Re: On dating the Gnostic literature after 325 CE
Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 11:27 pm
I notice no reaction to the existence of a pagan witness to the Gnostics dated to the third century. Mon Dieu, que la vie est bête ...
Investigating the roots of western civilization (ye olde BC&H forum of IIDB lives on...)
https://earlywritings.com/forum/
Stephan Huller wrote:Evidence? .... there is this - Plotinus's Against the Gnostics:
http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Plotinus5.html
Plotinus clearly lived in the third century. His manuscripts testify to his knowledge of gnostic sects. There is no way to make this go away.
There are only 2 C14 dating tests that I know of in this category - ie: Christian manuscripts.theomise wrote:Have any unquestionably Christian artifacts (papyri, whatever) actually been carbon-dated to a date range such that at least half the estimated temporal interval antecedes 325AD?
If so, I'd love to see a list.
Dating via C14 The reported results of a carbon 14 analysis of five samples taken from the manuscript and its binding, both the leather and the papyrus used interior to the binding (although the details of this analysis have not yet been published and the report, as we shall see, contains some problems Krosney, 2006: 269-74):[44]
Papyrus from interior of leather cover: AD 209 +/- 58 years;
Loose papyrus from fragments associated with codex: AD 333 +/- 48 years;
Leather with attached papyrus from binding: AD 223 +/- 51 years;
Papyrus from page 9: AD 279 +/- 50 years;
Papyrus from page 33: AD 279 +/- 47 years.
Krosney reports that the anomalous loose fragment, which registered a much later date than the others, was therefore discounted since it ‘was apparently not part of the manuscript’.[45] Combining the four other samples suggested a 95% statistical probability that the codex was created between 220 and 340 AD, with a statistical mean of 280 AD. This, Krosney clearly implies, is more authoritative than the previous estimates based on paleographical analysis.
[44] Krosney, The Lost Gospel: 269-74. The analysis is attributed to Tim Jull, director of the NSF-Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Facility in the University of Arizona, Tucson.
[45] Krosney, The Lost Gospel: 274.
Here is what Wikipedia lists as the division of the various books:The Six Enneads, sometimes abbreviated to The Enneads or Enneads (Greek: Ἐννεάδες), is the collection of writings of Plotinus, edited and compiled by his student Porphyry (c. 270 AD).
So when faced with clear evidence that a pagan witnessed the existence of gnostics in the third century is to claim some conspiracy 'invented' the piece of evidence which contradicts your stupid theory. Do you realize how childish this is? Even my son admits he makes mistakes. You can't or won't. But here is why your attempt is so pathetic. Haven't you ever wondered why Porphyry named the edited manuscript 'the Enneads' when an ennead was an Egyptian term which denoted 'a group of nine'? At first glance it seems strange that he would call a six volume work an 'ennead.' But then look at the content of each book. Plotinus' works systematically, combining the individual treatise to form the Enneads, a collection of six groups of nine treatises each. Don't you see? Someone couldn't have just 'added' an extra treatise that wasn't from Plotinus (another idiotic and ultimately desperate argument on your part) because there had to have been nine treatise in each book. You're so fucking stupid.The First Ennead[edit]
I.1 [53] - "What is the Living Being and What is Man?"
I.2 [19] - "On Virtue"
I.3 [20] - "On Dialectic [The Upward Way]."
I.4 [46] - "On True Happiness (Well Being)"
I.5 [36] - "On Whether Happiness (Well Being) Increases with Time."
I.6 [1] - "On Beauty"
I.7 [54] - "On the Primal Good and Secondary Forms of Good [Otherwise, 'On Happiness']"
I.8 [51] - "On the Nature and Source of Evil"
I.9 [16] - "On Dismissal"
The Second Ennead[edit]
II.1 [40] - "On Heaven"
II.2 [14] - "On the Movement of Heaven"
II.3 [52] - "Whether the Stars are Causes"
II.4 [12] - "On Matter"
II.5 [25] - "On Potentiality and Actuality."
II.6 [17] - "On Quality or on Substance"
II.7 [37] - "On Complete Transfusion"
II.8 [35] - "On Sight or on how Distant Objects Appear Small."
II.9 [33] - "Against Those That Affirm The Creator of the Kosmos and The Kosmos Itself to be Evil: [Generally Quoted as "Against the Gnostics"].
The Third Ennead[edit]
III.1 [3] - "On Fate"
III.2 [47] - "On Providence (1)."
III.3 [48] - "On Providence (2)."
III.4 [15] - "On our Allotted Guardian Spirit"
III.5 [50] - "On Love"
III.6 [26] - "On the Impassivity of the Unembodied"
III.7 [45] - "On Eternity and Time"
III.8 [30] - "On Nature, Contemplation and the One"
III.9 [13] - "Detached Considerations"
The Fourth Ennead[edit]
IV.1 [21] - "On the Essence of the Soul (2)"
IV.2 [4] - "On the Essence of the Soul (1)"
IV.3 [27] - "On Problems of the Soul (1)"
IV.4 [28] - "On Problems of the Soul (2)"
IV.5 [29] - "On Problems of the Soul (3)” [Also known as, "On Sight"].
IV.6 [41] - "On Sense-Perception and Memory"
IV.7 [2] - "On the Immortality of the Soul"
IV.8 [6] - "On the Soul's Descent into Body"
IV.9 [8] - "Are All Souls One"
The Fifth Ennead[edit]
V.1 [10] - "On the Three Primary Hypostases"
V.2 [11] - "On the Origin and Order of the Beings following after the First"
V.3 [49] - "On the Knowing Hypostases and That Which is Beyond"
V.4 [7] - "How That Which is After the First comes from the First, and on the One."
V.5 [32] - "That the Intellectual Beings are not Outside the Intellect, and on the Good"
V.6 [24] - "On the Fact that That Which is Beyond Being Does not Think, and on What is the Primary and the Secondary Thinking Principle"
V.7 [18] - "On whether There are Ideas of Particular Beings"
V.8 [31] - "On the Intelligible Beauty."
V.9 [5] - "On Intellect, the Forms, and Being"
The Sixth Ennead[edit]
VI.1 [42] - "On the Kinds of Being (1)"
VI.2 [43] - "On the Kinds of Being (2)"
VI.3 [44] - "On the Kinds of Being (3)"
VI.4 [22] - "On the Presence of Being, One and the Same, Everywhere as a Whole (1)"
VI.5 [23] - "On the Presence of Being, One and the Same, Everywhere as a Whole (2)"
VI.6 [34] - "On Numbers"
VI.7 [38] - "How the Multiplicity of Forms Came Into Being: and on the Good"
VI.8 [39] - "On Free Will and the Will of the One"
VI.9 [9] - "On the Good, or the One"
In other words, it isn't that we happen to have a manuscript which could have been compiled at any time. We know the Enneads was established in its current form by Plotinus. So we have (a) an original manuscript which had one ordering and then we have (b) Porphyry's explicit testimony that "Against Those That Affirm The Creator of the Kosmos and The Kosmos Itself to be Evil" existed in one place in Plotinus's original manuscript and then he put it ninth in the second book of the six volume Enneads. The point is clearly that we have in fact two attestations to Plotinus's original testimony - Plotinus's and Porphyry's. Now I don't know (nor do I care) how you deal with Porphyry's anti-Christian testimony. But it certainly testifies to the existence of Christians before Nicaea. I am equally certain that you will go to great lengths to disprove this universally acknowledged testimony but no one will be convinced by it except for your lap dog Tanya or whatever name he/she/it goes by now.The numbers in square brackets before the individual works refer to the chronological order they were written according to Porphyry's Life of Plotinus.
Interesting, thanks for that....Leucius Charinus wrote:There are only 2 C14 dating tests that I know of in this category - ie: Christian manuscripts.theomise wrote:Have any unquestionably Christian artifacts (papyri, whatever) actually been carbon-dated to a date range such that at least half the estimated temporal interval antecedes 325AD?
If so, I'd love to see a list.
C14 tests have been conducted on Islamic, Buddhist, Manichaean and Hebrew manuscripts but Christian manuscripts have so far largely escaped this scientific approach.
(1) GOSPEL OF JUDAS
Codex Tchacos, containing the "Gospel of Judas", is one of the Four Qarara Codices. This Tchacos Codex is an ancient Egyptian Coptic papyrus containing four Gnostic texts, and in 2005 samples from it were subjected to radiocarbon dating analysis tests at the University of Arizona, with the result as published in consultation with National Geographic, as 280 CE plus or minus 60 years.
However there are certain "problems" ....
1) the final report for the UA C14 test has not yet been published.
2) one loose fragment tested with the result of 333 CE was discarded.
3) See the preliminary report of Peter Head (below)
(2) AN ETHIOPIAN BIBLE
Recently C14 dated to the late 4th or 5th century?
ADDENDUM
THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS AND THE QARARA CODICES SOME PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS
Peter M. Head, Tyndale Bulletin 58.1 (2007) 1-23.
Dating via C14 The reported results of a carbon 14 analysis of five samples taken from the manuscript and its binding, both the leather and the papyrus used interior to the binding (although the details of this analysis have not yet been published and the report, as we shall see, contains some problems Krosney, 2006: 269-74):[44]
Papyrus from interior of leather cover: AD 209 +/- 58 years;
Loose papyrus from fragments associated with codex: AD 333 +/- 48 years;
Leather with attached papyrus from binding: AD 223 +/- 51 years;
Papyrus from page 9: AD 279 +/- 50 years;
Papyrus from page 33: AD 279 +/- 47 years.
Krosney reports that the anomalous loose fragment, which registered a much later date than the others, was therefore discounted since it ‘was apparently not part of the manuscript’.[45] Combining the four other samples suggested a 95% statistical probability that the codex was created between 220 and 340 AD, with a statistical mean of 280 AD. This, Krosney clearly implies, is more authoritative than the previous estimates based on paleographical analysis.
[44] Krosney, The Lost Gospel: 269-74. The analysis is attributed to Tim Jull, director of the NSF-Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Facility in the University of Arizona, Tucson.
[45] Krosney, The Lost Gospel: 274.
Sure, but is there any actual physical evidence of a circa A.D. 280 origin to this GoJ manuscript, or are we still operating in the realm of speculative sci-fi palaeography?What's more, the Louvre study found that the metal-based inks from this time period contained little sulfur, just like the ink on the Gospel of Judas. The discovery gave the researchers the confidence to declare the document consistent with a date of approximately A.D. 280. (Barabe and his colleagues caution that this finding doesn't prove beyond doubt that the document is authentic, but rather that there are no red flags proving it's a forgery.)
what, precisely, do you mean by this question? C14 dating dates the carbon isotope ratios in the papyrus when it was harvested (excluding contaminants).theomise wrote:
Interesting, thanks for that.... :scratch:
But how, precisely, do we know any of that empirically?
From: http://www.livescience.com/28506-gospel ... icity.html :
Sure, but is there any actual physical evidence of a circa A.D. 280 origin to this GoJ manuscript, or are we still operating in the realm of speculative sci-fi palaeography?What's more, the Louvre study found that the metal-based inks from this time period contained little sulfur, just like the ink on the Gospel of Judas. The discovery gave the researchers the confidence to declare the document consistent with a date of approximately A.D. 280. (Barabe and his colleagues caution that this finding doesn't prove beyond doubt that the document is authentic, but rather that there are no red flags proving it's a forgery.)
I repeat Pete's question.Peter Kirby wrote:It might even be an interesting exercise to start from this time period and work backwards on a more sure footing, discarding what doesn't come up with actual evidence.
bcedaifu, describing the “discovery” of a fragment of ancient Greek text at Dura Europos in 1936, wrote: This papyrus scrap had been "found", conveniently, by a workman, in a bucket of dirt ...
I deny that anyone has commented on the points offered by me, in exposing the absurd fraud that the “oldest house church” had been discovered at Dura Europos.Stephan Huller wrote: We've gone over and over and over this over. No one but the terminally demented sees this discovery as anything other than the final proof (as if it was needed) that Pete's theory is unworkable. If you won't accept the irrefutability of the testimony there's nothing more to say.