Diogenes the Cynic

"Community" does not have to mean "sect."

These groups did not have any kind of controlling central authority, nor any kind of unified communications system. A group in Ephesus did not know much about what was going on with groups in the Trans-Jordan or in Corinth or in Rome, nor was there a Canon or a settled creed or doctrine. Nobody was in charge and nobody was really talking to each other. Individual congregations or aggregations of congregations (i.e. "communities") were on their own to a large degree, and they were all individually evolving their own doctrines and narratives. This is all that's meant by "communities," not clearly delineated sects, but the organic, natural individuation and drift of discrete, fairly isolated groups left to their own devices.

Think of it as like regional cuisine. They might all start off with rice and beans, but Cuban rice and beans is different from Cajun rice and beans. Christianity had no common recipe in the first and second centuries. Every group was making it up as they went along.

aa5874

Your Presumptions are Worthless. Again, you are constantly INVENTING unsubstantiated stories based on NOTHING but your Feelings.

Where is your supporting evidence???

Please, this is NOT Sunday School. It is IMPERATIVE, a MUST, that you ALWAYS show where your anecdotes were derived.

It is most astonishing that you claim the Gospels are Bullshit Reenactments and yet INVENT stories using your admitted Bullshit sources as history.

This is completely unacceptable here on BC&H.

There is NO credible source for a Jesus cult of Christians in the 1st century and before c 70 CE.

outhouse

wrong.

the first 3 books were so simular, GMark was copied and added to by different communities, based on what they knew from through oral trdaition, BASED on what was important to them.

by writing styles and content alone, we know they were different geographic locations.


there really were not different sects as much as a wide and varied, unstructured movement in the begining when the first 3 were written.



yet Marcion didnt even include all 4 and he is the earliest compiler recorded and his information is scant based on his personal movement.


we know they were compiled with other writings early on that didnt make the roman cut, based on how we see early christians picking on Marcion for following a limited number of books in his collection.


false

GJohn was definately different in mythology and the seperation of the movement from Judaism.

GMatthew was written to a group following more judaistic traditions despite still using the roman core of GMark.


your failing to realize were talking about a movement that was not only multi cultural in the beginning, but covered different sects of judaism as well as different types of romans including god-fearers as well as a wide range of gentiles




the books were not canonized until hundreds of years after they were written

Duvduv

Yes, I know about the varied use of language suggestive of provenance from different locations. But this does not provide proof that there were actual whole "communities" of believers following only a particular gospel story, and it is just as likely that stories were commissioned by the regime to put the local stories on paper based on the ideas and philosophies of the author, i.e. from Antioch, Rome, Alexandria.

From "Justin's" writing we have no idea where his communities were, how many people they included, who their leaders were etc. That's because the writer himself couldn't demonistrate them.

outhouse

we do kno wthis religious movement spread through the jewish and roman empire, and very quickly at that over a few hundred years.

we know for a fact there were groups of people after 33CE who found jesus important enough to record their version of events in mythology.

to say there were not communities goes directly against the physical evidence we are left with [the canon] there would be no reason for "a" group to write 3 different accounts that contradict each other in details.

we do see Gmark written and used within many communities, and others found it import to merge in with their own knowledge.



you would need to explain how we ended up with 3 slightly different versions, to explain away communities.


also remember, in a culture with over a 90% illiteracy rate, before this information hit a scribes desk, it was widespread and well know through oral tradaition. Written works like this were not viewed as important as oral tradition.

outhouse

wrong.

there was no christian regime, early on. it didnt get romanized until Constantine

Duvduv

It is the 4th century Regime that I am referring to......

outhouse

and what does that really have to do with communities that followed the movement 3 decades after his death?

Duvduv

What movement 3 decades after whose death?

outhouse

the ones [plural] responsible for GMark Luke and Matthew, let alone the named community for Gjohn