Greetings, friends,

Some may see the following views as too negative. So I would like to
preface them with a disclaimer. What I'm talking about below is the
general climate that prevails in the NT biblical field today. These are
the general assumptions that are never, or hardly ever, examined. Some of
these assumptions are clearly absurd, and their motivations rather
suspect. On the other hand, there are many good, competent, caring, and
responsible biblical scholars. I've learned most of what I know from them.
But I think they are a small minority in the field that seems extremely
corrupt.

********************

**The three big lies of the New Testament scholarship**

These are the three big lies that all the biblical scholars accept
wholeheartedly. They are accepted almost universally, with very few
exceptions. These lies are at the very foundation of modern NT studies.
It is the house built on sand.

1. All four gospels are first century texts.

2. The letters of Paul are also first century texts, and they're really
by Paul (at least seven of them).

3. Mark is the earliest gospel.

These deceptions are really quite transparent. That these 3 statements
are true is highly unlikely a priori, and there's absolutely no proof
anywhere that they are true. These are just the assumptions that the
scholars make, and they never bother to justify them. And this is what
they're building all of their scholarship on.

As we have them, the three Synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
are a group of three 3rd century texts. This is simply a statement of
fact, since the earliest substantial witnesses we have are a few Greek
Papyri of the 3rd century. All three gospels have similar content, so,
it is certainly not so obvious which is the earliest. So why are all the
scholars so sure that Mk is a first century text, and that it is the
earliest gospel, on which the other two are based? In fact, it is
extremely unlikely that the canonical Mk is a first century text, and
thus, clearly, Markan priority is a house built on sand.

Altogether, the New Testament contains 14 letters purportedly by Paul.
But at this time academic biblical scholars accept only 7 of them as
authentic. Thus, a sharp line of division is drawn -- everything within
the "select 7" is authentic, and everything outside of these 7 is
inauthentic. But such a sharp line of division is quite obviously an
absurdity. One may ask this simple question, If some later admirers of
Paul didn't see it as a problem at all to add the whole seven letters to
what Paul originally wrote, and to attribute them to Paul, what would
have stood in their way of inserting some later stuff into the other
seven? In fact, a lot of "respected Pauline scholars" do agree that the
"authentic 7 Pauline letters" are composites, and contain bits and
pieces of smaller letters, but none of them would dare suggest that any
of this stuff may be inauthentic! Clearly, we're dealing with a bunch of
true believers here. This is supposed to be critical biblical
scholarship? Doesn't look this way to me.

Certainly, these "7 authentic letters of Paul", so-called, contain a lot
of stuff that the real Paul would have been truly shocked to read. Some
of them contain passages so anti-Judaic, and so disdainful of the Jewish
Law, that, in the words of one commentator, they could have never been
"imagined and professed by a man who had long lived in obedience to the
Law".

Most people should be able to see the importance of all these debates,
since what is at stake here is the identify of the earliest Christian
beliefs and theology. Surely, being able to identify the earliest
Christian texts, whatever they are, should be a very important
enterprise for the believers and for the sceptics alike

The belief that the four gospels and the seven letters are all first
century documents seems to be on the same general level as the belief in
Santa Claus. I'm sorry, but I don't see any other polite way of putting
it.

So the scholars take a bunch of third century texts and re-label them as
first century texts. Nice trick! And thus, 200 years of theological and
textual development are vanished into the thin air...

All available evidence shows that Christian theology and dogmas were
changing rather quickly and substantially over the first century of
Christianity, at least. So how could Christian foundational texts remain
unaltered? Of course they also changed gradually to reflect the evolution
of Christian theology. To assume that one of the three Synoptic gospels,
_in its present form_, is the source of the other two is quite simply an
absurdity. Yes, indeed, it seems like the very foundation of the Synoptic
studies, as we know them today, is that one of our three 3rd century texts
is the original 1st century text! So why don't these "Synoptic
Specialists" just wear dunce's caps when they gather for their learned
conferences?

But seriously now. No, I'm afraid all these matters are very far from
just being silly and irrelevant. Please, don't forget that we're talking
now about the very foundations of our Western culture and civilisation.
These complicated theological battles between Jews, Christians, and
Jewish-Christians of 1900 years ago set the tone for much that is nasty
and mean, and that is still very much with us. There's no escaping the
tragic legacy of Christian anti-semitism, that happens to be enshrined
in the texts that so many still consider as the Infallible Word of God.

And now, for the reality check. So what was the most likely historical
picture of early Christianity? Much good evidence indicates that
Christianity was still predominantly Jewish as late as 100 CE. In fact,
it seems like the Church of Jerusalem was still predominantly Jewish
until as late as 135 CE. The good Church father Epiphanius informs us
that "the bishops of the circumcision" were driven from Jerusalem in
that fateful year, when Hadrian defeated the Jews in the second Jewish
War, and when Israel was left in ruins.

So, in light of this, the most likely scenario is that the first
Christian gospel was a Jewish-Christian gospel. This gospel would have
been rather short, and it would have served as the source document for
all four canonicals.

The biggest problem with Markan priority, as I see it, is that Mk is a
very un-Jewish gospel that contains a lot of Gentile influence. It is
generally seen as a lot less Jewish than Mt, for example. So how could
the earliest Christian gospel be so un-Jewish, considering that the
earliest Christians were all Jews?

So, my friends, to put it plainly, modern New Testament scholarship is a
house built on deceptions and half-truths. Yes, they're still
perpetrating these old anti-Jewish stereotypes by attributing them to
the Historical Paul, and to the earliest followers of Jesus. They're
still failing to present any kind of a credible picture of the real
Paul, or of the Historical Jesus. Their historical picture of early
Christianity is a Big Lie.

No, these are not really secular and objective scholars -- not at all!
It seems like these people are just as faith-based as the conservative
scholars they like to criticise so much. Their faith is in the "Gentile
Jesus", the Jesus who is missing his Jewishness. Their faith is in the
priority of the Gentile-oriented, and rather un-Jewish, Gospel of Mark.
In fact, in my view, in the shape we see it now, Mark is probably _the
latest_ gospel to be completed.

Yes, dear friends, there's one "dirty little secret" of Christian
history that all-too-many still want to remain a secret. It is that the
earliest Christianity was Jewish-Christianity, and it remained
predominantly so until as late as 100 CE. How long can these "secular
and objective scholars" still try to cover this up?

So this was the real reason I was expelled from Synoptic-L, and harassed
on Crosstalk-L before that. These people, it seems, are very afraid of
the historical truth about Jesus and Paul, and about the early
Christianity.

Best regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky | Toronto | http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/bbl.htm

Open biblical history list http://www.egroups.com/group/loisy - loisy-l

To subscribe to loisy-l, send blank email to loisy-subscribe@eGroups.com

The goal proposed by Cynic philosophy is apathy, which is
equivalent to becoming God -=O=- Julian