Biff the unclean

This is an odd paper chase. I've been looking for Celsus to prove myself wrong before I'm embarrassed in public. What I've found so far is that what we know about Celsus comes from Origen, but what we know about Origen comes from Eusebius. So again we are after 325CE.

Butters

Now Biff, let me get this straight. When you say What we know of Oeigen comes from Eusebius, do you mean EVERYTHING we know about him?, or just what he knew of the Gospels? I realize that you have not researched this fully yet, so I'm not holding you to anything. I have no idea myself, but I would find it very interesting!

Sojourner553

Biff,

If you read your history, the fourth century Christian church was very intolerant -- first declaring all other forms of Christianity other than Orthodoxy as heretical (even before turning their hatred against the pagans).

Here is some of what Origin quoted from Celsus. No conservative Christian would ever originate the RATIONALITY that resonates here:

<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/CHURCH.TXT" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/CHURCH.TXT</a>
<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html</a>

Ditto to why their dogma was opposed to

* a ministry that stressed it was evil to be rich and blessed the poor and meek. [When the Bible was first translated in the vernacular, the Catholic church and kings joined together to put down the popular revolts by the peasants it caused.]

* giving women equal rights with men. Have you not heard all the controversy in the Catholic church letting women into the laity. This again, originated with the Orthodox.

Sojourner

[ December 05, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

CX

This isn't entirely true. Some of the early MSS evidence is more than sufficient for establishing a &lt;i&gt;terminus ad quem&lt;/i&gt; for various NT texts. In addition there are internal considerations that correlate with known historical facts outside the the NT (not related to the gospel stories per se but relative to the environment surrounding Xianity a various times from which we can identify themes within the NT text addressed to those circumstances). This is really not all that different from most other documents from antiquity. When studying history physical evidence is not the only source of reliable information any more than such would be the case in the physical sciences. Writings styles are another great way of dating MSS. Writing styles change deomstrably over time and by analyizing the writing of an undated document and comparing it to a dated document is are reasonably secure way of dating the document given enough exemplars. In that regard the Oxrhynchus find in Egypt was a gold mine of information. Anyone who take the notion that the NT was not written until the 4th century seriously is simply ignorant of all the facts.

For anyone who is interested in grasping the tradtional scholarly view of NT dating and development I would strongly recommend reading a good intro text.

CX

The oldest known MSS fragment is P52. It is a tiny scrap of GJn amounting to perhaps 33 words or so. It is dated solely on the basis of paleography. Paleography has been demonstrated to be accurate + or - 25 years or so using dated documents as a control. Why we cannot give an exact date for P52 we can say with reasonable confidence that it dates to roughly the middle of the second century (125-175 C.E.) I have no idea what you could be referring to that dates to 80 C.E. as far as I know there is no MSS evidence at that early stage of development. Furthermore it wouldn't be GJn anyway since scholars suggest that wasn't written until the middle to late 90's at the earliest.

Jayhawker Soule

Could you cite the source or sources substantiating this assertion?

CX

prolly. But you'll have to give me some time since I read that a long time ago and ahve absolutely no recollection where. Although it's certainly possible that I read it from someone who made it up. I'll have to check it out.

Atticus_Finch

Upon what basis do you assert that they could not have been earlier than 70?

Regards,

Finch

Biff the unclean

Thank you CX for pointing out my ignorance, but I'm married with children so I already have people to do that job.
I'm still interested to know how an upper date can be claimed by just looking at a writing style. I fully understand the oldest date as you cannot use a "font" before it is designed. But once it exists, it exists. There is nothing really to stop you from writing in that style today.

All I can find in searching for Oxrhynchus are the coins found there, for sale. A good number of them from Diocletian which puts the find from the age of Constantine...again.

Biff the unclean

Upon what basis do you assert that they could not have been earlier than 70

In perfect honesty I have no bases on which to assert that any of them were written before 325CE as that is the oldest date that any bibles that have dated dedications come from.

There are some scraps and flakes that are dated by "Paleography", which I consider a dubious method at best, that are dated from the second century.
I have heard the date 70 CE bandied about a great deal as the date of the authorship of the Gospels, though never one earlier. I have never recieved a straight answer as to how this 70 CE date was arrived at, or why it should even be considered.