Most Manuscripts are not Primary Sources

[Leucius Charinus]

Forgive me if I consider your hypothesis (the entire NT fabricated by a group of scribes after 3 centuries) too much impossible to be even understood.

The hypothesis becomes viable only after identifying the lack of physical evidence in support of the NT in the first three centuries. Some elements of physical evidence seem to appear in the 3rd century but there is no unambiguous evidence for the ante Nicene "Fathers" since all their manuscripts are from the middle ages.

If your theory is true, never as in this case a noble lie would be necessary even for me. :scratch:

History demonstrates the power of a Big Lie:

By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.

What I am interested in is historical evidence.

[Giuseppe]

I need the opinion of an impartial expert (for an example: Neil Godfrey), about how to judge your case.

[Leucius Charinus]

The repeatedly shouted doubt about the attestations of Tertullian, Epiphanius, and others to any actual text of Marcion's Gospel by several on this forum is as nausea-inducing as it is incoherent.

Such dubia are just not part of the discourse in any peer-reviewed literature in the relevant fields, and for good reason, because they reflect unserious opinions based on a lack of comprehensive and close reading of the primary sources, including Patristic literature more generally.

Biblical scholars routinely create their own definitions and historicity criteria that are not used by classical historians using the standard historical method. You continue to maintain you're using primary sources (Tertullian, Epiphanius, Irenaeus et al) whereas what you're using are secondary sources - theoretical copies of purported ancient manuscripts - often over a thousand years removed from the time period under study.

Primary sources are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects that were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts that retell, analyze, or interpret events, usually at a distance of time or place.

[Leucius Charinus]

Then you don't know the second and third century Fathers.

Not one soul on this planet knows the 2nd and 3rd century church "fathers" unless it is through the manuscripts preserved by the utterly corrupt church industry of the middle ages. Manuscripts which are often over a thousand years removed from the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

As far as historical integrity goes with the church "Fathers" it is:
IN-THE-MIDDLE-AGES-CHURCH-ARCHIVES-WE-TRUST.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Secret Alias]

No one here at the forum knows a post until hours days months later. Am I to assume every post is generated by a bot? In your case maybe.

[Leucius Charinus]

As an IT professional I perfectly understand why you would class these heresiological texts of the Church Fathers as "primary sources". Namely from such a perspective they are certainly to be regarded as primary source INPUTS for your analysis. However as far as the historical method goes, they are NOT primary historical sources. You are not going to admit this are you?

If instead you started to target the texts in the NHL I'd pay a great deal more attention to your endeavor because the NHL texts are primary sources from the 4th century (not the 12th-14th)

The repeatedly shouted doubt about the attestations of Tertullian, Epiphanius, and others to any actual text of Marcion's Gospel by several on this forum is as nausea-inducing as it is incoherent.

Such dubia are just not part of the discourse in any peer-reviewed literature in the relevant fields, and for good reason, because they reflect unserious opinions based on a lack of comprehensive and close reading of the primary sources, including Patristic literature more generally.

Biblical scholars routinely create their own definitions and historicity criteria that are not used by classical historians using the standard historical method. You continue to maintain you're using primary sources (Tertullian, Epiphanius, Irenaeus et al) whereas what you're using are secondary sources - theoretical copies of purported ancient manuscripts - often over a thousand years removed from the time period under study.

Primary sources are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects that were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts that retell, analyze, or interpret events, usually at a distance of time or place.

[Peter Kirby]

This thread organizes together discussion of how to use (or, perhaps, not use) manuscripts of a much later date.

If you want to discuss why this kind of thing is done, or understand why I'm doing it, see here:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11195

[StephenGoranson]

Peter/LC/Mt./Toth/Brown often asserts or implies that existence of Christianity before Constantine is false because of being based on manuscripts that he considers to be not "primary sources."

But, by his very same (questionable) definition usage of "primary sources," there is a lack of any "primary source" manuscript evidence for his assertion that Christianity was created by Constantine and Eusebius and a cast of minions.

[RandyHelzerman]

....there is no unambiguous evidence for the ante Nicene "Fathers" since all their manuscripts are from the middle ages.

There is no unambiguous evidence for anything!

Back when I was an intern at Intel, I was arguing with my boss, claiming that I could prove him wrong about something. My boss--a philosophical type, descended from a long line of Brahman intellectuals, knew exactly how to handle my youthful arrogance.

He said, "Look, you can't prove anything. Prove to me that the external world exists. Prove you are not a brain in a vat. Prove that we're not living in a simulation."

*chuckle* that set me back on my heels. Once I had stopped talking long enough to listen, he explained to me that sure, his plan might not work. All kinds of things could go wrong. But we can't just sit around raising doubt after doubt. Inaction is also an action, and inaction is not justified by the evidence either. What a great boss. I took away two lessons:

1. You can't be so cock-sure in your "proofs", and
2. You can't let your doubts prevent you from action either.

Richard Rorty gave me the proper word, for it--courage. We'll never have sufficient evidence to justify our beliefs or our actions. But we can't be paralyzed by skepticism either. We have to have the courage to act and make decisions in every area of our life--Is this the right college for me? is this the right spouse for me? Is this the right hypothesis to pursue, and is this the right text?

Its just going to far to say we can know nothing about the past.

[Leucius Charinus]

This thread organizes together discussion of how to use (or, perhaps, not use) manuscripts of a much later date.

The definition of primary and secondary historical sources is everywhere. I have cited legitimate extracts. Let's look at an example manuscript. David Litwa's vids via Mac provided a decent example (see above)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refutatio ... l_Heresies

The "Philosophumena" manuscript, author unknown, was discovered in the mid 19th century. It is written in Greek and dated to the 14th century. Various authors have been proposed including Origen and Hippolytus - 2nd/3rd century Christian "Fathers" - heresiologists who reported on heresies and heretics.

For the translators of the manuscript from Greek to English and other languages the 14th century "Philosophumena" manuscript is always going to be a primary source. For historical studies of manuscripts of the 14th century, and/or Monastic libraries of the 14th century then the 14th century "Philosophumena" manuscript is a primary source.

But supposing - as is Litwa - you were studying and researching 2nd/3rd century Christian history. Would the 14th century "Philosophumena" manuscript be a primary or a secondary historical source for this time period? It seems secondary to me. So that's an example of how I use (or, perhaps, not use) manuscripts of a much later date.

Also above I allowed for the proposition that this manuscript may in fact be one of "the theoretical copies" of the purported ancient text. This proposition could be true or false. This is an entirely different issue. Biblical scholars have generally accepted this proposition to be true. It has been an implied assumption or hypothesis. It is rarely made explicit. I think its important to understand our fundamental assumptions by identifying them.

Significance of source classification

History

In scholarly writing, an important objective of classifying sources is to determine their independence and reliability.[5] In contexts such as historical writing, it is almost always advisable to use primary sources and that "if none are available, it is only with great caution that [the author] may proceed to make use of secondary sources."[6] Sreedharan believes that primary sources have the most direct connection to the past and that they "speak for themselves" in ways that cannot be captured through the filter of secondary sources.[7]

[5] Kragh, Helge (1989). An Introduction to the Historiography of Science. Cambridge University Press. p. 121. ISBN 0-521-38921-6. [T]he distinction is not a sharp one. Since a source is only a source in a specific historical context, the same source object can be both a primary or secondary source according to what it is used for.

[6] Cipolla, Carlo M. (1992). Between Two Cultures:An Introduction to Economic History. W. W. Norton & Co. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-393-30816-7.

[7] Sreedharan, E. (2004). A Textbook of Historiography, 500 B.C. to A.D. 2000. Orient Longman. p. 302. ISBN 81-250-2657-6. t is through the primary sources that the past indisputably imposes its reality on the historian. That this imposition is basic in any understanding of the past is clear from the rules that documents should not be altered, or that any material damaging to a historian's argument or purpose should not be left out or suppressed. These rules mean that the sources or texts of the past have integrity and that they do indeed 'speak for themselves', and that they are necessary constraints through which past reality imposes itself on the historian.

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