Yeshua ben Yoseph may very well have thought himself the messiah, he was not alone, some 50 individuals also made the claim in the 1st century like Simon Magus. In fact nearly every century since then has seen many claiming to be the messiah, very popular.
Bart Ehrman...Jesus Existed
by XJW4EVR 34 Replies latest watchtower bible
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mP
@Rob
Your very translations show just how little the Rylands fragment tells. We can tell when the remainder or 99.9% of the NT was written or what it had. That fragment can only be proof for what amounts to ten odd words in John. . The text in the fragment only has ten words and can only be used to verify the same ten words in John, nothing more and nothing less. We cant use those few characters to then authenticate or verify the entire bible passage. This is but a tiny fraction of the entire text.
The text also does not say Jesus, it could well be talking about someone else. There are stories of many messiahs about that time in text such as nag hammadi and dead sea scrolls. Theres a reason why xians never hear about these scroolls, simply because they are very much the same with twists that are incompatible with what xians have accepted.
Lastly your quote if the text is date from 125, that is 2nd century authorship. I know about the range of 25ish years variation but thee earliest possible dating is 100 or it coluld also equally be 150. 125 is nearly a hundred years after jesus death...given John must have been around jesus age he would have been over a hundred years old. To claim that an apostle wrote the story is very decietful. There is no way an old man 120ish years old wrote that book. Its just absurd that John waited until he was 120.
- What if he died before this time ?
-Why would someone wait until 120 to tell the greatest story ever for posterity ?
In all reality this sort of witnessing doesnt sound very well planned.
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mP
@ROB
Go look at the last chapter of Mark, 16 the verses with the resurrection. Even the NWT admits these are an addition. To think without this insertion there is no ressurrection no ascension, what was Mark thinking to simply forget these major events ?
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robB
mP,
Your suggestion that maybe the papyrus is not referring to Jesus is childish. I won't continue with this. If you are generally interested in the topic of historical manuscripts I suggest you read a book on Palaeography.
I made the point that early 2nd century dating of the Rylands papyrus argues strongly for 1st century authorship. John wrote his books sometime in the 1st century (year 1 to 100 AD) The Rylands papyrus is not the original autograph.
I'm well aware of the issues from Mark. The point is similar to JWs saying there's not trinity in the Bible. What does the Angel tell the nice ladies? What are the possible conclusions from the discussion?
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mP
ROB
Your suggestion that maybe the papyrus is not referring to Jesus is childish. I won't continue with this. If you are generally interested in the topic of historical manuscripts I suggest you read a book on Palaeography.
MP
Lets be fair no where in the text that you have highlighted does the name Jesus or Son of God appear. Most of the words are general every day words like "the", "of" etc. You only know those words are a part of John because someone else has done the hard work and identifed the exact location. By itself the text says very little that is understandable. That papyrus is only the start it is not evidence that the entire NT story has remained constant.
the Jews, "For us it is not permitted to kill
anyone," so that the w ord of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he sp-
oke signifyin g what kind of death he was going to
die. En tered therefore again into the Praeto-
rium P ilate and summoned Jesus
and sai d to him, "Thou art king of the
Jews?"The text only has the words "the Jews, For us, anyone, so that, signifying, die, and said", withoput the cheating can you honestly get anything out of that text ?
If God really had a message to convey to us he did a terrible job preserving its contents. Other peoples like the Assyrians managed to record their thoughts and the clay tablets have lassted 3000+ years. Its a shame God didnt have the brains to realise his message would get lost and we would need to gather scraps or fragments and recreate the text in a giant puzzlegame.
Remember this is the word of God surely he is special and should know how to preserve his valuable word. Its as simple as that. Only a fool would write with chalk a message to last thousands of years, knowing what rain does to chalk. The same is true of God he should have known that scrolls and papyrus decays and breaks up. The details of why these materials breakup is not important, God being all wise should know that this happens and he should also have predicted the future actions of man and taken that into account when his strategy to spread his word was started.
If you presented that papyrus as proof that a contract to a solicitor you would be laughed at.