spin

OFF-TOPIC

Haran:
--------------
Atheism provides no better answer to the question of life and morals. In fact, my theory says that the closer to non-belief, the more likely this kind of thing is to happen.
--------------

I think you are simply misguided here because of your religious commitments, Haran.

You cited at least one person who was specifically reacting against religion as though that were representative of non-religiousness. We have a history of religious aggression against those who do not follow the dominating religion, riots, deaths, burning of books, persecutions, burning at stakes, etc, etc.

You then have the temerity to point out one person who reacted against religion in an apparently deranged manner as though it were representative of something uniformly meaningful. When religion stops being the strangler of children that it has been for millennia, then partially stranged children will not react so violently.

Religion has tended to do awful things in society with its effect of killing any opposing views. A non-religious society based not on the reactions against incroachments on its pronouncements but interactions with them leads to individuals more able to cope with differences.

Religion tends to smother differences and sweep them under the carpet. It's a little like Tito and his artifical Yugoslavia, which smothered the racial unrest that had existed for centuries. When Tito died in a changing the world, Yugoslavia was not able to hold itself together and in the break-up all the smothered unrest came out again. Individuals within a society need to participate. If they are suppressed, then they will bear rebellion. Religion has that propensity of suppression.

END OF OFF-TOPIC MESSAGE.

[ April 01, 2002: Message edited by: spin ]</p>

spin

Haran:
--------------
Aside from this, I don't see much substance to your dismissal of the theory that Matthew wrote first except to deny that Papias must have meant what he wrote.
--------------

This is you, the believer, speaking. You are not analysing the historical problems involved -- though at least Papias is closer to the supposed events than Africanus!

One can gain information word of mouth that one trusts, despite the fact that such information can be wrong. Papias may have believed his information, but how do you test it? He makes claims about what Matthew was supposed to have written, saying that it was written in Hebrew. Any commentary on Matthew will tell you that there is no sign of the gospel having been written originally in Hebrew. In fact the majority of old testament quotes are from the LXX, including words in the mout of Jesus. There are no typical errors known from translation from Hebrew into Greek. Therefore we should conclude that Papias's information is at best questionable.

Haran:
--------------
I suppose this viewpoint which several here maintain is beginning to irritate me. If it is a writer writing for and about Christianity they must have been lying or twisting the truth.
--------------

This is not the case. You must have coherent criteria for dealing with texts, criteria which must be applicable to all ancient texts, not just one group. There is no implication of "lying or twisting the truth" so much (at least from my point of view), but of guaranteeing the veracity of the sources. We must be able to test them in some meaningful way. I haven't found any way to do so with much of the gospel material.

Haran:
--------------
Please... Why would the early church fathers have said these things?
--------------

This could be a mixture of what they received from other people and what they were able to make out from their sources using their own intellects.

How data is gathered is a difficult area. You know of examples where numerous people relate events and each relates it from one's own perspective filtering it through one's own assumptions.

And read Didache when it talks about wandering preachers.

Haran:
--------------
Why would several well-known scholars take up this view in spite of the current scholarly trend? Perhaps to challenge the status quo? I usually fall in line with mainstream scholarship, but here I part company...
--------------

Why do you think, for example, that there is such a conflict over the event or non-event of the exodus? For some people sacred cows are sacred cows. Other people are prepared for sacrifices.

Haran

All of this teaching about criteria and testing from one who rejects verses when there is no physical evidence whatsoever for that theory? This from one who seems to posit the existence of a hypothetical source called "Q"? You have your pet unprovable theories and I suppose I have mine. What I propose is possible in my opinion if not probable...that Matthew wrote sayings, each translated them into Greek as best he could, Peter possibly used these in his teachings...maybe, Mark used them along with Peter's teachings to compile his gospel account. I'm curious what you make of the aramaic in the New Testament that was left untranslated... Anyway, it's a theory... There is some support for it and whether you like or trust that support is irrelavant to me.

There is a medium between what you falsely accuse me of (completely and uncritically believing everything in ancient sources) and denying that they have anything productive and possibly true to say (which seems to me to be the majority position here). While "hearsay" may not be admissible as evidence in court, it is not necessarily false... It is hard to find the appropriate criteria to avoid excluding things that might just be true.

Haran

Haran

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=52&t=000106" target="_blank">Morals</a>

Thanks,
Haran

spin

Haran:
------
All of this teaching about criteria and testing from one who rejects verses when there is no physical evidence whatsoever for that theory?
------

Sorry, Haran, but you failed to understand the basic principles of interacting with the source documents.

We have texts (in this case Galatians) which cannot be dated beyond the earliest versions which we have. There is clear evidence that such texts had been manipulated after the time of the earliest versions, so there is no reason not to assume that such had been done earlier.

Haran:
------
This from one who seems to posit the existence of a hypothetical source called "Q"?
--------------

Q is a hypothesis. It is the best hypothesis to explain the relationships between the synoptic gospels down to the linguistic level even. I have seen no-one come up with a comparably adequate hypothesis to deal with the synoptic problem.

Haran:
--------------
You have your pet unprovable theories and I suppose I have mine. What I propose is possible in my opinion if not probable...that Matthew wrote sayings, each translated them into Greek as best he could, Peter possibly used these in his teachings...maybe, Mark used them along with Peter's teachings to compile his gospel account.
--------------

Ie you accept Papias. Why? How did he get the information? How do you test what Eusebius has preserved of Papias? You seem to have such a story of epistemological problems that it will take you a lifetime to resolve.

Haran:
--------------
I'm curious what you make of the aramaic in the New Testament that was left untranslated...
--------------

Given the content of the Aramaic expressions, ie totally trivial things, they don't have any weight in themselves, but would best be described as magic phrases (of the type abracadabra, remembering that phrase's history) to help set the environment of the stories told.

Haran:
--------------
Anyway, it's a theory... There is some support for it and whether you like or trust that support is irrelavant to me.
--------------

Aramaic is not Hebrew. These few trivial Aramaic comments in the gospels have helped to spread a false idea that Aramaic had killed Hebrew as a living language in Judea around the time of Herod.

Haran:
--------------
There is a medium between what you falsely accuse me of (completely and uncritically believing everything in ancient sources) and denying that they have anything productive and possibly true to say (which seems to me to be the majority position here).
--------------

If you interact critically with your sources, you need to do so coherently. Arbitrary application of methodology only reflects the conclusions that the arbitrary nature of the application desired.

Haran:
--------------
While "hearsay" may not be admissible as evidence in court, it is not necessarily false...
--------------

Merely untestable and therefore useless.

Haran:
--------------
It is hard to find the appropriate criteria to avoid excluding things that might just be true.
--------------

You have to put things on hold that cannot be tested. It's a bit like the distinctions between theism, agnosticism and atheism. Agnostics continue without making belief statements. The effect may seem to the theist to be the same as the atheist, but as there is no belief attached to the situation, the agnostic can easily, on getting more information, integrate it in their systems of world understanding.

Haran

I believe not. I think CX would at least agree with me on this. What you have decided in this case has no physical support. You say "there is clear evidence that such texts had been manipulated", but there's a problem...this section was not. Using your criteria, I could pick nearly any verse in the New or Old Testaments and say it was an interpolation because we don't have the autographs. For that matter, since some of your posts say that they have been modified since you posted, I think someone else came along and stuck something in there that you didn't mean to say. Utterly ridiculous. I'm not sure I want to hear from you on "criteria"...

Exactly, it is a hypothesis like mine. You believe it deals the best with the evidence (though excellent scholars like Mark Goodacre might disagree). My theory explains the numerous comments about Matthew having written first. You have yet to explain why the early church fathers would say this... Why did they care? Why not have the book of John first, or Luke? Do you have a good explanation for the church fathers' statements or do you just ignore the data because it doesn't fit in well with the theories of the majority of modern scholars?

I've already told you that the church fathers state over and over again that the information they received was handed down by trusted sources.

What? Perhaps you forgot Eli Eli lama sabachthani... I don't think that was a "magic phrase". I think I've read that somewhere before.

[quote]
<strong>Aramaic is not Hebrew. These few trivial Aramaic comments in the gospels have helped to spread a false idea that Aramaic had killed Hebrew as a living language in Judea around the time of Herod.</strong>[quote]

I think I remember reading somewhere that the church fathers made no distinction between Aramaic and Hebrew. Check me and provide sources if I am wrong. I may have read that in the Aland's Text of the NT, but I don't remember. Perhaps it was John Meier's A Marginal Jew... Who knows...

You might have a hard time convincing people that Hebrew was a "healthy" living language. My own belief is that Aramaic and Greek were both in use, sort of like English and Spanish is here in Texas and elsewhere across this part of the nation. Hebrew, I believe, was reserved for the more learned. Jesus possibly read Greek or something akin to the Aramaic Targums, IMHO.

People work based on assumptions and hearsay everyday. Who knows, they may provide the door to something that can eventually be tested when the right evidence comes to light.

I love possibilities...

Haran

Sojourner553

I said it was my fault in trying to answer your challenge. I said "I" should have moved it to another board.

You interpreted attacks where none exist.

Please challenge my beliefs -- where you can -- haha. Let's just move to the Moral Foundation or Existence of God boards so we don't bother everyone else.

Sojourner

[ April 01, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

spin

Haran:
------
All of this teaching about criteria and testing from one who rejects verses when there is no physical evidence whatsoever for that theory?
------

spin:
------
Sorry, Haran, but you failed to understand the basic principles of interacting with the source documents.
------

Haran:
------
I believe not. I think CX would at least agree with me on this. What you have decided in this case has no physical support. You say "there is clear evidence that such texts had been manipulated", but there's a problem...this section was not.
------

There is clear evidence that such texts have been manipulated. This is why we have so many different manuscripts: remember he who is without sin? This means that we have evidence that such things were done, hence my hypothesis is based on track record, not evidence that it was physically done here, otherwise I wouldn't need the hypothesis. Somehow I get the idea that you want to have all or nothing. This ain't how it's done.

Haran:
------
Using your criteria, I could pick nearly any verse in the New or Old Testaments and say it was an interpolation because we don't have the autographs.
------

You need reason for proposing the hypothesis. Don't attempt reductio ad absurdum. It's not relevant.

Haran:
------
For that matter, since some of your posts say that they have been modified since you posted, I think someone else came along and stuck something in there that you didn't mean to say. Utterly ridiculous. I'm not sure I want to hear from you on "criteria"...
------

Boring. This is apologetic rubbish, Haran. You can do better.

spin:
------
Q is a hypothesis. It is the best hypothesis to explain the relationships between the synoptic gospels down to the linguistic level even. I have seen no-one come up with a comparably adequate hypothesis to deal with the synoptic problem.
------

Haran:
------
Exactly, it is a hypothesis like mine. You believe it deals the best with the evidence (though excellent scholars like Mark Goodacre might disagree).
------

Goodacre's stuff was pretty holey when I last looked and I doubt if anything else has come along.

Haran:
------
My theory explains the numerous comments about Matthew having written first. You have yet to explain why the early church fathers would say this... Why did they care?
------

Why did the early church father Tertullian say that the Ebionites were from a person called Ebion? He didn't have a clue about the origin of the Ebionites. People get information which can be wrong. This is why one needs to be able to verify it somehow, if it is not from the period.

And how do you explain the use of LXX citations in Matt, huh? Forgot the Hebrew or something?

Haran:
------
Why not have the book of John first, or Luke? Do you have a good explanation for the church fathers' statements or do you just ignore the data because it doesn't fit in well with the theories of the majority of modern scholars?


spin:
------
Ie you accept Papias. Why? How did he get the information? How do you test what Eusebius has preserved of Papias? You seem to have such a story of epistemological problems that it will take you a lifetime to resolve.
------

Haran:
------
I've already told you that the church fathers state over and over again that the information they received was handed down by trusted sources.
------

You'll believe the tooth fairy as well. Get a line of people and whisper something in the first's ear and what you get will hardly sound anything like what you started with. Would you trust the Jewish trusted oral sources which are the source of the rabbinical literature?

Trusted sources mean nothing when doing history. The only works you trust are those that have been proven repeatedly and then you don't trust them very far.

spin:
------
Given the content of the Aramaic expressions, ie totally trivial things, they don't have any weight in themselves, but would best be described as magic phrases (of the type abracadabra, remembering that phrase's history) to help set the environment of the stories told.
------

Haran:
------
What? Perhaps you forgot Eli Eli lama sabachthani... I don't think that was a "magic phrase". I think I've read that somewhere before.
------

You'll note that Matthew has it in the Hebrew! Explain how it got into Mark as eloi eloi..., if Mark got it from Matt or how anyone hearing it would get it confused with Eliyah.

spin:
------
Aramaic is not Hebrew. These few trivial Aramaic comments in the gospels have helped to spread a false idea that Aramaic had killed Hebrew as a living language in Judea around the time of Herod.
------

Haran:
------
I think I remember reading somewhere that the church fathers made no distinction between Aramaic and Hebrew. Check me and provide sources if I am wrong. I may have read that in the Aland's Text of the NT, but I don't remember. Perhaps it was John Meier's A Marginal Jew... Who knows...
------

It is total rubbish Haran. Read the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most of the new texts from Qumran were written in Hebrew. Read the Murabba'at texts, also many written in Hebrew. The Hebrew of these texts show that the language was being spoken due to the efforts to represent the spoken language. To understand this, see Elisha Qimron, "The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls".

Haran:
------
You might have a hard time convincing people that Hebrew was a "healthy" living language.
------

That's because they don't look at the evidence. Tell me why the Dead Sea Scrolls have particular usage of the "vowel" letters to indicate pronunciation other than that it was a spoken language.

The Dead Sea Scrolls have killed this old assumption about Aramaic.

Haran:
------
My own belief is that Aramaic and Greek were both in use,
------

That they were. Hebrew was also solidly in use.

Haran:
------
Hebrew, I believe, was reserved for the more learned. Jesus possibly read Greek or something akin to the Aramaic Targums, IMHO.
------

You should be more humble. Why are marriage contracts from Murabba'at written in Hebrew if it were some more learned language? You don't sign something you don't understand.

spin:
------
You have to put things on hold that cannot be tested.
------

Haran:
------
People work based on assumptions and hearsay everyday. Who knows, they may provide the door to something that can eventually be tested when the right evidence comes to light.

I love possibilities...
------

This is: old habits in history that are being weaned out. You may love possibilities, but they are not food in themselves for history. They may be the start of an analysis, but you need evidence for an analysis, so you have to go beyond the possibilities. Otherwise, you just have nice thoughts. Possibilities are what drive scientists to look at things in new ways. If they don't lead to new fruit, ie methods which can be supported by evidence, then the possibility is passed by.

I like possibilities as well. I am a strong lateral thinker. But you must understand the process of evidence.

Sojourner553

Spin is right on this topic Haran. Do you really think the Christian sources are pure?

If you answer yes, explain some of these examples for Spin and myself....


(1) In Josephus' ANTIQUITIES (c 93 C.E.), the author who was not a Christian states:

At about this time lived Jesus, a wise man, IF INDEED ONE MIGHT CALL
HIM A MAN. For he was one who accomplished surprising feats and was a
teacher of such people as are eager for novelties. He won over many
of the Jews and many of the Greeks. HE WAS THE MESSIAH

Virtually everyone agrees there were interpolations here.

(2) "FAKED" Genealogies of Christian Bishop Successions

By the third century, most orthodox congregations, in an effort to prove
their "legitimacy" for authority--compiled lists of bishops, each being
consecrated by the former--who purportedly went back to the very founding of
the church by Jesus' apostles. The idea was probably borrowed from gnostics,
who claimed that THEIR teachers had also gone all the way back to Jesus'
disciples, from whom they were transmitting the power of "gnosis". (The
gnostic Valentinus, for example, claimed to have been taught by Theodas, a
disciple of Paul.)

The fourth century chronicler Eusebius referred to succession lists as
"proof" that orthodox Christianity had a tradition of authority that went all
the way back to Jesus. An analysis of these lists by scholars and historians
has, however, presented a different view: For example, the succession proofs
in Edessa, Syria are generally believed to have been manufactured by Bishop
Kune, the first orthodox bishop of the church--who was a CONTEMPORAY of
Eusebius (fourth century C.E.).

There is evidence that Christianity was instead originally brought into
the area by Manichean missionaries around the year 150 C.E. Likewise in
Egypt, gnostic Christian groups appeared to have been the majority Christian
group in the upper Nile valley (which is also the area where the Nag Hammadi
gnostic texts were discovered in 1947). The first orthodox bishop, is believed
to have been Bishop Demetrius (189-231 C.E.) A genealogy list of ten
mythological bishop predecessors which purported to go all the way back to
Mark, and therefore Peter and Jesus, is believed by many scholars to have
been faked. (Paul Johnson, A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, p 52)

_______________________________________
. Eusebius is also infamous for saying that it was necessary to lie for the
cause of Christianity. In his Praeparatio Evangelica 12.31, listing the ideas Plato supposedly got from Moses, he states:

"That it is necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a medicine for those who
need such an approach. [As said in Plato's Laws 663e by the Athenian:] 'And
even the lawmaker who is of little use, if even this is not as he considered it,
and as just now the application of logic held it, if he dared lie to young men for a good reason, then can't he lie? For falsehood is something even more useful than the above, and sometimes even more able to bring it about that everyone willingly keeps to all justice.' [then by Clinias:] 'Truth is beautiful, stranger, and steadfast. But to persuade people of it is not easy.' You would find many things of this sort being used even in the Hebrew scriptures, such as concerning God being jealous or falling asleep or getting angry or being subject to some other human passions, for the benefit of those who need such an approach. "
. . .
"Regarding Eusebius' use of this and other passages in book 12, Edwin Hamilton
Gifford says "In Books X-XII Eusebius argues that the Greeks had borrowed
from the older theology and philosophy of the Hebrews, dwelling especially on
the supposed dependence of Plato upon Moses." (Introduction, Preparation for
the Gospel, 1903). So in a book where Eusebius is proving that the pagans got
all their good ideas from the Jews, he lists as one of those good ideas Plato's
argument that lying, indeed telling completely false tales, for the benefit of the state is good and even necessary. Eusebius then notes quite casually how the
Hebrews did this, telling lies about their God, and he even compares such lies
with medicine, a healthy and even necessary thing."

__________________________________________

(3) Constantine's mother, Helena played an important role in locating early relics. Being blessed with "prophetic powers", Helena set off on a religious archeological expedition to the Holy Land in 326 C.E. with the Christian chronicler Eusebius at her side. Jerusalem had been a Roman pagan city since 132 C.E. (ie after the defeat of the Jews in the second Jewish
Revolt.) Helped partly by local Christians in the area, Helena used her powers to divine the EXACT location where Jesus was born (now the site of
the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem), Jesus' trail in carrying his cross (celebrated as the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem) and the site of the crucifixion(now the site of the Church of the Holy sepulcher in Jerusalem.)

According to the Christian writer Socrates Scholasticus, Helena also discovered Jesus' cross while in Jerusalem. She was said to have located
during this time, not one but three crosses lying side by side. To determine which one of the three was the authentic cross of Jesus, she reportedly
applied a piece of each cross to a dead body. One of them raised the man from the dead, and was thus discovered as the "true" cross. (Sulpicius
Severus, CHRONICLE 2.34.4)


There are a bunch of religious forgeries from the second century (purporting the Emperor Tiberius converted to Christianity and other silliness.)

But start with the above -- I'd like to hear you HONESTLY respond whether you think any of these sources were "tainted".

Your admiration for Eusebius' integrity is not justifiable, at a minimum


Sojourner

[ April 02, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

CX

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. I certainly am not one to dismiss out of hand the writings of the church fathers simply because they are church fathers. I am not suggesting that Papias is lying or intentionally twisting the truth. I just think Papias isn't very reliable based on his own attitudes and those of later church father's towards him. I further cannot see any reason to think that later referrences don't depend on Papias' rather terse comment. Papias was regarded as having known those who actually knew the apostles so his testimony is relied on heavily for authority. All the authorial attributions for the gospels are late 2nd century when the church needed apostolic authority to seperate it's writings from those of other heretical sects.

Personally it makes little difference to me whether Matthew wrote first or not. It is clear that canonical GMt is not the first gospel written. Any speculation about a semitic proto-Matthew is just that...speculation.