Robert F. Shedinger, Tatian and the Jewish Scriptures: A Textual and Philological Analysis of the Old Testament Citations in Tatian's Diatessaron. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Vol. 591 (Subsidia 109) (Lovanii: Peeters, 2001). ISBN: 90-429-1042-9. Price: € 70.00.
William L.
Petersen
Religious Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2003
Vol. 6, No. 2
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv6n2prpetersen
William L. PETERSEN
Robert F. Shedinger, Tatian and the Jewish Scriptures: A Textual and Philological Analysis of the Old Testament Citations in Tatian's Diatessaron. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Vol. 591 (Subsidia 109) (Lovanii: Peeters, 2001). ISBN: 90-429-1042-9. Price: € 70.00.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol6/HV6N2PRPetersen.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2003
vol 6
issue 2
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
Syriac Studies
Tatian
Diatessaron
Philology
Shendinger
File created by XSLT transformation of original HTML encoded article.
[1] Because
of its antiquity (it was composed about 172 C.E.), Tatian's
gospel harmony, the Diatessaron, has been the subject of
intensive study since the Enlightenment. However, since we
possess no direct descendents of the autograph Diatessaron,
scholarship has been forced to attempt to reconstruct its text
from the occasional conjunction of a miscellany of secondary
and tertiary sources commonly called "witnesses" to the text of
the Diatessaron. These are usually divided into Eastern and
Western witnesses. Among the Eastern witnesses are: a
commentary Ephrem Syrus composed on the Diatessaron; the gospel
quotations in various early Eastern Fathers and works (such as
Aphrahat, or the Liber Graduum); the Syriac versions of
the NT (the Vetus Syra [Syrs and Syrc],
the Peshitta [Syrp], and the Palestinian Syriac
Lectionary [Syrpal (sometimes referenced in older
works as Syrj)]); an Arabic Harmony, translated from
a Syriac Vorlage about 1025 CE; and a Persian Harmony,
apparently translated from a Syriac predecessor no later than
the thirteenth century (the sequence of harmonization in this
Persian Harmony shows that it is a new creation; nevertheless,
because its variant readings sometimes agree with Diatessaronic
readings, there appears to be some indirect link with the
Diatessaron). The Western witnesses include: several Latin
harmonies, the oldest of which is Codex Fuldensis (sixth
cent.); a bilingual MS in Old High German and Latin, Codex
Sangallensis (ninth cent.); a group of Middle Dutch Harmonies
(thirteenth cent. and later); a few Middle High German
Harmonies (which derive from the Middle Dutch); and two
families of Early Italian Harmonies (one in the Tuscan and one
in the Venetian dialects).
[2] Although
the Diatessaron has usually been associated with New Testament
studies, it has long been realized that it is also of potential
relevance to studies of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old
Testament [OT])—for the gospels contain a considerable
number of quotations from the OT. Furthermore, since a strong
case can be made that the Diatessaron was the first gospel text
in Syriac, the form of the OT citations in the
Diatessaron—if they could be reconstructed with any
degree of reliability—may be of value for investigating
the history of the OT in Syriac.
[3] Using
these well-known observations as his point of departure, the
author of this monograph, Robert Shedinger, endeavors to
demonstrate three things. First, he seeks to show that the
Syriac gospel tradition, especially as manifest in its
(putative) oldest form—namely, Tatian's
Diatessaron—contains "readings that are earlier than, and
probably more original than, what can be recovered from the
Greek text tradition alone" (p. 2). Second, acknowledging that
there are divergences between the text of the Diatessaron and
the "canonical Greek Gospels," Shedinger's study "will
demonstrate that many of these divergences are not the result
of Tatian's editorial work, but that Tatian generally took over
the Old Testament citations in the form he found them in his
sources" (p. 2). Third, Shedinger will attempt to demonstrate
that the OT citations in the Diatessaron have not been
influenced by the text of the Peshitta OT (pp. 8-11; the
reverse has been argued by Prof. Jan Joosten, of Strasbourg
["The Old Testament Quotations in the Old Syriac and the
Peshitta Gospels: A Contribution to the Study of the
Diatessaron," Textus 15 (1990), 55-76]; your reviewer
endorses neither position).
[4] This is
a very tall order. Anyone familiar with such research will
immediately recognize that the waters are not only murky, but
filled with hidden cross-currents: the differing readings among
the gospels themselves, the differing readings of the Hebrew
Bible and the Septuagint, the "interference" of the other
versions of the Old Testament (Qumran, the "Old Greek," Aquila,
etc.), the vagaries of translation, grammar and syntax across
at least three languages (Hebrew, Greek, Syriac), the same
vagaries across the multiple languages of the Diatessaronic
witnesses themselves, and the versional history and development
not just of the Peshitta OT but also the Syriac NT—to
name only the most obvious. By its very nature, this is an
extremely complex, ambitious undertaking. To be ambitious in
one's dissertation (the volume under review is a dissertation
submitted at Temple University [Philadelphia, USA] in 2001), is
not, per se, a bad thing. But it requires competent
guidance from a Doktorvater (or -mutter), a
committee familiar with the field, and proficiency on the part
of the dissertationist: a command of the requisite literature,
a feel for the nuances of this many-faceted problem,
sensitivity to philological possibilities, and well developed
logical and self-critical skills. This volume falls short on
all these measures.
[5] The
doctoral committee contained no experts on Biblical textual
criticism, the Syriac Bible, or the Diatessaron. Whether the
committee considered itself competent where it was not, or
whether the committee was convinced that the student knew more
than they did, is unknown. In either case, however, the
committee has acted irresponsibly. The author, however, cannot
be absolved, for even without competent guidance he should have
recognized the illogical arguments, inconsistent standards,
philological errors, and methodological blunders that mar this
book. He has not. The result is a study that does not achieve
its stated purposes.
[6] Let us
begin by examining one of the book's stated goals: to show that
"many of [the] divergences [between the OT citations in the
Greek gospels and the OT citations in the Diatessaron] are not
the result of Tatian's editorial work," but come from "an older
form of the [OT] citation[s]...one that is closer to the
original text of the gospels" (p. 2). To see how Shedinger
would prove this claim, let us examine his analysis of Matt
4:16, which is his second reading. (Shedinger's evidence
consists of 69 unnumbered readings; for ease of reference, your
reviewer has numbered them seriatim.)
[7]
Shedinger claims he has reconstructed the Diatessaron's text of
Matt 4:16, and concludes that the Diatessaron omitted the word
"land" (or "region": "those who sat in [a land of] the
shadow of death..."). According to Shedinger, "The omission of
any reference to 'region' or 'land' in a host of Diatessaronic
witnesses is due simply to the fact that the original text of
Matthew lacked this reference" (p. 45). In this manner,
Shedinger uses this reading to support his claim that such
deviations spring not from Tatian's pen, but reflect "an older
form of the [OT] citation[s]," one that is, in this case
(according to Shedinger), identical with "the original text of
Matthew."
[8] There
are two claims here: first, that the Diatessaron omitted the
word "land," and, second, that this variant is "the original
text of Matthew," and is not due to Tatian tampering with the
text. In support of these two claims, Shedinger observes that
the same omission is found in Clement of Alexandria (c. 200),
Augustine (c. 400), and the Ethiopic version. The evidence of
Clement is dubious, however: Shedinger acknowledges that
Clement only "seems to allude to" this version of the text; one
is, therefore, ultimately unsure of Clement's reading. From the
omission in these two or three early references, Shedinger
concludes that the omission was known in the early church. Upon
that we can all agree. But observe: other than Shedinger's
reconstructed reading of the Diatessaron (to which we will turn
in a moment), the oldest evidence for the omission is Clement
(c. 200)—and Clement's evidence is weak, since it is an
allusion, not a quotation. Simple logic tells one that to go
back from Augustine to an allusion in Clement, and from
Clement's allusion to a (dubious) reconstruction of the
Diatessaron's text, and then from this reconstruction of the
Diatessaron to the "original text of Matthew," is a very
tortured path. Shedinger has not navigated it successfully. The
problems are numerous, grave, and obvious. Let us begin by
looking at the reading itself, and then consider whether it is
"the original text of Matthew."
[9] The
first observation that strikes one is that the reading is an
omission. Textual critics know that omissions are, a
priori, very weak evidence, for an omission is, strictly
speaking, the lack of evidence. Because one can never be
certain what caused an omission (in one case, an
exemplar may have had a lacuna; in another case, a scribe may
have made an error of the ear or eye; in another language, the
idiom or alliteration may have been awkward, so a superfluous
word was dropped; etc.), they are unreliable as indicators of
textual filiation: one can never be sure the omission was
caused by textual dependence, and not some other, completely
unrelated phenomenon. An interpolation, by contrast, requires a
specific act of intention (an omission does not), and
the conscious selection of the identical word to add
from the thousands of possible words (an omission does not);
interpolations are, therefore, excellent markers of textual
filiation; generally speaking (and certainly in the readings in
this book), omissions are not.
[10]
Second, Shedinger himself describes Matt 4:16 as a "composite"
citation: according to him, it is a conflation of Is. 9:1 with
Ps. 107 [LXX: 106]:10 (see pp. 41-45). One of these (Ps.
107:10) omits the word "land," while the other (Is. 9:1)
includes it. Because of the "dual" parentage of this citation,
one might expect that, from the outset, scribes would have been
fiddling with it, sometimes moving it closer to Isaiah,
sometimes towards the Psalms, and sometimes towards a new (and,
presumably, to the scribe), more agreeable conflation. (Such
scribal "cross-referencing" of OT source[s] against their NT
quotation—and subsequent "improvement"—is a well
known and well-documented phenomenon.) Indeed, Shedinger
himself notes that scribes have been playing with this very
passage in the Diatessaronic witnesses, for he writes:
"If we look back to the text of the Persian Harmony, we find
that it has collapsed the two halves of this poetic parallelism
from Isaiah into a single statement... The Palestinian Syriac
Lectionary, at least in its extant form, preserves both halves
of the parallelism... In fact, later Greek scribes probably did
not recognize the conflation; they only recognized that
Matthew's text differed from Isaiah and needed to be
'corrected'" (pp. 44-45). Given all of this—where the
genesis of the passage lies in a conflation, and where scribes
have been almost continually adapting the citation—how,
then, can one determine the Diatessaron's reading with any
degree of accuracy and reliability? The answer, of course, is
that one cannot. In a situation such as this, the only
responsible action is to suspend judgment: we simply do not
know—and have no means of determining—what the
Diatessaron read.
[11] A
third problem with this reading is the method by which
Shedinger has determined that the omission of "land" is
Diatessaronic. Shedinger has adopted (see p. 34) three
"criteria" published by your reviewer for determining the
likelihood that a variant is (or is not) Diatessaronic. The
second of these three criteria—which Shedinger
quotes—is: "[to be Diatessaronic, the] reading should
not be found in any non-Diatessaronic texts, from which
the Diatessaronic witnesses [with the variant] might have
acquired it" (p. 34). The reason for having such a criterion is
rather obvious. If a variant reading occurs in Diatessaronic
witnesses and also in other texts or fathers that are
unrelated to the Diatessaron, then we are faced with an
insoluble conundrum: the reading may be Diatessaronic,
but it is also possible that our Diatessaronic witnesses have
been "contaminated," and acquired the variant not from
the Diatessaron, but from one of the non-Diatessaronic texts
with the same variant. In such a circumstance, we will never be
able to determine whether the reading came from the
Diatessaron, or from some other source; therefore, the reading
must be rejected.
[12]
Although Shedinger says he is following this criterion, he
clearly violates it in this reading: the very presence of the
reading in Clement [?], Augustine and the Ethiopic mean that
the reading must be discarded.
[13] So
much for Shedinger's claim that the reading is Diatessaronic;
now let us turn to his claim that this omission represents "the
original text of Matthew." Although the assertion is certainly
attention-getting, it is quite preposterous. There are so many
problems with this claim that one hardly knows where to start.
To begin with, as shown above, we cannot be sure what the
Diatessaron read here—and the Diatessaron (c. 172 C.E.)
would be the oldest evidence for this omission. By default,
then, the oldest evidence for the reading becomes Clement (c.
200). But recall that Clement's reading is not a quotation, but
an allusion. Therefore, our oldest unambiguous evidence for the
omission is Augustine (c. 400).
[14]
Shedinger's claim that the omission was known in the early
church is granted: on that we can all agree. He apparently
feels that the presence of this omission in Clement [?],
Augustine, and the Ethiopic increases the probability that this
is "the original text of Matthew"; it is his sole evidence. But
is it possible that the first text to omit "land" may be
Augustine? The answer must be "yes." Even if one were to
grant—solely for argument's sake—that Clement and
the Diatessaron omitted "land," is it possible that the
Diatessaron was the first text to omit "land"? The answer must
be "yes." Shedinger has not produced a shred of evidence to
demonstrate that this was "the original text of Matthew," and
not a redactional change made by Tatian, or, alternatively, a
variant that arose in the third, fourth or even fifth century.
There is no evidence to support Shedinger's claim, other than
his assertion.
[15] At
another level, this reading exemplifies the sort of stumbling
logic that bedevils this book. In this particular case,
Shedinger is advancing as "true" two mutually-exclusive
arguments. The first argument is this: The omission of "land"
is the "original text of Matthew" because the omission was
widespread in early Christianity—it crops up in the
Diatessaron, Clement [?], Augustine, and the Ethiopic. The
presence of this omission in texts unrelated to the Diatessaron
leaves only one possible source from which all of them might
have obtained this omission: "the original text of Matthew."
The second argument is this: The omission of "land" is
Diatessaronic because it is found only in Diatessaronic texts,
or texts related to the Diatessaron (recall that the criterion
adopted by Shedinger requires presence of the variant
only in Diatessaronic witnesses; the variant cannot be
present in non-Diatessaronic witnesses, from which our
Diatessaronic witnesses might have been contaminated with the
variant). Faced with these two arguments, one can only ask:
Which is it? For if the non-Diatessaronic witnesses are
not related to the Diatessaron, then, indeed, they are
independent witnesses to the variant in the early
church—but in that case, the variant cannot be claimed
as "Diatessaronic," for all of the witnesses with the
reading may have obtained it from (to pick one name from thin
air) Augustine. On the other hand, if the non-Diatessaronic
witnesses are related to the Diatessaron, then, indeed,
one can claim the variant as "Diatessaronic," for there would
be no non-Diatessaronic sources to contaminate our
witnesses—but in that case, there is no evidence that
the variant was widespread in the early church: the variant
might well have originated with Tatian in his Diatessaron;
there is nothing to suggest it goes back to "the original text
of Matthew."
[16] The
remainder of this book is more of the same. Error simply
compounds upon error. It is tempting to leave it at that, but a
reader of this review deserves a sampling of the mistakes which
lead to such a negative appraisal. Examining some of the
remaining 68 readings will expose the methods, logic,
philology, and evidence used, and show why these are all so
unacceptable.
[17] In
chapter 5, Shedinger presents 21 readings—about one-third
of his total of 69 readings. All 21 must be dismissed on
logical grounds. The reason is as follows. As is well known,
scribes have always been "moving" texts in the direction of the
"standard" text of their time and place. Over time, the same
has occurred with the Diatessaronic witnesses: deviating
readings have been eliminated, and replaced with the "standard"
reading of a particular time and place. This phenomenon is
known as "Vulgatization," and can be shown to have occurred
again and again in Diatessaronic witnesses. Shedinger is
familiar with Vulgatization, and even discusses it (p. 26).
Because of Vulgatization, it follows logically that one can
only determine Diatessaronic readings at points where the
Diatessaron's text deviates from the "standard" text
(usually the researcher's collation base). In cases where the
readings in Diatessaronic witnesses agree with the
standard text, one can never be sure whether the agreement is
because of Vulgatization, or because the Diatessaron itself
gave the "standard" reading. This problem—which is
strictly logical in character—has been well known to
Diatessaronic researchers since the time of Johann Christian
Zahn, in 1814, and has guided methods since: "Large portions of
the Diatessaron's original text agree verbatim with the text
now found in the principal gospel manuscripts. Because of this,
the text of the Diatessaron can be recovered with certainty
only when it deviates from the vast majority of
gospel manuscripts."
[18]
Despite the rather obvious logic of this reasoning, and despite
the fact that Shedinger himself subscribes to this logic and
method in chapters three and four (where all of the readings he
presents are deviations from the standard text), all of
the readings in chapter five are places where the Diatessaron's
text—according to Shedinger—was identical
with the standard gospel text. Did no one involved in the
writing, approval, or publication of this book recognize that
two entirely different, mutually-exclusive methodologies were
being employed, side-by-side?
[19] The
remaining 48 readings in chapters three and four are felled by
one or (usually) more problems. We will limit ourselves to
discussing only three.
[20] The
first is the matter of "trivial" readings. By "trivial" we mean
readings which turn on the tense or voice of a verb changing, a
conjunction appearing (or disappearing), pronouns materializing
(or vanishing), or words with overlapping semantic ranges
replacing each other (door/gate; wilderness/desert;
hastened/ran; etc.). One frequently stumbles across readings
such as these in Diatessaronic studies. Are they significant?
The answer is "no." Over the last century scholars have tested
such readings to see what value they have as evidence for the
text of the second-century Diatessaron. The unanimous
conclusion is that they are almost always useless, and should
almost always be ignored (the qualifications are too complex to
lay out in this review, and are, in any event, irrelevant to
Shedinger's readings).
[21] When
one reflects on the wide variety of languages in which
Diatessaronic witnesses appear (Syriac to Early Italian,
Persian to Middle High German, Arabic to Latin, Pahlavi to
Middle English, etc.) and the vast chronological span over
which these witnesses were translated and copied (the earliest
would appear to date from the first half of the fourth century
[probably Aphrahat or, conceivably, some of the Syriac
apocrypha]; the latest would be 1547 C.E. [the date our lone
exemplar of the Persian Harmony was copied]), the reasons are
self-evident. Idioms change from place to place and time to
time. The grammatical norms and constraints of Syriac are
different from Old High German—and both of them are
different from the grammatical norms and constraints of Latin
and Persian. Even within a single language, vocabulary and
grammar change over time (Shakespeare's English is not ours);
it even varies within the same language, at the same time, but
in different places (or classes): in certain English-speaking
circles today, "He is taller than I" is considered
correct usage ("than" is construed as a conjunction, and one
mentally completes the unspoken comparison "...taller than I
[am tall]"), while in other circles "He is taller than
me" is considered correct ("than" is construed as a
preposition, requiring the objective case, "me").
[22] All
of this is obvious, and is well known in Diatessaronic studies.
Agnes Smith Lewis pointed it out to H. J. Vogels in 1913,
noting especially the tendency of Syriac to add pleonastic
pronouns and conjunctions, the former due in part to suffix
pronouns and the latter due in part to the Semitic aversion to
subordinate clauses. The point has been repeated many times
since: "I find many of the individual cases produced by the
experts too niggling and unimpressive" (so the distinguished
Orientalist Fr. Robert Murray, HeyJ 14 [1973], p. 312);
"some of the coincidences in small similarities between
[Diatessaronic] witnesses may have originated accidentally or
from independent exegetical modifications" (so Bruce Metzger,
JThS n.s. 27 [1976], p. 481). Nevertheless, some 22 of
Shedinger's readings are textual trivia. For example, he
detects a "Diatessaronic" reading in the change of verb voice
in readings 21 and 35 (where an active voice in the Greek
becomes passive in some Diatessaronic witnesses) and in reading
12 (passive voice becomes active). More "Diatessaronic"
readings are found in the change in some witnesses from
"their heart" (so the Greek) to "its heart"
(reading 32, Matt 15:8); the interpolation of "and" in reading
28 (Matt 4:7 parr.), where (according to Shedinger) the
Diatessaron inserted "and" into the phrase "the Lord [+
and] your God." In reading 15 (Matt 4:6) the matter
turns on whether "foot" is in the objective case (so Matthew)
or the nominative case (so some Diatessaronic witnesses);
shades of "He is taller than I/me" in today's vernacular!
Reading 18 (Matt 15:4, par.) finds the canonical "or" turning
into a "Diatessaronic" "and"—this despite the fact that
the OT lemma (Ex. 21:17) in Hebrew has "and," while the LXX
reads "or," with the gospels; that means that if only two
scribes independently checked the NT citation against the
Hebrew, and corrected it to the Hebrew, then we would have a
"Diatessaronic" reading here—without, of course, any
contact with the Diatessaron! All of these readings are
precisely the sort of textual trivia warned against in the
literature for nearly a century. They must be rejected.
[23]
Turning to another problem, five of Shedinger's readings are
omissions. As we saw above (in reading 2, the omission of
"land"), omissions are very weak as evidence, and are highly
unreliable in Diatessaronic studies as genetic markers. As with
"trivial" readings, so too the problems with omissions are
well-documented in the literature—not just of
Diatessaronic studies, but also of textual criticism. But once
again, Shedinger shows no awareness of this.
[24] The
third and final problem we will address is the defective
philological and lexical work, which eliminates about ten of
Shedinger's readings. If there is any place in Diatessaronic
studies where scrupulous honesty and care are required, it is
here. The reason is that Diatessaronic research is a two-act
play involving lexical agreements and disagreements. The first
act of the play consists of noting textual disjunctions:
one searches for readings where the Diatessaronic witnesses
differ from the standard gospel text. Here are some of the
differences Shedinger finds; they eventually result in
"Diatessaronic" readings: reading 1, "ruler" (= Matt 2:6b) and
"king" (= Diatessaron); reading 10, "adultery" (= Matt 19:18,
par.) and "fornication"/"impure" (= Diat.); 25, "robbers" (=
Matt 21:13, parr.) and "thieves" (= Diat.). It is to be granted
that in English these words are different, but it is also
evident that their semantic ranges are very, very close.
Shedinger is making very fine, very precise distinctions here;
he is distinguishing very rigorously even between synonyms
("thieves" and "robbers," for example). Therefore, at the very
outset, one must question whether such rigid distinctions can
be made. Most lexicographers would say "no," because what one
is probably registering is simply different translations of the
same word: the German "Fleisch" can be translated into English
as either "meat" or "flesh," and both translations are
correct.
[25] But
there is also a second act in the play of Diatessaronic
studies: after identifying the points of variance from the
standard text, one then looks to see if there are
conjunctions among the Diatessaronic witnesses—if
multiple Diatessaronic witnesses contain the
identical variant. This multiple testimony is
necessary to prevent a unique reading in a single witness being
called "Diatessaronic." Finally, to insure against the
influence of "local texts" (which might have influenced
multiple Diatessaronic witnesses in a particular geographic
region—say, in Syria/Syriac, or in Italy/Latin), support
for the proposed Diatessaronic reading should be found in
both the Eastern and the Western witnesses.
[26]
Given the rigor Shedinger employed to distinguish between the
text of the gospels and the Diatessaronic witnesses (recall,
for example, that he distinguished "robbers" from "thieves"),
one would expect him to be equally rigorous when searching for
agreements among Diatessaronic witnesses. That is not, however,
what we find. In reading 10 (Matt 19:18, parr.), where the
Greek reads "adultery," Shedinger finds an ambiguous word in
the Arabic Harmony (which he says can mean either "adultery" or
"fornication"); in the West, he finds "fornication" in some
Vetus Latina manuscripts, and "impure" in two related Middle
Dutch Harmonies. Shedinger construes "impure" and "fornication"
as the same variant. Something other than "adultery"
("fornication"? "impure"? one is never informed precisely what)
is the Diatessaronic reading. But any observant reader will
ask: If our author distinguishes between "king" and "ruler,"
between "thieves" and "robbers," then must he not also
distinguish between "fornication" and "impure," and regard
them as two distinct variants? This question does
not seem to have occurred to anyone connected with this book.
Furthermore, since the reading of the Arabic Harmony is
ambiguous, and may be the standard Greek reading, how
can Shedinger claim it as Eastern support for whatever
"Diatessaronic" reading he proposes? The answer, of course, is
that he cannot.
[27] This
same insensitivity to lexical differences is displayed again
and again, and the result is always the same: a "Diatessaronic"
reading. For example, in reading 13 (Matt 27:9-10) one
Diatessaronic witness reads "I was valued," and two (related)
witnesses read "I was bought"; despite their differences
("bought" is not "valued"; one can "value" something without
"buying" it), Shedinger pronounces a conjunction of witnesses
here, and, of course, a "Diatessaronic" reading is the result.
Or consider reading 8 (Matt 13:35 [the Greek reads "I will
utter"]), where Shedinger says that "I will bring to light" and
"I will reveal" and "I will make clear" all represent a single
"Diatessaronic" variant.
[28] What
is going on here? It is really quite simple: Shedinger is using
two different sets of standards when making lexical
comparisons. When he wants to find differences, his standards
are rigorous ("thieves" are not "robbers"; a "king" is not a
"ruler"). But when he wants to find agreements, his standards
are so loose that they defy the lexica ("bought" is the same as
"valued"; "impure" is the same as "fornication"). This is not
only unacceptable lexicography, it is also methodologically
dishonest: one set of standards should be used.
[29] The
lexical problems do not end there, however; "Diatessaronic"
readings are sometimes manufactured out of elementary lexical
blunders. Here are two examples. In reading 23 (Matt 4:6, par.
Luke 4:11) Shedinger claims that the reading of the Diatessaron
was "arms" against what he considers the standard Greek reading
"hands." The problem is that the text of Matthew (and Luke)
reads, "...On their
ceirwn
they
will bear you up..." This is a quotation of Ps. 91:12, where
the LXX also reads
ceirwn
.
Shedinger concludes that "arms" is the Diatessaronic reading
because the Syriac word
drc'
—which J.
Payne Smith defines as "arm" (A Compendious Syriac
Dictionary [the "little Payne Smith"; Oxford 1903], p.
98)—is found in some Diatessaronic witnesses (in Matthew
in Syrs.c and in Luke in Syrp; "arms" is
also read in the Arabic and Persian Harmonies). Against this,
other Diatessaronic witnesses in Syriac (Syrs in
Luke and Syrp in Matthew) read yd
("hand,...forepaw; the axle of a wheel
[N.B.!]; the arm of a seat or throne
[N.B.!]; a handle [N.B.!]..." [Payne
Smith, p. 186; the italics are hers]). In support of his
conclusion that "arm[s]"—
drc'
—is the
reading of the Diatessaron, Shedinger writes that "it is not
easy to reconcile [the Syriac]
drc
[sic] as
a translation of either [the Hebrew] kap or [the Greek]
ceiroV
[sic]" (p.
96).
[30] This
statement is simply not true of the Greek
ceir
—and remember that Tatian was
working from the Greek gospels. Reference to any Greek lexicon
will show that
ceir
is
polysemous, and can mean either "hand" or "arm"
(see, e.g., Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker, A
Greek-English Lexicon of the NT [third revised edition;
Chicago 2000], p. 1082; cf. Liddell-Scott-Jones-McKenzie, A
Greek-English Lexicon [ninth edition; Oxford 1940 (1977)],
pp. 1983-1984: "the hand...[the] hand and arm...the arms").
[31] The
two readings we find in our Syriac sources are completely
explicable as two different—but
correct—translations of the "standard" Greek reading,
ceir
. Some Syriac sources,
correctly, translated it as "hand" (yd) some of the
time, and some, correctly, translated it as "arm" (
drc'
) some of the
time. This ambivalence is apparent if one arranges the datum in
a table.
Matt 4:6
Luke 4:11
Syrs
drc'
yd
Syrc
drc'
[deest]
Syrp
yd
drc'
[32] Also
note that the Syriac word yd itself may well have had,
in colloquial usage, the same dual meaning of the Greek
ceir
; one can see vestiges of it
in Payne Smith's definition ("hand," but also "axle, arm of a
seat, a handle"); one might presume this to be especially so in
any Christian community where the sister language Hebrew was
known, for the Hebrew cognate and homophone yad is also
polysemous (see Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm-Richardson, The
Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament [1995],
Vol. 2, p. 386: "forearm, hand"). Note further that, in the
LXX,
ceir
is regularly used to
translate both the Hebrew yad
and the
Hebrew kap ([the word found in Ps. 91:12] "hollow of the
hand, the whole hand").
[33]
Shedinger's claim that "it is not easy to reconcile [the
Syriac]
drc
[sic] as
a translation of ... [the Greek]
ceiroV
[sic]" can only mean that he
has incorrectly assumed that the Greek
ceir
can only mean "hand," when, in fact, it
can also mean "arm"—the purported "Diatessaronic" reading
here. That the Syriac
drc'
is a perfectly
acceptable translation of
ceir
is evident not only from the table above, but also by its use
at Mark 10:16 in the Peshitta to translate
ceir
.
[34] A
second example of a false "Diatessaronic" reading generated by
the same lexical insensitivity to polysemous words occurs in
reading 9 (Mark 10:19), where the standard Greek is: "do not
defraud (Greek:
aposterhshV
)." Shedinger finds "do not
oppress" in three Eastern Diatessaronic witnesses; for
his Western evidence he adduces three Vetus Latina MSS (a c
k) which read "[do] not deny (Latin:
abnegabis [abnegaveris in k])." Although
he should have abandoned the reading at this point—for
"oppress" is not the same as "deny"—Shedinger forges
ahead, and pronounces a "Diatessaronic" reading.
[35] The
problem is that, just like
ceir
in the previous example,
aposterew
is polysemous. Reference to a
Greek lexicon will show that although the first meaning
of
aposterew
is "defraud," its
second meaning is "refuse" or "deny"; it is, for
example, also used in I Cor. 7:5, which is commonly translated
as "do not deny (
aposterew
) your wives." It is true that the
majority of Vetus Latina MSS (and the Vulgate) read fraudem
feceris (so MSS aur
b
d
ff2
l
q; MS f reads
fraudem facies), rendering the first meaning of
aposterew
("defraud"). But
abnegabis is an equally good—and, in some
respects, better—translation of the Greek, rendering the
second meaning of
aposterew
, "refuse, deny." We say "better"
because, from a strictly linguistic standpoint,
abnegabis is (1) a single Latin word translating
a single Greek word (such things were important to the
ancients), and (2) the ab- prefix of abnegabis
displays parallel compositional morphology with the
apo-
prefix of
aposterew
. (As an aside, your reviewer would
note that it is interesting—and perhaps
significant—that our two oldest Vetus Latina MSS [a
k] read abnegabis, while the more recent
ones—and the Vulgate—read fraudem fecit.
This suggests abnegabis is the older translation.)
[36]
Shedinger's claim, then, that the Latin reading
abnegabis—the sole Western support for his
proposed "Diatessaronic" reading—represents something
other than the standard Greek of Mark, is simply false. For
evidence of a "Diatessaronic" reading, then, one is left with
"oppress," a reading that is found only in three late
Diatessaronic witnesses (the Peshitta, and the Arabic and
Persian Harmonies), all from the East, and all derived from a
Syriac Vorlage. The evidence suggests, then, that this
reading is most likely a relatively late variant, part of a
"local text" that circulated only in the East.
[37]
These sorts of errors—in a book whose subtitle announces
a "Philological Analysis"—are beyond comprehension. Did
no one on the doctoral committee know that
ceir
can mean both "hand" and "arm"? Did it
occur to no reader at CSCO that if "robbers" were being
distinguished from "thieves," then one also ought to
distinguish—if for nothing else than consistency's
sake—between "valued" and "bought"?
[38] The
book has other flaws, as well. The command of current
literature is defective. Although this book was published in
2001, Migne is used for Justin Martyr's text, not the critical
editions of Goodspeed (1914) or Marcovich (1997); Sievers'
sometimes-defective second edition (1892) of Codex Sangallensis
is used rather than Masser's excellent new edition (1994).
Although Shedinger relies very heavily on your reviewer's
handbook Tatian's Diatessaron (1994), he displays no
awareness of a substantial chapter titled "Using the
Diatessaron" (pp. 357-425). This chapter begins with a list of
potential "Problems" awaiting the novice researcher. The first
"problem" listed is "Arguing from omissions" (pp. 359-360); the
second is "Arguing from trivial readings" (360-361); the fifth
is "Arguing from what may be 'local texts'" (364); the seventh
is "Arguing from grammatical, syntactic, or orthographic
trivia" (365-367); the eighth is "Arguing from a dubious
translation" (367-368). Of course one does not have to read
this chapter to gain these insights; anyone reading the
literature listed in Shedinger's bibliography would have come
to the same realizations, although it would have taken longer
and required that one laboriously order the material one's
self.
[39] A
prerequisite for reliable and proper use of a Diatessaronic
witness is a thorough understanding of its
transmission-history. Although Shedinger used Giuseppe
Messina's edition of the Persian Harmony, he apparently failed
to notice Messina's analysis of the text, for in the
"Introduction" to his edition Messina addresses the subject of
Shedinger's book: the OT quotations in the (Persian)
Diatessaron (pp. lxviii-lxxvi). Messina (* 1893-† 1951)
was the world's expert on this text. In the process of
preparing his edition, Messina concluded that the Persian
translator, as he translated from Syriac into Persian in the
thirteenth century, frequently "improved" the OT quotations by
referencing the Targumim and/or the Hebrew Bible in a
Semitic language. Messina's textual examples (two of which
parallel pericopes examined by Shedinger) are unambiguous and
definitive. Therefore, Shedinger cannot use the Persian Harmony
as he does, for Messina demonstrated half a century ago that
its OT citations have frequently been revised to agree with
texts much later than the Diatessaron. Even if these eight
pages in Italian escaped our author's notice, it is odd that he
also missed an English précis of them in a book
he frequently cites.
[40] In
the end, one wonders how much of the bibliography was actually
consulted, for Shedinger's bibliography gives the following
entry: "Plooij, Daniel, Traces of Syriac Origin of the
Old-Latin Diatessaron. Amsterdam: n.p., 1927." Anyone
attempting to locate this book from Shedinger's reference will
come up empty-handed. That is because it is an article: "Traces
of Syriac Origin of the Old-Latin Diatessaron," in
Mededeelingen der koninklijke akademie van
wetenschappen, Afdeeling letterkunde, deel 63, serie
A, no. 4 (1927), pp. 101-126. Whether he actually consulted the
article or not (a glance at the title page—which bears
the pagination "101"—reveals instantly that the work is
an article, not a book), the full, correct reference was (once
again) available to Shedinger in the bibliography of a
monograph he frequently cites.
[41] One
could go on. Everyone has lapses of judgment; everyone makes
mistakes—even Homer nodded. But that is not the issue.
Here the errors are so frequent and so fundamental that this
volume can contribute nothing to scholarship. What it says that
is true has already been said elsewhere, with greater clarity
and perspective. What it says that is new is almost always
wrong, plagued—as we have shown above—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 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.