Dumbledore's Gay

[jefferiah]

I actually provided dates of the first editions known to have been written, if you can provide earlier dates then you prove something so I guess I have proven more than a little.

"It would be impossible for the gospels to have been written by their original apostles in many cases because some were not put to paper until well over a hundred years after Jesus's death."

This is what you said. The conjectured date of an earliest "known" edition means nothing.

[jawapunk]

Right but it is not my conjecture it is based on hundreds of years of scholarly research. I didn't just wake up this morning and come up with some numbers. I know what I said, but you don't seem to care. I am not going to waste my time trying to convince you when you have blinders pulled down so tightly.

[jefferiah]

Right but it is not my conjecture it is based on hundreds of years of scholarly research. I didn't just wake up this morning and come up with some numbers. I know what I said, but you don't seem to care. I am not going to waste my time trying to convince you when you have blinders pulled down so tightly.

But there is no amount of scholarly research which can affirmatively attest to the New Testament originals being written 100 years after Christ. You are not going to waste your time convincing me, because you can't. You know that. The earliest known copies of the Illiad appear about a millenium after when it is conjectured the original was written. Another interesting thing you must take into account is that not so long after the life of the apostles....100 years or a little more, you have appearance of some of these "earliest known" texts. Why is that important? Because it is not one copy that springs into existence at this point in time, there are a vast wealth of copies. In order for something like this to have spread and become this important that within such a short time frame we would have a wealth of New Testament, there must have been some considerable passing of time in order for the original to have gained that much import. Remember that they didn't have photo copy machines in those days. Basically we have the presence of many known copies coming into existence with a few generations after the lives of the apostles. For a great many other ancient texts we have a period ranging from 5 to perhaps 10 centuries between the date the original was written and the first known copies.

[jawapunk]

Actually Christianity wasn't spreading quickly until a few hundred years after Christ's death, it simply existed. I think it is safe to say you aren't going to convince me with your opinions either. I think I will stick to basing my sentiments on research and people who seek the truth, not those who want to stifle intellectual debate.

[jefferiah]

Actually Christianity wasn't spreading quickly until a few hundred years after Christ's death, it simply existed. I think it is safe to say you aren't going to convince me with your opinions either. I think I will stick to basing my sentiments on research and people who seek the truth, not those who want to stifle intellectual debate.

Look I am not trying to convince you of anything. I just telling you. 100 years of scholarly research or 1000 years of scholarly research---makes no difference. If you could live for a million years hence and do scholarly research all that time, there is no way you can surmise from an existing edition the date of a non-existent original that was written close to 2000 years prior to your own birth-unless you possess some paranmoral ability to see into the past. The earliest known copy of John is dated to about 100-150 A.D. Now I don't think anyone would ever say that because it is the earliest one they have that there is any definite proof that it is the original. In fact the chances of that one copy being the original would be pretty slim. That copy can be carbon dated with some margin of error. But it is a much much more inexact task when you attempt to take this copy and surmise at what time the original copy from which this one was descended was written (when no one actually possesses this parent document). And if there are even some rough techniques for doing so, the margin of error is going to be that much greater. The lines get much more blurry. Your lifespan argument dwindles.

Once again I point out, a great deal of ancient literature, even some which is conjectured to have been originally written after the conjectured period for the earliest New Testament books, does not appear in existing earlist known copy form until centuries after.

Edited November 21, 2007 by jefferiah

[jefferiah]

Right but it is not my conjecture it is based on hundreds of years of scholarly research. I didn't just wake up this morning and come up with some numbers.

You are missing the major point here. I said the conjectured date of the "earliest known" edition. The earliest known edition is rarely ever the original when we are discussing ancient literature. So if there is some margin of error even for this "earliest known" edition of which we possess a concrete material copy (which is not likely to be an original given the parallels to the wealth of other cases of ancient literature--Tacitus' "Annals", Homer's "Illiad" etc.) How much greater is that margin of error when you attempt to guess the date of the missing original?

Edited November 21, 2007 by jefferiah

[M.Dancer]

Look I am not trying to convince you of anything. I just telling you. 100 years of scholarly research or 1000 years of scholarly research---makes no difference.

Well you can make some very good educated guesses. We know a fair deal about life back then, from how people spoke nad how they expressed themselves in writing to which individual was mayor of what city. We know that if so and so is mentioned that it could be written earlier than when so and so was about...and so on.

This is how scholars can say that a certain gospel may have been written between X and Y and which epistles do not have the same "voice" as another.

I am quite confident that the dates commonly accepted for authorship are accurate just as I am quite confident that eye witness testimony was handed done "literally" word for word for decades until an author collected the events and sayings and made an anthology of them.

I think it is irrelevant in light of modern bible scholarship that originals don't exist....although it would be a miracle if they did given the fragility of the medium over almost 2000 years. Luckily we had devoted scribes who fanatically copied and copied and copied.

[jefferiah]

This is how scholars can say that a certain gospel may have been written between X and Y and which epistles do not have the same "voice" as another.

That still is quite a different matter from coming up with an exact date. Where his conjectured dates fall somewhere a little (a little considering it was 2 millenia ago) outside of the natural lifespan of the people of the day, it is not difficult for one to make the argument that the margin of error would allow for the non-existent original to have been written within the apostle's lifetime.

[kengs333]

The bible is inspired....how divinely is a matter of debate...why for instance would God divinely inspire someone to write things that didn't happen?

For instance, the OT has several passages that are clearly anachronistic. For instance it is believed a historical Abraham lived around 1900 - 1750 BC. The writer(s) of genises has Abraham owning camels. This is impossible, camels were not introduced to the region till near 1000 BC.

This clearly shows that the oral tradition places the formation of the stories of Abraham after 1000 BC....so why did God inspire someone to enlarge Abraham livestock with animals that weren't available?

So where from exactly do you derive this information about the distribution of camals in the ancient world?

I don't know how many times I've heard of the dating of some sort of prehistoric remains be revised; science will only go by what it can find, which is why the term "earliest known record" or something to that effect is usually applied to a date.

Divinely inspired means that the text as it was recorded is as it is and has not been altered. Therefore, all of the texts of the New Testament are as they were first written.

[kengs333]

Actually Christianity wasn't spreading quickly until a few hundred years after Christ's death, it simply existed. I think it is safe to say you aren't going to convince me with your opinions either. I think I will stick to basing my sentiments on research and people who seek the truth, not those who want to stifle intellectual debate.

Yeah, it did actually, which is why it found itself in Rome, Greece, Asia Minor within decades of Christ. Paul persecuted Christians (1 Corinthians 15:9) before his conversion in c. 45 AD; and prior to that he talks about how Jesus "appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time" (1 Corinthians 15:6). According to Tacitus, "Nero falsely accused and executed with the most exquisite punishments those people called Christians"--Nero's reign was 54-68 AD. By the end of the second century there were already several strident attempts to discredit Christianity and persecutions were going on all the time.

[M.Dancer]

So where from exactly do you derive this information about the distribution of camals in the ancient world?

I don't know how many times I've heard of the dating of some sort of prehistoric remains be revised; science will only go by what it can find, which is why the term "earliest known record" or something to that effect is usually applied to a date.

Divinely inspired means that the text as it was recorded is as it is and has not been altered. Therefore, all of the texts of the New Testament are as they were first written.

Not sure who taught you history but 1000bc is hardly pre-historic. Hence the absence of any art work depeicting camels...but plenty depicting asses etc.....and the OT ...that isn't divinely inspired?

[Rue]

I did not misrepresent what he said. Read M. Dancer's post above where he addresses this fact quite plainly. Jawapunk maintained that it is impossible for any of the Gospels to have been written within 100 years of his death. Read his posts Rue. I made no claim as to when. I simply pointed out to him that there is no absolute proof of that claim. And that providing the date of some known early editions means very little.

I actually apologize J. I misunderstood your point. Hear that? Its me removing my shoe from my bum bum or my mouth.

I also appreciate your other comments. Nwo I get what you are contending which I may not agree with but I at least can understand so I can genuinely respect the point you are making-they were well stated. Now I have to work hard to see what I can counter debate it with. I happen to appreciate it when you do debate-you have an excellent writing style and disciplined line of reasoning when you are in the mood to debate - you jerk, Lol. what you think Iw ould end with a complement? Me? Never.Lol.

[Oleg Bach]

I actually apologize J. I misunderstood your point. Hear that? Its me removing my shoe from my bum bum or my mouth.

I also appreciate your other comments. Nwo I get what you are contending which I may not agree with but I at least can understand so I can genuinely respect the point you are making-they were well stated. Now I have to work hard to see what I can counter debate it with. I happen to appreciate it when you do debate-you have an excellent writing style and disciplined line of reasoning when you are in the mood to debate - you jerk, Lol. what you think Iw ould end with a complement? Me? Never.Lol.

"Disciplined line of reasoning" - where can I get one of those?

[jefferiah]

I actually apologize J. I misunderstood your point. Hear that? Its me removing my shoe from my bum bum or my mouth.

I also appreciate your other comments. Nwo I get what you are contending which I may not agree with but I at least can understand so I can genuinely respect the point you are making-they were well stated. Now I have to work hard to see what I can counter debate it with. I happen to appreciate it when you do debate-you have an excellent writing style and disciplined line of reasoning when you are in the mood to debate - you jerk, Lol. what you think Iw ould end with a complement? Me? Never.Lol.

Well, Rue, I guess you just won. You are a bigger man than I am . And you were right to call me out on the "you lose". Thanks for the compliments and the criticisms, Rue.

[Rue]

My comments are to the issue as to the origins of the New Testament and not meant to insult any Christians-they are strictly for debate as to the discussion as to the estimated dates or accuracy of the New Testament.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., no. vi, states that the Gospels do not go back to the first century of the Christian era and I think its accurate to say mainstream Christian scholars agree with this. The Catholic Church is on record as having stated that "the earliest of the extant manuscripts [of the New Testament], do not date back beyond the middle of the fourth century AD ( see pp. 656-7 of the Cath. Ency., which according to my math would be 350 years after the Church claimed that Christ existed.

There is also historic consensus that Flavius Constantinus who lived about 272 ad to 337 ad authorised the creation of the New Testament. He lived in an era where most people would have been illiterate and where people believed in numerous Gods.

The Catholic Church has conceded (also in the Cath Ency.Vol.iii, p.299) that Constanine was never converted or baptised and was faced with a civil war between people believing in many Gods and alleged Christians and other God factions and so Constantine needed to stabilize his state and make it easy to rule and so based on the advise of his advisors was told if he created a state religion, i.e., a central organ to control peoples’ thoughts and neutralize the many feuding factions, he could achieve this stability.

There is also consensus the first ecclesiastical conference was the Council of Nicaea and it was at this gathering the first seeds of Christian religious formality come about. We also know about 4 years prior tot his gathering Constantine joined the order of Sol Invictus, which regarded the Sun as the divine essence. His being a Sun worshipper is no secret and this is precisely why he ordered Eusebius to convene three sittings during the summer solstice, 21 June 325. At this council of Nicaea, Sabinius, Bishop of Hereclea was present and made mention of the fact of how everyone was ignorant and illiterate and the convention was a farse, i.e., full of screaming and irrationality.

Interestingly the Catholic Church admits that much of what went on at this council were not written down. We know Eusebius made the first speech. There is reference to representatives from Greece, Asia and the following; Caecilian, Paphnutius, Nicasisus, and Donnus.

Its estimated that at this council there were around 318 people including bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes and exorcists. Apparently they screamed and yelled and debated as to what religion to create and follow and in fact many Gods were proposed as the one God everyone should worship and since no one could agree they took a vote which went on for over a year to decide what to call this God. Apparently all they could come up with was a short list of Caesar, Krishna, Mithra, Horus and Zeus.

Constantine then decided that the Druid god, Hesus be fused with the Eastern Saviour-god, Krishna, the Sanskrit term for Christ or Messiah in Hebrew and Christos in Greek.

Based on a vote of 151 to 157, the two Gods were merged into one. That abstraction lent Earthly existence to amalgamated doctrines for the Empire's new religion; and because there was no letter "J" in alphabets until around the ninth century, the name subsequently evolved into "Jesus Christ".

So there was no divine inspiration. This was a deliberate political exercise complete with meetings, debates, political manouvering, and voting and its all documented.

We then know once they come up with this God, Constanine then ordered Eusebius to come up with a collection of new writings and specifically told him to sift through them, edit them, and come up with only those writings that would serve their political purpose, i.e., using a central organ to control the masses and unify them through one belief system.

Interestingly old council records were found and referred to the first council of Nicaea ending in November of 326 ad and we know the second council of Nicaea which was around 787 referred to the first council as having been a gathering of madmen.

What is clear is the New Testament was not first hand and anyone who states this is

living in la la land. The New Testament came about as part of a deliberate, pre-meditated political plan to create a social control mechanism to control feuding factions of illiterate people.

This is why it was created by throwing out many stories, editing and re-writing others, and adding in stories and values reflecting the political agenda behind the people editing the passages.

Not even the Catholic Church claims the New Testament is written first hand.

Keng’s comment that if something is divinely inspired means its first hand is nonsensical.

“Divinely inspired” means a human states, he felt that the passage he has was inspired by God. How is that first hand? Its necessarily a subjective opinion as to the value of the

script, i.e., simply believing it as divine. All it is-is at best something a human may have written and then was re-written or edited and changed so many times, no one can say what was the original form or script.

But we do know when the council was held, and that the actual process of putting these alleged passages together happened long after the alleged death of Jesus and certainly can not be authenticated as being first hand and in fact many of them clearly state they are gospels “according” to so and so precisely because no one had the original scripts.

The fact we do not know the dates of original scripts does not change the fact that there is no proof of the original scripts existing. What we do have is proof of the editing, political selective process involved in pasting together the New Testament and the fact that had to have happened 300 or so years after Christ’s alleged death and necessarily created an impure compilation of documents since they were changed for political and not faith purposes.

Divine inspiration? Why because humans say so and want it to be so? The stories are far from original and clearly fuse pagan and other plagerized concepts of deity and saviours and human body Gods sent to save the world. Far from original. In fact so unoriginal as to have forced the Church to admit that the story of Christ is not the only story of a man sent by God in human flesh.

So I say, if Keng wants to believe it is so, bully for him but to pronounce to the world it must be divine because he says so does not make it so.

[jefferiah]

Constantine then decided that the Druid god, Hesus be fused with the Eastern Saviour-god, Krishna, the Sanskrit term for Christ or Messiah in Hebrew and Christos in Greek.

Based on a vote of 151 to 157, the two Gods were merged into one. That abstraction lent Earthly existence to amalgamated doctrines for the Empire's new religion; and because there was no letter "J" in alphabets until around the ninth century, the name subsequently evolved into "Jesus Christ".

We then know once they come up with this God, Constanine then ordered Eusebius to come up with a collection of new writings and specifically told him to sift through them, edit them, and come up with only those writings that would serve their political purpose, i.e., using a central organ to control the masses and unify them through one belief system.

The fact we do not know the dates of original scripts does not change the fact that there is no proof of the original scripts existing. What we do have is proof of the editing, political selective process involved in pasting together the New Testament and the fact that had to have happened 300 or so years after Christ’s alleged death and necessarily created an impure compilation of documents since they were changed for political and not faith purposes.

Citation please.

[M.Dancer]

The Catholic Church is on record as having stated that "the earliest of the extant manuscripts [of the New Testament], do not date back beyond the middle of the fourth century AD ( see pp. 656-7 of the Cath. Ency., which according to my math would be 350 years after the Church claimed that Christ existed.

Extant doesn't mean what you are positing to mean. Extant means complete, ie. the earliest complete manuscript. That doesn't preclude earlier incomplete gospels or epistles that still survive or ones that have been lost and only later copies remain..

http://www.biblefacts.org/history/p52.html

[kengs333]

Not sure who taught you history but 1000bc is hardly pre-historic. Hence the absence of any art work depeicting camels...but plenty depicting asses etc.....and the OT ...that isn't divinely inspired?

Well, one has to wonder who taught you how to read. You'll notice that I referred to the distribution of camels in the "ancient world". My reference to prehistoric dating is a general reference to science's continually revised dating of all sorts of things, not just camels.

Moreover, if you actually care to bone up on the term prehistory, you'll learn that prehistory refers to a period prior to there being written records. So 1000 BC is certainly prehistory in much of the world, and since the time of the authorship of the Torah is a matter of debate, but generally believed to be about the 10th century BC, by your reckoning it should be prehistoric. The events described may date prior to 1000 BC, but the written record does not.

So what was that you were saying about art "depeicting" asses?

[jefferiah]

Extant doesn't mean what you are positing to mean. Extant means complete, ie. the earliest complete manuscript. That doesn't preclude earlier incomplete gospels or epistles that still survive or ones that have been lost and only later copies remain..

http://www.biblefacts.org/history/p52.html

Excellent work Dancer. And I am pretty sure this bit about Constantine ordering Eusebius to write a new New Testament and to merge this Hesus with Krishna did not come from the Catholic Encyclopedia either.

As KENGs pointed out there was persecution of Christians well before the Council of Nicea and that in order for this religion to have become so popular by this point it had to have existed and had an established doctrine well before this point. Rue is trying to say that after generations of regular believers, Constantine then changes the religion and apparently no one notices.

Now I sort of think Rue might be kind of on the right track with the centralized power thing, but that he is getting the wrong conclusion...or perhaps a bit of an exaggerated one. That's just my opinion. At this point, after we know that there have been generations of Christians (who in order to be Christians must have some idea of what it is Christians believe and what the theology is basically about). We also know that these Christians were probably quite serious about what it is they believed because they were willing to die for it. And now all of a sudden these serious Christians who refused to change their religion in the face of death, just readily accept Rue's Eusebian New Testament with Hesus and Krishna. I don't buy that myself. But what I do buy is that since Christians were surviving and the religion was spreading that there may have been attempts among the powerful to ride the coattails. You can't actually change the theology with a few pen strokes because believers will notice it. But power can be gleaned by making additional documents. There is very little in the New Testament which would be ideal for solidifying great political power. In fact the philosopher Aldous Huxley (and others who were his contemporaries in sci-fi rather than philosophy) seemed to be of the opinion that such a book would have to be destroyed or hidden from the public in order for absolute power to be solidified. But if the Christians could not be persecuted, and if one could not change their faith on them, perhaps one could add to it. The ideal dogma to be used for consolidating power is not to have people believe in some Jewish guy. Its to have the Godman head of State. If you can't sell to the people that such a Godman exists. Perhaps you can attempt to give the Jewish Godman they do believe in an infallible representative (a Governor General if you will ) on Earth.

Edited November 21, 2007 by jefferiah

[M.Dancer]

Well, one has to wonder who taught you how to read. You'll notice that I referred to the distribution of camels in the "ancient world". My reference to prehistoric dating is a general reference to science's continually revised dating of all sorts of things, not just camels.

Moreover, if you actually care to bone up on the term prehistory, you'll learn that prehistory refers to a period prior to there being written records. So 1000 BC is certainly prehistory in much of the world, and since the time of the authorship of the Torah is a matter of debate, but generally believed to be about the 10th century BC, by your reckoning it should be prehistoric. The events described may date prior to 1000 BC, but the written record does not.

So what was that you were saying about art "depeicting" asses?

You. Are. Funny.

On one hand you say 1,000 BC is prehistory because it refers to the perior before written records and in the same breath you say the Torah was written in the 10th centruy BC. HELLO? 10th century BC and 1000 BC are the same date. Notwithsdtanding that the inspired infallible OT cliams the Torah was written by Moses, who would have lived 500 years before that date.....

Not want to nit pick in a post so full of nits, you should know that writting predates 1000BC (or 10th century BC) by 2000 years....pushing prehostoric back to the 30th century BC (or 3000 BC)

[kengs333]

Rue,

Your kind of jabbering about Christianity has been going on from day one, so don't think you're accomplishing much by doing this except re-inforcing negative stereotypes. Christians have always been persecuted by your kind; Christians have always been the victims, regardless of how history gets twisted to seem otherwise. But that's okay; we all know where you're headed, so it's safe to say that the ability to wantonly malign and persecute without consequence in this mortal world is small consolation for the prize that awaits your kind.

[M.Dancer]

As KENGs pointed out there was persecution of Christians well before the Council of Nicea and that in order for this religion to have become so popular by this point it had to have existed and had an established doctrine well before this point. Rue is trying to say that after generations of regular believers, Constantine then changes the religion and apparently no one notices.

It should be pointed out that by the time of the Nicean council, most of the persecuting of christians was by christians. The council was necessary because the were various schisms in the church and Constantine was worried that fratricidal chaos would sweep the empire unless an orthodox theology was put into place. What he did was to invite all the players; the bishops of every church in the empire to debate and to vote on matters canonical and theological. The easiest part of thir job was the canon, because the form we know now had been pretty much in place since around 150AD (or 2nd century)....the hard part was theology dealing with issues that for the most part are over most people's head and off today's radar screen (was christ made of the same substance as god or did christ become the same substance for example). At the time riots were taking place in alomost every major city between the followers of the various thoughts. Constantine's move brought peace and unity.

[M.Dancer]

Rue,

Your kind of jabbering about Christianity has been going on from day one, so don't think you're accomplishing much by doing this except re-inforcing negative stereotypes. Christians have always been persecuted by your kind; Christians have always been the victims, regardless of how history gets twisted to seem otherwise. But that's okay; we all know where you're headed, so it's safe to say that the ability to wantonly malign and persecute without consequence in this mortal world is small consolation for the prize that awaits your kind.

Your kind? Negative Stereo Types

What kind is that, what negative stereo types, pray tell?

[kengs333]

You. Are. Funny.

On one hand you say 1,000 BC is prehistory because it refers to the perior before written records and in the same breath you say the Torah was written in the 10th centruy BC. HELLO? 10th century BC and 1000 BC are the same date. Notwithsdtanding that the inspired infallible OT cliams the Torah was written by Moses, who would have lived 500 years before that date.....

Not want to nit pick in a post so full of nits, you should know that writting predates 1000BC (or 10th century BC) by 2000 years....pushing prehostoric back to the 30th century BC (or 3000 BC)

No, I'm sorry, I believe that 10th century BC refers to the period 999 to 900 BC, so therefore, 10th century BC and 1000 BC are NOT the "same date".

Oh, but we are talking about the dating according to your secular, scientific view of history, are we not? First you're referring archeological records of camel distribution, but when the dates don't jive you suddenly become an evangelical Christian and claim that the Torah was written by Moses and therefore 1000 BC is not prehistoric.

It don't matter when writing first occurs; we're talking about historical records in the Torah that refer to camels... and how archeological records show that they are in fact prehistoric in the region.

Still, I'd like to see your sources.

[kengs333]

Your kind? Negative Stereo Types

What kind is that, what negative stereo types, pray tell?

God-haters, anti-Christians, those of the general persecutorial bent.