Metacrock

Not reading the footnotes on the very soruces you bring up seems to epitomize those who argue with the HJ guys. It's in the fn on Melto. Look it up.

Yuri Kuchinsky

I suggest we should discuss evidence here, rather than credentials.

Quote:

OK forget the credentials thing. Sorry I brought it up. Let me ask you this. I saw on your page the argument that dating methods in general can be flawed. This is what it seemed to me you were saying: 1) dating can be flawed

No, this is not my argument. Rather, my argument is that palaeographic dating has its limitations, that should be always kept in mind.

Quote:

2_ P52 is dated with these same methods 3) therefore, p52 is flawed. from that you conclude its a 'fraud' which seems like a huge leap in logic and a very serious charge to make, not backed up by any evidence. that seems like a fallacious way of reasoining. Surely you accept the validity of dates of other MS, what makes them better? What specifically shows that p52 is flawed?

You really misunderstood my argument.

My main point was that, at best, palaeographic dating can only give the date of a MS within the range of +/- 100 years. Further, to disregard these limits to what palaeographic dating can and cannot do legitimately would be dishonest.

OK, let's give here an example that everyone should be able to understand. Let's suppose that you were going through some old stuff in an attic, and among some junk found a short hand-written note that looks very old, but has no date on it. Let's say it's a very old house, and the note could have been written anytime from the 18th century to the early 20th century. Nothing in the note itself gives any indication of who wrote it or when.

So, you show this small piece of paper to some guy, and the fellow says, "This note was written ca 1825. I know this because I'm an expert in palaeography." Now, of course, you'll immediately conclude that the guy is a loony... There's _no way_ he can know that the note was written in 1825, based only on palaeography!

Indeed, even _if_ this style of handwriting was current in 1825, who's to say that it was not also current in 1775?

And again, even if this style of writing was current in 1825, who's to say that the writer of this note was not writing it in 1875 in the same writing style that s/he learned back in 1825?

Keep in mind that we don't know the age of the writer! The writer could well be an old man or woman writing in 1875 in the same "old fashioned" writing style that s/he learned when s/he was still a young kid...

This last consideration, alone, automatically makes the margin of error in palaeographic dating at least +/- 50 years -- and that's _before_ you factor in all the other uncertainties that may exist. And with ancient unprovenanced MSS, the margin should be at least +/- 100 years, because we don't really know what we're comparing it with. And in this case of P52 -- because of its tiny size -- I'd say, a reasonable margin of error should be at least +/- 200 years.

In other words, the hard conclusion now emerges that P52 can prove _nothing at all_ about the dating of GJohn.

So, to come back to our old hand-written note that was found in the attic, if some "expert" says to us that he "knows" that it was written "ca 1825", he'll be immediately branded as a loon, or even worse -- as an obvious fraud. But in the field of biblical studies, such as it is, he's still seen as "a respected expert", and is listened to with great adoration?

Which just goes to show that the world of biblical studies today is still mostly in the hands of frauds.

Regards,

Yuri.

CX

It seems to me that that's trivially obvious, isn't it? I generally become suspect when someone gives something a specific date based on paleography alone, but I'm not aware of scholars doing that with P52 or anything else.

That being said, would you care to provide a stronger argument for why the generally accepted confidence of +/- 25 years for paleographic dating is not acceptable. Your argument so far is rather vague and seems predicated mostly on personal opinion.

Fred

I tend to see St Helenas trip as a political move to fully establish Constantine in his position as Augustus. I think that to see the entire trip as a purely religous enterprise is to belittle the political mind of Constantine, a man who slaughtered both friends and enemies for decades. He needed to get a connection to the origin of the church, to God himself and early scripture. Through his mother, Constantine was able to establish his connection to Jesus Christ. This is hardly minor when considering his reign.
As a result people were able to see his very mother travel through their lands and get their own connection to the emperor. Helena may well have been religous, in fact I don' t doubt it, but I feel there was much going on behind the scenes. Constantine was very busy and could not travel through as much of his empire as he would have liked. Civil war will make one more cautious and he'd had enough of those. Fashioning a tomb to meet the bibles description seems far more easy. Killing off the slaves who worked on it easier still.

We then have a situation where the Emperor becomes the will of God on Earth through the Lords choice of blessing his mother with the knowledge of where the tomb was, the Emperor himself chosen by God. This is how the spin doctors of the day would have portrayed it.
How is one to write about his reign while he still lives ? Very carefully and with much veneration would be a prudent approach. In this climate it is no wonder that even today people will discuss this most deceptive political move as though it never occured. Constantine was one of the most genius of all the worlds leaders, as well as one of the most ruthless, in securing his position. His sons weren't much different.

As for the piece in question. It seems to me that 118 letters on a piece of paper involving thousands of years, is proof only for those who wish it to be.

Iasion

Greetings all,

The claim

Metacrock claimed Melito (et al) provided early evidence of veneration of the tomb, specifically :
"I told you what he [Melito of Sardis] was suppossed to have said.... He said that
he went to Jerusalem,
the Christians there told him that the Jewish Christians, before they were exiled
told them, that they marked the site of the tomb,
which they vinerated[sic] until the Romans defiled it in 135 AD.
They marked it by keeping track of the fact that a temple to Venus was put over it."


The Evidence?

After Peter's and Toto's numerous, persistant, polite requests for actual evidence (i.e. quotes, names, documents) the best we get is this :
"see my post on the thruth about the tomb thread. It's footnoted where he says it in the article that Toto posted in link as a text version, in the fn on Melito. I can't get in there cause I had computer trouble. You can look it up."

Pardon?
You've been ABLE to use your computer for the last week or so to make many long posts here, and look up your apologist favourite sites,
yet
you've been UNABLE to use your computer to actually lookup the evidence that YOU cite in support of YOUR claim?
I do not believe you for a moment.


The Footnote

So, assuming (because Metacrock only gave the vaguest clues) this is referring to the document entitled
"The Earliest Phase of Christian Pilgrimage in the Near East (before the 7th Century)"
by Pierre Maraval

Here is the only mention of Melito in a footnote :

The footnote also comments on:

Origen - who visited Jerusalem to decide on correct interpretion of NT passages.

Pionios (c.250) - who criticised the Jews, and called Palestine "a land that witnesses even today to the anger of God raused against the sins of its inhabitants"

Eusebius - who, prior to the "constructions undertaken by Constantine and the expansion of pilgrimages" mentions Christians who came to worship at the mount of Olives, and stresses "from there they could see the fulfilment of the prophecy in the ruin of Jerusalem and the temple".

Thus, we see that :
* the footnote itself does cite Melito, but does NOT describe tomb veneration,
* the footnote does describe early visitors, but does NOT mention tomb veneration,
* the footnote does describe Eusebius' comments about early visitors, which do NOT include any mention of tomb veneration.


Related comments in the article

Here is the only mention of Melito in the body of the document :

Thus we see that the article which Metacrock cited on early Christian pilgrimages specifically DISAGREES with Metacrock's claim.


The Eusebius reference

The reference in Eusebius is apparently this one :
Here we see:
* Melito admitting to making extracts from the OT which concern the saviour,
* Melito travelling to Jerusalem to learn accurately the books of the OT.

But we do NOT see :
* any mention of the Gospels or their contents or their authors
* any mention of the NT writings or authors
* any mention of tomb veneration


Conclusion

Melito does NOT mention early tomb veneration or provide any evidence for it.

Other early visitors provide no evidence of tomb veneration.

Eusebius provides no evidence for early tomb veneration.

Metacrock's claims about early tomb veneration are totally without foundation.


It also seems likely that Melito did not know of the Gospels or did not accept them - he travels to Jerusalem to learn accurately the OT so he can make extracts from them about the saviour, but makes no mention of the Gospels or the Apostles or the Evangelists.

Melito's use of extracts from the OT to explain the saviour, is fully in support of Doherty's thesis - i.e. Melito makes NO mention of any historical Jesus, he makes no mention of any figures in Jerusalem who could tell him about Jesus, even though he is enquiring after "the saviour and our ENTIRE faith".

Rather, Melito seeks to explain the saviour and their faith by looking back through the OT for appropriate extracts - this is EXACTLY how Earl argues that the Jesus story was built up.

Because these extracts could very well be part of the source matrix for the Gospels, which were still crystalizing in this very period (still fluid with Justin c.150, almost solid by Irenaeus c.185)


Iasion

Yuri Kuchinsky

Well, CX, apparently this wasn't so obvious to Meta...

Quote:

I generally become suspect when someone gives something a specific date based on paleography alone, but I'm not aware of scholars doing that with P52 or anything else.

Please clarify your comments. Are you saying that the mainstream introductions to the NT are sceptical about P52? Or that they _should be_ sceptical about it?

Quote:

That being said, would you care to provide a stronger argument for why the generally accepted confidence of +/- 25 years for paleographic dating is not acceptable. Your argument so far is rather vague and seems predicated mostly on personal opinion.

The reason I've given my hypothetical example with a hand-written note found in the attic was to demystify this whole palaeographic business a bit. So I'm only asking people to use their common sense now, nothing more. What would be your own personal reaction if some dude claimed to be able to date such a note as having been written "ca 1825"? Don't you think that he would look like a bit of a con man?

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

That's for sure, Fred... This is really the Will to Believe, isn't it? They found a shred of papyrus with 118 letters on it, and in spite of its rather murky history they want it to serve as the foundation for their whole understanding of when NT was written...

Seems very similar to how the True Believers operate, doesn't it? And that's because our mainstream NT studies haven't really yet evolved from that general level.

Best,

Yuri.

Fred

I can't help but agree with you Yuri.
How do you see Constantines role in this ? Due to Christianity then becoming religion # 1 within the empire, the Emperor could no longer be deified. Therefore Constantine had to elevate himself to a higher plain than the average man. His own mother was able to do this for him.
As I said above, I am curious to see people quoting various writers when mentioning the tomb and the legend surrounding it, and not including the Emperor.
I' d love to read your thoughts on the matter.
Cheers, Fred.

CX

Skeptical in what regard? I'm saying most mainstream scholars readily acknowledge the vagaries of dating MSS by paleography. Schnelle's intro says, "...P52...is generally dated around 125 CE. To be sure this dating is no longer established beyond all doubt..." He then provides lengthy footnotes with multiple references to different scholarly treatments of the subject which date the fragment anywhere from 150 CE to the third century. He concludes in the footnotes by saying that the dating of P52 must be stated with some doubt and a margin of at least 25 years. I think Schnelle is pretty typical of the mainstream thought on the issue.

It doesn't matter what I think. A personal feeling about paleography does not constitute a cogent argument. Rather I'm asking you to demonstrate that the +/-25 year margin most scholars give to paleographic dating is invalid. "Common sense" is extremely subjective.

CX

That is complete nonsense. At most P52 (along with P90 & P66) helps provide a terminus ad quem for GJn. It certainly is not "the foundation for their whole understanding of when the NT was written..." Read any mainstream intro and you'll see P52 mentioned only in connection with GJn (and even then tentatively as with Schnelle). The other books of the NT are dated based on their own considerations.