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To: kosta50; kawaii; Kolokotronis

Excuse me but aren’t you the one who is always claiming the gospels were not written down for the first 300 years? It was all by oral recital. If that is the case, what they spoke makes no difference at all because it was never recorded until the Greeks came along.


335 posted on 05/12/2007 6:08:46 PM PDT by HarleyD
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To: HarleyD; kosta50; kawaii

“Excuse me but aren’t you the one who is always claiming the gospels were not written down for the first 300 years? It was all by oral recital.”

You never heard that from me, HD. They certainly were written down and within the 1st century. Maybe you are thinking of the establishment of the canon of the NT being as a practical matter accomplished in the 4th century.


336 posted on 05/12/2007 6:31:01 PM PDT by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: HarleyD; kawaii; Kolokotronis

No. The Gospels and the Epistles were written in the 1st century. Th oldest complete canon of the NT we have is a 4th century copy of copies of the originals (which don't exist lor exist but have not been found yet).

The oldest copies of the 1st century originals are 2nd and 3rd century shreds (i.e. "fragments") most of which contain only parts of the books of the NT, some only a dozen verses.

Thus we really don't know what the originals looked like. But we do know that they vary from fragment to fragment. The oldest fragment of all is dated c. 125 AD and contains the Gospels of John. The heading doesn't say "According to John." All it says is α (alpha, used as number 1, for first page). Someone added "According to John" in subsequent copies.

Typical fragment (shred) of a 2nd century portion of John (18:36 - 19:7)

The oldest complete copy of the NT can be found is Codex Sinaiticus, mid 4th century

This may give you a better idea what the oldest "Gospels" look like. So, while there is no doubt that Gospels/Epistles were written in the 1st century, based on the surviving accounts of early church Fathers, we not only don't have even fragments but we don't even have complete copies of the copies of the copies all the way to the 4th century!

Now, unlike the Masoretic scribes, the Christian scribes were not nearly as neat, so various copies vary in content and every other possible variation. Even the two oldest complete bibles (Sinaiticus, already mentioned, and Codex Vaticanus) show considerable variation, which only gets worse with the 5th century Codex Alexandrinus, which is heavily redacted and edited.

It was the last source that was used for the so-called 'Majority Text' or MT (a flood of Greek language copies of copies with their own redactions, additions and deletions, three of which eventually ended up on Tyndale's desk in the 16th century.

Tyndale used two 13th century completely unreliable copies of the Majority Text to create what is known as Textus Receptus or TR. Tyndale used Latin Vulgate Bible as the source of those parts missing Greek text, and even translated part of the John's Revelation from Latin into Greek (with multiple errors!) and passed his TR as a "genuine Greek text."

TR was, in turn, used by the English as a "genuine" Greek text (!) to make the (in)famous King James Bible that all the English speaking countries use as 'true' word of God!

Care to hear more?

339 posted on 05/12/2007 8:41:51 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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