DCHindley

Gee,

Boo hoo hoo! That was the first time I may have ever used those terms. I actually looked them up, and chose them over terminus a quo and terminus ad quem! Waaah!

<snif>

Well, golly, I was looking forward to learning something here. Spam, of all people I would expect you to be able to say something like "I think X or Y sounds like an issue that was hot at this or that point in a certain part of the world in the 3rd century (BCE or CE)."

Let's face it, you made some pretty specific "guesses":

I for my part think the comment about a woman shaving her head (1 Cor 11:6) was a sideways reference to Helena Queen of Adiabene who had converted to Judaism around 30 CE, made a 7 year nazirite vow and traveled to Jerusalem to discharge it around 45-46 CE. Tradition has it she was advised to re-do the entire 7 year vow entirely in the holy land, so may not have discharged it until as late as 52 CE.

Alternately, 2 Thess 2:3-6 is a reference to the emperor Gaius's desire to erect his statue in the Jewish temple and the efforts of Petronius the Governor of Syria to thwart this evil plans (ca. 39-40 CE).

There, nice identifiable dates.

DCH

IamJoseph

Pilate and the Temple destruction is true history, recorded in both Roman and Hebrew archives - the Gosples is not the same at all. There was no trial, and over a million Jews sacrificed themselves for upholding their belief - not even mentioned in your Gospels - which makes it a lie-by-omission. No excuses, no spin. Today, Europe is silent when the blood libels and the Protcols are paraded as truth in the islamic world - when those horrific falsehoods came from the vatican's own backyard.


Everything - including the samaritan story, and that of Barabus being freed.

And he was proven wrong, as was the Gospels - there are 1000s of bricks standing at the wall and Israel lives. Nazi Rome, which catholicism boastfully and proudly prefixed its name with - is no more. Europe was tested and failed - the revelling of Israel's demise is hardly vindicated. If anything the Jews must be hailed for preserving the right to one's beliefs - while Europe bowed low to Rome's brutal and insane divine emperors. There are TWO sides to a coin!


It is the Europeans who bought into the God of the jews and rejected Hellenism and Rome. But they did it wrongly - with a Norwegian doll presented as the correct Jew. Then came Islam and did the same. Those who never followed the God of Israel cannot tell Israel. Europe mass murdered billions of innocent folk in the name of their Jesus. Fact. Your a victim of the greatest hoaxes by mafioso gangs parading as religions, deflecting thier crimes on their favourite scapegoat.

The Hebrew bible is the world's most truthful writings in existence. More than 70% of its stats have been scientifically proven - no other writings can match this record - not even by period of time, volume of works and concencus. The reverse applies with the Gospels. There was no trial, Jews never conspired to kill your Lord - the reverse is the case.

storytime

And how is your side of the coin not a hoax perpetrated by imagined halos on Jewish heads?

spamandham

Sorry then. I've grown weary of the nonsense that people like JG bring to the forum and probably have too short a fuse for it.

So how do I arrive at this then? First, I start by observing that several letters attributed to Paul have been found to be wholy fraudulent. Then, I observe evidence of even more fraud throughout the "genuine" epistles, but I'm not going to provide a list of such occasions as I don't want to discuss it. Accept that as a given, or don't.

Ok, so my base assumption is *not* that the letters were written by 1 man, but that they were written by many authors over time.

Starting from that assumption, the idea that *a* date can be established is simply wrong. We have to date various fragments somewhat independently of the others, since that appears to be how the letters were constructed. So we're looking for a range of dates.

The upper bound for a fragment is the first extant copy of it, since even if it is referenced by another writer, we only have set the portions directly mentioned by that author. The existence of a letter in some form is not enough for living documents. We have to allow for the possibility that the unreferenced portions were different than what we have. There is little reason to presume this evolutionary process stopped before the canon was established. So the upper bound is possibly 4th century for portions.

What's the earliest possible date for portions? Here we can really only guess. But, if we assume that Christianity is the evolution of ideas rather than being revolutionary, then precursors to it must have existed in the centuries BCE. Overtones of the Teacher of Righteousness are found in Paul. For what it's worth, the following excerpt from the wiki could just as easily be describing Paul:

[WIKI] If we accept that Christianity grew out of this tradition, this sets a lower probable bound for portions of the text.

So why 125 then? It's a guess that allows for the radical's idea that Paul is a 2nd century construction, while still being earlier than the onslaught of mentions of Paul in the late 2nd century.

spamandham

This established the Gospels as reliable. The exact same process you used to establish the reliability of the Jewish scriptures.

You can't prove that, and since the reliability of the Gospels was established by real historical people and places (as confirmed independently by Roman sources), the Gospels are therefor 100% true history.

The Gospels are biographies of Jesus. John even states as much up front. Although they are 100% historically accurate in regards to what they record, they are not an attempt to provide a complete historical record of the day. And if you accept traditional datings, they were written prior to the 1st century massacres of which you allude.

The 'not one stone left standing' was a metaphor for the utter destruction of the ancient Jewish power structures within the Roman empire, which were indeed completely destroyed by Rome.

I don't know what to make of all this. It certainly has nothing to do with the 100% historical accuracy of the Gospels.

:constern02:

The irony is irresistably delicious.

*my* Lord? I think not.

show_no_mercy

The earliest, I'd guess, would have to be after the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek since it seems "Paul" is quoting from the LXX and not the Hebrew version.

The lastests, I'd guess, would have to be sometime before 140 since that's when Marcion introduced his canon.

spamandham

These are fine if you start by assuming one person wrote them over a relatively short period. I don't start with that.

radius

You must be aware that many works of fiction refer to real historical people and places - are you seriously suggesting that such references confirm the historical truth of the texts in which they are included?

Even these references are often inserted with too much zeal and too little care. Luke's reference to an empire-wide Roman census, conducted in Judea while both Herod and Quirinius were somehow in charge at the same time, is just the most obvious screw-up.