Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

As my position entails that all Christian documents are de facto corrupt, it follows that no presently known Christian document could be used to support my position.

Originally Posted by Sheeshbazzar

I do not accept that those 13 letters were written by one and the same Paul,
I do not believe that the real Paul had anything to do with the name Jesus being in the texts, And if the letters are all either altered or forged what difference would it make whatever their text now -claimed- they are now untrustworthy witnesses to anything.

Originally Posted by Sheesbazzar

And of course, because the only book you have that fits your theory is Acts of The Apostles, it -must- therefore be the only explanation possible?

Originally Posted by aa5874

Now, once I have found information of antquity to support my theory, I can use that finding to help to resolve other theories with respect to chronology or authenticity.

Originally Posted by Sheeshbazzar

If the foundation is only sand....the builder builds in vain.

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Not just any disagreement with me, only ones that would make out old Eusebius to be the creator of 300+ years worth of Christianity.

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Even though there are apparent direct quotes from Matt 6:12-15; 7:2; and Luke 6:36-38 in lucky chapter 13? You say this is from church tradition, maybe I suppose from the hypothetical "Q" source, but it isn't so simple.

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

It has been noted by Biblical scholars for ages that First Clements "quotations" are unique in that they do not at any place agree exactly with the readings supplied in any of our textual exemplars.

Which indicates several things, (which I'm sure that you are also aware of, but I will post anyway, to make them obvious to others)
Foregoing any loony-tunes conspiracy theories, and working with simple posit that Clement of Rome is whom he is claimed to be, and did actually write the letter that his name is attached to, in approximately 96 AD.

First, the Epistles of Clement were included in "The Apostolic Canons" of the Syriac Church in about 380 AD. and as such recognised as being part of the NT canon, and were also accepted into the NT canon of The Eastern church in about 730 AD, in neither instance were the words of 1 Clement altered to bring them into conformity with the recieved text. This indicates that at least to some degree the church did not just indiscriminately doctor ancient texts to make them conform.

It should be noted however, that in all the Christian churches, even ones that for one reason or another did not include 1 Clement in their canon were still respectful of it, and all were indebted to it as the authoritative document that affirmed the apostolic authority of the clergy in all churches.
And in Rome's case was employed as the authoritative church document that established Roman primacy.

Secondly, the peculiarities of the wording of I Clement 13:2 in itself indicates that the verse was composed in agreement with either a memorised oral recitation of these words (likely as an oft repeated formal incantation of instruction to the congregation) or that if it derived from a written text, and was copied faithfully from that text (which was the order of the day) it was a text that does not match up to any one particular text that eventually made it into the recieved New Testement (as we have it today - and disregarding any of the older NTs that actually contain 1 Clement)

Thirdly, the above being apparent, that such text (if there even was an actual text from which the verse was copied) is variant to all others, it therefore can not be safely assumed that any other verses within the remainder of that otherwise unknown and unknowable text agrees with the contents of any of our present New Testaments.

Consider this, the text, (if there indeed was such) would be from the 1st century, at a time before such things as the Basilide and Marcionite schisms.
If such a rare and original text were to come into our hands, and its contents proved to give strong support for the views held by latter schismatics, against the direction taken by the rest of surviving Christianity, would such a text be "authentic" in the sense of representing what true Christianity really was and ought to be?
Could one single old text, reading far differently than all the millions of texts that Christians have now used for two millenia be "authentic" in the sense of representing "authentic" Christianity?
And if "authentic" then it would be all the billions of Bibles produced over the ages that were "inauthentic" leading to deviant practices against the true and authentic faith.
Of course the Christian church's would have the power to step in and declare the old book "inauthentic" by their claimed Authority and by Decree, but would doing so make what is genuine become ungenuine?

Today we have very little actual literature from the period, and what we are working with are mostly the works of the victors in these religious propaganda wars.
It would not take much at all, to turn everything that has so long been taken for granted about the Christian religion, totally upside-down.
It wouldn't even require a book, a single page could accomplish the task.

Others can dogmatically declare that they have got it all figured out and have all the right answers, while yet ignoring the fact that they are working with much less evidence than what history indicates did exist.
Unimpressed by half-baked conspiracy theories full of holes, and claims of perfectly transmitted and infallible texts, I posit that it will eventually be proven that the Christian church started out as a chrestos cult, and that the only written text of any authority in the early movement was a simple and quite primitive form of the Pauline Christological writings. The rest only cleverly added on fabricated urban legends.

I am confidently waiting for further evidence to turn up, and it certainly will.

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Shesh,

I hope this thread does not die.

You are bringing up some valid criticisms, don't get me wrong. Still, I am not crystal clear as to what you are trying to say below.

It is true that 1 Clement dos not exactly quote any NT Gospel, but the same goes for apparent citations from Paul or the Old Testament. The author has a tendency to paraphrase, for sure. The citations in chapter 13 could be viewed as paraphrases of NT Gospel materials, but yes that is not a slam dunk.

Now as to the fact that copyists had not brought parts of these "quotes" into conformity with the text of any one NT Gospel or another, how would a copyist decide which Gospel texts to bring paraphrased passages into conformity with? The early church fathers are full of odd readings of scriptures, both OT & what later came to be officially recognized NT.

If it was not felt necessary to sanitize them, why 1 Clement?

Originally Posted by DCHindley

On what authority are you making the suggestion that "the verse [could have been] composed in agreement with [...] a memorised oral recitation of these words (likely as an oft repeated formal incantation of instruction to the congregation)"? Is this based on something in, say, Birger Gerhardsson's Memory and Manuscript or something similar, maybe by Jacob Neusner?

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Citations from one or more non-canonical gospels are a possibility, although we have no independent confirmation that passages resembling any of the statements cited in ch 13 were in known alternate gospels of this type (as far as I am aware, anyways). Do you know of any specific examples

Originally Posted by DCHindley

You offer your solution that Christianity started as a Christ cult and was later historicized by a victorious church, but I would offer the alternative that a historical Jesus who advocated some sort of Kingdom of God on earth was transformed over time into a Christ cult.
DCH

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Along this line it is irrelevant at what exact date 1 Clement arrived, simply that it was the first written work of the new religion, and a propaganda move to legitimatise the theory of Apostolic Papal succession, and of the Primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, the first move necessary to give them a claim to an authority to produce a NT Bible reflecting their particular theological views.

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

In this instance only 1 Clement was under consideration, of course you are correct about the other Church Fathers who also employed odd readings

Personally I doubt that these variant or odd readings were paraphrases, rather they appear to be the germinal forms of verse that were latter sanitized, standardised, and incorporated into the written NT.

In other words, the reverse of the process that you are thinking of above.
A natural progression from oral and memorised gospel sayings and stories, to these first that appear in written form under the Church Fathers, and finally to the sanitized forms incorporated into the officially Church endorsed form of the "fixed" and standardized Gospels.

The early Fathers were not "paraphrasing" or incorrectly "quoting", rather there were no right or standard texts until they were created by being drawn from the Church's oral teachings supplemented with the writings of these early Church Fathers.

Along this line it is irrelevant at what exact date 1 Clement arrived, simply that it was the first written work of the new religion, and a propaganda move to legitimatise the theory of Apostolic Papal succession, and of the Primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, the first move necessary to give them a claim to an authority to produce a NT Bible reflecting their particular theological views.

In my view the first written Orthodox Gospels first appeared well into the 2nd century, and at a time that the orthodox church had already been troubled by schisms, and had attained the strength and the authority to impose a set of "standard" texts, Ones that conveniently (for "the orthodox") incorporated Gospel stories and theological rebuttals carefully contrived so as effectively counteract and marginalize the teachings of Marcion and others.

This also explains why no earlier, or written variations of "THE Gospels" can be found, as there simply were none. (other than Marcion's, which they "took care of")

Most scholars seem to agree that the Gospel was first orally taught and disseminated, the adherents of the faith employed only the writings of the Old Testament, and supplemented these writings with their memorised oral explanations and arguments about the meanings of the written OT texts, these they were able to supplement with the few original Pauline writings, which not being "scripture" at that time, they were able to freely modify and add to as necessary to persuade their audience.

Back to the memorised oral recitations, this of course would have been the normal mode of preaching and teaching the NT stories and doctrines, and route recitations of incantations is an effective means of recollection that is used in almost all primitive societies.

This does not preclude that various Gospel "sayings" and ideas could have already been committed to writing, this is why I allowed that there may have been a written document that Clement of Rome was using to draw his material from.

That said, I doubt that he would have been using paraphrasing or ad-libbing in a formal writing intended to establish his authority to intercede, to correct, to instruct and to teach another church.

Well known, recieved and Formal forms of these sayings would have been his most powerful weapon.

As I believe that "THE Gospels" were not written until the middle of the second century, this is not a possibility.

The first written Gospel where the sayings and the stories were combined and put down in written narrative form, would have been that one produced by Marcion, and to which the church was forced to respond.

(actually he had been hard at work on putting the Church's Bible together until they excomunicated him, so he continued the enterprise on his own, in his own way.)

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

This is only a Internet discussion board, a place for the presenting of ideas and discussion, to get people thinking.
While you may want "formal theories" to support this, that or another statement, many of the ideas expressed and discussed in this forum, remain yet to be recognized by, or examined and written-up by "professional" scholarship.
We do not need "professional" permission to think and to reason.
I don't know about you, but my life is short, and my answers to life's questions need my best shot TODAY, I don't have another decade or three to wait for some "authority" figure to finally get around to putting everything into writing, and of course at best, they might prove to your satisfaction, only two or three things;
Thus you will always lack that ultimate yet ever unobtainable level of certainty that you wish for.
It comes down to, either the claims of The Bible are true, or it is all a crock.

Now how in the Sams hell, could there be, Septuagint reading, believing, and "Christ" expecting, Jewish and Gentile believers, and them not be by definition,
members of the "Christ" cult?
And if they believed in and expected the "Christ" (messiah) of the JEWISH Scriptures, then they were from the beginning, already "using scriptures of a more or less unpopular ethnic group (the Judeans)" not something that they waited around until the 1st century to begin doing.
There were several reasons for the creating of that "birth" at that particular time, who did it and why.
That it doesn't make any sense to you, is only evidence that you don't understand the factors that would have required it, and have thus far been unwilling to put two and two together without having a hundred books to back you up.
And that ain't never going to happen in our lifetimes, as too many vested interests are hard at work throwing out a thousand misleading dead-end trails to make damn certain that it doesn't.