Duvduv

Most probable reconstructions based on unproven assertions as if they were facts, founded upon faith in claims found in biased texts. But at least this should be admitted.
And that dissent from this approach cannot be tolerated. Isn't that the approach you are referring to?

stephan huller

Valentinian texts were found at Nag Hammadi. I don't see how you get around this one. There are a number of texts which explicitly reference the concepts associated with the Valentinians in Against Heresies. Are you suggesting that someone forged the writings of Irenaeus in the fourth century and then went out into the desert at Nag Hammadi and buried the so-called Valentinian Exposition knowing that the texts would be rediscovered again in the twentieth century? This is beyond crazy.

stephan huller

The double standard of course is that this same guy who thinks that the tradition of white people is built entirely on lies but assumes somehow that his own Jewish tradition is absolutely truthful. The claim that the rabbis preserved the original truth of Moses - an utterly fabulous, unprovable and certainly untrue assertion - is taken at face value. The existence of a whole cast of Jewish phantasmal 'fathers' is also accepted by duvduv exactly as his Jewish tradition hands it down, but a parallel tradition among the goyim where actual documents survive in the name of various 'fathers' is deemed to be 'certainly false' and 'based on faith.' What is the real difference here? duvduv is Jewish and only trusts the fables of his own people. That smacks of racism and that shouldn't be tolerated here. No race, people or religion is more or less capable than another of dishonesty. We are built of the same atoms, the same blood types flow through our veins. This kind of double standard should not be tolerated here. I find it very offensive.

Toto

Everyone knows the limits of the material. There are some Christian apologists who try to claim that the texts are solid and reliable, but most scholars know the problems.

If you think the reconstructions are inadequate, it is up to you to show why a different reconstruction makes more sense or explains the data better.

Dissent is tolerated. But making a nuisance of yourself by just repeating the same point like a broken record is not.

Please don't force me to split this thread.

Duvduv

You over-complicate things. Of course I readily admit to accepting certain unprovable things as a matter of faith. So should others.