BALDUCCI

Wow !! Clearly !

mountainman

But surely you'd have to agree with two things:

1) Every sect had some form of common regard for the Hebrew Bible.
2) Every sect had writings published, in order to be transmitted to Eusebius.

So my question is why did they not ever publish their own sectarian
bibles (eg: Marcion Bible, Clement Bible, Origen Bible, etc) since some
of these "NT Authors" and "NT Transmitters" must have also transmitted
their own greek text of the Hebrew Bible. It seems reasonable to create
a package for transmission, seeing the texts were "related".

But surely the gospels are the core of the NT mass, and these would
have been transmitted perhaps from generation to generation since
the time of their composition. The Hebrew Bible also required the same
transmission, and I would have thought that some purported "christian"
dude (out of the list above) would have undertaken this task. That is,
this task would not have been sub-contracted to some "Empire Publisher".
Rather, Marcion, Clement, Origen, etc did their own publishing.

So why didn't they just bind their gospels to the Hebrew Texts earlier.
Surely every sect had this common core, plus their own texts.
Why didn't each sect publish its own consolidated "bible" in the
interim centuries?

mountainman

See what I mean? If it was such "good news",
why wasn't it published a century or two earlier
by any of these "published christian authors"?

Did they forget to do the job for posterity?


Category (1): Christian "Bishops" (or Higher):

Jesus [0-33],
Barnabas [0-61],
Jude[0-60],
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter & Judas, etc[0-70],
Clement of Rome [18-98],
Ignatius of Antioch [40-117],
Polycarp [110-155],
Polycrates of Ephesus[130-196],
Pinytus of Crete[130-180],
Alexander (of Cappadocia,Jerusalem)[150-250],
Claudius Apollinaris [160-180],
Theophilus of Antioch [180-185],
Serapion of Antioch [200-210],
Cornelius (of Rome)[200-253],
Cyprian of Carthage [200-258],
Dionysius (of Alexandria) the Great[200-264],
Dionysius of Rome [210-268],
Gregory Thaumaturgus [212-275],
Anatolius of Laodicea in Syria[222-290],
Victorinus (bishop) of Petau[240-303],
Peter of Alexandria [250-311],
Phileas (Bishop) of Thmuis[250-307]


Category (2): Christian "apologist" (or greater)

Papias [110-140]
Valentinus [120-160]
Apology of Aristides [120-130]
Apology of Quadratus of Athens [120-130]
Basilides [120-140]
Epiphanes On Righteousness [130-160]
Aristo of Pella [130-150]
Marcion [130-140]
Ophite Diagrams [130-160]
Minucius Felix [140-170]
Isidore [140-160]
Fronto [140-170]
Ptolemy [140-160]
Excerpts of Theodotus [150-180]
Heracleon [150-180]
Justin Martyr [150-160]
Martyrdom of Polycarp [150-160]
Octavius of Minucius Felix [160-250]
Julius Cassianus [160-180]
Apelles [160-180]
Hegesippus [165-175]
Dionysius of Corinth [165-175]
Lucian of Samosata [165-175]
Melito of Sardis [165-175]
Letter of Peter to Philip [170-220]
Irenaeus of Lyons [175-185]
Athenagoras of Athens [175-180]
Rhodon [175-185]
Theophilus of Caesarea [175-185]
Bardesanes [180-220]
Hippolytus of Rome [180-230]
Clement of Alexandria [182-202]
Maximus of Jerusalem [185-195]
Victor I [189-199]
Pantaenus [190-210]
Anonymous Anti-Montanist [193-0]
Tertullian [197-220]
Apollonius [200-210]
Caius [200-220]



Category (3): Christian "writer" (or greater)

Quadratus [70-140]
Aristides the Philosopher [70-134]
Aquila of Sinope (of Pontus) [90-150]
Marcion of Sinope [110-160]
Apollinaris Claudius [120-180]
Diognetus [130-200]
Mathetes [130-200]
Tatian [135-185]
Saint Apollonius [136-186]
Agrippa Castor [140-0]
Julius Africanus [170-250]
Origen [185-254]
Novatian [201-258]
Hermias [210-280]
Malchion (of Antioch) [220-290]
Arnobius [245-305]
Methodius [250-311]
Pamphilus [250-309]

Johnny Skeptic

But what made Peter an expert on what was Scripture? What if someone else had claimed otherwise? Are you aware of any good reasons why we should not assume that some people did claim otherwise and were killed or ostracized by "orthodox Christians." "Orthodox Christians" were merely Christians who had the most power. As noted scholar Dr. Elaine Pagels has aptly said, "The victors rewrote history, 'their way.'"

Anyone can subjectively believe that God has appointed them to determine what is Scripture, but that is hardly convincing since who knows whose personal revelations are valid?

Toto

For Marcion, we know that he considered the God of the Hebrews to be the Demiurge, a much lesser God, and he did not search the Hebrew Scriptures for Jesus. He was the first to publish his own Scriptures, consisting of an early version of Luke and some of Paul's letters. Marcion was eventually expelled as a heretic, but he was a high church official for some time.

Doug Shaver

Am I being unreasonable if I think otherwise?

Clouseau

[QUOTE=Johnny Skeptic;4521881] He knew Jesus personally throughout his ministry, and was recognised as a leader by those within the church, and probably those outside, too.

Such persons would have been considered outside the church. Heretics such as Ignatius, who even mimicked his style rather comically, were forced to explicitly acknowledge Paul's canonicity- and Peter's, too.

Yes. We should not assume that for which there is no evidence and for which there is no evidence of likelihood.

Is that capitalisation accidental or not? The difference between 'orthodox Christian' and 'Orthodox Christian' is 180 degrees- which fact happens to be relevant.

There is no evidence that any Christian had any secular power at all. There is no evidence that any Christian has ever had any secular power. It may be that such a thing is an impossibility, in practice. It seems like desperate perversity to suppose that anyone who would commit murder as a matter of policy could be a Christian, anyway.

That is no original observation, but it works against an assumption that people were killed or ostracized by orthodox Christians. It is quite feasible that it applies to those who are now known as Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics, whose then single organisation was instituted by a secular power that rapidly, and suspiciously, changed from violent opposition to Christianity to officially endorsing it.

But all of this is rather irrelevant, because the claim that the Bible is a 'rather widely divergent mess' is made totally without support, so may even be evidence of the reverse condition.

Clouseau

I think you are being worse than unreasonable, because you have ignored the evidence already presented, that the Bible is the world's best-seller (except, perhaps, for a Chinese dictionary- and Chinese is a language that sure needs a dictionary!).

Clivedurdle

Might the non existence of an earlier canon be related to the very wide beliefs then - held by Mithraists, Druids and Gnostcis that this holy stuff had to be initiated into verbally and experientially via various rites - Druids for example taking 20 years - Gallic wars.

It was a slow process to turn a verbal experiential religion into a written one - and the meaning of those words is still causing us havoc - maybe religion has to be ritualistic and experiential.

Maybe the writing down of religious ideas is actually the first step to the rational mind gaining control of this magical stuff and led relentlessly to atheism. The Logos in John's Gospel then becomes a pointer on a cross roads between the smells and incantations and sacrifices and fires and spells of classic religion and the beginnings of a written culture.

Why the NT is so important historically is because it does mark the beginnings of a turning point away from magic. But it was only one of the ways of expressing this at the time - the Greeks in Greece, Alexandria Rhodes etc were hundreds of years ahead in their concepts, xianity is a "modernist" formalisation but even then an outdated one with clear evidence of being stuck in the old ways.

http://www.antikythera-mechanism.gr/

The battle about heresies can also be seen as a result of a magical belief in the power of written words - I am blessed by god because I can read this stuff, you are cursed because you misinterpret what is written.

BALDUCCI

In fact, those scholars who question the holistic integrity or consistency of the Bible almost always do so through demonstration, thus providing masses of evidence. One may disagree with their conclusions, but to claim that they simply make assertions "totally without support" is not true