conspiracy theory

[achilles12604]

I was giving some thought to the athiest viewpoint here. I was considering in my mind if my religious bias had blinded me to something obvious. Was this theory more likely than my current one? After reading my following post please tell me :

1) If this theory fits better than the theory that it is more or less true and accurate.
2) WHY one theory is better than the other.
3) What other theories could be possible?
4) Why those theories should be considered.

The theory: The earliest Christians, Paul, James, and the apostles at the least, perhaps more unnamed men, made up Christianity or borrowed ideas from other religions to make up their own. Then they pushed it as truth onto the unknowing masses and gathered a following.



For this theory to be truth, first there must be a why.

Why would these men want to construct a religion of their own which would be considered totally evil by most of the people they were reaching at first? In addition to this, their new religion would be directly against their current beliefs, against the beliefs of their families and society, and would have the end result of excommunicating them from their friends and support structure.

What reason could so many men have for creating something completely out of nothing, which would be so devestating to themselves, physically, financially, and socially?

To this atheists have replied, "How do you know that this is what happened? How can you proove that the early christian's suffered?"

To answer this one simply needs to read Jewish writings or Roman historians. Pliny the younger wrote that every time he discovered Christians, he tourtured and murdered them. Not some of the time. EVERY TIME. The Jewish Pharasee's like Saul, before he converted, were imprisoning Christians. To the Jews, these believers were a mutation of their beliefs. The Talmud has some very strong words about the Christian's. Josephus writes of them being stoned. If any athiest wishes to present the case that Christian's were not persecuted, they must first deal with history.

The next step for validating the conspiracy theory, after determining why these men would have done this, is to see if the facts fit. In other words, does history point to a conspiracy, or truth?

Extra-biblical writings of Jesus :

At first this subject seems to point in great favor of the conspiracy theory. Outside of the bible and writings of the conspirators, there is little support. However, when certain things are taken into consideration, this becomes less and less of a problem. For example, almost all of the writings of this time period were about rulers, wars, conquering countries and other such important things. So should we have expected to see a great deal of writing about a poor man from a really small town in a clountry being ruled by a foreign power? Not really. In fact we should have NOTHING written about him ever. Especially since he never existed.

But we do. We have the writings of a contemporary historian, Josephus. Although his writings are universally thought to have been altered by later Christians, the core of one passage concerning Jesus is thought to be genuine and a second passage is thought to be entirely genuine by most scholars. In addition to this we have Jewish Historians (writers of the Talmud) who by reviewing history determined that a man named Jesus was a magician and was killed by authorities by hanging on a tree.

This is very impressive for a poor tradesman, and this is assuming he even existed. The conspiracy theory doesn't even allow for a man named Jesus at all. Remember that the theory is that these men constructed all of their ideas from other ancient religions. Hence Jesus should have never even formed much less have been refered to by outside sources. This does not boad well for a conspiracy.

The audience :

This is a bigger problem for the conspiracy than the few extra-biblical references. This is because if it was a conspiracy, then the authors spreading these lies should have been shouted down by the masses. Especially since these lies would have been spread within the lifetimes of those men and women who would have known them to be false. After all today you can not convince someone that a building was knocked down by a terrorist if it did not really happen. Those people knew that there was no Jesus or if there were, that he never did anything even close to what these liars claimed.

This is what we should see if it was a consipiracy. However, this is not what we see happened. Instead, this very town where the supposed events happened (but they never did if it was a conspiracy), became the center and brain for the most quickly advancing and totally overcoming religion ever on earth. The Christians (Jewish converts) from Jerusalem, who would have known if these had been wild lies, were so convinced that they faced the aforementioned persecutions to spread the word further.

These men would have known for a fact, that this conspiracy was a bunch of lies. The authorities would have known they were lies and called them just that. But what does history say they called these events? Magic. Demon work. Perhaps the greatest blow to the conspiracy theory is the fact that the enemies of this movement did not say that the conspirators were lying. They explained away the events instead. This leaves us with the understanding that SOMETHING happened which needed to be explained.

The normal athiest answer to this problem is that there is no first hand accounts of the authorities reaction. They do not have any real answer to the masses which converted but should not have believed anything because nothing ever happened. To this, we can reply Josephus commented on the authorities being involved with the later Christian movements and their reactions to the men involved. They called witchcraft, demons and executed those involved. But they never said the most obvious statement if it were all a big conspiracy, "Nothing ever happened."

Later accounts from the Talmud concure with Josephus on this point. They explain him away, but do not deny the Christian movement.

So far we have looked at why the conspirators would have invented a lie which would have brought them nothing but pain, poverty and hardship for both themselves and their families. We looked at the writings of the time and recognized that if this were truely a conspiracy, there shouldn't be ANYTHING extra, yet it is there. We looked at the audience and recognized that the audience SHOULD have ignored the liars because they obviously had nothing to go on. The conspirators were claiming some REALLY OUTRAGEOUS and more importantly, easily disprovable things. They should have been out before they even began. Yet this didn't happen.

Based on just these three points, I suggest that the conspiracy theory is a flop. It is certainly not the most plausible theory if it is even possible. And that is a big if.

[arayhay]

My books bigger than your book. So what. Anyone with any savvy can clearly see that the Gospels are written by 4 distinct personalities.They were written by the people whos name it is attributed to.they were handed down from generation to generation just as received. No one has proof of anything other than that. It is pure conjecture or speculation to postulate the "conspiracy". Why would some 20th or 21st century Phd. (piled high and deep) so called scholar, know more than a scholar from the 1st,2nd, century, I don't get it? How would a 21st century guy have more accurate info than a 1st or 2nd century guy?It does not make any sense. The Phd's are selling books and you guy's are buying them. Thats the conspiracy. It's called capitalism, it's called marketing, its called the rumor mill.
These guys sit around speculating, well what about this and what about that and if this is like this and that is like that then that could mean this and... You guys buy it? With 5,700 Greek manuscripts all saying the same thing, what should we conclude? We should conclude that we have a accurate present manuscript. Now the problem is voodoo interpretation of the accurate document. But we can wade through that cesspool also because there are about a 100 Greek and Hebrew helps out on the market so the average guy can look it up for himself and not rely on the witch doctors to interpret it for them.
So lets quit the book waven contest, because the voodoo priests have essentially been relegated to obscurity anyway.
Unless your lazy and need somebody to tell you. But it is kind of like handing some guy you really don't know who has the "title" invest manager, all your money and say here take care of this for me.
Except in this case it is more important because it is spiritual matters, which have "eternal" consequence.
Of course, what do I know, I don't have it piled high and deep (Phd).

Biker

Code: Select all

well biker, one of the things i read in the separation of church and faith, and it is very telling is that it's impossible to see the faults in a particular system until you/i step out of that system and take a fresh look.
in Copernicus's day everyone thought that the earth was the center of the universe. they were ALL wrong, and he was right. the sun is the center. but few would listen. one that did was Galileo. Copernicus synthesised that the details could and would reveil something marvalous, and it did. His change in cosmology brought change greater than anyone could imagine. As Gothe said "Of all the discoveries and opinions, none may have exerted a greater effect on the human spirit than the doctrine of Copernicus.....No wonder his contemoraries did not wish to let all this go and offered every possible resistanceto a doctrine which in it's converts authorized and demaned a freedom of view and greatness of thouhgt so far unknown, indeed not even dreamed of."

i agree with you that interpreters have altered the scriptures. some knowingly and others in ignorant faithfulness.   

but it's time that they were challenged! you can stay on the sidelines, or you can pitch in.

lets look at some anomalies shall we ?

[arayhay]

I was giving some thought to the atheist viewpoint here. I was considering in my mind if my religious bias had blinded me to something obvious. Was this theory more likely than my current one? After reading my following post please tell me :

1) If this theory fits better than the theory that it is more or less true and accurate.
2) WHY one theory is better than the other.
3) What other theories could be possible?
4) Why those theories should be considered.

The theory: The earliest Christians, Paul, James, and the apostles at the least, perhaps more unnamed men, made up Christianity or borrowed ideas from other religions to make up their own. Then they pushed it as truth onto the unknowing masses and gathered a following.



For this theory to be truth, first there must be a why.


the why of it is Rome did not allow any other belief system to exist besides the Roman Pantheon and Judaism.

another theory is that christianity was started later and attributed to an earlier time to give christianity legitimacy, and to therefor introduce something in a way that gives the appearance of an earlier establishment. thereby overcoming the Roman opposition; in time of course.

[Cathar1950]

What interpretation and data don’t you agree with? How is he “obviously biased and what is this “Liberal Theology” you claim is its roots?
How would you interpret it? Do you know how he interprets it? Who are these “recognized scholars” and what is it they don’t agree with? What is their non-liberal bias?
Tell us where “you” disagree.

I think you made some claims I would like to see backed up before you go one to other things.

My books bigger than your book. So what. Anyone with any savvy can clearly see that the Gospels are written by 4 distinct personalities.They were written by the people whos name it is attributed to.they were handed down from generation to generation just as received. No one has proof of anything other than that. It is pure conjecture or speculation to postulate the "conspiracy". Why would some 20th or 21st century Phd. (piled high and deep) so called scholar, know more than a scholar from the 1st,2nd, century, I don't get it? How would a 21st century guy have more accurate info than a 1st or 2nd century guy?It does not make any sense. The Phd's are selling books and you guy's are buying them. Thats the conspiracy. It's called capitalism, it's called marketing, its called the rumor mill.

Your view of the development of the gospels is less then knowledgeable.
Two gospels used Mark and one seems to know of Mark but is so different then the others as well as much later then Mark that it has to be classified all by itself.
There is no evidence that they were written by the names given to them. In fact there is plenty of evidence that the people attributed to the writings did not write them and they are largely unknown authors. What you call conspiracy I call development.
Where did you get the idea that a PhD is piled higher and deeper? You didn’t make it up because it has been around a long time. You heard it or read it. That is worse then a rumor mill, don’t you think? We know a lot more then the people writing the stuff knew in the late first and second century when they works were being created. The evidence indicates they were not handed down, as they were received. This is a fantasy and it has sold a lot more books then the PhDs you complain about.

These guys sit around speculating, well what about this and what about that and if this is like this and that is like that then that could mean this and... You guys buy it? With 5,700 Greek manuscripts all saying the same thing, what should we conclude? We should conclude that we have a accurate present manuscript. Now the problem is voodoo interpretation of the accurate document. But we can wade through that cesspool also because there are about a 100 Greek and Hebrew helps out on the market so the average guy can look it up for himself and not rely on the witch doctors to interpret it for them.
So lets quit the book waven contest, because the voodoo priests have essentially been relegated to obscurity anyway.

These guys spend their lives studying this stuff.
There are not 5700 Greek manuscripts saying the same thing. There are 5700 pieces and fragment saying over 400,000 different things. There are not 5700 full Greek manuscripts. You misunderstand what was being said and when some one multiplies 5700 times the words in the bible you are not using the data correctly.
You can conclude what ever you want but the data does not support your assertions and you sound lazy. You are the one relying on witch doctors and not scholarship. The scholars have just begun to make some headway and they are anything but obscure.
Just reading translations from Greek and Hebrew help books is voodoo thinking and magical wishful apologetics. Your critic is nothing more then name calling you received in some uncritical fashion with little or no substance.

Unless your lazy and need somebody to tell you. But it is kind of like handing some guy you really don't know who has the "title" invest manager, all your money and say here take care of this for me.
Except in this case it is more important because it is spiritual matters, which have "eternal" consequence.
Of course, what do I know, I don't have it piled high and deep (Phd).

I disagree with you. You do have it piled high and deep. But you have shown that you can be lazy. You might as well be reading runes.

[Biker]

What interpretation and data don’t you agree with? How is he “obviously biased and what is this “Liberal Theology” you claim is its roots?
How would you interpret it? Do you know how he interprets it? Who are these “recognized scholars” and what is it they don’t agree with? What is their non-liberal bias?
Tell us where “you” disagree.

I think you made some claims I would like to see backed up before you go one to other things.

My books bigger than your book. So what. Anyone with any savvy can clearly see that the Gospels are written by 4 distinct personalities.They were written by the people whos name it is attributed to.they were handed down from generation to generation just as received. No one has proof of anything other than that. It is pure conjecture or speculation to postulate the "conspiracy". Why would some 20th or 21st century Phd. (piled high and deep) so called scholar, know more than a scholar from the 1st,2nd, century, I don't get it? How would a 21st century guy have more accurate info than a 1st or 2nd century guy?It does not make any sense. The Phd's are selling books and you guy's are buying them. Thats the conspiracy. It's called capitalism, it's called marketing, its called the rumor mill.

Your view of the development of the gospels is less then knowledgeable.
Two gospels used Mark and one seems to know of Mark but is so different then the others as well as much later then Mark that it has to be classified all by itself.
There is no evidence that they were written by the names given to them. In fact there is plenty of evidence that the people attributed to the writings did not write them and they are largely unknown authors. What you call conspiracy I call development.
Where did you get the idea that a PhD is piled higher and deeper? You didn’t make it up because it has been around a long time. You heard it or read it. That is worse then a rumor mill, don’t you think? We know a lot more then the people writing the stuff knew in the late first and second century when they works were being created. The evidence indicates they were not handed down, as they were received. This is a fantasy and it has sold a lot more books then the PhDs you complain about.

These guys sit around speculating, well what about this and what about that and if this is like this and that is like that then that could mean this and... You guys buy it? With 5,700 Greek manuscripts all saying the same thing, what should we conclude? We should conclude that we have a accurate present manuscript. Now the problem is voodoo interpretation of the accurate document. But we can wade through that cesspool also because there are about a 100 Greek and Hebrew helps out on the market so the average guy can look it up for himself and not rely on the witch doctors to interpret it for them.
So lets quit the book waven contest, because the voodoo priests have essentially been relegated to obscurity anyway.

These guys spend their lives studying this stuff.
There are not 5700 Greek manuscripts saying the same thing. There are 5700 pieces and fragment saying over 400,000 different things. There are not 5700 full Greek manuscripts. You misunderstand what was being said and when some one multiplies 5700 times the words in the bible you are not using the data correctly.
You can conclude what ever you want but the data does not support your assertions and you sound lazy. You are the one relying on witch doctors and not scholarship. The scholars have just begun to make some headway and they are anything but obscure.
Just reading translations from Greek and Hebrew help books is voodoo thinking and magical wishful apologetics. Your critic is nothing more then name calling you received in some uncritical fashion with little or no substance.

Unless your lazy and need somebody to tell you. But it is kind of like handing some guy you really don't know who has the "title" invest manager, all your money and say here take care of this for me.
Except in this case it is more important because it is spiritual matters, which have "eternal" consequence.
Of course, what do I know, I don't have it piled high and deep (Phd).

I disagree with you. You do have it piled high and deep. But you have shown that you can be lazy. You might as well be reading runes.

Are you kidding me. Me back up claims. You need to back up about a 1000 or so your own self!
Don't make me laugh.

Biker

[Cathar1950]

Are you kidding me. Me back up claims. You need to back up about a 1000 or so your own self!
Don't make me laugh.

Biker

I don't think so Biker.

I am not even asking you to back it up. I just want you to explain what it is you disagree with and why.

What interpretation and data don’t you agree with? How is he “obviously biased and what is this “Liberal Theology” you claim is its roots?
How would you interpret it? Do you know how he interprets it? Who are these “recognized scholars” and what is it they don’t agree with? What is their non-liberal bias?
Tell us where “you” disagree.

I have provided books quotes sites and data while you complain and feed us stuff not fit for a napkin.
I have asked for a list of the things you don't understand or would like to see something on and you have failed to specify. It leads me to believe you don't really read or understand what I write.

You ask me to prove yet fail to give any for you own name calling that you have heard from someone else.

So tell me what do you object to concerning Ehrman's work?

[Biker]

Are you kidding me. Me back up claims. You need to back up about a 1000 or so your own self!
Don't make me laugh.

Biker

I don't think so Biker.

I am not even asking you to back it up. I just want you to explain what it is you disagree with and why.

What interpretation and data don’t you agree with? How is he “obviously biased and what is this “Liberal Theology” you claim is its roots?
How would you interpret it? Do you know how he interprets it? Who are these “recognized scholars” and what is it they don’t agree with? What is their non-liberal bias?
Tell us where “you” disagree.

I have provided books quotes sites and data while you complain and feed us stuff not fit for a napkin.
I have asked for a list of the things you don't understand or would like to see something on and you have failed to specify. It leads me to believe you don't really read or understand what I write.

You ask me to prove yet fail to give any for you own name calling that you have heard from someone else.

So tell me what do you object to concerning Ehrman's work?

Cathar,
You keep referring to "Barts" book "Misquoting Jesus", and then going off on your daily tirade about Matthew borrowed from Mark And Luke was a weirdo who copied them both and John well he was just out there, and then they were all redacted and so on and so on etc etc into infinity. And it was a grand conspiracy by the 1st wait 2nd century church who had a conspiracy to change the scriptures and so on and so forth? WHERE DO YOU get this stuff???
And could you provide something I could sink my teeth into a have a reasonably intelligent conversation about?
Look my experience with "Christianity" is this, you cant get two Christians to agree on anything, let alone pull off a total rewrite and change of the Bible or doctrine or anything like that for that matter. Its not going to happen, aside from it being impossible because of a myriad of reasons.
Whole dam denominations have been started over things like that.
This I am sure, the overwhelming majority of the group of folks (professing) Christianity agree, the 27 books in the NT, and the 39 books of the OT are the inspired Word of God. Interpretation by that group of folks is a big can of worms.
All I am asking is give me some evidence, (not nonsense) and lets chat.
As for Barty. I have in my hands the book: The Text of The New Testament Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. Fourth Edition. I also have the third.
By Bruce M. Metzger who originally wrote the book. And Bart D. Ehrman who was a part of this Fourth Edition, update.
The statistics I quote about 5,700 Greek manuscripts come from this book.
The statistics I refer to about 99.5% accuracy of or modern document the NT, to the originals is culled from this book.
If you are a Barty fan I recommend the book to you. Pick up a copy of the Third edition also.
Now I just might have read some of the stuff you have.
Thats all I mean Cathar!

Biker

[Cathar1950]

From what I just read you misunderstand everything.
You misrepresent or confuse everything.

You keep referring to "Barts" book "Misquoting Jesus", and then going off on your daily tirade about Matthew borrowed from Mark And Luke was a weirdo who copied them both and John well he was just out there, and then they were all redacted and so on and so on etc etc into infinity. And it was a grand conspiracy by the 1st wait 2nd century church who had a conspiracy to change the scriptures and so on and so forth? WHERE DO YOU get this stuff???

I used two books by Erhman and one by Wells. Maybe even some others. It is not a grand conspiracy it is a process and history of the documents.
I am not going to go over the material concerning Mark being used by Luke and Matthew. John is much different and later then Mark with a more developed Christology. Read your books. It is not new stuff but you seem to forget the obvious.
We have nothing before the second century and then we have copies of copies with many variations. No one mentions anything before the second century and I believe you have been ask to show anything before the second century and you declined because I don’t prove what everyone understands but you. I have not actually said anything far out.
I am fairly conservative and don’t like going out on a limb. I know we don’t know because there just isn’t much information. The more we discover the more variations we see.
Any novice can see variations of ideas even within the selected writings.

I have never said it was a total rewrite; those are your words and not my idea.
I have not said it was a conspiracy, you say I did and argue against it with nonsense like;

Look my experience with "Christianity" is this, you cant get two Christians to agree on anything, let alone pull off a total rewrite and change of the Bible or doctrine or anything like that for that matter. Its not going to happen, aside from it being impossible because of a myriad of reasons.
Whole dam denominations have been started over things like that.

How does that prove that it is all handed down with out changes during the first century?
Are you trying to make the case you accuse me of making?

The statistics I quote about 5,700 Greek manuscripts come from this book.
The statistics I refer to about 99.5% accuracy of or modern document the NT, to the originals is culled from this book.

Here again you misunderstand the information and copy someone else’s poor statistics.

It is not 5700 full Greek manuscripts. Erhman in clear that they are pieces fragment and not full manuscripts of the entire NT. Therefore you cannot multiply the words in the NT by 5700 and divide them by the 400,000 variants. So it does not come out 99.5% accurate. You would have to count the words total in the manuscripts which would be a smaller number then 5700 times all the words in the full Greek manuscript just to get the words. You just regurgitated someone’s uncritically accept argument and ignored what the author was saying. There are many variants and differences.
There are no clean copies of copies of copies. There is nothing before the second century.
They don’t go back much farther then when they are first mention and some don’t even go back that far.

All I am asking is give me some evidence, (not nonsense) and lets chat.

So I guess I will end with a question. What do you want evidence of, your misunderstandings?

[Biker]

From what I just read you misunderstand everything.
You misrepresent or confuse everything.

You keep referring to "Barts" book "Misquoting Jesus", and then going off on your daily tirade about Matthew borrowed from Mark And Luke was a weirdo who copied them both and John well he was just out there, and then they were all redacted and so on and so on etc etc into infinity. And it was a grand conspiracy by the 1st wait 2nd century church who had a conspiracy to change the scriptures and so on and so forth? WHERE DO YOU get this stuff???

I used two books by Erhman and one by Wells. Maybe even some others. It is not a grand conspiracy it is a process and history of the documents.
I am not going to go over the material concerning Mark being used by Luke and Matthew. John is much different and later then Mark with a more developed Christology. Read your books. It is not new stuff but you seem to forget the obvious.
We have nothing before the second century and then we have copies of copies with many variations. No one mentions anything before the second century and I believe you have been ask to show anything before the second century and you declined because I don’t prove what everyone understands but you. I have not actually said anything far out.
I am fairly conservative and don’t like going out on a limb. I know we don’t know because there just isn’t much information. The more we discover the more variations we see.
Any novice can see variations of ideas even within the selected writings.

I have never said it was a total rewrite; those are your words and not my idea.
I have not said it was a conspiracy, you say I did and argue against it with nonsense like;

Look my experience with "Christianity" is this, you cant get two Christians to agree on anything, let alone pull off a total rewrite and change of the Bible or doctrine or anything like that for that matter. Its not going to happen, aside from it being impossible because of a myriad of reasons.
Whole dam denominations have been started over things like that.

How does that prove that it is all handed down with out changes during the first century?
Are you trying to make the case you accuse me of making?

The statistics I quote about 5,700 Greek manuscripts come from this book.
The statistics I refer to about 99.5% accuracy of or modern document the NT, to the originals is culled from this book.

Here again you misunderstand the information and copy someone else’s poor statistics.

It is not 5700 full Greek manuscripts. Erhman in clear that they are pieces fragment and not full manuscripts of the entire NT. Therefore you cannot multiply the words in the NT by 5700 and divide them by the 400,000 variants. So it does not come out 99.5% accurate. You would have to count the words total in the manuscripts which would be a smaller number then 5700 times all the words in the full Greek manuscript just to get the words. You just regurgitated someone’s uncritically accept argument and ignored what the author was saying. There are many variants and differences.
There are no clean copies of copies of copies. There is nothing before the second century.
They don’t go back much farther then when they are first mention and some don’t even go back that far.

All I am asking is give me some evidence, (not nonsense) and lets chat.

So I guess I will end with a question. What do you want evidence of, your misunderstandings?

Cathar,
Thank you for the post because you explained yourself better.
Now we have something to talk about.
This thread is about a grand conspiracy on behalf of either the 1st or 2nd century believers to change the text of the Bible or as a result Christianity itself.
Christianity is defined by the Bible. Christ Himself is defined by the Bible. It is claimed to be Gods own words, and the Gospels Christs own words and deeds.
Having an accurate account of those words and deeds is essential for one to believe it.
When we cut through all the rhetoric of various positions and opinions it really comes down to, are we certain it is (present 66 volume manuscript) the real McCoy.
If I am wrong please correct me.
You seem to believe that our present 66 volume manuscript is so corrupted that it is rendered unbelievable?
Your basic reasoning seems to be two fold.
1)

"The more we discover the more variations we see."

2)

"Any novice can see variations of ideas even within the selected writings."

Am I assuming those three things correctly, or not?

Biker

[Biker]

From what I just read you misunderstand everything.
You misrepresent or confuse everything.

You keep referring to "Barts" book "Misquoting Jesus", and then going off on your daily tirade about Matthew borrowed from Mark And Luke was a weirdo who copied them both and John well he was just out there, and then they were all redacted and so on and so on etc etc into infinity. And it was a grand conspiracy by the 1st wait 2nd century church who had a conspiracy to change the scriptures and so on and so forth? WHERE DO YOU get this stuff???

I used two books by Erhman and one by Wells. Maybe even some others. It is not a grand conspiracy it is a process and history of the documents.
I am not going to go over the material concerning Mark being used by Luke and Matthew. John is much different and later then Mark with a more developed Christology. Read your books. It is not new stuff but you seem to forget the obvious.
We have nothing before the second century and then we have copies of copies with many variations. No one mentions anything before the second century and I believe you have been ask to show anything before the second century and you declined because I don’t prove what everyone understands but you. I have not actually said anything far out.
I am fairly conservative and don’t like going out on a limb. I know we don’t know because there just isn’t much information. The more we discover the more variations we see.
Any novice can see variations of ideas even within the selected writings.

I have never said it was a total rewrite; those are your words and not my idea.
I have not said it was a conspiracy, you say I did and argue against it with nonsense like;

Look my experience with "Christianity" is this, you cant get two Christians to agree on anything, let alone pull off a total rewrite and change of the Bible or doctrine or anything like that for that matter. Its not going to happen, aside from it being impossible because of a myriad of reasons.
Whole dam denominations have been started over things like that.

How does that prove that it is all handed down with out changes during the first century?
Are you trying to make the case you accuse me of making?

The statistics I quote about 5,700 Greek manuscripts come from this book.
The statistics I refer to about 99.5% accuracy of or modern document the NT, to the originals is culled from this book.

Here again you misunderstand the information and copy someone else’s poor statistics.

It is not 5700 full Greek manuscripts. Erhman in clear that they are pieces fragment and not full manuscripts of the entire NT. Therefore you cannot multiply the words in the NT by 5700 and divide them by the 400,000 variants. So it does not come out 99.5% accurate. You would have to count the words total in the manuscripts which would be a smaller number then 5700 times all the words in the full Greek manuscript just to get the words. You just regurgitated someone’s uncritically accept argument and ignored what the author was saying. There are many variants and differences.
There are no clean copies of copies of copies. There is nothing before the second century.
They don’t go back much farther then when they are first mention and some don’t even go back that far.

All I am asking is give me some evidence, (not nonsense) and lets chat.

So I guess I will end with a question. What do you want evidence of, your misunderstandings?

Cathar,
Thank you for the post because you explained yourself better.
Now we have something to talk about.
This thread is about a grand conspiracy on behalf of either the 1st or 2nd century believers to change the text of the Bible or as a result Christianity itself.
Christianity is defined by the Bible. Christ Himself is defined by the Bible. It is claimed to be Gods own words, and the Gospels Christs own words and deeds.
Having an accurate account of those words and deeds is essential for one to believe it.
When we cut through all the rhetoric of various positions and opinions it really comes down to, are we certain it is (present 66 volume manuscript) the real McCoy.
If I am wrong please correct me.
You seem to believe that our present 66 volume manuscript is so corrupted that it is rendered unbelievable?
Your basic reasoning seems to be two fold.
1)

"The more we discover the more variations we see."

2)

"Any novice can see variations of ideas even within the selected writings."

Am I assuming those three things correctly, or not?

Biker

Cathar,
You have not addressed the above post. Could you acknowledge if the 66 volume Bible is so corrupted that it is rendered useless, for the 2 reasons?

Biker

[arayhay]

[

quote="Biker"]

From what I just read you misunderstand everything.
You misrepresent or confuse everything.

You keep referring to "Barts" book "Misquoting Jesus", and then going off on your daily tirade about Matthew borrowed from Mark And Luke was a weirdo who copied them both and John well he was just out there, and then they were all redacted and so on and so on etc etc into infinity. And it was a grand conspiracy by the 1st wait 2nd century church who had a conspiracy to change the scriptures and so on and so forth? WHERE DO YOU get this stuff???

I used two books by Erhman and one by Wells. Maybe even some others. It is not a grand conspiracy it is a process and history of the documents.
I am not going to go over the material concerning Mark being used by Luke and Matthew. John is much different and later then Mark with a more developed Christology. Read your books. It is not new stuff but you seem to forget the obvious.
We have nothing before the second century and then we have copies of copies with many variations. No one mentions anything before the second century and I believe you have been ask to show anything before the second century and you declined because I don’t prove what everyone understands but you. I have not actually said anything far out.
I am fairly conservative and don’t like going out on a limb. I know we don’t know because there just isn’t much information. The more we discover the more variations we see.
Any novice can see variations of ideas even within the selected writings.

I have never said it was a total rewrite; those are your words and not my idea.
I have not said it was a conspiracy, you say I did and argue against it with nonsense like;

Look my experience with "Christianity" is this, you cant get two Christians to agree on anything, let alone pull off a total rewrite and change of the Bible or doctrine or anything like that for that matter. Its not going to happen, aside from it being impossible because of a myriad of reasons.
Whole dam denominations have been started over things like that.

How does that prove that it is all handed down with out changes during the first century?
Are you trying to make the case you accuse me of making?

The statistics I quote about 5,700 Greek manuscripts come from this book.
The statistics I refer to about 99.5% accuracy of or modern document the NT, to the originals is culled from this book.

Here again you misunderstand the information and copy someone else’s poor statistics.

It is not 5700 full Greek manuscripts. Erhman in clear that they are pieces fragment and not full manuscripts of the entire NT. Therefore you cannot multiply the words in the NT by 5700 and divide them by the 400,000 variants. So it does not come out 99.5% accurate. You would have to count the words total in the manuscripts which would be a smaller number then 5700 times all the words in the full Greek manuscript just to get the words. You just regurgitated someone’s uncritically accept argument and ignored what the author was saying. There are many variants and differences.
There are no clean copies of copies of copies. There is nothing before the second century.
They don’t go back much farther then when they are first mention and some don’t even go back that far.

All I am asking is give me some evidence, (not nonsense) and lets chat.

So I guess I will end with a question. What do you want evidence of, your misunderstandings?

Cathar,
Thank you for the post because you explained yourself better.
Now we have something to talk about.
This thread is about a grand conspiracy on behalf of either the 1st or 2nd century believers to change the text of the Bible or as a result Christianity itself.
Christianity is defined by the Bible. Christ Himself is defined by the Bible. It is claimed to be Gods own words, and the Gospels Christs own words and deeds.
Having an accurate account of those words and deeds is essential for one to believe it.
When we cut through all the rhetoric of various positions and opinions it really comes down to, are we certain it is (present 66 volume manuscript) the real McCoy.
If I am wrong please correct me.
You seem to believe that our present 66 volume manuscript is so corrupted that it is rendered unbelievable?
Your basic reasoning seems to be two fold.
1)

"The more we discover the more variations we see."

2)

"Any novice can see variations of ideas even within the selected writings."

Am I assuming those three things correctly, or not?

Biker

Cathar,
You have not addressed the above post. Could you acknowledge if the 66 volume Bible is so corrupted that it is rendered useless, for the 2 reasons?

Biker

[/quote]


it's corrupted by interpretation and bias.