Gnostic timeline reversed?

Then that would make the 12 and Paul the FOUNDERS of Christian theology........and that would still mean that Gnosticism clearly post dates Christianity, and was certainly not Christianity in its original form.

There is no contention in Gnostic writings against the 12 being the original disciples of Christ, whether he was a matterial or immaterial......and we know from the epistles that the theology of Paul and the 12 showed no Gnostic influence at all........so, there should be no question of whether Gnosticism or Christianity came first.

Well, since many Gnostic texts refer to paul as being gnostic, it stands to reason that the founders were gnostic. Also there are examples of gnostic verses in the NT I have to go to work now but will also include those in my reply to sirpimpsalot that seems to grow every time I check this board. This thread is so going to get me fired one of these days!
Brad

Greetings SPAL et al,

quote:

---

"There is no contention in Gnostic writings against the 12 being the original disciples of Christ, whether he was a matterial or immaterial."

---

There is no hard evidence that the 12 apostles even existed.

quote:

---

"...and we know from the epistles that the theology of Paul and the 12 showed no Gnostic influence at all"

---

Rubbish.Paul was revered as "THE Apostle" by the Gnostics themselves -
There is a Gnostic work called "the Prayer of the Apostle Paul".
Several Gnostic works cite or allude to Paul or his writing.
Have you never seen Pagel's work "The Gnostic Paul" ?Paul describes a journey to the 3rd heaven where he personally learned divine secrets - the very definition of a gnostic.
Paul describes a layered universe - just like the Gnostics.
Paul describes multiple bodies - just like the Gnostics.
Paul contrasts evil matter with spirit - just like the Gnostics.(Also, the Johanine epistles show signs of Christians who did not believe in a "son of God".)Furthermore,
Paul makes no clear mention of a historical Jesus or his ministry, nor do the epistles - merely spiritual references to a Risen Christ.There is NO MENTION in ANY Christian writing of the bulk of Jesus' ministry until a century or so after the alleged events -
* No birth stories - no Mary, Joseph, Herod, Bethlehem
* No miracles, no healings - no Lazarus
* No triumphal entry, no table-turning
* No sermon, no speeches
* No trial - no Pilate, no cock-crowIn fact, not one single Christian mentions the empty tomb story, or the trial before Pilate until the 2nd century - long after the alleged events.

quote:

---

"so, there should be no question of whether Gnosticism or Christianity came first."

---

Indeed,
the evidence suggests that Christianity was originally Gnostic, but later mis-understood as based on a historical person who never really existed.Iasion

Case closed? I now think you have your own interpretations. You are dogmatic and it shows. I wont bother with this thread because It is like arguing the world is round to a person who insist that because he can not see it is a orb it must be flat. The world according to SirPimpsAlot. No matter what others say or show you evidence to the contrary you put your fingers in your ears and go La la la la la.. You are wrong. Your right about one thing it is a moot point. At least to me.

---

"One is punished most for ones virtues" Fredrick Neitzche

like proverbs, yes. you're ignoring the importance of the observation. gnostics were more concerned with the wisdom and teaching of christ, and not his actions, miracles, or death/resurrection. since thomas records only sayings, it is likely the have been a gnostic text.no one's debating that it's in a pattern of an older tradition, i'm simply saying that because it follows this pattern, it's more likely to be gnostic than otherwise. the two are not entirely separable. gnostics were a sect christians. their traditions are christian, just not the sort we follow today. at the same time, you can't entirely pull the gnosticism out of the existing canonical texts, particularly not after the resurrection.

For such an ancient period as that between A.D. 100 and 300 it is of course much more difficult to be confident about the date of a manuscript. There is infinitely less comparative material. Nevertheless we are now in a fairly comfortable position to date papyrus manuscripts according to their handwriting. We do not have to rely on manuscripts of the New Testament only. We have hundreds of papyrus manuscripts of Greek pagan literary texts from this period and again hundreds of carefully written papyrus documents that show the same types of handwriting. These documents are very important for paleographers because they are often exactly dated. As a rule New Testament manuscripts on papyrus are not. A careful comparison of the papyrus documents and manuscripts of the second and third centuries has established beyond doubt that about forty Greek papyrus manuscripts of the New Testament date from this very period. Unfortunately only six of them are extensively preserved.Even within the period that runs from c. A.D. 100-300 it is possible for paleographers to be more specific on the relative date of the papyrus manuscripts of the New Testament. For about sixty years now a tiny papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John has been the oldest "manuscript" of the New Testament. This manuscript (P52) has generally been dated to ca. A.D. 125. This fact alone proved that the original Gospel of John was written earlier, viz. in the first century A.D., as had always been upheld by conservative scholars.We now have early and very early evidence for the text of the New Testament. A classified list of the most important manuscripts will make this clear. Numbers preceded by a P refer to papyri, the letters refer to parchment manuscripts.ca.-A.D.----------------200-----250-------------300-----350-----450Matthew-------------------------P45-------------B-------Sin.
Mark----------------------------P45-------------B-------Sin.----A
Luke----------------------------P4,P45,P75------B-------Sin.----A
John--------------------P66-----P45,P75---------B-------Sin.----A
Acts----------------------------P45-------------B-------Sin.----A
Romans-Hebrews---P46---------------------B-------Sin.----A
James-Jude--------------------P72,------------B-------Sin.----A
Apocalypse---------------------P47---------------------Sin.----AAs you can see, from the fourth century onwards the material base for establishing the text of the Greek New Testament is very good indeed. The manuscripts Sin. (Sinaiticus), A (Alexandrinus) and B (Vaticanus) are almost complete parchment manuscripts. With the help of the earlier papyrus manuscripts we have been able to establish that the text of these three great manuscripts is to a large extent reliable. The papyrus manuscript P75 was the latest to be published, but it showed a virtually identical text to manuscript B. This settled the vexed question whether we have in the parchment manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries a safe guide to the original text of the New Testament. We have.by Peter van Minnenfrom Duke UniversityThis message has been edited by Bob, 10-25-2004 07:20 PM

BobWelcome to EvC.But posting a long cut & paste is considered against forum rules. We prefer that you express your opinion in your own words. If necessary you can provide links to outside material you used. But simply quoting the World Bible School text is not what we consider debating even if attributed.Summarize your presentation and outline what it has to do with the topic of the thread.

---

How pierceful grows the hazy yon! How myrtle petaled thou! For spring hath sprung the cyclotron How high browse thou, brown cow? -- Churchy LaFemme, 1950

the oldest books of the bible are, John, Romans,and Hebrews Dating the Oldest New Testament Manuscripts according to this from Duke U. Of course the oldest known Bible texts are the Dead Sea Scrolls dated as being hidden in the cave during the first jewish revolt at about AD 66-70 containing 19 copies of the book of Isaiah 25 copies of Deuteronomy 30 copies of Psalms. There are also other writings pertaining to early Christianity, unknown prophecies By, Danial, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah. These are the earliest ever found.

Greetings Bob,Welcome to EvC :-)

quote:

---

This manuscript (P52) has generally been dated to ca. A.D. 125.

---

This comment is misleading.
P52 is dated to -
* 2nd century (100-199) by N.A. ,
* early 2nd century (100-149) by many scholars,
* late 2nd century (150-199) by some scholars (Schneelmelcher?)So P52 could be as late as late 2nd century.

quote:

---

This fact alone proved that the original Gospel of John was written earlier, viz. in the first century A.D.,

---

Pardon?
Can you explain why you think this?P52 could be late 2nd C.,
G.John could easily be early-mid 2nd century (even with a ca.125 date).
No Christian writer clearly mentions G.John until mid 2nd century (Ptolemy, Heracleon)The currently accepted dating for G.John is usually 100-110 - but it could even be as late as mid 2nd century.

quote:

---

as had always been upheld by conservative scholars.

---

You mean faithful Christians, who have taken the Nicene Oath?
The most biased and self-serving opinions one could imagine.

quote:

---

The manuscripts Sin. (Sinaiticus), A (Alexandrinus) and B (Vaticanus) are almost complete parchment manuscripts. With the help of the earlier papyrus manuscripts we have been able to establish that the text of these three great manuscripts is to a large extent reliable.

---

Pardon?
There are many large differences found amongst these documents. In fact - NO TWO Gospel manuscripts have exactly the same text (excepting tiny scraps).The 16:9-20 ending of G.Mark is missing from Sinaiticus and Vaticanus - are you really unaware of this?
In fact there are FOUR DIFFERENT endings to G.Mark found in various MSS !
What does this tell you about their "reliability" ?Even the Lord's prayer found in G.Matt 6:13 comes in many different versions in various MSS.And the very WORDS of GOD at the baptism of Jesus come in different versions -
"...and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved son; in thee I am well pleased"
vs
"...and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou are my son, this day have I begotten thee"The trinity formula was added by Jerome in the 4th century.In Col. 1:14 the phrase "through this blood" was added later.So,
there is a vast body of evidence that the NT documents were frequently modified by Christians. We do NOT know what the "original" was at all.Our current NT represents that which was extant about 200CE.Iasion

So, I read that Constantine in the early fourth century had Anubias (I think, I can never remember his name) write a history of the early Christian church based on Constantines bias, and myth, whith a not so generous helping of fact. What does this history include? does this include the counsil that formed the bible around 200 ce? What does this 'history' talk about? How do current finding contradict it?
Brad

-double post-This message has been edited by Shadow, 10-27-2004 02:44 PM

-triple post-This message has been edited by Shadow, 10-27-2004 07:00 PM

-quadrouple post- (yes, I hit the button too many times...)This message has been edited by Shadow, 10-27-2004 07:01 PM

I always thought that Mark was written before Matthew and Luke.
Mark contains more lengthy material than Matt or Luke, if Mark were a condensed version then wouldn't Mark be more concise? Also Mark leaves material out that is in both Matt and Luke, such as birth accounts and sermon on the mount etc.. If Mark copied from Matt and Luke why would he leave material out? I read that Mark wrote about Jesus as a prophet of God and Matt, futher deified Jesus, Luke softened Jesus' actions and by the time John is written Jesus is fully deified as God incarnate. I thought Mark was dated to the 70's AD.