnants greater than nine words surviving from before the 3rd Century. Nor is there any independant attestation of their existence before ~180 in the writings of Iraneus (and his description of them is radically different than the gospels we have today). The 3rd Century copies are in enough agreement with each other (well, what survives of them) that it is reasonable to conclude that the gospels reached their surviving forms sometime during the late 2nd Century or early 3rd Century. The Pseudo-Pauline, Pseudo-Johanine, and Pseudo-Petrine epistels date from the mid 2nd century or a bit earlier. (This is all from memory, but hopefully it helps). -Lokmer

Posted by: CMOTDibbler Feb 25 2005, 08:57 PM

You may want to take a look at the following website: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ It seems to have a pretty complete timeline of most canonical, apocryphal and gnostic writings. Tons of links to the source material and analysis.

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