Duvduv

You already threw Justin into the trash since you have now said the Jesus cult originated in the 2nd-3rd centuries. If so then the Apology could not have originated at the time of Emperor Antoninus and the addressee being him is fake.

aa5874

Why do you constantly mis-represent what I write??

Did NOT Justin address his Apology to Antoninus a 2ND CENTURY EMPEROR??

Did NOT Aristides address his Apology to Hadrian a 2ND CENTURY EMPEROR??

Surely you must understand what "2nd-3rd century" means.

Again, there is ZERO recovered dated manuscripts of any story about Jesus of Nazareth, his disciples and Paul in the 1st century before c 70 CE.

Again, there is ZERO evidence that there was NO stories of Jesus Christ before the 4th century based on the Recovered Dated Texts.

The Recovered Dated Evidence show that stories about Jesus of Nazareth, the disciples and Paul were already known and already composed in the 2nd-3rd century.

The window for the origin of the Jesus stories and cult is WITHIN the 2nd-3rd century

Justin Martyr, Aristides, Municius Felix and Arnobius are WITHIN the 2nd-3rd century.

Justin Martyr, Aristides, Muncius Felix and Arnobius are corroborated by the Recovered dated manuscripts.

Acts and the Pauline writings are NOT corroborated as 1st century writings. They are 2nd-3rd writings based on the recovered dated manuscripts.

I no longer accept Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings as credibile historical sources. And in any event, neither Acts nor the Pauline letters contain any information about an human Jesus or date of authorship of any Pauline letter.

Acts is about an ascended Jesus and Activities of the Disciples and Paul AFTER they were filled with the Power of a Holy Ghost.

The Pauline letters are about a resurrected Non-human creature.

Duvduv

You didn't originally mention anything about a window, but it doesn't matter, because the window for Antonius is not as broad as you would like, so if the cult originated at the beginning of the 3rd century, that would have been after the time of the emperor, meaning that good ol' Justin wouldn't have lived at the time of Marcion.

In any event, we know that there are so many anomalies and problems in the Apology that no matter how much you want to hang your hat on it the hook falls off. So you might have to ignore him and hang your hat on the hook of the virtually anonymous "Irenaeus" who you already threw in the trash since it is totally unlikely that his book was written before there was a centralized authority (the imperial power) for the orthodox church which only developed in the 4th century with its new religion.

aa5874

What is your point?? You seem confused.

You seem not to understand what "2nd-3rd century" means.

It means that based ONLY on the recovered dated manuscripts that the Jesus story and cult originated some time between 100 CE and 299 CE or a window of 200 years.

The writings of Justin and Aristides are well within that time period.

Your claim about the Apology is TOTALLY erroneous and COMPLETELY unsubstantiated.

You were asked repeatedly to point out the anomalies of Justin's writings and have NOT been able to do so.

You cannot even name a single problem or anomaly. You cannot show the chapter and the passage.

You are spreading propaganda simply because you have ZERO evidence to support your argument that the Jesus story and cult originated in the 4th or 5th century.

It is your argument that has a very serious problem. You have NO evidence and No source from antiquity to support you.

The ACTUAL recovered dated evidence actually support the writings attributed to Justin.

Justin Martyr did NOT mention ACTS of the Apostles and ALL the Pauline writings.

The Pauline writings, P 46, are dated as late as the 3rd century and even those of Acts also dated within the 3rd century.

Justin wrote some time between c 138-161 CE and Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings were composed Later.

The argument that the Jesus story and cult originated in the 2nd century or later is in agreement with the actual recovered DATED manuscripts.

Duvduv

Hello........The Apology could have only been within the "window" of the rule of Antonius. He is said to have died about 161. So if the Apology was written in 200, how could it have been written to him unless it was backdated?!

No anomalies? Really.....here is a writer who claims to be appealing for help for his beleaguered community to the emperor, and nowhere does he list WHERE his communities existed, WHO the leaders where, WHERE they originated. WHO his own colleagues were (after all "Justin" was SO IMPORTANT to write on behalf of so many beleaguered people so he must have a few recommendations, references or names to drop) and even WHO a single APOSTLE was who wrote "memoirs" (leaving aside the contradictions among the memoirs qua gospels)........

J-D

Establishing a terminus ante quem does not in itself, of course, automatically establish a terminus post quem.

aa5874

You are terribly confused. I never claimed the Apology attributed to Justin was written 200 CE. I no longer accept presumptions and imagination as evidence.

Your imagination seems to be out of control.

Again, your imagination has gone wild. First Apology was a petition on behalf of ALL Nations.

Please, read "First Apology" before making your erroneous claims.

First ApologyDuvduv, you are not making much sense. You are mis-representing First Apology. I had hoped that you would have been able to repeat what is written in the writings attributed to Justin.

What is the point in posting if you refuse to admit the contents of First Apology??

Please, First Apology was a petition on behalf of ALL Nations and was addressed to Antoninus the Emperor of Rome c 138-161 CE.

Duvduv

Then how could the Jesus cult have a window into the 3rd century if you are so sure the Apology about Christianity was written well before the year 200???

tanya

What I cannot understand is how one can establish either date, based on the manuscript evidence.

Am I in error, about the paucity of extant ancient manuscript evidence of Justin Martyr's compositions?

Is there any reason to suspect that the three texts we possess are NOT purely fictional creations of the fourth century? Tolstoy wrote a century after Napolean, but War and Peace appears to the reader to have been authored by someone who had been standing there, video camera in hand, watching Moscow burn.

Is that skill something only recently acquired? Do the ancient Greek authors lack the ability to write as though living in the past? When we read Homer, do we suppose that he was living at that very moment, when Troy was destroyed?

What exactly is the status of the manuscript evidence from Justin? How many copies, for each of the three texts, representing an original copy dating from when?

Duvduv

Great questions....I hope certain posters don't just tell you to go do your own research as they have told me..... especially in asking it in relation to the writings of the apologists which are usually not examined in the same way the NT texts are. Academics are likely to be more interested in Corinthians 15 thsn the texts of a Justin or irenaeus whose claims are accepted at face value or the gospel truth.