Religion Biblical Texts: Explication and Discussion

Disclamer

If the 'lean' in the above presentation appears sharp, or heavy handed, it is simply a reflection of the bone I have to pick with those scholarly religionists who dab in matters in a way that provides much misinformation to the public--and at early ages at that !! Any such 'lean' has nothing to do with those with whom I am discussing these matters with here on this forum.
 
With no access to original materials, or the original texts and language, I cant really effectively comment with any authority at all. I am pretty much at the mercy of scholars and footnote authors. Since they don't seem to have a problem with the texts, I don't really have a problem either. I'm not sure how anyone would get information unavailable to the scholars of the last couple of millenia.

The Tyndale House authors pretty much agree with the Ryrie time table... which I didn't quite catch and If I have it right- has two separate trips to Pilate- the one in John at noon the day before. The time is not agreed upon by the footnote guys- Greeks starting the day at dawn, Jews at dusk... did the Romans begin as we did at midnight? I don't know why we should doubt the authorship- since the language matches the letters of John- where he identifies himself, or the language since most of the NT books were in Aramaic, and a few in Greek...

Again, I am not certain how you have arrived at your conclusions-- since I don't have the access that I mentioned before, I am just going to have to trust the work of scholars and translators with far more academic ability than myself-- learning the original languages and scholarly techniques is probably beyond my general aptitude and time alottment.

I do however believe in a living powerful God-- One who claims identity with this book and probably willing and able to protect it over time. I can't prove this as it is a point of faith and not logic or fact (unless you consider circular or reverse logic valid). What kind of omnicient, omnipotent being could possibly drop the ball by not somehow protecting and guiding the writing, preservation and translation of the single most important communication of His plan?
 
Thanks for your insight there sabro san ! Again, as I'm sure you fully know I've said before, I know where you are coming from, and, to that extent, can empathize with you. At the same time, I feel I can understand your being led around by the few sources that do come before you, and feel I can fairly picture the conclusions they lead the mind to draw. In that regards, I can honestly say, 'been there; done that.'

One can go to so many of the seminaries and Bible education schools and still not get the clearer of the picture of where overall scholarship stands. At the same time, as far I can tell and reason, there are some well founded scholars who too take things a bit too far beyond what is reasonable--in the opposite direction of those scholarly religionists. And denying a pet concept is fundamentally against human nature; for the most part it seems, at least. I was able to break from mine rather easily with the more/most obvious, yet admit, it didn't happen over night per se, and I did it on my own with little enfluence from scholarly circles. Most of my research outside the Bible came later.

As I'm sure you know, there are a lot of books out there in this field, and a great number of publishing houses with their missions as well--it's just not so easy a task to go through it all. And as brought up before, the 'simply churched' just don't have contact with the fuller field--esp. those who do all the original hand work in doing things like, for example going over the Qumran scrolls and putting the pieces together, analyzing all the church father works for correlation to earlier text fragments such as the Chester Beatty Papyri and so on.

In a way, I didn't quite fully grasp what you were leading to in that second paragraph, but will again point out some sure things; and give source backup in the future if you would like to see it.

The Muratorian Fragment which dates back to around 170 CE claims that a group of bishops along with Andrew and John got together and compiled the work attributed to John, in his name--he (or the others) being the editor. In this case, the more reasonable is to consider that John, at that ripe old age of almost 90, had edited. Of all materials I've seen on that work only a possible Syric pre-Johannine text is considered at all--never an Aramaic text. It would be quite unfounded to say that the original had been written in Aramaic. The only text that can be most correctly thought to have had any Aramaic original form at all is that of Matthew, as it is very much wrapped around the Didache and most likely came from the same community.

Regarding the usage of time of day, irrelevant to the Jewish system, from what I've seen there is no real reason to conclude anything other than the most obvious, and that is that people used the Greco-Roman norm of counting the hours from sunup. I'm sure you could at least imagine that I do get my information from scholarly sources through my studies and contacts, which is, actually, how I have got it.

I understand your position here, of course, but would point out that there is a problem, which you probably well feel yourself. For one, I don't think you could support the claim, as you had written there, that '"God" claims identity with this book' but rather that the writers of the works contained in this book claim identity with "God"--as they define that "God". The points following that are but hanging upon this one--namely, that it can be far more fairly shown, through study of these writings, their content and authors, the test of time, and increment in knowledge of our universe, that the most of the information and all of the recall came from them themselves. So as the point in this very thread is, we are to search out if the argument of supernatural superintendence can hold water.

So, I'll help you in checking out these things, because even with your faith, I don't reason as yet that your mind is closed to evidence that can be presented and understood. I look forward to discussing this with you before we move on to the next point given in that post. :wave:
 
If you start from the premise that supernatural superintendence does hold water like I have, you kind of end up in a corner- looking past what you see as discrepancies to a higher truth to the text. Like many Christians, I am assuming that the text is "perfect" and any seeming imperfection will have explaination.

Again, using text to prove text isn't really good semantics- but the God having identity with the book comes doctrinally from 1John 1:1- "and the Word became flesh..."

What language would the book of John be written in if not Aramaic? (I was under the impression that most of the new Testament was written in some kind of Aramaic.)
 
Other points later, but for now, just to let you know that I'm here and am doing research on the time thing--also getting through to some contacts which, unfortunately, will take some time. (at least one of them is in the process of writing a fourth volume to an on-going matter dealing with the historical Jesus.)

The writting attributed to John is seen as having been originally penned in Greek.

Now if we were to be absolutely honest with all the information we do have on this, we would be obliged to acquiesce--in my opinion at least--that it can never be known for sure; as so may things in this field cannot be. We go on the 'more or most's of any understanding. As you insinuated above, those who demand an absolute firstly, do not usually have the room to accept anything less than 'is or isn't's--and that goes back a long, long way. Christianity had to somehow work to defend it's collection of writings (not just what we have in the NT today) all the way back to Celsus's pointing out problems around the year 180 CE.

I am still searching into this, but as of now, the answer I seem to reason is more likely is that counting the hours of the day--a matter which seems to most likely have not been a big concern other than in legalistic matters back then--would have been from sunup. That's why we have sundials. The work attributed to John's usage of time in other places must be taken into consideration, and there could be some problem there that we may have to iron out. I'm still working on it. Talk to you later on today with some source matterals and bibliographies. Lunch time, now, then a class. See you sabro !!:wave:
 
The book the earliest gospels--The Origins and Transmission of the Earliest Christian Gospels; The Contribution of the Chester Beatty Gospel Codex P45, edited by Charles Horton, is made up of several papers which were given by a number of scholars who also presented them at the conference on the same theme, organized by the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland to celebrate the Millennium year in December 2000.

Those such as Dr. Barbra Aland, DD, DLitt, the co-editor of Noveum Testamentum Graece (Nestle/Aland, 27th ed.; 1993) among a few other Greek text recension-like works, Professor J. Keith Elliot, who was on the editing board of the same and on the Inernational Greek New Testament Project and has published at least two major books through Oxford University Press, William L. Petersen, who specializes in the early NT text forms, and has written many articles and chapters for books, including the Anchor Bible Dictionary, and others, show what can be known in some the following exerpts. (I don't want to break any copyright laws here, so will report on much of it, rather than just copy from the book.)

In The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ (a brief summary of his book by the same name) Professor Martin Hangel, a member of the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, and a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and who has written some 10-12 books, the latest being with the title above (2000) points out that the early conflict within the Christian community and with the outside (those before and after Celsus) was greater than most would think due to composition differences. The work attributed to John was rejected by some for that very reason. He points out that in the early period of textual development, 'the Gospels could still be changed.' Also on that same page (15) he makes note of the following:
"Moreover during the first half of the second century the sayings of Jesus were still being quoted with a relative freedom: they were not yet untouchable 'sacred text' in the strict sense."

He points out that the several efforts to harmonize the four works evidences concern for the problems contained in their natural disharmony, and, or maybe even more so, in an effort to replace the four with one that harmonized the four.

And then jumping a little, to the summary, it is pointed out, that the argument is in favor of the writings being by two disciples (Mk & Lk), one apostle (Jn) and Matthew's work being one which did likely recieve the title latter, While Papias' note on Matthew's being in Hebrew probable referring to an earlier work attributed to that apostle. He also draws the conclusion that the differences between the four authors were accepted because it had already been known that the 'apostolic testimony' had been in a variety of forms--Petrine, Pauline, Johannine and Jewish Christian teaching in communities.

Gotta run now. More latter.
 
Regarding the precision of the timing, I have a lot of looking up to do. I do recall reading somewhere that noon was, back in the when, 3:00 pm - but that reading was something to do with church history and hungry monks who weren't (as part of their devotions) permitted to eat before noon ... 12:00 became high noon, and they got to eat 3 hours earlier. It COULD be true: stranger things have happened in church history.

The significant factor of tufloV tiV is tiV, or so I am told. The use of tiVshows a strong possibility that this "one in particular" was taken as a more or less representative sample rather than being a declaration of a precise number. At a work picnic, Ask children what they want now - where appropriate, 8 out of 10 will respond "icecream please" 1 will say "icecream," another will say "I want icecream." Simple sentences tend to be rather less subject to variation than longer and more complex sentences. "to receive my sight" takes just 2 words in Koine Greek. (nb: the reason I use the Greek alphabet is because I find trying to read the Romanised Greek is just too flaming difficult.)

Regarding the timing of John's gospel being first written, I recall reading that fragments in Hebrew dating to 80 AD have been found, and on papyrus yet. Matthew (I think it was) shows evidence of having been translated from Koine into Hebrew - given that it retains translations of Hebrew words into Hebrew - which would not have happened if the original language had been Hebrew. (I will try to track references properly when I don't have a 68 hour work week.)

Sabro-san, with you I sympathise. I recall too, a time when it was important to me that the Bible be perfect. However, on reflection, the existence of imperfections is valuable. If the Bible was in fact perfect, the variety of different doctrines and precepts that exist today could still have eventuated. As it stands, the small (in the overall scheme of the Bible) discrepancies are a salutary warning to not take just one verse and build a doctrine on it. Take the Bible's own declaration regarding truth as being the principle upon which to interpret. If it doesn't have two or more witnesses, it isn't so. (and no, you can't get the same person saying the same thing twice for two witnesses). If it is important enough to become a doctrine, it will be said more than once, and by more than one author. Where only one statement is made there are three possible alternatives: 1/ it has been mis-interpreted by the reader (the most common) 2/ it is a mis-translation (not as uncommon as it should be, after all these versions and all this time) 3/ it is an error in the original documents (original as in the documents from which the passage was translated.)
Where the third occasion arises, if the topic is important, there will be more than one demonstration that the author is in error within the Bible itself. Demonstrable and LOGICALLY unassailable evidence of error is to be welcomed. (unfortunately, the use of logic IS deemed to be prima facia evidence of evil according to some, as Julius Caesar once observed.)
 
Interesting...
That conflict and the number of "Gospels" and Epistles running around was why ( according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon) there were several councils to resolve these issues.

About the original languages, (and again this is not my area of expertise)- I always though that the bulk of the NT was written in Koine Greek and Aramaic(rather than Hebrew) or that they used some Aramaic words. The authors would have spoken primarily in Aramaic, but written primarily in Greek. (Which kind of assumes a situation like we have today in Israel.) And that the bulk of the earliest texts is translated to Latin. John- I though had some oral tradition and was written later on some island when the apostle was 90. Luke, I thought was written second hand from a gospel of Peter and that Matthew, Mark and Luke all owed something to a "q" gospel...? There are also reported gospels written by a few other disciples including Mary.

Does this sound about right?
 
As far as perfect- I have a huge tolerance of ambiguity and imperfection. That the Bible comes through the hands and minds of men, translated, transcripted and copied- I would expect errors of some magnitude...but I also recognize due to my belief in God... that these errors are of no significance. Certainly using one verse to form a whole doctrine would be bad scholarship.
 
Two quick things here, please:

Regarding the word tis as it is used as an indefinite (enclitic) pronoun, it carries the following English equivalents--one, some, a certain one, a certain thing, and in a few other formulas. (Thayer's Lexicon, pp625,626) It does not usually carry the weight of anything other than the English usage of 'one' or 'a certain' where the intent is not neccessarily to identify quantity, but to rather point to the substantive or object involved in the clause or phrase, although it is singular thus shows quantity. (see Lk 10:31,33; 8:27; 14:8; Mt 18:12; Mt 12:47 (although this verse is doubtful--that is, it is more likely not part of any original penning, but is embellishment [Nestle/Aland NTG, 27th ed.]) Mt 12:29; etc.)

In my opinion at the moment, based on what I have learned, I would say that there is no need, nor little room, to place any special application on the appearance of the word there in Luke's narrative. The effort by some, to claim that it carries an application that points to the understanding that Luke had simply been focusing on one person of a group of two people, is much closer to pleading than any other way of looking at the language usage there. The overall context carries the weight, and again, the difference between one and two is not in the range of count generalization. It appears that as far as the Gospel Narratives go, Luke uses this much more than the others. I'll have to check that though.

The writings which I've still got to give you all some more information and quotes from--in order to present the understanding of scholarship as I am learning it, in hopes of giving these conclusions the degree of weight which appears, at times to be lacking--very concretely points out that there is a fragment of John in the Ryland Library (P52, usually dated to 130-150 CE, is in Greek. There is P66, a Greek codex of John dated to around 200 CE, and P75, containing a portion of John dated to around 175-220 CE, and then there is the very important P45, The Cheaster Beatty codex, which dates to around 200-250 CE. There are some scraps which may still need to be worked over from the Oxyrhynchus find, but these are not all 'canonical' works. (the earliest gospels, ed. by Charles Horton, pp132-136)

In the opening to PART I of that same collection of works, there is a timetable which puts the compilation of that attributed to John/John the elder (Ephesus) in the year 100 CE; that attributed to Mark (Rome) in 69-70, Luke-Acts around 75-85, and Matthew (Syria/Palestine) around 90-95. And, of course there are other arguments on these dates and locations--that just comes with the field--but these here may well be the best attested to and argued !!

Sabro san, I'd really like to ask you to hold your hourses a little while longer--there is so much which you have been told, have found out on your own from some sources, etc, which may very well have left a lot out. I mean the very claim that you had been told ,from some starting point in time regarding the Bible as being a 'message from "God"' (I mean you weren't just born believing that to be the absolute case, right?) may not have been any more informed than anyone else. I would really ask you to keep thinking in the pattern of thinking about all other matters of history, mythology, and religious views which demand belief without providing the complete of imperical knowledge. :wave:
 
Re: John 19:14

Nestle/Aland NTG 27th ed. gives ekth (ekte, or sixth) in the text with a mark rendering it likely to be in error, but the better witness of the two; the other possible candidate being trith (trite, or three) [A2, Ds,. and a few other text sources.]

The New Revised Standard Version by Bruce Metzger gives it as "and it was about noon." The New American Standard by Lockman Foundation has, "it was about the sixth hour." with a footnote saying, "Perhaps 6a.m. (Roman Time) Today's English Version by The American Bible Society has, "It was almost noon of the day before the Passover." All the other Bibles I have on hand here give the sixth hour--The New World Translation footnoting that as being 12:00, others without footnotes.

The original text there, actually, cannot be said to be so secure, so it may not be a point after all--meaning that although as it is, it is most likely a historical error, because the witness against that time is greater, as it is, it may not be a valid transcription of the original. (it's a bit flustrating, but this kind of thing is fairly common enough, and of course not just in the Gospel Narratives, but the entire Bible, actually) I'll get back with more details on sources as soon as I can !!:wave:
 
I ran into the same thing with the footnotes, with one putting in at 9am. Again it seems like you can still construct a reasonable timeline, possibly considering this more of a transcription error than a historical error. But again- this is purely speculative based upon the information we have discussed.
 
Also there are different versions of the same translation with differnt footnotes. The American Standard Version does not have it's own footnotes (except those by the original committee), but publishers will usually add their own in.
 
sabro said:
I ran into the same thing with the footnotes, with one putting in at 9am. Again it seems like you can still construct a reasonable timeline, possibly considering this more of a transcription error than a historical error. But again- this is purely speculative based upon the information we have discussed.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's right. What I said in #151, was that as it stands now (eg with the recension text giving that Greek word rather than the other possible) it would most likely be a historical error. If we put the other word in the text, then the text as it is now, would no longer be. (at this verse) In that case, at that case there may not be so much of a problem. I would think that this still needs to be looked at, yet, because of the simple and most obvious fact that it is something that some have purely speculated on, debated over, and studied so as to understand what might have been meant (and not just in our day, it seems), it would be wrong to say that there is no problem here.

Also I check my Japanese works, one from the ???{????????@1987 ed. (original print, 1954) and the other a translation by the American Bible Society, the 17th year of Meiji. Both of them give us ?\?񎞁@?i12:00) Of course this does not mean anything, really, but is just information. I'm still waiting for some information from my sources, and it may take a while, most of them are still very much involved in teaching as well as research--and as I said, I think, one is in the process of the fourth volume.

I'll try to get back soon with some more of what I do have on hand here. See you !!:wave:
 
Regarding the time thing, it is seemingly difficult to not have to speculate just what had been in the mind of writer(s) of that Gospel account. The evidence of understanding presented by that document at John 11:9 seems to just add to it. Thayer's Lexicon, which had been one source for my understanding that the world then basically saw a sun up to sun down count system, regardless of when the day begain, gives support from some 8 different sources (non of which I have verified, though) for that understanding. John 4:6 can be seen either way, it appears--as around noon (counting 12 hours for daylight time from sunrise) or around it could be around 4 pm (counting 12 hours from noon) or it could be [but likely out of context] what, six am? There is a problem here. I'm still looking into it, but from sun up to sun down seems to be most reasonable for counting the hours of the day for the normally. The text is where the problem lays more than anything else, it can yet be said. More on that later.

sabro san, as one educator to another, I encourage you to follow through on statements made by those you use to reach conclusions, as well as on those made by your opponents in debate. It make take some time, and all, but it should be done. I agree, since I do not draw back from the conclusions of greater and or better evidence, reasonableness, and logic, that there may not be so much of a time problem here with these historical accounts reporting on this incident, although the element of degree does not allow room for any absolute. Let's please keep discussion up, if, in fact you are interested in that, rather than just shuting down as Pararousia appears to continue doing (notice, I said "appears to") As one educator to another, I offer my suggestion in the interest of the furtherance of the spectrum of human knowledge.:note: :wave:
 
For The Purpose of Showing Scholarly Sources' Positions and Understandings.

If one were to go back, and take some time to not only read, but to grasp just what was said, and take notes of the sources, authors, and their understandings and conclusions, it may help a whole lot in putting some maters behind us. That, of course, may entail only giving certain degrees of possibilities to some things, because that's the way the cookie crumbles, does it not?

The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ

Martin Hengel brings out the following:
"this freedom in dealing with the earlier Gospel writings, which was still widespread in the second century, may have caused Tatian to compose his harmony, which was worked out with scrupulous accuracy." (p15)

"The Greek Matthew (written c. 90-95 CE) is surely no translation from 'Hebrew' (i.e. Aramaic).
"The name of Matthew was conferred upon the first Gospel (coming from an anonymous Jewish-Christian scribe and able theologian) to give him apostolic authority, which was an innovation." (p17)

In talking about the Gospel of Mark, he points out that remarks that were to have been from Papias, according to the Bishop of Hierapolis around 117-38 CE, may very well be representative of moderate criticism from the viewpoint of one who preferred that of John the Elder's work. (i.e. The Gospel of John) (p20) That supposed quote from Papias, points out that Mark had written down carefully, but not in the right order, everything that he had remembered from listening to Peter (the apostle) talk to others, and that Mark had neither seen nor followed Jesus. [Hist. Eccl. 3. 39. 14-15]

On page 21, the scholar and teacher again talks about Matthew's being likely circulated with the title EUAGGELION KATA MAQQAION giving indication that it had been based ultimately on a very early collection of 'sayings of the Lord' attributed to that apostle, logia or logia, while being modeled on the work of Mark.

The view and conclusion contained within this paper (there are a number of papers inside the book) is one which comes up in other recent papers and articles, and is one which carries a slightly different element than that which I had gone by up to now, but in consideration of what has been presented I reason it would be more plausible to go with this one. In this view, we would have to understand that the view of the 'Gospel community' is less likely the case. In other words, the individual Gospels were more widely circulated than in just the community that gave birth to them. This view would also bring us to accept that the Christian community overall had a literacy rate of only 10% (in the first and second centuries, at least) and thus these documents served liturgical purposes--that is reading to the congregations.

next. . .
 
In the previous ending, please do not misconstrue that the non-community view is the cause of the illiteracy rate, that is simply the understood rate, regardless. But the view means that we can think that there was more exchange among the leaders of the various communities. Thus the argument for the authors of our Matthew and Luke having written with the more likely intent to enlarge what is called the 'earlier Mark', would have to be accepted as being most likely. I will cautiously take that into consideration.

Professor William L. Paterson, in his paper The Diatessarion and the Fourfold Gospel argues the following, with some considerable background and evidence:

"While these first four titles [Mt, Mk, Lk, Jn] are well known to us today as the four 'canonical' gospels, we must be careful about equating the textual form [he used italics here] they had in the first and second centuries with the textual form they have today." (p51) In discussing the reasons for the several harmonies that were composed, the most famous and widely circulated being the Diatessarion, he concludes that the most probable reason was because to disarm the learned critics of Christianity in the second century by removing the very inconsistencies and contradictions in the writings which they used against it. (p55) [The Diatessarion was most likely composed around 175 CE]

He points out that this work was of course putting words in the mouths of those who the single gospels didn't, and that other works such as the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of the Ebionites were mixed right in with the four canonical takes, but that this had obviously presented no problem since it was not so uncommon a thing to do at that time and since it was so well recieved over a wide area. (pp 67,68)

This understanding which is by no means just his--and remember, he has written for the Anchor Bible Dictionary--is that the texts were not taken as finished, untouchable works at that time; that time being up to around 180 or so. This ties in with the understanding of the shifts, throught time, of what the word equivalent to our 'gospel' meant, and how we cannot reason that the writters of the original texts understood their own work to be understood as it is by most of Christianity today.

next. . . (to keep these readible:wave:
 
O.k., so you can call me the 'postman' today...sorry, but I'd like to make it pretty clear just where I get my information from, and to just what scholarly degree it consists of.

James Robinson, in The Nag Hammadi Gospels and the four fold Gospel testifies along with others in the references given that "No manuscript at all has survived from the first century, and very little, and even then only small fragments, from the second century,...

Eldon Jay Epp (and he was the president of SBL in '03, and holds the title Harkness Professor of Biblical Literature emeritus, and dean of Humanities and Social Sciences emeritus) agrees much with what professor Robinson said and concluded in that paper (above), and has the following informative things to present and say as well:

[The Oxyrhynchus New Testament Papyri: "Not Without Honor Except in Their Honetown"? JBL Vol 123 No 1, 2004; pp5-55]

"During the christological controversies of the first three centuries, 'proto-orthodox scribes' as he [Bart Ehrman, in his monograph Orthodox Corruption of Scripture] calls them, 'sometimes changed their scriptural texts to make them say [he used italics here] what they were already known to mean [here too] . Hence, they 'corrupted their texts to maintain 'correct doctrine." (p6)

He goes on to talk about, give examples of, and verify the process of textual criticism, leading into discussion about the finds of Oxyrhynchus. Of course, he makes good argument, with a well develped flow. He shows how it can be said that the canon was not a consideration in the late first to early second--and maybe a bit beyond that as well. He points out the texts found there and makes special mention of the seven surviving copies of The Shepherd of Hermas which spand a range of late second to fourth centuries. He points out the 'well documented' rivalry between that work and those of the Apocalypse of John, and the Apocalypse of Peter. He cautions that "Too much must not be drawn from such comparative data, but it is clear by any measure available to us that the Shepard of Hermas was very much a part of Christian literature in Oxyrhynchus at an early period."

Along with those finds were also 2 of the Gospel of Peter, 4 of Matthew, 3 of John, 2 of Paul, and one each of Luke and Revelation. In arguing further, he cautiously proposes that it could be seen that the usually considered 'non-canonical' works could have represented 2nd century originals that flurished right along with those usually considered 'canonical' today. (pp14-18)

The essence of the summary could be summed up in this one sentence there in: "Moreover, as we assess this abundance of early Christian writings at Oxyrhynchus through the forth century, including those we call 'New Testament' and those we designate 'apocrypha', there is no basis for assigning preference to one group over the other, or even for claiming that they were separable groups, nor--with available evidence--can we discern varying degrees of canonical authority among the writings." (p54,55)

This very well supported and developed presentation sheds much light on the most likely view of contemporaneous writings held by those in the first and second centuries, and possibly even into the third and fourth in some areas. That draws the understanding as to the equality of value given those writings which didn't make it into our canon of today, by those of that day, themselves, with those that did make it. This point is important to take mental note of.

Now, should I go on? I can, I have a lot more material here of the same class. Sabro san? Kaminari san? Might this at least be satisfactory as to the level of scholarship I use in my understandings and arguments in these two threads regarding the Bible and its history, the culture it came about in--esp NT--and such? Should I present more? Please let me know. :wave:
 
Whoa! Tons of stuff there to look into. Maybe this should be moved to another site altogether and instituted as an on line college course.

I am still having difficulty fitting these correspondences into an already over-tight schedule, but time should free up a bit after Christmas. By then I should also have been able to round up my reference "library" (such as it is) and have the hard copy references: rather than having to rummage around my memory. (which can be likened to an overly full overly small hard drive with no File Allocation Table.)

That the gospels (except for Luke) were not written by the people whose names they bear is a long held belief of mine, which I think I have said in this forum previously.

I still consider it unlikely that only one blind beggar would have been present and healed by the Christ in the vicinity of Jericho, and while the use of tiV does not conclusively demonstrate that only one of an unknown number is referred to, its use does preclude any possible claim that only one COULD have been present and attended to.

One word in your post#156 has set the alarm bells clanging, MarsMan. It may be a false alarm, but that word innovation all too often indicates the need for extremely careful evaluation of the opinions presented.
 
If I take a copy of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, I might find an error of fact in a given article. If I compare that article with another article on the same subject in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it is quite possible that I will find contradictions. Of course, I might not be taking into account the possibility that these bear different publication dates, one (say) from 1940 and the other from 2000. Should I therefore decide that the publisher has been dishonest, or that some attempt has been made to change a story, or to bury the truth?
Or should I conclude that the articles have taken into account new knowledge and discoveries that have arisen in the interim between the first and second publications?
 
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