Dear friends,

This is the second part of my review of a very interesting recent
article by Jan Joosten in Harvard Theological Review. The first part
was posted on April 14.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hugoye-list/message/747

Jan Joosten, THE GOSPEL OF BARNABAS AND THE DIATESSARON, HTR (January
2002).


THE ULTIMATE GOAL IN DIATESSARONIC RESEARCH?

I wrote before about certain assumptions that the scholars who
investigate the history of the Diatessaron seem to make all the time.
Many of these assumptions, unfortunately, have very little solid basis
for them. Whether we like it or not, there's plenty that still remains
unknown or very little understood about the Diatessaron -- about its
earliest textual shape, its sources, about the early stages of its
development, and even about its authorship.

And perhaps the central question of them all in the Diatessaronic
field is the question of what exactly are the scholars aiming at when
they are doing their comparisons between various Diatessarons, and the
canonical gospels. Is the aim in all this merely to reconstruct
"Tatian's Diatessaron", a gospel dating, supposedly, to ca 170 CE? Or
is there perhaps something else, something much bigger that's at stake
in all this? I certainly think that it's the latter.

Indeed, as Boismard, as well as others, have demonstrated
conclusively, behind "Tatian's Diatessaron" there clearly stands
Justin's Harmony -- a text that should be of great interest to
researchers. These gospel citations in the works of Justin really seem
to represent the earliest substantial fragments of the gospels that we
currently have access to -- they represent gospel text as it was
current in Rome in mid-second century. So, to borrow the title of a
very important study by Boismard, our aim should be to go from Tatian
to Justin (De Tatien a Justin). Unfortunately, as I mentioned already,
Joosten doesn't go even that far in his analysis, and yet Boismard
certainly did.

But, again, should we stop merely with Justin's Harmony? Should
Justin's Harmony really be the end-all and be-all of the Diatessaronic
researchers? I don't think so. Because the harmonistic gospel text as
used by Justin was also based on something, right? It was obviously
based on the separate gospels, as they were current in Rome prior to
mid-second century, and it probably represents them quite faithfully
overall. So this, I submit, should be the real Holy Grail of the
Diatessaronic researchers!

So, ultimately, as I see it, our Holy Grail is the original gospel
text -- this is what's really at stake in all this. Because those
separate gospels, as they were current in Rome early in the second
century, that's probably the closest to the originals that we will
ever get... For all intents and purposes, they are the original
gospels. All other traditional texts, as they are known today --
Western, Byzantine, and Alexandrian -- can all be seen as the
reflections of those originals to a greater or lesser extent.

And so, from my own point of view, even Boismard didn't go in his
analysis far enough. One problem that I see with Boismard's take on
these things is his general preference for dating the canonical
gospels a bit too early. It seems like he prefers to see them all as
belonging to the first century -- which, we may note in passing, sort
of tends to contradict his Multi-Stage Theory of gospels' composition.
(After all, if there were indeed many stages of gospels' composition,
as per Boismard, then how could they also all fit into the very short
time frame that he prefers?)

But myself, with Alfred Loisy, I prefer to date the canonical gospels
mostly in the second century. No, in Loisy's view, they were certainly
not all done and finished with already in the first century, and then
more or less frozen textually at that time. Indeed, there's very good
evidence that they were still developing textually all through the
second century, and perhaps even later.

Thus, in the final analysis, it seems like there's a common
methodological weakness in the way both Joosten and Boismard approach
the Diatessaronic problem -- and this may be described as resulting
from plain old canonical bias. Joosten prefers to stop at "Tatian's
Diatessaron" -- this is all that he (and most other Diatessaronic
scholars) claims to be in search of. And Boismard, similarly, stops at
Justin's Harmony. But neither of them asks the all-important question,
How can we reconstruct the pre-canonical text of the gospels? Whereas,
in my view, the ultimate goal of Diatessaronic research is really this
-- the pre-canonical text -- and, in my view, this goal may be a lot
closer to hand than most people even suspect.


THE CASE OF MATT 2:12

In order to illustrate what I've been saying above, I will now copy
from Joosten's article one particular textual comparison, and will try
to show how, in my view, Joosten was rather too timid in his
conclusions there -- because he did not really aim to discover the
earliest text of this passage.

In this instance, there's actually a difference there between the
Spanish and the Italian texts of GBarnabas, with the Spanish text
finding support in the Diatessaronic tradition, while the Italian
version stands all by itself. As you can see below, the word "angel",
while lacking in the Greek text, is found in the Spanish GB, the
Hebrew Matthew, plus 2 DT witnesses.

(Canonical Matt 2:12) "and being warned in a dream"

(GB Spanish) ellos estando durmiendo fueron avisados por el Angel
"while sleeping, they were warned by the angel"

(GB Italian) dormendo loro furno da il fanciulo confortati
"while sleeping, they were warned by the child"

(Venetian DT) l'angelo la note in sonio disse a loro
"the angel, at night, said to them in a dream"

(Hebrew Matt) "they were commanded in a dream by the angel [malach]"

(MS Pepys) com the angel to hem in a visioun & seide
"the angel came to them in a vision, and said"

Now, it's quite likely, on the whole, that the Italian GB manuscript
is corrupt here, and that "the angel" represents a very ancient
reading going back to antiquity. And Joosten even seems to agree with
that,

"The Italian text is perhaps the result of a mistake, or of secondary
embellishment."

But, also, for a reason that's not at all clear to me, Joosten states
in his analysis that,

"the angel ... probably represents a secondary reading -- an
assimilation to Matt 1:20; 2:13, 19 -- in the western Diatessaron."

So, in this case, Joosten is even unwilling to credit this western
Diatessaronic reading to the "original Diatessaron". Perhaps his
reasoning was affected by an apparent lack of eastern Diatessaronic
attestation for this text? But is this really the case, we may ask?
After all, both GB and HMt are not exactly your conventional "western
Diatessarons". So their use of "angel" in this passage should really
be seen as representing a whole separate stream of transmission in its
own right.

But now I have also found some very early attestation for this reading
in the Protevangelium Jacobi -- something that Joosten wasn't aware
of. And this seems to pretty well settle the case for the great
antiquity of this reading. Consequently, it seems to me that this
reading, featuring "the angel", in fact goes back right to the
earliest text of Matthew -- rather than being merely an isolated
embellishment in the western Diatessarons, as per Joosten!

Protevangelium Jacobi, also known as "the Book of James", was first
mentioned by Origen. Also, some textual connections between it and the
works of Justin have been noted by scholars. We have this text
preserved in Greek in the Papyrus Bodmer V, dating to the 3rd century.

(Protevangelium Jacobi 21:4) Kai crhmatisqentes _upo tou aggelou_ [mh
eiselqein eis thn Ioudaian], dia allhs odou anecwrhsan eis thn cwran
autwn.

"And being warned _by the angel_ [that they should not enter into
Judaea], they went into their own country by another way."

Thus, Joosten's view that "the angel" "probably represents a secondary
reading" seems to be refuted. It's hardly possible that such a
"secondary reading" could have been added somehow to the three
separate streams of transmission -- those representing (a) the western
Diatessarons, (b) both the Hebrew Matthew and GBarnabas, that really
seem to represent an eastern stream of transmission of gospels' text,
and (c) the Greek Protevangelium Jacobi.

So, from my point of view, it's quite clear that "the angel" in this
passage goes back to the earliest text of Matthew. It's the canonical
Greek text that seems to have been corrupted here, for whatever
reason.

And so, it seems like Joosten was looking at a pre-canonical text,
that was staring right at him, but, ironically, he failed to recognise
it for what it really is...


THREE OTHER CASES WHERE JOOSTEN MISSED MAGDALENE GOSPEL PARALLELS

Now, let us take a look at the following 3 cases, where, for one
reason or other, Joosten missed some rather important parallels in the
Magdalene Gospel for the passages that he was analysing.


CASE 1

Luke 11:15//Matt 12:24 "He casts out demons by Beelzebul"

GBarnabas (Italian MS): _in uertu di_ belzebu ... scazia li demonij
"_In the power_ of Belzebub ... he casteth out the demons"

GBarnabas (Spanish MS): _En virtud de_ Bercebu ... saca los demonios,
idem [same as the Italian MS]

Venetian DT: _In vertude de_ Belcebul ... ello descaca li demonij
"_in the power_ of Belzebul ... he casts out the demons"

Tuscan DT: Egli caccia li demoni _in virtu de_ Belzebub
"he casts out the demons _in the power_ of Belzebub"

And, further, Joosten says,

"In excess of the received gospel text, the Gospel of Barnabas and the
Italian harmonies speak of the power of Beelzebul. No other witnesses
contain this addition."

And yet, here's what we find in the Magdalene Gospel,

MG 22:9 And the Pharisees said that he cast out demons _through the
power of_ Beelzebub, their ruler. (parallel to Mt 9:34)

MG 40:7 And the scribes and Pharisees, who were from Jerusalem, said
that he [only] drove away minor demons _through the power of_
Beelzebub, their ruler. (parallel to Mt 12:24)

This is one of those Matthean doublets; the same story seems to be
repeated twice, and MG preserves both versions. So I wonder how
Joosten managed to miss it.

And so, this reading is attested by GB, by the Venetian and Tuscan
DTs, as well as by the Magdalene Gospel. No other textual support
seems to exist for it. (Still, it can be noted that the Hebrew Matthew
9:34 reads "in the name of demons" [b'shem hashedaim], which is
somewhat similar to "in the power of".)


CASE 2

Matt 15:2//Mark 7:5 "the tradition of the elders"

(GB Italian) le traditioni de nosstri uechij
"the traditions of our elders"

(GB Spanish) los preceptos de nuestros viejos
"the precepts of our elders"

(Liege DT) de ghebode onser vordren
"the commandments of our ancestors"

This is how Joosten comments upon this passage,

"What is presently of interest is the addition of the possessive "our
(ancestors)" in the Gospel of Barnabas and the Liege text, which is
found in no Greek or Latin gospel manuscript. It is absent also from
the Venetian and Tuscan harmonies. But it is found in the Old Syriac
version in both Matthew and Mark."

Indeed, so it is. For example, this is how this Matthean verse reads
in the Sinaiticus as well as Curetonian MSS, according to Burkitt's
translation,

(Matt 15:2 Old Syriac) "Wherefore do thy disciples transgress the
tradition of our ancients [puwqdana d'sabayin]"

And we can also note that OS Mark 7:5, which is parallel, uses the
same Aramaic expression, _puwqdana d'sabayin_ (only the Sinaiticus is
extant for this passage).

But it also turns out that the Magdalene Gospel uses exactly almost
the same expression,

MG 51:3 Why did his disciples not keep the laws and the traditions
that _their ancestors_ observed?

(Here we have to consider a special feature of MG; it widely uses
third person narrative, much more so than other biblical witnesses.
Thus, "their ancestors", as found in MG, can be seen as equivalent to
"our ancestors" in the Dutch Liege DT, and to "our ancients" in the
OS.)

So we can see that, among all existing Diatessarons, only the Liege
and MG preserve the reading "our ancestors", that is also attested in
the Old Syriac. Still, GB does happen to preserve an element of this
reading, the word "our".

And so, this seems to represents yet additional evidence that the
western Diatessarons, as well as GB, are closely related to the
ancient Semitic textual tradition of the gospels.

Now, assuming that "our ancestors" represents the original Matthean
reading of this verse, why would it have been changed later by the
canonical Catholic editors? "The elders", as found in the Greek text,
seems more impersonal and distant. So perhaps the reason for such a
later change would have been an unwillingness of the canonical editors
of Matthew to portray Jesus as too closely related to his own Jewish
environment?


CASE 3

This one (re: Matt 17:7) has already been discussed not so long ago in
various Internet forums. My analysis of this passage can be found
here,

THE GENTLE JESUS,
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/genjes.htm

I cited this previously in support of my theory that, in the earliest
versions of the gospels, the image of Jesus was a lot gentler and
kinder, compared to how we find him in Greek canonical texts.

Joosten introduces this passage as follows.

[quote]

Other readings are shared by the Gospel of Barnabas and eastern
sources without other western support. ... Note the following examples
in the Gospel of Barnabas:

Matt 17:7 "he touched them saying, 'Rise, and have no fear'"

GBI leuo li suoi disscepoli dicendo non temete
"he raised up his disciples, saying: 'Fear not'"

GBS levantolos diziendo: "No temais"
"he raised them up, saying: 'Fear not'"

SyC "he raised them up and said: 'Fear not'"

[unquote]

(The Aramaic text goes there as follows,

w'qarav yeshua
w'aqeem anon
w'amar lehon:
"lo thedekhalon")

And yet, some other western support for this divergent passage is also
found in the Magdalene Gospel 61:10, although Joosten missed it
somehow.

(MG 61:10) And Jesus helped them up ["name hem vp"], and said, "Have
no fear."

Thus, to add to my previous analysis of this verse, support for this
MG reading is now also found in GBarnabas.

Just like with some previous cases, it does seem like this divergent
reading represents the original text of this verse in Matthew, which
was later changed for ideological reasons. This would be just one of
many such later editorial interventions by Greek editors. Their
purpose seems to have been to distance Jesus as much as possible from
his traditional Jewish environment.

Best regards,

Yuri.

Baqqesh shalom veradphehu -- Seek peace and pursue it (Psalm 34:15)

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