Duvduv

To provide a non Christian source for early existence of Christians getting it more tightly bound to the first century Jesus story.

Toto

Why would a Catholic priest care about non Christian sources? Why forge something so ambiguous, with no mention of Jesus or the first century story, or a virgin birth or crucifixion or any other real tie to Christianity?

It doesn't matter when Christianity started. It doesn't make Christianity true if it can be trace to the first century.

Duvduv

It certainly adds to the view of the early existence of Christian communities. Very early in fact. And without all the doctrine it carries an air of authenticity by Romans.

aa5874

Your claim is NOT logical at all because you really have NO way of knowing what ALL priests knew in the 15th century.

The Pliny letter may well have been manipulated.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto,

Your points are well taken. Also we have the evidence of Tertullian referring to the correspondence in his Apology at the beginning of the Third century.

We already see in Tertullian that he is trying to make the Bithynian Christian cult more Jewish.
We can compare the oath Tertullian says they took with the ten commandments and what we find in our present version of Pliny:

	Ten Commandments	Pliny's Bithynian Christian Oath	Tertullian Bithynian Christian Oath
1	no other gods before me.	not commit fraud	continue their form of worship
2	not make graven images	not to steal	not commit murder
3	not take Lord's name in vain	not to commit adultery	not to commit adultery
4	remember Sabbath	not to lie about a trust	not to commit fraud
5	honor father and mother	to return a trust when asked	not to commit all other sorts of wickedness
6	not kill
7	not commit adultery
8	not steal
9	not bear false witness against neighbor
10	not covert neighbor's house, wife, slave,property

We can see that only two out of five things in Pliny's oath matches the ten commandments - not stealing and not committing adultery. The other three: not commiting fraud, not lying about a trust (something that someone gives you) and returning a trust do not match the ten Hebrew commandments. Tertullian, either remembering it wrong, and/or trying to make the Bithynians sound more Hebrew adds in murder and continuing their form of worship.

Oaths were ubiquitous in ancient Greek and Roman society. The one that the Bithynian Christians take seems concerned mostly with a "trust" and making sure that they give it back. The resemblance to the Hebrew Ten Commandments is slight and possibly just coincidental.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Duvduv

Reading the Pliny version it doesn't sound to me as if they were specifically referring to mistaken ten commandments but merely there own set of rules in their particular brotherhood/society/sect.
Giacondo didn't have to make up the whole letter from scratch. All he had to do was combine something he found with a few Christian references to give it that down home feeling of the existence of a Christian sect in faraway Bithynia back in the second century.
These kinds of composites would have an echo of the pauline epistles as composites as well.

stephan huller

Is this guy taking over for Pete in proselytizing this nonsense? How do you describe what is reasonable to an unreasonable mind?

Duvduv

Sorry some of us can't be members of the Alpha team like Mr. Huller is........Or a member of the Church of Because I Said So.

Roger Pearse

With pincers.

After a while, you can see where the Spanish Inquisition were coming from.

Roger Pearse

Giacondo who?

All the best,

Roger Pearse