PhilosopherJay

Hi andrewcriddle,

The first thing we have to do is establish a date for the epistula apostolorum. Since nobody refers to it in ancient times, we have to use internal evidence.

The text mentions a terrible time of plague:

This is most probably a reference to the The Antonine Plague, which broke out in 165. It killed co-emperor Lucius Verus in 169. The statement "And thereafter shall it wax yet worse than before" refers to the return of the plague in 178.

Another clue is the dating of the return of Jesus Christ in the text:
Usually theologians predict events a few year ahead of time, predictions of more than five or ten years aren't that interesting. This verse seems to set the time of Christ's return sometime around 180-185 (depending on when the authors thought Christ had been crucified.) However, the Ethiopian text uses the vague formula "the hundredth part and the twentieth part." The different translation in the Ethiopian texts suggests that we cannot take the Coptic text as certain.

The next clue is this verse "And he answered us: In those years and days shall war be kindled upon war; the four ends of the earth shall be in commotion and fight against each other."

Rome generally fought only one war at a time in the Second century. The only time when "the four ends of the earth" were fighting against each other was in the Year of the Four Emperors, 193. Didius Julianus fought Titus Flavius Sulpicianus in Rome. Septimius Severus marched on Rome to oust Didius Julianus. Severus than fought with Pescennius Niger from Syria at Cyzicus and Nicea in 193 and at Issus in 194. He next fought with Clodius Albinus. who in Britain declared himself emperor in 195 and Severus defeated him at Battle of Lugdunum in 197. This is probably our clearest internal evidence of a post 197 date.

Another clue are these statements: There is a confusion of the Father and the son here. Again, this confusion is brought out: Tertullian tells us that it was Praxeas who held this doctrine of the Father and Son being the same in Against Praxeas:
Tertullian puts Praxeas in the time of Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome from 199 to 217. Since Tertullian is likely writing Against Praxeas in about 212, we can place the writing of the epistula apostolorum in the time of Praxeas (and his father and son equivalence doctrine), circa 200-210. I would say that 205 plus or minus five years is the accurate dating we can come up with through internal evidence.

Thus I would put the probable date at around the early Third Century. We should not however assume that this witnesses for an earlier date for Acts. The work directly contradicts the Gospels and Acts at a number of points. For example, it says that Jesus was found in his tomb and he sent Mary, and Martha to the Apostles and then went with Mary, Martha and Mary Magdalene to see them. It has both Peter putting his finger into the nail prints, Thomas putting his finger in the spear wound on his side, and Andrew checking his feet to see that he touches the ground.

Jesus takes the Apostles up to heaven with him on the day that he arises from the dead which totally contradicts the Gospels and Acts.

The description of Paul contradicts everything in Acts:

In this version of the story, he goes blind and the apostles cure him with the sign of the cross. This directly contradicts Acts which says that Ananias cured him by laying his hands on him.

All this tells us is that there was a basic story about Paul prosecuting Jews, going blind, converting and converting gentiles around at the time this text was written. It is not evidence that Acts was written yet.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

mountainman

The 15 forged letters of Ignatius

A date of the Ignatian forgery in 250 CE still leaves room for Acts to have been written in the early 3rd century, as mentioned by Philosopher Jay above.

However there are some problematics to do with implications....


a) If the Christians first named themselves as such in Acts in the early 3rd century, how did the magistrates and Roman Emperors who persecuted them know what to call them. Or are these forgeries as well?

b) Once the epoch of activity falls later in the 3rd century, after 340 CE, we have the appearance of another widespread very well known religious sect in the ROman Empire, who constructed churches and who preserved Gospels and Letters: the Manichaeans.


Biblical texts later than thought

This subject becomes a far more reasonable claim when its truth value is inverted. It must be quite an unmistakeable trend that the dating of the canonical books has been pushed slowly backwards into the 2nd century, from their original 1st century starting blocks with the Greek gospels of the Greek literate apostles.

mountainman

What do Protestants use for their source of chronological history? How do you see their foundational chronological claims as any different from say, Ratzinger's take on "Official" chronology?

aa5874

The claim that Paul's eyes were protected by the sign of the cross is extremely significant in dating the Epistles of the Apostles.

Using the hands for the sign of the cross appears to be a very late tradition and possibly no earlier than the 4th century.

sotto voce

They use what everyone else uses for ordinary purposes; but for the history of Christian origins they rely on the Bible, and on neutral background information discovered by current scholarship. Eusebius, Origen, Irenaeus, Clement, Ignatius or any other 'Christian' source they view as unreliable, at best. Some Protestants regard all so-called 'Early Fathers' as actively and deliberately heretical in one way or another. They also point out that these teachers contradicted each other, and the Vatican, on various points, anyway.

Many Protestants would probably opine that the history of the church will not be 'written' until the end of time, as indeed the NT suggests.

Despite the cosiness of ecumenical relations between the Vatican and some Protestantism (though these have cooled recently) the claims are in reality poles apart. They are as far removed from each other at is it possible to get, if truth be told.

Ratzinger makes a claim for sources that he claims to be inviolably true and fundamental, yet are not by him canonised. The question of why the works of 'Early Fathers', cited as authoritative, are not Catholic Scripture has been often asked, but has never been satisfactorily answered by Catholicism. Protestants see this as anomalous and unsatisfactory. (My own view is that the Vatican would certainly have included these writers in the NT canon, but dared not do so as this would have been seen as heresy by contemporaries.)

These are for Protestants anyway unacceptable sources, for three reasons. They are unacceptable for historians, because they are secondary sources, where primary sources are essential, because material, 'real time', indeed real estate consequences are involved. If one is going to lay claim for a right to command others, one needs copper-bottomed documentary evidence, not hearsay, in a matter when hearsay could and indeed would be involved in a matter of church authority. To Protestants, hearsay is heresy, because one cannot expect divinity to make a requirement without furnishing undeniable proof of it.

These sources are unacceptable for Protestants because they conflict at a basic level, in the view of Protestants, with the Bible, and on many theological counts, from the nature of sin to soteriology to the very nature of the Christian. In these respects, Protestants regard Catholicism as closer to Hinduism and Islam than to their own faith.

They are unacceptable also because the claims of Ratzinger militate against the teaching of Jesus, or indeed against decent humanity, because of the moral historical record of Ratzinger's well-defined religious body, that cannot escape identification and censure. Protestants will not accept that Christ's reputation can be associated with such a record. If it is argued that their own belief is similar to that of the theology of the Vatican, they reply that the two beliefs are contradictory in every way reasonably possible, and indeed that there is good correlation between orthodoxy of theology, in particular, foundational chronological claims, and propriety of conduct; and here is an object lesson in that fact.

The position of Protestantism is well summed up (imv) by the influential Anglican Richard Hooker, whose view was that, in finding the truth for the church, Scripture is primary; where there is doubt, reason, being that which must, in logic, be true, is next to be applied; lastly, tradition is applicable, though even then, cannot be insisted upon. The approach of Ratzinger, otoh, is to put tradition ('Fathers', councils and papal decisions) on 'equal level' with Scripture. This is mathematically impossible, of course, and in practice, Tradition (as it is called) takes precedence over Scripture. And, in the view of Protestants, completely contradicts it, most notoriously and terribly in the very existence of a usurper of divine authority that Ratzinger represents.

mountainman

Thanks for the comprehensive response sv.

Do they acknowledge the same Eusebius as the "Editor-In-Chief" of the earliest (Constantine) Bibles, possibly evidenced in the earliest Greek codices?


Do they not both explicitly rely on the canonical books of the new testament as being a 1st century historical truth, or will any century do?



A reasonable position, at least with regard to Christian hagiography, and the "Holy Relic" business-as-usual work ethic.



Eusebius's history was listed with the books of the heretics in the Decretum Gelasianum. So perhaps at one time these writers were seen as heresy by contemporaries.








When was the ancient historical (military) precedent first set if it was not with "Pontifex Maximus Damasius"?

aa5874

Well, Protestatism is in a Most horrible position. They SEEK TRUTH from Ratzinger's Roman CATHOLIC Church Scripture.

Protestants have been DUPED into believing that Ratzinger's Roman Church was NOT following Scripture when Ratzinger's Roman Church Scripture was NOT ever the TRUTH.

Now, both the Protestants and Ratzinger's Catholics seek the truth from the Same ERROR called Scripture and appear TERRIFIED to admit that they all have been DUPED into believing Myth Fables were the Truth.

Sheshbazzar

Yep. Old John certainly got one thing down right; 'The Mother of WHORES...'
going about their business of spreading their 'social disease' that rots the brains of those infected.

Guess which is which.

Adam

The arguments are good. You are the one presupposing that the author of Acts deliberately set about writing Acts without any hint that he was writing (say) a century after the events. Not to mention that he faked all the "I" passages to simulate an eyewitness. All of which could be true, but on the face of it, Acts was written in about 62 CE. Here, let's take Geisler's Top Ten list (simply the first ten):

1. There is no mention in Acts of the crucial event of the fall of Jerusalem in 70.
2. There is no hint of the outbreak of the Jewish War in 66 or of serious deterioration of relations between Romans and Jews before that time.
3. There is no hint of the deterioration of Christian relations with Rome during the Neronian persecution of the late 60s.
4. There is no hint of the death of James at the hands of the Sanhedrin in ca. 62, which is recorded by Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews (20.9.1.200).
5. The significance of Gallio's judgement in Acts 18:14-17 may be seen as setting precedent to legitimize Christian teaching under the umbrella of the tolerance extended to Judaism.
6. The prominence and authority of the Sadducees in Acts reflects a pre-70 date, before the collapse of their political cooperation with Rome.
7. The relatively sympathetic attitude in Acts to Pharisees (unlike that found even in Luke's Gospel) does not fit well with in the period of Pharisaic revival that led up to the council at Jamnia. At that time a new phase of conflict began with Christianity.
8. Acts seems to antedate the arrival of Peter in Rome and implies that Peter and John were alive at the time of the writing.
9. The prominence of 'God-fearers' in the synagogues may point to a pre-70 date, after which there were few Gentile inquiries and converts to Jerusalem.
10. Luke gives insignificant details of the culture of an early, Julio-Claudian period.
http://www.bethinking.org/bible-jesu...-testament.htm

These first arguments seem to be his best. (Particularly weak is his concluding claim based on 7Q5 from Qumran, supposedly a piece of a 1st Century Gospel of Mark.) I havn't made a study of First Corinthians nor the early patristic citations of the NT, but you can't expect us to take your word that they're all bad arguments. Do you have any proof or even evidence?

maryhelena

Serious about those specific "FOUR words". Not in particular - I simply got the quote from a website. No need to loose sleep about 4 little words....

However, the point of the OP relates to early dating of NT manuscripts. And in that context I am serious. Whatever are the manuscripts now available, and whatever are the dates assigned to them - has nothing whatsoever to do with the origin of the gospel JC story. I referenced a quote from Richard Carrier:

It was the OT that was primary in those early days, before the new material re JC became regarded as 'scripture'. Consequently, looking for chapter and verse to be quoted by early writers, as though a dating of that early writer has any bearing upon the written text of that JC tradition, is nonsensical.

Ahistoricst/mythicists should be careful not to be flogging a dead horse re late dating for the gospel JC story. It beats me - what are they running from? A phantom, a fictional JC - methinks they need to face their 'fears' head on.....

Dating gospel manuscripts early or late has nothing to do with historicity of the JC figure they contain. Copies of copies of copies etc are not reliable evidence for dating the origin of the JC story. Place ones theory of JC on one dating - and tomorrow a new manuscript turns up - and then?? What all the NT manuscripts contain is a story about a miracle working man who was crucified under Pilate. The issue is the claimed historicity for the JC figure. The dating of manuscripts is not the issue - and adds nothing to the debate over the claimed historicity of JC.