dating the birth stories?

[cora]

Bernard,
I read "speculations", "opinions" etc. Well you think you are some kind of authority because you have studied this many years. You know what? I did the same, and more people on this forum did, so there is no difference there. But you are supported by "evidence". Now I must laugh: the problem with Christianity is, is that there IS NO EVIDENCE. The only thing they are hanging on is a partial TF from 93, of which I can prove now double that it is a forgery. There is nothing more from the 1st century. And Josephus cannot write about Jesus, when that name comes from Justin, can he?
I think you are the ridiculous type that is trying to prove the bible from the bible. The bible says X, how do we know it is true, because it is in the bible. Don't make me laugh. I saw on a video some evangelical from the USA proving the so-called resurrection from the gospels. That is the last time I listened to a type like that. It seems you are such a type.
I don't care how many Christian writings or studies you mention, because Christians do anything to prove their point. Point is there is no evidence been found anywhere. As for internal evidence, that is proving the gospels from the gospels, that is laughable. Do you really think that Irenaeus is not capable of writing as if it is the year 70? Think twice. It is certain that he put the names on them: no name has ever been mentioned before. In fact no gospel has ever been mentioned before 185, this has been researched more than once. So I am never speculating, everything I say has been researched and is in books and articles and on the internet. I am only not telling which page in what, because I am not writing for my PhD, I am just investigating because I want to know the truth which is obviously not in Christian writings. Hating the catholic church? Well I used to be a catholic myself, but after finding out what they all did, especially BEFORE they were the catholic church, I can only conclude that it is all lies.
It has been found that Marcion put Isu Chrestos on his churches, and Marcion used only Paul (letters and gospel). Now it has been found out that Paul used in his letters also Isu Chrestos. That means that Paul and Marcion had never heard of Jesus Christ. And that means that Paul's letters have been forged, and that the Acts are fake (as many people know already).
Is this an opinion? Is this speculation? No, not at all. It is collecting REAL evidence, and being logical.

You cannot use logic. You try to prove that the Logos can be translated with the Word, from the BIBLE again, quoting extensively from John. Well, John wrote the Logos, and he did not intent Irenaeus making the Word of it. You are pointing to one of Irenaeus' forgeries to make a point. And that is very stupid. You seemingly take the bible literally, including forgeries and fake. And yes, John was a gnostic chrestian and the gospel is also gnostic. You see? You do not even see the difference with the other three. And to make it complete: John's gospel has exactly the same message as Paul. They knew each other probably. The first line of the prologue of John was written by Plato, the inventer of the gnostic religion. Is this enough?
Or are you now going to prove to me Noah and the Flood, because it is in the bible?
I have had more than enough of your study and of your so-called evidence. Evidence of what? Evidence of a historical Jesus whose name still had to be invented around 160? There is no evidence. There is no Jesus. It is a scam by the church of rome. Against Marcion and Paul because of their other god, which was just the gnostic god.
Please bother me no more, please leave me alone.
The word "logic" comes from the "Logos", maybe this shows that it is not about Word.
Cora.

[MrMacSon]

Greek philosopher Heraclitus (600 BC) is said to have been the first to apply the word “logos” to what he considered to be divine reason which, he surmised, coordinated the universe. The “logos” was not a person in Heraclitus’ view, but rather wisdom, a kind of power or influence.

Plato furthered the idea by teaching that the “logos” was a part of the divine triad: The Good, Ideas (Logos), and the World-Spirit. He did not think that Logos (wisdom, reason, etc.) was a literal person, but rather a governing principle or force. This divine triad would later give rise to the idea of a triune God.

Plato had a dualistic worldview in which he imagined a higher world of the “Forms” or “Ideas” and a lower world of matter. As a student of the famous philosopher, Socrates, Plato believed that all souls literally pre-existed in heaven before coming down, incarnated on the earth. It has been proposed that early Christian uptake of belief in the eternality of souls made it possible for Christians to embrace the concept of Jesus’ pre-existence before being incarnated in Mary’s womb (even though this idea was foreign to traditional Hebrew thought found in the Bible, where all things first “existed” with God in His plan or foreknowledge, but not in a literal sense).

Philo used philosophical allegory in an attempt to harmonize the Torah with Greek philosophy. He believed that God was impersonal, and that He created and governed the world through mediators and the Logos, although not a person, was the chief or highest mediator, a kind of “first born of God.” To Philo, Logos was neither uncreated as God is or created as man is; rather Logos occupies the middle ground and has no power of its own. Logos was both the agent of creation and the agent through which the human mind can comprehend God. In other words, we could come to know God through Wisdom or Logos.

To Philo (from the left-hand column here; points reproduced out of order) -

.
Logos is a “constitutive element of the Creator God’s identity . . . Philo claims that God cannot exist without [His] logos...because...the logos functions as the very 'thoughts,' rationality,' 'creative logic, and 'mind' of Israel’s supreme God. . . [Philo employs] the same titles to describe God and the logos.”

“Logos was personified and thus … able to act independently of God. . . To preserve the absolute transcendence and otherness of God, he depicts the logos in this intermediary role.”

God is unknowable. The divine logos is made known.

Logos is the ambassador from God to humankind . . . Logos stands on the border between God and everything he has made.

God has placed the logos within creation to be the agency of divine providence in every part of it.

God is immutable. The divine logos is mutable. The logos can enter the corporeal realm.

The logos is able to enter into the created, corporeal world that God has made.

https://vridar.org/2019/01/28/philos-an ... -the-word/

Justin Martyr followed Philo in saying that God created the Logos but went further in claiming it was the pre-imminent incarnation of Christ who was God who created the world. Throughout his First Apology, Justin argues that Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the Logos, which leads him to the proof that any individual who has spoken with reason, even those who lived before Christ, connected with the logos in the form of Christ, and was and is thus, in fact, a Christian (1 Apol. 46).

For Justin, Christianity represented the full truth ie. Logos, meaning that Christianity was not only a meaningful philosophy, but it also completes and corrects prior thought to achieve the highest level of knowledge and reason. Justin’s theory came to be known as “Logos Christology,” and it greatly influenced Church doctrine.

Wendy E Helleman, Justin Martyr and theLogos: an Apologetic Strategy, 2002

R.M. Price, Hellenization and Logos Doctrine in Justin Martyr, 1988.

[hakeem]

Justin Martyr followed Philo in saying that God created the Logos but went further in claiming it was the pre-imminent incarnation of Christ who was God who created the world. Throughout his First Apology, Justin argues that Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the Logos, which leads him to the proof that any individual who has spoken with reason, even those who lived before Christ, connected with the logos in the form of Christ, and was and is thus, in fact, a Christian (1 Apol. 46).....

If one could be a Christian before Christ then the birth of Christ was not necessary.

[Bernard Muller]

In Psalm 33:6, the LXX has Logos ('λόγῳ') associated to the creation of the heavens as per Genesis 1:8, 14-17
By the word of Jehovah The heavens have been made, And by the breath of His mouth all their host.
33:6 (LXX 32:6) 'τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ κυρίου οἱ οὐρανοὶ ἐστερεώθησαν καὶ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ πᾶσα ἡ δύναμις αὐτῶν'

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

Does anyone has a picture of the Marcionite inscription on an ancient church in Lebabon?
Which, according to Cora has "Isu".

Cordially, Bernard

[Ben C. Smith]

Does anyone has a picture of the Marcionite inscription on an ancient church in Lebabon?
Which, according to Cora has "Isu".

Cordially, Bernard

Is it this one? Also in L. Michael White, Texts and Monuments for the Christian Domus Ecclesiae in Its Environment, page 140:

L. Michael White, Page 140.png (130.88 KiB) Viewed 3457 times

A quick search yields an old thread asking a similar question, and that is the inscription being referred to in the links. If it is another inscription, we may need more information.

[Bernard Muller]

Thanks, Ben
Yes this is the one I was looking after.

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

to Cora,

The oldest church found was from Marcion and there is chiselled there above the door: Isu Chrestos.

But this is not what was inscribed in ancient Lebaba:



Cordially, Bernard

[cora]

How does anyone dare to come with an inscription that reads CHRESTOS, which is translated by some idiot with Christ???????
I found that ISU was taken from a Marcionite writing.
We are not now in 120 but in 318, the catholic church is in power now, which could mean they now had to adapt to IE simply to stay open. This seem likely to me. Anyhow there is evidence of CHRESTOS.
Cora.

[Bernard Muller]

to Cora,

I found that ISU was taken from a Marcionite writing.

Which writing?

Cordially, Bernard