Posted on 03/04/2014 1:45:58 PM PST by NYer
Yes, but that’s not the only reason it’s thought to be spurious. There are other points that weigh against it, such as expressions in the writing that would not be used by a Roman, the complete lack of provenance of the letter, and the very late date of “discovery”, which coincided with a period in which forgeries of this type were very common.
I don’t know about pilot, but a friend said, instead of “God is my co-pilot” he preferred to say “God is my navigator.” I guess that I can and do say “Jesus is my navigator” for He puts me on the true path, and reminds me to get back on course when I stray off of it.
Some "Christians" did the same type of thing in those days to the Septuagint, copying back into it the words reinterpreted by Paul and other New Testament writers of the Greek, such that some dim-witted translator/exegetes of today make claim that Jesus and other Christ-followers used the LXX and not the Hebrew texts as their Scriptures, using these insertions a "proof" that LXX was a better and approved version used by the Hellenized Jewish hoi polloi of that day.
This, of course, is a great flaw of the Greek Orthodoxen relying on the Septuagint as a reliable version of the Old Testament (which the English Authorized Version translation does not).
Material that does not survive in manuscript form is, even in the best of states, could only be put forward extremely loosely as “from the Roman archives.” That such a notable alleged manuscript might be simultaneously overlooked, lavishly bound, and conveniently lost taxes the limits of credibility beyond at least my own breaking point.
Good book. God is my copilot by Robert Scott. As a kid I saw the movie so I bought the book in the 9th grade. That was 50 years ago and I still am a big fan of the AVG/ flying tigers and the P-40 tomahawk /war hawk.
Oh I did correct the pilot/ Pilate thing the very next post.
“some dim-witted translator/exegetes of today make claim that Jesus and other Christ-followers used the LXX and not the Hebrew texts as their Scriptures...”
Yes, I’ve run into a few that tried to make that argument around here, and extend it to some silly lengths.
The Letter of Lentulus does exist, in Latin. It is thought to have been written in Greek in its original. So while the Greek manuscript from which it is drawn hasn’t surfaced the oldest dated Latin document is in the archive in Rome. I never mentioned anything lavishly bound, and even if it is simply apocryphal, it is not by any stretch overlooked - as it is still studied today by Catholic scholars. Lentulus is a historical personage mentioned in the Res Gestae Divi Augusti - the ancient annals of Rome. The medieval scholars who transcribed from the Vatican original (Codex Harleianus 2729) in the 15th Century said the manuscript was found inside the volume, and they found it notable enough to widely disseminate the letter into all the Catholic lands of Europe. My point has been that the humanists who had been the first to call the letter fraudulent based that judgement on the fact that no Publius Lentulus was known to be Governor of Judea, a false flag since it is now known that while no Governor of Judea bore this name a consul living at the time of Christ did. Therefore a consideration for authenticity bears greater attention. I won’t tax you with explaining the functions of a consul in ancient Rome, or to whom they might send their letters - but I will state that the Latin manuscript of the letter does exist, it (along with at least 16 translations - out of some 98 known- into common languages including English and German) rests in the Vatican archives in Rome.
I would suggest any serious scholars or those interested visit Bill Thayer’s website for his excellent ancient Greek to Latin to English translators and read some of his excellent works on Roman and American History. For starters try his LacusCurtius where many ancient texts can be found in their translations.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html
Ummm.
Bookmarked.
That’s interesting. What would the color of “new wine” look like?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.