show_no_mercy

Actually this is untrue. I wrote earlier in this thread:

And that's only the "canonical" texts. We don't have a majority of the "heretical" texts. The "orthodox" accused the "heretics" of changing the "canonical" texts, but exactly which texts were orthodox or heterodox was determined by the Christianity that won the polemical battles of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Was the Ebionite version of Matthew original, or was the Catholic version of Matthew original? We don't know.

If Constantine had decided to institutionalize Marcionism instead of Catholicism you'd be making the same exact argument in regards to Marcion's canon.

sschlichter

of course they are best preserved. they started using vellum. However, they are un-necessary and your entire argument is rhetorical. Their is nothing in the NT (especially of eternal consequence) that cannot be verified either by early quote and/or fragments without these.

~steve

show_no_mercy

So your subjective definition of "well preserved" simply means "generally well preserved".

sschlichter

it means incomparably better preserved than all other ancient texts.

spamandham

Every single book in the NT, as we know them, could easily be as late as the mid 2nd century, and we have no real idea when Christianity started. It could easily have existed in some form even hundreds of years BCE. There is so much speculation masquerading as knowledge in this topic, that Biblical history should perhaps be classified as a psuedo-science.

The late 2nd century saw a veritable cottage industry of Christian pseudepigrapha, so anything first mentioned in that time or later is highly suspect as bullshit.

Polycarp - often trodded out as evidence of early NT authorship; no mention of his works prior to Irenaeus. For all we know, Irenaeus wrote Letter to the Phillipians, or some other late 2nd century fraudster did it.

Ignatius - there is nothing attributed to him that is not seriously questioned by serious scholars.

Clement - the same. One by one works formerly attributed to him have been found to be frauds.

It's doubtful any of these three men ever even existed, since the idea of a serious church hierarchy prior to the Jewish/Christian split caused by the Bar Kochba revolt is anachronistic. These men were more than likely later inventions designed to demonstrate a continuous succession of authority all the way back to Jesus.

So that leaves us with p52, the range of which extends beyond 150CE.

The traditional datings of the NT books are based on apologetics and tradition, not solid scholarship.

J-D

There is nothing in the New Testament of eternal consequence.

sschlichter

restatement. There is nothing that the NT claims to be of eternal significance that cannot be verified either by early quote and/or fragments without these.

Petergdi

There is an old joke about a preacher who wrote in the margin of his sermon notes: "Argument weak: speak louder." You give the appearance of using bolding in much the same way.

One fairly obvious problem with this argument is that the Gospel according to the Ebionites in the fragments preserved in Epiphanius has both of these sayings. The Gospel according to the Ebionites is clearly related to the Gospel of Luke, very probably having a source in common with it.

If Luke's source had both sayings, then the "You are my son the beloved, in you I am well pleased" is not a made up substitute for the Psalm 2 quote but an already existing tradition. There are multiple possible reasons why one version of Luke should preserve one saying from the baptism and a different version would preserve another. One that suggests itself is that there may have been two originals of Luke with different readings.

Peter.

sschlichter

another problem (not to mention the issues with the specific point) is the use of early manuscripts as evidence of later changes only proves the point that we can be confident because we have early manuscripts.

sschlichter

the possible date range of p52 is wider than you are stating. it is also important to note that p52 contains the gospel of John, believed to be the last writtenand that it was found in egypt 600 miles away from where it was believed to be written.

You also failed to mention Justin Martyr (early to mid 2nd century). late 2nd century is really not possible. you also are not going to get any reasonable person to buy that the church fathers of the 2nd century are mythological.