Bede

Reasonable,

I was trying to find something out for you in the Institute of Classical Research last night. They have a huge number of books on Palaeography. Most consist of lots of facsimiles of particular scripts with notes, dates etc. The 50 year rule is used by Roberts and Henderson in Greek Literary Hands, Kenyon in Palaeography of Greek Papyri and Turner in Typology of Early Greek Codices. Turner is a conservative (that is, late) dater but even he sees no reason to argue with P52 being mid second century although he dates much else later than the consensus.

Basically, it seems to be an extremely esoteric subject where we are rather at the mercy of the experts. However, the way the experts rejected the proposals of Theide on the DSS 'Mark' fragment and the Magdelene papyri suggests they are not exactly in bed with evangelicals.

To get within 100 years or so is quite easy. I can tell 9th century Latin book hands from 11th century ones after just a day of study. And we could all say what century a book was printed quite confidently just by looking at the type face. So I don't find people with decades of experience being able to get a fifty year accuracy too surprising.

I hope this helps a bit. I am doing a two term course on Latin palaeography from January so might be able to give a more informed view of the field in a few months.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

Jayhawker Soule

I would very much appreciate the effort.

Vorkosigan

So what do you make of the numerous quotes of the NT from church fathers, amulets, etc?

Tercel

??? Most of what we know about Celsus comes from Origen's work Contra Celsum. Exactly how does Eusebius fit in with all of this? Or are you trying to alledge that Origen's works have come to us through Eusebius??

Is this one of these Christianity was invented by Eusebius conspiracy theories? Why don't you actually try reading some of the ton of pre-325 Christian literature that survives? And then ask yourself some questions such as:
Does Eusebius deserve the "doing the impossible" award for writing so much? Perhaps he was born with pen in hand?
Does Eusebius deserve the "greatest imagination of history" award for managing to so convincingly invent whole debates within the Christian community (ie disagreements with himself), such thoughts on such a huge number of topics? Such varieties of interpretations? Such different ideas and approaches to the same topic?
Or perhaps Eusebius was in command of a legion of scribes? One can easily imagine the planning meetings they would have had, sitting around a table saying "well with regard to this issue, my writer's going to say *this*, while your writer can reply and say *that*"... not.
And of course two other questions come to mind. If early Christian history was invented, why wasn't it done better? Why not have an unbroken stream of imaginary writers from 50AD to 300AD who all upheld the same Doctrinal Truth? If every ancient writer even agreed about the authors of the NT or which books were in the Bible then we wouldn't have half the mess we're in. Anyone who made up early Christianity deserves a medal for their world-class brilliance in acheiving the impossible in some things, and to be shot for their absolute and utter incompetence in others areas.
And the second question of the two:
Given that Eusebius was making up the history, please tell me why he would make himself the heretic?

Sorry Biff, your 325AD hypothesis is simply the stupidest theory I have ever seen. Even the Jesus mythers have nothing on you! Why not try reading some of the pre-Nicene Christian writings? ccel.org have many of the extant texts available free on their website:
<a href="http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/" target="_blank">http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/</a>

David Conklin

Actually there is a fragment from John that has been dated to around 125 A.D... Perhaps you are referring to a complete mss of all the books?

David Conklin

I believe it was J. A. T. Robinson who pointed out that none of the NT books presuppose that the aTemple was even destroyed the first time (A.D. 70) which suggests that it was still standing at the time the NT was written.

David Conklin

That would depend greatly on the sources of your information. I did a short study and found that the trend of scholarship has beed towards earlier and earlier dates.

For instance, using just Mark it was suggested by Harnack (1893-7) that it was written ab't 65-70, J. A. T. Robinson (1976) suggests 45-60. From my study I'd say around 60-62 A.D. is more likely.

Jayhawker Soule

Bede,

Thanks for the effort. At the same time, given your remarks above, I'm forced to wonder if you've grown more tentative. For example, you wrote earlier: I am still waiting to see that substantiated.

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

Bede

Reasonable,

Sorry not to be clear. +/- 25 years is the fifty year rule. Basically the experts believe they can get that kind of accuaracy and I believe them. I imagine you would be expected to date a papayri in an examination from a greek palaeography class and need that kind of accuracy for a top mark.

What exactly are you asking for apart from the expert testimony that they date handwriting from dated documents and use that to date the undated ones when they expect a fifty year margin of error?

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

Jayhawker Soule

I am asking for references to the tests affirmed by you above.