Okay, Marcionism did linger on for a considerable time, and it was important for the early development of the canon in general. But have you got any evidence it had a direct bearing on codex Sinaiticus in the 4th century? And why would it matter to the question at hand about Rev 3.14 in codex Sinaiticus?
Alteration of Revelation 3:14 in the 4th century to support the emerging Trinity doctrine
by slimboyfat 171 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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slimboyfat
Earnest, some argue that Origen was the first to list the NT canon as we now have it, as early as 250 CE.
https://michaeljkruger.com/what-is-the-earliest-complete-list-of-the-canon-of-the-new-testament/
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KalebOutWest
It is in my answer and in the general history of the Codex.
I already gave the years, the details of its origins, why it has so many differences, and why they are not considered changes to the Canonical text.
The Codex is from the early 300s but does not match the official Canonical text of the New Testament of the late 300s.
The Trinity is not based upon Biblical texts but arose from a tradition prior to both the Marcionist controversy and the production of the Codex.
The Canonical text of the Church was Latin, not Greek, it formed a Lectionary for public proclamation for Church readings not a book for personal reading (that did not actually occur until the famous barefoot walk of Mary Jones into the 1800s).
Some of you have very strange ideas of the significance of this text. It meant nothing until it's discovery. Like the Masoretic Text of Judaism (which was standardized in Hebrew), Christianity standardized its text in Latin for public reading in the Vulgate. It was that reading not any Greek text that was considered the inspired, canonized and standard reading.
In the end, even if Revelation should be translated differently or even be missing, the Trinity dogma doesn't stand on the basis of Scripture. It stands on the basis of revelation..
This is a Jew speaking too. It doesn't matter what you or I believe or want. That is what Christianity believes. You might believe differently. Well and good. But that is not how it historically happened.
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KalebOutWest
I don't make any of these things up.
I've taught for years in association with three synagogues and three churches, teaching religious education, history and languages. I am not making any of this up. I got a good education after leaving the Watchtower.
I am not saying this to boast. I have been trying to be helpful. But maybe I am naive.
Maybe you don't really want answers. Maybe you guys just want to debate and feel right?
I give up trying to help.
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slimboyfat
Some Christians base their belief in the Trinity on tradition. Others claim they can base it on the Bible alone. Some strands of Christianity, such as orthodox and Coptic churches have never used a Latin text of the Bible.
I don’t think anyone was saying codex Sinaiticus is a doctrinal authority in itself, but the point was that it indicates how the text of Rev 3.14 was understood by early readers.
Aside from that, Sinaiticus is an early witness, and most textual critics also consider it an important witness to the text of the NT.
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KalebOutWest
But it has nothing to do with the formation of the Trinity dogma.
Dogmas are negative responses to heresy not positive expressions teaching doctrine. By the time the Church developed the dogma of the Trinity, it was due to a controversy that was threatening a basic belief of Christianity.
Revelation is a book chosen to counter the Marcionist movement. It has nothing to do with the Trinity. Christianity did not grow from a text. It wrote a text. Religion first, controversy (Marcionist canon), then response: the New Testament.
It took some 200 to form the New Testament Canon, during which some of these texts changed. The Trinity was a done deal by the time that change in the Codex in question is being discussed. The Church had no more use for anything in Greek. Latin was the new standard being used for the Lectionary.
The official canon of the New Testament is the Latin text of Jerome of 383 CE. Any Greek changes to any Greek text made no difference to Christians after either the Trinity dogma or the New Testament Canon or Jerome's work.
That is history.
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KalebOutWest
And my final word is that none of this has to do with Revelation 3:14 or the significance of the Codex Sinaiticus.
If it did, then one could argue about accepting what else is in the same Codex, such as why don't Christians recognize the Epistle of Barnabas? There is far more of this that that tiny change.
Or better yet, as there are far more witnesses in far more canons all the way up until the canon was closed by the Church, why was the Shepherd of Hermas dismissed? This book repeatedly shows up not merely in canon lists but gets mentioned again and again by the Church Fathers and historians.
It is in this Codex. If were are going to argue on how significant this change must mean to history, why not accept the Shepherd of Hermas? Are you not reading it and living your life by it?
You are not.
Because the point is not this Codex. The point is not this verse.
The point is not that history has accepted the Trinity either.
The point is holding on to the Watchtower's view of the Trinity and trying not to admit that you still agree with the Watchtower.
So people often look for other lines of evidence and try not to say what they are actually saying because they don't like what they are saying.
But in reality there is only one type of Christianity. The issue has always been one thing. If it wasn't for the "Son of God" issue and what it means, Jews would likely have had an easier time with Jesus of Nazareth. Resurrection is not far-fetched. Coming back to finish the job--hey, Bar Kokhba did nothing before he was anointed "nasi" or "prince" (Messiah). It has always been the "I AM always with you, even to the end of the world" thing (see, even a Jew can see the connection in these verses--it's very, very plain).--Matthew 28:20.
So exJWs sometimes look for other ways to hold on to Watchtower views as last resorts. Hey--you don't have to accept Christianity. But you don't have to make up stuff either. You can be a Unitarian. There is a name for it, you know.
But you cannot change history. It happened a certain way. It's even recorded in Jewish history. My people know what the claims of Christianity were as it happened. The Pagans (capital "P" meaning the Romans also knew it meant worshipping Jesus as a deity) without reserve. One little change on one manuscript means nothing.
I know some of you--and it is just a few, very few--have trust issues with Bibles and books from mainstream scholars and religions, but that is where the information is: Oxford and the SBL and Judaism and yes, the Catholic Church. You are not joining these groups by reading and studying their works. These are the top notch scholars. You are losing out by not studying and knowing this stuff.
So I get very frustrated--only because that same very very few CLAIM you know things. And if you CLAIM, you had better walk the talk. Otherwise--like I did with you earlier Slimboyfat--someone else will embarrass you worse than I did.
Now believe whatever you want. I don't give a crap.
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peacefulpete
Another thing that should be taken into consideration when looking at texts such as Rev 3.14; Col 1.15, John 1:1 and so on is that these passages are clearly drawing on the Jewish Wisdom tradition. In that tradition Wisdom was spoken about as God’s first creation, an archangel, or principal angel beside God. Therefore it’s entirely within the cultural context of the period to understand these passages in the NT along those lines.
Bingo. But somehow you have literalized these passages just as the 4th Arian 'heretics' did.
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slimboyfat
Bingo. But somehow you have literalized these passages just as the 4th Arian 'heretics' did.
peacefulpete, both sides in the fourth century debate took Wisdom/Word/Son to be a person at the beginning with God, the difference is Arians maintained the distinction that the Son was created and subordinate to God, whereas proto-Trinitarians turned him into a coequal.
The idea that God had an angelic junior in heaven was not an Arian or even a Christian innovation. Jewish scholar Peter Schäfer writes:
Summarizing the range of the [second temple Jewish] texts, it becomes apparent how many of them view the enigmatic godlike or semi-godlike figure alongside God to be an angel. This starts with the angel Michael in Daniel 7, the source of almost all further developments, and climaxes in the Qumran texts …Christianity appropriated these binitarian rudiments and developed them further based on the ideas of the Son of Man and Logos.
Peter Schäfer, Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity (2020), pages 87 and 88.
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peacefulpete
...both sides in the fourth century debate took Wisdom/Word/Son to be a person at the beginning with God, the difference is Arians maintained the distinction that the Son was created and subordinate to God...
Bingo again. The Arians 'literalized' word pictures. They made too much of the expressions "son' and 'beginning' having been hundreds of years distanced from the esoteric language. When Wisdom was 'created as the beginning of God's works' the writers did not literally believe there was a woman in heaven that was created to perform for God. It/she was a hypostasis of God's power. JWs are similarly literalizing the words and making much noise about their uninitiated take on these passages.
I'll remind you that it's my position that the Catholic fathers had themselves mistaken metaphor for history, in large part because of the success of the Gospel stories that euhemerized and embellished the Logos concept into a Roman crucifixion setting. The Arians simply took it a small step further by reducing the Logos to a demigod because of focusing on descriptions such as 'created' and 'son'.
The EL/Yahweh and Yahweh/Michael parallels contributed to the 2 powers concept from a different angle.
The main point is that Schafer and others have demonstrated that there were indeed pre-Christian and early Christain concepts of God that eventually congealed into the Trinity doctrine formulation. The belief that the Christ was a manifestation of God was not secondary to Christianity it was a fundamental underpinning that literalizers complicated/ denied.