STATE University of NY.
CITY University of NY.
Again, everything not Greek is Greek to you. I studied Modern European History at CUNY Graduate Center. I am not interested in your apology, because I took no offense. I was merely amused that you so often do what you accuse others of doing–and seem blithely unaware of the log in your own eye. (Mine is enormous.)
I understand your points very well. All of them. But I don’t find them particularly overpowering, and you keep running away from the fact that Daniel isn’t one book but several, melded together for a purpose we can only guess at. And scholars do guess at it, and I respect their guesses. But again, the reason Bart was oddly reluctant to respond to queries about Daniel being a forgery on that thread is probably that he sees the very serious problems involved in guessing the intent of not one but several authors. It’s a much more complicated problem than Ecclesiastes, and if he was going to come down on it, he’d want to make sure of his arguments first. Because he’s a genuine scholar, with an actual reputation to uphold. A burden none of us here are encumbered with.
We agree the fulfilled historical prophecies in Daniel and the gospels are not legitimate. But the gospels are not forgeries. Might we say they contain falsified elements, with the codicil that we don’t know if those falsifications are original to the texts we have? And that being the case, where do we draw the line for forgery when it comes to a book written by several authors over a long period of time, when we don’t know the circumstances whereby it was first distributed?
There’s very strong consensus about the Pseudo-Pauline epistles, because it’s a fairly clearcut case of forgery–nobody sits down and writes a letter saying “I’m Paul and this is what you should believe” knowing he is not Paul, without clear intent to deceive. This isn’t nearly so clearcut, and I think you’d acknowledge that, so I don’t see the basis for further discussion, without a lot more reading, which will have to wait a while. So unless you want to contest my saying that CUNY and SUNY are entirely separate educational entities, I really do have to insist we stop now. FINIS.
Robert said
So what about the other Hebrew or Aramaic religious texts, the ones you consider authentic and not forgeries. How are they different from the forged ones? I mean other than not being forged. They were not made up? Meaning just that they were not forged? Or something else? Perhaps they were not written to control the masses?I ask because in your first post, you say:
“Summary
Judaism, Islam and Christianity and their God(s) may not be real. They may be products of ancient empire scheming.
However Jesus is real and what’s more we have a Gospel with 114 of his teachings still available to this day.”If Judaism and their God may not be real, are perhaps all of their religious texts inauthentic? Or do you have a set of criteria in mind to distinguish authentic vs inauthentic?
Are you simply talking about pseudepigraphic works vs works that are actually written by named authors? Most canonical Hebrew texts are anonymous. Prophetic works may feature oracles delivered by prophets introduced in the third-person, sometimes with additional brief third-person narratives; indeed among the former prophets, almost the entire text is composed of third-person narrative. Among the latter prophets, sometimes the prophet speaks extensively in the first person, sometimes only occasionally. The emphasis there is on the idea that the prophet is really speaking for God, with many oracles being delivered with God speaking in the first person.
You bring up the example of Isaiah. With respect to the parts that derive from deutero-Isaiah or trito-Isaiah, clearly you consider these forgeries because of their date. Do you consider the oracles that may date to the time of the original Isaiah authentic? Or are they also forgeries, created by Cyrus or his scribes?
In my opinion all religious texts are inauthentic. They exist to influence the followers and serve the empires agendas. Its a conclusion based primarily on the Books of Daniel and Isaiah. If they are false then it should follow that all texts are false. God has to be consistent and accurate doesn’t he.
My theory is that Both the Persian Empire (Old Testament less Daniel) and the Roman Empire (New Testament plus Daniel)
have created or supervised the creation of the Bible.
I don’t think any prophetic works are real?
I believe all three oracles are forged. Two and three by dates, and topics and one by false prophecy amongst other things. Daniel is clearly in my opinion a forgery of prophecy, it should follow that all prophecy that has a date issue that places the potential date of writing after the prediction events ar also prophecy forgeries.
I haven’t looked at the other texts, yet.
“So are you going to say that all second-temple pseudepigrapha were the work of Roman authors? 1 & 2 Esdras? Psalms of Solomon, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, Paralipomena of Baruch, the Apocalypse of Abraham, etc. All written by Romans? Jews were not capable of these types of writing? “
I don’t think I need to in terms of the conclusions.
robbeasley said
… Robert saidrobbeasley, you apparently believe that Nerva was the architect for all the letters of Paul, and the entirety of the New Testament except the book of Revelation, and all of Josephus. You’ve given a lot of weight to what serious scholars say about the dating and authorship of Isaiah and Daniel. Why not here also?
Not Paul. There are apparently 7 genuine Pauline letters to 6 Communities according to scholars. I did not mean to include these 7 Letters.
Robert said
Well, that’s progress. Now, how about taking a serious look at Josephus scholarship. You would then certainly need to abandon your apparent claim that his entire corpus was written either by Nerva prior to 71 CE. Just because there’s nothing in the extant historical record for his whereabouts prior to his becoming consul is not really evidence for his authoring (or being the architect of) all the works of Josephus so early. Are you able to point to specific evidence in the texts of Josephus that indicate they were most likely written by Nerva? At such an early date? Or, failing that, why not also take seriously the work of Josephus scholars?
The only reason I say Josephus was part of the propaganda set that establishes Christianity is that its premise is too far fetched. I mean Josephus was the only survivor of a forty person game of russian roulette. The Jews are caste as a rebellious uprising. Must have been suicidally blind to Romes might. Our hero, Josephus is too god to be true, then he switches to serve Rome.
The propaganda is designed to lift up the profile of the Jews as well as soften the reality and make Rome look good. I suspect Rome massacred the Jews and Jerusalem on the back of Nerva’s finding in the Pisonian Enquiry. Herod Agrippa 11 (Julius agrippa) was one of the people to be judged by the Inquiry. He was either exiled or denigrated. I other words he survived. What was his bargaining chip. Selling out the Jews perhaps.
Thanks for your kindness,skills and patience.
(warning: this may be insulting to anyone but the staunchest believers that God can be found even in a … “hot mess”)
Just a thought. If the Persian empire, then the Roman empire, carefully crafted what became the Bible, why is it such a hot mess?
Clearly, JEDP has also failed to explain the mechanisms for such a layered, repetitive, and contradictory enterprise. There is no evidence of convened councils to hear out viewpoints or hammer away heresies. Jamnia is a popular hypothesis, arrived at using the same conjectural techniques that have created “schools” like Rabbi J, Rabbi D, etc.
Personally, for a while I chose to rely on the idea that an early Maccabee first compiled many sources, and that he was not well trained as a scribe. He quickly crammed these sources together, with no editor, and got them in front of the people for all to see. Yes, I was trying to support the claim that all religions are created to control the people, just like you have been doing with great energy and tenacity. I even created a FB page to collect “proofs” from the Elaphantine papyri to the Qumrun scrolls. ** you do not have permission to see this link ** Its very messy.
I still think the patchwork quality of the Torah is because of poor literary capabilities as a community in the Yehud. Notice that the three great prophetic works show the destruction of Jerusalem (and Babylon). I think its likely Ezekiel and Isaiah are products of Babylonian scribal abilities, with Jeremiah being an Egyptian scribal product. All dictated or penned by Judahites, but in a community with the capability to foster literacy. Perhaps the scribal capabilities in Jerusalem were bright for a while producing other writings, but eventually fell into disuse for anything other than menial jobs in the mountainous subsatrapy of Yehud. The explosion of literary products found in the Qumrun scrolls, the reference to Sosates the Jewish Homer about 125 BC, the voluminous Philo and Josephus point to a fantastically literary society, almost obsessed with the glory of the word, spoken or written. This is evidence, to me, that Judeanism (Judaism), is the product of an almost completely Hellenised tribal group from the mountainous area of Ceole Syria.
“Not as silly as trying to account for the entirety of the Hebrew scriptures as derived from a Greek original written by Onias IV, but still …”
Not exactly what I meant by Onias iv writing the Septuagint in Greek. I meant only the Torah part of it. At that, I doubt he redacted much in Deuteronomy, or Leviticus because these were already a part of the Judean heritage. Not sure about Numbers yet. But I think he wrote the prequels Genesis and Exodus, expanding on Judean and Egyptian historical sources. That he wrote the prequel Genesis and Exodus, added Numbers and Leviticus and translated only Deuteronomy of the DT history made the Pentateuch five books.
FocusMyView said
… Just a thought. If the Persian empire, then the Roman empire, carefully crafted what became the Bible, why is it such a hot mess? …
Robert said
Yes, this is a problem with all conspiracy theories which really cannot account for all the diversity and chaos in the real world. Even trying to account for such a relatively small corpus such as the NT (minus 7 authentic Pauline letters and Revelation) as the work of a single architect is silly. Not as silly as trying to account for the entirety of the Hebrew scriptures as derived from a Greek original written by Onias IV, but still …
Poor choice by oversimplifying my conclusions.
Now after further consideration this is what I think. Torah is from the ancient pre-Babylon Captivity. It may /may not have been tampered with by Cyrus. The Samaritans say their religion was changed not replaced. Isaiah is from Cyrus. Anything downstream from that and up to the Book of Daniel is influenced by the Persian empire. Book of Daniel, Enoch and Jubilees is influenced by Rome circa 160 BC.
Nerva used “authentic” Pauline texts. He may/may not have tampered with them. Nerva architected the three gospels, book of acts and the fictitious works of Josephus Flavius. The Gospel of John and Revelations occured after 136 AD. The rest happened at various times.
Or something like that.
Robert said
You consider all religious texts to be inauthentic in this larger philosophical sense, except perhaps the gospel of Thomas, which you refer to simply as the gospel of Jesus? Or do you not consider this to be a religious text? Because it is not authored by a representative of an empire, even ‘though it does deal with topics otherwise generally considered to be religious?
I’d call it a spiritual text. Its key take away, if you can understand the sayings meanings is to free oneself from the fear of death and recommending we respect others etc … Nothing for the emperor.
100. They showed Jesus a gold coin and said to him, “The Roman emperor’s people demand taxes from us.”
He said to them, “Give the emperor what belongs to the emperor, give God what belongs to God, and give me what is mine.”
Possible Meaning:
The coins had the emperor’s image and are a material concern. Don’t concern yourself with that because it’s off topic for Jesus. Be true to your inner spirituality and return gifts of compassion and love.
There is an aspect where “religion” and empire do collide. I have Bart’s Intro To the Bible (not sure of the exact name). He makes the point that what we call “religion” in the ancient world is not what we think of religion today. Having recently read Brent Nongbri’s “Before Religion” recently, I think there are some good points in it as well. One of Nongbri’s main points, I think, is that what we consider an ancient religion is simply the rites and habits of an ethnicity or kingdom. He makes a good argument for his case, but I would say it is overstated somewhat. I think there are caveats such as conversion to consider.
But on the whole, we have peoples who have their gods to worship and their way of worshipping those gods. Rulers are going to ingratiate themselves to the ruled by simply portraying these gods as favoring them (the ruler) and/or paying respects to those gods. So yes, I can see a lot of room for manipulation by rulers into what we often call “ancient religion.”
Another aspect we have not touched on (I am also following the other conversations) is what the Romans were doing as far as their rituals and habits. They seemed to be encouraging their own deifications and cult worship of the emperor. this seems a far cry from creating Judaism or Christianity. Was it Pliny the Elder that wrote about the early Christians being punished for not bowing to the Emperor? That was within a decade or two of Jospehus’s last writings. Why punish people for following a cult they created?
Wouldn’t bowing to the Emperor be a rule that applied to all subjects of the empire regardless of cult(ure) or religion. Failure to enforce it on the Jews or Christians would lead to a special case and jealousies.
I think Judaism was controlled from Babylon with Rome’s blessing (or not) until the three wars(woes) saw this relationship sower.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
On the surface its like Empires sanctioned the peoples religions/cults when in reality the Empires were in some sort of control or battle for control.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert