History of the Bible and Apocrypha.

[boatsnguitars]

This took me a while. It's probably not the most easy-to-read, but I'll try to explain:



h ttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1olWuFlDFSOjfFva2syFILG_yaGQ4PrRx/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107811557350835053319&rtpof=true&sd=true

Take out space after first "h" to open file.

1. Zoom out.... Waaaaaaaay out.... It's 444 years of history in ten-year intervals.
2. It's not complete.
3. Look at TOTAL tab. Don't worry about the other tabs. The MSS is a work in progress - I have an idea that may or may not work.

4. Tan are Caesars with their life span in tan to the right.
5. Blue are Christians/Christian-related with lifespan to the right. Light blue with their lifespan shows a discrepancy in what Christians vs Scholars claim as to their lifespan. You'd have to know why each group argues for a different date (more on that later)*
6. Gold is Apocrypha, with the date range of the writing in Gold.
7. Green is a Biblical book with it's dates in Green to the right. In Light Green are contested dates.*
8. Salmon to the right of the Green books are the dates of the earliest manuscripts we have found.
9. further down, the Spring Green and Purple are "Antiquities of the Jews" and the writings of the Apostolic and Greek Church Fathers.
10. Last in Orange are the dates of Codex Sinaiticus, Peshitta, and Vulgate.

*Example:
1 Peter: Probably written between 70-110CE. But we know Peter died in 67CE so Christians claim it must have been written between 60-66 - since they believe Peter was the author.

*Example:
Epistle of James: James died in 62, but most scholars date the MSS from 70-100, some as late as 140CE. Christians, believing James wrote the Epistle, date it before his death, and to match prophecies they believe in.

Anyhow, let me know what you think.

Note 1: I did this a few decades ago and probably still need to vet it. Most of my info came from here:
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/index.html
But, if there was significant debate around the MSS, I tried to find the best range. My goal wasn't to find a single answer, but reflect the total variation and see it all at once. If you have a plotter, feel free to plot it out on huge paper.

Note 2: I was trying to map out the locations of where the original MSS and earliest found MSS were written, and in which language. I was going to map it out, but became an atheist and stopped caring.

[TRANSPONDER]

I think that is a useful reference. I was tickled pink to see a date for the lost saying of Q, which I see as the basis of the common material for Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark. Of course as a Bible skeptic I see the earliest version of the two basic gospels (synoptic and John) as post Jewish war even if the basic Christian story dates before that, and there are (I believe) later edits, such as a gospel with the Mark/Matthew common material that Luke doesn't have. Syrio -phoenecian woman, 2nd feeding of 4,000, cursing of the fig tree; and, really after that, Christian writings are not more than commentary, opinion and fantasy. Assuming the ones before are anything else.

[boatsnguitars]

I think that is a useful reference. I was tickled pink to see a date for the lost saying of Q, which I see as the basis of the common material for Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark. Of course as a Bible skeptic I see the earliest version of the two basic gospels (synoptic and John) as post Jewish war even if the basic Christian story dates before that, and there are (I believe) later edits, such as a gospel with the Mark/Matthew common material that Luke doesn't have. Syrio -phoenecian woman, 2nd feeding of 4,000, cursing of the fig tree; and, really after that, Christian writings are not more than commentary, opinion and fantasy. Assuming the ones before are anything else.

When I did this, I was trying to give the least controversial dates, but in some cases, there is debate, and I even wanted to capture what Christians were claiming - without letting it be a Christian whitewash. Either way, when you zoom out and note when the books were written compared to the time the narrative would have been swirling - and, when I read about how each book developed the theology further (especially the later books) - it's eye-opening because it's almost like seeing in real-time the development of the story.

The striking thing is the time between the original and the oldest copy. Lots of time to tweak the story - to harmonize difficult passages, etc. And, they're all in Greek. Lot's of room for translation errors, etc.

BTW, I was doing a crossword. The clue was "First Woman". The spaces? Not 3 but 7. Pandora.
Pandora, the first woman who unleashed all the evil in the world.... Seems Christians stole that idea, too.
https://www.thecollector.com/pandora-plato-first-woman/

All these years, and it just dawned on me. Truly it's a deep well!

Anyhow, back to the development of the NT.

Another striking thing that I saw from the chart: there were a lot of people writing a lot of different things - which were pretty wacky. Why Church Fathers rejected these documents are pretty bland: it didn't fit their theology -- but we can see that there were a bunch of other people who felt very comfortable writing Pro-Jesus documents without any feeling of being honest (hence the admonishments from so many writers, Marcion being claimed a heretic, etc.).

I need to read this:
http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?scr ... 8000100014

Seems I need to update my Passion Narrative date.

[TRANSPONDER]

Ah. Pandora might be a coincidence. Men have always been ready to blame women for being the root of all evil before the invention of money. But your chart does make the point about how long there was to invent stuff. I'm rather more controversial as I postulate a number of versions of the gospels. Though dates would be very guesstimate.

Execution of the Baptist c 30 AD
The execution of Jesus c 30 AD
Death of Tiberius, Aretas occupies Damascus and Paul flees 36/7 based on numismatics.
Paul starts his churches early 40's AD
Famine in Judea 45 AD, Paul collecting for the 'saints'.
Council of Jerusalem AD 51 and supposed endorsement of Paul's mission to the gentiles.
last of Paul's credited letters and perhaps Paul in Rome, though I have my doubts c 60
AD Albinus Procurator. possible death of James, brother of Jesus 62 AD
Jewish war 66 -73 AD Christian argument that the Jews lost and the Temple was destroyed because they rejected Jesus.
First synoptic gospel with this 'prediction' of the destruction of Jerusalem incorporated.
Gospel of John (very roughly dated to 2nd c AD) but might be later as Jesus is very godlike
Adapted synoptic gospel with additional material (M or P ) like the cursing of the fig -tree.
Mark's gospel based on 'M' and with his own additions (e.g Pilate's surprise' (1).
Mathew's gospel (using M material but not with Mark's additions) and Luke's both incorporating "Q" material. Maybe as late as 3rd c AD. They have later ideas like the virgin birth and nativities.
Later work like gospel of Peter, resurrections added to Mark. Additions to John (21 - on) and the woman taken in adultery (sometimes put in Luke).
Final codification of the Bible and Christianity and start of persecution of Heretics. 325 AD

(1) no, not Mrs Pilate's baby with red hair just like the centurion's.

[boatsnguitars]

Let me know if you can't access the file. I'll see if I can find a better platform.


Also, I notice that Paul only wrote 8 things over the course of 20 years! Not very prolific!
But, more prolific than the rest.

Why, it's almost as if they were simply repeating a tale they heard and not really writing about someone's life they witnessed...

[TRANSPONDER]

Let me know if you can't access the file. I'll see if I can find a better platform.


Also, I notice that Paul only wrote 8 things over the course of 20 years! Not very prolific!
But, more prolific than the rest.

Why, it's almost as if they were simply repeating a tale they heard and not really writing about someone's life they witnessed...

There's a lot of speculation possible about Paul, especially as he is a bit of dissembler. It's not just that he doesn't mention things we'd like to know, but we listen as if to a politician or PR man explaining stuff selectively and slanting the case to excuse themselves, like for instance any accusations of sponging off his converts. But also he's darn cagey about Jesus. It doesn't help that Acts is supposed to tell us the events that Paul skips over. But Acts I am quite sure is a fabrication by the 'Luke' writer, using the letters of Paul as a basis for a biographical fantasy. He also uses Josephus, as indeed he does in his gospel.

We can see how Acts takes a chat Paul had with some of tyhen Nazorene leaders, turned into a full hearing with the Paulinist and the Jews of the circumcision already like the rival parties of the believers with Peter talking Pauklinist trash about the Law being a burden to the Jews and James finding for Paul with a misquote of Hosea as though that was religious Law. I rather loved the 'council of Jerusalem' date 51 AD but of course it's a fabrication. Just as Like fiddling the escape from Damascus, already absurd in Paul's account - he may have fled the impending threat from the Nabatean army (AD 36), but it's ludicrous for Paul to say that Aretas was after Paul. But Luke goes further and says Paul fled Damascus because of a plot by the 'Jews' to kill him. Apologists of course wangle it together with a deal by the Jews to hand Paul over to the Nabateans, but it's just making stuff up and nonsense, as the Nabatean army didn't care tuppence about Paul. (1). The more probable explanation IF one is not arguing from a Faithbased assumption, PLUS knowledge of other demonstrable fabrications that make for dubious testimony. Bible apologists seem to think that every claim or statement should be treated as lean Hands and forget that we've found them telling many other porkies. in short, Bible apologists want extreme credit to be extended to apologetics for the Bible, and extreme prejudice to be extended to Bible criticism ('If I can think up even the most far - fetched explanation, that takes precedence over the more obvious one') just look at the stuff being produced to get around Balaam's ass, the talking snake and the striped sticks genetically altering sheep.

But regarding Paul, I must see Romans as his first work, his thesis, because the following letters look later as he changes his views. I know Romans is claimed to be mid -mission, but it is an explanatory Thesis to Rome, because that is what he wants to convert, and if they were already Christians, he wouldn't need to argue his case.
He was founding his Greek Churches in the 40's as he was going round rattling the tin for the Judean famine of 45 A.D. But he's already modified his view thst Jesusdaith would make his converts all plaster saints. Instead he found they needed to stop sinning or they could lose Grace. But none of these clues seem to be picked up and the stock apologetics - basrd chronology is repeated and never mind any doubts and questions.

(1) cue: 'How do you know>'. But that is Faithbased thinking; it is 'the Bible is All True so it happened and any excuse will do even if we don't know what happened. But the actual apologetic is 'they contradict like mist of the rest of the book and the go to explanation is that Acts is making stuff up - as we can see from the over - elaborated scenario of the council of Jerusalem.

[boatsnguitars]

Let me know if you can't access the file. I'll see if I can find a better platform.


Also, I notice that Paul only wrote 8 things over the course of 20 years! Not very prolific!
But, more prolific than the rest.

Why, it's almost as if they were simply repeating a tale they heard and not really writing about someone's life they witnessed...

There's a lot of speculation possible about Paul, especially as he is a bit of dissembler. It's not just that he doesn't mention things we'd like to know, but we listen as if to a politician or PR man explaining stuff selectively and slanting the case to excuse themselves, like for instance any accusations of sponging off his converts. But also he's darn cagey about Jesus. It doesn't help that Acts is supposed to tell us the events that Paul skips over. But Acts I am quite sure is a fabrication by the 'Luke' writer, using the letters of Paul as a basis for a biographical fantasy. He also uses Josephus, as indeed he does in his gospel.

We can see how Acts takes a chat Paul had with some of tyhen Nazorene leaders, turned into a full hearing with the Paulinist and the Jews of the circumcision already like the rival parties of the believers with Peter talking Pauklinist trash about the Law being a burden to the Jews and James finding for Paul with a misquote of Hosea as though that was religious Law. I rather loved the 'council of Jerusalem' date 51 AD but of course it's a fabrication. Just as Like fiddling the escape from Damascus, already absurd in Paul's account - he may have fled the impending threat from the Nabatean army (AD 36), but it's ludicrous for Paul to say that Aretas was after Paul. But Luke goes further and says Paul fled Damascus because of a plot by the 'Jews' to kill him. Apologists of course wangle it together with a deal by the Jews to hand Paul over to the Nabateans, but it's just making stuff up and nonsense, as the Nabatean army didn't care tuppence about Paul. (1). The more probable explanation IF one is not arguing from a Faithbased assumption, PLUS knowledge of other demonstrable fabrications that make for dubious testimony. Bible apologists seem to think that every claim or statement should be treated as lean Hands and forget that we've found them telling many other porkies. in short, Bible apologists want extreme credit to be extended to apologetics for the Bible, and extreme prejudice to be extended to Bible criticism ('If I can think up even the most far - fetched explanation, that takes precedence over the more obvious one') just look at the stuff being produced to get around Balaam's ass, the talking snake and the striped sticks genetically altering sheep.

But regarding Paul, I must see Romans as his first work, his thesis, because the following letters look later as he changes his views. I know Romans is claimed to be mid -mission, but it is an explanatory Thesis to Rome, because that is what he wants to convert, and if they were already Christians, he wouldn't need to argue his case.
He was founding his Greek Churches in the 40's as he was going round rattling the tin for the Judean famine of 45 A.D. But he's already modified his view thst Jesusdaith would make his converts all plaster saints. Instead he found they needed to stop sinning or they could lose Grace. But none of these clues seem to be picked up and the stock apologetics - basrd chronology is repeated and never mind any doubts and questions.

(1) cue: 'How do you know>'. But that is Faithbased thinking; it is 'the Bible is All True so it happened and any excuse will do even if we don't know what happened. But the actual apologetic is 'they contradict like mist of the rest of the book and the go to explanation is that Acts is making stuff up - as we can see from the over - elaborated scenario of the council of Jerusalem.

Re: the bolded part:

I think this is so ingrained in how they are taught to think. I see it in how Otseng addresses the SoT, and other apologists. It's a similar phenomenon for many woo-peddlers. They start with the assumption their Faith is right, then create 'just-so stories' that are intricately linked with their Faith.

What's remarkable is that they will often use mundane scientific explanations (like, "we know a person suffers horribly on a cross but he wouldn't have died quickly unless stabbed - based on science", or, "the historic facts and science prove this aspect or the Bible" - but then they turn into left field and say "Therefore, we can ignore the scientific, historical explanation to support the claims of the Bible!"

If they are so happy to use science while it suits them, they certainly seem to jettison it right quick to come to their faith-based conclusions.

I could probably come up with a bunch of examples, but I think we all know what I'm talking about.

That's what this chart helped me see: The amount of time between the events and the actual manuscript, etc. All points to a very normal process of some people creating a religion. That's what people do. Yet, we are supposed to suspend belief in that and accept all the claims of the Bible (OT and NT) because - God can do anything...

I'm not explaining it well, but I really think there is an interesting phenomenon by Apologists to use science when it suits them, employing just-so stories to cover difficult issues, and it seems to be part of a very well-practiced method of self-convincing, or in-group behavior. It's more than just idly using science at ones convenience, it's something more institutional or something.
I was one of them. When I read "More Than a Carpenter" it all made perfect sense at the time. After all, "Who would die for a lie?!?!?!

Turns out, that's not the issue. It just sounds good at the time - when one wants to believe.

I suppose the term is Apologetics. It's literally the problem. They believe Apologetics is a Science in it's own right (or a proper, accepted academic method of inquiry and proof) and not what it really is: propaganda.

https://www.liberty.edu/online/divinity ... ologetics/

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It's incredible. They think they can be scholarly in rejecting actual science. It's simply incoherent.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to boatsnguitars in post #7]Yes. otseng is very informative on the Shroud which is the best case the Bible has as the Bible actually isn't. My views on the Bible are not mainstream, so far as I know.

The Experts don't seem to see contradictions as evidence against Bible credibility,
They don't seem to explain 'Prophecy' as fiddled to fit Jesus or Jesus fiddled to fit the OT - the Judas 'Prophecies' being a fine mess as an example,
ONE picked up that John tacitly denied the Bethlehem birth, ONE picked up that Jesus and Barrabbas are the same person, split into Zealot and Christian, Nobody seems to see that Q document must be real (it went out of fashion).
I see they either regard Jesus as total myth (which he isn't) or the Gospels as substantially true and Jesus as a reformer taken down by jealous Jews as the fact. I see him as a subversive taken down by the Romans (1)and the Christian writers (as they demonstrably are) finding a way to blame it on the Jews, with the Jewish war as their punishment. I'm sure of it.

I can only keep bleating and hope the ideas get out there at least to be discussed. It happened and I must put it down to coincidence not pinching my ideas, that the Morality argument got debunked when I argued it in the 90's, the Exodus got queried after a clever girl and I argued it out in the 20's, n that board, the Cetan sequence because the proof of speciation after I kept bleating on about it, and even I was one of the first to point out that if Talpiot really had Jesus' bones in it, Jesus' couldn't have risen, but that's a obvious one.

I learned myself about Paul as 'The first Christian' as clearly the disciples were all observing Jews (even Acts recognises this), and so must Jesus have been. It follows that Jesus Could have questioned Mosaic Law, but not debunked it as 'doing Good is better than doing God's command' makes no sense, even today (helping your neighbour rather than going to church). That's humanism, not Theism. Especially when it is done is such a crummy way as David and the Shewbread. It HAS to be Christian writing, taking Paul's views as the new law-giver,, even if Luke is the only one who even heard of Paul.

So it is known that Paul isn't the reporter of the gospels, but Paul's views are the origin of the gospels, and Paul isn't the follower of gospel Jesus but Gospel Jesus is cast in the image of Paul. So MY order of events (with some speculative dates) is:

Jesus' mission, and failure, crucifixion around 30 AD indeed.
Disciples belief in a resurrection and return, soon, 'persecution' by pro Romans (including Paul) flight from Damascus during Nabatean war (36 AD)
Paul get the idea of making his fellow Romans God's people through the Messiah.
Paul collecting from his churches 45 AD
Paul gets James' permission for his mission 50 AD
Paul's story comes to an end in Nero's time, Bouddican and Jewish revolts.
End of Jewish war. Christians say it was the fault of the Jews for rejecting Jesus (see Bar Serapeon's letter),
Christian adaptation of Jesus' mission committed to paper,
Synoptic original gospel with Paulinist arguments and rules, some edited and different versions
A later synoptic gospel (M) with differences by combining two different versions (the great omission in Mark, who does his own alterations, too)
John's gospel based on the original Christian 'witness we can rely on'. Matthews gospel based on 'M' gospel but also using 'Q'. 2nd - later 2nd c AD
Luke based on the synoptic Original (not 'M') but doe use 'Q' material, also Paul's letters and Josephus (the various informants he refer to). 2nd - maybe 3rd -c D. I even suspect Constantinian date.
Later fiddling; Josephus altered, history amended to 'Lose' Barabbas and his revolt. Floating stories, like the woman taken in adultery (in Luke as alternative to John)
Resurrection -ending added to Mark (freer Logion), Gospel of Peter cobbled together from existing gospels, but Arianism persecuted by Rome.

Just my own ideas - not mainstream.

(1) My Pet theory is hidden clues that Jesus did try to kickstart a rebellion with the Temple Cleansing (which is clued by Barrabbas' insurrection and the 'blood of the Galileans' but I know this approaches 'crackpot theory'.