Thread 17762456

Mark>Matthew>Luke>>>>>>>>>John

Why do christians always portray Jesus as some jacked up White dude when he was a frail jewish man?

>>17762457
>frail
Source

>>17762461
Actual paintings from the past

I prefer the order of authorship (John > Mark > Luke > Matthew)

>>17762462
>>17762457
Carpenters are typically strong. Plus he had unlimited fish

>>17762468
We don’t know any of the authors.

All anonymous books written 30 years later actually fyi

Matthew and Luke can't decide ravvi yeshuas genealogy lol

>>17762473
Yeah, but we know the dates of authorship from the order of copying. Matthew modifies Luke, Luke modifies Mark, and Mark, written in the 70s shows verbatim literary agreement in many places to John, which was written most likely by an educated Greek-speaking Jew living in Jerusalem before its destruction (so most certainly not by a hick Galilean fisherman like John son of Zebedee).

>>17762495
John was absolutely not written first, it was the last one.

It goes Mark > Matthew > Luke >John

Which does interestingly enough coincide with the quality of each.

>>17762497
The same kind of argument from editorial fatigue that can be used to show Mark was the first of the three synoptic gospels shows Matthew also used Luke to compose his gospel. The support for Matthean posterity has grown considerably in recent years in biblicals studies.

John preserves both incredible, accurate details of daily life and architecture of a pre-destruction Jerusalem, and when you strip away its theological treatises from the core that discusses the historical Jesus, you'll notice that it preserves a much more primitive view of him that the gospel of Mark.

If you're still hanging on to ideas superseded decades in academia like "John's Greek is much better than Mark's rough language, so it must be written last" and "the gospels show an increasingly higher Christology in the order of Mark > Luke > Matthew > John,so John must be written last", you really need to update your knowledge. A popular level book like Evan Powell's the Unfinished Gospel might be the best entry into scholarship of the 21st century.

Mark is unironically a masterpiece of world literature and it's a real shame we don't have any other (known) writings by the author. It is real art

>>17762516
I don’t think you know more than the majority of biblical scholars.

>>17762462
1. Jesus didn't have long hair.
2. That was painted like 1500 years later. You're braindead. No, really, you don't deserve a brain. Say "I'm stupid and I don't deserve a brain."
>>17762456 (OP)
Enjoy Hell.

>>17762519
>YESHUA
Who?
>Schizo image
Meds.

>>17762456 (OP)
Lmao white people be talking bout books by "Mark" and "Matthew"

>>17762520
I say up to date with Biblical scholarship and the support for Q, while still the majority position, and the second most preferred synoptic solution (Farrer hypothesis) have both been losing ground to Matthean posteriority. It's not like there's an ecumenical council of scholars that suddenly declares the matter settled in favor of one hypothesis, you have to have a feel for these things by reading modern stuff.

And to second people like >>17762519 the Greek of Mark (and its narrative structure) is brilliant and in no way bad, so I don't know what kind of 1960s commentary you're reading if you still believe that claim. Read DB Hart's NT translation where he tries to preserve the style of writing each of the gospel authors used, and you'll notice even if you can't read koine that it's an incredibly captivating work written in excellent Greek. It's absolutely the best quality gospel of the four (Luke and Matthew break its structure with insertions, and John has chapters full of made-up theological speeches put in the mouth of Jesus written in the exact same style of the narrator uses, which bore me to tears - at least the author could've tried to give Jesus a personality different from his own).

>>17762537
>Who?
Take a wild guess who Yeshua could be.
>Schizo image
Chiastic structure in Mark is common knowledge among scholars (Christian and non-Christian) (as other books in the bible), not only in the themes but in his choice of words and phrases.

>>17762476
>All anonymous books written 30 years later actually fyi
Mark was probably 40ish years later
Matthew maybe up to a decade or two after that
Luke some time in the early 2nd century
John is a composite text that was likely written in multiple stages across the late 1st and early 2nd centuries.

>>17762534
>Jesus didn't have long hair.
Totally bro, I'm sure the nomad who wandered the desert, wore hobo clothes, and had no possessions made sure to get a good haircut once a month. Bet he was clean shaven, too!

>>17762519
Mark is easily the great genius of gospel authors. There's so much depth and irony to his text that even his Christian contemporaries seemed to have been befuddled by (the Messianic secret, the denial of Peter, the Passion and the cliffhanger ending etc..)

>>17762540
My problem with Matthean posteriority is that it seems like Luke was dependent on Josephus' Antiquities, which was published in 94 AD. So if Matthew was using Luke was using Josephus, you're talking about Matthew being written in the 2nd century, which seems incongruous with the Jewish themes of Matthew's work.

>>17762519
John is always recommended as the first New Testament gospel to read, but Mark is just so much better to ease yourself into. If you're reading these gospels for the first time-- or even the Bible in general-- Mark is an easy read that you can finish in like, two hours. I know people say, "If you're gonna read the Bible, start at the beginning!" but let's be real, anyone with newfound faith probably got it because of Jesus and just wanna skip right to learning about Jesus first. And Mark is just the right level of accounts of events, parables, and teachings to let you know what to expect when challenging yourself as you read Scripture. The story about sowing the seed of word is one I think about a lot, not just for faith, but for many other commitments in my life.

>>17762456 (OP)
Wrong

>>17762597
Stop using ChatGPT

>>17762605
Do people just randomly quote posts and say shit like this now? I've seen this across /his/ and /lit/ multiple times at random posts for the past week now.

>>17762456 (OP)
very kosher thread herschel
go fuck yourself with a menorah

>>17762457
They always portrayed him as frail actually. Him being jacked is gaslighting they started in the last decade or so

>>17762590
If if makes you feel any better, I was equally shocked at the natural conclusion that Matthew must date to the 2nd century as I do also accept that Luke used Josephus for Acts.

One way Matthew could be "salvaged" to the 1st century would be if Luke was an edit of Marcion's "gospel of the Lord" by the early 2nd century author of Acts, whose most important additions to the gospel were the early chapters including the infancy narrative. The chain of copying would then go Mark (70s) > GLord > Matthew (1st century), and after the GLord was deemed heretical by "Luke" in the 130s because he disliked Marcion's theology, it was rewritten and Acts was written as its counterpart, with no knowledge of Matthew being necessary.

That Matthew must be modifying GLord instead of the other way around would then follow pretty much the same arguments as the Matthew v Luke debate. And it would solve the question of why the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke conflict if one had access to the other: there was no infancy narrative in GLord when Matthew copied it, and when Luke wrote his infancy narrative and affixed it onto a pre-existing gospel, he never read Matthew.

>>17762583
>the nomad
Lie.
>wore hobo clothes,
Lie, slandering the Lord.
>and had no possessions
Lie.
>made sure to get a good haircut once a month.
Argument from incredulity. You can admit you're retarded now.
>Bet he was clean shaven, too!
No, he had a beard.

>>17762632
Could you share some of these recent academic articles arguing for Matthean posteriority? I'm intrigued. I currently favour the Farrer hypothesis.

>>17762658
>Jesus had possessions and wore nice clothes!

>>17762600
>"never defend yourself. Turn the other cheek when he hits you"
This is a misreading of Mathew. Christ says at the start of the passage "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" meaning Christ wasn't discussing a self defense situation. He was referring to chimping out over being insulted.

>>17762663
Sorry, that's not an admission that you're retarded and don't deserve a brain. Try again. Also, you're a proven liar.

>>17762675
So you think the man who told his disciples they'd have to leave everything behind... Also had possessions beyond the clothes on his back?

>>17762684
Sorry, that's not an admission that you're retarded and don't deserve a brain. Try again. Also, you're a proven liar.

>>17762715
ok, lil bro, good luck with all that mental anguish.

>>17762661
Robert MacEwen's "Matthean Posteriority" (2015) is probably the best book on the topic, and responses to it seem to support the MPH over the FH (and Q not existing). Alan Garrow's arguments in "The Gospel of Matthew's Dependence on the Didache" (2013) in my personal opinion push the gospel into the 2nd century (although some core parts of the Didache are certainly 1st century).

A quick intro to Matthew v Luke is this post showing how Matthew butchers Luke's more original parable.
https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/did-luke-know-and-use-matthew-the-parable-of-the-talentspounds-as-a-test-case/

To add to why GLord would solve the Josephus problem, it started with:
>In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Jesus descended into Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and was teaching on the Sabbath days.
It then generally follows to gospel of Luke after Lk 4:31.

The argument that Luke used Josephus shows that in the gospel, only parts of Luke 1-3 like the census of Quirinius must be derived from Josephus. (e.g. Tiberius and Pilate were famous people written about in many places, unlike obscure figures like Judas of Galilee and Theudas who are first mentioned by Josephus and who Luke incorporated into Acts.) A 1st century pre-Josephus GLord later adopted to use by Marcion would not include any references to writings of Josephus.

As an aside, the "additional" early chapters of Luke are the only source for the tradition that John the Baptist was the cousin of Jesus, which seems to be entirely ahistorical. Compare this to Mark and Matthew, where the Baptist has no family history with Jesus and seems to meet him for the first time at his baptism, and especially John 1 where Jesus appears to be a random follower in a religious community headed by the Baptist who then splinters off into a movement of his own after personal praise by the Baptist and after two of the Baptist's followers decide to follow Jesus instead.

>>17762766
And how do these secular academics explain the fact Marcion faced instant ubiquitous rejection from the Church, in part because he edited the Gospels?

>>17762534
>Enjoy Hell.

>>17762627
why

>>17762846
People like you in hell:

>>17762803
You'd have to go deeper into reconstructions of the gospel of the Lord / gospel of Marcion (like Jason BeDuhn's "The First New Testament: Marcion's Scriptural Canon" 2013), but the general argument of "Marcionite priority over Luke" proponents is that just like 2nd century proto-orthodox Christians were wrong about Mark being a Greek language abridgement of the original Hebrew language gospel of Matthew, they were wrong about Marcion mutilating the earlier gospel of Luke, probably due to polemical reasons and trying to discredit a heresiarch. Marcion's shocking rejection of the OT was probably the biggest reason most early churches hated him.

If it's any worth, in the debate between Marcion who claimed he never touched the gospel about Jesus he found and opponents of Marcion who claim he edited Luke to suit his theology, most recent scholarship by academics specializing in Marcion leans towards the former position. The alleged excisions don't generally conflict with his theology and many parts he would have left untouched (e.g. about Jesus following Jewish law) do conflict with Marcionite preachings. So it seems that if Marcion did rewrite Luke like church fathers claim, he did a shitty job at supporting his own theology and appears to have been an idiot.

Canonical Luke in its present form in any case must've been finished sometime between the late 90s (after the publications of Josephus's Antiquities) and before the 150s (the Epistula Apostolorum incorporates Lukan infancy narrative material and can be internally dated based on its prophecy about the 2nd coming).

>>17762456 (OP)
This but the opposite.

>>17762857
>the general argument of "Marcionite priority over Luke" proponents is that just like 2nd century proto-orthodox Christians were wrong about Mark being a Greek language abridgement of the original Hebrew language gospel of Matthew, they were wrong about Marcion mutilating the earlier gospel of Luke
That's not an argument, it's a proposition, specifically, it is the proposition which it's supposedly arguing for ("Marcionite priority over Luke" is identical to "they were wrong about Marcion mutilating the earlier gospel of Luke"). However my question was more about chronology than redaction. I think it's rather clear evidence that the Church must have already had these Gospels when Marcion's came into being in order for them to react like they did and accuse him of editing their Gospels. Nothing they do with the synoptics could be relevant because they obviously did not consider the relationship of the synoptics to be anything like their relationship to Marcion.
>Marcion's shocking rejection of the OT was probably the biggest reason most early churches hated him.
Obviously.
>If it's any worth
It's not.

>>17762857
>Canonical Luke in its present form in any case must've been finished sometime between the late 90s
No I don't accept that, I would put all of the synoptics before AD 70. All of the theories of secular scholarship which undermine the authenticity and independence of the Gospels (and I would extend this point to the New Testament as a whole) rely on the presupposition that nothing exists beside matter and natural law, and natural study without those presuppositions could not produce those theories. Basically, it would never occur to any non-naturalist that these are just copies meticulously editing each other among other things. Both directly in the case of things like absolutely refusing a dating prior to AD 70 due to the unacceptability of Christ's prophecy of the temple's destruction in their worldview, and indirectly in the baleful ways secularism has poisoned their thinking generally, such as in the dubious methods and absurd ideas of higher criticism and postmodernism which have led for example to the insistence on part of a majority of secular scholars of the dependence of the Gospels on a document for which there is no material evidence and of which there is no historical attestation.

>>17762456 (OP)
>uknown author>unknown author>unknown author>>>>>>>>>unknown author

Fixed

>>17762766
I am sorry if this is completely off base, but would the Mandean Scriptures (Book of John specifically) be able to shed a little more light in the relationship between Jesus Christ and John the baptist. Or are they pretty worthless?
I know their compilation was rather late, and post islamic to boot.

>>17762456 (OP)
All bullshit btw

>>17762932
I personally think Marcion edited Luke, I just suggested an option to an anon who didn't like the implication that Matthew was super late. If I had to give some hard numbers for my most probable dates (I'm certainly no biblical scholar myself), Mark is written in about 75 AD ("let the reader undestand" in Mark 13; recent popular stories of Vespasian's miraculous healings with spit in Alexandria in 69 AD), Luke in 100 AD (post-Antiquities), and Matthew 110-120 AD (discarding Luke's infancy narrative and genealogy and replacing them with something he thought was better). The "Signs Gospel" (the core of John written in Jerusalem) would predate both Mark and the destruction of the Temple. Marcion then removed the beginning of Luke in 140 AD.

The first recorded claim that Marcion edited the gospel (and epistles of Paul) is to my knowledge by Iranaeus in Adversus Haereses in 180 AD. Tertullian in Adversus Marcionem in 208 AD preserves most of the quotations that are used to reconstruct Marcion's Evangelion and Apostolikon. I don't think we have anything earlier, and only brief 2nd century quotes (e.g. of Rhodo who wrote post-180AD) that Marcion did this. Iranaeus (by coincidence) is the first person to name all the four gospels, i.e. to say Luke the physician wrote the gospel of Luke.

Justin's First Apology in 150 AD has anti-Marcionite arguments, but doesn't claim Marcion forged any writings (nor does Justin ever name the authors of the quoted "memories of the apostles"). He was a contemporary of Marcion or arrived in Rome soon after the latter had been excommunicated. You'd think that if he knew of the argument that Marcion rewrote a gospel he'd have mentioned it. He was eager to say in Dialogue with Trypho that Jews were editing their own scriptures to remove prophecies of Jesus.

>>17762933
My impression is Mandaens introduced the figure of John (a prophet in Islam) to protect themselves from Islamic persecution and their books preserve little history.

>>17763039
Thank you.

Personally, I think there was a proto-Luke without chapters 1-2 and much less material from chapter 3. Probably less material in general where canonical Luke expanded it. I think Proto-Luke was edited by Marcion, rather than Marcion's gLord being original, it suspiciously lacks references to John the Baptist and the jewish scriptures which are present in the other gospels, including Mark which was a source for (proto-)Luke. Then proto-Luke was used as a source by canonical Luke, who also used gMark, gMatthew, and gJohn, in the early 2nd century. I never understood the argument that gLuke used gLord, why would a proto-Orthodox take a gospel he considered heretical and meticulously add elements found in gospels he agreed with, when he could have used the gospels he agreed with? I think proto-Luke makes more sense.

As for gLuke using gJohn, I'm surprised it's not a more popular hypothesis, there are lots of details only found in those two gospels and not gMark and Matthew.

>>17763039
>The first recorded claim that Marcion edited the gospel (and epistles of Paul) is to my knowledge by Iranaeus in Adversus Haereses in 180 AD. Tertullian in Adversus Marcionem in 208 AD preserves most of the quotations that are used to reconstruct Marcion's Evangelion and Apostolikon. I don't think we have anything earlier, and only brief 2nd century quotes (e.g. of Rhodo who wrote post-180AD) that Marcion did this.
I think there's a tendency to a certain anachronism on part of secular scholarship in their expectations of speed in ancient writers. The advance of technology has enabled us unprecedented rapidity in research, communication etc. beginning and only increasing since the invention of the printing press. In the 2nd century, and particularly for a man in his circumstances, a few decades is not an enormous amount of time. If I recall correctly Irenaeus himself personally was old enough when he wrote Against Heresies to have been an adult when Marcion was doing this.
>Justin's First Apology in 150 AD has anti-Marcionite arguments, but doesn't claim Marcion forged any writings
Justin does not argue against Marcion in First Apology, he briefly mentions him as an example of an agent of demons, and briefly summarizes his theology. He also doesn't mention his rejection of the Old Testament.
>nor does Justin ever name the authors of the quoted "memories of the apostles"
That is not nearly as significant as the fact he called them that. I'd be really curious as to what the original language says and how formal or dynamic that translation is because if he actually used the very words "memoirs of the apostles" that means Justin believes they are eyewitness accounts and is a witness to the Christian tradition of their authorship.

>>17762803
Marcion didnt edit anything. The comparison between his Gospel and Luke with modern criterias proved the most logical conclusion is that Luke is an extended version of Marcion and Marcion was thus earlier

>>17763066
Interesting points and I agree it doesn't make any sense for Luke to use Marcion.

>>17763091
After rereading the Apology, you're right that there's no explicit argument against Marcion, I guess I got it mixed up with Justin's promotion in other chapters of the OT prophets testifying of Jesus, so indirect at best.

Justin in Greek:
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1874

Dialogue ch 100 quotes Matthew and Luke and uses the term ἀπομνημονεύμασι τῶν ἀποστόλων (memoirs of the apostles) right after mentioning Peter, although it isn't clear if Peter is meant to be included among them.

Ch 106 mentions ἀπομνημονεύμασιν αὐτοῦ (memoirs of him) with "him" referring to either Jesus (which would give no indication of authorship) or alternatively to Peter (which could refer to canonical GMark if he was aware of the tradition that John Mark was the secretary of Peter, or a noncanonical text like the gospel of Peter).

I assume by "apostles" Justin believes the authors were members of the Twelve and eye-witnesses to Jesus, and I'd lean towards excluding Luke from being an apostle and Justin thus directly speaking against authorship by Luke the Physician. Ch 42 of the Dialogue speaks of the twelve bells of the high priest's robe symbolizing the twelve apostles (δώδεκα ἀποστόλων). I don't think Justin included Paul the 13th apostle among his "apostles" either. While Acts might be seen as a "memoir of Paul by Luke" analogous to Mark's memoir of Peter, GLuke could hardly be a "memoir of the apostles" if he thought Luke the Physician was the author (the traditional view is that Luke recorded the additional stories of another non-apostle, Jesus' mother Mary).

Note also that Justin never quotes from Acts and probably was not aware that it existed, and never names Paul, but must've been aware of at least some Pauline epistles on account of living in Rome. Perhaps he never quotes from them because Marcion had just collected ten such letters into a codex.

For reference, the only two mentions of Marcion in Justin's First Apology:

Ch 26:
>And there is Marcion, a man of Pontus, who is even at this day alive, and teaching his disciples to believe in some other god greater than the Creator. And he, by the aid of the devils, has caused many of every nation to speak blasphemies, and to deny that God is the maker of this universe, and to assert that some other being, greater than He, has done greater works.

Ch 58:
>And, as we said before, the devils put forward Marcion of Pontus, who is even now teaching men to deny that God is the maker of all things in heaven and on earth, and that the Christ predicted by the prophets is His Son, and preaches another god besides the Creator of all, and likewise another son. And this man many have believed, as if he alone knew the truth, and laugh at us, though they have no proof of what they say, but are carried away irrationally as lambs by a wolf, and become the prey of atheistical doctrines, and of devils.

>>17762456 (OP) Nonsense. You're certainly an atheist.

>>17762457
Jesus was a carpenter/stone mason, so he was most definitely fit.

>>17762933
>I would put all of the synoptics before AD 70.
Why?
>All of the theories of secular scholarship which undermine the authenticity and independence of the Gospels (and I would extend this point to the New Testament as a whole) rely on the presupposition that nothing exists beside matter and natural law, and natural study without those presuppositions could not produce those theories
No it doesn't. Do you think the Book of Mormon is divinely authored? Or the Pali Canon? Or the Iliad? Does your undermining their authenticity commit you to believing that nothing exists besides matter?
> Basically, it would never occur to any non-naturalist that these are just copies meticulously editing each other among other things.
How do you think we got our copies of Virgil, or Plato, or Shakespeare, or every single pre modern text? Non-naturalists accept that all of these were naturalistically copied.
>Both directly in the case of things like absolutely refusing a dating prior to AD 70 due to the unacceptability of Christ's prophecy of the temple's destruction in their worldview
That's not the only reason why most NT critics think Mark was written after 70. Far more convincing in my view is the military and administrative Latinisms in Mark and other characteristics which indicate a setting in Palestine post-Roman occupation, like the denarii pericope and an allusion to the Legio X Fretensis with the Gerasene demon.

The claim that textual and historical criticism of the Bible presupposes naturalism is just special pleading by Christians. They won't say that about any other ancient religious text.
It's pure projection of the fact that divine authorship of Christian scripture can only be defended by presupposing Christianity is true.

I'm so fucking tired of jewlore and jewish religion, I just don't fucking give a shit about subhuman middle eastern gobblydeegook when there's like a billion other points of interest in human history that barely gets any discussion. Fucking talk about something interesting you retards.

>>17763236
>I assume by "apostles" Justin believes the authors were members of the Twelve and eye-witnesses to Jesus, and I'd lean towards excluding Luke from being an apostle and Justin thus directly speaking against authorship by Luke the Physician
I agree with more or less everything (and thank you for enlightening me on this subject, my friend) except this because I don't think it's necessary for them to have apostolic authors, just apostolic sources. It would be easy to explain if Luke is using Mary as his primary rather than exclusive source (he himself mentions using multiple sources including prior Gospels). Also in the First Apology Justin refers to "the memoirs of the apostles which are called Gospels", and if we assume Justin has the canonical Gospels in mind this definition would certainly include Luke in the category of the memoirs of the apostles as a general if not universal term. The alternative would be to say Justin does not consider Luke a Gospel.

>>17763971
>Why?
There are various reasons for this which you will hear from many Christians. For example, 1 Timothy quotes from Luke as divine scripture.
>No it doesn't. Do you think the Book of Mormon is divinely authored? Or the Pali Canon? Or the Iliad? Does your undermining their authenticity commit you to believing that nothing exists besides matter?
This is a strawman. While there are and have been many pagans who by their prejudice against the Christian religion have been led to dismiss the authenticity of the text of scripture in various places none of them, operating on the presuppositions of their worldview, have even approached the depths to which the modern secularists have sunk. In particular the secularists presuppose that Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead and did not pour out His Holy Spirit upon the apostles, in order to conceive their theories.
>How do you think we got our copies of Virgil, or Plato, or Shakespeare, or every single pre modern text? Non-naturalists accept that all of these were naturalistically copied.
You're confused. I'm talking about the notion that the Gospels are redactions of each other, not the process of scribes producing copies down to this day. Textual criticism or lower criticism is a perfectly valid area of study, which Christians have literally practiced since before the council of Nicaea, and which has not vindicated the numerous fictions of the secularists.

>>17763971
>That's not the only reason why most NT critics think Mark was written after 70.
Yes it is. The fact you admit it is a reason is an admission it is the primary or overriding reason. It is a hard line in the sand which makes any earlier dating strictly unacceptable. Notably this bias is not reversible, as the biographical character of the Gospels means that necessarily any time in which they accurately record the words of Jesus they must date to no later than the early 30s AD, so if Mark were written after 70 it would not preclude the prophecy from being authentic history.
>The claim that textual and historical criticism of the Bible presupposes naturalism is just special pleading by Christians. They won't say that about any other ancient religious text.
Now I would like to know what your basis for making this claim is. Did I tell you that? Did you see me doing that? You have made a false assumption that we accept your methods generally. In reality I reject the anti-evidential speculations of higher criticism regardless of whether the victim is the bible or the quran.
>It's pure projection of the fact that divine authorship of Christian scripture can only be defended by presupposing Christianity is true.
I think that's true. It's also true that it can only be attacked by presupposing Christianity is false. Your error is in the false assumption that it is possible to neutrally study the subject without being influenced by the presuppositions you carry with you.

>>17762456 (OP)
Gospel of St. John is considered "theological anti-semitism."

>>17764118
It was written at a time of the greatest contention between the early Christians and conventional Jews.

>>17764111
>>17764115
OIh god it's retarded presup garbage.
>While there are and have been many pagans who by their prejudice against the Christian religion have been led to dismiss the authenticity of the text of scripture in various places none of them, operating on the presuppositions of their worldview, have even approached the depths to which the modern secularists have sunk. In particular the secularists presuppose that
You missed my point completely. Jews, pagans and an infinite other number of non-secular and non-naturalist people reject the claim that Jesus rose from the dead, many of them on the basis of historical criticism. Rejecting the divine authenticity of Christian scripture does not require a naturalist worldview, let alone "presupposing" naturalism. The pagan Celsus used historical criticism to dispute the gospels, and he was a Platonist. Even Muslim apologists use Biblical criticism in favour of their claims.
Believing the Bible is a natural text =/= being a universal naturalist. No more than your believing the Iliad or the Book of Mormon is a natural text requires you to be a naturalist.
> I'm talking about the notion that the Gospels are redactions of each other
Augustine literally argued that Mark was a redaction of Matthew.
If treating the synoptic problem is presupposing Christianity is false, then you think Christian theologians are heretics.
>Textual criticism or lower criticism is a perfectly valid area of study, which Christians have literally practiced since before the council of Nicaea
But this is a completely artificial distinction between "acceptable" criticism and "unacceptable" criticism. Christians since at least Papias have been doing what you think is "unacceptable" higher criticism in trying to name and date the canonical gospels. There were important arguments among early Christians about higher critical topics like "who was the John who wrote Revelation", "which gospel was written first?, etc. etc..

>>17764111
>>17764115
The only reason you're attacking higher criticism as unjustifiably naturalist is because you're afraid of the results. It's been practiced by both Christians and non Christians for millennia.
>Yes it is.
I gave you a coherent and quite popular set of reasons for Mark dating to after 70AD that did not mention the Temple, which you failed to respond to I actually consider it quite possible that Jesus as a failed apocalyptic prophet may have predicted the destruction of the Temple, given it's a frequent theme of the prophets in the Hebrew scripture Jesus would have known. So I think the Temple prophecy argument for dating Mark is somewhat weak. But the military and administrative Latinisms and references to post-70 Roman currency and legions in Palestine seem like we can pretty reasonably date it somewhere after the Roman occupation in 70.
>In reality I reject the anti-evidential speculations of higher criticism regardless of whether the victim is the bible or the quran.
What about the Book of Mormon? The Iliad? Scientology?
There are a near infinite number of works and persons who have claimed divine inspiration. It's not presupposing secularism to believe even one text out of thousands of religious works throughout history is not divinely inspired. Do you reject using historical criticism to argue that the poet Homer didn't exist or that Joseph Smith didn't recieve golden plates from an angel called Moroni?
>It's also true that it can only be attacked by presupposing Christianity is false
??? No it doesn't. Looking at a piece of evidence and asking whether it lends more credence to X being true or X being false does not "presuppose" X is false.

>>17764414
>OIh god it's retarded presup garbage.
You sound mad
>Rejecting the divine authenticity of Christian scripture
I was not talking about the inspiration of scripture I was talking about the various theories of its history which secular scholars have invented and which were unknown to mankind prior to the 18th century at the latest. Those peculiar attacks *are* grounded in a naturalistic worldview irrespective of their object, which is why when they do the same things with other books whether they be Plato or Muhammad it's still fundamentally secular and produces a distinctively secular critique. I'm well aware modern secularists are not the first people on the planet to deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ, did you think I wasn't, do you think you contributed something by pointing that out? My point was that it is an essential presupposition to the speculation the New Testament is subjected to to deny either that He did or could have risen from the dead and that this and every other text which they mutilate are interpreted in the context of a world where there's no God, God has not spoken, God has no purpose etc etc.
>The pagan Celsus used historical criticism to dispute the gospels
No, this is anachronism. While Celsus was full of bs like you he did not use the methods of higher criticism which is a novelty of modernity through the Enlightenment.
>Even Muslim apologists use Biblical criticism in favour of their claims.
Yeah, that's an example of an actual inconsistency in this subject as those very same muslims (who are just looking to loot some ammunition to attack Christianity with from the secularists) will insistently forbid the same methods being used against the quran for the same reasons.

>>17764414
>No more than your believing the Iliad or the Book of Mormon is a natural text
I don't believe there's such a thing as a natural text.
>Augustine literally argued that Mark was a redaction of Matthew.
No he did not.
>If treating the synoptic problem is presupposing Christianity is false
This is a strawman.
>But this is a completely artificial distinction between "acceptable" criticism and "unacceptable" criticism. Christians since at least Papias have been doing what you think is "unacceptable" higher criticism in trying to name and date the canonical gospels.
No it is not sir. This is simply another strawman and very easily swatted aside on that basis. "Naming and dating the Gospels" is not what higher criticism is. Higher criticism is coming to the text of scripture and saying these are merely human writings nothing they're talking about is true, and since they are just mythology let's figure out (make up) what REALLY happened and how they REALLY came to be what we possess. It is an anti-evidential method which begins with a dismissal of the evidence as automatically incorrect and seeks it to replace it with the speculation of the scholar, which is why they are left with as many theories as theorists. It has no relationship either to proper methods of history which seek to discern the narrative of events from the evidence nor to the practice of textual criticism which once again seeks to reconstruct the text on the evidence rather than by huffing one's own farts.

>>17764421
>I gave you a coherent and quite popular set of reasons for Mark dating to after 70AD that did not mention the Temple, which you failed to respond to
You didn't seem to grasp that my point about 70AD had to do what it says about the presuppositions of the secular scholars and that it is not a matter of great import between us beyond that.
>I actually consider it quite possible that Jesus as a failed apocalyptic prophet may have predicted the destruction of the Temple
So you believe it's pure coincidence that Jesus would give a prophecy and a warning for the Church which was unthinkable under the politics of the day and which was at odds with the theology of second temple Judaism, and that it came true?
>What about the Book of Mormon? The Iliad? Scientology?
Is scientology a book? I can't help but notice that you yourself can't even distinguish between your methodology and your opposition to the other religions.
>It's not presupposing secularism to believe even one text out of thousands of religious works throughout history is not divinely inspired
So you are nonetheless admitting it requires you to presuppose Christianity is false?
>??? No it doesn't.
Yes it does. There is absolutely no such thing as a neutral evaluation of the evidence without any presuppositions on a question as ultimate as the existence of God, because you can't even pose a question without making assumptions about that answer.

>>17764041
Justin clearly uses the terms "memoirs of the apostles" and "gospel" (εὐαγγέλιον, evangelion) interchangeably, but prefers the former term, possibly because of Marcion's recent use of a "gospel (of the Lord)" to refer to the gospel of Luke. The gospel of Mark begins (Mk 1:1), "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ..." (Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ...) so that one too would naturally be called a gospel by everyone who read it even if it did not come with a giant "btw, Pete's secretary John Mark wrote this memoir in a genre that should be called a gospel" title attached. Justin's use of the term gospel is not in any way positive evidence that he knew the name of any of their authors. Of course Justin considers his quotes from the Lukan infancy narrative to come from a gospel and a memoir and a trustworthy source.

Justin also famously quotes a lost non-canonical gospel which adds a detail about a fire being lit during the baptism of Jesus, yet he claims it's written by apostles in pretty much the same way his quotes from canon were. Dialogue, ch 88:
>And then, when Jesus had gone to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, and when He had stepped into the water, a fire was kindled in the Jordan; and when He came out of the water, the Holy Ghost lighted on Him like a dove, the apostles of this very Christ of ours wrote.
Justin's student Tatian included the above noncanonical bit about the fire (or rather, the light) in his Diatessaron (160-175 AD), so he too thought that the writing used by his teacher and circulating in Rome was valuable and from a good source.

Just like in the case of Justin's quotes of canonical gospels we should here conclude that (1) Justin is copying from a written source, (2) he thought the source of this snippet of information was an eyewitness to Jesus and member of the Twelve, and (3) he did not know the name of the writer of this information, whether a scribe, a student or by an apostle's own hand.

>>17762674
I think the point is to not stoop to same level of evil and instead focus on spreading good, but yeah, I don't think Jesus is saying "Bend over and let them shove a sword up your ass no matter what"

Religion is bullshit, yes

You dont have to listen to anything cult leaders tell you.

You do not have to obey their laws.

They are not divine beings.

They are not gods.

They do not speak to or for or from any god.

There are only 3 ontological categories:
1.The natural world
2. The physical world created by humans
3. Subjective mental phenomenon

If you start thinking category 3 is more important than 1 and 2, you can start becoming delusional and detatch from reality.

Some will teach category 3 is more real than categories 1 and 2, this includes the buddhists, mystics, and various "everything is conciousness" types.
Be cautious. Category 3 is the abyss where reason can break down. The realm of the paranormal, of phantasms and specters and superstitons and curses and gods and devils. Prophecies of end times, etc etc. Category 3 is the lowest certainty zone. You can freely ignore category 3 if you like, it makes life easier.

I have had many bizarre category 3 experiences and I am finished with them. There is enough to concern oneself with in category 1 and 2 reality than to waste ones life pondering category 3.

The christians will do nothing but endlessly quote bible verses in vain repetition, magically thinking they can control all reality with a book.

>>17765520
>Justin's use of the term gospel is not in any way positive evidence that he knew the name of any of their authors
That was not my argument.
>Justin also famously quotes a lost non-canonical gospel which adds a detail about a fire being lit during the baptism of Jesus, yet he claims it's written by apostles in pretty much the same way his quotes from canon were.
I would question that this constitutes quotation given that it is merely a portion of a wider summary of the life of Christ. It is obvious a reference to something, but the version I have of this inserts "[as]" before "the apostles" which leads me to suspect there is textual corruption (specifically manuscript damage) in Justin at this point, and that the original reading is "as the apostles of this very Christ of ours wrote" which would mean he is talking about the things they also wrote about, not that the actually wrote the very things he says. If you want to say this is quotation and that the Diatessaron includes it then that would mean this is quotation of a textual variant in the canonical Gospels because the Diatessaron did not include non-canonical works.
>Tatian included the above noncanonical bit about the fire (or rather, the light)
No, those are not the same thing. The Diatessaron includes nothing about a fire on the Jordan and you would not get the impression it does by reading it.

>>17765520
>Just like in the case of Justin's quotes of canonical gospels we should here conclude that (1) Justin is copying from a written source, (2) he thought the source of this snippet of information was an eyewitness to Jesus and member of the Twelve, and (3) he did not know the name of the writer of this information, whether a scribe, a student or by an apostle's own hand.
Here is the full context of this citation
>And let this be a proof to you, namely, what I told you was done by the Magi from Arabia, who as soon as the Child was born came to worship Him, for even at His birth He was in possession of His power; and as He grew up like all other men, by using the fitting means, He assigned its own [requirements] to each development, and was sustained by all kinds of nourishment, and waited for thirty years, more or less, until John appeared before Him as the herald of His approach, and preceded Him in the way of baptism, as I have already shown. And then, when Jesus had gone to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, and when He had stepped into the water, a fire was kindled in the Jordan; and when He came out of the water, the Holy Ghost lighted on Him like a dove, [as] the apostles of this very Christ of ours wrote.
There is no reason to suppose any of this is quotation, and if you do, it follows that all of it is.

>>17764749
>My point was that it is an essential presupposition to the speculation the New Testament is subjected to to deny either that He did or could have risen from the dead and that this and every other text which they mutilate are interpreted in the context of a world where there's no God, God has not spoken, God has no purpose etc etc.
Except this is completely wrong given countless Christians throughout history and today have speculated on the historical nature of the New Testament.
Raymond Brown, a Catholic priest, and praised by Pope Benedict XIV, was one of the most prominent New Testament critics of the 20th century. Do you think he presupposed a world where God didn't exist?
>While Celsus was full of bs like you he did not use the methods of higher criticism which is a novelty of modernity through the Enlightenment.
Celsus criticised the NT as historical texts that were not divinely authored, which is what you claim is illegitimate about higher criticism. Celsus was not being secularist or naturalist. No more than you are a naturalist secularist when you discuss Homeric authorship of the Iliad.

>>17764751
>No he did not.
Yes he did
>Mark follows him [Matthew] closely, and looks like his attendant and epitomizer.
>For in his narrative he gives nothing in concert with John apart from the others: by himself separately, he has little to record; in conjunction with Luke, as distinguished from the rest, he has still less; but in concord with Matthew, he has a very large number of passages.
>Much, too, he narrates in words almost numerically and identically the same as those used by Matthew, where the agreement is either with that evangelist alone, or with him in connection with the rest [Harmony of the Gospels, I:2:4].
Is Augustine presupposing that Christianity is false here?
If not, why is it illegitimate secularism to discuss redaction of the canonical gospels?
>I don't believe there's such a thing as a natural text.
?????
Do you think Harry Potter was supernaturally authored?
Do you think my shopping list is not a natural text?
>Is scientology a book? I can't help but notice that you yourself can't even distinguish between your methodology and your opposition to the other religions.
Are you going to continue to deflect or answer the question? Is historical criticism of the Iliad, the Book of Mormon or books of Scientology legitimate? Or illegitimate because it presupposes those works are not divinely authored?

>>17766290
>Is Augustine presupposing that Christianity is false here?
No. He also doesn't say the Gospels are redactions of each other.
>Do you think Harry Potter was supernaturally authored?
No. Nor does it stand as a bubble of naturalism where it would be appropriate to dismiss God from our vision. There exists nothing in the universe which is independent from God nor does anything truly natural exist.
>Are you going to continue to deflect or answer the question?
I'm going to continue to maintain the position which I have clearly expressed up to this point. If you would like to actually talk about that and compare our presuppositions to see which is better, I would be happy to do so.

>>17766349
If there is nothing in the universe independent from God then why is basic literary analysis presupposing naturalism?

>>17766156
Yes, I'm willing to accept all the various bits of this commentary were quoted from (in his mind apostolic) writings available to Justin. Seems like a familiar account of canonical material apart from the fire. Even the curious reference to "Arabia" could be derived from the Magi in Matthew's gospel coming "from the east", as the province of Arabia Petraea is east of Bethlehem.

Justin in another chapter mentions that Mary gave birth in a cave, and although there's no explicit mention of "memoirs" there, Justin is probably quoting a third gospel, possibly a source to the Protoevangelium (150?-200? AD) which is the first fully extant text with the claim.
Dialogue, ch 78:
>But when the Child was born in Bethlehem, since Joseph could not find a lodging in that village, he took up his quarters in a certain cave near the village; and while they were there Mary brought forth the Christ and placed Him in a manger, and here the Magi who came from Arabia found Him.
The very same Arabian Magi appear again! The cave idea is probably from the same "apostolic" text he used for ch 88, a gospel that says Magi from Arabia (who were controlled by a demon, Justin says!) visited Jesus in a cave to worship him, a text most closely related to Matthew's gospel.

More on the noncanonical Magi tradition in ch 78:
>For that expression of Isaiah 'He shall take the power of Damascus and spoils of Samaria,' foretold that the power of the evil demon that dwelt in Damascus should be overcome by Christ as soon as He was born; and this is proved to have happened. For the Magi, who were held in bondage for the commission of all evil deeds through the power of that demon, by coming to worship Christ, shows that they have revolted from that dominion which held them captive
(Justin explicitly says in the chapter that Damascus is in Arabia, so there's no conflict with Matthew's "east"). It's a wild noncanonical story nevertheless.

>>17767690
(cont.) The claim that a demon from Damascus controlled the Magi looks like Justin's personal exegesis based on passages from the prophets, so his source text might not have made such a connection to Damascus and only mentioned Arabia.

>>17766151
>the Diatessaron did not include non-canonical works
Crawford & Zola (eds.), The Gospel of Tatian (2019) gives the best case for why only the four canonical gospels were used by Tatian, and of the various claims that noncanonical material was incorporated (such as Tatian supposedly quoting logion 30 of the gospel of Thomas) at least the fire/light reference and Gospel of Peter's "woes at the crucifixion" were probably in Tatian's harmony (the latter possibly from a shared lost Jewish-Christian gospel as claimed by one proponent, but a noncanonical writing nonethess for our purposes). You're correct in that no noncanonical gospel is extensively used, unlike all of Matthew-Mark-Luke-John, and the small additional material is sporadic at best. Note also that the original Syriac name of the harmony was nothing like the Greek Diatessaron "out of four", but Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê, "gospel of the mixed" with no reference to number.

>>17766283
I didn't see this post before.
>Except this is completely wrong given countless Christians throughout history and today have speculated on the historical nature of the New Testament.
This would be another strawman. I was obviously not referring to historical speculation in general there but was very specifically talking about the form it takes on secular scholarship. I'm wondering if you are capable of representing me honestly or are strawman arguments all I'm going to hear?
>Raymond Brown, a Catholic priest, and praised by Pope Benedict XIV, was one of the most prominent New Testament critics of the 20th century. Do you think he presupposed a world where God didn't exist?
I have no idea, and frankly I would wonder why I should even care.
>Celsus criticised the NT as historical texts that were not divinely authored, which is what you claim is illegitimate about higher criticism.
Strawman again. Celsus' hostility to the Christian faith was indeed the motivation of his errors, but mere anti-Christian prejudice is not identical to higher criticism nor has such a mischaracterization been part of anything I said.
>>17767209
Why are you incapable of engaging the discussion with basic intellectual honesty?

>>17767690
>Yes, I'm willing to accept all the various bits of this commentary were quoted from (in his mind apostolic) writings available to Justin.
Apparently we have very different ideas of what a quote is. When I say "quote", I mean the verbatim incorporation of another's words into your own. Justin quotes scripture if he uses the very words. This distinction is important, because it means the interpretation of Justin as drawing from a writing at all here is dubious, because as I'm sure you're aware there were many oral stories and tales about the life of Jesus, some of which were very old. So it would be sufficient for Justin to have heard it, it is not necessary for him to have read this in some unknown non-canonical work the existence of which we happen to have no evidence of. It's also possible he may simply be misremembering or misinterpreting the Gospel of Matthew here, since in the same passage where the baptism of Jesus takes place the Baptist says "He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire".
>Justin is probably quoting a third gospel
I want to know what the basis for this claim is. Because Justin gives no indication whatsoever regarding the source he draws on, let alone that he is using a written text.
>possibly a source to the Protoevangelium (150?-200? AD) which is the first fully extant text with the claim.
The Protoevangelium of James actually doesn't have Jesus being born, if you go and look it says there was a great spiritual light and then Jesus appeared outside of Mary, which implies a Docetic Christology.

>>17767779
To me it's a string of verbatim quotes stitched together. To show my thinking, I'll enclose what I think are linking words with [ ] and probable non-quotes (paraphrases, commentary) with { }, the rest being directly copied:
>...waited for thirty years {more or less} until John appeared before Him {as the herald of His approach} and preceded Him in the way of baptism [as I have already shown. And then] when Jesus had gone to the river Jordan...
Sort of like that, weaving them together into a narrative and/or to support an argument.

Justin is filled with quotes too long and numerous to be memorized. If you read scholarship on him, he is in general very much a fan of the written word and I've seen no evidence he wrote down any oral hearsay about Jesus from a contemporary source, unlike, say, Papias famously did.

You'll notice he admits he's copying a literary extract (pericope, cutout) from an Isaiah scroll in ch 78:
>Then I repeated the passage (περικοπήν) from Isaiah which I have already written, adding that, by means of those words, those who presided over the mysteries of Mithras were stirred up by the devil to say that in a place, called among them a cave, they were initiated by him.
(All commentary)
And an example of a long LXX quote from ch 77:
>'For before the child knows how to call father or mother,' {the prophetic word said} 'He shall take the power of Damascus and spoils of Samaria in presence of the king of Assyria.

On the Protoevangelium, by "birth" I colloquially mean the event where baby Jesus comes out of Mary's womb. That he may have teleported out and whatever Christology the author may have had isn't really my point. Justin isn't copying from the Protoevangelium (he doesn't mention most of its fantastic details) but another source, one where the Magi arrive to worship Jesus in a cave. In any case, caves near a village and buildings inside a village cannot be mixed up no matter how poor one's memory of a hypothetical oral tale was.

>>17762457
Many who seek progress will find themselves moving in the wrong direction. Do not progress blindly. Seek only gains.

>>17767949
>To me it's a string of verbatim quotes stitched together
I don't think it's that either. They aren't quotes, none of them reflect the Gospel text. If the bit about the fire wasn't there, would you still assuming he must be quoting something?
>Justin is filled with quotes too long and numerous to be memorized. If you read scholarship on him, he is in general very much a fan of the written word and I've seen no evidence he wrote down any oral hearsay about Jesus
I see no evidence he wrote down from a written word here. What, exactly, is the argument? It was simply outside his character to tell a story without quoting from a written text in front of him? That's absurd.
>In any case, caves near a village and buildings inside a village cannot be mixed up no matter how poor one's memory of a hypothetical oral tale was.
They could be mixed up if it was a good memory of an oral tale which said that. The hypothetical memory lapse had to do with his reference to a fire on the Jordan (which could also easily be a misinterpretation).