stephan huller

Not ascribing an author likely only means they kept the author`s name secret. See the letter to Theodore

aa5874

See "Refutation Against All HERESIES" by Hippolytus.

Now, What you say cannot be proven to be true.

How is it that "Tertullian" did NOT KNOW the SECRET names of the actual authors of gMatthew, gMark, gLuke, gJohn, ALL the EPISTLES and REVELATION?

IT IS NO SECRET that AUTHORS were invented for the NT CANON and that the teachings of MARCION were likely INVENTED in "Against Marcion".

Look at Hippolytus' "Refutation Against All Heresies" 7.18 It is NO SECRET that MARCION used EMPEDOCLES. Hippolytus explained the Doctrine of Empedocles and it NOT even close to the Pauline writings or the Gospels.

The Doctrine of Marcion was NOT from "PAUL".

Based of Hippolytus it was NO SECRET that "Terullian's "Against Marcion" was NOT pristine.

It may be that MARCION wrote NOT one thing in the "Gospel according to the Antithesis" since there is ZERO about the doctrine of Empedocles in the Pauline writings and all the Gospels.

Tertullian's "Against Marcion" appears to be BOGUS. There is NOTHING about FRIENDSHIP and DISCORD and the TWO ORIGINATING cause of the UNIVERSE in the Pauline writings or the Gospel.

" Refutation Against All Heresies"7.17

stephan huller

aa

You're like the fat girl at the club who only the drunkest dudes are going to try and pick up. Everyone tries to avoid you consistent inability to interpret any book beyond the reading level of the Cat in the Hat but as it is late (and I just made a faux pas with my wife) I have a few extra minutes for you.

With your typical kook koo bombasity you declare: 'It is NO SECRET that MARCION used EMPEDOCLES ...'

Really? Have you ever ACTUALLY READ that eighteen hundred year old book from end to end? No I bet you haven't. But I will let you in on a secret - EVERY HERETIC IS PAIRED WITH A PHILOSOPHER. You never noticed that I bet.

What are the odds that every Christian heretic happens to have a 'evil philosopher twin' that inspired them? It's a gimmick. It's rhetoric. It's made up. It's not 'factual evidence.'

The author of the Philosophumena wants to discredit ALL the heretics so he got this idea - the word 'heresy' comes from the 'schools' of philosophy so let's make develop this idea for a book where every great philosopher ends up inspiring a heretical school. It's an idea that floated into the author's head. It's not based on critical research or 'man in the street interviews.' He just mused to himself 'Hmmm who am I going to say inspired Marcion?' In Clement's Stromateis Book 3 Marcion is said to have been a follower of Plato.

Just because someone wrote it down doesn't mean you have to take it seriously. Look at you for example aa. You've written over 10,000 posts here and not a single person takes you or anything you've said seriously. So take a cue from all of us. Don't believe everything you read, merely because someone wrote it down.

It's like if I said that every participant at this forum was based on a character from Gilligan's Island. It wouldn't mean that you were Gilligan's pet monkey. It's just a metaphor.

avi

Not only do I take aa5874's posts seriously, I would list him among perhaps two dozen folks on the forum, from whom I have learned the most, these past couple of years.

In fact, this entire thread, complete with the utterly meaningless, off-topic nonsense, exchanged by stephan and spin, owes its very existence in the first place, because of aa5874, who wrote that 1 Corinthians 15:3,4,5 demonstrates that Paul knew the (or a, for you Stephan) gospel(s), therefore his epistles date from after the gospels, contrary to the popular notion.

But, Stephan, of greater importance than correcting your erroneous summary of the contributions to the forum by aa5874, we need to find some help for you, friend.

You hurl invective at a fellow poster, without justification. If you are distressed by something that aa, or avi, or Pete, or anyone else writes, then, the proper course of action is either:

(a) ignore their writings;
(b) refute their writings with credible evidence.

You have talent, you have skills, you have knowledge, and you have a good grasp of history. You simply need to focus on elaborating the genuine story of how Christianity began, and resist the temptation to ridicule those whose own training, skills, and knowledge is an order of magnitude beneath your own.

The forum profits when mistakes are exposed, but conversely, the forum suffers when folks simply denigrate the contributions of others. Folks are not equally "blessed" with identical abilities. Some of us are slower than others. Some of us have minor handicaps. Some of us have huge prejudices, weighing down our ability to think objectively. None of us, fortunately, is perfect.

One significant mistake that I made, as I reread this thread, is found in the title.
I should have written, instead,
When did the 4 gospels become a part of "the scriptures"?

I realize that this question is not viewed with much interest, judging from the paucity of responses, but, it was very instructive to me, to read and think about the ideas expressed by several folks.

Thanks in particular to aa5874, whose suggestion that Psalms 22 was in some way linked to a prophecy about JC, thereby confirming that "according to the scriptures" should be interpreted as meaning "according to the old testament". Having now read through the whole of Psalm 22, I realize that such a notion is false, since death by "crucifixion" results not because of nails piercing the Tibia and Radius, (or arteries passing in their vicinity), but because of asphyxiation, i.e.the metaphor of dog bites (of the extremities, typically) found in Psalm 22 cannot relate to the death of JC.

Thank you, aa5874.
avi

mountainman

I was responding to this from avi ....

We dont find a Jesus only a Joshua in the LXX, with the same code. aa5874 has been appropriately pointing out that whoever the authors of the books of the NT were, they had poured over the Greek LXX, almost COPY/PASTING bits and pieces into the mouths of various characters.

As a result of this exercise, which includes "Paul", we have the four winds and the four points of the compass and the tetrarchy of gospels. When did they become scripture? What does the evidence say?


BECOMING SCRIPTURE

Were the 4 gospels at all prominent texts in Greek prior to Nicaea? Who mentioned them? Could one find a Greek Bible in the library of Alexandria for example, or even in a codex store in Rome?


The Christians all asserted the priority of the Jewish scriptures over the equivalent Greeks - and before the Greek New Testament was authored, there must have already been the Greek LXX, already festooned with Greek "nomina sacra" codes, one of which "Jesus" inherited from "Joshua". It was an ancient priority, mapped as prophecy into the new testament.

So we had these group of "LXX worshippers" who evolved the Greek new testament and its gospels, acts and paul. Their respected historian Eusbeius of course has all the answers to these questions and more. Maybe we should believe him?

Doug Shaver

Stephan obviously made a very silly mistake. No one in the history of the Internet ever posted, on any site, anything so absurd that somebody wouldn't take them seriously.

Kent F

aa5874 is beating the same old drum in post after post after post. He will not change his mind, whatever the evidence.

Paul was aware of gLuke, aa says, once again quoting the highly suspect Church father Eusebius. But Eusebius had an agenda, to prove that the Roman version of christianity was the correct one. Thus Paul could not be allowed to have his own gospel, despite Paul saying so time and time again in the epistles. If Luke was his gospel, why did Paul say that his gospel was of no man? Was Luke some sort of god? No, of course not. What Paul said was that he had his own gospel, delivered to him from the third heaven.(2 Cor 12:4).

Since Paul in his writings show no awareness of four gospels, just his own, he has to pre-date Luke. It's Luke that is aware of Paul. Eusebius wanted to increase the value and credibility of Luke by making it the other way around. How can anyone take him seriously? It's about as relevant as to say that Democritus was aware of Niels Bohr because they both use the word atom.

The four gospels weren't "scriptures" at the time of Paul. His "according to the scriptures" meant the old sacred writings. Only the main parts of his vision were foretold in these writings. They had to be. He couldn't invent a vision right out of the blue with no traces back into what people believed in at that time. If so, they wouldn't have listened to him. His vision had to be foretold in some ways.

stephan huller

Bravo Kent. They obviously produce both great hockey players and informed authorities on the Bible in Sweden.

avi

Thanks, Doug, I acknowledge receipt of both your message, and its implication.

Entering "sacred texts" into a search engine yields many sites, all of them identifying both old testament and new testament as members representing that particular class of documents.

Clearly, there was once a time when the various texts of the "new testament" were not included among the "sacred texts", so when Paul wrote "according to the sacred texts", most folks, living today, interpret Paul's writing as referring to the old testament exclusively.

However, at some point in time, when is unknown, at least to me, this phrase, "according to the scriptures" would have come to embrace the four gospels, in addition to the old testament.

So, the question then arises, is it possible that Paul was writing his epistles AFTER the four gospels had come to be regarded as part of the sacred text?

The main argument supporting the notion that Paul did regard the gospel(s) as sacred, is found in his reference to "Cephas and the "12"--> well, "11" according to one translation.


I am still waiting for someone to explain how reference to Cephas and the twelve (or 11) can be accounted for, simply by citing passages from the ancient Jewish texts? I don't accept the argument that Paul relied upon oral testimony, because of the Greek word he used, as spin explained:

So, Doug, I may indeed fall into that select group of folks who will believe any tale, no matter how tall, as you implied in your message earlier today, but in my opinion, it is the rest of the world that has it wrong, for the evidence points to a time of composition, roughly corresponding to the elaboration of Irenaeus, i.e. acceptance of the gospels as representing sacred text.

avi

avi

Thank you Kent, for this response. Perhaps there is a typographic error here?
To my untrained eye, it appears that you have offered a citation for some other problem: nothing here about Paul's Gospel, at least not that I have discovered in this text.

Here I believe that you have introduced two errors.

a. To me, if no one else on planet Earth, Paul showed an awareness of the traditional gospel(s), by writing, as he did: "Cephas and the twelve".

Please note that little conjunction, "and". Implicit, not written, but implicit, is a third iteration of "according to the scriptures" at the terminus of this fifth verse.

Do you have a reference to an old testament prophecy suggesting that a human son of god would be tortured and murdered because of the sins of Jewish law defiant heathen, who would then be eligible to sit at the right hand of god in paradise, despite a lifetime of flaunting Jewish law? How about a prophecy that JC would be buried, and rise again on the third day?

If you do not possess references to two old testament prophecies, then Paul's text in 1 Corinthians 15:3,4,5 must be referring to the new testament. Accordingly, Paul must have written after the gospels' acceptance as "sacred text".

b. Well, Paul could have written his epistles before the Gospels, I agree with that argument, he could have, indeed. Problem is, Paul cites evidence of the contents of the gospel(s), but nowhere, NO PLACE in any of the Gospels, do we find even the slightest reference to the epistles of Paul.

How could the gospel writers cite Paul, his letters had not yet been written, when the gospel writers put quill to papyrus?

avi