This is the teachers reply to a christian and too christian scholars:
ask your professor to prove this. there are plenty of writings about jesus before the 4th century ad
.(Where are these writings about Jesus before the 4th century A.D.? Produce them. Christians always make that statement but never produce any proof of an historical flesh and blood Jesus. Do the research instead of simply believing and making ungrounded statements.)
i find it hard to see how there could have been a christianity for 300 years without christ. honestly i cannot think of a single scholar who even suggests that the writings of the new testament come this late.(You need to do research and look at the facts.)
Here are some facts about the bible.
A collection appeared in the first century B.C. and again in the first century A.D. to be accepted by the Jews of the Diaspora as sacred, and passed on to Christians. In both Jewish and Christian hands the papyri underwent many changes. In the 4th century A.D., St. Jerome collected some Hebrew manuscripts and edited them to produce the Latin Vulgate, a Bible of considerable inaccuracy, differing markedly from JeromeÂ?fs stem texts.
The King James Bible relied mostly on a Greek text collected and edited by Erasmus n the 16th century, which in turn relied on a Byzantine collection assembled gradually at Constantinople between the 4th and 8th centuries. A few older texts have been discovered: the Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Vaticanus, the Codex Alexandrinus, and the Chester Beatty papyri. All are fragmentary, all differ from one another and from the King James version.
According to one scholar, Â?gThere are no known portions of the Bible older than the 4th century A.D. (Charles F. Pfeifer. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible).
The Revised Version of the New Testament published in 1881 tried to correct some of the more glaring errors. It erased the spurious final twelve verses of Mark, which were late interpolations including the words that caused centuries of suffering: Â?gHe that believeth not shall be damned.Â?h It eliminated the fraudulent translation Â?gJosepth and his mother,Â?h intended to preserve the dogma of the virgin birth, and restored the original Â?ghis father and his mother.Â?h It omitted the forged interpolation intended to preserve the dogma of the trinity: Â?gFor there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these are one.Â?h These words appeared nowhere before the 15th century A.D. However, the Catholic church insisted on retaining the forgery.
In 1897 the Congregation of the Index, with the approval of Pope Leo XIII, forbade any further research into the origins of this text. (If the Bible is the word of God, why the fear of research?)
Richard SimonÂ?fs 17th-century Critical History of the Old Testament exhibited the now well-known internal evidence that the books of Moses were not written by Moses but were compiled by many hands at a much later date. Bishop Bossuet pronounced this work of scholarship Â?ga mass of impieties,Â?h drove its author out of the Oratory, and ordered the entire first edition burned. Dr. Anexander Geddes, a Catholic scholar, translated the Old Testament in 1792 with a critical volume proving that the Pentateuch could not have been written by Moses, nor at any time prior to the reign of David. He was denounced as Â?ga would-be corrector of the Holy Ghost.Â?h
Seven clerical scholars published Essays and Reviews in 1860, defining the new science of Bible criticism. They were denounced, and two were suspended from office; but they took their case to court, and won. In 1869 KuenenÂ?fs The Religion of Israel established Bible criticism as a valid field of investigation. He was followed by many others in Holland, Germany, and France. In 1889 the book of biblical essays called Lux Mundi gave up all pretense of the scripturesÂ?f historicity or divine inspiration, admitting that the Bible is a confused mass of myth, legend, and garbled history, often contradicting provable facts.
When the theologians began to give in, they complained that viewing the Bible as myth would destroy the whole structure that their livelihood and self-respect depended on. After David StrausÂ?fs LebenÂ?fs Jesu disposed of the historicity of the Gospel stories, and RenanÂ?fs Vie de JÂ?Å’esus showed that the Gospels cannot be taken as literal truth but only as romantic symbolism, the Rev. Maurice Jones exclaimed, Â?gIf the Christ-Myth theory is true, and if Jesus never lived, the whole civilized world has for close upon two thousand years lain under the spell of a lie.Â?h
Obviously the Bible was full of myths and legends, but most orthordox theologians had no idea of their meaning. One reason was that they didnÂ?ft study the corresponding myths and legends of other cultures-ancient paganism etc.. Christian missionaries viewed all other myths as absolutely false, but the myths of the Bible the saw as absolutely true.
One of the erroneous notions that still keep Christian women shackled to their Bible-based Â?ginferiorÂ?h image is the notion that Christianity was founded on the New Testament, when in fact the early churches had no Gospels but rather created and produced their own (Herbert J. Muller. The Uses of the Past). Not only did churchmen falsely pretend an apostolic origin for their scriptures; they also weeded out all references to female authority or participation in Christian origins (Elaine Pagels. The Gnostic Gospels). Only the forbidden Gnostic Gospels retained hints that Jesus had 12 female disciples corresponding to the 12 male disciples, or that Mary Magdalene was the leader of them all. Even womenÂ?fs scholarship was denied. St.Jerome openly admitted that his co-authors of the Vulgate were two learned women; but later scholars erased the womenÂ?fs names and substituted the words Â?gvenerable brothers.Â?h (Elise Boulding. The Underside of History).
