Was "Jesus" a "bastard" & the Church tried to Cover it up with the VirginBirth Stories?

Hi IAF101,

Don't worry about those terms. They did far , far worse things to Jesus than just call him a bastard. He was used to such cheap shots by malcontents.

In anycase, only worthy people get this much attention. For the past two thousand years, EVERYONE has been fixated on this so-called 'bastard'; for good or for worse. Their obsession with him speaks for itself.


Just remember, your faith is built upon a very solid foundation indeed . It can be proved beyond doubt that the Gospel as we know it today was fully developed even before the first century AD was over.


Best Wishes,



[edit on 25-11-2004 by Logician]

Originally posted by Logician
SomewhereinBetween,

How are you? First impression: you have the propensity for the flamboyant, volumous post, just like Amadeus. A true sign of the exhibitionist.

Why thank you Logician, that suggests to me that you have been found at a loss for words. I promise you at the end of this flamboyant post, you will be lost for even more, and I intend to treat you in kind.

Have you filtered through the Epistles of Clement yet ? Even a cursory read will instantly educate you that by 96AD ALL the fundamental ideas about the nature, mission and character of Jesus were already firmly in place;

You stay with Clement, if I find it necessary to discuss him I will. I have grander plans coming up shortly for you.

Or are you planning to follow Amadeus's road, and operate on the fringes; claim Christian thought in this period(AD 100) was 'massively' deficient and in tremendious flux(in need of profound 'jelling')...

I have no idea from which cathecism book you glean your notes, I only know that it must be severely lacking in historic information, epistles, manuscripts, truth and anything relative to any of the councils, starting with Nicea.

It did not escape me that you mentioned Irenaeus back there somewhere, as I chuckled that you would choose him of all people to vouch for your rather faulty and thoroughly lacking position. For had you done your homework prior to posting and biblical matters, you would have at least availed yourself with his works and read his rants, and left him off as a repository of support, considering his shameful offerings. And while I would expect that with my mentioning Ignaeteus, one in the know would have recognized the starting point of history I used, and therefore anticipate what comes next, but you failed to do so, and you failed to do so because you bump into walls hoping to find your way.

Allow me to set the stage for you: Irenaeus. Born and died somewhere between�125 and 200. Canonized by the church, and highly revered as a founder. The author of " Adversus Haereses.� a mile long rant against other factions of the church, the Gnostics, where he takes them for task for among other things, their belief about Jesus's length of teaching and his age, to wit, all that matters is this excerpt:

They, however, that they may establish their false opinion regarding that which is written, "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord," maintain that He preached for one year only, and then suffered in the twelfth month. [In speaking thus], they are forgetful to their own disadvantage, destroying His whole work, and robbing Him of that age which is both more necessary and more honourable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during which also as a teacher He excelled all others. For how could He have had disciples, if He did not teach? And how could He have taught, unless He had reached the age of a Master? For when He came to be baptized, He had not yet completed His thirtieth year, but was beginning to be about thirty years of age (for thus Luke, who has mentioned His years, has expressed it: "Now Jesus was, as it were, beginning to be thirty years old,"(13) when He came to receive baptism); and, [according to these men,] He preached only one year reckoning from His baptism. On completing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years,(1) and that this extends onwards to the fortieth year, every one will admit; but from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which our Lord possessed while He still fulfilled the office of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and all the elders testify; those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord, [affirming] that John conveyed to them that information.(2) And he remained among them up to the times of Trajan. (3) Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other apostles also, and heard the very same account from them, and bear testimony as to the [validity of] the statement. Whom then should we rather believe? Whether such men as these, or Ptolemaeus, who never saw the apostles, and who never even in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an apostle?

The Trajan mentioned was the Roman Emperor from 98-117CE.

The excerpt above is not misleading, and while the various translations as taken from the few manuscripts available in several languages may differ, it does in fact tell us two things, the least significant is that our calendar is wrong, the most important is that the church concocted fictitious stories about Jesus, forced it down the throats of people for centuries, committed genocide and perverse acts to hide it, all in the name of hijacking the minds of the masses and thwarting other religions. The tragedy is that it all worked as planned. You for one, fell for it.


And a hearty blessing to you also.

Hi inbetween person,

Your post is neither here nor there. It makes absolutely no sense at all. What's your point? ......Never mind.

I've no interest in a dialogue with you.

Go in peace.

Rev. 14:15, "I wish you were either one or the other! So because you're lukewarm-- neither hot or cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth."

[edit on 26-11-2004 by Logician]

Logician and Graystar

Thanks for the great read, I found it very inspiring to see such an awesome witness for our Saviour,
'Wonderful Counsellor'

.

Originally posted by rosebeforetime
Logician and Graystar

Thanks for the great read, I found it very inspiring to see such an awesome witness for our Saviour,
'Wonderful Counsellor'

.

thak you for the kind words!

Hello again Logician-----

I�m only just now back in town after the holidays, and I can see there has been some posting activity on this thread over the past two days since I�ve been away�and you�ve raised several different points in your discussion which need to be addressed each in turn.

So it seems that I�ll have to spread out my comments over several posts, to avoid over-lengthy responses that people won�t want to read�--but I do welcome comments from both sides of this discussion ----all feedback will be welcome--don't be shy, people !

Sorry if you don't like detailed threads, but these discussions (as you know) can get very long and protracted and simply cannot be over simplified or summarized without doing violence to the evidence with sweeping generalities and half-true statements.

Maybe we need to clear the air so we can resume this discussion. But you are going to have to promise me that you will read my posts very slowly and carefully�..in order to digest them a little better moving forward.

First, I don�t know where you get the impression that I think the �gospel tradition� was not in existence by AD 100---

I only can see that there was no recogniseably �written gospel texts� before AD 140 that even remotely look anything like the familiar (and much later) 4th century AD �council approved written gospels�

(you know, the kind of material that you read "as gospels" in your church, that stuff) to judge from all the textual variations in the �quotations� found in the writings of the �apostolic� bishops.

Look at this one, taken at random: from the Epistle of 2 Clement 12:2 (around AD 97) :

For when the Lord himself was once asked by someone when his Kingdom should come, he said to them, �When two become one, when the outside becomes like the inside, when the female becomes like the male, so that there is no difference between them�� (cf: Gospel of Thomas Logion 22)

What exact �council approved� canonical gospel in your bible is Clement quoting here when he penned this letter around AD 97?

The answer is simple: there isn�t any. Sorry.

Not even any saying in the �council approved� NT compares to this quotation from this early Church �father�: only the Logia Gospel of Thomas has anything remotely similar (logion 22).

Sometimes when a �church father� does use the phrase �as the Scriptures say� before AD 150 (i.e. the time of Iranaeus) they invariably mean the writings of the Jews (mostly the post AD 90 post-Javneh-Jamnia post Jerusalem temple Destruction canonical Old Testament (expressed however in very non-Javneh Approved LXX Greek !), but sometimes they include the sometimes �gospel like� material found in the pseudipigraphal writings the Qumran Sectarians liked to copy out while Iesous was still living

e.g. the Testament of the 12, or Jubilees or the Assumption of Moses or the Wisdom of Solomon or even I Henoch all still referred to as �Scripture� the way canonical �Jude� does (v. 9 and 14).


No single, firm fixed written �text settled� approved family of gospels (i.e. ones that began to look like the Byzantine �council approved� variety) were circulating widely until way after AD 200 in fact.

A recently published book (aimed at the for the general public) is �The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: the Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the NT� (Oxford University Press, 1993) another in a series by Bart Ehrman�all written expressly for the average non Greek reading layman so he can approach this complicated subject a little closer----something which you seem to have so much trouble wrapping your arms around------(one imagines for your own doctrinal reasons.. )

But you would do very well to read up on the latest scholarship, since as I�ve mentioned before on these posts, your blanket over-simplifications of even basic facts which bear upon the larger Synoptic Problem are causing you to come a cropper in a good many ways on this discussion:

For example your insistent denying of the existence of the more than obvious individual biases of the gospel writer-compilers,

(e.g. the �council approved Gospels� later circulating under such names as �Matthew�, �Luke� �Mark� �John� etc.) and to the history of NT textual transmission (i.e. your curious and ultimately pointless denying of the irrefutable observations of scholars of the numerous (into the thousands) of text differences between the Hebrew Underlay (Vorlage) to the Greek Septuaginta-LXX

(especially since the Qumran discoveries in Dec 1946) and the AD 90 Jamnia Council Approved Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Scriptures suggest you are not very familiar at all with the actual source material that bears so intimately upon this complex question (and if you don�t know it is very complex, then again you are ignorant of all the minute details that make it so).

The several non-matching versions of John�s gospel in teh Greek witnesses for instance contain stories that come and go in the MSS tradition like non �Johanine story of the the �Woman caught in Adultery�

(a "floater pericope" unnaturally forced into the Johanine text fairly early on, but never in the same place twice, or as CK Barrett said, �possibly the result of a scribal �marginalium� which managed to get later copied into the text proper, as so often was the case with New Testament manuscripts, was included from that point on as part of the main body of the text��) .

You gotta love those pesky scribes ! Thanks to them there are more than 5440 Greek Manuscripts which contain material from the New Testament books, no two of them are alike:

In fact, if you want to get really technical, there IS NOT ONE SINGLE SENTENCE in the ENTIRE New Testament which is absolutely VARIANT FREE if you were to line up all these contradictory Greek texts.

And �John� Chapter 21 was clearly an ADDITION to an older version of the book--with the text added immediately following on the heels of �and Iesous did many other things�and if they should be written down, the whole earth I suppose couldn�t contain them all�� which indicate that chapter 20 was an original ending of at least one version of the �gospel�.

And the book of Acts, as you must know by now, circulated in at least TWO different versions in antiquity, a shorter and a longer version. Not a single �canonically approved version� until after the 4th century ad.
So much for the �unchanging� (or even inerrant !) �Word of God��!

Even the cute little Rylands fragment from John 18, as you know (even if you COULD date that tiny scrap to as early as AD 125) shows how even in a piece of papyrus barely the size of a credit card, we can see that EVEN IT does NOT follow the �majority� text of the KJV �textus receptus� Greek but seems rather to follow a rare minority text (i.e. similar to the Western Texts e.g. Codex Bezae which the King James Version of your gospels seems to have conveniently ignored).

You show no knowledge in your discussion of the many other �gospels� that were rivaling the later canonical ones, some of which are reflected in the early church fathers� citations

In AD 110 the people who called themselves �Christians� used the various Greek Old Testament LXX versions (Origen found 3 different versions of them) as �Scripture� (the list of which was not officially canonized until JAMNIA in AD 90, i.e. after the Jews lost the War against Rome in AD 70 and their Temple was ground to powder and way after the Crucifixion of R. Yehoshua bar Yosef ) along with the �sayings of the Lord� i.e. collections of logia like the Gospel of Thomas.

No Matthew, No Mark, No Luke and No John. Just �sayings of the Lord� (like Papias referred to when being quoted by Eusebieus: �and Matthew wrote down the LOGIA of the Lord in the Hebrew Tongue and everyone had to translate them as best they could��)

It is possible that this Matathiah (=Matthew) was not the Levi-Tax Collector (i.e. one of the 12), but the post crucifixion 13th disciple �Judas replacement� Matathiah (Matthew) mentioned in Acts (chosen by lots, of course) in order to fill up the "Magic Number 12" once again

(it seems that "Iesous" must have lost most of his disciples and had at one point in his ministry to �reappoint� a bunch of new ones, at least if you can believe anything in the 4th Gospel as in any way historical (John 6:65-69): but for some reason that number 12 had to remain 12 no matter what !

And since this New Matthew never met Iesous himself, or studied/traveled with him, naturally he would have wanted to write down the Logia and study them for teaching purposes.

His LOGIA collection may be the group of sayings which traveled around the vicinity of the Antioch synagogues and formed the basis for some of the material in the �Gospel of Matthew� which would account for the �aramaisms� in that gospels sayings sections (e.g the so-called Sermon on the Mount Logia Collection which is clearly a literary device of the author to show Iesous as the New Moses giving the New Law to the New Israel (from significantly, a Mountain top) and not an historical, physically witnessed �sermon� with a gospel writer taking dictation on the mountain top with him !)

So when the early church was quoting �Iesous�, or (�the Lord�) they were quoting these ad hoc Logia Collections of the Sayings--- not the canonically approved 4th century edited gospels you read today to judge by the citations themselves:

The traditions about what the IPSISSIMA VERBA of Iesous was STILL VERY FLUID until about AD 200 (even Clement of Alexandria shows quotations which he placed into the mouth of Iesous which are not in any gospel you�ll ever know ! ).

Now be honest, Logician, is this REALLY all new information to you? If so, I would have to suggest you read around the subject of text transmission a little more widely.

From what I gather, you also seem merely to want a �list� to support modern critical scholarship�s claims that the �canonically approved� gospel texts of AD 325 were in fact �different animals� than the �gospel material� which was circulating in wildly different forms (say, between AD 110 and AD 280), so here are a few examples for you to chew on and digest in the meantime:

Again, the evidence points to the conlusion that the earliest Patristic writers before AD 180 didn't use our "council approved" written gospels as we know them today, but used some passages from oral LOGIA traditions that SOMETIMES resemble parts of our present gospels, plus other passages that do not.

A vast network of multiplication sprang from Jesus and the first apostles.
In other words, contradictions, fictions and variations spread orally among converts.

There was extensive confusion especially as to the nature and work of "Iesous" in the largely gentile-oriented Greek Speaking Roman Empire after Israel was ground to powder and his Apocalytpic Message was watered down after AD 70 into the harmless little Rebbe we read today in the 4th century "cleaned up" council approved gospel material--which was in quite a state of confusion in terms of texts for the 1st 200 years of its existence---just ask anyone who has ever had to to sort through 5440 contradictory Greek texts in any detail !

All this chaos does not add, but rather detracts from considering gospel accounts as "historically accurate" or even viable witnesses to what people in the earliest Christian Churches actually believed.

Here�s another early Church father citation example of Gospel material from the so-called Epistle of Barnabas (120 AD)

The author of this Epistle seems to refer to Gospel-like Logia sayings, but the words not found in any �canonical� Gospel we know !

"'And thus, the Lord said 'they who desire to see Me, and to attain unto My Kingdom, must lay hold on Me only through Tribulation and Affliction.'" (Epistel of Barnabas 7:35)

So......... Logician: where does any of these Greek words occur in your canonical �council approved� 4th century AD versions of the gospels?
[ In fact, the Sayings �Gospel of Thomas� [Logion 82] has a similar idea:

�He who is near the Son of Man is near the Fire of Affliction: But he who is far from me is far from the Kingdom.�

The amount of �non canonical� citations is larger after 180 AD simply because we happen to have more extant material to work with from �the fathers��but even in the far less documented period (AD 80 to AD 140) what we do have is quite in line with modern scholarship,

i.e. that the Gospel material beign read now ( �canonically approved� )was not at all a firm or set text tradition until after AD 180-200, and before that-------it was quite a fluid mishmash of varied material indeed.

More of this "evidence" on the way when I catch up from the holiday backlog....especially on the subject of NT scribal "doctrinial" text-tampering which is something some on this thread want to see for themselves before they believe it !!

Hi Amadeus,

Greetings. ....I quickly skimmed through your post. Forgive me but I don't believe you have seriously sat down and thought through your main argument yet .[regarding the reliability/unrealiability of the Gospel account].Could you perhaps , once and for all, clearly summarize your thesis in this regard ? One small paragraph next post , or better still one sentence, will be greatly appreciated.

Here's my thesis: I believe that ALL of the FUNDAMENTAL doctrines found in our modern Gospel were already FIRMLY in place by 100AD. Do you agree? If yes we have no argument. If no then we have a profound discord.

My impression until now has been that you were against believing all the major doctrines of the Gospel were in place by AD 100, because you make impetuous comments like the following:

in other words, the tradition had not yet jelled into firm and widely accepted writing format around AD 100. Ands yet you seem to think the NT was "substantially completed" by AD 100:

But after reading your last post, I'm not sure anymore where you stand. Your thesis(s) seem to be imperceptibly shifting yet again.


Please note that if ALL of the major IDEAS of the Gospel message were already available to us 100AD,then claims like the �written Gospel was widely circulated until much later' or 'this tradition was not jelled until much later' or 'there were some unorthodox positions propounded by some of the church fathers' are all secondary, i.e. arguments from the fringe which do not and cannot change the basic fact that the Gospel was already complete. Do you follow me or not?


Please refer to my recent posts, particularly to the Ignatius essay, for instance. Now Ignatius was born 50 AD and died around AD117. In his epistles ALL the major doctrines of the present day Gospel are clearly spelled out with authority. If he was routeinly voicing these ideas in his letters(and he was) , it is obvious that his audience was already very familiar with them.

You should know by now that I don't make any claims without first thoroughly researching and thinking through them. It is a fair statement that most scholars(whether secular or religious) today agree with my point of view. True, it was fashionable in some circles, and for some time during the 18th and 19th centuries(the so-called ' age of science') and even early 20th century to claim doctrines such as the virgin birth, resurrection, etc. to have been first pronounced at the Nicean council. You seem to be propounding a variant of this defunct argument. In the age of Voltaire and Satre, it was a right of passage for young intellectuals to viciously malign the integrity of the Gospel if they were to gain any recognition at all, not so much today. Contemporary scientists and professionals take a far more somber stance . They rarely take extreme positions. All the professionals I know of seem to think the core ideas of the gospel were primordial .



Your first priority must be to furnish a coherent and succinct thesis on this issue. Forgive me but I must say asking you to do so is like requesting you pull out a teeth. Why is it so difficult ?.

Best Wishes,






[edit on 27-11-2004 by Logician]

[edit on 28-11-2004 by Logician]

Originally posted by Graystar
Did you ever wonder why people go to such great legnths to disprove the deity of Jesus Christ or the Accuracy of the Bible, but not any other religion?

Have you ever tried to de-bunk Christianity? It's a bear to even try. If you don't believe me, ask Amadeaus and Somewhereinbetween.

Originally posted by Graystar
Secondly, the Scripture angers most non believers because it shines light on our true nature, but we love darkness more.

Prime example. Have you ever seen a thread titled: 'Christianity, not the best out there' or 'Christianity, truly believed it, but didn't like it.' Considering in an all-seeing God for the first time can make you feel, well - vulnerable, inferior, naked, afraid, ashamed, etc. The missing step is accepting God, being sorry for those self-serving sins, and turning a new left on morality by applying the Bible - not just reading it.

It's easier to think we're on top of the intellectual spectrum but how depressing is that! In that case, when we die, we're dead. Nothing, zero. Makes you feel good about your life as the uber-mind of the universe, huh? Seventy-some years goes by quick and all of it is lost forever when we become worm-food. Eternity starts sounding like a sweet alternate ending and there's a way finding out for sure while you're still alive (see previous paragraph).

Originally posted by Graystar
And finally, you can't ever accept it because you are a slave to this nature.

Yet we Christians are called mindless sheep.

And now, back over to Logician...

Quote: "In that case, when we die, we're dead. Nothing, zero. Makes you feel good about your life as the uber-mind of the universe, huh?"

Your thoughts on Re-Incarnation my friend?

hmm...
Well...for one thing...all other religious books Glorify their heros...EXCEPT the bible. For the bible is the only religious book that portrays the heros as failures...and sexual deviants...its the only book that does this.

I don't think the bible made up the story of the virgin birth...I know for a fact that its true...for if it were not true...the geneology that was written in the Gospels (one follows Marys line...and the other follows Jesus line)...
was open to refutation...the silence of the critics of that time...said absolutely nothing when the gospel was presented in its original form.
THE CRITICS ARE SILENT!!! that is the greatest proof that the virgin birth is true...

There is no critic who refuted the Geneology of Jesus at the time it was presented...for good reason...anyone who wanted to check the geneology could simply go to the temple and see for themselves...that INDEED, Jesus was a descendant of David...the fact that the religious leaders insinuated that Jesus was illegitimate offers more proof of the virgin birth...

NOW another great proof for me...is Mary's silence at the cross....

look at it this way...suppose you were mary...they accused you of having a bastard son...they were ready to kill your very son because he claimed his father was God...now...if Mary DID know a man who fathered Jesus...SURELY she would have said...OKAY OKAY...DONT CRUCIFY MY SON...HE IS NOT THE SON OF GOD...BUT THE SON OF "So and so"...

Mary clearly would have spoken out and saved her son....and named an earthly father...if there was one...

Her silence....speaks volumes of evidence...

Hi Boaxnj,

NOW another great proof for me...is Mary's silence at the cross....

look at it this way...suppose you were mary...they accused you of having a bastard son...they were ready to kill your very son because he claimed his father was God...now...if Mary DID know a man who fathered Jesus...SURELY she would have said...OKAY OKAY...DONT CRUCIFY MY SON...HE IS NOT THE SON OF GOD...BUT THE SON OF "So and so"...

Mary clearly would have spoken out and saved her son....and named an earthly father...if there was one...

Her silence....speaks volumes of evidence...

An intrigueing idea!.. I appreciate people like yourself who have the gumption and intelligence to think 'out of the box'.

Never looked at it this way.

Thanks,

Originally posted by Logician
Hi inbetween person, Your post is neither here nor there. It makes absolutely no sense at all. What's your point? ......Never mind. I've no interest in a dialogue with you.

Running away Logician? What is the matter, have you no plausible explanation as to why an elder santicfied as a saint by Rome, claimed Jesus died an old man, and was so affirmed by John and his apostles? Why it can't be that faced with the truth, you are afraid to admit had the gospels been the same then as they are now, he would not have presented such a case?

I am very much "in" peace, Logician, so much so that I wish to impart more of my peace, and truth to you, especially since you have been confounded by two notable saints thus far, for it is important to spread the gospel truth, isn't it? and since you like Clement so much, I'll impart some knowledge to you on the writings of this pomtiff, for I do really want to lead you out from the dark into the light.

Clement wrote among other things the Stromata. Have you heard of his Stromata, Logician? the chapter representative of this piece is still largely only available in latin. What a surprise!: Those who are opposed to God's creation because of continence, which has a fair-sounding name, also quote the words addressed to Salome which I (Clement) mentioned earlier. They are handed down, as I (Clement) believe, (in other words, he thinks) in the Gospel of the Egyptians, For, they say: the savior himself said, 'I am come to undo the works of the female', by the female meaning lust, and by the works birth and decay.

Let�s address Salome for a bit, and who exactly this woman might be. There are two mentioned in the NT: one is the grand-daughter of Herod the Great� when Matthew speaks to the fate of John the Baptist, we first learn about Salome, she, according to the biblical records, was the daughter of Philip and Herodias and later married her uncle, and brother-in-law, Herod Antipas. Matt starts off with claiming Herod had John the Baptist arrested for the sake of Herodias, because John objected to the marriage. Salome is then mentioned as having danced for Antipas and he, so pleased by her, offered her whatever she wanted, which turned out to be John�s head. There is nothing that suggests why Salome would want John dead though. Mark, however, sheds a bit more light. He claims Herodias had a quarrel with John, and after Salome�s dance, told her to ask for John�s head.

The story by itself as set out, seems just another inclusion to explain John�s fate. But, is not necessary, well except to create an illusion to counter recorded history which can no longer be recanted. Obviously, that history is that John held court with Herod and his family, and if one were to seek information rather than read the nonsense in the NT and be consumed by it, one would get a fair idea as to how much he held court. A fraction of insight for you then:

John and James, two disciples, were the sons of Zebedee, their mother�s name was Salome. At the tomb and or cross, stood, according to Matthew, three women. He has no qualms mentioning the names of two; Magdalena and Mary, the other he simply calls the wife of Zebedee. Luke affirms the Marys, adds Joanna and �other women,� obviously to neither Matt nor Luke is the mother of their fellow disciples worthy of mention, but some unknown, Joanna is deserving. John mentions, both Marys, (the second which is also Mary�s sister) he calls the wife of Cleophas. So why exactly, did the three go to such extremes to avoid mentioning Salome by name? and who exactly was this Cleophas anyway? (rhetorical question, since I know.)

Good old Clement around 150 years after the death of Jesus, is fending off other gospels as being heretic, because by now all he has accepted is the whatever he heard, read and believes. From Iganeteus to Ireneaus we have gone from the OT only, to Matthew and Luke, to MML&J. plus a whole bunch some since, well, burnt to a crisp. This at least shows the progression of those as they circulated and became known. But what was this deal he had with Salome in the Gospel of the Egyptians? He quoted approvingly from it eight times, and of all the elders, he was the only to have endorsed it. Salome, was also quoted in the Gospel of Thomas, which was widely accepted. Obviously then, Clement believed that the characters and the words represented as those of being Jesus� were valid. He further validates it in his second Epistle:

� Let us therefore await the kingdom of God betimes in love and righteousness, since we know not the day of God's appearing. For the Lord Himself, being asked by a certain Person when His kingdom would come, said, When the two shall be one, and the outside as the inside, and the male with the female, neither male nor female.�

The closest you will get to that in the NT excludes anything remotely addressing androgyny, which is exactly what the Gospel of the Egyptians spoke to, and exactly what Clement, this man you seem to think supports your case quoted and sanctioned. You argue here against Amadeus without validation of your own his insistence that the Gospels were not canonized prior to the 4th century, when it is plain to see, that with all these gospels floating around and sanctioned by the saints of the church, they clearly werr not, otherwise, The Gospel of the Egyptians would be included in the good book, wouldn�t it?

So what exactly was Salome�s importance to whoever wrote the gospels of Thomas and the Egyptians? I will give you two clues to assist, because I am absolutely certain you have no idea: (1) Romans 16:10 Salute Apelles approved in Christ. Salute them which are of Aristobulus� household. (2) Alexandria, the city.

Logican- You should know by now that I don't make any claims without first thoroughly researching and thinking through them. It is a fair statement that most scholars(whether secular or religious) today agree with my point of view.

It is not obvious to the first point, and the latter is a fallacy.

Amadeus- Now be honest, Logician, is this REALLY all new information to you? If so, I would have to suggest you read around the subject of text transmission a little more widely.

I would bet my house that everything he sees here is new to him/her. Just as it is for those others reading this thread and hanging on to their belief because the Bible tells them to, because the truth is hard to swallow, I know that for a fact.

Hi saint4God,


How are you?
Here is some confirmation from non-Christian sources about Jesus Christ...... BTW, in his comment on the substained and overwhelming attacks on the authority of the Bible from the academic community the brilliant Bernard Ramm wrote about the total failure of these attacks to make a serious dent in the popularity and influence of the Scriptures. "A thousand times over,the death knell of the bible has been sounded, the funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone, and committal read. But somehow the corpse never stays put." Our's is based upon a very firm foundation indeed Saint.






Less than a generation after the death of Christ, Christianity had reached Rome . Members of this 'religious sect' were already speaking of the coming of a new kingdom and a new king. If the concept of the resurrection hadn't 'jelled' yet, why were Chrisitans in the 'multitudes' even then thinking about the return of their Lord Jesus ? These views provoked suspicion among the Jewish authorities who rejected the group and fear among the Roman authorities who perceived these sentiments as a threat to the Empire.

let's start with Tacitus.



The following account was written by the Roman historian Tacitus in his book Annals published a few years after the Christian prersecutions. Tacitus was a young boy living in Rome during the time of the persecutions.

"Therefore, to stop the rumor [that he had set Rome on fire], he [Emperor Nero] falsely charged with guilt, and punished with the most fearful tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were [generally] hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius, but the pernicious superstition - repressed for a time, broke out yet again, not only through Judea, - where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all quarters, as to a common receptacle, and where they are encouraged. Accordingly first those were arrested who confessed they were Christians; next on their information, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city, as of "hating the human race."


In the summer of 64, Rome suffered a terrible fire that burned for six days and seven nights consuming almost three quarters of the city. The people accused the Emperor Nero for the devastation claiming he set the fire for his own amusement. In order to deflect these accusations and placate the people, Nero laid blame for the fire on the Christians. The emperor ordered the arrest of a few members of the 'sect' who, under torture, accused others until the entire Christian populace was implicated and became fair game for retribution. As many of the religious sect that could be found were rounded up and put to death in the most horrific manner for the amusement of the citizens of Rome. The ghastly way in which the victims were put to death aroused sympathy among many Romans, although most felt their execution justified.


In their very deaths they were made the subjects of sport: for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when the day waned, burned to serve for the evening lights. Nero offered his own garden players for the spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the dress of a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot.




Food for thought:

What "superstition" the historian was alluding -- the resurrection? Jesus is called Christ. Note 'multitudes' of Christians were burnt in Rome around 60AD for the 'way'. Many were incinerated on 'crosses'. Crosses!. -- the cross was the Christian's hope so burn him on it.-- See the subtle undertones? Why was the cross a symbol of the Christian's reassurance and the Roman's disgust in 60AD? Also please take a note that by around this time Christianity was already firmly entranched in Rome , the first waves of persecutions had already begun and ended!. Tens of thousands of Christians were by now believers; if the concepts of 'resurrection' or 'Jesus as Son of God' were not fathomed yet, who/what was substaining their faith;a loser nailed on the cross who never rose from the dead? Why burn Christians on crosses? Obviously the Romans IDENTIFIED Christians MAINLY with this symbol to burn them with it. Alot can be gleaned. A 'vaste multitude' of Christians were killed for 'hating the human race'. Obviously their doctrines were 'revolutionary', to put it mildly, threatening Emperor and Country alike.

I'm bust right now, will continue later.












[edit on 28-11-2004 by Logician]

Hi Logician:

I suspect you have not been reading my AMADEUS posts very carefully if you think there is any shifting of position at all on my part or any apparent contradictions (unconscious or otherwise) in them.

I am beginning to think that SomeWhereInBetween was right about this being all NEW information to you (and possibly others also on this thread who have been kept from investigating such matters on doctrinal grounds?

Well, Imagine my "Shock and Awe" !

If so, then you�ll just have to re-read all my posts over more carefully next time, like I asked you to do earlier.

Otherwise you will not have the necessary technical background to understand what a GOSPEL MESSAGE is and why the GOSPEL MESSAGE meant something different to R. Yehoshua bar Yosef and his Pre AD 66 Band of Disciples and what GOSPEL MESSAGE meant in Greek AFTER THE JEWISH WAR (in which the Palestinian Aramaic speaking Jews and their nation and Temple were virtually destroyed) WHEN THE MESSAGE WAS FUNDAMENTALLY ALTERED BY A SHIFT IN FOCUS AND SOME VERY COMPLEX TEXT TRANSLATION ISSUES--all of which the faithful Sheep of the Church are rarely if ever told about.

Which is why we are discussing this on an ATS thread !

Now........I wonder where you get the peculiar notion that I am in any way �behind the times on biblical research� when quite the opposite is the case, as others can plainly see on this thread, and forsooth ! everything I have presented so far is all boringly standard stuff of modern academia, and nothing too fringe-worthy. Not yet at any rate !

Or would you consider the Great Prof Charles Kingsely Barrett outdated? Or Geza Vermes? or Dominic Crossan? or Lawrence Shiffman? or Bruce Metzger? of John P. Meier?or Robert Funk? or Israel Finklestein of Tel-Aviv University?

What I would like to ask is: where have YOU been for the past 40 years? Your outmoded position went out of favour with Patrick Bronte at the Parsonage.

The tide of critical biblical scholarship has long tipped in my direction since at least the time of C.H. Dodd in the 1930s, and especially since the re-discovery of all those pesky Dead Sea Scroll fragments which no �Christian� or �Orthodox Jew� would want to ever come near discussing in too much detail�!

It tends to make them shall we say �furious as hell� when you throw hard evidence like �actual documents� at them !

So, do yourself a big favour-------- and re-read all of my posts on this thread from the very beginning (nice and slow, promise..!) and then go away and think about all the points I have made one at a time----and you�ll come to the realization that I have not wavered or been inconsistent in the least.

It should begin to make more sense to you after you�ve had time to re-think some of your own position, and then consider the �21st century mainstream� position, which is the one I and others who have come to their senses regarding the gospel tradition formally espouse.

In the meantime, if you want me to give you MORE BACKGROUND of the formation of the Gospel material, or some pointers as to how to understand the material I refer to, I will happily oblige, for the sake of others on this thread who might also find themselves in over their heads as you seem to be at the moment.

So before I outline my own position on various �gospel� matters for you, I think perhaps you might do well to have under your belt a little generic background on early pre-Christian beliefs which should open your eyes a little to what is involved later on in reconstructing the so-called �historical Iesous� or as C.K. Barrett put it, �sort of like trying to reconstruct the PIG from the SAUSAGE�!�

I offer this little Dead Sea Scroll Brush UP Lesson for not only you (who seem hopelessly confused about this whole subject as "SomeWhere InBetween" has suggested on an earlier post, and I have to agree with him) but also to anyone else out there who might be a tad confused also by all these �hard facts of history� which touch upon so many of their revered religious beliefs which the Church so carefully avoids teaching their sheep/flock (in bible classes or in their catechisms or in their Sunday schools etc.)

It might do you and others on this thread a little good if I offered some of the background down a little more for you about the pre-Christian period and about the texts these people used as �Scripture� :

That way you�ll have absolutely NO excuse about mis-understanding (or not even knowing) what my own AMADEUS position is on certain little matters and especially the ones that have your head so completely twisted around.

I think I�ll step back to give you some basic facts to work with, since you don�t seem to have many at your disposal.

Let�s try Lesson One, shall we? We�ll call this little chapter:

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE CONFUSED TRANSMISSON OF THE TEXT OF THE HEBREW TANAKH and CANON before JAMNIA (JAVNEH) in AD 90 FORCED THE MASORETIC TEXT ON WORLD JEWRY

As you can tell from the date of the title above, there was no SET AUTHORISED CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT when this R. Yehoshua bar Yosef was alive �(i.e. between BC 12 to AD 36) a man whom you people INSIST on calling Jeeziss Cryyzt for some reason�and there was no set text tradition for the OT either.

What a MESS. Especially for Christians who like everything so nice and neat and pretty and tied up with pink ribbons.

That means R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean (you know, Jeeezziss� ) was quite FREE to quote any text in any version �written down� (or memorized or paraphrased in any Aramaic Targum) as scriptural �authority�

(�for..�, �etc. as it says in the prophet Isaiah��, etc. �even as it is written�, etc. )

since he didn�t have anything like a �closed Canon of scripture� (like Christians and Jews do today) when he started preaching his �These Be the Days of Vengeance of our God� Message and his �The Times of the Gentiles are Fulfilled, Repent, now!� sermons�

Which is to say simply that: Mr �Jesus� did NOT have a SINGLE TEXT OR EVEN A SINGLE TEXT VERISON set in stone between two covers (or even a scroll lid) from which to call a �Bible� when he was living in Palestine�i.e. the way modern Jews can try to claim for their Masoretic version---a text type unknown to Iesous and his Disciples WHEN THEY PREACHED THEIR ORIGINAL GOSPEL AND USED OLD TESTAMENT CITATIONS !!!

Most Christians assume that Surely Jesus had a set number of Old Testament Books at least as �Scripture� and in one single authorized version too !!

Bzzzzz. Wrong.

��.I�m sorry to have to be the one to tell you: (it�s a dirty job, but somebody somewhere someday would have to tell you !)

All he and his disciples had to work with scripture-wise in his own day were, well�..a loose collection of un-authorised Scriptures without a FIXED table of contents�and More Scriptures.

And Still More Scriptures.

Sometimes people after AD 70 would use terms like Josephus did, and call these books the Books of Moses, the Psalms of David and the Books of the Prophets.

But it did not say which books (either the �Torah of Moses � or book called �the Testament of Moses� (i.e. Jubilees) or which �Psalms� were meant exactly (extra ones were found at Qumran and in the LXX) or which �prophets� exactly were meant etc. and the Dead Sea Scrolls (which were still being copied whilst Iesous was still alive) had a LOT MORE scriptures at their disposal than the Council of Jamnia later authorized iun AD 90 and it was then that they narrowed down the Canon List to the ones they voted on which they believed "defiled the hands".

In other words, no matter how you slice it, Iesous HAD NO SPECIFIC CANON of Jewish OT Scriptures.

That CANON STUFF came later at the Rabinnic Council of Javneh in AD 90 after Jersualem and the Temple was ground to tiny bits by the Romans------and after most of the Jews, scattered to the 4 winds, finally had to become for all time, THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK.

And they had to decide quickly on what was going to BE IN THAT BOOK.
I only mention this background, because this affects the nuances of what I mean WHEN I USE TERMS LIKE THE GOSPEL OF IESOUS, and the kinds of quotations that are used to bolster the claims made about him AFTER JAVNEH and why JEWS AFTER JAVNEH-JAMNIA DISAGREED WITH CHRISTIANS WHO WERE USING THE RIVAL VERSION OF THE OT CALLED THE LXX which was based on a DIFFERENT TEXT TYPE THAN THE POST JAVNEH AD 90 �Old Testament�

THE AD 90 JAVNEH-JAMNIA COUNCIL HAD TO DECIDE WHAT EXACT VERSION (of three different Hebrew Versions and several variant Greek ones) OF THAT BOOK WAS THE ONE AUTHORISED VERSION �that defiled the hands� i.e. was to be considered �sacred scripture, holy, inspired by YHWH, etc.

Of the �three main variant scripture families� freely and uncontrollably running around in Palestine at the time after the Jewish War of AD 66-70, very few of them actually ever matched the later �approved� Masoretic text that the Babylonian Rebbes later forced on the Judean remnant population�

i.e. MT or the �authorized� Masoretic text version of the OT which Jews and Protestants now read to day in their bibles

(of course it would help if you could read a little un-pointed paleo Hebrew, and you could see for yourself, but that might be asking a little too much !)

And those pesky Dead Sea Scrolls prove all of this because the Caves were sealed up in AD 68----22 years before those Javneh Babylonian Rebbes like R. Akiba and R. Hillel II came all the way from Babylon to War ravished Palestine with their MT "council approved� sticky fingers and imposed the texts THEY wanted on them�

So now you (and hopefully others on this thread) now can begin to have a rough idea of how really textually variant even the OLD TESTAMENT is, and why Jews and Christians in the early days after AD 90 could not often agree on much when debating with each other----

Since they both proofed their own individual arguments from DIFFERENT TEXTS that did not match each other (like Isaiah talking about �raising the dead� (not in the MT) alongside cleansing lepers!)

I hope you can begin to understand some of the complexities here----and hopefully you will be able in future to avoid more of your inane and sweeping generalities (and disproven clich�s) that I keep hearing on this subject �from the faithful flock� who often do not know why they are told to believe so much they are forced to swallow �on faith� when the actual facts of the matter are often purely "political"......and are often the results of the whims of history...

Or as they say, SO NOW YOU KNOW !!!

Hi Amadeus,

How are you feeling today?

meant something different to R. Yehoshua bar Yosef and his Pre AD 66 Band of Disciples and what GOSPEL MESSAGE meant in Greek AFTER THE JEWISH WAR (in which the Palestinian Aramaic speaking Jews and their nation and Temple were virtually destroyed) WHEN THE MESSAGE WAS FUNDAMENTALLY ALTERED BY A SHIFT IN FOCUS AND SOME VERY COMPLEX TEXT TRANSLATION ISSUES--all of which the faithful Sheep of the Church are rarely if ever told about.

How was the gospel message fundamentally altered after 66 AD? And by whome? Can you pin point the MAJOR doctrinal differences between pre 66AD gospel message and the post 66 Ad gospel message? I predict we're going to have an interesting day ahead of us!

It tends to make them shall we say �furious as hell� when you throw hard evidence like �actual documents� at them !

The only "actual documents" you have regarding the life and times of Jesus are the Gospel accounts , the rest of the NT canon and the writings of the Church Fathers. -- and a few verses here and there from historians like Josephus Flavius, Cornelius Tacitus,Pliny the Younger,lucian of Samosata, etc.

and then consider the �21st century mainstream� position, which is the one I and others who have come to their senses regarding the gospel tradition formally espouse.

Even secular scholars with an agenda find your ideas (how to put it mildly), uh..., unorthodox! Trust me on this. They nearly never go as far as you do, or waffle half as often. No offense Amadeus.

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE CONFUSED TRANSMISSON OF THE TEXT OF THE HEBREW TANAKH and CANON before JAMNIA (JAVNEH) in AD 90 FORCED THE MASORETIC TEXT ON WORLD JEWRY

What on earth are you talking about here? We're trying to find out if the Gospel was complete before 100AD, not some conspiracy on 'world Jewry'..

What a MESS. Especially for Christians who like everything so nice and neat and pretty and tied up with pink ribbons.

Why do you generalize ?

That means R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean (you know, Jeeezziss� ) was quite FREE to quote any text in any version �written down� (or memorized or paraphrased in any Aramaic Targum) as scriptural �authority�

It has been shown that the OT as we know it today has been faithfully, carefully and consistently transmitted over the centuries ; just like the NT.....

or as C.K. Barrett put it, �sort of like trying to reconstruct the PIG from the SAUSAGE�!�

Sounds like an unbiased source!

Which is to say simply that: Mr �Jesus� did NOT have a SINGLE TEXT OR EVEN A SINGLE TEXT VERISON set in stone between two covers (or even a scroll lid) from which to call a �Bible� when he was living in Palestine�i.e.

All the fundaments of the OT were already firmly in place, in written form, by the time jesus came along and quoted the verses he did. For instance,Jesus did not paraphrase/quote any OT verse from his time which we don't have in our modern day OT.It's essentially remained unchanged.

Most Christians assume that Surely Jesus had a set number of Old Testament Books at least as �Scripture� and in one single authorized version too !!

All the verses quoted by jesus from the OT are in place in our modern OT. So much for you claim. A comparative analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls Book of Isaiah , for instance, shows that it was fundamentally unchanged even after one thousand years. A remarkable testament to OT consistency and continuity.

All he and his disciples had to work with scripture-wise in his own day were, well�..a loose collection of un-authorised Scriptures without a FIXED table of contents�and More Scriptures.

If you can prove that Apostles were using a fundamentally different OT than the one we have today, you may have a point; otherwise you're shooting blanks.

But it did not say which books (either the �Torah of Moses � or book called �the Testament of Moses� (i.e. Jubilees) or which �Psalms� were meant exactly (extra ones were found at Qumran and in the LXX) or which �prophets� exactly were meant etc. and the Dead Sea Scrolls (which were still being copied whilst Iesous was still alive) had a LOT MORE scriptures at their disposal than the Council of Jamnia later authorized iun AD 90 and it was then that they narrowed down the Canon List to the ones they voted on which they believed "defiled the hands".

I keep on telling you all the verses of the OT Jesus quoted we have today; fully intact. What's your beef?

In other words, no matter how you slice it, Iesous HAD NO SPECIFIC CANON of Jewish OT Scriptures.

Why are you so obsessed with 'canon'? All the relevant books were at his disposal.

That CANON STUFF came later at the Rabinnic Council of Javneh in AD 90 after Jersualem and the Temple was ground to tiny bits by the Romans------and after most of the Jews, scattered to the 4 winds, finally had to become for all time, THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK.

Jesus was long dead by AD 90. Did the Jews add new books to their 'canon' of AD 90 ? Which 'new' prophets /prophecies, doctrines are we talking about? I'm dying to know.

Of the �three main variant scripture families� freely and uncontrollably running around in Palestine at the time after the Jewish War of AD 66-70, very few of them actually ever matched the later �approved� Masoretic text that the Babylonian Rebbes later forced on the Judean remnant population�

If you want a 100% match you're never going to get it. The world is imperfect. But if you're are looking for the closest book to perfection, that is a book which has fundamentally remained unchanged over the centuries, the Bible your best bet.

Since they both proofed their own individual arguments from DIFFERENT TEXTS that did not match each other (like Isaiah talking about �raising the dead� (not in the MT) alongside cleansing lepers!)

All the important passages from the different OT texts matched the fundamental substance.

I hope you can begin to understand some of the complexities here----and hopefully you will be able in future to avoid more of your inane and sweeping generalities (and disproven clich�s)

Now here's a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

that I keep hearing on this subject �from the faithful flock� who often do not know why they are told to believe so much they are forced to swallow �on faith� when the actual facts of the matter are often purely "political"......and are often the results of the whims of history...

Now there's a generalization .

Or as they say, SO NOW YOU KNOW !!!

Yes, now I know you're a little eccentric.



P.S. Just answer this question, I think this is my 5th request. ...Do you think all the MAJOR doctrines of Christianity were in place by 100AD? Yes or No?

BTW, you still don't have a coherent thesis. Are all over the place. Try again.



















[edit on 29-11-2004 by Logician]

This is one of those topics that is hard to answer. I am not a religious person at all. The Bible is a great book full of short stories. Kind of dry reading. I am spriritual though.

As to the question at hand, it is quite possible the Catholic Church tried to cover it up. Don't forget "Immaculate Conception" refers to neither the conception of Jesus nor to a virgin birth. It is a specific doctrine of Roman Catholicism decreeing that the Virgin Mary was preserved free from original sin by divine grace from the moment of her conception. Although this dogma had been argued since the twelfth century, it was not made official until 1854 by Pope Pius IX. Since then December 8 has been observed as a Roman Catholic feast in commemoration of the Immaculate Conception. If you consider and compare that to virginal birth it is quite different. It is almost as if the church backpeddaled and created an edict to describe what they are not sure of. This dogma tries to quell the masses question of how does she have a child without a father? She must have sinned to do this. Even 2000 years ago they knew where babies came from and it most certainly not the stork.

Mary a virgin? Nope. Most assuredly she was not. If Joseph is not the father and the father is not around does that not make a child a bastard? Mary was born free of sin and free of the inclination to do so. So MAYBE the church wants to cover up the fact that she may have sinned and covetted thy neighbor??


[edit on 11/29/2004 by just_a_pilot]

Surely of biblical scholarship Amadeus, you must be referring to the instances of analogy Jesus uses in his teachings. Most prominently Matthew 25:31 - The Parable of Sheep and the Goats. It seems you're fond of using the term 'sheep' to refer to Christians. Here are only a few of your references found amazing in your last post as well as the many others.

Originally posted by Amadeus
...which the Church so carefully avoids teaching their sheep/flock (in bible classes or in their catechisms or in their Sunday schools etc.)

and

Originally posted by Amadeus
...sweeping generalities (and disproven clich�s) that I keep hearing on this subject �from the faithful flock�...

Now, back to the parable. Matt 25:32 "All nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepard separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat..." etc. Now, Matt 25:41 "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat...'" etc.

After reading that, I say to you "Baaaa aaaaa"

Let's look at a few characteristics of said animals:

Sheep - Listen to their master's calling. Graze upon green pastures. Protected by the shepherd. Peaceful.

Goats - Stubborn, sometimes throwing fits of violence. Live on cold, craggy cliffs. Stumble and fall on the rocks. Lighter build than sheep.

For every time you call me a sheep, I look at you as a goat. I don't think people should make such labels among themselves but since we're being literal and animalistic, may I then call you 'goat' since this is what you're referring to?

Serpente - Even when I was agnostic, I never could get a viable handle on reincarnation. It makes little sense given the growing population throughout history or living a life as an animal. To what end or purpose? Coming back not remembering a previous life and/or being stuck in an infinite loop. Seems like a variation of Hell to me.

Logician - Love the education, keep it coming!

And greetings to you too, �Logician�:

I can see now that your�re now beginning to get way in over your head, but I think I (and SomeWhereInBetwween) already told you that already.

But..as you said yourself..... this is going to be a VERY interesting day------

Especially if you REALLY believe all those various �pluriform� Aramaic Targum-like paraphrase-texts of the Hebrew Scriptures that R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean and his merry Galilean Band of sword wielding (and ear cutting!) disciples used BEFORE THE WAR AGAINST ROME IN ANY WAY MATCHED the more standardized Hebrew Text of the later Jamnia Approved AD 90 �proto-Masoretic Texts�

You know, the version which later became the �Standard and Authorised MT� which is found in your Bibles---the SINGLE text family that was forced by the Jamnia Council on to Palestinian Jewry after the Jewish War (and after the Dead Sea Scrolls were sealed in their caves), the same �Standardised Text family� of the OT which is used by Protestant Christians and most �orthodox� Jews today ?

NEWSFLASH: (especially to all you who seem to be living under some very dark rocks like you do):

THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.

And any one in your �church� who tells you otherwise is a LIAR
(or maybe just plain ignorant of the facts as most �bible believing� Christians and Jews today are)�

Or maybe�.perhaps like you�. just in a frantic state of denial. And there�s a lot of that going on these days from that person in the White House on down.

Now�.you�ve mentioned so many unscholarly and unsupported positions in such a small space that it is almost laughable (e.g. your ignorance of the work of C.K. Barrett (in publication from about 1945 to 2000) who is one of the most brilliant examples of mainstream �cutting edge� scholarship in this field todate (ask me how I know) and if you had even the slightest clue as to what constitutes mainstream textual criticism you would know better ..but as SOMEWHEREINBETWEEN mentioned, you clearly do NOT know whereof you speak�).

Again, I don�t know where to start with you, except to just �dig in anywhere�. I think I�ll just throw out a small example---otherwise my post will be longer than they usually are on these threads...

Let�s start with one of your wildly unsupported clich�s that sounds like something you picked up in Sunday School by a teacher who had no Greek and even less Hebrew.

LOGICIAN SAID: QUOTE �All the Fundaments of the OT were already firmly in place, in written form, by the time Jesus came along and quoted the verses he did. For instance,Jesus did not paraphrase/quote any OT verse from his time which we don't have in our modern day OT. It's essentially remained unchanged. All the verses quoted by Jesus from the OT are in place in our modern OT. So much for you claim. A comparative analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls Book of Isaiah , for instance, shows that it was fundamentally unchanged even after one thousand years. A remarkable testament to OT consistency and continuity. �

This paragraph contains a number of outright falsehoods --------and flies in the face of every known fact about the Text Problems of the Scroll of Isaiah and the wider 2nd temple Period Texts when the exact wording and pointing of the Hebrew text were in a state of virtual liquid--------

Especially it ignoresthe variants in the the Prophetic Books (like Isaiah, since you mentioned it) which existed in at least two text family forms with some 6,000 differences between them.

And yet you parrot some oversimplified Chrsitian Pablum without even bothering to check any of the pertinent facts for yourself.

(and this kind of nonsense is the biggest complaint I have with �bible believing Christians�: who are generally too lazy to investigate their belief claims when it comes to the text of their Scriptiures beyond their own approved Sunday School Level apologetic reading material.)


Well, welcome to the Real World. There are a lot of ancient texts out there for you to compare----but unfortunately for you none of them are in English !

Can you even READ the differing Texts of the Dead Sea Scroll copies of Isaiah to compare them, and see all their variant differences in the text families in the 2nd Temple Period in which �Jeezzzizz� lived?

Even Lawrence Shiffman, the Mishnaic-Tanaitic Hebrew scholar freely acknowledges that the 2nd Temple Texts (BC 350 to AD70) were characterized by a free flowing textual fluidity that people outside the field of Dead Sea Scroll research rarely appreciate and would be shocked to discover for themselves.

You�d know all of this if you knew how to read the texts of the �Bible� found at the Dead Sea Scroll�s Qumran Caves (which were shut up in AD 68 before the Jamnia MT came along).

Here�s a small example of the TEXT DIFFERNECES OF THE OT to show you what I am talking about (because I seem to be talking to a BRICK WALL here)) taken from the so-called �Gospel of Matthew� (11:2-9) paralleled somewhat in the so called gospel of �Luke� (17:35) known in scholarship as a Q (or Quelle Saying) i.e. a sayings pericope shared by these two �canonical gospels� but missing in the gospel of �Mark� (which lacks the 218 Q sayings.)

The setting of this (�Q-saying�) pericope is after the arrest by Herod of Yohanon bar Zechariah the Levite (aka the Baptist) who in sitting in his prison cell in the Fortress of Macchaereus (in present day Jordan) gets a REAL Bad Case of Amnesia and (to everyone�s �Shock and Awe!) somehow �forgets� that he just baptized the Lamb of Theos who Takes Away the Sin of the World� in John's echo of the Baptism of "Iesous"

Another warning to people who do not know their Greek Gospels to believe some of the inherent problems in the �liquid� form of the early traditions---

In other words, Yohnanon he sends out two of his own disciples (�who never even knew there was a Holy Spirit!� if you believe Acts 19: 1-5 ! ) to find out what his evident replacement is up to, or maybe to enquire whether there were going to be a second Messaih coming (since the Dead Sea Scroll �Wilderness of Judaea� Messianic Sectarians were hoping to TWO messiahs, one of Messiah ben-Joseph and one of Messiah ben-David (i.e. Aaron and Israel)

In other words, according to this �yet another variant� stream of the early gospel tradition (among so many other contradictory streams in the gospel material that somehow inconveniently �do not match up�)

John (Yohanon bar Zechariah) is confused according to this text: maybe he is here wondering if R. Yehoshua bar Yosef is The One to Come (i.e. the Prophet Like Unto Moses spoken of in the book of Numbers)

Here is an eclectic text reading of the Q passage in Matt 11:2-19

2 And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christos, he sent two of his disciples 3 and said to Him, "Are You the One to Come, or do we look for another?" 4 Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and tell John the things which you hear and see:

5 "The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

6 "And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me."

You can compare the other Q version: Luke 7:18-35 18 Then the disciples of John reported to him concerning all these things.

19 And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus, saying, "Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?"
When the men had come to Him, they said, "John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, 'Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?'"

And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight.

Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them. "

And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me."

As any Sunday School Marm will tell you, this passage is from the Old Testament.

In fact it sounds a lot like the Scroll of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. Yet if you read your KJV and �Jamnia Approved Old Testament Masoretic Text Family� (the MT) there are some interesting differences between what is written there and what is placed into the mouth of this Iesous.

There is NO MENTION OF THE DEAD BEING RAISED IN THE APPROVED VERSION OF THE OT YOU READ IN YOUR MASORETIC TEXT OF THE OT

The �Greek speaking Iesous of the Gospels� is here seemingly quoting NOT from the Masoretic Council Approved version of Isaiah 29:18+ Is 35:5 BUT RATHER FROM SOME OTHER TEXT e.g. some Aramaic Targum "parahphrase" of Isaiah like one which was found at Qumran in Cave Four 4Q521 (or at any rate Matt and Luke are using this source text to place into his mouth!) which do NOT align up with your MT at all.

Here are the two different texts in English, since you do not know paleo Hebrew and seem to have even less Greek.

In fact, there is something very curious in Yeshua's reply when compared to Isaiah's prophecy:

Matthew 11:5 - The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them

Post Jamnia (after AD 90) Masoretic Isaiah 35:5-6 �

�Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. �'

Here isthe Post Jamnia Masoretic text version of Isaiah 29: 18 =

�And in that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and out of darkness and obscurity the eyes of the blind shall see. And the meek shall increase their joy in YHWH, and the poor men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.�

The key difference between these two �Scriptures� and the Greek words placed into the mouth of Ieosus IN THE GOSPELS is the issue of the cuours added Phrase: "the dead being raised up."

WAS THIS PART OF THE EARLY GOSPEL MESSAGE? THEN WHY DID IT NOT MATCH THE JAMNIA COUNCIL APPROFVED "OLD" TESTAMENT WORDING.......?? INSTEAD THERE ARE EVEN MORE LINKS BETWEEN THE DEAD SEA SCROLL FLUID TEXTS AND THE WORDS PLACED INTO THE MOUTH OF IESOUS IN THE GOSPELS......SO THE MORE FLUID DEAD SEA SCROLLS TEXTS PROVIDES YET ANOTHER CLUE AS TO WHAT HE ORIGINAL GOSPEL MESSAGE CONTAINED (before going Greek after the War)

Masoretic Text Isaiah does not mention this in the council approved Massoretic Text of AD 90 at Javneh that �Christians and orthodox Jews: use today as �Scripture� for their "Old" Testaments.

Yet, in the scrolls found at Qumran, is one that relates the raising of the dead to the Messiah. Since the caves were sealed in AD 68, this text must be BEFORE JAMNIA of AD90.

4Q521 is known as the Qumran �Redemption and Ressurection Scroll� which says of the Messiah:

4Q521 � Quote in English (for you, and those on this thread who cannot read the Paleo-unpointed Hebrew text)

�For in that Day He will honor the pious ones upon the throne of His eternal Kingdom, setting the captives free, opening the eyes of the blind, raising up those who are bowed down ...and YHWH shall do glorious things which have not been done before: just as He said.

For He shall cleanse the Lepers, He shall revive the dead, He shall preach the good news to the afflicted ...�

This may suggest that R. Yehoshua and Yohanon the Baptist were communicating with each other using a mutually-recognized (and possibly coded) message/teaching not found in the general �later canon approved� Old Testament attested-by-the-Rebbes-at- Jamnia version of Isaiah (and yes, one fairly close copy of Isaiah�s MT was found also in Cave One right next to one that was not of the same text type), but known to those who spent time "in the wilderness of Judaea" which can only refer to the area around Qumran, as the gospels later claim that Yehoshua and Yohanon his former Rabbi and mentor did).

The picture is very complicated by the variations in the TEXTS being guoted:

Moreover, both the Qumran 4Q521 and the �Jesus saying� in Q (Matt and Luke) BOTH contain reference to "giving life to/raising the dead" and "preaching good news to the poor," in that order�so: , as J.J. Collins and others recently have shown, that "it is quite possible that the author of the Sayings source Q [quoted in Matthew and Luke] knew the text of 4Q521 or something like it not found in the later Masoretic text of Isaiah.

HOW MUCH MORE CLEAR WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO MAKE THIS TO SHOW YOU HOW FLUID THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT WAS DURING THE LIFE TIME OF R. YESHOSHUA BAR YOSEF AND HIS DISCIPLES

(i.e. before the Jamnia Council of AD90 standardised the text AND canon of the OT)?


WHAT PART OF THIS ARE YOU NOT UNDERSTANDING??!!

Here�s a quote from C.K. Barrett himself (since you brought him up) from some unpublished lecture notes, October 1978 :

�The biblical text scrolls from Qumran are not all �sectarian� but many of them contain copies of the Old Testament and Pseudipigrapohical writings of the 2nd Temple Period which display the Scriptures of general �Normative Judaism� in the pre AD 70 period in which the earliest Nazorean Churches spread their message.

They are the oldest, most valuable, and most authentic evidence for the shape of the Hebrew Scriptures as they circulated in Jerusalem and Palestine in the late Second Temple period BC 350 to AD 70.

They demonstrate that the pre AD 70 and pre Jamnia (AD 90) Hebrew Old Testament Text (reflected in the Qumran Caves) was in fact highly pluriform: certainly not set in stone.

And that many of the books circulated in variant literary editions simultaneously, each of which apparently enjoyed equal status.

The evidence of the �pluriform biblical scrolls� also fits remarkably well with the evidence for the text of the Scriptures that we find in other places at the time of R. Hillel and "Jesus".

The Samaritan Pentateuch, the Greek LXX Septuagint, the varioius Biboical citations of OT Scripture found scattered in the later canonical New Testament, and Josephus's recasting of the biblical narrative in the Jewish Antiquities�all point to this undeniable fact.

Moreover, there was no centralized and dominant group within Judaism that possessed the attention and concern as well as the power to establish a �standard text,� nor is there any evidence until the Revolt of AD 66 of any effort to establish a �standard unpointed text" for the Hebrew Scriptires which Christians call the Old Testament."

So as you can see, I am far from �shooting blanks�.

Do yourself a favour and go take a Hebrew course and learn about the subject of Hebrew text transmission BEFORE AD 90, so our discussion will be helpful to those that really want to know some hard factual background to all their contorted belief systems---

It looks to me like you need an updated booklist with the latest findings of moderen scholarship (you do not seem to know any mainstream scholars in the field) ---which--if you would take the time to read it over--I would be happy to provide on another thread.

[edit on 29-11-2004 by Amadeus]

Quote: "Seems like a variation of Hell to me."

Instant Karma my Friend. Every Action has an Equal and Opposite
RE-Action. This "Variation of Hell" is called "Samsara" (Being trapped in the Cycle of Life & Death - Birth & Rebirth) by Buddhists. The BuddhaDharma teaches us how to Escape the Samsaric Realm & enter the Nirvanic Realm. This has little to do with Life & Death seeing how that is just a "Revolving Door" - its about practicing a Path that Minimizes Selfish Desire & hence Actions that cause "Negative Karma" to be created hence leading to
Re-incarnation in Lower or Similar forms.


[edit on 29-11-2004 by Seraphim_Serpente]

Hi Amadeus,

Greetings. Let me cut to the chase.

...merry Galilean Band of sword wielding (and ear cutting!) disciples used BEFORE THE WAR AGAINST ROME IN ANY WAY MATCHED the more standardized Hebrew Text of the later Jamnia Approved AD 90 �proto-Masoretic Texts�...THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.

You're completely blowing things out of proportion , as usual. . Whether Jamnia council really happened is still under debate . Suppose we grant your proposition. Here are some things to consider regarding this so-called 'council':


1.The 'council' of Jamnia was unimportant in determining the Jewish Canon.
2.It was not a major 'council' like Nicea, but a small collection of rabbinic Jewish leaders.
3.They did not gather to determine the canon of the Old Testament, but rather limited their discussion to the books of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon.
4 To suggest the canon of the Jews was not fixed until after the Jewish system was abolished in 70 AD, is as absurd as it is wishful thinking.There was clearly a fixed canon long before Jesus was born and when Jesus was tempted by the Bible three times, he did not reply, "human, man-made church tradition says Satan" Rather all three times Jesus replied, "It is written", (Matthew 4:1-4) referring to the Old Testament canon. The Jewish Bible of today is composed of three divisions, whose titles combined from the current Hebrew name for the complete Scriptures of Judaism: 'Hat-Torah, Nebiim, wa-K�thubim', i.e. The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. This triplication is ancient. A grouping closely akin to it occurs in the New Testament in Christ's own words, Luke, , : "All things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning me".


Frank M. Cross designates the Council of Jamnia "a common and somewhat misleading designation of a particular session of the rabbinic academy (or court) at Yabneh." He adds, "Recent sifting of the rabbinic evidence makes clear that in the proceedings at the academy of Yabneh the Rabbis did not fix the canon, but at most discussed marginal books, notably Ecclesiastes (Qohelet) and the Song of Songs. . . . Moreover, it must be insisted that the proceedings at Yabneh were not a `council,' certainly not in the late ecclesiastical sense." Cross sees Josephus, independent of any Jamnia proceedings, reflecting "a clear and coherent theological doctrine of canon that must stem, we believe, from canonical doctrine of Hillel and his school." Albert Sundberg recognizes that the "Council of Jamnia" hypothesis is dead.

Lee McDonald summarizes the case, "There is evidence that a discussion was held at Jamnia on the canonical status of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, but this is not enough to suggest that any binding or official decisions were made regarding the scope of the biblical canon at Jamnia." (Lee Martin McDonald, James A. Sanders, Editors: The Canon Debate; Jack P. Lewis, Jainnia Revisited, p 161, 2002)

"It appears that a general consensus already existed regarding the extent of the category called Scripture, so that even the author of 4 Ezra, though desiring to add one of his own, was obliged to recognize this consensus in his distinction between public and hidden Scripture." (The Council Of Jamnia And The Old Testament Canon, Robert C. Newman, 1983, abstract)

'It is concluded that there is no real evidence for such a council nor for any binding canonical decisions at that time. Instead there appears to have existed a consensus on the content of the Old Testament in the first century AD which was already ancient at that time." (The Council Of Jamnia And The Old Testament Canon, Robert C. Newman, 1983)

And any one in your �church� who tells you otherwise is a LIAR

You're generalizing again. Take a deep breath Amadeus. Relax.

Or maybe�.perhaps like you�. just in a frantic state of denial. And there�s a lot of that going on these days from that person in the White House on down.

What has G.W. Bush got to do with the price of rice in China?

Let�s start with one of your wildly unsupported clich�s that sounds like something you picked up in Sunday School by a teacher who had no Greek and even less Hebrew.

Now you're lashing out at Sunday School Teachers ?. You know if you would just skip the insults, your posts would be at least 50% shorter!

Especially it ignoresthe variants in the the Prophetic Books (like Isaiah, since you mentioned it) which existed in at least two text family forms with some 6,000 differences between them.

Wrong again. The Isaiah text exihibits about one thousand variants from the Massoretic text, mostly minor. The most common variant is the inclusion or omission of a single letter, vav (a), most-often translated �and.� Spelling variants are also common. Isaiah has about 1291 verses, which averages about one variant per verse, mostly trivial.

And yet you parrot some oversimplified Chrsitian Pablum without even bothering to check any of the pertinent facts for yourself.

A generalization.

and this kind of nonsense is the biggest complaint I have with �bible believing Christians�: who are generally too lazy to investigate their belief claims when it comes to the text of their Scriptiures beyond their own approved Sunday School Level apologetic reading material

Another generalization.

The setting of this (�Q-saying�) pericope is after the arrest by Herod of Yohanon bar Zechariah the Levite (aka the Baptist) who in sitting in his prison cell in the Fortress of Macchaereus (in present day Jordan) gets a REAL Bad Case of Amnesia and (to everyone�s �Shock and Awe!) somehow �forgets� that he just baptized the Lamb of Theos who Takes Away the Sin of the World� in John's echo of the Baptism of "Iesous"

Obviously you have not understood the textual nuances of this section of scripture. Read it again. If you were confined in a dungeon and about to have your head chopped off, you would be a tad bit befuddled as well. He was under tremendious stress, hence the confusion.

In other words, Yohnanon he sends out two of his own disciples (�who never even knew there was a Holy Spirit!� if you believe Acts 19: 1-5 ! ) to find out what his evident replacement is up to, or maybe to enquire whether there were going to be a second Messaih coming (since the Dead Sea Scroll �Wilderness of Judaea� Messianic Sectarians were hoping to TWO messiahs, one of Messiah ben-Joseph and one of Messiah ben-David (i.e. Aaron and Israel)

John seems to be rationalizing thus; "if Jesus is indeed the Messiah, then why am I about to get my head knocked off. Perhaps I was wrong after all. He's not the Messiah." Hence John dispaches his emissaries to confirm of Jesus. Jesus energizes John with a quote from Isaiah 35 which is Messianic. Again you totally miss the point here..

In other words, according to this �yet another variant� stream of the early gospel tradition (among so many other contradictory streams in the gospel material that somehow inconveniently �do not match up�)

The only 'variant stream' is in your fertile imagination, because you have missed the intended context of thes everses.

John (Yohanon bar Zechariah) is confused according to this text: maybe he is here wondering if R. Yehoshua bar Yosef is The One to Come (i.e. the Prophet Like Unto Moses spoken of in the book of Numbers)

Finally you get something right. John is confused; "if Jesus is Messiah why am I languishing in a dungeon about to perish", he reasons. "Can't he even save me? I must have been wrong about him. The dove, baptism, maybe it was all an illusion". He needed reconfirmation and my bet is that Jesus didn't fail him.. Tremendious stress on the man's psyche.

The key difference between these two �Scriptures� and the Greek words placed into the mouth of Ieosus IN THE GOSPELS is the issue of the cuours added Phrase: "the dead being raised up."

Again , youre making a mountain out of a molehill. If the 'post 90 Jamnia canon approved' text had obliterated the very notion of a resurrection or a 'raising of the dead' from the OT then you might have a point. As is, you're shooting blanks. So what? There are many places in the 'post 90AD Jamnia council approved' OT text where the 'raising of the dead' is alluded to and in relation to Messiah.-- I Sam 2:6; Job 14:10-14; Job 19:25-27; Ps 16:9-11; Ps 17:15; Ps 49:15; Ps 73:23-26; Is 25:8; Is 26:19-21; Is 3:10-12; Ezek 37:1-14; Dan 12:2; Dan 12:13; Hos 6:1-4; Hos 13:14, etc., etc. .. Besides the jist of Isaiah 35:5 in context to Matthew is not about the resurrection but rather an effort by Jesus to lift John's spirits-- reinforce the idea that Jesus is indeed the miracle working Messiah. In fact the proper context is summed up in this phrase, "Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me."(11:6) Also take a note of verse 10(Isa. 35), "EVERLASTING joy will crown their HEADS(!!).."

WAS THIS PART OF THE EARLY GOSPEL MESSAGE? THEN WHY DID IT NOT MATCH THE JAMNIA COUNCIL APPROFVED "OLD" TESTAMENT WORDING.......?? INSTEAD THERE ARE EVEN MORE LINKS BETWEEN THE DEAD SEA SCROLL FLUID TEXTS AND THE WORDS PLACED INTO THE MOUTH OF IESOUS IN THE GOSPELS......SO THE MORE FLUID DEAD SEA SCROLLS TEXTS PROVIDES YET ANOTHER CLUE AS TO WHAT HE ORIGINAL GOSPEL MESSAGE CONTAINED (before going Greek after the War)

Nothing you've said so far suggests in any way, shape or form that there were substantial /significant structural and doctrinal changes taking place over time in either the OT or NT 'canon' . Typically youre arguing a red herring with your Matthew 11 cum Isaiah 35 example . I suggest you try a different tact.

Yet, in the scrolls found at Qumran, is one that relates the raising of the dead to the Messiah. Since the caves were sealed in AD 68, this text must be BEFORE JAMNIA of AD90.

As already shown, the notion of the 'raising of the dead' 'as related to Messiah' is found in many places in our present day 'post AD 90 council approved' OT . So your point is irrevalent.?

This may suggest that R. Yehoshua and Yohanon the Baptist were communicating with each other using a mutually-recognized (and possibly coded) message/teaching not found in the general �later canon approved� Old Testament attested-by-the-Rebbes-at- Jamnia version of Isaiah (and yes, one fairly close copy of Isaiah�s MT was found also in Cave One right next to one that was not of the same text type), but known to those who spent time "in the wilderness of Judaea" which can only refer to the area around Qumran, as the gospels later claim that Yehoshua and Yohanon his former Rabbi and mentor did).

What nonsense. Jesus and John speaking in 'code'? The resurrection of the dead as it relates to Messiah 'not found in the general later canon approved' Old Testament' ? Just read Daniel 12:2 for starters.

They demonstrate that the pre AD 70 and pre Jamnia (AD 90) Hebrew Old Testament Text (reflected in the Qumran Caves) was in fact highly pluriform: certainly not set in stone.

And certainly not divergent in form, structure and doctrine in any significant fashion either.

The Samaritan Pentateuch, the Greek LXX Septuagint, the varioius Biboical citations of OT Scripture found scattered in the later canonical New Testament, and Josephus's recasting of the biblical narrative in the Jewish Antiquities�all point to this undeniable fact.

Points to what 'undeniable fact'? That there were minor variations, a certain amount of 'fludity' over time, scribal errors, displacement of afew words ? Certainly,.. but was it enough to significantly disrupt the integrity of the whole over time? You haven't even come close to proving this!

And finally, it always humors me when yuo use the word 'canon'.The Greek 'kanon' means primarily a reed, or measuring-rod: by a natural figure it was employed by ancient writers to denote a rule or standard. We find the substantive first applied to the Sacred Scriptures in the fourth century, by St. Athanasius; for its derivatives, the Council of Laodicea of the same period speaks of the 'kanonika biblia' and 'Athanasius of the biblia kanonizomena'. It should be noted that protocanonical and deuterocanonical are modern terms, not having been used before the sixteenth century.


Did the Jews of the pre-Christian era have a definite and closed "canon"?

One of the most important pieces of evidence in favor of the forming and closing of the canon at a time prior to Christ may be found in the writings of Josephus, the Jewish historian. He writes (at about 100 AD) "It is true our history has been written since Artaxerxes very particularly but has not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there has not been an exact succession of the prophets since that time." So we can deduce that the completion of the canon of the Old Testament took place after the Babylonian captivity. The writings were collected after the people moved back into the land under Ezra and Nehemiah, because the Scriptures were needed. By 425 B.C., all the books of the Old Testament were written and collected.



Show some teeth Amadeus. .....In this regard it would bode well for you if you could tell us, yes or no, whether all the essential doctrines of Christianity were already in place before 100AD? (I think this is the sixth request)


Good Day,

















[edit on 30-11-2004 by Logician]