DID JESUS TELL A LIE? (Jn 7:8) -- Part 2a

Greetings, all,

Here's some additional misrepresentation by the United Bible Societies
Editorial Committee, that needs to be pointed out (especially since
some of my critics have repeated a number of times the accusation that
I disregarded the Diatessaronic evidence).

In this case, the misrepresentation has to do with how the recent 4th
edition of THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT, as published by UBS and the
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, lists the textual witnesses for this case.

The problem is with how this passage of John 7:8 is found in the
Diatessaron manuscripts, and it's actually a very simple case of
misrepresentation. It's an open and shut case!

And so, as I have now confirmed, the great majority of our existing
Diatessaronic manuscripts in fact have "not yet" (or something
similar) in this verse. Thus, Jesus isn't portrayed as being
untruthful in this passage. For example, here's how we find this verse
in the Arabic Diatessaron (Section XXVIII),

[quote]

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-10/anf10-07.htm#TopOfPage

(7) "As for you, go ye up unto this feast: but I go not up
_now_ to this feast; for my time has not yet been completed."

[unquote]

Thus, Jesus isn't saying anything inappropriate here.

And a very similar situation is also found in the Dutch Diatessaron,
the Persian Diatessaron, and the Magdalene Gospel (the medieval
English Diatessaron).

Well, the strangest thing about this particular misrepresentation on
the part of the UBS Editorial Committee is that it's only found in the
recent 4th edition of their GREEK NEW TESTAMENT! On the other hand,
their previous editions of GNT listed Diatessaronic evidence
correctly...

In fact, in this case, the Diatessaronic evidence should be listed as
split, and that's how it was listed before. The original 1966 edition
of GNT, for example, lists only one Diatessaronic witness (Ephrem) as
featuring the "not" reading. As for the "not yet" reading, the
Diatessaron was listed in this line-up as well, and quite correctly
so... Thus, presumably, the reader could conclude from this that _all
the other Diatessaronic witnesses_ feature the "not yet" reading for
this passage (or something similar).

So, although, technically, this evidence can be seen as "split", in
fact, the overwhelming majority of this evidence seems to be for the
reading where Jesus is not being untruthful!

So then how did we get from the overwhelming majority of this evidence
going for the "not yet" reading -- as was listed in the earlier
editions of GNT -- to all the evidence seemingly going the other way,
as we find it now in the latest 4th edition of GNT???

This is a clear case of misrepresentation, or so it seems to me... So
this is how far you can trust these dishonest textual critics of the
UBS Editorial Committee to accurately present the evidence of our
oldest manuscripts...

Now, in so far as the above mentioned passage in Ephrem goes (I have
it right here), it seems to me that even this cannot be really cited
legitimately for the "not" reading. Because, in this passage, the text
has a clear editorial tendency to portray Jesus' brothers in a very
negative light. What Ephrem (or perhaps some late interpolator?) says
here is that Jesus wanted to deceive his brothers _on purpose_, since
they wanted to betray him to the authorities!

Here's what this text says,

"They wanted to betray him, and that is why he deceived them."

So it may well be that this was a later interpolation (addition) to
the text of Ephrem. (After all, Prof. Boismard has demonstrated quite
competently that Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron likely had
more than one author.)

And so, it is clear that the UBS Editorial Committee has chosen this
clearly anti-Judaic text as the "only representative" of the
Diatessaronic tradition suitable for listing, while ignoring all the
other Diatessaronic witnesses that don't have this political
orientation.

What a fine performance from these obviously heavily bigoted textual
critics... It sure seems like progress is marching backwards with this
crew.

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky -=O=- http://www.trends.ca/~yuku -=O=- Toronto

The distressing realization is forced upon us that the "progress" of
the past hundred years has been precisely in the wrong direction --
our modern versions and critical texts are several times farther
removed from the original than are the Authorised Version (KJV) and
TR! How could such a calamity have come upon us?! -- Wilbur Pickering

DID JESUS TELL A LIE? (Jn 7:8) -- Part 2a

Greetings, all,

Here's some additional misrepresentation by the United Bible Societies
Editorial Committee, that needs to be pointed out (especially since
some of my critics have repeated a number of times the accusation that
I disregarded the Diatessaronic evidence).

In this case, the misrepresentation has to do with how the recent 4th
edition of THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT, as published by UBS and the
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, lists the textual witnesses for this case.

The problem is with how this passage of John 7:8 is found in the
Diatessaron manuscripts, and it's actually a very simple case of
misrepresentation. It's an open and shut case!