Back Breaker

[bar_khela]

So what? You'd use the same argument to defend the accuracy and originality of the Quran.

<!-- s:lookround: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/lookround.gif" alt=":lookround:" title="Look Round" /><!-- s:lookround: -->

Neither do you have an original Quran. No Mohammaden signature (Mohammad couldn't read or write, anyway, but I'm just sayin'), no stamps, not even a postcard. Nada.

Excuse me?

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/">http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/</a><!-- m -->

Therefore, accuracy in regards to letter-by-letter precision has no real weight in our discussion.

Don't be silly. Of course it does.

If you have one English Hamlet, and find hundreds of different Chinese translations.....it's a pretty good guess that hundreds of different Chinamen translated from that single English source.

I can't believe after all these years you still haven't "gotten" it.

Letter-to-letter accuracy of prototypes from a nearly mythologically archetype is irrevelent. I want to see these legendary sources of the Peshitta.

1) What happened to the source Gospels? (possibly "the Gospel of the Hebrews")
2) Why did the Church need use of the Diatessaron anyway if it had possession of these source Gospels?

3) How far back do these source Gospels date?

They were the same exact source Gospels that we have preserved today in the Peshitta.

Show them to me.

And no, the Diatesseron wasn't "burnt" in the second century AD. They still existed in 1043 AD, otherwise Ibn-at-Tayyib (a CoE monk, and an Arab for what it's worth) wouldn't have been able to translate it into your beloved and "proto-Semitic" Arabic. Here is the subscription from the Arabic manuscript, in case you were interested:

Here endeth the Gospel which Tatianus compiled and named Diatessaron, i.e., The Fourfold, a compilation from the four Gospels of the holy Apostles, the excellent Evangelists (peace be upon them). It was translated by the excellent and learned priest, Abu'l Fa??ra??j ??Abdulla ibn-at-Tayyib (may God grant him favour), from Syriac into Arabic from an exemplar written by Isa ibn-Ali' al-Motatabbib, pupil of Honain ibn-Ishaq (God have mercy on them both). Amen.

Notice the "from Syriac into Arabic" part. Very, very important. No other version in any other language (not the Latin, not the Armenian, nothing) claims that it was translated DIRECTLY from the original language that Tatian (the ASSYRIAN) composed it in.

What use did the Church have with the Diatessaron for so long once the Peshitta emerged in the fifth century?

What made the Peshitta "straighter" than the Diatessaron?

Let's talk about Tatian.

Irenaeus summarises the teachings of Tatian as follows:

"He invented a system of certain invisible Aeons [or powers], like the followers of Valentinus..."

"Like Marcion and Saturninus, he declared that marriage was nothing else than corruption and fornication..."

"...his denial of Adam???s salvation..." Irenaeus, Heresies, 1.28.1 (ANF, Series 1, Vol. 1, 353).

He was also the first Christian writer to declare that God created matter by the power of the Logos: "And as the Logos, begotten in the beginning, begat in turn our world, having first created for Himself the necessary matter..."Tatian, Address, 5 (ANF, Vol. 2, 67).

He also said "that the Logos, begotten by the Father, in turn 'begot' the creation" Robert M. Grant, "The Heresy of Tatian," Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. 46 (1954): 64.

The concept of Logos was first introduced by Philo of Alexandria who harmonized Jewish religion with Greek philosophical thought.. Certainly, Tatian, who was trained in "mythology, history, poetry, and chronology" who have studied it"Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, 1910. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 727. He later incorporated the concept in the Diatessaron as evident:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God is the 3 Word. This was in the beginning with God. Everything was by his hand, and 4 without him not even one existing thing was made. In him was life, and the life 5 is the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not."

Sound familiar? Sounds like alteration to me.

Ah, there's more---

Tatian, who maintaining the imaginary flesh of Christ, pronounces all sexual connection impure, who was also the very violent heresiarch of the Encratites, employs an argument of this sort: "If any one sows to the flesh, of the flesh he shall reap corruption;" but he sows to the flesh who is joined to a woman; therefore he who takes a wife and sows in the flesh, of the flesh he shall reap corruption.--HIERON.: Com. in Ep. ad Gal.

But Tatian, not understanding that the expression "Let there be" is not always precative but sometimes imperative, most impiously imagined concerning God, who said "Let there be light," that He prayed rather than commanded light to be, as if, as he impiously thought, God was in darkness.--ORIGEN: De Orat.

Tatian condemns and rejects not only marriage, but also meats which God has created for use.--HIERON.: Adv. Jovin., i. 3.

Is such a man qualified to "correct" and to "harmonize" the hypothetical source Gospels?