Peter Kirby wrote:
I'd like any feedback anyone has, whether on design or content.
(By the way, I'm
extending the timeline down to 325.)
Dear Mr Kirby
Contrary to the contributions above, allow me to focus on content, especially on your timeline of early Christian writings. In my opinion, any timeline of early Christian persons, events or writings developed up to now is mistaken, because the chronology of the then events has been forged by the gospel writers. Afterwards this falsification has been endorsed by the early Christian leaders/writers.
This forged chronology also puts a blemish on your invaluable work on early Christianity. Therefore I invite you to take note of my theory on the chronology of the origins of Christianity. In my book
A Chronological Revision of the Origins of Christianity I adduce numerous arguments in support of a later origin of Christianity. I discovered that the gospels tell the story of the war of the Jews against the Romans, the culminating event of the messianic liberation era. The Jesus of the Gospels is the rebellion leader Jesus son of Saphat, who hardly survived his crucifixion during the last days of the siege of Jerusalem in August 70 CE. Your earlywritings.com forum has given me the opportunity to elaborate on different elements of my theory, for which I am profoundly grateful. These ‘earlywritings’ elaborations have given supplementary endorsement to my theory.
Up to now my theory has not gained broad support. I believe biblical scholars and historians like embracing the status quo rather than engaging with the inconvenient truth of a new theory. But maybe sooner or later my theory will become the established theory on the origins of Christianity, in 10, 100 or perhaps 1000 years. I kindly invite you to become the first expert on early Christianity to support my theory, and to adapt your timeline of early Christian writings accordingly.
Below I will only address shortly the earliest Christian writings, which are of course the most important ones. The pivotal text is the oldest gospel (Mark), which you date ‘65-80 CE’. I believe the earliest possible date for the first gospel is the autumn of 70 CE, and in the end we can narrow the date of writing to 71-72 CE. See also Brian Incigneri’s
The Gospel to the Romans and my review of this book on Amazon.com. As Mark is the inventor of the antedated passion narrative (from 70 CE to 30 CE), this passage has been written as an integral part of the gospel of Mark and should therefore also be dated 71-72 CE.
Your dating of the Pauline epistles is correct, but numerous post-70 CE interpolations are present in them. In my opinion they deserve the following warning: ‘with numerous post-70 interpolations’. Paul is a propagator of the future Christ, so the anonymous ‘Christ’ is original in his letters, ‘Jesus’ is always a post-70 CE interpolation. In some places these ‘Jesus’ accretions are detectable in the oldest manuscripts.
In your timeline you date the letter of James 70-100 CE, but this is an early, pre-war writing, so I believe it should be dated 50-60 CE also.
As the last chapter of the Didache tells the story of the war in a veiled way, this writing should also be dated post-70 CE. See also my thread ‘The apocalyptic XVIth chapter of the Didache’ on this forum.
With kind regards
Frans J. Vermeiren
