Much Ado about Nothing

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think that this is a myth that circulates around. Since Tertullian,
ca. 200 AD, is working with much the same NT as we are, it can't really
be right.

Stu Fleming said:

Windows NT 200AD (Build 1.27.1059) ?

So NT does stand for Neanderthal Technology then. Now we just need to
find the gospel according to Bill.

"Curtis L. Russell" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Jim Flom said:

The
New Testament documents are far better preserved and more numerous than
_any_ other ancient writing. Currently there are 5,686 Greek manuscripts
available today for the New Testament.

Two points:

Early copies of works that were written well after the time that they
purport to have been written don't make it accurate history; it only
confirms that the early writing was well distributed. The Pauline
texts are considered by many to be the earliest and he does not
mention many 'historical truths' mentioned in the 'earlier' texts.
Paul IMO is as contemporaneous as you can get and, guess what, he
ain't gospel...

The other philosophers that you mention are judged not as the center
of a current religion, but on what they purported to have written or
said. This removes in large part the issue of accuracy of what is
written. No one says you're wrong because you disagree with the text
as written, unless you are being judged on your ability to quote.
Arguments with Christians and followers of Islam often return to the
text to decide the argument. It isn't what is said, but who can best
argue who said it.

Like, the one with the best lawyer wins (see presuppositions, below).

Thanks for bring this up, and allowing me to clarify. The autographs of the
new testament were written within a generation of Jesus' life and the birth
of the church. My comments were primarily directed to the question of an
evolutionary style of corruption of the text of the Bible over time,
rendering us a new testament today that bears little resemblance to the
originals. It simply doesn't hold water. We no longer have the original
autographs (first version Paul wrote of his letter to the Corinthians, for
example), but because of the enormous amount of corroboration and the extent
of the attestation, it is possible to re-create the original autographs and
have virtual certainty about the text of the New Testament books. What
variants do exist at no point strike at the vitals of religion. So my main
point was that the manuscript evidence I referred to in my earlier post
indicates fidelity to the original gospels, letters, etc.

As for historical accuracy, a couple of points, one having to do with
proximity to the events, and the other to do with references within the
documents themselves. Because the new testament was written so closely to
the time the events are to have occurred, there was ample opportunity for
those who disagreed to make their case. In fact, gospel writers refer to
efforts to debunk the resurrection of Jesus, but rather than to quell the
growth of Xy, incumbent, status quo, religious authorities were unable to
stop it. That's partly because of the numbers of eye witnesses to the
resurrection and partly because God may have actually been doing something.

The other piece to this is the gospel writers, especially Luke, take pains
to refer to actual historical circumstances, civil authorities, Roman
rulers, other events, that have been verified by archeology and other
sources. Luke for example is basically saying, here's what happened, when
it happened and why it happened, and you can verify it and here's how.
Archeological findings repeatedly corroborate biblical references to
historical events. No one believed there were Hittites, then lo and behold,
a vast Hittite civilization was found.

There's a third point about the devotion of the disciples to the cause,
which is another whole area. Peter tried to go back to fishing but simply
could not. These people gave their lives to the cause when the easiest
thing they could have done is to have gone back to fishing. Now you can say
the same thing about Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, whom I
believe to have been a fraud, so in itself it doesn't prove much. But it
stands and falls on the resurrection. If it happened, it's all true. If
not, pass me the bong.

All this gets the the issue of presuppositions though. It doesn't matter
what anyone says or what archeology lends itself to if someone's
presuppositions exclude the possibility of the miraculous, etc.

JF

<[email hidden]> wrote ...

Quoted message said:

I think Dr Crossan would be very cross to be associated with such a
statement, since he can hardly not know that it isn't true. It isn't
true, at all events.

Some years ago I got rather fed up of reading this story about Nicaea,
which never had any ancient reference given for it, and wanted to check
it. What I did was to draw up a list of every ancient text that could
possibly mention the council -- say up to a century later -- and then
go through them and see what they said about it. I found that not one
of them gave such an account. Instead, one and all described wrangling
over whether the second person of the Trinity was of the same substance
(homoousios) as the first, or of a like substance.

That and the determination of what would be canon and what wouldn't be was
not as arbitrary as some would like to think. There was virtual certainty
about which books were which, their use was nearly uniform throughout the
ancient world, and on the few matters in which there was question (e.g.,
James), the councils reflected reasoned, if imperfectly deliberated,
decisions. Xy will always be open to the charge that it isn't perfect,
since people are involved.

Quoted message said:

But just to reiterate: there are no real differences in canon of the NT
perceptible. But since the apostles didn't lay one down, the one we
have today coalesced over time. What we cannot say is "we definitely
have some serious differences in differing versions of the Bible."
Sorry -- not being personal -- but it is not so.

Well said.

JF

Donald Munro said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think that this is a myth that circulates around. Since Tertullian,
ca. 200 AD, is working with much the same NT as we are, it can't really
be right.

Stu Fleming said:

Windows NT 200AD (Build 1.27.1059) ?

So NT does stand for Neanderthal Technology then. Now we just need to
find the gospel according to Bill.

I once saw a cartoon strip showing Bill Gates arriving in hell. He was
led to a terminal, and told that, by special request from PC users
everywhere, he was assigned the job of reinstalling Windows for
eternity...

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Jim Flom said:

All this gets the the issue of presuppositions though. It doesn't matter
what anyone says or what archeology lends itself to if someone's
presuppositions exclude the possibility of the miraculous, etc.

How fortunate the inconsistencies from one gospel to another give
preachers ample fodder for their sermon cycle.

The greater concern with the NT is not that the broader historical
context is accurate - indeed, why would it not? The issue is whether
there was a clear and deliberate alteration in what Jesu/Jesua of
Galilee really said in the time before the last days of the Temple and
what was altered to make it both more palatable to the early primary
source of converts (pre-Pauline, clearly Jewish) and to either conform
to a miraculous knowledge of the fall of the Temple or to make the new
religion more functional in the days after the fall of the Temple and
a wave of a new Jewish Diaspora moving to the areas not easily
accessible to Jerusalem.

Another issue is that those early Christians that remained most Jewish
may very well had their historical records destroyed in second/third
Jewish Revolt against the Romans, when the Romans made wholesale
destruction of virtually all Jewish records that resembled religious
or state documents in 135-136. Those sects that moved into the
Diaspora communities most completely fared better than those that
remained in the closer provinces.

Finally, there are communities that have clear records and continuity
that disagree with those of the Christians, including the followers of
John the Baptist. Their continuing church is both a confirmation of a
Jesua that was and an argument that it may have been different as
created (my opinion) in the years between the fall of the Temple and
the Third revolt, when what 'was' was pretty much set in stone.

I think Chilton has it far more right than wrong - I just can't figure
out how he remains a member of his church after coming to the
conclusions that he does. And when it comes to miracles, I agree more
with R.W.Emerson than Pat Robertson.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

"Curtis L. Russell" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Jim Flom said:

All this gets the the issue of presuppositions though. It doesn't matter
what anyone says or what archeology lends itself to if someone's
presuppositions exclude the possibility of the miraculous, etc.

How fortunate the inconsistencies from one gospel to another give
preachers ample fodder for their sermon cycle.

I don't know who would suffer more -- me preparing it or them suffering
through lectures on inconsistencies. Kicking around apparent
inconsistencies makes for good conversation over a beer on a Friday night,
but it's not exactly what my people look for on a Sunday morning.
Differences between the gospels are often useful though when one author
highlights certain details that others don't, rendering a fuller picture
than you'd get with one account alone.

Quoted message said:

The greater concern with the NT is not that the broader historical
context is accurate - indeed, why would it not? The issue is whether
there was a clear and deliberate alteration in what Jesu/Jesua of
Galilee really said in the time before the last days of the Temple and
what was altered to make it both more palatable to the early primary
source of converts (pre-Pauline, clearly Jewish) and to either conform
to a miraculous knowledge of the fall of the Temple or to make the new
religion more functional in the days after the fall of the Temple and
a wave of a new Jewish Diaspora moving to the areas not easily
accessible to Jerusalem.

Yeah, that's the issue all right.

Quoted message said:

I think Chilton has it far more right than wrong - I just can't figure
out how he remains a member of his church after coming to the
conclusions that he does. And when it comes to miracles, I agree more
with R.W.Emerson than Pat Robertson.

As Mark Twain said, "It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't
understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."

JF

Quoted message said:

Bill C said:

Quoted message said:

Bill C wrote:
> I'm sure you know that all of this was struggled with at the Council of
> Nicea and onward from there. There was a lot of "revising" early on,
> and we definitely have some serious differences in differing versions
> of the Bible.

I think that this is a myth that circulates around. Since Tertullian,
ca. 200 AD, is working with much the same NT as we are, it can't really
be right.

Possibly you are thinking of the gnostic 'gospels'? All of these were
dismissed as forgeries in antiquity, and, since they disagree with each
other and the gospels that the church knew, it seems like a valid
verdict.

> What had stuck in my head was "The Donation of
> Constantine" which has been known to be fraudulent for centuries, but
> was typical of the Popes who were fighting more to justify their
> temporal power and wealth than for anything to do with the actual
> religion...

The DoC is something that I am interested in. It is certainly a
composition of the Dark Ages, but it may not have been a forgery as
such. It was written at a time when imperial power was collapsing, and
the Popes had to take secular measures for their own security and that
of everyone else, as the last remaining source of any authority. A
legend existed at that time that Constantine had made such a donation,
since this is documented earlier than the DoC can have been composed.
In such a desperate situation, and unable to find the text that
'everyone knew' existed, no doubt some papal secretary stuck down the
essentials himself.

The renaissance use of the text for the aggrandisment of secular
'popes' is of course another matter. But it was not truly known to be
forged until Lorenzo Valla's book on it.

> There were a lot of VERY interesting decisions made for
> politcal reasons, especially early on, as to what constituted the
> bible.

I think not.

> Fortunately we are now at a point where we have a lot of good
> independent scholarship on the early writings and their historicity.
> Being Catholic, intellectual, and curious seems to be a recipe for
> disaster if you are honest.

I'm not a Catholic, but I have some doubts about this.

That's why thousands of people are studying this stuff every day at
universities and other centers of learning. Because it's incredibly
difficult to know exactly what went on, and there are definitely
differing interpretations of events.

Quoted message said:

As for variations of the Bible those are plain as day.

http://www.deism.com/biblevotes.htm

Quoted message said:

From the above:

According to Professor John Crossan of Biblical Studies at DePaul
University [snip].... The Church leaders gathered together at the Council
of Nicaea and voted the "word of God" into existence.

I think Dr Crossan would be very cross to be associated with such a
statement, since he can hardly not know that it isn't true. It isn't
true, at all events.

Some years ago I got rather fed up of reading this story about Nicaea,
which never had any ancient reference given for it, and wanted to check
it. What I did was to draw up a list of every ancient text that could
possibly mention the council -- say up to a century later -- and then
go through them and see what they said about it. I found that not one
of them gave such an account. Instead, one and all described wrangling
over whether the second person of the Trinity was of the same substance
(homoousios) as the first, or of a like substance.

If there is nothing in the material that has come down to us from the
past that tells this story, then I think we can be confident that the
story is bogus. (I did come across some much later indications that
the story evolved from a medieval myth, and was circulated by
Voltaire).

NB: it may sound like a lot of hard work to go through all those texts,
but an awful lot are online in English these days, and a copy of
Quasten's patrology gives a good idea of who wrote what when.

Quoted message said:

(I wish to thank Brian Show for pointing out in his rebuttal to this article
that the final version of the Christian Bible was not voted on at the Council
of Nicaea, per se. The Church leaders didn't finish editing the
"holy" scriptures until the Council of Trent when the Catholic church
pronounced the Canon closed. However, it seems the real approving
editor of the Bible was not God but Constantine!

You will note how little this paragraph agrees with itself, even.

Quoted message said:

There's a lot more to be found concerning just what got chosen and what
got left out, along with serious questions about who actaully wrote
what, and when.

I'm asking.

Quoted message said:

http://www.rhttp://gbgm-umc.org/

Something wrong with this URL...

Quoted message said:

http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/Bible/ethrcot.stm

Lists differences of OT in Ethiopia with that in the RC. The relevance
of this is unclear, since the OT was taken by the church from the Jews.
The Ethiopian list merely includes some of the OT apocrypha, which it
shouldn't; but since they were cut off from civilisation rather a long
time ago, it's understandable how it got confused.

Quoted message said:

http://tinyurl.com/8ncvd

This is a link to a page advertising a book on Amazon.

Quoted message said:

http://www.catholic.com/library/Bible_Translations_Guide.asp

This is about bible translations. Ahem, these links offered in
evidence seem to have no relevance to the assertion of massive
differences in the canon of the NT pre-Nicaea.

Quoted message said:

http://tinyurl.com/73vpl

This is another Amazon link, this time to an amateur polemic against
the bible by G.A.Wells.

Quoted message said:

http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/charts/catholic_protestant.htm

This is a list of supposed differences in theology between Catholics
and Protestants.

Quoted message said:

For those who believe no proof is needed, for those who don't no proof
is possible. For those who don't know there's always more to be
learned.

Indeed. I for one would like to learn why you quoted this bunch of
links! <smile>

But just to reiterate: there are no real differences in canon of the NT
perceptible. But since the apostles didn't lay one down, the one we
have today coalesced over time. What we cannot say is "we definitely
have some serious differences in differing versions of the Bible."
Sorry -- not being personal -- but it is not so.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Once again, is the NT the whole sum of Xtianity? How do you throw away
the God, and keep his son? That's the cherry picking that pisses me
off. Throw away Genesis etc...? Or just pick what works for your
current choice of belief? The links were designed to show the
differences in the "Bibles" and the writings in them that were approved
in different sects/regions. Could you cite you're qualifications in
Biblical research and theology? Those are things I could find quickly
on line that were relevant to the subject of what writings were
approved. There are a whole lot of scholars who have raised exactly
these questions, including at the "Jesus Conference" since the Davinci
Code raised the issue of missing/excluded gospels. I don't think the
Davinci code holds water in any way, but that still doesn't change the
fact that there's a lot of other "Gospels" and writings that other
people think are part of the message and tradition.
Bill C

http://tinyurl.com/drd8q

Chomba stated that on Jan. 1 at about 2 p.m., he was driving up State
Street when Baymon drove beside him and motioned him to pull over.
Baymon told him to get out of the car, called him a liar, and accused
him of brainwashing another man. Baymon shouted obscenities and accused
Chomba of practicing witchcraft on him, in an effort to take away the
church's building at 143-147 State St., formerly known as the Civic
Tower, Chomba stated.

Baymon then removed his clerical collar and crucifix, and punched
Chomba in the chest and kicked him, according to the application.
Baymon then made a call, after which Bolden, Bolden's wife Linda, and
Baymon's wife Sara, along with another man arrived in a car and began
to "verbally assault" Chomba.

Bill C

In article
<[email hidden]>,

Bill C said:

http://tinyurl.com/drd8q

They ask for personal information. Also have a link to
their `Privacy Policy.'

What are you getting up to, Bill?

--
Michael Press

Stu Fleming said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Windows NT 200AD (Build 1.27.1059) ?

Donald Munro said:

Quoted message said:

So NT does stand for Neanderthal Technology then. Now we just need to
find the gospel according to Bill.

Quoted message said:

I once saw a cartoon strip showing Bill Gates arriving in hell. He was
led to a terminal, and told that, by special request from PC users
everywhere, he was assigned the job of reinstalling Windows for
eternity...

Lucky microsoft worshippers don't mind cartoons about their prophet.

Michael Press said:

In article
<[email hidden]>,

Bill C said:

http://tinyurl.com/drd8q

They ask for personal information. Also have a link to
their `Privacy Policy.'

What are you getting up to, Bill?

--
Michael Press

Sorry, I didn't realise they did that. It's a link to one of our
bigger regional newspapers and I never get the questions from the
sight. I was just really amused at the thought picture of two members
of the clergy stopping their cars in the middle of the getting out and
pounding on each other while one is screaming that the other is using
witchcraft on him.
Here's the whole thing:

Bishop pleads innocent to assault charge
By MARLA A. GOLDBERG
[email hidden]

SPRINGFIELD - Timothy B. Baymon, Springfield bishop of the
International Communion of the Holy Orthodox Christian Church, pleaded
innocent this morning to the beating of a recently deposed bishop,
Edward Chomba, on Jan. 1.

Baymon, 39, of 57 Thompson St., Springfield, along with Christopher
Bolden, 39, of 259 Central St., Springfield, were arraigned in
Springfield District Court before Judge William J. Boyle, where they
pleaded innocent to assault and battery. They were released on personal
recognizance, amid orders to stay away from Chomba, 37, of 122 Chestnut
St.

Bolden is Baymon's brother-in-law, according to a criminal complaint
application filed by Chomba.

Chomba stated that on Jan. 1 at about 2 p.m., he was driving up State
Street when Baymon drove beside him and motioned him to pull over.
Baymon told him to get out of the car, called him a liar, and accused
him of brainwashing another man. Baymon shouted obscenities and accused
Chomba of practicing witchcraft on him, in an effort to take away the
church's building at 143-147 State St., formerly known as the Civic
Tower, Chomba stated.

Baymon then removed his clerical collar and crucifix, and punched
Chomba in the chest and kicked him, according to the application.
Baymon then made a call, after which Bolden, Bolden's wife Linda, and
Baymon's wife Sara, along with another man arrived in a car and began
to "verbally assault" Chomba.

Chomba stated that Bolden punched him in the face three times, causing
bruises and a laceration.

Baymon's lawyer, Steven L. Winniman, said there were four witnesses
to the fight, and "all of them say he (Baymon) didn't do
anything."

Pre-trial conferences for Baymon and Bolden are set for March 21.

Sorry again!
Bill C