The first Christians weren't Bible Christians

[Phatt Matt s]

T ? Who the beautiful coitus am I ? Why does that have anything to do with a thinking discussion?

No I do not mind you, and hope to see more subject and less adjectival commonality...

Study more means:

About all the history in a range to about to other's doubting's of historical “records sources" to back to believers stating "the word is the power of God unto salvation"

all that , in that range, if it were
seems

Ehrman has more than a couple boo-boos:

https://www.google.com/search?q=ehrman%2...s&ie=UTF-8

then I searched one I have read since 1976…
seems a bit more scholarly by any comparison:

https://www.google.com/search?q=derek+pr...h&ie=UTF-8


please study around a bit for a few years, then
realize it will only be not about some "convincing" either way, but by a relative 'revelation' which seems to have been why a Peter answered Jesus: "you are the annointed-one, son of yhwh/God " that "flesh did not reveal to" Peter, ... that's all.

Good Night
and God Speed.

Am I the only one who thinks this guy/girl is hilarious!

Really I appreciate what you have to say and I'm gonna give you a rep point. Please keep talking. YOu are a unique individual and the more you talk the more my life is enhanced with laughter. No offense. I don't know what I'd do without ya!

God bless you my friend. Please keep talking. Don't stop!

[Aractus]

What you said about the Catholic Church not knowing what the correct canon was until the 16th Century is a cherished myth void of truth and can easily be proven so.

You haven't tried to trace the history of the LXX and Apocrypha. If you had this would be a very different discussion. The Latin Vulgate has its own Apocrypha section of three books rejected from the scriptures at the time, banished from the canon, and still rejected by Catholics, Protestants and Jews.

The Jewish canon can be traced all the way back to Christ very nicely. It is arranged into 3 sections - "Law", "Prophets" and "Writings"/"Psalms". There's overwhelming evidence for this, and this is the version of scriptures that Jesus is familiar with:

• Luke 24:44: Then (Jesus) said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

The structure of the LXX is different and is: Law, History Wisdom, Prophets. We can trace the Hebrew structure as it is in the MT back before Christ, we can trace the LXX structure to the 5th column of the Hexapla, that's where the order comes from, and in fact that's the first time we ever find the Apocrypha alongside the scriptures (as you mentioned, Tobit was found in the DSS alongside scriptures and plenty of non-scriptures). We never hear any mention of these 4 categories until the Hexapla.

There are six bodies of text that contemporary scholars consult for the Old Testament:

1. Masoretic Text (10th century)
   
2. Qumran Text (2nd cent BC-2nd cent AD)
   
3. Samaritan Pentateuch (composition c. 200-100 BC, earliest copy 11th century AD)
   
4. Septuagint (composition c. 1st cent BC-2nd cent AD - no complete ancient manuscripts of the LXX) Main Manuscripts: Codex Marchalianus (6th cent.), Codex Vaticanus (4th cent.), Codex Sinaiticus (4th cent.), Codex Alexandrinus (5th cent.), Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (5th cent.) and, finally Codex Chisianus (9th cent. and the only manuscript to contain the LXX book of Daniel as it appeared in the Hexapla, besides the fragmentary P967).
   
5. The Peshitta (Syriac, Authors unknown, date unknown).
   
6. Vulgate (Latin, early 5th cent. the primary textual basis for the OT followed the LXX as it appeared in the Hexapla with the exception of Daniel which followed Theodotion's Daniel).

The other Greek translations - aside from some of Theodotion's - have been forever lost. While Theodotion translated the whole of the OT, it is known he did not include the apocrypha, aside from Baruch.

What you call the LXX has been shortened anyway, originally the LXX included the Prayer of Manasseh, 3 Esdras and 4 Esdras which ever since the Vulgate has forever been banished to non-canon status.

In any case the LXX traces back to the Hexapla, where it is beyond doubt that Origen substantially modified it as he went along (he even marked the areas that he changed). Jerome himself attests to this fact.

[Phatt Matt s]

Which mistakes were made at the council of Rome, Carthage, and Hippo?

It was the same Canon as the Council of Trent.

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You seem to know so please explain to me why the Septuagint book of Daniel was removed and replaced with the Theodatian book of Daniel? And how about while you're at it you tell me when and why this occurred? And while you're at it could you tell me when "the" LXX was written?

And I will take not of this and find out if it is true

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Who is the Final authority for determining the Canon? You?

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The problem is I don't at this time always know how I can determine if you know what you're talking about.

[Aractus]

My point is that the versions of the OT scriptures used by Christians from the first century to the 5th century changed dramatically. People who think they can trace the LXX further back than the Hexapla work under the assumption that the "proto LXX" bore substantial resemblance to the fifth column, and that is not supported by evidence. Paul seems to quote from the proto LXX, however it's important to remember that we can never know if Origen modified verses specifically to better agree with how they appear in his epistles. There are some scholars who are so sceptical of the LXX that they think no Greek language OT was ever quoted by the NT and put down any agreement with the LXX to Origen or others before him modifying the text of the LXX.

The Eastern Orthodox church still today teaches that the MT is corrupted and the LXX is not, and indeed it wasn't until the discovery of the DSS from 1946 that the Roman Catholic church was finally forced to reassess their belief that the LXX was more authentic than the MT. The theory ignores the customs of the Jews of the time, and attempts to re-write Jewish history! Here's an example of this invented history lesson at work - and again, here where they claim the DSS are fabricated by the Jews.

I believe that Paul and some of the other NT writers made use of a proto-LXX, I don't think you can say anything about whether this proto-LXX contained the Apocrypha and I don't think it was a complete volume of the OT. The reason why I don't think it was complete at this time is two fold: in the mid-second century you had several new translations of the OT into Greek all appearing at the same time, and textual criticism of the LXX tells us that different translators translated different books separately to each other, and that the translation quality is not consistent. We also didn't have codices until the first century, so prior to this it had to exist solely as a collection of scrolls.

And I will take not of this and find out if it is true

Well it is true, but I'll help you out by telling you exactly when this occurred.

The LXX as we know it is the fifth column of the Hexapla written by Origen c. 245AD. Origen modified it by completing sections missing from the Hebrew, comparing it to the other Greek versions, and for whatever other reasons now long forgotten. The sixth column of the Hexapla is the Theodotion translation of the OT. Theodotion probably made use of the LXX in his translation and it's not known what his original textual basis was. All the earliest manuscripts containing the LXX - eg Vaticanus, Sinaiticus etc get their Old Testament text from the Hexapla, none of them are free of the changes made by Origen (thus influenced by Theodotion and the other Greek versions), and no manuscript of the LXX copied from an older source is known to exist. The scribes who made these manuscripts generally followed the fifth column (that'd be the LXX), however in some sections they followed the sixth column instead, and that is exclusively true for the book of Daniel. Thus we know pretty much exactly when the LXX version was discarded - it was after 245AD and before 350AD, that's only a window of 100 years. We also know why - Jerome wrote that churches read the version of Daniel according to Theodotion and not the version in the LXX, and he was clearly familiar with both. Exactly how much influence Theodotion had over what we now have as the LXX is now unknown.

So to sum it up:
First century: Hebrew OT and proto-LXX
Second century: complete volume of proto-LXX plus other Greek translations of the OT
Third century: Hexapla - churches seem to have adopted the use of OT books from the LXX and they adopt to using Origen's revised version
Third-Fourth century: Churches read OT books from the LXX, except for Daniel which they read the Theodotion version instead. Scribes start following Theodotion in part when making OT manuscripts especially the book of Daniel.
End of Fourth century: Jerome translates the Vulgate, he follows the LXX according to Origen's version, and the book of Daniel according to Theodotion's version.

[Aractus]

Still waiting...

As I see it Protestants just restored the OT to the Hebrew scriptures as it was for first century Jews and the first Christians, undoing the changes to the OT made by successive iterations of translations and revisions.

[Phatt Matt s]

Still waiting...

As I see it Protestants just restored the OT to the Hebrew scriptures as it was for first century Jews and the first Christians, undoing the changes to the OT made by successive iterations of translations and revisions.

I'm waiting for you to tell me which mistakes were made in the Councils of Rome, Carthage, and Hippo.

How do you know that it was a mistake?

Also, I've explained my stance. IF I were getting paid or a medal for winning a debate with you I might be more interested in getting more info.

However, I didn't come here to win an arguement. I'm not sure that your claims are correct because they don't add up with the Historical accounts that I read.

If one account says one thing and another says another, I am not in a position to say who is right or who is wrong...and there is always the possibility that both are wrong.

[Aractus]

I'm waiting for you to tell me which mistakes were made in the Councils of Rome, Carthage, and Hippo.

How do you know that it was a mistake?

Not every decision is written, some are de-facto. I've explained very clearly the development of the LXX as we have it - those facts are not in dispute. The most important being that changes were made to it on a number of occasions, not to mention that we do not reliably know who translated the books when or how they came to be a single volume, but we do know that Jews read from 22 scrolls (or as we count them, 39 books). The minor prophets were written on a single scroll for instance. This is confirmed by numerous early sources.

The full volume of the LXX has 51 books, yet the Catholic Bible has 46 OT books. The eastern Orthodox church includes the book of Odes in their canon, but the RCC excludes it - could you tell me when it was decided to banish it from the scriptures?

There's more variation of the OT canon in Greek than you are admitting to.

[Phatt Matt s]

And that is where it becomes extremely difficult to inerrantly determine which authority to follow

[rightcoaster]

... Paul seems to quote from the proto LXX ...


I believe that Paul ... made use of a proto-LXX

Someone here pointed me to a book by Hyam Maccoby on Paul as mythologizer, the true inventor of Christianity (and quite the opportunist and liar). Maccoby makes, inter many alia, the interesting observation that if Paul was really a Pharisee trained by Gamaliel he'd not have used the LXX. In some of the letters (those agreed not pseudonymous) he used LXX phrases that differ from their Hebrew counterparts, so that the Hebrew text was not his source. I can't recall them, and finding the specific cites would require drudgery.

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Still waiting...

As I see it Protestants just restored the OT to the Hebrew scriptures as it was for first century Jews and the first Christians, undoing the changes to the OT made by successive iterations of translations and revisions.

Aractus, if the Protestants did all that noble restoration, why do so many of their translations still have Isaiah 7:14 so wrong, and so very few have it right?

[Aractus]

Someone here pointed me to a book by Hyam Maccoby on Paul as mythologizer, the true inventor of Christianity (and quite the opportunist and liar). Maccoby makes, inter many alia, the interesting observation that if Paul was really a Pharisee trained by Gamaliel he'd not have used the LXX. In some of the letters (those agreed not pseudonymous) he used LXX phrases that differ from their Hebrew counterparts, so that the Hebrew text was not his source. I can't recall them, and finding the specific cites would require drudgery.

Well he didn't use the LXX, he used the proto-lxx, we do not know what it was prior to the Hexapla's fifth column. Also he used scribes, his scribes probably couldn't read Hebrew?

Aractus, if the Protestants did all that noble restoration, why do so many of their translations still have Isaiah 7:14 so wrong, and so very few have it right?

Well I'm glad you asked. Why? Because of this:

• Isaiah 7:14 LXX: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel.
  Isaiah 7:14 MT/DSS: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
  Matthew 1:23: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel”

Matthew never quotes from the LXX(/proto-lxx), he in fact is quoting from the Hebrew just like Luke and I could go through all of his quotes and prove it if I had to. Here's another:

• Matthew 2:17-18
  Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:
  
  “A voice was heard in Ramah,
  weeping and loud lamentation,
  Rachel weeping for her children;
  she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”
  
  Jeremiah 31:15
  Thus says the Lord:
  “A voice is heard in Ramah,
  lamentation and bitter weeping.
  Rachel is weeping for her children;
  she refuses to be comforted for her children,
  because they are no more.”
  
  Jeremiah 38:15 (LXX)
  A voice was heard in Rama, of lamentation, and of weeping, and wailing; Rachel would not cease weeping for her children, because they are not.

So the question for you would be actually why do both Matthew and the LXX translate as "virgin" independently of each other?