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Author | Topic: How do we know when the Gospels were written? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
AdminJar Inactive Member |
Welcome to EvC
We are glad you joined us but we do not debate webpages here. In addition, long cut&pastes from other sites, particularly without attribution, are frowned upon. If you can present an argument in your own words, it is acceptable to then link to other sites as supporting documentation. At the end of this message you will find links to several threads that may make your stay here more enjoyable. Comments on moderation procedures (or wish to respond to admin messages)? - Go to:
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truthlover Member (Idle past 4080 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
Justin Martyr, the most eminent of the early Fathers, wrote about the middle of the second century. His writings in proof of the divinity of Christ demanded the use of these Gospels had they existed in his time. He makes more than three hundred quotations from the books of the Old Testament, and nearly one hundred from the Apocryphal books of the New Testament; but none from the Four Gospels. His writings in defense of the divinity of Christ are one writing, called Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew. Hey, guess why he didn't quote from the Gospels? For the same reason he didn't quote from anywhere else in the NT...*in that writing only*! From his First Apology, ch. 66:
quote: I don't know where you got "Christian Records, p.71," but whoever wrote it didn't know what he was talking about. Justin's First Apology is not a questioned writing. I don't have my first volume of the Ante-Nicene Fathers with me here at work, so I can't use their Scripture index, but a quick search found me Mark 9:42 quoted in Rome's letter to the Corinthians (1 Clement), which is almost indisputed as a 1st century writing. It's in chapter 46, and the whole reference to the stumbling block and the millstone around the neck is clearly quoted. As for the statement that:
“Early church father Eusebius, who, in a rare moment of seeming honesty, "admitted...that the canonical Christian gospels and epistles were the ancient writings of the Essenes reproduced in the name of Jesus. I'd have to see that, because that would be a very famous quote. As inaccurate as everything else you posted was, my thought is that this, too, is just fabricated. Edited by truthlover, : Fixed a code I entered wrong
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chapalot Inactive Member |
Your problem is you are trying to use the Bible to support an argument.Studing falsehoods with great intensity seldom will seldom increase knowledge. I study all the Gospels. When in doubt on an issue I go to the Gospel of the Essenes. I also study the early Christian known as "the followers of the way" (the Ebionites) I can assure you nothing I have written is fabricated. Before you quote Paul, I recommend you research a little of his background. He deified the death of Christ and not his teachings.
.The Truth frees all of us to finally admit that somehow, some way, we just knew there was something wrong with what we'd been told to believe without question. The Creator gave us brains -- and minds with which to explore the mysteries of this wondrous universe. We can never learn new truths if we have a mind cluttered with preconceived opinions because blind faith stifles curiosity, and without curiosity, there can be no great discoveries. Blind unquestioning faith is the prison door that Jesus came to throw open. It was the superstitions keeping people oppressed that he sought to destroy. He had discovered the Truth, and the Source of the Truth. He had found Moses' secret doctrine and the glorious knowledge it contained. He wanted to share that knowledge with the world, even if it might cost him his life to do so. He knew that knowledge is Power. Always question those who say they have found the truth, more readily than those who say they are seekers of the truth.
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Equinox Member (Idle past 5163 days) Posts: 329 From: Michigan Joined: |
Declined wrote:
quote: OK, first, in reading the whole thread, I’m surprised that we haven’t stated nor discussed the scholarly consensus (which, despite an earlier post, many scholars do agree on most of). First, the dates:The accepted dates of the writing of the books of the NT are as follows, in chronological order: Around 50’s CE The 7 letters by Paul (Philp, Rom, 1&2Cor, 1thes, gal, phile) 65-80 Mark 70 to 100 Deutero-paulines (claim to be by Paul, most scholars think they are forgeries, but there is some debate here (Eph, Col, 2thes) 80 100 Matthew, Luke, Acts (Luke and acts used to be two volumes of same book) Hebrews (included in Bible because the early church though Paul wrote it, but he didn’t), 1pet, Rev 90-110 John 90-120 1, 2 & 3 John 100-150 Pastoral epistles of 1,2tm and Titus (scholars agree that these are forgeries) 120-160 2 Pet (forgery) Much of the logic for why scholars agree on this is in the site mentioned earlier, Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church Fathers. I’ve tested the scholar’s reasons, and I find them convincing. What I’ll be discussing here are my reasons for interpreting the evidence the same way they do. I hope, similarly, that anyone who wants to make a claim in this area will at least read about what evidence we have either way. The site above is a good place to start. Scholars also agree that none of the gospels were written by disciples - in fact, none of the gospels even claim to be. The idea that any were disciples is an idea made up by the catholic church long after the writers of the gospels were dead. The fact that the gospels don’t claim that and that we can see when the labels of (matthew, mark, luke & John) were applied based on early church writings are both undisputed by fundamentalists and scholars. Mt and Lk used (and liberally copied word for word sections from) Mk. Jn is so radiacally different on nearly every point that it is clear that John in writing at a different time with a different main point. There is a lot of internal evidence that shows that Jn wasn’t present for the life of Jesus. For example - the synoptics (Mk, Mt, & Lk) describe how Jn was present for the transfiguration. Jn, however, never mentions it - it’s as if it didn’t happen. Jn also has a completely different Jesus (who never tells a parable, who dies on a different day, who never hides who he is, and on and on). All of the gospels appear to be relating hearsay stories, and by the time Jn wrote, the hearsay stories had changed quite a bit. One piece of evidence that none of them are eyewitnesses is the fact that Mk writes as if he were ignorant of Israel and of Jewish customs (obviously he's not a palestinian Jew). Mt and Lk copy so much from Mk that one doubts why an eyewitness would copy so much, word for word, from someone who wasn’t an eyewitness. Most of all, none of they ever claim to be an eyewitness. It’s as if I wrote a fancy story, and then someone later took it and said it was an eyewitness account without my knowledge or consent. There’s plenty more to discuss here, but that’s enough to get us started. Please base points you are making on objective evidence, not on just something someone said. Have a fun day- -Equinox _ _ _ ___ _ _ _You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims... (Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan - Naturalistic Paganism Home)
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Equinox Member (Idle past 5163 days) Posts: 329 From: Michigan Joined: |
Faith wrote:
quote: OK, that doesn’t help your credibility. What evidence do you have that “hundreds of thousands” of people witnessed Jesus’ ministry and were available for interviewing decades later, in an age when the life expectancy was in the 20’s? Jesus made practically no impact on the world of his day as far as we can tell from the evidence. The only mention of Jesus by any non-Christian historian writing in the first century is Josephus, who wrote hundreds of pages of very detailed descriptions of that time period of Israel. In all that, he has only a brief mention of Jesus. We have all kinds of writings from people of the first century - Roman historians, emperors, military officials, tomb incriptions, and on and on. Nothing else, anywhere, even mentions Jesus. If his ministry had any significant impact during his day, that wouldn’t be the case. Can you produce any evidence, from within even as much as 20 years of Jesus’ death, that any more than a few dozen people heard him and even cared what he said? I'm quite familiar with our ancient sources, so please don't make stuff up. Thank you- -Equinox _ _ _ ___ _ _ _You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims... (Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan - Naturalistic Paganism Home)
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AdminJar Inactive Member |
Starting a reply with comments like:
Your problem is you are trying to use the Bible to support an argument.Studing falsehoods with great intensity seldom will seldom increase knowledge. is seldom productive. Cut it out. In addition in the message you were replying to, you were asked to support certain assertions you made. Around here we expect people to try to back up their assertions with either sources, or with logic. Specifically you have been asked to provide your source for the Eusebius quote. Comments on moderation procedures (or wish to respond to admin messages)? - Go to:
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Faith wrote:
What does when they were written down have to do with anything? You think the hundreds of thousands who had witnessed him had just disappeared by the time they were written? OK, that doesn’t help your credibility. What evidence do you have that “hundreds of thousands” of people witnessed Jesus’ ministry and were available for interviewing decades later, in an age when the life expectancy was in the 20’s? Excuse me, but you have to be making up this life expectancy bit, or allowing a mere statistic that averages out the deaths in frequent wars and infancy or something, and spreads it across all ancient cultures without regard to differences in situation. John lived into his nineties, and the other apostles were all martyred, well up in age by all accounts I'm familiar with -- and I'm quite ready to grant that you may have more knowledge about this than I do, but not that great numbers who witnessed Jesus did not live to tell and hear the many stories about Him for many decades. Certainly hundreds of thousands at least HEARD Jesus, and MANY of them would have lived long enough to correct any lies that were circulating. Even if only a few hundred survived a few decades there would have been plenty of witnesses to keep the stories straight.
Jesus made practically no impact on the world of his day as far as we can tell from the evidence. If you ignore the Bible and the early Christian writings you could think that, since the heathen didn't pay much attention to Christianity until it had picked up numbers and influence over the first few centuries. But Jesus' impact was enormous if you look at the converts He gathered in one by one through the evangelism of His apostles, and the impact they eventually had on the world.
The only mention of Jesus by any non-Christian historian writing in the first century is Josephus, who wrote hundreds of pages of very detailed descriptions of that time period of Israel. In all that, he has only a brief mention of Jesus. We have all kinds of writings from people of the first century - Roman historians, emperors, military officials, tomb incriptions, and on and on. Nothing else, anywhere, even mentions Jesus. I keep forgetting the two Roman historians who are always referenced as mentioning Him. I'll go and look them up and add them to this after I post it, but I know Tacitus is one. But perhaps you want a direct mention of Him personally rather than His influence through His witnesses? Why would that make a difference if so? Anyway, I'll see what I can dig up. {EDIT: Perhaps Suetonius although that doesn't ring a bell in this respect at the moment. Here's a link on the subject I just found: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/jesusref.html}
If his ministry had any significant impact during his day, that wouldn’t be the case. Can you produce any evidence, from within even as much as 20 years of Jesus’ death, that any more than a few dozen people heard him and even cared what he said? The records of those who actually heard Jesus would be in the gospels, not "within 20 years of Jesus' death." A few hundred thousands hearing Him in the three years of His ministry hardly seems excessive to me, though I admit I haven't tried to make a count. I did however make a count of those who were converted to faith in Him by His apostles after His death, from the Book of Acts, which might or might not be some clue to the numbers of those who would have been influenced by Him directly -- though again I don't see why this should matter if it is what you are asking. Many heard Jesus directly who did not believe, but how many is unknowable; it took the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost after His death to bring about true faith. I counted thirty thousand converts from among the Jews alone from the mentions in Acts, using a pretty stringent standard. The Book of Acts only deals with the evangelism of a few of the apostles, principally Peter and Paul, and we can probably fairly assume it only records a portion of their converts too. Then, if you multiply their effect by all the other apostles, plus the converts themselves who continued to spread the word, you come up with a few hundred thousand in the first century in no time at all. And I believe this number would fit with what is known about the spread of the faith in that part of the world, whether the heathen powers had gotten around to noticing it or not. {EDIT: Forgot to draw the conclusion about the reports of Jesus from this. The point is that with so many spreading the word and so many hearing it from many sources, there would have been plenty of opportunity for any false stories to get corrected before, during and after they were set in writing.}
I'm quite familiar with our ancient sources, so please don't make stuff up. Thank you- I hope you don't classify inference from the Book of Acts to be "making stuff up." You're welcome. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6014 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
Jesus made practically no impact on the world of his day as far as we can tell from the evidence. The only mention of Jesus by any non-Christian historian writing in the first century is Josephus, who wrote hundreds of pages of very detailed descriptions of that time period of Israel. Less than thirty years after Jesus' death, Nero (the supreme ruler of the empire that ruled over the known world at the time) was threatened enough by the Christians to have them brutally persecuted. That Christianity had already spread so significantly that the Roman empire was threatened by them, is surely a sign of of Jesus' significant impact on the world around him..
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truthlover Member (Idle past 4080 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
Your problem is you are trying to use the Bible to support an argument. What are you talking about. You said Justin Martyr and earlier authors didn't quote the Gospels. I showed, with reference to their writings, that they did. I am using the very writings you mentioned not just to support an argument, but to present an absolutely conclusive argument, which is that the statements you quoted are simply false. Nothing else happened, so I have no idea what you're talking about when you say I'm using the Bible to support an argument.
Before you quote Paul... I didn't quote Paul. Are you okay? Did you mean to answer someone else? Nothing you responded to me makes any sense at all.
The Truth frees all of us to finally admit that somehow, some way, we just knew there was something wrong with what we'd been told to believe without question. Then you ought to be grateful that I was able to inform you that the information in your post 45 is all inaccurate.
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truthlover Member (Idle past 4080 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
in an age when the life expectancy was in the 20’s People have really weird ideas of how long people used to live. "Average life expectancy" includes kids who die of diseases at age 8. No one was dying of old age in their 20's in the 1st century, and it was common for people to live into old age; just less common than now.
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Legend Member (Idle past 5027 days) Posts: 1226 From: Wales, UK Joined: |
mjfloresta writes: Less than thirty years after Jesus' death, Nero (the supreme ruler of the empire that ruled over the known world at the time) was threatened enough by the Christians to have them brutally persecuted. That Christianity had already spread so significantly that the Roman empire was threatened by them, is surely a sign of of Jesus' significant impact on the world around him.. I've studied my fair share of Roman history and I don't recall reading that Nero (or anyone else) felt threatened by the Christians. On the contrary, historical accounts (Tacitus) claim that Nero used the Christians as a scapegoat for the Great Fire or Rome, as the populace were blaming him for it. If anything, the Romans were treating the Christians with either ridicule or pity (Annals by Tacitus), far from feeling threatened by them. Can you support your claim that the Roman empire was threatened by the Christians at that time ? Edited by Legend, : spelling "In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."
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ramoss Member (Idle past 633 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
When it comes to the Gospel of Luke, there is some evidence that Luke used Jospehus as a source for historical information. If true, that would push the early terminus of Luke to be 95.
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Phat Member Posts: 18298 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
Legend writes: On the contrary, historical accounts (Tacitus) claim that Nero used the Christians as a scapegoat for the Great Fire or Rome, as the populace were blaming him for it. If anything, the Romans were treating the Christians with either ridicule or pity (Annals by Tacitus), far from feeling threatened by them. In a similar vein, the Nazis felt threatened by the Jewish people, yet also used them as scapegoats. There were many people in the Roman Empire worshipping other gods...why the Christians were picked on so much is curious. Perhaps they were a threat.
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Equinox Member (Idle past 5163 days) Posts: 329 From: Michigan Joined: |
Life expectancy-
Yes, as truthlover and yourself mentioned, that included childhood deaths. I didn’t mean to imply that people withered and died at age 25 -we both agree that that is silly. Ageing was the same. However, the ancient world was harsh. There was no medicine or dentistry to speak of, and a tooth abcess or minor infection was often fatal. People died very often in the prime of their lives for reasons that an over the counter fix would cure today, plus shortages of food or pure water were common. quote: How would we know how many seriously heard him (not counting passers-by who don’t really care who’s talking about what)? There is decent evidence that at least a few followers after his death remembered enough to tell stories, but no evidence that there were even hundreds who listened to and remembered his stories. It was a little unfair for me to ask “Can you produce any evidence, from within even as much as 20 years of Jesus’ death, that any more than a few dozen people heard him and even cared what he said?”, because I already know the answer - there isn’t any. Think of how stories work. A small group of people know and are enthused about what they’ve heard. They tell their friends. Their friends repeat the stories to their spouses. Their spouses tell the stories to their cousins. Their cousins tell the stories to their business associates. The business associates travel to another city and tell someone there. There people there tell their wives, the . . .. Because Christianity grew exponentially, the people telling the stories couldn’t have been eyewitnesses after the first couple steps of storytelling. This is especially true since it’s known that Christianity grew mostly in places outside the original context. For instance, Jesus was a Palestinian jew, yet Christianity grew most among Hellenic people (gentiles) outside of Palestine. Look at the situation described above, of people telling stories. That’s the game of telephone, remember it? Stories change. Add to that the fact that this isn’t just telephone in some livingroom at a kid’s birthday party, but is being played over decades, with people from different cultures, who speak different languages, living miles apart, who mostly can’t read and write, in an age without newspapers nor mass media. Besides, if, centuries later, so many people have different stories about Jesus, who do you believe? Everyone will claim theirs are reliable, and go back to eyewitnesses, or even that they are an eyewitness. The conflicts between the many different types of Christianity early on show this, before the Catholic church won the battles over what Christianity would be. The Gnostics, Ebionites, Donatists Marcionites, Thomasines, Sybellians, proto-orthodox, Montanists, Docetists, and so many others all claimed to have the true Christian teaching. This history, as well as the world today show what happens to stories overnight. Remember high school, when rumors would get going, even about events that happened with plenty of witnesses? Or think of today’s court of law. Why do we even have Juries? Why not just ask an eyewitness? Because an eyewitness, even if available (which the gospels case doesn’t appear to be true), is unreliable. There have been all kinds of studies in modern times showing that eyewitnesses regularly remember important details wrong, all the while “remembering” it vividly and easily. They also incorporate later outside influences into their memories, and it looks seamless to them.
quote: Right - we agree that later on, Christianity had incredible impact. But I wasn’t saying that Christianity didn’t had impact over the centuries - that’s obvious. I said that Jesus had no impact on the world of his day as far as we can tell.And I’m not ignoring the Bible. I’m just taking into account when and how and by whom with what biases it was written. quote: I keep forgetting the two Roman historians who are always referenced as mentioning Him. I'll go and look them up and add them to this after I post it, but I know Tacitus is one. But perhaps you want a direct mention of Him personally rather than His influence through His witnesses? Why would that make a difference if so? Anyway, I'll see what I can dig up.
[/quote]
You are thinking of Tacitus and Suetonius, as you mention (Pliny the younger is a third). All are in the second century, nearly 100 years after jesus, and all only mention that there are Christians in existence, not anything about what Jesus said.
quote: Acts isn’t relevant for a number of reasons. First, it’s written by anonymously. Second, it’s written specifically to make more Christians, so of course it’s going to have glowing stories. Third, it’s written over a half century after Jesus died - that’s like me writing about the Malcolm X based on what stories I could get today from people who say they’ve seen him. So it is well outside the 20 years I mentioned, and late enough for it's accuracy to be questioned. Fourth, it’s known to be inaccurate repeatedly. It disagrees with Paul about things that we have in his own letters, and even contradicts itself. There are a lot of reasons scholars (most of whom are believing Christians) know better than to just naively read acts at face value, any more than they just beleive everything they hear in negative campaign ads at face value.
quote: Hmmm. I’ll not comment on “heathen powers”.
quote: As before, history and our daily lives show that the opposite is the most likely situation. When people tell stories about something for years, then later on people take those stories and write them down, then the stories are changed. We have hard evidence of this just by comparing the gospel stories, which disagree on many points, in spite of the fact that they are just a the small subset of the different gospels and stories that were available which were consistent with Catholic belief.
quote:The multiple errors in mj’s statement have been corrected by legend, above (except the 30 years after jesus died around 29-33 CE.). MJ, when a Christian like you says things so false, it doesn’t help the credibility of Christians nor of Christianity in general. If I were you I'd apologize to Faith and and other Christians. Note- this is a reply also to Faith and to MJ Take care all- Edited by Equinox, : added some blank lines for readability, and reply note at end. -Equinox _ _ _ ___ _ _ _You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims... (Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan - Naturalistic Paganism Home)
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5948 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5 |
The only mention of Jesus by any non-Christian historian writing in the first century is Josephus, who wrote hundreds of pages of very detailed descriptions of that time period of Israel. In all that, he has only a brief mention of Jesus. 30 years ago after I had studied Greek in college (one year as a personal interest class), I looked up Josephus in the library to see what he had written and found a collection of his writings that had the Greek on one page and an English translation on the opposite page. When I got to where he was supposed to have mentioned Jesus, it wasn't there. The book's editor noted that that passage does not exist in the original Greek, but rather it first appeared much later in an Old Church Slavonic translation and that it appears to have been inserted at that time long after Josephus had lived. In other words, Josephus didn't mention Jesus. BTW, Old Church Slavonic is the forerunner of Russian and a number of other Slavic languages, much as Latin developed into the Romance language family. Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.
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