Boid on the Introduction of the Diatessaron (Borgian Manuscript and Latin Gospel Harmony)

Reminders. (a) There is a minor corruption in both mss., but easily fixed. The original words would have taken concentration when copying, as you’ll see. There is because there is a chain of copying going back to the author of the introductory words. Anna says it might not be that easy, seeing the editor of the original Arabic, Ciasca, the first English translator, Hamlyn Hill, and the second English translator, Hogg, all missed it. Well, it’s still obvious. (b) THE SCRIBES ALL CONSIDERED THE DIATESSARON TO BE A COMPILATION. Bear this in mind. I think it’s somehow connected to the long-lost original complete Gospel, and I think you think that too, and that’s getting in the way. (c) There is not always a sentence division where the introduction ends and the text of the book starts. Bear this in mind as well. (d) The editor of the Arabic, Ciasca, emended the text very slightly in places without telling the reader. Both translators, Hamlyn and Hogg, have seen that Ciasca’s use of the cases in the critical place has to be ignored, but they have both been hypnotised by an instance of the “accusative of manner or time” because this is indicated by an added alif, and then they have followed the syntax assumed by Ciasca and divided one sentence into two, losing the meaning. I know you won’t see this, but I’m not being unfair, because the essence of the mistake can still be worked out from the translation. (e) What would literally be “started the start of ” is normal Arabic, and I‘m a bit perturbed that Hogg got this wrong. (f) The “Gospel” here is the Diatessaron. In Syriac, the Diatessaron is normally called the single Gospel, and the four are called the separated Gospels (literally the Gospel of those that separate).

This is what the author of the words wanted you to see.

………..He started the start of his Gospel with

[Mark] The Start of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ the Son Of God

[then John] At the start was the Word etc. etc…..

IF THE WORD “JOHN” IS TO BE PART OF THE DIATESSARON, THEN THE WORD “MARK’’ MUST BE PART AS WELL, WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY IMPOSSIBLE.

LATER FOLLOWED UP BY:

Your proposal will work, in my judgment, if slightly modified.

I don’t say the following is certain, only that it seems highly likely. Let’s suppose the Diatessaron and the original long Gospel started like this. Look how I have written the attribution to John. This is the normal way, with the dative case AND NO PREPOSITION. The only reason for the accusative case with the preposition KATA is that the word Gospel in the minds of the scribes meant one of four versions of the Gospel, according to John or according to Mark etc. But to start off, Ha-Besorah or Ha-Bassorah must have been the name of a defined book.

“The start of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ the Son of God, By John (by a person by the symbolic name ‘God gives grace’). At the start was the Word etc.” In Hebrew ראשית בשרת ישו המשיח: ליוחנן: בראשית היה הדבר וגו' . In Greek ΑΡΧΗ ΤΟΥ ΕΥΑΓΓΗΛΙΟΥ ΙΗΣΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ: ΙΩΑΝΝΗ: Εν αρχη ην ‘ο λογος κτλ.

Here’s your solution to the disappearance of the Hebrew preposition. It vanished when the book was translated into Greek, by normal Greek usage. The question of why Tatian didn’t use the dative has several answers. He might not have seen the case-ending, since names were commonly abbreviated by scribes. This one would be hard to spot, because in form it is the same as the nominative with the last letter dropped. The name of the author is symbolic, referring to the verses that link the Torah of Moses and the Torah of Jesus, ch. I verses 16 and 17. This means the reader is told to read the whole book in the light of those verses and in the light of the whole text leading up to them. You can see why the words “grace in addition to grace” in v. 16 are so often misread. (I know “in addition to” is a slight over-translation, but it is still correct). I personally think the gospels were corrupted by a very very early set of wilful misreadings, handed on ever since. This was nearly as damaging as changing the text would have been, much less noticeable, and unaffected by the survival of older mss. I think most of the job was systematic.

You’re right about the original first verse of Luke. The ms. evidence is overwhelming.

AND AGAIN:

There are two separate documents that could be called a “super-Gospel”. One is the posited original long Gospel. The other is whatever Polycarp might have put together, if your theory is right. I think the original Gospel started with our Mark I:1 followed by John ch. I. Be careful with assumptions about Polycarp’s long Gospel. The evidence, admittedly indirect, is that the introductory sentence to Luke was not written by him, but re-arranged and altered for his own purpose. The evidence also indicates that what followed it was our Luke, not a super-Gospel. I agree that Polycarp or someone else might have adulterated this, but I still say our Luke and chs. II and III of Acts as they stand would not have been congenial to a person wanting an adulterated gospel, so our Luke is not this hypothetical adulteration. This means we just haven’t got Polycarp’s super-gospel. I have to think all this through.