aa5874

Now if you are not sure what is meant by 'authenticated manuscript', I think it is prudent to take early xian writings with many grains of salt.

And if the questions you asked are considered, then the 'authenticity' of early xian writings may never be able to be verified.

Does 'classical heritage' suggests 'authenticity' and eliminates the possibilty of interpolation, redaction and fiction?

Roger Pearse

Your comments -- which involve quite a lot of factual and logical errors -- don't seem to be a response to mine, nor to address them. Until you do, there seems no more to be said.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

jgibson000

Really? Then you'll have to explain why you yourself do not do so, but, instead, take them -- and the data within them -- to be utterly and unquestionably reliable when it suits your purposes.

Consider, for instance, how in message post 4042143 you have appealed to, and assumed the historical veracity of what is reported in Luke 23:8 in order to "prove" a point you were trying to make.

You do the same thing in post 4039718 with respect to Matt. 21:41, Mk. 12:17, and Lk. 20:25

So can you say "double standard" and hypocrisy?

JG

aa5874

So you want me to prove a point without refering to relevant data. The NT contains certain information which must be challenged, and those information must be refered to and quoted where possible.

It is the NT and indeed the Bible that is contradictory and inconsistent, if one passage appear to be true then corresponding passages appear to be false.

It is evident, based on Luke 23:8, that Herod was glad to see Jesus, that is what the NT states. If the leader of so-called Christianity was allowed to move throughtout the region, with large crowds, not being persecuted or prosecuted by the Romans, and this leader encouraged his followers to pay their taxes, and the Gospels have no information showing that his followers were being prosecuted or persecuted by anyone while He was alive, and none of his disciples were arrested, beaten or executed when He was supposed to be on earth, then it is very odd that Saul is now claimed to have been persecuting Christians.


The question is when did Christianity become a crime, punishable by death, before the so-called Jesus died, or was this persecution, prosecution and martrydom fabricated in these so-called letters by Pliny?
Flavius Josephus' writings did not mention the persecution, prosecution or martyrdom of a single Christian or a Jew who converted to Christianity.

Roger Pearse

That was not what Jeffrey was saying.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ben C Smith

Strictly speaking, there is no need to presume for the sake of this debate that Christianity was illegal at all before Trajan passed his edict against political associations. In that light, what happened to Jesus himself some 70-80 years before, what happened to his followers according to Acts, what happened under Nero, what happened while Josephus was writing, and what happened under Domitian are all irrelevant for authenticating the Pliny correspondence.

(I think Christians were indeed persecuted before Trajan. But that they were persecuted under Trajan because of this edict does not depend on that.)

Ben.

jgibson000

No. I want you to can the hypocrisy and to admit that you operate under a double standard.

If, as you have claimed, all of the NT is fiction, then not only is nothing in it is historical, let alone historically trustworthy; but it is methodologically illegitimate, not to mention a contradictory abandonment on your own part of your claims, for you to appeal, as you do have done in the posts of yours I pointed to, to data within it as if it were not fiction, but fact, and to accept, as you have done, that data's historicity.

Is what Luke reports in Lk. 23:8 fiction or not? Did what Luke recounts in Lk. 23:8 happen or not?

If you say it is fiction and that it did not happen, then the point you so confidently asserted on the basis of that text -- that Herod did not persecute Jesus -- is as groundless as it is unsupported and worthless.

If you accept (as you apparently do, since you use Lk. 2:3:8 as the evidence showing the truth of your claims about Herod and Jesus) that what Luke says regarding Herod is true and is a report of a real event that happened just as Luke says it happened, then you are admitting that your claim about the fictitious nature of NT writings is false.

So which is it?

JG

aa5874

Do you have DNA evidence? Unless you are admitting that Pliny the younger wrote fiction, then any information or data surrounding the issue or circumstance is relevant.



There is a difference between a question and a presumption. I have asked questions, you are making presumptions.

If the records are correct, Flavius Josephus was writing as late as 93 CE, or even later, which is relatively close to Pliny's letters. And, it is interesting to note that if we accept the writings of the book of Acts, persecution, prosecution and executions were being carried out on the Christians during 50 years before and up to Pliny's letters, yet, and this is not a presumption, Flavius Josephus did not mention the persecution, prosecution or execution of any disciple or follower of Christianity.

Again, this is not a presumption, the Gospels did not mention the persecution, prosecution or the execution of a disciple or follower of Jesus Christ while He was alive.

When did Christianity become a crime, punishable by death?

Ben C Smith

Forgive my denseness, but DNA evidence for what?

Trajan, who was emperor from 98 to 117, passes an edict forbidding associations. The Pliny correspondence, the authenticity of which is the topic at hand, has Pliny prosecuting Christians based on that edict. How exactly is it relevant to the authenticity of the Pliny correspondence whether Christians were prosecuted before Trajan?

Yes. But not after Trajan passed his edict.

Fifty years before and up to these letters would be about 60 to 110. Acts stops narrating at about 63. How, then, does Acts in any way show what was happening for the fifty years before and up to 110? The contents of the book overlap that timespan by only 3 years, at the bottom end.

True. Now, how does that help us decide whether Pliny was really prosecuting Christians because of a decree that was passed after Josephus wrote?

Again, how does this help us decide whether Pliny was really prosecuting Christians because of a decree that was passed well after the gospels leave off their narration?

Amongst the Jews, especially at opportune times (between the Roman prefectures and procuratorships), quite early on. Amongst the Romans, briefly in Rome in the late sixties, possibly again under Domitian. But, again, how does this relate to whether or not Pliny was enforcing an edict by Trajan?

Ben.

aa5874

For this statement: If they were never any Christians, until the third century, would there be prosecutions of them in the 1st or 2nd century? If can be determined that there were no Christians at the time of Pliny's letter, then it would be obvious that the letters are not authentic or Pliny wrote about fictitious events. If no contemporary historian mentions the sect called Christians, then Pliny's letters need to be looked at carefully.

Trajan's edict did not apply to groups or sects that did not exist.


Are you implying that the persecution and execution stopped at about the end of the narration of Acts? In any event, Flavius Josephus did not mention any persecution or execution up to or about 93 CE, and ,as far as I am aware, no other contemporary historian mentioned Christians being persecuted, prosecuted or executed during the 1st century.



If it can be determined that there were no Christians, the edict would not apply to Christians.

In the letter to Trajan, Pliny claimed some admitted that they were Christians 25 years before being arrested, again no contemporary historian has accounted for Christians in the 1st century,