jeffevnz

I think you missed the point: what I personally think is distinct from what my argument presupposes or concludes.
I doubt anyone here would disagree that it is possible. Our point is that it's not probable.

spin

Though this understatement is fascinating, it is totally irrelevant.

This is a mask for your own lack of evidence. You have no reason to doubt the document, so you try to palm off your own deficiency on the silence of all those other hypothetical religions that you don't have to back you up.

The text is a fragment of concise gospel story, which makes sense in the christian religion and no other [here is where you can say, but what about...]. That it reflects phrases from each of the gospels makes the document a member of a class we call diatessaron. That you may turn a blind eye to evidence from palaeography is more a reaction to the abuse by certain christians rather than any lack of merit in the study. We have numerous gospel fragments from Oxyrhynchus palaeographically dated to the third century (just check the first appendix of NA27). These support the Dura fragment.

Umm, you might be trying to talk about John and P52, but Mark doesn't have such a history.

So here we get someone who knows next to nothing about the situation expounding another conspiracy theory. Why don't you just go to a good university library and read the excavation reports to get an idea of what was going on?

Naturally the opposite -- ie that the text was decomposed and used in differing gospels -- is ridiculous, so we take what you call "weak" as infinitely more reasonable.


spin

J-D

Now I don't know whether you're saying that there were Christians before Constantine or that there were no Christians before Constantine. I'm not trying to trap you with a trick question, I genuinely want to know what your view is, and I'm failing to see any reason why you can't just state it clearly. If there's some complexity that I'm failing to grasp, I'm hoping that you can point it out to me; otherwise, a simple Yes or No answer would be nice.

avi

Apparently seeking to repudiate (not FALSIFY) my assertion that spin erred in writing "FALSIFIED", with regard to Pete's hypothesis, spin argued:
dictionary
Of the FIVE suggested meanings for the word falsification, numbers 1-4 correspond to the synonym for which it is typically employed by native speakers of English, i.e. deceit, deception, fraud, duplicity, cheating, and the like. Only the fifth, and least common meaning, obsolete for many decades, corresponds to the idea which spin sought to employ: to disprove.

I acknowledge complete ignorance of Karl Popper, and further, utter DISINTEREST in his ideas.
However, if I were interested in examining Popper's supposed contribution to the field of linguistics, I certainly would not offer as reference, WIKIPEDIA. Further, if I were seeking to repudiate (n.b. NOT FALSIFY) criticism of my erstwhile English language skills, I would not choose as reference, someone whose native language was either Yiddish (Juden-Deutsch), oder Schwaebisch.

Spin's claim to be a linguist appears dubious, based upon his defense of misuse of the word falsification, which is ABSOLUTELY not synonymous with repudiation, notwithstanding his own errant notions as well as those of his colleagues at Wikipedia, and his philosopher chum Popper.

Falsification represents the intentional misrepresentation of a body of dogma, or evidence, of any kind, just as I deliberately falsified Pete's hypothesis by invoking Tiberius instead of Constantine. Falsification does NOT represent the REPUDIATION of a hypothesis, theory, or evidence, rather, one FALSIFIES a theory, by MISREPRESENTING that theory, not by disproving the theory.

Here is an illustration, not TOO far off the track of Pete's thesis re: Constantine as CREATOR of Christianity, by exploiting his imperial military power to DESTROY and MODIFY earlier existing documents, dogmas, statues, statutes, and traditions:

Richard A. Posner is an Appellate Court judge for the US Federal Judiciary, operating out of Chicago, Illinois. He is also a faculty member at the University of Chicago Law School. He is, in other words, "an expert". He is also guilty (perhaps NOT intentionally, or at least, I am willing to grant him the benefit of the doubt) of the FALSIFICATION of Copernicus' "discovery" of the travail of Aristarchus of Samos. In other words, Judge Posner, in his 2007 publication praising Copernicus, distorted, FALSIFIED, and misrepresented Copernicus' dependance upon Aristarchus' brilliant repudiation (NOT FALSIFICATION) of Aristotle/Plato's universally accepted notion of geocentrism, by means of experiments and measurements, which he, Aristarchus, PERSONALLY performed. Why would Judge Posner, of Polish ancestry, misrepresent, i.e. FALSIFY, the history of Copernicus, Polish monk extraordinaire, claiming, correctly, that he, Copernicus, encountered Aristarchus' drawings of heliocentrism in 1503, while attending medical school in Padua, Italy, whereupon he, Copernicus had chanced upon the Greek guardians of Aristarchus' precious manuscripts, (copied meticulously for almost 2000 years by Eastern Orthodox Christian monks, until compelled to flee from Constantinople in the late 15th century, to Italy.) So, Judge Posner CORRECTLY identified the FACT that Copernicus indeed discovered Aristarchus' magnificent accomplishment--heliocentrism--but, instead of acknowledging the truth, i.e. that Copernicus plagiarized Aristarchus, Judge Posner instead FALSIFIED the ostensible contribution of Copernicus, claiming concurrent discovery of heliocentrism by both Aristarchus and Copernicus, when, in fact, Copernicus, who himself performed no mathematical investigations, had originally acknowledged Aristarchus' experiments and drawings, in his Latin masterpiece,De revolutionibus orbibum..., ultimately redacting all reference to the Greek genius, Aristarchus, on reflection of the consequences of suggesting that the geocentric model presented in the Bible (purportedly authored by Claudius Ptolemy, in the second century, based upon Ptolemy's own experiments and analysis, derived from the writings of Aristotle/Plato, five hundred years earlier), was false. In those days of Copernicus, writing, or even reading, the wrong words could lead to DEATH. Possession of an English language version of the Bible, led to the deaths of many Englishmen at the hand of that miserable assassin, Thomas More, just ten years before Copernicus published his magnum opus. Copernicus HAD NO CHOICE: he HAD to plagiarize, or face execution (of himself, AND his family) in a VERY painful manner, as a blasphemer, who relied upon the travail of atheists.

With regard to the central issue of whether or not Ptolemy's Document from mid second century verifies or repudiates, (not FALSIFIES) Pete's hypothesis that Constantine invented Christianity, I have no opinion, for Ptolemy's support of geocentrism was doubtless ALSO accepted by the Jews of that era, i.e. Ptolemy's science was widely accepted, and was not uniquely Christian, though, it is by means of Christianity, and most particularly, its most odius manifestation: the Spanish Inquisition, (aka Constantine part deux) that we have come to learn and appreciate this most misguided of "scientific" accomplishments, Ptolemy's repudiation of the great scholar, and chief librarian at Alexandria, (preceding Eratosthenes,) Aristarchus. (I have often wondered if, traversing the dusty vaults of the greatest library of the ancient world, Aristarchus, head of that wonderful library, found someone else's writings, and claimed them as his own....)

Were Ptolemy's ideas incorporated into the revisions of the Septuagint that took place in the second century, or did those changes precede Ptolemy's publication? Did Ptolemy's Geocentric hypothesis first appear in the Vulgate translation? Are his findings the basis of the oft stated Geocentric model found in the Bible, or, is there some other scientist/philosopher (Aristotle himself?) whose writings form the basis for the Old Testament's Geocentric convictions? Is it reasonable to conclude that since no reference to Ptolemy's model is found in the New Testament, then, that absence would tend to support Pete's notion that the whole Christian apparatus was formalized two centuries after Ptolemy, i.e. fourth century....?

jeffevnz

TBH, the comment on antiquities dealers is the only one I can find in your post that is not problematic.
If two documents share the same combination of several unusual words and phrases, in the same order, both within a short passage, that is extremely strong evidence that they are somehow textually dependent (i.e., that they share a common source, whether that source is one of the two documents, or some third one). The reason it's strong evidence is that the odds of it happening by accident are small.

Think of it this way. If you had to look for another document that had the same combination of words (Salome, women following someone, preparation day, sabbath, councilman, and Arimathia), in the same order, in the same space of 100 or so words, do you think you'd be able to find it? You can have a team of interns, powerful computers, and all the literature in the world on a database....all the resources you'd want. Do you think you could find it? And suppose you did find such a document, how easy do you think that would be? A document with such specific text would be rare, and therefore unlikely to occur twice by sheer accident. And even if it did occur more than once by accident, you would probably find more documents that have the same text because of copying, than documents that have it by accident.

It's the only significant evidence if you ignore all the other significant evidence. For example: a fragment of text clearly written and buried before 257 AD that clearly shares a textual dependence with the Gospels.
No, I'm not assuming it. I'm proposing that it's a harmony based on evidence, the very textual evidence you cited in your post. If you don't accept that evidence, that's one thing, but that doesn't mean my argument presupposes its conclusion. I'm concluding that the Gospels existed before the Dura fragment was written, based on the textual evidence that it is a harmony of the Gospels.

J-D

Many things are possible. Knowing that something might be so is not the same as having a reason to think that it is so. Whenever Pete is pressed for a reason to think that his theory is true, he resorts to evasive tactics. Always.

J-D

No. Because the Jews were already dispersed long before Constantine was born.A good question, which Pete has been asked before: if Constantine had Christianity invented, why would a link to Judaism have been incorporated? Pete has no good answer.Why would Constantine have wanted to steal it?

spamandham

...an excellent summary of why I don't find it prudent to rule out any reasonable possibilities in regard to Christian history. While I don't think MM's position is "likely" (aka simplest), it isn't impossible, nor so far fetched as to be dismissed out of hand.

spamandham

Agreed. I've certainly not said anything to the contrary here. The OP is whether or not Pete's position has been falsified. The evidence submitted does not render his case so improbable as to consider it falsified, IMHO.

Everyone here arguing that this evidence has falsified his hypothesis, already considered his hypothesis falsified. Those arguing it has not falsified his hypothesis, are the same people who allowed for it in the first place. In other words, of those posting here, the evidence from Dura has not made a significant change of position, and I consider most of the regulars here capable of changing their mind when the evidence demands.

Sheshbazzar

I will try to keep this short simple and to the point.
There were Jewish Messianic believers- they believed in the death and the resurrection of their Saviour, These are exemplified by the Jerusalem Apostles, James, Peter, Andrew, Philip, etc.
They were NOT "christians", likely never even heard of such word, although it has been a "Christian" convention to anachronistically retroject it upon them.

Their followers continued in observance of Jewish Law and custom, in the observance of all Jewish Sabbaths and High Days, in the Mosaic institution of circumcision upon conversion, and in the maintaining of a kosher diet. This they did wherever they went. Never accepting the Christians "replacement" Holy Days.
Reportedly this faction, or Nazarene "sect" of The Jewish religion survived and continued on in their distinctive practices right up into the 13th century, when they were finally absorbed into Orthodox Christianity and/or died out, naturally or unnaturally.

Meanwhile, a new and strikingly different Gentile religion was going its own way. Started by Paul of Tarsus, it took off slowly, but gathered momentum as it was "modified" to suit the desires of a Gentile population, it became known by the moniker "Christian". In the 3rd century it gained political leverage through the patronage of Emperor Constantine.
(who further "modified" and "standardized" it.)

See what I'm saying? Two entirely separate "New Testement" -religions-, One Jewish, and one Gentile, contemporary for 13 centuries, The earlier Jewish one losing clout and finally dwindling into oblivion, While the popular but utterly Gentile "Christian" religion literally took over its immediate "world".

Looking at the History of "New Testement religion" through glasses tinted by Christian indoctrination, there is a great tendency to be blind to the fact that there were many, many generations of Jewish New Testement believers who were avowedly not Christians, and did not live by the customs of "Christianity", accept any of the "Creeds" of Christianity, nor get involved in all of those weird, wonderful, and bloody theological battles that Christianity is so famous for.

So, yes, in a nutshell, I certainly believe that there were Christians before Constantine, heck, there were even "Chrestians" before "Christ" was even born But that doesn't make the term appropriate for the early Jewish Messianic believers, nor for those who walk in "Yahoshua ha'mesheka" today.