by Yuri Kuchinsky

(as posted to various discussion groups in January 2004)

Here's some additional misrepresentation by the United Bible Societies Editorial Committee, that needs to be pointed out -- especially since [in discussing the first two parts of this article] 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] (long file)

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."

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).

For example, here is how this passage reads in the Magdalene Gospel (as is often the case, MG employs the third person narrative here),

(MG 59:4) And then Jesus said that he will not _as yet_ go to the feast, since his time was not there yet ...

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."

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.
 

Go to any of the other parts of this article.

Go to Yuri's NT Scandals and Controversies Page.

Go to Yuri's New Testament Research Page.