aa5874

But, you have immediately used Acts of the Apostles to try to help your position. This is so blatantly outrageous.

Now, in Acts of the Apostles Saul/Paul did not meet Jesus Christ, he did not see Jesus Christ, he was blinded by a bright light and heard a voice that claimed to be from Jesus.

Jesus Christ had already left earth and ascended through the clouds as found in Acts 1.9 and Paul would supposedly receive revelations from Jesus Christ, sometimes telling Paul what happened on earth.

At one time in the Pauline letters, the writer claimed Jesus Christ revealed to him that he did brake bread with the disciples on the night he was betrayed.

Acts of the Apostles is supposed to be a very important independent witness to the Pauline writer. The author of Acts was supposed to solidify the existence of the so-called Paul. The author claimed he travelled with, stayed with and even preached with Paul in some places.

Acts is also canonised as sacred scripture. It is one of the most important NT books. Without Acts of the Apostles very very little information would have been found about the supposed post-ascension history of Jesus believers.

kcdad

this is straw man argument... I don't believe in anyone named Jesus Christ...

kcdad

Both Acts and Paul's letters relate this tale... why do you presume I used Acts as my reference? My comment relates to both stories, the similarities and the differences.

aa5874

This not a matter of belief. This a matter of fact. Jesus Christ was presented in the NT as a single entity.

Matthew 1.18 Mark 1.1 The authors of the NT and the church writers have made their presentation of Jesus Christ extremely clear, he was the offspring of the Holy Ghost of God and yet was a man was betrayed, crucified, died, resurrected, ascended to heacen and would come back to earth a second time.

Paul claimed Jesus Christ would come back to earth a second time, therefore the writer must be claiming that Jesus was on earth at one time.

Jesus Christ was presented mythically because he was one myth in totality

arnoldo

Or both?

aa5874

The NT Jesus Christ was a GOD/MAN, that is he was both man and god according to the story,

spamandham

The discussion is about P52.

The Nag Hammadi was brought up as a counter to the idea that the usage of papyri is prima facie evidence of a workaday writing. Whether or not ancients sometimes felt it important to imitate the handwriting of revered texts is a question on my part, not a statement of fact. It's a question based on observation of modern behavior, where some (not all) religious texts in particular mimic the style of much older ones.

However, I don't see the mere fact that P52 is written on papyri rather than parchment as having any bearing in answering that question, since we know that papyri was also used for non-workaday writing, as demonstrated by the Nag Hammadi library. I think the Romance Papyrus is another counter example to that idea. Not to mention that we are discussing the location and period where papyrus was the predominant choice.

I would say that the fact it (Nag Hammadi) was hidden is prima facie evidence of the value of the manuscript itself, and not merely the words. People hide their best stuff.

Ben C Smith

Ah, I see. But what I am saying is that the religious texts on papyri are workaday. By workaday I simply meant that the form of the manuscript did not matter to the scribes or readers involved; and that would seem to include the handwriting, illuminations, media, and so forth. IOW, workaday was not saying something about the text, per se (although of course many texts on papyri could in and of themselves be called workaday, too; receipts and such), and my apologies if I was being confusing on that point. Rather, it was the manuscript.

Well, I think they were hiding the text, and the text happened to be in manuscript form. Had they access to burnable compact discs, I suspect they would have been just as happy to hide those texts in that format. What would make me suspect that the form of the manuscripts themselves was at issue would be (A) the choice of fancy media such as parchment, (B) the choice of a fancy format such as the roll, (C) the use of illuminations or other fancy stuff, and (D) the use of a highly stylized, archaic hand. If the hand itself is what is in question, then we are left with A, B, and C. Since the scribes usually chose a quite ordinary medium (papyrus), usually in a quite ordinary format (the codex), and generally without a lot of fancy illuminations, I suspect that they did not care about D either.

What I think is a mistake is to assume that religious texts always sanctify their manuscripts. That certainly happens, but there are a lot of reasons to think that it did not happen very much in early Christianity; see A, B, and C above.

Cheers.

Ben.

kcdad

At times Jesus, the anointed is spoken of. At other times The Christ is referred to separately. at other times Jesus is referred to separately. What if those are at least three different meanings?
Are you suggesting that if they had a phone book, you could have found him under "C"?
HUH?

kcdad

Which story? There are many stories about Jesus in the Bible. It is not one story. according to the crucifixion stories and the teaching stories he was simply a man. (Otherwise, the miracles and sacrifice are meaningless.)

Where do you get that he was God?