Freethought & Rationalism Archive

MrMacSon · 04-21-2013, 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

... Unless you can check everything with the 14th century monk who had a single copy.

Please elaborate ...

Duvduv · 04-21-2013, 08:07 AM

Since the Justin texts derive from the "discovery" of a single copy of a manuscript (that no longer exist) from a monk in the 14th century, who's to say where the texts originated or what they looked like originally?

For that matter, who can know whether the very first copies of Galatians and Acts contradicted each other much less than the current ones do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMacSon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

... Unless you can check everything with the 14th century monk who had a single copy.

Please elaborate ...

Duvduv · 04-21-2013, 08:10 AM

The poster known as aa5874 is diverting away from my point. I am addressing the content and context of the NT canonical texts. I am not addressing the DSS or other texts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

The poster known as aa5874 doesn't understand my point. I have simply argued that the content and context of such writings suggests that they were written with the agenda of a regime that had the motive, means and opportunity to produce a religion and its apologetics. Such literature does not ring true as springing out in the desert of the 2nd century.

You hardly make any arguments. You either ask questions or make assertions.

Where is the supporting sources for your arguments?

You are merely making presumptions.

Please, we have writings attributed to Julian the Emperor of Rome in which it is claimed the story of the Galileans was a monstrous fable.

Surely, "Against the Galileans" was not a product of the Roman Church or Apologetic sources.

Well, there are many many writings that were also not products of the Church which mentioned Jesus.

Against the Galileans

2. The Roman Church did NOT composed writings attributed to Macarius Magnes.

This author agrees with me that Paul was a Liar over 1600 hundred years ago.

Magnes' "Apocritus"

Quote:

Wherefore we may reasonably declare that it is full of twaddle to say that men will ever be caught up into the air.

And Paul's lie becomes very plain when he says, "We which are alive." For it is three hundred years since he said this,246 and no body has anywhere been caught up, either Paul's or any one else's. So it is time this saying of Paul became silent, for it is driven away in confusion.

It is not logical at all that all writings of antiquity that mentioned Jesus was produced by the Roman Church.

It can easily be deduced which writings were NOT composed by the Church.

We have "Church History", "Against Heresies" and "First Clement"-- the Flagships of Forgeries and prototype of Fraud.

We have the recovered dated manuscripts. We have the Dead Sea Scrolls and NT manuscripts.

The Pauline writings were composed after c 180 CE---After the Jesus cult of Christians were already established.

andrewcriddle · 04-21-2013, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Since the Justin texts derive from the "discovery" of a single copy of a manuscript (that no longer exist) from a monk in the 14th century, who's to say where the texts originated or what they looked like originally?

I think you are confusing the manuscripts of Justin with something else, possibly the Epistle to Diognetus.

Andrew Criddle

Jeffrey Gibson · 04-21-2013, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

For that matter, who can know whether the very first copies of Galatians and Acts contradicted each other much less than the current ones do.

We could ask the same question of all writings from the ancient world including the ones you trust as not corrupted -- the Mishnah and the Talmud -- since we don't have the originals of those works (or their constituent parts) either and since those who transmitted them were hardly agenda-less or un-entangled with theological opponents on the outside and on the inside of their movements, nor without means and motive and institutionalized power to change these texts to suit their purposes..

Jeffrey

Duvduv · 04-21-2013, 09:02 AM

There is a qualitative distinction in this respect. Unlike the Christian regime, the widely dispersed Jewish community had no power, no regime, no central authority with such agenda. There are sources that indicate some minor differences among various manuscripts that are ascribed usually to scribal error and occasionally marginal glosses incorporated into the text. One of the experts in this area in the 18th century was Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna, known as the Vilna Gaon, who traveled widely in his youth examining manuscripts and printed texts. and produced a running commentary which still appears in the Talmud.

Commentaries of Maimonides, R. Saadiah Gaon and others of the period of 1000 years ago or so do not show any significant differences in Talmudic texts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

For that matter, who can know whether the very first copies of Galatians and Acts contradicted each other much less than the current ones do.

We could ask the same question of all writings from the ancient world including the ones you trust as not corrupted -- the Mishnah and the Talmud -- since we don't have the originals of those works (or their constituent parts) either and since those who transmitted them were hardly agenda-less or un-entangled with theological opponents on the outside and on the inside of their movements, nor without means and motive and institutionalized power to change these texts to suit their purposes..

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson · 04-21-2013, 09:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

There is a qualitative distinction in this respect. Unlike the Christian regime, the widely dispersed Jewish community had no power, no regime, no central authority with such agenda.

You seem then to have little knowledge of the centralized and powerful academies of Jewish learning in the 3rd through the 9th centuries in Palestine and (under the Exilarch and under Anan ben David) in Babylonia.

Jeffrey

Duvduv · 04-21-2013, 10:32 AM

Jews were dispersed far and wide, and the authority of the gaonite in halacha could not be coercively imposed anywhere since the Jews had to power of a state and coercion or centralization.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

There is a qualitative distinction in this respect. Unlike the Christian regime, the widely dispersed Jewish community had no power, no regime, no central authority with such agenda.

You seem then to have little knowledge of the centralized and powerful academies of Jewish learning in the 3rd through the 9th centuries in Palestine and (under the Exilarch and under Anan ben David) in Babylonia.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson · 04-21-2013, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Jews were dispersed far and wide, and the authority of the gaonite in halacha could not be coercively imposed anywhere since the Jews had to power of a state and coercion or centralization.

Boy, do you not know Jewish history.

Jeffrey

Duvduv · 04-21-2013, 12:56 PM

The words "to power" should be "NO power." As far as knowledge of Jewish history, I don't know what you mean by Jewish history.
If you would compare the Christian Byzantine Empire and its church to the little gaonite out of Baghdad under the Sultan you must be missing something.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Jews were dispersed far and wide, and the authority of the gaonite in halacha could not be coercively imposed anywhere since the Jews had to power of a state and coercion or centralization.

Boy, do you not know Jewish history.

Jeffrey

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