I think Adams thought more highly of the Old Testament narrative than Thomas Jefferson who arguably appreciated little more than the "Deism" of the Jews (their belief in one God). (Though in one of his inaugural addresses Jefferson spoke as though he believed the Old Testament story of God liberating the Jews from Egypt were true.)
Still, because according to Adams, the original Hebrew was destroyed, man could never be sure when reading texts whose original was Hebrew, whether he was reading God speaking to man in the form of direct special revelation or some kind of corruption in the form of interpolation, intermixture, error, amendment, (terms he used).
Likewise, Adams concludes all of St. Paul's writings were originally in Hebrew (because Paul was illiterate in Greek), and thus destroyed, and consequently suspect. Below is an excerpt from Adams' Marginalia, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Arthur Ashley Sykes, D.D.
Why has the Hebrew been destroyed and lost?
How can they object? When the Hebrew is destroyed? [...]
Page: 317
A resolute Faith! Dr. Disney! If St. Paul ever wrote anything in Greek except his name and a concluding sentence or two, the most eminent Fathers are not competent witnesses.
Does the burden of proof rest upon the infidel to prove a negative? The believer, the assenter, should prove his affirmation.
This is the most candid and the most plausible opinion.* But the question recurs, why was the original destroyed? What suspicions of interpolation and indeed of fabrication might be confuted if we had the originals? In an age or in ages when fraud, forgery and perjury were considered as lawful means of propagating truth by philosophers, legislators and theologians, what may not be suspected?
Page: 318
What was not received? Anything, everything, and nothing.
Why has the original Hebrew been annihilated?
And who were these "Οι αρχαιοι?
Page: 319
[...]
And he might as well add Chateaubriand in 1814. And the whole Acta Sanctorum. When Homsousianity was established and Christianity totally corrupted, no doubt, authorities enough might be accumulated.
Page: 320
Upon what authority? Paul's own epistles. But is not this begging the question?
Pray! Which are St. Paul's undoubted epistles?
Page: 321
Is it not strange that these most learned and candid of men, as I believe them to have been, should not agree when they both take the epistles themselves for undoubted authorities?* The context of this entire passage is that Adams is talking to a book -- "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Arthur Ashley Sykes, D.D." -- and it involves a dialog between Arthur Sykes and John Disney. The "candid" and "plausible" opinion was Disney citing an earlier authority asserting that Paul originally wrote the Hebrew Epistle in Hebrew, but that it was later translated into Greek by another author. That's when Adams notes that in the absence of the originals in Hebrew, which have been lost, it's all suspect. Likewise, Paul if he was the original author, must have written it in Hebrew because he was illiterate in Greek.
See Zoltan Haraszti, "John Adams and the Prophets of Progress," pp. 296-97.
15 comments:
Paul most likely wrote at least the majority of his credited epistles in Greek, a version called Koine. Adams' ready embrace of crank theories is more reason to consign him to the appendix of American religious history.
Have you read the Disney's book that Adams was commenting on? Adams wasn't commenting on the idea that Hebrew originals in general had been lost. He was commenting on the theory that the Epistle to the Hebrews had been originally written in the Hebrew language before being translated into Greek.
Also, when he wrote of interpolations and fabrications, he wasn't saying that he believed such to be present in the current form of the Epistle. He was simply pointing out that many such suspicions would not exist if the original were still available.
Additionally, Adams' comments on page 320 and 321 address a completely different subject than those on 318 and 319. On page 320, Disney shifts to a discussion of the dating of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and it is in response to this discussion that Adams makes his comments on those pages.
By the way, do you know if anyone is working on uploading scans of Adams' marginal notes? There are several instances in which the note's location on the page could help explain what Adams was saying.
Skip that last question. I found the scanned Adams library on the Internet Archive. Page 318 and following of Disney's book along with Adams' notes can be read at: https://archive.org/stream/memoirsoflifewri00disn#page/318
And the entire library can be accessed at: https://archive.org/details/johnadamsBPL
"Adams wasn't commenting on the idea that Hebrew originals in general had been lost. He was commenting on the theory that the Epistle to the Hebrews had been originally written in the Hebrew language before being translated into Greek."
But he still says that the original Hebrews had been lost and he does so in the context of blaming a churchy cabal. Those are his words; the context cannot be used to negate what he said.
"He was simply pointing out that many such suspicions would not exist if the original were still available."
Again, Adams own words: Because we don't have the originals -- and indeed by way of conspiracy to suppress -- there are therefore "suspicions" present in the current form as we have them. And the context clearly reveals that the "suspicions" were Adams'.
Can you explain a little more about how the context supports your view? For example, I'm not sure if you're speaking of the context of the rest of Adams' notes or the context of various sections of Disney's book. And in either case, it would be nice to know which specific part of either you are referring to.
I'd be glad to. The context is Adams' own words. I've noticed something unfortunate with your method in that you attempt to use "context" to explain away the very words that are spoken by the Founding Father in question. I'm not going to play that game here.
"But the question recurs, why was the original destroyed? What suspicions of interpolation and indeed of fabrication might be confuted if we had the originals? In an age or in ages when fraud, forgery and perjury were considered as lawful means of propagating truth by philosophers, legislators and theologians, what may not be suspected?"
His words speak for themselves and support my understanding. "What may not be suspected" is a very broad statement and nothing that can be narrowed by "context."
I don't expect you to properly deal with this letter that we've discussed before. But again it involves Adams doubting texts -- in this case whether we have the right version of the 10 Commandments, done in the backdrop of discussing the churchy cabal that purposefully burnt texts. In this case cartloads of Hebrew.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-06-02-0476#TJ118477_6
Now, it may be true that Adams later on said he believed in the Decalogue. But that's because his method wasn't to simply look something up in the Bible and believe it as true special revelation. But rather, believing he was holding a book that contained special revelation but had been corrupted by authorities. And it's by using his reason and conscience he could do his best to figure out what that special revelation was.
With this we could understand why Adams could at once doubt we had the right version of the the Ten Commandments because of the presence of errors in general contained in the Bible's text. But then later or in other places affirm the Decalogue as right because he decided it agrees with his own philosophy and reason.
I'd let other folks who may be following this read the originals and decide for themselves and also how well Gregg Frazer's theory of a rationalistic understanding of partially inspired texts fits with it.
Adams wasn't commenting on the idea that Hebrew originals in general had been lost. He was commenting on the theory that the Epistle to the Hebrews had been originally written in the Hebrew language before being translated into Greek.
Isn't Adams questioning whether Paul even knew Greek?
"If St. Paul ever wrote anything in Greek except his name and a concluding sentence or two, the most eminent Fathers are not competent witnesses."
That's a great illustration of my point, Tom. Adams did not say that Paul did not write in Greek. What he said was that the church fathers (i.e. the authorities that the Catholics relied on) were incompetent to answer the question of whether or not Paul wrote in Greek.
It would be similar to me saying that the church fathers are not competent witnesses of whether the Cathari were Dualists. Such a statement does not reveal anything about whether I think that the Cathari were Dualists or not. It only reveals that I place no value in the opinion of the church fathers on this question.
Jon, I'm going to pull a page from your book and say that I've already answered your claim about the Adams and the Ten Commandments. I just didn't answer it to your satisfaction.
As for Adams comments in this place, I think that you are correct to identify the words "suspicion" and "suspected" as the key to understanding his meaning. The suspicion in question is the suspicion that interpolations and fabrications have been added to the Epistle to the Hebrews. If you take Adams' questions as claims, then he made two claims in regard to this particular suspicion. First, he claimed that these suspicions would be "confuted" by the presence of the original autograph, and second, he claimed that this suspicion was reasonable in the absence of the original autograph.
From the use of the word "confuted," we can surmise that Adams thought the original autograph would prove this suspicion to be wrong. His second question leads to the conclusion that he thought it unlikely that the suspicion could be proven wrong without the original autograph. Neither question, however, gives any evidence of Adams' own opinion of whether this suspicion is true or false.
Suppose, for example, that we were discussing the Iliad instead of the Bible, and suppose that I wrote the following:
"It's a shame that we no longer have the original Iliad and must rely on copies greatly removed. This has caused scholars to doubt whether several portions of the Iliad were actually written by Homer or not. If we only had the original, then we could put those doubts to rest. But without the original, the tendency of ancient copyists to change literary works lends credence to the doubters."
This statement does not reveal anything about my personal opinion on whether the Iliad contains changes and additions or not. It only reveals my opinion that possession of the original would remove all doubt on the question, and the same can be said for Adams' questions about the suspicion that interpolations and fabrications had been added to the Epistle to the Hebrews.
By the way, Frazer holds to the same "rationalistic understanding of partially inspired texts" that he accuses Adams of holding. He uses a Bible that denies the authenticity of the final 12 verses of Mark, the Trinitarian portion of I John 5:7-8, as well as a major portion of John 4.
Actually this is the part of Adams' quote we need focus on:
"In an age or in ages when fraud, forgery and perjury were considered as lawful means of propagating truth by philosophers, legislators and theologians, what may not be suspected?"
I think it does reveal Adams' thought the Hebrew texts that were destroyed had been tampered with in the current translations that we now have in our Bibles. If we had the originals we could see what had been tampered with and fix them.
In the letter to Jefferson Adams makes clear that "corruptions of Christianity" could be uncorrupted if we had the original texts that had been destroyed by the church.
I think at the very least Adams is saying that because he himself can't view the originals that have been destroyed, he will always question what's true revelation, what is potential error, amendment, intepolation, intermixture.
Likewise a straight forward reading of Adams statement on Paul is exactly what Tom said in the form of a rhetorical question:
Isn't Adams questioning whether Paul even knew Greek?
Answer: Yes.
And again, Mr. F., based on my prior dealings with you, I don't expect you to concede that your method is gravely problematic. Whatever issues that Frazer has in his work, what you are trying to positively replace it with is worse.
You asserted that Adams is merely dealing with the hypothetical case that Paul wrote his originals in Hebrew without endorsing the proposition. I think that's dead wrong; that the context suggest Adams believed Paul wrote the originals in Hebrew. You use eccentric word parsing to support your view.
Repeatedly, in these marginal notes Adams asks the question why have the original Hebrews been lost/annihilated/destroyed? I have yet to see you commit to any positive theory as to what originals Hebrew or otherwise Adams seems to be referring to? I assert at the very least it involves Pauls' Epistle to the Hebrews, and indeed, much more.
"This is the most candid and the most plausible opinion. But the question recurs, why was the original destroyed? What suspicions of interpolation and indeed of fabrication might be confuted if we had the originals? In an age or in ages when fraud, forgery and perjury were considered as lawful means of propagating truth by philosophers, legislators and theologians, what may not be suspected?"
When Adams said "[t]his is the most candid and the most plausible opinion" it refers to the assertion that the Epistle was original written in Hebrew and that it was translated into Greek by St. Luke.
And then Adams immediately goes into the question about why the "original" was destroyed in the context of repeatedly asking why the original Hebrew was destroyed and noting that in the absence of the originals, everything is suspect because a corrupt churchy cabal was in charge of translating the text (and indeed, it was they who assembled the canon).
What do you think constitutes the content of the original Hebrews that Adams repeated refers to as being destroyed? It can't just be the Talmund that Pope Gregory ordered destroyed because Adams asserts that the Epistle to Hebrews -- (whatever language it originally was written in) -- was included in the destruction of the originals.
Indeed, if it were only the original Hebrew that was destroyed, that would narrow the claim of what original texts of the Bible were destroyed and tampered with by the churcy cabal. If Paul's original were written in Greek and also destroyed and whose current (as of the Founding era) texts were unrealiable and suspicious of errors, then the claim is that the "originals" destroyed includes not just a bunch of Hebrew stuff, but also Greek stuff as well.
Gentlemen, I think you're basically agreeing. In the end, Adams trusts nothing and nobody in the conveyance of the scriptures from apostolic times to the present day--especially when clergy are involved. Anti-clericalism is a hallmark of his and Jefferson's and the elites' theological "Enlightenment," which is part modern but also part anti-Catholic ["Protestant," if you will].
To clarify, in case anyone else happens to be reading this, the Epistle to the Hebrews is a special case, because the common sense question is, "Why would Paul write to the Hebrews in Greek and not Hebrew?" How much this extends to the rest of the Epistles in Greek [which were written to Greek-speakers in Asia Minor] outside of Adams' fatuous musings about all of them remains a modern Biblical criticism controversy.
http://tyndalearchive.com/scriptures/www.innvista.com/scriptures/compare/letters.htm
Tom is right. We are agreeing more than we're disagreeing because I'm not disputing at all whether Adams thought that the Epistle to the Hebrews was written in Hebrew. As you pointed out, Jon, that much is glaringly obvious from the frequency of Adams' comments about the Hebrew original. All I'm saying is that Adams' comments are insufficient to prove that he thought there were errors in the extant Greek copies of the epistle. He may have held such a view, and he may not have. The notes we have discussed so far do not provide sufficient evidence to prove either possibility.
By the way, in the letter to Jefferson that you referenced, Adams claimed that the proofs of the corruptions of Christianity would be brought to light in the same sense that Lightfoot brought many things to light by comparing the New Testament with the Mishna. If you've never read the works of John Lightfoot, you may want to do so. It will provide you with a lot of insight into the kind of corrections that Adams predicted would come from a recovery of the Hebrew books burned by the Catholics.
Fine. I'm moving on but am interested in exploring more Adams belief in the conspiracy to burn texts, suppress truth and propagate corruptions.
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