Toto

Originally posted by Amlodhi

Another book you might be interested to read is:

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture by Bart D. Ehrman; (The effect of early Christological controversies on the text of the new testament); Oxford University Press, 1993.

Namaste'

Amlodhi

- - - - -

Everyone of good will - please click on the Amazon link and tell Amazon that the reading level on this book is not "baby-preschool." (You have to click on the title of the book and scroll to the botton of the page to find the form.)

rlogan

Thanks for the additional resources. For once, I feel like I'm really on to something.

One of the more revealing clues is that the author of the first forged gospel had before him the incorrect Greek translation of Isaiah in the Septuagint (virgin instead of young girl).

Quite a bit more of what I see being discussed elsewhere on this site is now starting to sink in.

Offa - I don't understand your posts. You either are beginning them by addressing them to yourself, or you are copying what someone wrote to you on another thread. What are you doing by starting you rown posts with: "Offa," ??

offa

Offa, "Offa means 'Offa sez ... (in reply)'" If I copy someone else' posts I put their name first.

Thanks, Offa

Texty

This is a sweeping statement!!!
Don't shoot the messenger because of its recipients
The plain fact is that the Old and New Testaments present a uniform message called the Gospel (or Good News of the Kingdom of God) and it is the Churches themselves (Catholic, Orthodox and a whole raft of breakaway ones as well) who have rejected the teaching of the very books of which some of them have and do claim custody.

rlogan

Texty,

Volumes have been written here on the inconsistencies not just between various books, but even within them. A few come immediately to mind - the diferent lineages of Jesus, the death of Judas, the tomb scenes, the date of birth, the incorrect or non-existent prophesies from the old testament that he fulfilled, etc.

It is well established that the "gospels" came much later than the ther NT books, and that these earlier texts offer nothing in the way of a flesh and blood Jesus.

I can see that people here view things differently, according to their taste. Some more charitably. I am forming a pretty cynnical opinion. Some here politely refer to the idea of "redactions" or "interpolations". I would have to agree with Wheless in the use of the term "forgery". At the outrset, it is quite clear that the books named M,M,L,J were not written by them. So in the most absolute sense - the gospels are forgery.

I had no idea how pervasive the art of forgery was from the very beginning, and now that I have been exposed to some of the incredible pieces written by Eusebius and Ireneaus just to name two - I find little credibility in the whole thing.

It isn't as if M,M,L,J gave documents to the church for safe-keeping. The Church is what put together the NT.

Agreed, they can't keep true to what it says anyway!

Amos

But the inconsistencies are there to make the reader think twice about his interpretation and those who wrote volumes on this may have to think again because they obviously didn't get it the first time. You may agree that there are people who claim that their conversion did open their spiritual eyes and made the scriptures much more readable. If you put this evidence on a slippery slope it is easy to conclude that the bible is inerrant and we are in error if we don't understand it.

For example, I once heard that the wedding in Cana is the flip side of the temptation in the desert but as seen from within the mind of the same person. This would make sense if the gain of one is at the cost of the other and in this scenario the favor with God is at the loss of favor with satan. Simple isn't it?

Yes, the Church did put the thing together and if you don't like it don't read it. In fact they'd rather you didn't because you might go looking for historical evidence which is never to be found if it was a metaphysical event.

Bede

Hi rlogon,

While I respect you're trying to get to the bottom of difficult questions, you should not use someone like Wheless. He is misleading, inaccurate and probably dishonest. See this article by a poster on these boards: http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/wh...less_intro.htm

The only suggestion I would make is tear yourself away from the computer and go to the library. Good books on early Christianity include The Early Church by Henry Chadwick and Pagans and Christians by Robin Lane Fox. This is harder work than surfing the net but the only way to get a proper understanding of the issues. If you rely on the net you end up relying on out of date polemic from the likes of Wheless. Then all you'll do is buy in some more myths.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Toto

Some prior comments on Wheless:

Anyone Care to comment re - Wheless?

{Vork recommends Is it God's Word? over Forgery in Christianity}

I recall going through Roger Pearse's list of problems with Wheless, and deciding that he had overstated many of them. His idea of what a "fair representation" was seemed to differ from mine.

But now that Pearse's name has been invoked, perhaps he will reappear.

Bede

Toto,

If you are going to write sanctimonious polemic in the manner of Wheless you should certainly be criticised for getting stuff wrong and misrepresenting it. Look at Steven Carr's hounding of Monty whom I didn't see you criticising, in fact you joined in.

Wheless is a good example of bad propaganda and it would do the anti-Christian cause no end of good to disown it like you have Graves (with, I now note, the exception of the lunatic fringe).

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

rlogan

Thanks everyone.

I was going through and checking sources on my own. Of course he's bombastic, and I rather liked that. But some of the more outrageous quotes needed checking.

One of them was from Pope Leo X: "What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us"?

He didn't cite it so I was suspicious. Turns out it was from a play called The Pageant of Popes written by John Bale.

So I took this piece from two perspectives. The first was the point of view that "interpolation" and such is in fact forgery. Why be coy about it? He's right. It's forgery.

The second thing it was useful for is more of a catalogue of indictments that should be checked into. Eusebius had already proven to me that he was untrustworthy. The fake list of popes is still clung to by the Catholic Church. Etc...

Anyway - yes, I was checking sources. As other writers here have commented, he does make some very good points.