Vitalstatistix

I think you just explained why I hate reading newspapers.

Newton's Cat

The "standard" Greek version of Romans 1, 1-17 is the original Nestle version, the one which does not have "of Christ" in verse 16 (I have seen a recent "improved" Nestle version that leaves out "firstly" in verse 16 so that it reads "both to Jew and to Greek" rather than "both to Jew firstly and to Greek" - but leaving out the Greek word for "firstly" breaks up the structure; the original DID have the word "firstly").

There is "structure" in Mark's Gospel (over half of this Gospel as we have it today is later interpolation) - but I haven't found any in any of the other Gospels or in Revelations. I've also been unable to find any in the rest of Paul's texts.

There is also "structure" in the Hebrew text of Job - similar to that found in the NT. Maybe there was a "tradition" of using such techniques to protect the text from corruption?

Barefoot Bree

And off to BC&H we go.

mountainman

Additionally, the INVENTOR had access to the imperial Roman libraries
in which the manuscripts of Josephus et al were preserved. This tells
us that an emperor was involved. Constantine and Eusebius Pamphilus.

Moreover, we know of the two, one worked for the other.
Constantine was the INVENTOR,
Eusebius the literary implementor.


Correct. Additionally there is the future demonstration by core samples
of the extant literature before and after the year 325 CE, at which time
the supreme imperial mafia thug Constantine had just taken the entire
east-west Roman empire for his own, and decided to summon attendees
to the Council of Nicaea. We are told in fact a reason that this action
was taken by Constantine. We are told that the council was on account
of the words of Arius, reputed to be a man clever in disputation.

By core samples I mean this....

We are not looking at a continuous history like this:
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_003.htm

There is a chaotic boundary event separating the pre-Nicaean
epoch and the post-Nicaean epoch. The world changed at this
time. It groaned to find itself Arian whatever this means.
See instead the diagram here:
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_010.htm

We are looking at a monstrous and fictitious non-linear chaos
which ensued as the Arian controversy, with parties on all sides
totally in the dark as to the new and strange religion to which
one subscribed simply by one's signature ... to Constantine's will.

Only Constantine and Eusebius need have known that the whole
cloth fabrication of the NT (galilaeans) was a fiction of men
composed by wickedness.

The structure set in place by Constantine at the Council of Nicaea
gathered strength over the remaining 12 years of Constantine's rule
and then self-perpetuated itself after the death of the supreme
imperial thug Constantine, and his sponsored literary editor Eusebius.

Christianity is a fourth century inspired fiction thrust upon the
Romain empire by Constantine, to rid the scene of Hellenism,
and the problematic philosophy of the pythagoreans, recently
popularised by Iamblicus et al, and before him Philostratus, on
"The Life of Apollonius of Tyana".

Analysis of the literature from different authors of antiquity
on either side of this massive discontinuity (325 CE) will also
yield conformatory dynamics expected. The authors include these:
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_029.htm



Pete Brown

Gamera

An interesting thesis, Cat, but I think you have it backwards.

Most scholars conclude that Paul's epistles, which are not narrative, influenced the gospels, which are.

To take characters out of a non-narrative text and claim the texts still makes sense is almost tautological. Non-narrative texts don't rely on characters.

Narratives do. Take Jesus out of the gospels and you don't get past the first verse without them falling into incoherency.

So I've think you've done a good job showing that non-narrative texts don't need characters to move their arguments forward. But that doesn't make your point at all, especially in light of the appparent fact that Paul's non-narrative texts informed the narrative texts of the gospels. If Paul's texts lacked the character of Jesus, it's hard to understand how they could have informed the gospels narrative in the slightest. The influence seems to derive from the subject matter of Jesus, not the theological arguments, per se.

jgibson000

By whose standards is the first edition of Nestle the "standard" Greek version of Romans (or any other NT text, for that matter)?

Professionals in the field of text criticism and NT studies recognize almost universally that NA27/UBS 4 is the "standard" critical edition of the Greek text and the one that should be employed when doing NT studies.

And FWIW, this edition does not have "of Christ" (which BTW in Greek is only one word - CRISTOU) in it.

In any case, it seems (to my eyes at least) that you have still not answered the question put to you on how you arrived at your word count (let alone why 1000 is in any way significant). So let me put the question to you again: How did you determine how many words are actually in Rom. 1:1-17? Was this by counting the number of words that appear in an English translation of that section of Romans (and if so, which translation?), or by counting the number of words that one finds in the Nestle Greek text of that section?

I suppose we should also hear from you on whether or not you actually read Greek so that we can evaluate your claims about whethe particular words and phrases you think are interpolations in Rom 1:1-17 are, as you seem to be claiming, not vitally connected syntactically and grammatically to the larger text.

Jeffrey Gibson

Newton's Cat

When I first read the NT (in my late 20s) - from beginning to end in one sitting, when I came to Mark's Gospel and read about how ALL the people of Jerusalem and ALL the people of Judaea flocked out to John, I immediately saw that the author did not intend his readers (more likely his audience - the story of Jesus probably started out as a play) to believe that what was being described was an actual historical event.

Sort of:

Joe Bloggs came preaching by the River Thames, and ALL the people of London and ALL the people of the English countryside went out to him ....

Then came Hamish from Scotland ....

Remove the "Petrine influences" from Mark (over half the text) and one finds oneself with a text based on Greek thinking and mythological constructs rather than Jewish stuff.

... the big mystery about Mark's gospel is: Who was Jesus' father supposed to be? (in the original text Jesus may have had a different name)

Mark 1,29-31 was altered - in the original version Jesus healed his OWN mother-in-law.

Sauron

The questions are still not answered.

1. Where did you come up with your 1000 word count?
English?
Greek?
The back of a box of Captain Crunch?
Something else?

2. Why is 1000 a significant number?
As opposed to 666?
Or 144,000?
Or the 3rd root of pi?

Until you answer #1 and #2, your musings about the origins of christianity will not connect up with your semantic exercise in Romans.

Newton's Cat

Let us suppose that one has a document that consists of exactly 1000 characters. In this document the word God is used eight times. In each instance the first letter of the word God is an even number of letters from the beginning of the text, and in 7 out of the 8 instances the word God is an odd number of words from the beginning of the text. The context of the instance in which the word God is not an odd number of the words from the beginning of the text refers to God as the author's personal God, the other 7 instances do not. To find the author's concept of his personal God one adds up the positions of the first letters of the 8 uses of the word God and divides by 8 (the odds against this total dividing by 8 are 4-1 - but the total does divide by 8). The result identifies the first letter of the word "now", the context of its use indicating the "present moment".

Could the above have come about merely by chance? The statistical odds against it occurring by chance are VERY high!

Removing Jesus from the Greek text of Romans 1,1-17 results in a Greek text that is structured as above.

I have proved, BEYOND A SHADOW OF DOUBT, that the first 17 verses of Romans were subjected to interpolation by an author other than the person who wrote the original.

Furthermore - I can show that ALL references to Jesus & Christianity throughout Romans are almost certainly later interpolations or "bits added on".

The Gospel of Mark has also been subjected to a great deal of interpolation and alteration - and the Hebrew of the introduction to Job (and probably elsewhere in Job) has been deliberately altered.

The Bible, as we have it today, is a "Holy Fraud".

All you people have to go is sit down with the Greek (Nestle) version of Romans 1,1-17 and go through it yourself, checking the info I've posted. This is not Da Vinci Code stuff. It is not speculative "maybe" stuff that requires you to believe anything outlandish.

It is an incontroversial fact that the text (after removing the Jesus interpolations) is structured this way - and the structure could in no way have simply happened by chance - because similar techniques are used elsewhere in the NT - and in the OT!

Newton's Cat

Paul, called [to be] an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)

When one removes Jesus one is left with a guy called Paul (the name may have been altered) who is claiming to be the person the ancient prophets who wrote the holy scriptures forecast (at God's instigation) would be sent by God, bringing God's Gospel.

Paul is claiming to be the Messiah - a messenger from God.

I sometimes think to myself:

"If I'm right and Paul was the guy who originally put about the claim that the "promised Messiah" had come - and he was that person - then .... who am I to have this knowledge?"

Maybe God is using me, an atheist, to sort out the mess that resulted from his attempts to reform the world?