mountainman

Spy networks have been cited and these were used quite extravagantly by most rulers in antiquity. An analogy is that the ruler sends out 4 independent spies who may or may not know each other and then has their reports compared. They will be expected to vary.

aa5874

The Gospels do not contain mere variations but massive holes that cannot be reconciled.

In gMatthew, the resurrected Jesus meets the disciples on a mountain in Galilee.

In gLuke, the resurrected Jesus meets the disciples in Jerusalem.

The Gospels do NOT require spies--they are Myth Fables.

We know that the Greeks and Romans accepted Myth Fables as history and Mythological entities as figures of history.

The Jesus story was merely "HIJACKED" in the 4th century under Constantine.

Chili

But if 2 go to hell and 2 go to heaven should there not be differences to make this known? And does that not make them compliment each other?

And does the feeding of 5000 miracle in all 4 not mean that all four of them are going somplace? as opposed to remaining cold and not going?

And does back to Galilee not mean back to 'more of the same' and 'on to Jerusalem' not mean to heaven?

And do mountian speaches not stand for spiritual highs to make lows known?

tanya

agreed...

Why is it claimed that we know the provenance of codex W? How does one establish with such conviction, the date of the palimpset, codex Nitriensis?

Iskander

It is good to see this forum return to the well-trodden path of common sense theology: rational scriptures of the marcionite buffs, lovers of toledot, the beauty of Slavonic Josephus, admires of British literature and glorious head butting.

We even have a ‘who done it’ to tax the mind of the Sherlock Holmes within us.

Duvduv

Mountainman, there MAY have been a great, centralized swindle, but how does your model address the fact of contrasting use of ancient Greek, knowledge of Aramaic and Hebrew, specific similarities and differences among the gospels in style, content AND theological doctrine, even if you could argue that all of them were centrally produced? Especially since the reality of the gospels can indicate that each came from a different source?

In other words, is there an analysis of these elements in the texts themselves that yield information pointing to the idea that they were all produced in the same place and time?

sotto voce

Is Christianity is a democratic theocracy? Or a theocratic democracy?

Chili

But why call it a swindle if they compliment each other instead of contradict, and I have already pointed out that if 2 go to hell and 2 go to heaven they better be different and we are the obnoxious swindlers even with millions of PhD's on our side . . . converting the entire nation to a Democratic tyranny [at best] wherein the voice of popular opinion is the tyrant under the popular "Bill of rights Act" that is fueled by the fire of hell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabor_Light

Chili

Of course they can be reconciled and are there for a purpose.

Lets begin with your notion that the feeding of 5000 appears in each of the Gospels which is there to show that 'all four entered the race' as stream entrant (sotapanna), but notice that the scraps were more than the fish and the bread they had when this began . . . and so was with more 'questions than answers' which is normal when a formal inquiry begins.

The difference here is that this 'ousia' (insight received) was parousia wherein the human is now at end of his own world and will do a turn-around (metanoia) to answer those question to his own self.

This here then is what makes Paul an eye-witness himself if you give me the freedom to say that the birth of Christ is not a historic event but a milestone in life wherein the divine light is added to life and the 'stream entrant' now stands divided in his own mind between heaven and earth and is a Jesuit or Nazarite-by-nature himself . . . and so is where 'the race begins.'

Now understand also that hell is not hell until all the questions are answered and if only one question remains many more will return (the pig parable), and for this he must die and be buried in effort to also set the captives free in his own soul, and they include the sins of the clan and nation at large that drove him to be where he is at now, and then and only then will heaven be his here now on earth, and if not, back to Galilee he goes that so will become hell on this earth . . . and is why "the final imposter who is worse than the first," that the Chief priest cautionned Pilate about in Mat.27:64.

This now means that Matthew knew the key to open the gate of heaven and knew exactly where hell was at too, and back to Galilee 'this Jesus' went.

Roger Pearse

You may find this article from the 1840's of interest. The manuscripts from the Nitrian desert were all purchased in one lot.

The details are well worth reading, and most interesting.

The details are there at the link, but let me have a go at turning them into English!

The shelfmark of the manuscript is British Library Additional 17211, or so I gather from the link above. The work contains a Syriac text, the work of Severus of Antioch against John the Grammarian. But he made it by reusing parchment from older and now useless books. The pages which come from the Greek NT text, reused by the maker of the book, are folios 1-48. NT scholars refer to this as W for convenience.

Notes in the margin, on folios 53r and 49r, tell us the approximate date of the writing of the book.

But what I imagine you really are interested in is the details of the date of writing of the book from which the pages were taken. This must be determined by comparison with other book-hands of similar types, in copies which are (a) complete and (b) have a scribal note at the end which tells us when it was written (known as a colophon or an explicit).

All the best,

Roger Pearse