Biblical Hebrew Forum

[berlant AT advanced-studies.org]

At 01:20 PM 12/21/2009, Stephen Shead wrote:

>I find any conspiracy theory saying that the NT MSS were
>"tampered with" (and there are several such apostasy / conspiracy theories
>out there on different topics, with different theological agendas) very
>difficult to swallow, given the historical reality of the way in which the
>NT texts were copied and propagated. There simply was no centralised control
>of a set of canonical "Scripture" documents, since the NT canon was a long
>way off being established, and the early Christian church was not a
>homogenous, tightly organised body


I don't want to belabor this debate any more than it has been. But, 
imho, it revolves to a large extent around a semantic problem; 
namely, what does and does not constitute a conspiracy.

According to the AHD, a conspiracy is, by definition, is (1) "an 
agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive 
act; (2) an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime 
or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action; or (3) a 
joining or acting together, as if by sinister design. Calling the 
substitution of KS or YHWEH a conspiracy therefore implies that the 
people who effected these substitutions got together and agreed to 
illegally or, perhaps, immorally corrupt the original MSS in a way 
that suited their needs -- which, in this case, was to substitute 
their deity for a Hebrew deity.

Since a conspiracy is a consciously wrongful act, it differs 
significantly from an act whereby people who adhere to a given 
world-view alter the names, documents and symbols of people who 
adhere to a different world-view based on the former's belief that 
the alterations reflect the truth far better than the originals. So, 
it is that scores of Christian icons and motifs are demonstrably 
altered forms of icons and motifs that Christians deemed pagan. For 
instance, as many authors have already pointed out, the Christmas 
tree was derived from a much older Nordic tradition, depictions of 
the Madonna suckling Christ harkens back to Egyptian depictions of 
Isis suckling Horus, and the ansate cross was arguably an assimilated ankh.

The very same process is readily apparent today in what is the now 
politically-correct process of divesting Christmas of its Christian 
underpinnings by calling it a Winter Festival, identifying the 
Christmas tree as or with the Chanukah bush, identifying Christmas 
lights as or with the Menorah, etc. Would it be correct to call this 
process a conspiracy to subvert Christianity. I think not, yet I 
believe that is exactly what it will end up doing, sooner or later.

I therefore suggest that the aforementioned substitutions cannot be 
considered conspiratorial in that they were effected by people who 
simply shared a world-view that they believed was far truer than the 
one they were ended up supplanting to one extent or another.

Regards,

Steve Berlant