The Shroud of Turin - Authentic Again!!!

[KARTLOS]

As a theory its as good as any other, but I think Flavius and I were referring to actual historical fact backed up with some form of evidence. The ealiest evidence of the gospels are the written references which all date from long after the actual events. As I said it would be like someone sitting down this afternoon to write an eyewitness account of Waterloo.

it would be if the gospels were written 200 years after the event, but nearlly nobody believes that to be true.

[Didz]

it would be if the gospels were written 200 years after the event, but nearlly nobody believes that to be true.

We have no evidence that the gospels were written down at all by the people they are named after. What we have are people writing what they claim was written by people writing about the people writing them.

Which would be like me writing today about something someone said that had read descibing something someone else had said about what happened at Waterloo.

[Sigurd]

We have no evidence that the gospels were written down at all by the people they are named after. What we have are people writing what they claim was written by people writing about the people writing them.

I guess you should say scientific evidence here, as in the paper it was written on have been dated so and so.
There is other scholastic evidence to be found, in the texts itself. Events that transpired, people mentioned, the way things are written, handwriting, texts being copies etc...
I could mention the Didache or the writings of Clement who make frequent quotes from the Testaments. It is generally believed amongst scholars that these texts are 1st century texts. But again there is no scientific evidence for this. No copies exists that you can make a Carbon14 test of and prove that this organic paper was from a plant that was cut down in 50AD. You only have a full copy written in about 1050 AD and you have scholars from the 3rd century making references to it... oh and an orthodox excerpt (5th century) quoting from it and dates it in its header to 90AD.

Then you have the Christian scholars that want to date it prior to this. The closer to the events the better it is, right?
They analyse the texts and find a reference to the temple of Jerusalem, that sacraments are being administered at the temple in Jerusalem. They then claim that this text must be prior to the destruction of the temple in 70AD and hence a copy from the original which must be from before 70AD.
But still, it is 40 years after the events of the crucifixion. 40 years of trouble and persecution from the other Jewish sects.
And of course if they establish these non-canonical texts as before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, they have then made evidence for new testament books being even earlier texts (the quotes from these testaments).

[Didz]

@Sigurd

I accept everything you say, but what you are decribing is the process by which scholars are attempting to determine the voracity of the texts they have. The fact remains that we have no primary evidence for the events described in the bible and probably never will have, indeed it is probably doubtful that most of disciples were able to read and write in the first place.

This is exactly the problem that occurs in later periods, even with the battle of Waterloo. The fact is that the vast majority of people who were actually there could not read or write, and of those that could very few actually wrote anything about their experinces.

The vast majority who did write about it, did so years after the event and usually with some alterior motive for doing so. Consequently, even where a primary record is available it is usually inaccurate or deliberately modified by the writer to support or undermine a particular point. The letters written by Vivien and Vandleur are a perfect example of this, where each does his best to cast the other in a bad light. The vast majority of our understanding of this battle is therefore based upon official records and a small number of primary written records that are at best doubtful.

However, in the case of the Bible we have a secondary or teriary record, which is probably based upon stories passed down through several generations by word of mouth and which have subsequently been subjected to translation and interpretation.

So, this would be like me writing a book based upon the stories passed down by word of mouth through my family about my German great great grandfathers expliots in 1815. Now, obviously one can go back and check in Belgium to discover whether Waterloo exists and perhaps even find out if the unit my ancestor claimed to have fought in existed and was present at the battle, but there would be little chance of proving that his claim to have shot a french general were true. Historical fact is never that certain, even in modern times.

[Sigurd]

I don't think we are that far off in our general views on Christianity.
I might be wrong but I get the impression that you will not accept any canonised or non-canonised texts describing the events around the origin of the Christian religion as factual or written by eye witnesses. I am not far off myself, but I have left room for doubts.
I am full aware of the many opportunities to, and most certainly practised tampering these texts have gone through. You can take the book of Isaiah as an example. There are about 3000 differences between the full copy found at Qumran and the one found in the Vulgate.
I think I remember this right… I am going by memory here.
We know that Jerome translated from the Septuagint, a very old Greek version of the Old Testament.
You are quite bombastic in you assertion that nothing was written concerning Christianity until the 3rd century. The only writings from that era are those scraps of papyri found in Egypt and more specifically those you mentioned (P46 [Chester Beatty Lib.] I believe).
I have only memory to go by here, but I distinctly remember that other fragments found that clearly have NT references were found and dated before the 2nd century.
If I am not totally off I would suggest the P52 and P64 fragments with 120AD and <70AD respectively. There are other fragments from the Qumran library that the scholars suggest are NT texts, but the last I heard they were questionable at the least.
A scientific dating says they are from around 70AD but that the writing is taken from Mark, Timothy or James is a stretch at best.

My view is somewhat akin to yours on the following points:

- Some events transpired in 33 AD
- There was an organisation led by Apostles a few years after the events.
- A new organisation took over and used these events to create Christianity.
- They kept some of the artefacts, books, manuscripts from that era.
- They changed them to suit their view.
- They hid or destroyed the originals (pre-200AD)
- There are some problems today regarding scriptural content and willingness to lend evidence to science.