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61-811: It contains the Diatessaron (in lieu of the Gospels ), the 23 remaining canonical books of the New Testament , the Epistle to the Laodiceans , and a copy of Jerome 's Prologue to the Canonical Gospels . It represents the Italian text-type . The four gospels are harmonised into a single continuous narrative, according to the form of Tatian 's Diatessaron. Its text is akin to that of Codex Amiatinus . The harmonised gospel text

122-404: A distinct identity, although the groups within it remained extremely diverse. The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke bear a striking resemblance to each other, so much so that their contents can easily be set side by side in parallel columns . The fact that they share so much material verbatim and yet also exhibit important differences has led to several hypotheses explaining their interdependence,

183-527: A distinct tradition, as such texts appear to underlie surviving 13th–14th century Gospel harmonies in Middle Dutch , Middle High German , Middle French , Middle English , Tuscan and Venetian ; although no example of this hypothetical Latin sub-text has ever been identified. The Liège Diatessaron is a particularly poetic example. This Latin Diatessaron textual tradition has also been suggested as underlying

244-551: A healer, and a miracle worker , though it does not mention a miraculous birth or divine pre-existence . Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man . He is called the Son of God but keeps his messianic nature secret ; even his disciples fail to understand him. All this is in keeping with the Christian interpretation of prophecy, which is believed to foretell the fate of the messiah as suffering servant . Most critical scholars reject

305-619: A mixed manuscript; and, further corrected by Victor so as to provide a very pure Vulgate text within a modified Diatessaron sequence and to restore the two genealogies of Jesus side-by-side, this harmony, the Codex Fuldensis , survives in the monastic library at Fulda , where it served as the source text for vernacular harmonies in Old High German , Eastern Frankish and Old Saxon (the alliterative poem ' Heliand '). The older mixed Vulgate/Diatessaron text type also appears to have continued as

366-428: A passion narrative, and collections of sayings, although not the hypothesized Q source . While Werner Kelber in his media contrast model argued that the transition from oral sources to the written Gospel of Mark represented a major break in transmission, going as far to claim that the latter tried to stifle the former, James DG Dunn argues that such distinctions are greatly exaggerated and that Mark largely preserved

427-407: A phenomenon termed the synoptic problem . Up until the 19th century the gospel of Mark was traditionally placed second, and sometimes fourth, in the Christian canon, as an abridgement of Matthew . The Church has consequently derived its view of Jesus primarily from Matthew, secondarily from John , and only distantly from Mark. However, in the 19th century, Mark came to be viewed by many scholars as

488-467: A possible setting, as it was the location of Cyrene and there is a long-held Arabic tradition of Mark's residence there. The consensus among modern scholars is that the gospels are a subset of the ancient genre of bios , or ancient biography . Ancient biographies were concerned with providing examples for readers to emulate while preserving and promoting the subject's reputation and memory, and also included morals and rhetoric in their works. Like all

549-470: Is ' ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܕܡܚܠܛܐ ' ( Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê ) meaning: "Gospel of the Mixed". Tatian's harmony follows the gospels closely in terms of text but, in order to fit all the canonical material in, he created his own narrative sequence, which is different from both the synoptic sequence and John's sequence; and occasionally creates intervening time periods that are found in none of the source accounts. This sequence

610-507: Is a Persian harmony that seems to have borrowed some readings from the Diatessaron . There are also Parthian texts with borrowings from the Diatessaron . The Arabic translation was made by Ibn al-Tayyib in the early 11th century from the original Syriac. Tatian was an Assyrian who was a pupil of Justin Martyr in Rome , where, Justin says, the apomnemoneumata (recollections or memoirs) of

671-420: Is a new recognition of the author as an artist and theologian using a range of literary devices to convey his conception of Jesus as the authoritative yet suffering Son of God. The idea of Marcan priority first gained widespread acceptance during the 19th century. From this position, it was generally assumed that Mark's provenance meant that it was the most reliable of the four gospels as a source for facts about

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732-461: Is amongst the earliest witnesses to this inclusion. Tatian added no significant wording to the textual material he took from the separate gospels. Only 56 verses in the canonical Gospels do not have a counterpart in the Diatessaron, mostly the genealogies and the Pericope Adulterae . The final work is about 72 per cent the length of the four gospels put together; around a quarter of the text of

793-446: Is coherent and consistent within itself, but not necessarily consistent with that in all or any of the separate canonical gospels; and Tatian apparently applies the same principle in respect of the narrative itself. Where the gospels differ from one another in respect of the details of an event or teaching, the Diatessaron resolves such apparent contradictions by selecting one or another alternative wording and adding consistent details from

854-679: Is equally unclear whether Tatian took the Syriac Gospel texts composited into his Diatessaron from a previous translation, or whether the translation was his own. Where the Diatessaron records Gospel quotations from the Jewish Scriptures, the text appears to agree with that found in the Syriac Peshitta Old Testament rather than that found in the Greek Septuagint —as used by the original Gospel authors. The majority consensus

915-511: Is placed by the original scribe in the margin in an unusual order, verses 36–40 before 34–35, while the text on the page is the normal order. This section is marked by umlaut in Codex Vaticanus . Several manuscripts of the Western text-type, placed section 1 Cor 14:34–35 after 1 Cor 14:40 (manuscripts: Claromontanus , Augiensis , Boernerianus , it). Also codex 88 , which is not representative of

976-516: Is preceded by a listing of its sections, with a summary of their contents, which was copied unchanged from the Old Latin exemplar. From this it can be determined that the Old Latin source had lacked the Genealogy of Jesus (which Victor inserted); but that the source had included the passage of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery . The sequence of books follows the ordering: The section 1 Cor 14:34–35

1037-480: Is preserved in two versions: an Armenian translation preserved in two copies, and a copy of Ephrem's original Syriac text dated to the late 5th or early 6th century, which has been edited by Louis Leloir (Paris, 1966). Many other translations have been made, sometimes including substantial revisions to the text. There are translations into Arabic , Latin , Old Georgian , Old High German , Middle High German , Middle English , Middle Dutch and Old Italian . There

1098-675: Is that the Peshitta Old Testament preceded the Diatessaron, and represents an independent translation from the Hebrew Bible. Resolution of these scholarly questions remained very difficult so long as no complete version of the Diatessaron in Syriac or Greek had been recovered; while the medieval translations that had survived—in Arabic and Latin —both relied on texts that had been heavily corrected to conform better with later canonical versions of

1159-422: Is true has already been said elsewhere, with greater clarity and perspective. What it says that is new is almost always wrong, plagued [...] with philological, logical, and methodological errors, and a gross insensitivity to things historical (both within the discipline, as well as the transmission-history of texts). Reading this book fills one with dismay and despair. It is shocking that a work which does not rise to

1220-596: The Peshitta version. At the same time, in the churches of the Latin west, the Diatessaron circulated as a supplement to the four gospels, especially in the Latin translation. A number of recensions of the Diatessaron are extant. The earliest, part of the Eastern family of recensions, is preserved in 4th century theologian Ephrem the Syrian 's Commentary on Tatian's work, which itself

1281-413: The earliest of the four gospels , and as a source used by both Matthew and Luke . It is widely accepted that this was the first gospel ( Marcan Priority ) and was used as a source by both Matthew and Luke, who agree with each other in their sequence of stories and events only when they also agree with Mark. The hypothesis of Marcan priority continues to be held by the majority of scholars today, and there

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1342-450: The historical Jesus . However, the conceit that Mark could be used to reconstruct the historical Jesus suffered two severe blows in the early 20th century. Firstly, in 1901 William Wrede put forward an argument that the " Messianic Secret " motif within Mark had actually been a creation of the early church instead of a reflection of the historical Jesus. In 1919, Karl Ludwig Schmidt argued that

1403-869: The "uniquely Matthean" materials as ahistorical, declaring that the Historical Jesus "is not buried beneath Matthew but stares at us from its surface". Matthew Thiessen wholeheartedly agrees as well, finding no fault in Barber's work. Detailed content of Mark 1. Galilean ministry John the Baptist (1:1–8) Baptism of Jesus (1:9–11) Temptation of Jesus (1:12–13) Return to Galilee (1:14) Good News (1:15) First disciples (1:16–20) Capernaum's synagogue (1:21–28) Peter's mother-in-law (1:29–31) Exorcising at sunset (1:32–34) A leper (1:35–45) A paralytic (2:1–2:12) Calling of Matthew (2:13–17) Fasting and wineskins (2:18–22) Lord of

1464-655: The 16th century Islam-influenced Gospel of Barnabas (Joosten, 2002). Robert F. Shedinger writes that in quotations to the Old Testament where the great uncial codices have κύριος and the Hebrew OT manuscripts יהוה (YHWH), Tatian wrote the term "God". Pavlos D. Vasileiadis reports that "Shedinger proposed that the Syriac Diatessaron, composed some time after the middle of the second century CE, may provide additional confirmation of Howard's hypothesis (Tatian and

1525-453: The Apostles, the gospels, were read every Sunday. When Justin quotes the synoptic Gospels, he tends to do so in a harmonised form, and Helmut Koester and others conclude that Justin must have possessed a Greek harmony text of Matthew, Luke and Mark. If so, it is unclear how much Tatian may have borrowed from this previous author in determining his own narrative sequence of Gospel elements. It

1586-537: The Canonical Epistles includes a direct reference to the heavenly witnesses, with the Prologue written as a first-person epistle from Jerome to Eustochium. In this Prologue unfaithful translators are criticised for removal of the verse. The Prologue from about 1700 on had often been attacked as a late forgery, not by Jerome. At the time the earliest known extant Vulgate with the Prologue was about AD 800. The Prologue

1647-572: The Chester Beatty library was able to track down and buy a further 42 leaves, so that now approximately eighty per cent of the Syriac commentary is available (McCarthy 1994). Ephrem did not comment on all passages in the Diatessaron, and nor does he always quote commentated passages in full; but for those phrases that he does quote, the commentary provides for the first time a dependable witness to Tatian's original; and also confirms its content and their sequence. [1] . Theodoret , bishop of Cyrrhus on

1708-622: The Codex Fuldensis. It also contains some extracts from the Acts of the Apostles. Ernst Ranke published the text of the codex in 1868. Diatessaron The Diatessaron ( Syriac : ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܕܡܚܠܛܐ , romanized :  Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê ; c. 160–175 AD) is the most prominent early gospel harmony . It was created in the Syriac language by Tatian , an Assyrian early Christian apologist and ascetic . Tatian sought to combine all

1769-470: The Diatessaron (e.g., Codex Fuldensis ) but is generally considered to be a latter interpolation. This whole passage is also generally considered to be a late addition to the Gospel of John, with the Diatessaron itself often cited as an early textual witness in support of its omission. Most scholars agree that Tatian did, from the beginning, include the longer ending of Mark (Mark 16: 9–20), and correspondingly

1830-514: The Euphrates in upper Syria in 423, suspecting Tatian of having been a heretic, sought out and found more than two hundred copies of the Diatessaron , which he "collected and put away, and introduced instead of them the Gospels of the four evangelists". No Christian tradition, other than some Syriac ones, has ever adopted a harmonized Gospel text for use in its liturgy. However, in many traditions, it

1891-539: The Four Gospels. It is unclear whether Tatian intended the Diatessaron to supplement or replace the four separate gospels; but both outcomes came to pass in different churches. The Diatessaron became adopted as the standard lectionary text of the gospels in some Syriac-speaking churches from the late 2nd to the 5th century, until it gave way to the four separate Gospels such as the Syriac Sinaitic gospels, or later in

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1952-579: The Jesus tradition back to his lifetime. Rafael Rodriguez too is critical of Kelber's divide. The Gospel of Mark was written in Greek, for a gentile audience, and probably in Rome , although Galilee , Antioch (third-largest city in the Roman Empire , located in northern Syria), and southern Syria have also been suggested. Theologian and former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams proposed that Libya as

2013-567: The Jewish Scriptures, 136–140). Additionally, within the Syriac Peshitta is discernible the distinction between κύριος rendered as ܡܪܝܐ ( marya , which means "lord" and refers to the God as signified by the Tetragrammaton; see Lu 1:32) and ܡܪܢ ( maran , a more generic term for "lord"; see Joh 21:7)." R. F. Shedinger holds that after יהוה, θεός could be a term before κύριος became the standard term in

2074-478: The New Testament Greek copies. Shedinger's work has been strongly criticized. Since Tatian's Diatessaron is known only indirectly from references to it in other works, Shedinger's dissertation is based on his collection of 69 possible readings, only two of which, in the judgment of William L. Petersen. reach the level of probability. Peterson complains of Shedinger's "inconsistent methodology" and says that

2135-588: The Sabbath (2:23–28) Man with withered hand (3:1–6) Withdrawing to the sea (3:7–3:12) Commissioning the Twelve (3:13–19) Blind mute (3:20–26) Strong man (3:27) Eternal sin (3:28–30) Jesus' true relatives (3:31–35) Parable of the Sower (4:1–9,13-20) Purpose of parables (4:10–12,33-34) Lamp under a bushel (4:21–23) Mote and Beam (4:24–25) Growing seed and Mustard seed (4:26–32) Calming

2196-539: The Syriac original of which was rediscovered only in 1957, when a manuscript acquired by Sir Chester Beatty in 1957 (now Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709, Dublin) turned out to contain the text of Ephrem's commentary. The manuscript constituted approximately half of the leaves of a volume of Syriac writings that had been catalogued in 1952 in the library of the Coptic monastery of Deir es-Suriani in Wadi Natrun , Egypt. Subsequently,

2257-803: The West from the late 2nd century; with a sequence adjusted to conform more closely to that of the canonical Gospel of Luke ; and also including additional canonical text (such as the Pericope Adulterae ), and possibly non-canonical matter from the Gospel of the Hebrews . With the gradual adoption of the Vulgate as the liturgical Gospel text of the Latin Church, the Latin Diatessaron was increasingly modified to conform to Vulgate readings. In 546 Victor of Capua discovered such

2318-576: The Western text, placed this section after 1 Cor 14:40. One manuscript of the Vulgate does the same ( Codex Reginensis ). According to Metzger the evidence of the codex is ambiguous. Perhaps the scribe, without actually deleting verses 34–35 from the text, intended the liturgist to omit them when reading the lesson. The 1 John text section omits the Comma Johanneum. However, the Vulgate Prologue to

2379-501: The codex and in 745 gave it to the monastic library (Abb. 61), in Fulda , where it remains to the present day (hence the name of the codex). It served as the source text for vernacular harmonies in Old High German and Old Saxon . According to Malcolm Parkes, glosses to James are in Boniface's own handwriting. Codex Sangallensis 56 was copied, in the 9th century, from the Diatessaron of

2440-482: The composition of Mark either immediately after the destruction or during the years immediately prior. The dating around 70 AD is not dependent on the naturalistic argument that Jesus could not have made an accurate prophecy; scholars like Michael Barber and Amy-Jill Levine argue the Historical Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple. Whether the Gospels were composed before or after 70 AD, according to Bas van Os,

2501-570: The dead. From the outset, Christians depended heavily on Jewish literature , supporting their convictions through the Jewish scriptures. Those convictions involved a nucleus of key concepts: the messiah, the son of God and the son of man , the suffering servant , the Day of the Lord , and the kingdom of God . Uniting these ideas was the common thread of apocalyptic expectation: Both Jews and Christians believed that

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2562-502: The early church tradition linking the gospel to John Mark , who was a companion of Saint Peter , and it is generally agreed that it was written anonymously for a gentile audience, probably in Rome, sometime shortly before or after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD. An early Christian tradition deriving from Papias of Hierapolis (c.60–c.130 AD) attributes authorship of

2623-418: The end of history was at hand, that God would very soon come to punish their enemies and establish his own rule, and that they were at the centre of his plans. Christians read the Jewish scripture as a figure or type of Jesus Christ, so that the goal of Christian literature became an experience of the living Christ. The new movement spread around the eastern Mediterranean and to Rome and further west, and assumed

2684-405: The final conclusions but also in the details of the argument." Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical Gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the burial of his body, and the discovery of his empty tomb . It portrays Jesus as a teacher, an exorcist ,

2745-549: The gospel to Mark, a companion and interpreter of Peter , but most scholars believe that it was written anonymously, and that the name of Mark was attached later to link it to an authoritative figure. It is usually dated through the eschatological discourse in Mark 13, which scholars interpret as pointing to the First Jewish–Roman War (66–74 AD)—a war that led to the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70. This would place

2806-468: The healing by Jesus entering Jericho the previous day of a single unnamed blind man (Luke 18:35ff). Otherwise, Tatian originally omitted altogether both of the different genealogies in Matthew and Luke, as well as Luke's introduction (Luke 1:1–4); and also did not originally include Jesus' encounter with the adulteress (John 7:53–8:11). The pericope is present in western manuscripts believed to be based on

2867-413: The level of a master's thesis should be approved as a doctoral dissertation; how it found its way into print is unfathomable. One shudders to think of the damage it will do when, in the future, it is cited by the ignorant and the unsuspecting as "demonstrating" what it has not." Jan Joosten's review of Shedinger's work is also condemnatory. In his judgment "Shedinger's study remains unconvincing, not only in

2928-476: The lifetime of various eyewitnesses that includes Jesus's own family through the end of the First Century is very likely statistically. Markus Bockmuehl finds this structure of lifetime memory in various early Christian traditions. The author used a variety of pre-existing sources, such as the conflict stories which appear in Mark 2:1-3:6, apocalyptic discourse such as Mark 13:1–37, miracle stories, parables,

2989-402: The links between episodes in Mark were a literary invention of the author, meaning that the text could not be used as evidence in attempts to reconstruct the chronology of Jesus' mission The latter half of the 20th century saw a consensus emerge among scholars that the author of Mark had primarily intended to announce a message rather than to report history. Nonetheless, Mark is generally seen as

3050-448: The most reliable of the four gospels in its overall description of Jesus' life and ministry. Michael Patrick Barber has challenged the prevailing view, arguing that "Matthew's overall portrait presents us with a historically plausible picture..." of the Historical Jesus . Dale Allison had already argued that the Gospel of Matthew is more accurate than Mark in several regards, but was finally convinced by Barber's work to no longer regard

3111-503: The original text has not survived. It was reconstructed in 1881 by Theodor Zahn from translations and commentaries. The title Diatessaron comes from the Latin diatessarōn , meaning: "made of four [ingredients]"; this is derived in turn from Greek , διὰ τεσσάρων ( dia tessarōn ), meaning "out of four" (i.e., διά , dia , "at intervals of" and tessarōn [genitive of τέσσαρες , tessares ], "four"). The Syriac name for this gospel harmony

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3172-459: The other gospels; while omitting apparent duplicate matter, especially across the synoptics. Hence, in respect of the healing of the blind at Jericho the Diatessaron reports only one blind man, Bartimeaus, healed by Jesus when leaving the city according to the account in Mark 10:46ff (expanded with phrases from Luke 18:36–37); consequently omitting any separate mention of two unnamed blind men healed by Jesus leaving Jericho (Matthew 20:29ff), and also

3233-610: The published versions of the Diatessaron in English); and a 13th-century Persian harmony. The Arabic harmony preserves Tatian's sequence exactly, but uses a source text corrected in most places to that of the standard Syriac Peshitta Gospels; the Persian harmony differs greatly in sequence, but translates a Syriac text that is rather closer to that in Ephrem's commentary. A Vetus Latina version of Tatian's Syriac text appears to have circulated in

3294-459: The separate Gospel texts. There is scholarly uncertainty about what language Tatian used for its original composition, whether Syriac or Greek . The Diatessaron was used as the standard Gospel text in the liturgy of at least some sections of the Syrian Church for possibly up to two centuries and was quoted or alluded to by Syrian writers. Ephrem the Syrian wrote a commentary on it,

3355-426: The separate gospels being adjudged by Tatian to be duplicated. (McFall, 1994). In the early Church , the gospels at first circulated independently, with Matthew the most popular. The Diatessaron is notable evidence for the authority already enjoyed by the gospels by the mid- to late-2nd century. Within twenty years after Tatian's harmony was written, Irenaeus was expressly arguing for the authoritative character of

3416-569: The story of Jesus, the other dealing with the concerns of the author's own day. Thus the proclamation of Jesus in Mark 1:14 and the following verses, for example, mixes the terms Jesus would have used as a 1st-century Jew ("kingdom of God") and those of the early church ("believe", "gospel"). Christianity began within Judaism , with a Christian "church" (or ἐκκλησία , ekklesia , meaning 'assembly') that arose shortly after Jesus's death when some of his followers claimed to have witnessed him risen from

3477-399: The surviving readings do not support his conclusions. Petersen thinks the dissertation should never have been accepted for a doctoral degree, in view of "the illogical arguments, inconsistent standards, philological errors, and methodological blunders that mar this book. [...] the errors are so frequent and so fundamental that this volume can contribute nothing to scholarship. What it says that

3538-418: The synoptic gospels, the purpose of writing was to strengthen the faith of those who already believed, as opposed to serving as a tractate for missionary conversion. Christian churches were small communities of believers, often based on households (an autocratic patriarch plus extended family, slaves, freedmen, and other clients), and the evangelists often wrote on two levels: one the "historical" presentation of

3599-495: The textual material he found in the four gospels - Matthew , Mark , Luke , and John - into a single coherent narrative of Jesus's life and death. However, and in contradistinction to most later gospel harmonists, Tatian appears not to have been motivated by any aspiration to validate the four separate canonical gospel accounts; or to demonstrate that, as they stood, they could each be shown as being without inconsistency or error. Although widely used by early Syriac Christians ,

3660-417: Was not unusual for subsequent Christian generations to seek to provide paraphrased Gospel versions in language closer to the vernacular of their own day. Frequently such versions have been constructed as Gospel harmonies, sometimes taking Tatian's Diatessaron as an exemplar; other times proceeding independently. Hence from the Syriac Diatessaron text was derived an 11th-century Arabic harmony (the source for

3721-516: Was noted to be in the Codex Fuldensis of AD 546 when the text was published by Ranke c. AD 1850. Victor of Capua (died 554) reports that he found an Old Latin harmony of the Gospels, which he recognised as following Tatian's arrangement of the Diatessaron . He substituted the Vulgate text for the Old Latin , appending the rest of the New Testament books from the standard Vulgate. Boniface acquired

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