Malachi151

What is so fascinating about early Christianity is that is seems as though from the very beginning we have a mass of documents from unknown sources, and that there is no continuous line of thought from the creators of any of the documents to the beginnings of the religion.

The result is that from the very beginning everything has been interpretive. We have no commentary from anyone that I know of that is able to walk us through what someone was thinking about various issues.

We know of no one who knew Paul, except maybe the author of Luke, but that doesn't help us much, and there is no one how knew any of the other writers of any of the documents that are in the New Testament, so straight from the beginning all we have is people trying to piece these things together and figure out what someone meant, and infer and guess, and craft their own narrative from the desperate pieces of data.

This is what I find fascinating and its unlike most movements, at least modern ones, that we find today. It's also unlike even the Greeks schools of philosophy, where there seems to have been unbroken lines of communication and knowledge of at least several of the major thinkers.

I mean, there was no one who knew Paul that could have simply asked him, "When you met James, which James were you talking about?", "What exactly did you think about Jesus?", etc. No one knows who wrote GMark. None of the earliest commentators really had any more insight into the meaning of this text than we do today, indeed I would say they had less.

There are a few mentions of people who claim they persnally met or knew a few authors, such as the author of Revelation, but they don't offer any additional insight, at least that I know of.

Larsguy47

Well, this won't go over, but per the Bible 1/10th of the eventual Bride of Christ are to be natural Jews. That means 9/10ths of the king-priesthood promised to Abraham that his seed would become are gentiles. The 1/10th that is Jewish is the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation. But for this to be fulfilled 12,000 must be sealed from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. How can that happen in the end times, once the Jews scattered in the Diapora? Impossible.

So to fulfill the letter of this promise a group of Jews who could prove their lineage to one of the 12 tribes was chosen to survive and not die until close to the time of the second coming, perhaps down to a generation 120 years prior to the second coming. At this time, these chosen members from the 12 tribes would marry into the modern population so that by 120 years a pool of descendants large enough to seal 12,000 would be available by the end of that generation.

Given 120 years, presuming the last generation needed to be 20 years of age by the time of the final sealing, given each generation each has ten children, this is what could happen in just 120 years, presuming we begin in 1874

1st (1874) 1
2nd (1894) 10
3rd (1914) 100
4th (1934) 1000
5th (1954) 10,000
6th (1974) 100,000
1994 100,000 would be 20 years old

Thus whatever ratios for a large enough pool was desired, you only had to add a few more people. Based upon the above, 12 individual members from each tribe by 1994 would produce 1,200,000 for that tribe, out of which only 12,000 (1%) would need to be sealed to fulfill the prophecy.

What has this got to do with the Bible?

Well, because of the above, the early Christian congregation fell into two groups, those who would die off and have to be resurrected just before the time of the second coming and those who were chosen to "survive until the Lord's Day." Among those of the apostles chosen to survive would include John and Paul. John and Paul are the largest contributors to the NT, of course, but under the above arrangement, they would have known each other and probably were there to sort of secretly, in the background, shepherd the Bible and the NT into the position it is now, lending to its credibility.

Further, since Paul and John never died they basically must be aware of the Bible in it's present state and apparently are relatively satisfied with the final result with no really major content issues that might have crept in beyond their background influence or more direct influence in earlier times.

Now this is not something nonbelievers or even "believers" can readily accept even though the Bible quite plainly says that "some standing here would not see death until I come into the kingdom" and by that some believe that Christ would return before some of them died of old age, even extended old age. But in fact, this meant that they would survive 2000 years into the future and would have included some of the disciples with Jesus that day. John we know for sure was chosen to survive, possibly a few others. Paul of course, identifies himself as one that would "survive until the Lord's day" so at least we know of those two for sure:

Here Paul includes himself in the "surviving" group at 1 Thess 4:

15 For this is what we tell YOU by Jehovah’s word, that we the living who survive to the presence of the Lord shall in no way precede those who have fallen asleep [in death];

So the Biblical "reality" is that some original writers and others from the First Century and original members of the congregation have always been around and still are, likely making sure the Bible has survived in the desired form over the centuries. So those "insider" believers who know of these surviving from the 1st century don't have any real basis for wondering about the present Biblical content nor are worried about fundamental revisions or changes in the basic doctrines.

Matthew 16: 28 Truly I say to YOU that there are some of those standing here that will not taste death at all until first they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”

LG47

Toto

Larsguy - I'm waiting for you to say April Fools!

So you think that Paul and John have survived 2000 years and seen Christians battle each other over the meaning of the Bible, and general confusion has reigned over what on earth Christianity stands for, but they are content to stay in the background and say nothing?

Compared to this, someone rising from the dead seems like a fairly minor miracle.

Cege

What about the early church 'fathers' who wrote about the authors of letters and gospels now included in the NT canon, did they not claim to know or at least know someone who knew authors of those 'books'?

Apologists would say that God inspired the books of the NT, and therefore inspired the writers to include in each book what they were directly inspired to write. You already know, of course, that apologists and inerrants also offer multiple explanations for anything that seems contradictory from one NT canon writing to the next. Some maintain that the message was more important than the accurate details, and while the details differ or even conflict, the overall message is clear. (Liberal Christians are likely to agree on the overall clarity of the message or the means by which it is delivered.)

Perhaps the earliest writers were known to their original audiences (i.e., Uncle Josiah wrote this, whaddya think about it?) but as they were circulated and copied assigned authorship evolved to give more credibility to the texts?

mountainman

Just as in antiquity all roads lead to Rome, in the case
of "christian biblical history" all roads lead to your
friend and mine, Eusebius (actively writing away
during the period 312-324 CE according to the
current academic opinion).

He invented the form of historiography which we call
"ecclesiastical history" explicating all that we know,
all that we have ever known, or indeed (IMO) all that
will ever know about about the fabrication of the Galilaeans.

"This unknown monk [ie: Eusebius]
pretends to be a man of research
into very scanty records of the past

... [...] ...

He is not a man of research at all,
except in the sense in which many novelists and romancers
are men of research for the purposes of their construction.
This writer is, in fact, simply a theological romancer,
and only in that sense can he be called an historian at all".

Edwin Johnson's "Antiqua Mater:
A Study of Christian Origins" (1890)

Then again, Eusebius does mention "Father Papias".
Perhaps dear "Father Papias" might have known the
founders of the universal Roman religion.

Cege

Papias was a "man of small mental capacity" according to Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 3.39.13, as noted by internet sources. I don't have a copy to refer to) Copies of what Papias actually wrote in about 150CE haven't survived but what was written about what Papias wrote has...in the comments of Eusebius, circa 350CE:

About the origins of the Gospels, Papias (as quoted by Eusebius) wrote this:
"Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements. Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could." - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papias

Papias was reported to be a disciple of Polycarp (or do I have that backwards?) who was a disciple of John. And that seems to be the closest reference to anyone who knew the "Christian" founders.

mountainman

Almost correct!

What we know actually is that Eusebius reports
(circa 312-324 CE) Papias to be .... etc

People need to be able for one moment to suspend disbelief
over the notion that christianity may not have been around
prior to the rise of Constantine, in order to analyse this
seemingly counter-intuitive hypothesis that in fact
Constantine not only founded hundreds of christian basilicas
all across the Roman empire, but also the "christian" religion.

aa5874

What is the exact order? How did Papias know that Mark's account was not correct, did he talk to Jesus himself? And why didn't Mark write that there maybe chronological and descriptive errors due to loss of memory in the book that bears his name?

If someone were to write a statement about events that occured years ago and which were not witnessed, I find it very difficult to understand how anyone could say that the report has chronological and descriptive errors, unless, of course, the report is filled with 'miracles'.

mountainman

PAPIAS: The reports are of course filled with the miraculous,
which of course is one of the distinctions of the genre
known as ecclesiastical history, invented by Eusebius,
as Arnaldo Momigliano reports here

Splarnst

Don't you know that Paul and John are vampires? Duh!