Didymus

Take Strobel's "experts" with a grain of salt. They're often his fellow fundamentalists, members of the same mutual admiration society.

I don't think that was the only motive, but, as you say, that was certainly on the agenda. There is a arc of growing anti-Judaism as we move from Mark into the later gospels and the Pastoral epistles. There was animosity on the other side too. In the late first century, a curse against "the minim" (unbelievers) began to be recited at Jewish services.

Christianity had shifted its focus to the gentiles, but that didn't stop the Fathers from routinely defaming the Jews who had rejected the Christian messiah. You can find some of this vile stuff on Early Christian Writings. Here's St. John Chrysostom (344-407 A.D.):

The synagogue is worse than a brothel…it is the den of scoundrels and the repair of wild beasts…the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults…the refuge of brigands and dabauchees, and the cavern of devils. It is a criminal assembly of Jews…a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ… a house worse than a drinking shop…a den of thieves, a house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity, the refuge of devils, a gulf and a abyss of perdition."…"I would say the same things about their souls… As for me, I hate the synagogue…I hate the Jews for the same reason.

Didymus

Didymus

The term "spread" seems to imply that Christianity was spread FROM Jerusalem. That seems doubtful. Paul wasn't sending his epistles from Jerusalem, nor were the gospels written there. The whole Galilee/Jerusalem progression seems to be a fiction gleaned from the Elijah cycle in the OT. Although Mark has Jesus preaching and performing miracles in Galilean synagogues, synagogues were institutions of the Diaspora. Unlike the Diaspora, there's no historical evidence of first-century synagogues in Galilee.

Despite the common misconception that the "home base" of Christianity was Palestine, all the extra-biblical evidence I can find suggests that the religion was spread AROUND the Diaspora, not outward from Jerusalem. To the contrary, the one place that it didn't take hold was Palestine!

Didymus

aa5874

Julian, what is always amazing to me, is that we are discussing the so-called Creator and there is no clarification from Him. Not a single word.

However, can you give me a timeline on the writings of Matthew to Revelation, since there appears to be no chronological order of the New Testament's books. Was Revelation actually written last or was just placed last in the New Testament to make the Bible look credible?

Regarding the Pauline letters, isn't possible that those letters were written just to be placed in the Christian Bible, that is, no one actually saw them or received them, the letters were never read to any gathering or congregation.

The more questions being raised about the authenticity of the Christian Bible actually enforces the the premise that the Gods therein do not exist, those Gods have never clarified anything.

darstec

Your knowledge is lacking. As of this past summer, technicians have finally been able to restore a few charred documents from Herculaneum and Pompeii. Pliny the Elder comes to mind.

darstec

Second century after Paul's second century epistles and Mark's second century gospel.

Julian

I advise not to waste time by waiting for one...
For a generally accepted date range you should go to http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ and look at the list on the first page. It lists the range right next to each book, including many not found in the canon.

It should be noted here that the widely accepted date ranges shown there are somewhat tendentious. The reason why I say this is because the upper end of the date range for most of these is extremely fuzzy and once a tentative date range has been established most scholars tend to place the writing at the beginning of that range which is clearly uncalled for. We have a poorly established range and that's it. Anything beyond that is speculation.

I also want to point out that the established dating for the various books is coming under increasing pressure from various schools of thought and I suspect that the ranges will continue to expand unless more concrete evidence can be established.

As for Revelation, it was not a particularly popular book if we go by the number of manuscripts that been found to contain it. It was probably not the last book written in the NT canon. Again, see the link above for more detail
There was no 'christian bible' at the time of writing of the Pauline epistles. Some of the Pauline epistles not actually by Paul (excluding here the seven likely-to-be-authentic ones) were probably written to make a point and putting it in some form of letter structure to make it seem like it is from Paul.

Some of the letters are pieced together from shorter letters. It was also quite common for people to have letter collections. So I guess the answer is: probably in some cases, hard to tell which.

Julian

Doug Shaver

At the moderators' request, I'm starting a new thread to follow this up.

Grim Shogun

Wait...What?!

Explain?

Toto

Matt 11:

also Luke 7:31

Lunawalk

In the the gospels jesus talks alot about the son of man Christian think jesus is the son of man yet Jesus seems to think the son of manis an seprate person. Does the gospel contain clues of my theory thanks