mountainman

(1) That the bulk of the fragments are derived from codices not rolls mitigates towards the 4th century.

(2) That the bulk of the fragments come from Oxyrynchus rubbish dumps many of which did not exist before the city's massive population explosion mitigates towards the mid 4th century.

(3) That the only C14 dating to have been performed on any manuscript related to the Christian canonical and non canonical texts mitigates to a date between 220 and 340 CE.

These are three general objections to the early palaeographical datings.





εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Duvduv

These are important points related to context, which many will ignore in relation to the isolated analysis from paragraphs alone.

avi

Thanks for this comment, Shesh, appreciated, though, I am concerned that you have overlooked the fact that our three manuscripts of Justin's writings appear in but a single document authored, or copied, perhaps, in the middle ages in an Italian monastery. How would we, today, write the same material, labeled "by Justin Martyr", if we wished to assert a FIRST century appearance of Christianity? Isn't a bit odd, that we possess so little external verification of Justin's works?

Duvduv

The references from the Eusebius sources are not at all very convincing of an original devotion to Justin, especially when it is never pointed out what is missing from Justin's texts about Christianity, or even that the elements left out were left out intentionally, which I suggested was possible.

Sheshbazzar

The pregnant question then would be, and I've asked it repeatedly, what would the 3rd century on church accomplish by forging a text that in no way supports the 'Doctrine of Apostolic Succession'?
... and in fact totally undermines this 'Apostolic Succession' teaching that is so essential to the establishment of Church's authority, and right of the church to defend 'traditional' orthodox interpretation, and the alleged justification and license for enforcement of the 'catholic' top down hierarchy?

Then too, the total exclusion of reference to 'Acts', to 'Paul', and 'The Gospel of John', or any reference to the history or the organization of the early church in Justin's writings is incomprehensible as being the product of any 3rd century + Christian church group. __(and if forged by known adversaries, the Orthodox would not have preserved it, or have ever recognized or remembered Justin as being a 'Saint' and Martyr.)
Without being propped up by the content of these writings, 'The Catholic Church's' claims fall flat on their face.

The Christian church as presented in Justin's writings is a very 'loose' and free operating group of independent believers.
One where a man could simply don the robe of a philosopher and argue their religious view, without any resort to citing established church 'traditions', or the 'teachings' or 'decrees' of any 'Paul', or Bishop, or Pope', or any sign of kneeling to, referring to, or needing consent from, or answering to any manner of hierarchal church organization or authority.

It just doesn't wash that Justin's heretical writings would have been produced as forgeries by the latter church. Their content shoots all kinds of holes in many of the late church's fundamental claims and practices.

But it does make perfect sense if Justin's writings are authentic 2nd century, and Saint Justin and his writings were already so well established in the public mind and traditions of the church as being a early Christian Saint and writer, that the latter risen hierarchy simply could not get away with denying him or his writings.
Then, the only thing they could do, would be to do their best to ignore these inconsistencies with their claims, marginalize the content of his writings, make them disappear, and bury them under a veritable flood of forged 'early' Christian writings.
Which explains why Justin's writings 'disappeared' for so long, and the prolific output of 'Saint Irenaeus of Lyons', or was that 'Saint Irenaeus of Liars'?



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Duvduv

Shesh, but if the Justin works emerged in the early stages of the development of the new religion it's not a mystery. After all, the doctrine of the trinity itself took time. Texts were in the making, before the gospels, after the gospels, epistles, etc. which were accepted into the library of the new religion (as you can see from the fact that "Eusebius" found nothing amiss in Justin in relation to the official doctrines that Eusebius advocated).

mountainman

Hey Shesh I furnished an answer to this question here.

Does Celsus support the Church?

I used Celsus as the extreme example.


My point is that the early Christians did not have to look good.
They only had to have appeared to have been historical.



So when you ask what would the 3rd century on church accomplish by forging a text that in no way supports the 'Doctrine of Apostolic Succession'?. I would respond that we are dealing with an insidious fabrication of sources that are paralleled in the Latin "Historia Augusta".






εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

spin

How does this crock of assertions furnish anyone an answer?

It's irrelevant to the question.

Who gives a fuck what you believe? You have not progressed one iota from your acceptance of that initial speculation. You have no evidence whatsoever and your response to falsification through the evidence of christianity prior to Constantine is "ummm, well, what was I saying?"

So you assert. (When you cite things without sources such as the claim about Julian, there is no way to check whether you are representing reality or not. I don't believe that Julian said anything at all about Eusebius of Caesarea, who you usually refer to, but perhaps a clear citation would resolve the issue. And perhaps you would learn to supply sources for all your claims.)

You can assert that, but there is no reason to believe your guff.

But how do we know that you are not just full of shit and your response is just not ignorant rubbish?

The hurdle you have never tried to get over is to supply substance to your umm, theory. That's why you are not in this race. You're stuck at the first hurdle. You're running with an idea, but you're running nowhere with it.

You posit ideas that are far more complex than existing explanations. You have to support conspiracy theories otherwise your position is seen not to have a leg to stand on. You want people to believe that suddenly in the reign of Constantine christianity was invented and, at the same time as that invention, the inventors constructed a fanta-history of christianity up to that time in order to convince posterity that the religion didn't just crop up with Constantine's reign. Not only that they mastered the art of calligraphy to such a degree that they could consciously write texts in more ancient fonts. The whole endeavor is one unparalleled in history, based on modern knowledge of such diverse subjects as palaeography, theories of religious thought, sociology and political propaganda. A theory that is so preposterous it is worthy of its own comic book.

mountainman

One would have to assess the "Historia Augusta" and the "Historia Ecclesiastica" as a political instruments of the epoch, an assessment which has proved to be well beyond your capacity. I suggest that you give up your studies on how to conduct ad hominem attacks on posters in this forum. For a inept fuck who believes we have images of the historical Jesus in the murals of the Dura-Europos-Yale "house church" your own position is not immune to ridicule.






εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Toto

No one has claimed that the images of Jesus on the murals at Dura Europos are images of The Historical Jesus.