rationalskepticism.org

dejuror wrote:

dejuror wrote:

The flaw with your argument is that you must reject all writings dated by Paleography before the 4th century when dating by Paleography is universally accepted.

Leucius Charinus wrote:
But you have just admitted that palaeographical dating estimates are to be universally associated with error bounds, and I have supplied various articles suggesting that it is quite within reason to associate palaeographic dates in the 2nd or 3rd centuries with error bounds that include the 4th century.

Consequently it is not a flawed argument to point out that the Christian writings dated by Paleography before the 4th century may in fact, when a more reasonable error bound is universally applied, be Christian writings from the 4th century.

Your argument is just as flawed as those who put forward the claim that the Jesus story and cult originated in the 1st century before the Fall of the Jewish Temple c 70 CE without the supporting evidence.

Actual ancient manuscripts have been recovered with Jesus stories have been dated by Paleography before the 4th century and none have been dated before c 70 CE.

Again, it must be understood that dating of ancient manuscripts whether by carbon dating or paleography have wide ranges.

See page 845 of dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/viewFile/1537/1541

Thanks for the link.

Leucius Charinus wrote:
Additionally you have not responded to the historical evidence that suggests the rubbish dumps of Oxyrhychus were commissioned in the 4th century when a second city - of "monks" - formed outside the old city walls.

The claim or historical evidence that rubbish dumps of Oxyrhynchus were commissioned in the 4th century does not mean that all the material found were from that time.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyrhynchus_Papyri

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by archaeologists including Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt (28°32′N 30°40′E, modern el-Bahnasa). The manuscripts date from the 1st to as late as the 7th century AD. They include thousands of Greek and Latin documents, letters and literary works. They also include a few vellum manuscripts, and more recent Arabic manuscripts on paper (for example, the medieval P. Oxy. VI 1006[1]).

It must not be forgotten that virtually all early ancient NT manuscripts were found in Egypt and that Oxyrynchus is also a city of the same place.

The key word in my argument above is "monks". In the mid 4th century this Egyptian city underwent such a massive population explosion of "monks" that another city grew outside the core city site and its walls. It is reasonably certain that Christianity and the Greek NT Bible codex was distributed extensively under the rule of Constantine and his son Constantius (from 325-360 CE). Eusebius seems to have oversighted bible production for Constantine, Athanasius for Constantius. The Greek Bible had become an extremely powerful political instrument of the Roman state, and everyone wanted to study it monkishly. It follows that the Christian related scribal material being found on the rubbish dumps of Oxyrhynchus is most likely to have been produced when the city was fill of "monks" attempting to read and write - not just the canonical NT Bible but also some of the non canonical Christian material.

When one considers the argument that all palaeographical dating of Christian papyri reasonably includes a 4th century UPPER BOUND, then all this suggests to me that it is more likely than not that the Christian related papyri have a "monkish" 4th century provenance.

At this present time, based on the existing dating of manuscripts and writings attributed to ancient writers, I argue that the Jesus story and cult most likely originated in Egypt and was initiated sometime in the 2nd century or after writings attributed to Philo, Josephus, Pliny the Elder, Tacitus and Suetonius.

I am inclined to suggest that the Pliny - Trajan, Tacitus and Suetonius references to Christians are fabrications of the middle age church corporation - which was utterly corrupt. See my notes on each:

http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/i ... stians.htm

Josephus and Philo were not preserved other than by the church, so there's not any independence. Most people grant that Eusebius corrupted Josephus. The manuscripts of Philo are also not without their difficulties, especially for example "On the Contemplative Life".

Sometime in the 2nd century?
About the time of Marcus Aurelius?

You should already be aware that the Christian reference in Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" is an interpolation.

The Interpolated Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus' reference to "christian obstinacy" (circa 167 CE) is located at Meditations, 11:3. Here is George Long's English translation:


"What a soul that is which is ready, if at any moment it must be separated from the body, and ready either to be extinguished or dispersed or continue to exist; but so that this readiness comes from a man's own judgement, not from mere obstinacy, as with the Christians, but considerately and with dignity and in a way to persuade another, without tragic show."




Gregory Hays' 2003 translation of Meditations

Hays' endnote for 11.3 says:


"This ungrammatical phrase [like the Christians]
is almost certainly a marginal comment by a later reader;
there is no reason to think Marcus
had the Christians in mind here."



Maxwell Staniforth's 1964 translation of Meditations

The translation is as follows:


Happy the soul which, at whatever moment the call comes for release from the body, is equally ready to face extinction, dispersion, or survival. Such preparedness, however, must be the outcome of its own decision; a decision not prompted by mere contumacy, as with the Christians, * but formed with deliberation and gravity and, if it is to be convincing to others, with an absence of heroics.



The corresponding footnote reads as follows:



* If these words are authentic and not a later insertion,
they are the only reference which Marcus makes to the Christians.
C.R. Haines, however, in the Loeb edition of the Meditations,
points out that the clause is
'outside the construction, and in fact ungrammatical.
It is in the very form of a marginal note,
and has every appearance of being a gloss
foisted into the text.'



This is simply a polite way of saying Marcus
has been interpolated by a later hand.