mlinssen wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 2:05 am
Leucius Charinus wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:30 am
mlinssen wrote: ↑Thu Aug 11, 2022 7:29 am
Diving into the texts in this regard unfortunately means reading the original MSS in the original language
That's all well enough for the
NHL+ Coptic MSS because they have been buried for 16 centuries or more during which time they could not have been tampered with. These are either the original MSS or one step removed. Example = Coptic Gospel of Thomas MS likely from the 4th century
OTOH the
MSS of the Church Fathers are often a thousand years removed from whatever originals may have existed and so this is a completely different card game.
These MSS have likely been curated by the church industry during MSS transmission. Some people here appear to assume that the church operated a process of immaculate transmission. A proposition which is sheer lunacy. Example = Latin MSS of the Greek writer Irenaeus "Against Heresies" likely from the 11th century.
Agreed. And the way to find is not by reading their falsified English translations, but but reading the original texts themselves
But what is your theory about how you'd be able to find out?
I will repeat what I wrote above:
LC wrote:
I have relentlessly attempted to falsify my theory (that the church has lied about everything - including the chronology) by seeking out some corroborating historical evidence external to the church sources which supports the church sources as being the historical truth. That is how one would falsify my theory. If you think this is not the scientific requirement of falsification, or you think I have not applied myself to this requirement, then you are in error.
Theories in ancient history may be falsified quite readily if specific evidence is adduced and brought forward which conflicts with the proposition.
However theories are generally NEVER proven rather they lead to PROVISIONAL conclusions.
How can you prove your theory?
As mentioned above "proving" a theory is not IMO really possible in the field of ancient history because there are so many unknowns and these usually completely outweigh what we think we know. The best result of any theory in ancient history, as I have stated many times, is a provisional conclusion.
The best evidence I have located so far which has the capacity to refute the theory that the church fathers are fabricated are two items from Dura Europos, way out on the Roman-Persian border. These are:
1) The Dura Europos "house-church":
Here Yale Divinity College via Clark Hopkins claim the existence of one "religious room" in a private house adjacent to the Secondary Gate of the city as "Christian" due to the existence of a) murals which (they claim) depict Jesus, and b) Christian nomina sacra etched on the walls. I reject the claim that these graffiti are "nomina sacra" because in the Preliminary report there are no supra-linears AND the fact that Clerk Hopkins writes in the conclusion of that report that in effect
"overbars may not be necessary in such short inscriptions",
IOW Hopkins never saw any supralinears and they were added in the Final Report. This is written up in an article entitled: "The Runes of Christ at Dura Europos"
https://www.academia.edu/38115589/The_R ... ra_Europos
2) Dura Parchment 24
This is a "harmony gospel" and generally dated by archeological stratification to have been buried beneath the rampart build by the defending Roman army when the Persians attacked the city c.256 CE. It is not evidence of canonical Christian literature. Everyone assumes that the canonical gospels precede the harmony gospel and the harmony gospel was formed by combining bits and pieces of the canonical gospels. But there is an alternative proposition that the 4 canonical gospels could have been extracted from a longer single narrative which we refer to as a "harmony gospel". At the moment I know of no physical evidence which would tell us the direction of dependence. Brent Nongbri writes that we have no physical evidence that must be earlier than the 3rd century.
One of the Core principles for determining reliability using the historical method is that
"Any given source may be forged or corrupted."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method
I view all the manuscripts which are preserved by the church [industry] to be ultimately from one source = the church [industry]. Therefore I think it is reasonable to hold the view that the church has forged and corrupted the MSS of the FF. Of course it is necessary for me to seek out independent evidence (external to the church) which supports the narrative of the FF and I have done this as described above.