Some history

[statimsciens]

Yes, but no original source documents.

This conversation is getting a little confusing. A “primary source” document is a document that was produced as close as possible to an event being studied, whether it is an unedited manuscript or not. Hence, most of the New Testament is considered (and has been for some time) a “primary source document” for the study of early Christianity. Most historical scholarship on early Christianity will refer to the NT as well as non-canonical works (like the Gospel of Thomas for instance) as contemporary to the subject. The same would be true for the Old Testament if one was studying Judaism. Hence, when you take a history class in college you are often reading “primary sources” from a reader (So for Rome you’ll read Livy or for classical Athens you’ll read Thucydides, etc.)

What some of the posts seem to indicate is the lack of a signature document or mansucript, that is, an unedited, authoritative, manuscript with a clear and undisputed provenence.

I’m no textual scholar to understand the manuscript tradition of biblical texts, but I do recognize a significant flaw with suggesting that no part of the Bible can be a primary source because there is no original, unedited manuscipts. Quite simply, if this is your method of textual criticism (That the Bible is not a primary source for some things because its manuscripts are not original and unedited) then you will be sacrificing quite a lot of other documents. Most ancient histories are 8th century copies. Caesar’s “The Gallic Wars” exist only in ten copies, none of them earlier than the 9th century. Ovid’s “Art of Love” exists only in one copy from the 8th century. Hence, if the Bible can tell us nothing of the Biblical period, then by the same logic, we know nothing of the western world before the 10th century AD, not Rome, not the Celtic peoples, not much of Ancient Greece and the documents we cite in our histories of the ancient world are not authoritative. Poor Ovid!

 

[cfrancis]

This conversation is getting a little confusing. A “primary source” document is a document that was produced as close as possible to an event being studied, whether it is an unedited manuscript or not. Hence, most of the New Testament is considered (and has been for some time) a “primary source document” for the study of early Christianity. Most historical scholarship on early Christianity will refer to the NT as well as non-canonical works (like the Gospel of Thomas for instance) as contemporary to the subject. The same would be true for the Old Testament if one was studying Judaism. Hence, when you take a history class in college you are often reading “primary sources” from a reader (So for Rome you’ll read Livy or for classical Athens you’ll read Thucydides, etc.)

What some of the posts seem to indicate is the lack of a signature document or mansucript, that is, an unedited, authoritative, manuscript with a clear and undisputed provenence.

I’m no textual scholar to understand the manuscript tradition of biblical texts, but I do recognize a significant flaw with suggesting that no part of the Bible can be a primary source because there is no original, unedited manuscipts. Quite simply, if this is your method of textual criticism (That the Bible is not a primary source for some things because its manuscripts are not original and unedited) then you will be sacrificing quite a lot of other documents. Most ancient histories are 8th century copies. Caesar’s “The Gallic Wars” exist only in ten copies, none of them earlier than the 9th century. Ovid’s “Art of Love” exists only in one copy from the 8th century. Hence, if the Bible can tell us nothing of the Biblical period, then by the same logic, we know nothing of the western world before the 10th century AD, not Rome, not the Celtic peoples, not much of Ancient Greece and the documents we cite in our histories of the ancient world are not authoritative. Poor Ovid!

I took the OP’s use of the phrase “no original source documents” to be equal to “there [are] no original, unedited manuscipts” and therefore, according to the OP, we cannot know what the Cathars believed authentically.

Your response is what I would have liked to have said, had I the understanding and knowledge!