Metacrock

scholars have determined that the earliest narratival form of the Gospel was written about 50AD. Thus the orignal form of the Gosples, which was the saying source, was ciruclaring before that. It would probably be a good idea to allow circulation time (what I called "travel time") for those sources to find their way into the hands of the narrative writters. So the saying soruces such as Q and Matt's Logia were probably circularing as early as 40AD. Just a gap 10 years between events and record of sayings.


The oldest Gospels were the premarkan redaction, and the saying sources.

Magdlyn

The idea that there were 12 apostles is merely a creation of the narrators of this myth we call the gospels.

There were legendarily (again, not necc true history as we seek it today) 12 tribes of Israel. Much of the gospel narratives was written to recall the heroic "history" of the Jews. Jesus was made to seem to be a prophet like Moses or Elijah. His followers were made to seem to be a reflection of the 12 Tribes. If you know this background, your belief falls by the wayside.

When you use the word "approximately" you reflect your doubt over the neatness of the number 12.


What are you suggesting here? I have no idea.

Metacrock

So you think if there were more people it woudl be easier to convence the masses? I dont' see how that follows.

(1) The more people you let in on a secret the less time it says secret. So if you expand beyond 12 you reduce the chances of any kind of unified agreement on what to cliam; you conversly increase the number of claims people are going to make.

(2) Doesnt' matter how many were pushing it, no one is going to believe in events that know for a fact didn't happen. People right there in Jerusalem just a few years latter are told about the Jesus and the miracles, the cross,t he empty tomb and all that, but never heard of any of it, and don't know anyone who ever heard of it, they aren't going to be receptive.

(3) Myth always proliforates. The fact that there is only one basic Jesus stroy proves that those events in general sense were histoircal.

Roger Pearse

Is Schnelle a paleographer? Doesn't Metzger, in the Text of the NT, treat this dating as one end of the consensus? As far as I know P52 remains dated to between 100-150, with highest probability around 125. If anyone knows better, of course, what the consensus of the paleographers is, I'd be interested to hear it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

andrewcriddle

I am not a paleographer but IIUC the following recent work is relevant

Schmidt dated P52 to around 170 CE in A. Schmidt, Zwei Anmerkungen zu P.Ryl.III 457, APF 35, 1989. This is a very brief paper and only partly concerned with redating the papyrus. It seeks to redate P52 as being similar in age but slightly earlier to Chester Beatty papyrus X which is itself not a dated manuscript but which paleographers usually date c 200 BCE.

The paper (which I have read) is so brief as to provide little basis for evaluating it.

However, it has generally been thought that P52 is not all that much older than the 'unknown gospel' known as the Egerton papyrus. This used to be dated to c 150 CE however recent discovery of a new fragment of this manuscript has provided strong paleographical evidence for redating to c 200 CE.

Given the paleographical similarities between P52 and the Egerton papyrus this supports a somewhat later date for P52.

The present situation seems to be that dating on the basis of comparison with precisely dated (non-Christian) papyri still supports a date of 100-150 CE.

However, comparison with Christian but unfortunately not precisely dated papyri supports a date of 170 CE with probably a rather large uncertainty IMO a sensible representation of this evidence would be 135-205 CE.

Combining these two types of evidence I would prefer to express the probable range as 120-160 CE. Before 120 runs into problems with the similar but not precisely dated Christian material whereas after 160 runs into problems with the precisely dated paleographically similar but non-Christian material.

AndrewCriddle

Toto

Hi Metacrock - I remember a thread in which Peter Kirby meticulously refuted your claim that there was only one basic Jesus. There were many versions of Jesus until the orthodox Christian church imposed a uniform version in the 2nd-3rd centuries.

We have no evidence outside of the Christian gospels (written after 70 CE, when no witnesses remained) that anyone "in Jerusalem just a few years later are told about the Jesus and the miracles, the cross, the empty tomb." The empty tomb in particular seems to be a late legend. Paul knows nothing about miracles.

Metacrock

No you don't. I dont' know why you guys just love to do this to yourself. i've corrected you and other making this mistake many times. Now let' try to remember this time, here's what happened:



Kirby posted a super long respnose that attacked everything except the actaul thesis. it did not show a different version of the Jesus story, not one single version! It showed:





(1) changes in small detalis but not one single version that included any point of the 11 I staked out

(2) difference in peoples understanding such as Papias syaing Jesus was 50 when he died. But not anything delaing with the 11 points.

(3) other interpriations of the same stody, such as gnsotics saying Jesus was not flesh and bood. But these assume the origingal story.


what I argued was that he failed to show any counter evidence at all because he didni't deal with the 11 points, until after 400 which is what I said to begin with.

The only alternate versions he could show were witin the time frame I gave.





Wrong! we have evidence, and it only stands to reason, because why would they wait to tell people? the longer they waited the less likely it was catch on. Think about it, someone was going the "good news" bit and saying this guy rose form the dead, then you find out it was 20 years ago??? Come on!




Very very wrong as the author of that book will soon learn to their suprize when I relaise my anti-their book stuff I've been working on, but shhhhhh enough for now.

Diogenes the Cynic

I hope you have a good copy editor.

Metacrock

I do have a good copy editor. When I do things for publication I take a hell of a lot more pains because its not just a message board. No peer review, no editor to send your stuff back with a little slip saying "not what we are looking for." So I just post. In fact most people seem communicate wtih me they don't find it too difficult to know what I'm saying.

I do find some who attack the spelling when they have nothing else to say. Soem think formalities are all that there are to thought.If you spell correctly and have good grammar it doesnt' matter what you say with it. I'm one of those old fashioned "content matters' kind of people.

funinspace

:rolling: You mean the Mandeans know the truth... Yep, there are lots of Mormon sects out there diverging from the original Mormon myth...