(January 16, 2015 at 6:43 pm)goodwithoutgod Wrote:(January 16, 2015 at 6:30 pm)bob96 Wrote: None of the purposes of the council that you refer to in the Wikipedia article are actually mentioned. It seems you are getting your ideas from somewhere else.
The article actually states:
"A number of erroneous views have been stated regarding the council's role in establishing the biblical canon. In fact, there is no record of any discussion of the biblical canon at the council at all.[66]"
Creation of Old testament.
Today we know that the Judean priests cooked up/assembled Genesis for political reasons in Babylon as a text for reference for the return, to provide a national story and a legal system for a basis for the return. They did it around 575-550 BCE, in order to promote political unity during a crisis caused by the exilic experience in Babylon, after having written the book of Job, (as an attempted "spiritual" response to the question of suffering). While the "Persian Imperative" is now discounted by scholars, it was probably on the right track in some ways, i.e. the unification of the warring priestly class with the Yahwist land owners into a unified, post exile state. In any case in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah it describes the Return from Babylon, with Ezra carrying two things, ... the letter from Artaxerxes giving him and the King the power to rule in his name, and the Torah of Moses --- the first time in human history what is now the beginnings of "The Bible" (The Scroll of Moses), are ever mentioned.
Using the fact that archaeology has proven that the domestication of camels did not occur in the Ancient Near East until after 1000 BCE, the fact that camels have not been portrayed on pottery, ceramics, buildings and decorations earlier than 1000 BCE, (except on royal buildings), we know they were not a regular, general part of their culture. That and the fact that the Sea Peoples (aka Philistines) did not arrive in the Levant until about 1200 BCE tells us that the dating of any possible Genesis as real history is impossible before that. We know from location citing, that the Patriarchs were not related, and that the priest-authors invented the "family" of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, meaning that the Patriarchs are mythological, as well as unrelated. Camels were used in the Southern trade route to Arabia, where they transported the gum, ointments, tragacanth and labdanum mentioned in Genesis. The trade was at it's height around 700 BCE, making it the approximate likely date for Joseph, in case he ever existed. That being said, he was probably a myth as well.
How do we know that? Because Genesis is a conflation of J-1, the Yahwist-1 source, with J-2, E, and P. The "4 source hypothesis" was originally proposed by the French phsyician Jean Astruc in his monumental work, published in 1753, which forever changed our view of the Bible and the way it was written. His discovery forms the basis of present day scholarship by every mainline Biblical Studies department in the world and is confirmed by most scholars, including Dr. Cuthbert Simpson, who was Sub-Dean and Professor of Old Testament at the General Theological Seminary, in the US, in his chapter of Albright's Interpreter's Bible.
The most important early historical person we know of in the history of Isra-EL is Deborah. She organized the tribes (Judges 5) in combating their neighbors. Judaism should therefore rather be called Debra-ism. She is the Mother of the Nation and actually existed, whereas Abraham did not.
Jean Astruc noticed that the name of God alternated in the Genesis text and he and scholars in the years to follow, were able to figure out what the probable source documents were. They separated the ones that were used by the Judean priests, who combined the J-1 (Yahwist doc) with J-2 and E (Elohim doc) and added their own P (Priestly) material. There is also evidence for further work, which is called "R" for "redactor". This multiple source "hypothesis", has been accepted by scholars for hundreds of years, except for a very small radical fringe of fundamentalists who refuse to accept the facts that are lying right in front of them. The reason Abraham was created as "Father of the Nation", is that he was associated with local geographical sites from the Kingdom of Judah. The Judean priests were trying to centralize and give importance to their own location in Judah by making Abraham hold primacy of importance, thus giving Judah, (and themselves) primacy. This is all proven by the archaeology. There is another theory which proposes that since J is more concerned with women, women's issues and more sensitive to women, that at least one of the major authors of J was a female. Dr. Richard Elliot Friedman does not discount this. In fact, in his book "Who Wrote the Bible?", written in 1987, Dr. Friedman raised the question of whether or not J was a woman. In comparing J with E, he pointed out that the J documents originate from the Judean court, "from a circle in which both men and women had a certain status. The possibility of J being a woman is thus much more likely than with E. More important, the J stories are, on the whole, much more concerned with women and much more sensitive to women than are the E stories."
This became what is known in Biblical scholarship as the Source Hypothesis, or Documentary Hypothesis. There is no longer any dispute in scholarly circles about this hypothesis. Why ? Because it it confirmed by 6, independent sets of supporting evidence.
1. The linguistic dialect in each source is known, and can be documented as separate by decades, or longer.
2. The terminology for the same idea, person, object, or place is different in each source.
3. The content of each of the sources is different.
4. The "flow" of the story works if the source materials are combined.
5. The same known sources are similar or connect to the same known sources in other books.
6. The inferred political motivations for each source matches the material and it's apparent goals.
A lot of the J traditions came from Sumeria, the Enuma Elish and the Gilgamesh Epic. They were used as sources for the Creation myth and the Flood myth.
Compilation of the New Testament
The assemblage of the New Testament is a very interesting process and a highly complex one. It can, however, by summarized relatively simply as follows.
Various Christians wrote books explaining the history of the Christian Church (including Gospels about the life of Christ and more general histories such as the Acts of the Apostles) and letters addressed to specific communities and persons (such as the letters of Saint Paul) and also what are best considered to be “open letters” (such as Hebrews). There were hundreds of different documents circulating around, all of them purporting to the authentic Christian teaching and accurate history and doctrine.
However, many of these documents were not what they claimed to be – they were forgeries not written by the people whose names they bore, or were heretical documents advancing novel notions about Christ. Some of these documents have survived today – examples are the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Thomas. Neither of these documents were written by their alleged authors – they are late forgeries designed to cash in on the success and popularity of Christianity.
Out of all these hundreds of documents – many of them forgeries – the current 27 book New Testament appeared. This process took a long time – roughly 300 years went by from the writing of the last book of the New Testament (Revelation) until the list was finalized.
The list was compiled by the bishops of the Catholic Church. Initially, local canons were assembled by individual bishops. These canons were lists of books which could be read aloud in Churches at Mass. Despite the fact that these canons were independently assembled they bore a great deal of similarity to each other – because the Catholic bishops were all using the same criteria to determine which books should be included. They looked to see if the books were written by an apostle or someone who was reporting the words of an apostle. They checked to see how much the book was being used by other bishops and priests in their Masses, and also looked at how often the book was quoted by the Church Fathers in their writings. Only those books which “scored” favorably on all three of these criteria made it into their canons.
In the early fourth century Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire and it became possible for the bishops to meet without being imprisoned or killed by the pagan authorities. Beginning in the late fourth century and continuing until the very early fifth century the Catholic Church met at a number of councils where the canon of the Bible was debated. Since Emperor Constantine made christianity the official religion, and banned all others under threat of death, it spread quickly...
That work better for you?
No, not really. With the NT, there is no still no mention of contradictory texts, oral traditions, or that they wanted to tell their own version of the account.
I agree completely with the NT account provided.
"Initially, local canons were assembled by individual bishops. These canons were lists of books which could be read aloud in Churches at Mass. Despite the fact that these canons were independently assembled they bore a great deal of similarity to each other – because the Catholic bishops were all using the same criteria to determine which books should be included. "
No Nicean Council involvement. The NT was assembled separately multiple times, and they all came to similar conclusions.
Can you please explain who these scholars are that discount the OT writing process and why they oppose it?.
Isn't it interesting how Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire? They had the best minds in the world. As they conquered nation after nation, they took the best of their weapons and military tactics. They incorporated the Greeks philosophy and logical thinking. They took the best of the best wherever they found it. They had been exposed to many religions, and eventually, they chose Christianity. They were so sure it was right that they banned every other religion.
(Oops. Argument from authority again! : )
This is why the year is "2015". We count the years from the birth of Christ.
