BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
Then why were you denying that there were multiple versions?
Nothing historical supports this concept that only Irenaeus and his sect had the truth. First the Gnostics rejected the concept that the apostles were even legitimate.
Also Irenaeus letters show he was engaged in a power struggle and wanted only the bloodline to be able to teach, read and interpret scripture. The Gnostics denied Irenaeus ideas just the same as he did to them.
You should read Pagels book on these matters if you want a historical perspective rather than a apologetics version.
Also this was later, the period where people would know the truth is silent:
"Because the very period in which the historical Jesus was invented, the 70s to 120s A.D., is when we should hear people challenging that invention. But we are not allowed to hear what anyone said in that period. All criticism of Christianity in that half century was erased from history. Even all debate among Christians in that half century was erased from history. Which is suspicious. But even suspicion aside, we still can’t argue from the silence of documents we don’t have. We don’t know what the critics of a newly minted historical Jesus were saying in that whole human lifetime of Christian history. So we cannot say “there was never any debate” about it. Any debate there had been, was deleted."
PhD Carrier
"For nearly 2,000 years, orthodox Christians have accepted the view that the apostles alone
held definitive religious authority, and that their only legitimate heirs are priests and bishops, who trace their ordination back to that same apostolic succession. Even today the pope traces his—and the
primacy he claims over the rest—to Peter himself, "first of the apostles," since he was "first witness of the resurrection.
But the gnostic Christians rejected Luke's theory. Some gnostics called the literal view of resurrection the "faith of fools." The resurrection, they insisted, was not a unique event in the past:
instead, it symbolized how Christ's presence could be experienced in the present. What mattered was not literal seeing, but spiritual vision."
I don't care how you view scholarship, I'm just pointing out things you seem unaware. You can take emperical evidence and do what you will with it. People don't generally change their minds over facts when it comes to personal beliefs. They have to have an out, a realization that they were misled and it's not their fault. This is from papers of beliefs.
I don't know about the people you argue with but I've put forth all PhD scholarship to back my claims.
I
So you are backpeddling on this also? You called this "speculative" now your are "aware"??
I don't know what history says about the Jews and Egypt, how is this relevant? We know Moses and the patriarchs are myths, Exodus has zero evidence but we do know Jews were invaded many times, once by the Persians who's Zorostrian beliefs (General afterlife concepts, God vs Satan, world ends in fire, resurrection for all people in the cult, savior deities and so on) then began being written into the OT.
Wiki says:
"
Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of this narrative,(Exodus) with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites' inspiring national myth narrative. The Israelites and their culture, according to the modern archaeological account, did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of cultic practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group, setting them apart from other Canaanites.[80][81][82]
The Israelites become visible in the historical record as a people between 1200 and 1000 BCE.[83] It is not certain if a period like that of the Biblical judges occurred[84][85][86][87][88] nor if there was ever a United Monarchy.[89][90][91][92] There is well accepted archeological evidence referring to "Israel" in the Merneptah Stele, which dates to about 1200 BCE,[23][24] and the Canaanites are archeologically attested in the Middle Bronze Age.[93][94] There is debate about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power, but historians agree that a Kingdom of Israel existed by ca. 900 BCE[90]:169–195[91][92] and that a Kingdom of Judah existed by ca. 700 BCE.[95] It is widely accepted that the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed around 720 BCE, when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire"
If the myths have Jews as slaves in Egypt it's possible written because they were slaves in Egypt?
What does the uh...history books say?
There is some weird disconnect here where it's as if you can't just look at actual history and will only consider mythic stories as a source for historical beliefs. You also seem baffled at how others would not take this approach?
Why are you asking about affirmation or a denial regarding Jewish slaves in Egypt as if I'm some anti-semetic conspiracy theory history nut?
What history says, I believe that. How hard is that to comprehend. Not hard, one would think?
Why do you keep underhandedly trying to accuse me of denying Jewish slave history?
What freaking history books say, I believe that. Myths and campfire stories, not as much. For every subject. Can you understand this? I thought we were done with your reverse racist approach, not so much.
In case you haven't figured it out yet, archeology doesn't support most of the OT narratives.
Which we already covered:
Archeology of the Hebrew Bible
so why the heck would I use them as history????? If history is unsure what happened at a particular time then I'm unsure. Is it possible, of course.
Huh? I said the councils affirmed truth in the face of heresy. There were multiple versions of doctrines, but nearly every NT verse has over 99.9% majority readings in NT fragments, so that's clear.