gregor

If we're allowed to ask for other people to work on stuff, CX once indicated that he might compile a comprehensive list of the extant portions of the NT that are currently available. It started off like:

"33 CE to 150 CE - Nothing extant = 0%

"150CE - seven lines from presumably John (P52) = .3%

"200CE - etc. etc. = ? %

"Thus, prior to 400 CE we have ____% of the NT in preserved documents."

Is anyone familiar with such a summary?
Thanks

Julian

I am not familiar with any such list. The papyri are generally the earliest writings but dating by paleography gives us somewhat of a wide range for each fragment. Below is a list of the papyri. It is worth noting that we have 0% in the first century and almost 0% in the 2nd century, as well.

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bib...s/paplist.html

Julian

Hogan

Wow, I actually made it through this entire thread. Thank you to all who have contributed.. specially to the moderators.

I only started collecting some questions towards the end of reading through this, and the answers are probably in here somewhere... Hopefully I will not annoy with something repetitive..

Can you explain "Q" or "Q community development"

Also, I am a layman, so I only know the idiot version of dating "BC" and "AD". Can someone not only define these a little better (i.e. what they really stand for, and the line that divides them). And would you please ellaborate on variations I found in this thread "BCE" "CE", I think I saw "ADE", and the others?

About The Bible Unearthed it was said this was written for the layperson. Does the author skew conclusions based on personal beliefs? I am interested in this stuff, but I don't want to read a buch of crap about why I should believe one way or the other... I would rather draw my own conslusions.

The conclusion I have drawn from reading through this thread.....

There were a bunch of people a long long time ago that came up with a theory about our origin... that helped them understand why we are here.

A fair amount of time later there was an influential person that caused a raucus (SP?)

After they supposedly killed this trouble maker, people started telling storys, oral and written. These stories developed and changed over time... and grew in numbers.

Fast forward a couple hundred years and a bunch of self proclaimed smart religious guys took all the writings, fixed what they didn't like, threw out what they really didn't like, kept the rest, and called it the bible.

Anyone every hear of the Telephone Game and the Nixon tapes?

Dean Anderson

The Gospels of Matthew Mark and Luke are very similar. They contain much of the same material as each other.

Mark is the shortest, and is generally considered to have been written first.

Matthew and Luke both appear to have been written after Mark, and appear to have used Mark as a reference.

There are some bits of Matthew and Luke - particularly sayings of Jesus - that don't appear in Mark, but that are close to being word-for-word between the two of them. These bits are often placed in different parts of the two gospels, though, and the sayings are put in different contexts.

Therefore, most scholars think that these sayings come from a second source that the authors of Matthew and Luke used as a reference, as well as using Mark. This second source probably only had the sayings without context, since the authors of Matthew and Luke had to invent their own contexts for them.

This theory was first come up with by German scholars, who referred to this second source (which we do not have a copy of) as "Quelle 'Q'", which is the German equivalent of calling it "Source 'S'".

BC = Before Christ
AD = Anno Domini (which is Latin for "The Year of our Lord")

The Anno Domini system of dates - the system used throughout the Western world) was invented by a monk called Dionysius Exiguus (Latin for "Little Denis") in the year 525. He calculated that Jesus had been born 525 years before the current year, and proposed that this number should be used as a system for counting dates (before then, people usually counted dates based on local "The Xth year of the Reign of King Y" or "The Xth year since the founding of the Y Empire") since Jesus was more important than any mortal king or emperor. The Catholic Church adopted his system, and it has been used ever since.

As for the accuracy of Dionysius's actual date - If Jesus really existed, then the evidence that we have show that he was born before 4 BC and after 6 AD. Since this is impossible (6 AD is 9 years after 4 BC), the evidence must be wrong, and no-one knows the actual date. It would probably be within 10 years either side of the assumed date, though.

One thing to note, is that there is no year '0' in this system. We go straight from 1BC to 1AD. This sounds as if it would have been confusing for the people at the time, but of course they were still using "In the Xth year of the reign of King Y" systems. The concept of BC and AD were not known to them.

CE and BCE are exactly the same as AD and BC (for example this year is both 2006 AD and 2006 CE), but refer to "Common Era" and "Before Common Era".

These represent a modern renaming suitable for our global society, since it would be offensive for (for example) Hindus to make them refer to dates "in the year of our Lord".

Some people say that AD and BC should still be used and they are as traditional and inoffensive to non-Christians as our use of "Thursday" is to Christians (as "Thursday" is "the Day of Thor"). CE and BCE seem to have caught on in historian and archaeologist circles, but the general public have often never heard of them and still use AD and BC.

My personal experience is that I have been told off when posting on some Christian boards for using CE and BCE, since ironically they find those dates offensive for "denying Christ".

I have never head of an "ADE" system for dates, but on this thread there has been mentioned a "AUC" date system. AUC stands for "Ab Urbe Condita" (Latin for "From the city having been founded") and is the local system of dates that was used in ancient Rome, counting from the founding of the city of Rome itself. Unfortunately, these dates often have to be taken with a pinch of salt, since the Roman historians couldn't agree when the city was supposed to have been founded!

In a word - No. The main author (Professor Israel Finkelstein of the University of Tel Aviv) is Jewish by race, but after having read the book a few times, I could not tell you whether he is a secular Jew or a religious Jew. Whatever his religious beliefs are, they are not apparent from his work. He sticks to the archaeology.

Hogan

thank you Pervy

Chunk

SQ?

The theoretical signs gospel that join used. Ive read on Peter Kirbys site some strong arguements that such a document did exist.

How do we begin to determine where stories of these signs came from? If you date SQ before the cannonical gospels, that only leaves 40 years at the very most, for some pretty out there "signs" to be created through myth.

Is it normally taken that they are based on things that Jesus did, but that have just been massively blown out of proportion?

Chunk

Im finding it difficult to get a grasp of what exactly was going on shortly after Jesus was supposed to have died.

People posting on her seem to make it sound like a fact that Christianity was a very varied and mixed bag in its early days. What is this based on?

So do we basically have the orthodox view of Christianity that we know today, and the gnostic approach to it, that must have "lost" the battle against orthodoxy? Is that all?

I here reference to christ cults and mystery cults etc all the time, where do we get information on these? Why do we assume they actually existed.

Toto

What is SQ?

Why are you assuming that the Signs gospel would have evolved over more than a generation? It only takes one creative person to write a religious document.

There is no particular reason to think that the gospel is based on history, unless you are committed to that point of view.

We know that things were varied because the orthodox faction spent a lot of time stamping out heresies. Even in Paul's letters, you find references to people teaching a different Christ or the wrong doctrine, or conflict between the Jerusalem Church and Paul.

What do you mean "all?" The Gnostics include a wide variety of different views. Orthodoxy itself changed over time.

There are references to mystery cults through all of ancient Greek and Roman historical literature. including Christian writers.

BoNey

First off, I apologize if this question's been asked and answered already, but who are all the "scholars" that everyone talks about? Can anyone give me specific names?

Also, how do these scholars, both in number and credentials, stack up against Christian scholars (I know, "scholar" might not be the most appropriate term for these people, but bear with me ) who insist that the status quo on the Bible is correct (that it is consistent, historically acurate, etc)?

Again, sorry if this has been asked :notworthy:

Toto

Scholars are people who have academic degrees and interact with others who have academic degrees and teach at Universities. This interaction includes a certain amount of peer review, and also a certain pressure to conform ("group think.")

Some of these scholars are Christians, and some try to justify the Bible, but that is a hard argument to make.

There are also amateurs who do scholarship, but generally have less peer review, although some probably produce better work than some professionals.

Christians who argue for the truth of the Bible are known as apologists. Some have academic degrees, most do not.