Jayhawker Soule

Anything that rises above the level of unsubstantiated assertion and conspiracy theory, friend.

Plebe

Hi Yuri,
It will be awhile for me to "digest" the contents of your website, but for fallacies and yet more fallacies, have you read Joseph Wheless "Forgeries in Christianity?" The link is included in my cut and paste which is posted elsewhere in these forums here at infidels.org I would be interested in your comments on Wheless' analysis of Church History as it relates to "truthfullness" in NT studies. Are you also a member of the "Jesus Mysteries" Yahoo! group? Here's a link to them which by the way has many links that may be useful to your scholarship efforts: <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JesusMysteries/" target="_blank">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JesusMysteries/</a>
...The link to "A Parable" is a favorite non-tract which I've added to my disk of non-tracts that are printed out for those who would proselytize me:
Below are some links to help Christians to know why Agnostics-Atheists feel Christianity has been thoroughly debunked. I have selected those articles and results of the search engines which cover the history of both Jewish and Christian Bibles and the influence of Zoroastrianism/Mithraism on both which is little known outside of Seminary and scholarly circles. You see, the vast majority of Christians are ignorant from a scholarly perspective and it isn't until they meet up with someone who knows where to find this scholarship that they begin to seriously realize there is verity to their doubts about the key tenets of their faith.
<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_wheless/forgery_in_christianity/index.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_wheless/forgery_in_christianity/index.shtml</a>

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/gerald_larue/otll/chap29.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/gerald_larue/otll/chap29.html</a>

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1994/4/4zoroa94.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1994/4/4zoroa94.html</a>

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/virgin_birth.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/virgin_birth.html</a>

http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&cof=L%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.infidels.org%2Fimages%2 Fsearchlogo2002a.gif%3BLH%3A64%3BLW%3A745%3BBGC%3A %23FFFFFF%3BT%3A%23000000%3BLC%3A%230000FF% 3BVLC% 3A%23800080%3BALC%3A%23FF0000%3BGALT%3A%230000FF%3 BGFNT%3A%23606060%3BGIMP%3A%23FF0000%3BAH%3Acenter %3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.infidels.org%2F%3B&domains =infidels.org%3Bsecweb.org%3Biidb.org&q=zoroastria nism&btnG=Google+Search&sitesearch=infidels.org

Non-tracts re Christianity, Women's rights and slavery can be found at <a href="http://www.ffrf.org" target="_blank">http://www.ffrf.org</a>

In closing, let me leave with a parable:

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/alex_matulich/why_i_believe/8_apndx.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/alex_matulich/why_i_believe/8_apndx.html</a>


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[ September 03, 2002: Message edited by: Plebe ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Yuri Kuchinsky,
Please illustrate the calculations you used to arrive at this figure for the mathematical probability of Mk being the source of both Mt and Lk.

Once its established that Mt, and Lk copied from Mk, the dating of Mark must be influenced by this fact, not on the basis of available Mss alone - there is a huge difference between the earliest(or available) MSS and the original MSS - what we have as the "earliest Mss" is most likely the work of a copyist so we cant date the gospel on available MSS alone.
And the dating would NOT invalidate the 2ST anyway. The bedrock of 2ST (specifically markan priority) to my knowledge is not the dating of the gospels.

This argument is also based on dating of Mark.

Is this all you have got against 2ST? Because if its all, with all due respect, I think you have a very weak argument.

You will have to methodically refute:

• Argument from Omission.
• Argument from Length.
• Argument from Diction.
• Argument from Grammar
• Argument from Aramaic Expressions.
• Argument from Redundancy.
• Argument from Difficulty
• Argument from Order.
• Argument from Literary Agreements.
• Argument from Redaction.
• Argument from Theology

The dating of Mark is not critical to 2ST. The only way I know one can crush 2ST is by demonstrating there was no copying from Mark, which you have vaguely claimed.

Where are they? When were they found? Why should they be more authentic than the Greek gospels? Even if they existed, that would only show that we have both Greek and Aramaic. What is the significance of what you call "primitive stuff" - what new info will it add to NT scolarship?

Skeptical
Constantine's role cannot be ignored
<a href="http://sxetikos.kypros.org/Library/ByzantineChurches/HistoryoftheOrthodoxChurch.htm" target="_blank">A History of Cyprus</a> says:

And of what influence did the council of Nicea have on the Gospels?

[ September 04, 2002: Message edited by: Intensity ]</p>

excreationist

In Acts, Paul said he was a Jew though (e.g. Acts 21:39). Without the OT and the Jewish religion, what is there to Christianity? Are you saying that Christianity was originally a Greek religion with no Jewish/OT elements?

Yuri Kuchinsky

OK, Kosh, let me clarify.

Old Syriac Aramaic gospels do actually exist, and you can even read them for yourself (in English translation, that is, as I assume you don't know the Syriac). These come from very ancient MSS, dating to 4th and 5th centuries (i.e. the same time-frame as our main Greek MSS). And I also happen to believe that their great _importance_ is being covered up in recent scholarship.

But because these Aramaic gospels come from the 4th and 5th centuries MSS, they are definitely not the originals of Mt, Mk, Lk, and Jn. And yet, they seem to preserve many elements of the much earlier texts, which may have possibly been originally written in Aramaic and/or Hebrew.

I hope this helps,

Yuri.

Layman

Actually, our earliest manuscript for Josephus is around the 10th Century.

Not to mention the impact this "methodology" would have on dating Plato, Homer, and Ceasar's writings as well (along with a myriad of others). Heck, up until the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, our earliest manuscripts of the Old Testament were actually later than our earliest manuscripts of the New Testmant. So according to Yuri, they should have concluded that the "New" Testament was written first and the "Old" Testament second. Indeed, perhaps he could have developed a theory that Christianity was actually the first religion and Judaim merely an offshoot.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hello, Skeptical,

My argument from the "Minor Agreements" (better described as the "Anti-Markan Agreements" between Mt and Lk) should be conclusive in and of itself. Please note that, on his webpage, Carlson doesn't mention their number, which is, as I say, around 1000. This is quite an omission, IMHO...

So what do we have here? Two documents that are supposedly completely independent and even unaware of each other (Mt and Lk) happen to agree with each other 1000 times against their putative common source (Mk). I will just say that in the normal world, populated by normal people, this idea will be seen as completely bizarre. Any way you slice and dice evidence, this idea will still be seen as completely bizarre. I rest my case.

"Intensity" asks me to illustrate my calculations for the mathematical probability of Mk being the source of both Mt and Lk. But this shouldn't be so difficult at all. Because what we're talking here about is 1000 coincidences! Indeed, we really need that many coincidences for 2ST to be valid. If Mt and Lk were truly completely independent of each other, being both based on Mk, then there shouldn't be _any_ "Anti-Markan Agreements" at all...

Well, perhaps because of some chance intervention of Fate, there might be 2 or 3 such "Anti-Markan Agreements", but certainly not 1000.

IMHO, the only way to deal with this big problem honestly is to resort to the proto-Mark theory, and this has already been done by various scholars, most recently by Koester. But in such a case, it's good bye 2ST -- as it's now generally known -- in any case...

Then, we're already getting into various Multi-Stage Theories, which is where I'm now.

If you want to present here some of Streeter's or Neirynck's arguments in support of the Markan priority, be my guest, but they will be very easy to dispose of.

As to the "positive evidence in favor of Markan priority", I don't know of any.

As to my argument #3 (Mk is the most Gentile of the Synoptics), your counter arguments are very weak. You're just resorting to the Fallacy #1 (THE 7 AUTHENTIC EPISTLES OF PAUL?). Because I don't believe that the picture of Paul as found in these "7 Authentic Epistles" is at all realistic. Paul simply couldn't have had any such big role in the movement during his lifetime. In the 1c, all authority still lay with the Jerusalem Church. And it's by no means certain that the Historical Paul wasn't Torah-observant himself.

So you've simply bought the grandiose picture of Paul, as portrayed in Gentile-oriented Catholic apologetics, lock stock and barrel. It would do good for you to read some of the stuff at the Journal of Higher Criticism site,

<a href="http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/artread.html" target="_blank">http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/artread.html</a>

But if this is accepted, then it's good bye 2ST -- as it's now generally known -- in any case...

<strong> No, it's not different at all. It's one and the same thing.

<strong> But we need to settle some of the general issues before we go into such particulars.

<strong> I don't need to explain this at all. I've already granted that Mk does preserve the shorter form of the earliest proto-gospel.

All the best,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Greetings, Plebe,

Yes, I'm well aware of Wheless' "Forgeries in Christianity", and I've read much of it. He's got the right attitude, but IMHO sometimes he does go a bit overboard with some of his critiques. It's really a little too relentless, and too narrowly focused.

Although sometimes I do feel exactly like him in regard to "truthfullness" in NT studies!

As to the "Jesus Mysteries" Yahoo group, guess what? ... Yes, I've been expelled from it, quite a while ago already!

The reason for that expulsion was never stated to me, so I just don't know. There are even a few of my posts in their archives, and I never said anything "bad", that's for sure.

I guess at that time I was still defending the idea of the Historical Jesus. But I've given this up more recently, since I now think that the Jesus Myth movement is actually a very positive thing, since they do expose some of the lies of our very corrupt academic NT industry.

All the best,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Dear Layman,

What you're missing here is that it was in nobody's interest to tamper with the works of Plato, Homer, and Ceasar's writings. The only interest of the ancient scribes who were copying these works was in their accurate preservation. (But in the cases where there _was_ some vested interest on the part of Christian scribes in tampering, such as Josephus testimony about Jesus, we _do_ find such tampering.)

And yet it was certainly in the interests of the Catholic Church -- who had almost complete custody of the scriptures -- to tamper with the text of the scriptures; and it's widely accepted that they did so well into the 3c and later.

So your analogy is invalid.

And, in any case, I'm not really saying that Mk was written in the 4c. What I'm saying is that all 4 gospels are primarily political documents, and so we can expect a lot of tampering there on the part of the Catholic Church -- until the text was more or less fixed permanently starting in the 4c.

All the best,

Yuri.

NOGO2

A simple question.
There is nothing surprizing to me about two writers agreeing about a common topic even against a third writer.

Two possible explanations would be (1) common experiences, (2) another unknown common source.

Is your arguement that 1000 is too many or that even one is too much?

Obviously the nature of these differences is also important.