semiopen

I posted this link in another thread which discusses the forced conversions of the Hasmoneans which also included forced circumcisions:

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2...286-487374_ITM

It should be noted that the Hasmoneans are important because their conquests probably are the only historic justification for a "major" Jewish/Israelite empire. It might also be noted that Antipater, Herod the Great's father was an Idumean (Edomite) who was forced to convert.

My posts also mentioned Acts 15:5 which discusses forced conversion and circumcision. This strongly suggests some historical accuracy in the text, how would such an obscure thing be known hundreds of years later? More to the point why don't most Jews know this today?

Finally, fundamentalist Jewish belief is clear that gentiles have serious spritual deficiencies compared to Jews. I don't think this can be called villification, but I'm also not sure the position of the other majors can be called that either.

spin

They are dated by internal information. Some writer supplies an indication as to when a text was written, mentioning some historically known official or the like. If you don't have dated examples of a font, how can you date an undated use of that font? If you find the Oxyrhynchus site with a list of all the texts, you'll see some texts have very specific dates to them (because of internal information).


spin

ripley

Hey, that's what I thought. Thanks. You never can be too careful, though. The term "circular logic" has been known to apply sometimes, which is presumably why it exists

Roger Pearse

The dated exemplars contain a date when they were written.

This is how paleography is done, starting from zero, for a language group. You gather as many examples as you can of manuscripts which have a note in them saying "completed by scribe x on date y". You tabulate the lot. What you get is a set of tables of script type (with examples) versus date.

That immediately shows up any fakes in the base data, and provides a reference point to date when other manuscripts were written which don't have dates signed at the end.

This process was originated in France in the early 18th century. The monasteries held their land because of charters recording grants from ancient kings. A Jesuit alleged that a Benedictine charter from Dagobert I (690AD) was a fake; together with various others, including some Dominican charters. The Dominicans called the Inquisition. But the Benedictines saw it as a challenge to their scholarship, and handed the issue to Jean de Mabillon, a monk of the congregation of St. Maur. He gathered a large volume of charters and classed them by date, type of script, and country (although he found the latter didn't actually matter). The result was published as De re diplomatica, and created the discipline. Even the Jesuit admitted it was a tour-de-force. (But the charter of Dagobert *did* turn out to be a fake, Mabillon showed).

Another Maurist father, Dom Bernard de Montfaucon, repeated the process for Greek some years later. You will find various books entitled something like "a collection of dated and dateable manuscripts written in xxxx" - this is what they are.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

ripley

Gee wiz, that was a very generous primer. Thank you.

IamJoseph

I'd like to think so. Except that it is pervasive in 57 Islamic states as history, as well 25 Eurpean states which tolerate it as free speech - even by those who invented this false speech. And those who perpertrated this false story, which took 100s of 1000s of innocent lives - are 'silent' towards its correction. One can also claim such silence is evil.

I've no idea how it is outside of this forum or the state of Israel - its more relevent than the climate issue.

Toto

The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion is a modern forgery. There is nothing worth discussing there, especially in a thread devoted to the NT canon.

What part of "this is outside the scope of this forum" is unclear to you? If you want to discuss the Protocols, there is a whole forum devoted to politics.

IamJoseph

<edit>

Roger Pearse

Glad to help. It's an interesting story -- the Maurists themselves were interesting people (all wiped out in the French revolution) -- and seems little known in the general public.

IamJoseph

C14, by itself, cannot be used to affirm datings of short margins of time. There has to be conforming on the ground factors surrounding the C14 assessments. The problem with the Gospels is that there are no surrounding evidences of its narratives - in fact an alarming lack of such evidences prevail, Otherwise there would not be any debatings about the Gospel's veracity.

To compound this, there are numerous contradicting factors which impact on the Gospel's narratives: eg. the dead sea scrolls; Jews; Roman archives; Islamic writings; etc. The situation is not relieved that the Gospels pushes the 'belief' premise even for evidencing its historical claims.

As an emample, I do not subscribe to a 60,000 year Aboriginal people in Australia, because it contradicts other surrounding evidences: their population should then be 21 Trillion, and their mental prowess far ahead than what is seen. No qualifications or reasonings become legitimate here - not when it involves such a large period. The same factor impacts the Gospels.