TomboyMom

Still moving along now to 4. Ignatius. A quick trip to Wiki tells me that he was an early Christian bishop who died around 100 C.E. He wrote quite a few letters which constitutue some of the earliest Christian writings. Again, Patriot, did you even read this list, or just cut and pasted it without any idea what it is a list of? Do you really think that letters of Christian bishops who died 70 years after Jesus is what people mean by "extra-biblical references?" I mean, true, it didn't actually make it into the bible, but I think most people are talking about non-Christian sources, and a little more contemporary, don't you?

mountainman

Hi Ben,

You make the inference that Eusebius is not the author Irenaeus,
or the author Philip Sidetes, or indeed Papias.

From your web page Eusebius writes:
Perhaps two centuries separate the purported existence of Eusebius
and these other ancient men whom (Constantine through) Eusebius
wants us to think he is quoting.

We are led inexhorably to make the inference that these ancient
men have an existence independent of the fourth century scribe
Eusebius.

But why do we make this inference?
Is it a leap of faith?




Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au

TomboyMom

Still moving down the list to 5. Iranaeus, a bishop of Lyons who is thought to have been born between 115 and 135 CE, and died around 200 CE. Patriot, as I move down this list, I'm just completely befuddled as to what it is supposed to be a list of, early church fathers? Why on earth would you consider the writings of the early Christian leaders to be unbiased corroboration of the life of Jesus?

JGL53

Well, let's say we would all agree on the existence of a person named jesus who lived about 2K years or so ago, and upon whom the legend of the christ is based (the same kind of thing probably explains Beowulf).

OK. This raises the question "So what?". Is there some alleged extra-biblical, eye-witness accounts somewhere concerning walking on water, raising the dead, healing lepers, casting demons out of the insane into swine, and having a mother who was a virgin and a father who was a ghost?

IOW, is there any historical (non-biblical) evidence for the legend of the christ being historical - any more so than there is historical evidence for the tigers in Little Black Sambo actually having spun around a circle and turned into actual butter?

BTW, Ben, what do you make of the info on this site:

http://www.atheists.org/christianity/realbible.html

If even one tenth of this is true, then why would anyone view christianity as anything other than a man-devised religion?

gilly54

I, too, am trying to get a handle on when early Christian writings appeared. I read an LTE in our local paper by a priest saying that because the Bible gospels were written "a few years" after Jesus' death, they are true and the Gnostic Gospels which were written around 325, are not. Of course, a priest would have this view.

I came across this site Early Christian Writings,with a timeline. Do the learned amongst you agree with these dates, or do they need updating?

TomboyMom

gilly54, you might want to spend a minute with the basic questions sticky in this forum. Also you can post questions there and the brilliant people in this forum will fill you in.

Toto

We recommend that site all the time. The dates there are the scholarly consensus of dates, probably accurate to within a century or two.

If you study the question of dating, you will find a lot of uncertainty, and the more you read, the less certain you may become.

Chris Weimer

Oddly enough, Peter Kirby, sitting next to me, is laughing right now. He'll be glad that the "learned amongst you" approve of his site.

Or according to some, a century or three.

Clivedurdle

Does the ECW list need another column, for example letters of Paul - Marcionite - 140?

Ezkerraldean

ha, shows how much i paid attention in RE classes