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Dodging again. Why wouldn't such an important message be preserved?
It appears that you are just being argumentative....The message was preserved, how is not relevant, unless one considers that the entire Bible is inspired by Jehovah, then you will understand why it is the only book of human history that is still around since the first writings in 1513 BCE
I think that you'll agree that if God had inspired someone to write about Jesus before Paul God certainly would have gone to great pains to see that it was preserved. Or do you disagree with that? Would God have inspired a scribe, as opana suggests, to write down these incredible happenings of Jesus and then allowed them to get lost?
Again, God who can do all things would have seen to it that the scribe's documentation or any documentation written about Jesus would have been preserved. That nothing was preserved indicates either that nothing got written or God just didn't care enough to make sure it did get preserved. No other explanation is possible.
Why would God preserve the personal notes of someone who may have jotted down something that Jesus said at the time He said it, assuming that any were made, when even the accounts of 'many' referred to by Luke which were compiled were not preserved down to our time? What the New Testament writers recorded however have come down to us because the manuscripts were copied over and over.
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If it was an oral culture then the gospels would never have gotten written, certainly not by the apostles purported to have written them since they would have committed them to paper instantly if they had any intention in the first place. I'm sure they didn't wake up one morning 40 years later and say, "You know what/ I should write a gospel of everything Jesus did 40 years ago.
This demonstrates the likelihood that the gospels indeed were written by very educated Greek scholars who were writing perhaps a passion stage play which was a very popular form of literature in that time:
There was certainly an oral culture. Luke refers to the oral culture when he refers to the things which were handed down to us. (Luke 1:1-2).
Many had compiled written accounts from those oral traditions which had been handed down.
Luke 1:1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, 2] just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3] It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus;
That the Gospel message was rapidly spread orally in the beginning is indicated in Acts 2:47; 6:7; 9:31; 12:24; 13:49; 16:5; 19:20; and 28:31.
The apostles were concerned about spreading the Gospel message, and the fastest way to do that was orally. Since there was an oral culture, and since the Gospels were later written, your assumption is incorrect.
By the way, John 21:24 compared with John 21:20-23 makes it clear that the Gospel of John was written by the disciple whom Jesus loved, which most take to be the apostle John. Therefore, the Gospel of John was written by an eye witness of Jesus.
Brent Nongbri has produced a broader study of the codex (P66) and argued that when one takes into consideration the format, construction techniques, and provenance of the codex along with the handwriting, it is more reasonable to conclude that the codex was produced "in the early or middle part of the fourth century." Wikipedia
And it's not even a complete copy.
No, I don't play with the facts and I don't appreciate the claim that I do.
Here is the quote from Wikipedia concerning Nongbri's argument.
The manuscript contains John 1:1-6:11, 6:35b-14:26, 29-30; 15:2-26; 16:2-4, 6-7; 16:10-20:20, 22-23; 20:25-21:9, 12, 17. It is one of the oldest well-preserved New Testament manuscripts known to exist. Its original editor assigned the codex to the early third century, or around AD 200, on the basis of the style of handwriting in the codex.[1] Herbert Hunger later claimed that the handwriting should be dated to an earlier period in the middle or early part of the second century.[2] More recently, Brent Nongbri has produced a broader study of the codex and argued that when one takes into consideration the format, construction techniques, and provenance of the codex along with the handwriting, it is more reasonable to conclude that the codex was produced "in the early or middle part of the fourth century." [Bolding mine] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_66
You are quoting the opinion of one scholar.
However, as Bruce M. Metzger writes concerning P66;
The most important discoveries of New Testament manuscripts since the purchase of the Chester Beatty papyri are the acquisitions made by the Genevan bibliophile and humanist Martin Bodmer, founder of the Bodmer Library of World Literature at Cologny, a suburb of Geneva. One of the oldest considerable portions of the Greek New Testament is a papyrus codex of the Gospel of John. Bodmer Papyrus II, which was published in 1956 by Victor Martin, professor of classical philology at the University of Geneva.
According to its editor, the manuscript dates from about A.D. 200. It measures about 6 by 5 1/2 inches and consists of six quires, of which 104 pages remain. These contain the text of John 1.1-6.11 and 6.35b-14.15. Subsequently, fragments of 46 other pages of the same codex were also acquired by Bodmer and edited as a supplement by Martin (1958). Since most of these fragments are small, some of them mere scraps, the amount of text of John 14-21 that has been preserved is not great.
The Text of the New Testament, Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Fourth Edition, 2005, Bruce M. Metzger, Bart Ehrman, pp. 56-57
New Testament scholar and textual critic Dan Wallace, puts the date of manuscript P66 to c. A.D. 175. He refers to it at 39:35 into the following video.
No, I don't play with the facts and I don't appreciate the claim that I do.
Here is the quote from Wikipedia concerning Nongbri's argument.
The manuscript contains John 1:1-6:11, 6:35b-14:26, 29-30; 15:2-26; 16:2-4, 6-7; 16:10-20:20, 22-23; 20:25-21:9, 12, 17. It is one of the oldest well-preserved New Testament manuscripts known to exist. Its original editor assigned the codex to the early third century, or around AD 200, on the basis of the style of handwriting in the codex.[1] Herbert Hunger later claimed that the handwriting should be dated to an earlier period in the middle or early part of the second century.[2] More recently, Brent Nongbri has produced a broader study of the codex and argued that when one takes into consideration the format, construction techniques, and provenance of the codex along with the handwriting, it is more reasonable to conclude that the codex was produced "in the early or middle part of the fourth century." [Bolding mine] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_66
You are quoting the opinion of one scholar.
However, as Bruce M. Metzger writes concerning P66;
The most important discoveries of New Testament manuscripts since the purchase of the Chester Beatty papyri are the acquisitions made by the Genevan bibliophile and humanist Martin Bodmer, founder of the Bodmer Library of World Literature at Cologny, a suburb of Geneva. One of the oldest considerable portions of the Greek New Testament is a papyrus codex of the Gospel of John. Bodmer Papyrus II, which was published in 1956 by Victor Martin, professor of classical philology at the University of Geneva.
According to its editor, the manuscript dates from about A.D. 200. It measures about 6 by 5 1/2 inches and consists of six quires, of which 104 pages remain. These contain the text of John 1.1-6.11 and 6.35b-14.15. Subsequently, fragments of 46 other pages of the same codex were also acquired by Bodmer and edited as a supplement by Martin (1958). Since most of these fragments are small, some of them mere scraps, the amount of text of John 14-21 that has been preserved is not great.
The Text of the New Testament, Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Fourth Edition, 2005, Bruce M. Metzger, Bart Ehrman, pp. 56-57
New Testament scholar and textual critic Dan Wallace, puts the date of manuscript P66 to c. A.D. 175. He refers to it at 39:35 into the following video.
....The message was preserved, how is not relevant, unless one considers that the entire Bible is inspired by Jehovah, then you will understand why it is the only book of human history that is still around since the first writings in 1513 BCE
The most important message ever sent to mankind and nobody wrote his words down as they were spoken? Nobody could hire a scribe? What's up with that?
It is amazing that some think to be true it must be hot off the press. Yet I bet that they believe the historical record of Plato, Cesar, Nero, are true.
God has a perfect memory and He inspired the NT writers what to write
Actually Matthew and John may well have written it down and used their notes for their Gospels years later, then trashed their notes as many people do. Inspiration would give the wording and need the timing. In fact they all may have written down notes and only a couple were either alive or appointed to write t he accounts in full book/scroll formfor the apostles. Many possibilities. In addition it is understood that many original epistles and potentially one or more Gospels were in the hands of the "Church" in Constantinople and were destroyed when the Moslem's conquered the city, just as many original OT writings may well have been destroyed when the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. The Bible is the most documented ancient book in existence. People are free to accept it or not. It is actually better that the originals do not exist or people would be worshiping paper today, as they do images, so-called pieces of the cross and saints bones, fingers, etc.
Well what about this Hindu document then? Also Rig Vida means the extra time introduced into the Hebrew calendar to make up for the discrepancies in the moon phases.
It is amazing that some think to be true it must be hot off the press. Yet I bet that they believe the historical record of Plato, Cesar, Nero, are true.
God has a perfect memory and He inspired the NT writers what to write
And what about the notes of Socrates? It is said t hat Socrates never wrote anything down, so how do we have his philosophy today?
It appears that you are just being argumentative....The message was preserved, how is not relevant, unless one considers that the entire Bible is inspired by Jehovah, then you will understand why it is the only book of human history that is still around since the first writings in 1513 BCE
It's a question of validity. Words so important should be documented by reputable sources. It is extremely unreasonable for a higher being to put so much importance on information that cannot be verified. You would consider any other religion using this information as being unsubstantiated and false.
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