Atwill doesn't really use any particular method other than walking the reader through all the parallels and pointing out their sequential relationship to each other, so by the time you get to the end it's clear that both books are so interwoven that they had to have been written by the same authors. It's not my site - it's maintained by Brigham Young University. The language is English as opposed to koine Greek, but don't let that confuse you. Greek to English translations hardly affects the parallel system - only a few of them need the original Greek texts to be understood - mostly for puns. As you are probably aware from sites like Bible Gateway and Bible Hub - multiple translations can be understood all around the world in loosely the same way. Reading the bible is no longer restricted to Greek specialists or elite priest like during the Middle Ages. Everyone has the opportunity to make sense of it - whether you translate the Temple as the Holy House or the Temple makes no difference.Firstly I don't mean to belittle your own research but the question was does Atwill use this method, or a related method.
Secondly your claims if true would be quite controversial. I would be interested in hearing your ideas and asking questions.
For example, is your database of texts in English or in the language of their original authorship? IDK and am not familiar with your site.
For those who actually take the time to read Caesar's Messiah it's not really necessary to use any method other than common sense, so perhaps that's why Atwill never felt the need to go as far I did. For example, for a similar spot-the-difference colouring book exercise would anyone bother referring to any scientific method to prove that these 2 pictures are related?
http://www.everydayok.com/wp-content/up ... iglets.jpg
However, if we were to explain the common sense behind matching parallels then it would be related to patterns and word frequency, but this goes without saying. Now, I don't believe most people lack such common sense, but rather they refuse to allow themselves to think for whatever reason. How might a school child gain such common sense? Well, you could try comparing any 2 chapters from any books/documents and seeing what kind of words/phrases you are able to match up. It will soon become clear that in this simple experiment low/medium frequency words/phrases are much harder matches to come by, and that high frequency words/phrases are more common. And then through experience (ideally learning probability theory) it should be comprehended as some stage of childhood that having multiple rare events occur is less likely than just one rare event by coincidence. Anyway, all this is rather over-explicit. Reaching a logical conclusion with Caesar's Messiah doesn't require any special skills or methodology. The problem lies more with censorship, conformity, and academics who would rather not put their careers on the line. And most people would rather just memorise and repeat what any authority might say instead of thinking for themselves.
I believe it was up till to the late 19th or even 20th century. I can try to find out the exact period Churches stopped teaching Josephus as confirmation of the New Testament prophesies, but I think Jesuits have always been taught in that way right up till the present era.Which century or centuries was this and what source(s) are you using for this statement? Thanks.
My mistake - right you are!I object that you need to refer to atheists on the basis that the more appropriate phrase should be ... "Historians" realise a manmade explanation should be explored first before a divine one.
Sorry about the quibble. Welcome to the discussions.
Not just Matthew, but all the canonical gospels were written late 1st century and much information is overlapping between them. Specifically, the finding is that the 3 synoptics were first written under Titus, and John + rest of NT written under Domitian. Wars of the Jews was most likely end of Titus' reign, start of Domitian's reign - Antiquities sometime during Domitian's reign. Final contributions to the New Testament came from Trajan and Pliny (Atwill forthcoming).So the claim is that Matthew was written after 70 CE?