Duvduv

]If Paul didn't exist he would have had to be invented to unify the whole Jesus gospel community in the new Byzantine empire. Otherwise there would have been all sorts of competing small sects under the Constantinian regime tending towards Judaism with a belief in the "Jewish" Jesus messiah, which would have had little long-term appeal to the masses of Romans.

Bernard Muller

What problem? Irenaeus indicated he wrote when Eleutherus (ca. 174 - ca. 189) was bishop of Rome.
What would you want to throw Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian and Hyppolitus?
What about Marcion? Justin Martyr wrote about him and said he was still alive but suggested he was rather old at the time. And Marcion is NOT treated as a saint by the like of Tertullian and Irenaeus (well before Eusebius!), who attacked him a lot as one of the Heretics. And he was accused to have mutilated Paul's epistles. Why should I doubt Marcion had knowledge of a Paul character?
Maybe in the community of Chrysostom 'Act' was not well known, but still was known.
The reference of Christians meeting in Synagogues and doing Jewish things was when Chrysostom was in Antioch, a city which had a lot of Jews and probably many Jewish Christians. Every Christian communities were different, including concerning their use and acceptance on NT texts. Still is now.

Duvduv

Bernard, we already saw the context whereby supposedly Justin knew nothing about the epistles or four canonical gospels and lo and behold just 30 years later Irenaeus, who was all confused knew about them, and apparently didn't know when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed to calculate Paul's preaching.

And what about Marcion? Is "Justin" the gospel truth, when he supposedly lived at the same time as Marcion and cited not a single writing that Marcion supposedly said. Mutilated the epistles, you say? What evidence do you have that Marcion had the epistles or that he mutilated them? Whose word do you take for that assumption?

How do you know what was going on in the life of John Chrystosom whose story is as murky as that of the fellow who first wrote about him, Palladius? I just got through describing his dedication to a guy named Paul, and the text attributed to Chrysostom (see the posting of aa5874) that the Book of Acts "known" over 200 years earlier by "Irenaeus" was unknown. Chrysostom, if he existed, was probably the main saleman for the Paul-gentile-Byzantine-religion.

Aren't you reading my postings? No hurt feelings, just wondering.

aa5874

You are EXPOSING the forgeries.

Why don't you quote the forgery called the "TF" to prove Josephus knew of Jesus???

You have ALREADY Identified LIES by Irenaeus.

You cannot use questionable and discredited sources to argue history perhaps MYTH Fables and Fiction but NOT history.

Please get Credible corroborative sources of antiquity since apologetic sources are EVIDENCE that people of antiquity BELIEVED Mythology.

aa5874

According to Chrysostom Many did NOT even know the book existed. There could NOT have been a Canon with Acts and yet the BOOK was Hidden.

One cannot know the history of the supposed Early Church WITHOUT knowing of Acts of the Apostles.

Homily 1 on Acts of the Apostles
Acts of the Apostles and gMatthew are the LARGEST BOOKS in the NT Canon each with 28 chapters so Acts could NOT have been Hidden in the Canon.

Any mention of the Apostles, the day of Pentecost, Talking in tongues, the Persecution of supposed Early Christians, the conversion of Paul and his travels all the Roman Empire are found in Acts of the Apostles.

The fact that Chrysostom claimed many did NOT know the book existed and that it was hidden suggest that Acts of the Apostles was NOT yet Canonised.

And far worse, many did NOT know of Saul of Tarsus if they did NOT know Acts of the Apostle existed.

Acts of the Apostle was Hidden Out of Sight.

Duvduv

So "thanks" to Chrysostom and his "homilies" extolling Paul who almost no one knew about, EVERYONE got to know about him.
On the other hand, Chrysostom didn't seem to notice any contrasts between the epistles of "blessed Paul" and the stories in Acts, suggesting they originated in two different places.
Then there is another important question: IF so few people knew about Acts, then HOW DID THEY KNOW about the Gospel of Luke that was its earlier volume? If they didn't know about Acts, then they didn't know about GLuke, did they, UNLESS (ahem....) the two books were not originally connected at all.

Bernard Muller

Justin did not know about epistles: argument from silence. Justin probably wanted to base his orthodox beliefs on the three Synoptics only. He did not name them, because for most, no alleged authors had been accepted.
Where did Irenaeus make an attempt to calculate Paul's preaching in relation to the fall of the Temple?
Argument from silence again. Why would he quote Marcion's writings? His works are not against heresies. Furthermore he explained the main theological and christological points of Marcion in two different paragraphes in 1Apology.
Irenaeus and Tertullian accused Marcion to have mutilated Pauline epistles and gLuke.

About Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople (347–407): He lived after Eusebius' times. And Eusebius quoted and named Acts of the apostles, also Paul and his epistles. Are you going to throw out also Eusebius to have Chrysostom the redactor of Acts?
If Chrysostom did not exist, then where all these details come from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chrysostom
The Codex Vaticanus (325-350) and Codex Sinaiticus (330-360), still before Chrysostom's times include the Acts of the apostles.

Bernard Muller

to aa,
So, even if it was so, that does not mean it did not exist.
But not from Irenaeus, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Eusebius, the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus.

aa5874

No way!!! Once Justin did NOT mention the Pauline writings and stated that it was the 12 disciples that preached the Gospel to all race of men then it can be LOGICALLY deduced that Justin did NOT know of the Pauline writings.

If there is NO evidence that a person committed a crime then it is reasonable to deduce that such a person did NOT commit the crime.

Now, your argument is hopelessly from Silence. It is utterly illogical to attempt to argue that Justin knew of the Pauline writings WITHOUT showing that he did.

You don't even know that SILENCE is the EVIDENCE for ABSENCE.

Please, tell your freinds.

Silence is the Evidence for ABSENCE.

Duvduv

Bernard, the point is simply that all calculations are confused by virtue of Irenaeus ' claim.
Including the life of Paul based on Acts.
Now you have to ask what happened to GLuke if Chrysostom claimed Acts was unknown yet he knew about GLuke. Chrysostom had to assume that previous writers of the last 200 years didn't know about either book, or that they didn't write when usually dated, including Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen. If he accepted their traditional placement in history, then how would he believe Acts was so unknown?!