Koran older than Mohammed?

bnt

Well, I honestly didn't see this coming:

Keith Small, of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, cautioned that carbon dating was done only on the Koran’s parchment and not its ink, but he said the dates were probably accurate.

“If the dates apply to the parchment and the ink, and the dates across the entire range apply, then the Koran — or at least portions of it — predates Mohammed, and moves back the years that an Arabic literary culture is in place well into the 500s,” he said.

Small said that would lend credibility to the historical view that Muhammad and his followers collected text that was already in circulation to fit their own political and theological agenda, rather than receiving revelations from heaven.

“This would radically alter the edifice of Islamic tradition and the history of the rise of Islam in late Near Eastern antiquity would have to be completely revised, somehow accounting for another book of scripture coming into existence 50 to 100 years before, and then also explaining how this was co-opted into what became the entity of Islam by around AD700,” Small said.

Cabaal

What?
god isn't real and didn't talk to anyone?
Thats shocking!!

I can't believe its all made up and its all about control, politics and power :eek:

SSLguru

Older than mohammed or his bird ( 6 year old girl or boy )

robindch

If this gets out, the guy's going to need police protection.

James Forde

Carbon dating is wrong, science is the devil..........

silverharp

je suis boards.ie

blindside88

I wouldn't like to be going to the boards staff Christmas party this year.... Although it's not like Muslims to take a joke badly......

Nodin

Altering texts to suit your agenda and getting caught? What kind of amateur religion is this?

Wanderer78

carbon dating was created by infidels so i guess its void!

recedite

According to Muslim tradition, Mo's companions started writing down the scriptures on scraps of parchment and old camel bones from 610 CE.

According to the carbon dating, this scrap of parchment dates from around the same time. I'm inclined to agree with the Muslim scholars then...

“If anything, the manuscript has consolidated traditional accounts of the Koran’s origins,” said Mustafa Shah, from London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

What makes them believe its from "a book" anyway?

Carbon dating of a fragment from a Koran stored at a Birmingham library suggests that the book was produced between 568 and 645 A.D

The fragment could have been from a single parchment or a scroll.

Heres a more balanced article on the same subject.

Prof Thomas says the dating of the Birmingham folios would mean it was quite possible that the person who had written them would have been alive at the time of the Prophet Muhammad.
"The person who actually wrote it could well have known the Prophet Muhammad. He would have seen him probably, he would maybe have heard him preach. He may have known him personally - and that really is quite a thought to conjure with," he says.

Somebody should carbon date some of the stuff in the Chester Beatty library. Maybe we have material of equal historical significance sitting in a box in Dublin.

130Kph

Professor Thomas seems fairly certain it’s from the Koran where he says that

the parts of the Koran that are written on this parchment can, with a degree of confidence, be dated to less than two decades after Muhammad's death

I think the earlier report was reasonable too in that, if for example, the range is 568 – 609 it would throw the accepted tradition (i.e. dates) about Mo receiving the revelations into doubt.

Reading between the lines, Prof Thomas would seem to like the range to be 610 – 645 but can’t assert that yet – so, we’re left with the wider range (568 – 645).

One of the translation snippets on the BBC page (above) is interesting.
Allah and Moses were having a bit of a chat with some someone else looking on.


Allah: whats that thing you have there?
Moses: it’s my staff. I lean on it & I have other uses for it.
Allah: Throw it on the ground man!
Moses threw it on the ground and |!!| Whoosh!|!| it turned into a snake slithering around the place.


Besides this being a bit of a cringey, stilted conversation, this is a pretty nifty illusion :pac: But how could Allah not know what a staff is? Is it possible that the creator of all things has the memory of a goldfish?

Moses certainly did get around the 3 different desert books and maybe other books that were lost to history.

pauldla

Very interesting article; thanks, OP.

Small said that would lend credibility to the historical view that Muhammad and his followers collected text that was already in circulation to fit their own political and theological agenda, rather than receiving revelations from heaven.

Not the only religion that this can be said of, I'm willing to wager.

Overheal

OP, we have a global network of dinosaur fossils and still can't rule out Intelligent Design.

To say people will be the least bit swayed from their religion by carbon dating parchment is a bit silly

Peregrinus

Many of the stories in the Koran are clearly older than the Koran itself could possibly be. This is not controversial.

Subject as noted below, this evidence suggests that at least parts of the Koranic text were written down before the complete text as we know it was compiled in about 650 CE. Again, that's not going to be controversial.

The carbon-dating of the parchment suggests that it could be older than the prophet; not that it is. So those who have faith-based reasons (or, for that matter, historically-based reasons) for believing that no part of the text was written down before 610 CE are not going to find themselves challenged by this.

It's also worth noting that while the parchment has been carbon-dated, the ink has not. All the carbon-dating tells us, ultimately, is when the goat died. Since parchment was a valuable resource and was sometimes scraped clean and re-used, it's possible that this manuscript is a post-645 manuscript written on recycled parchment. I haven't seen any report discussing this possibility, or saying whether it has been ruled out. But in this context it's worth noting that some reports have made the point that the calligraphy of the manuscript is characteristic of a later [i.e. post-645] style.

Every few years the newspapers give us breathless accounts of discoveries that are supposed to refute some aspect of religious faith, from the James Ossuary to the Gospel of Jesus' Wife. They're fun, but they rarely live up to the hype.

pauldla

Peregrinus wrote: »

....

Every few years the newspapers give us breathless accounts of discoveries that are supposed to refute some aspect of religious faith, from the James Ossuary to the Gospel of Jesus' Wife. They're fun, but they rarely live up to the hype.

Newspapers are divils for that, it has to be said. Religion sells, perhaps? And surely wouldn't the James ossuary have supported an important aspect of Christian faith i.e. the existence of Jesus?

Peregrinus

pauldla wrote: »

Newspapers are divils for that, it has to be said. Religion sells, perhaps?

Undoubtedly. Second only to sex.

pauldla wrote: »

And surely wouldn't the James ossuary have supported an important aspect of Christian faith i.e. the existence of Jesus?

Well, yes. On the other hand, there was an attempt to link it to the Talpiot Tomb, which contains an ossuary allegedly marked "Jesus, son of Joseph". Obviously, if you believe accounts of the resurrection, then you believe that that ossuary doesn't belong to the Jesus, but another bloke of the same name (which was a common name. As was Joseph. Both are in the top ten names from the period.) But if you have a tomb which contains brothers Jesus and James, the sons of Joseph, you are beginning to strain the possibilities of coincidence. And that would have implications for belief in the resurrection.

pauldla

Peregrinus wrote: »

Undoubtedly. Second only to sex.

And sports stars. And sports stars having sex.

Well, yes. On the other hand, there was an attempt to link it to the Talpiot Tomb, which contains an ossuary allegedly marked "Jesus, son of Joseph". Obviously, if you believe accounts of the resurrection, then you believe that that ossuary doesn't belong to the Jesus, but another bloke of the same name (which was a common name. As was Joseph. Both are in the top ten names from the period.) But if you have a tomb which contains brothers Jesus and James, the sons of Joseph, you are beginning to strain the possibilities of coincidence. And that would have implications for belief in the resurrection.

Well, the ossuary may have been made for the Jesus, it just wasn't used.

Wonder if they did refunds.

Peregrinus

pauldla wrote: »

And sports stars. And sports stars having sex.

Royalty trumps sports stars, I believe.

"Sex-change vicar in mercy dash to Palace" seems to tick all the boxes, headline-wise.

MrPudding

Peregrinus wrote: »

Royalty trumps sports stars, I believe.

"Sex-change vicar in mercy dash to Palace" seems to tick all the boxes, headline-wise.

You forgot immigrant, or more specifically, the illegal variety. A small suggestion, "Sex-change vicar in mercy dash to Palace hit by illegal immigrant driving a car he got for free from the dole" might work better

MrP

Trent Houseboat

The right tone, but nowhere near long enough to be a Daily Fail headline.

endacl

Overheal wrote: »

OP, we have a global network of dinosaur fossils and still can't rule out Intelligent Design.

To say people will be the least bit swayed from their religion by carbon dating parchment is a bit silly

Yes we can.

Overheal

endacl wrote: »

Yes we can.

I should say eliminate it from common thought.

Michael OBrien

Yeah, like facts ever get in the way of faith.

Considering that science showed quite conclusively that the shroud of turin is a fake from around the 12th Century and not the 1st Century, a discrepancy of over 1100 years, and most christians still think it is genuine despite this and claim conspiracies to explain it away.

There are muslims that think Muhammed flew to heaven on a winged horse type magical creature to met Jesus and Moses and God and argued him down from 50 prayers a day to five, and see no reason to question this story (that seems to show their all powerful god made a mistake, and a illiterate merchant educated him on the matter), I sincerely doubt they will pay any serious attention to when the parchment was dated, which in no way demonstrates when the text was written, as the standard story never claimed the full quran was written down on parchment during his life anyway, bits of it probably were on anything they could find, including bits of bone, leaves and other garbage.

recedite

pauldla wrote: »

Well, the ossuary may have been made for the Jesus, it just wasn't used.

Wonder if they did refunds.

Seems to have been used alright.

Each of the ten ossuaries contained human remains, said to be in an "advanced state of deterioration" by Amos Kloner. The tomb may have been multi-generational, with several generations of bones stored in each ossuary, but no record was kept of their contents and no analysis appears to have been done to determine how many individuals were represented by the bones found..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talpiot_Tomb
Check out the symbols on the entrance to the tomb. Chevron and circle.. precursor to the freemason/illuminati pair of compasses and the all seeing eye. I'm starting off that CT, if nobody else has already

Also the name Miriam (Mary) seems to be there, on one sarcophagus.

Israelis are always reticent about researching these sort of things, the last thing they want to do is pi$$ off Christian fundies in USA and Europe. They would not like to make their current security situation worse by annoying their allies.

Its not beyond the bounds of possibility that a rebellious Jewish preacher went too far in annoying both the Jewish elders and the Roman army of occupation, ended up being executed, and was buried there.

Eugene Norman

recedite wrote: »

Seems to have been used alright.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talpiot_Tomb
Check out the symbols on the entrance to the tomb. Chevron and circle.. precursor to the freemason/illuminati pair of compasses and the all seeing eye. I'm starting off that CT, if nobody else has already

Also the name Miriam (Mary) seems to be there, on one sarcophagus.

Israelis are always reticent about researching these sort of things, the last thing they want to do is pi$$ off Christian fundies in USA and Europe. They would not like to make their current security situation worse by annoying their allies.

Its not beyond the bounds of possibility that a rebellious Jewish preacher went too far in annoying both the Jewish elders and the Roman army of occupation, ended up being executed, and was buried there.

Jesus son of Joseph tells you nothing much, as the names were common. James brother of Jesus is unusual as its unusual to list a sibling.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Its not beyond the bounds of possibility that a rebellious Jewish preacher went too far in annoying both the Jewish elders and the Roman army of occupation, ended up being executed, and was buried there.

The main drawbacks to this theory are (a) if someone was executed by the Roman authorities, they tended not to end up in the family tomb afterwards, and (b) this is the tomb of a very high-status family, which doesn't fit with anything we have about Jesus of Nazareth from any source.

None of which makes it impossible that this should be the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. But there are no indications in the tomb itself that the person buried here was rebellious, or a preacher, or executed, and if we rely on the gospels and other early texts to establish these things then we have to cherry-pick. If the gospels are not reliable in identifying Jesus as a carpenter, why would we assume they are reliable in identifying Jesus as a preacher?

Notavirus.exe

Seems to be no mention of this in the Islam forum...

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

The main drawbacks to this theory are (a) if someone was executed by the Roman authorities, they tended not to end up in the family tomb afterwards, and (b) this is the tomb of a very high-status family, which doesn't fit with anything we have about Jesus of Nazareth from any source.

Supposing we assumed the biblical sources were vaguely based on fact, but written as if seen through the rose tinted glasses of his most ardent and gullible followers, then....

If the executed person was a wandering criminal vagrant, then they would probably be left to rot. But if a celebrity preacher, then the body would be recovered.
AFAIK there is some stuff in Mark where Jesus says his followers are his family. So perhaps he was somewhat estranged from his father. Not surprising if he abandoned the family business and went off on some fool's errand. He could read and write, and debate religion and philosophy with the high priests, so some money must have been spent on his education. And there is very little mention of Joseph in the scriptures, except to say he was a "tektron". Back in the day, a technical or skilled person was fairly respectable. He could have been a carpenter, but equally a stonemason, engineer, architect or stonemason. He could have built the family tomb himself, or with his employees. He could have built whole housing estates for all we know.
Jesus' followers may have been in competition with the family to collect the body. Maybe the family got there first, and the followers chose to believe the body had disappeared.

Peregrinus

The general inference from the disappearance of Joseph from the gospel stories is that he had died before Jesus reached adulthood. (He only appears in nativity and infancy stories.) Mary, by contrast, turns up repeatedly, right to the end, as do (though with less frequency) Jesus' brothers and sisters, so if Joseph were still around it's hard to explain why nobody ever mentions him. Plus, the story of Jesus on the cross asking John to care for his mother Mary strongly points to Joseph not being around.

There is evidence that Jesus was estranged from his family early on in his ministry, but he clearly reconciled at least with his mother. And, after his death, his brother James was leader of the Jerusalem Christians, a position he would hardly have been accepted in if he had been at odds with Jesus. So let's say he, too, reconciled with Jesus before his death.

Can we conjecture that Joseph was in fact still alive, but wasn't mentioned because he refused to take sides in the family row/he never reconciled with Jesus/he was a cantankerous old bugger who ended up fighting with everybody? I think we probably can. Though, note, it is just a conjecture; there's no evidence for it.

But that doesn't explain how they all ended up the same tomb, paid for (presumably) by Joseph.

The other problem is that the James ossuary is significant because it's labelled James, brother of Jesus, indicating that Jesus was famous (and therefore must be the Jesus) and James's relationship with him was seen as his greatest distinction. But the only reason Jesus can have been famous at the time of James's death was because he was the focus of the Jesus movement, which of course was proclaiming Jesus's resurrection. So to have James, the brother of Jesus who rose from the dead, placed in an ossuary marked to that effect which is then placed in a tomb next to an ossuary marked as Jesus's own ossuary doesn't really stack up.

The truth is, though, that the evidence that the "James, brother of Jesus" ossuary comes from the Talpiot Tomb is pretty weak, and in fact the better evidence suggests that it didn't. And if the two things are unconnected, then the puzzle disappears. A tomb containing Joseph and his son Jesus is not remarkable, and there is no reason to think it is that Joseph and that Jesus. (We know of at least one other tomb from the period with the same combination of names.) And an ossuary containing the bones of James, brother of Jesus, even if genuine, doesn't in itself tell us anything about the final destination of Jesus.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

The other problem is that the James ossuary is significant because it's labelled James, brother of Jesus, indicating that Jesus was famous (and therefore must be the Jesus) and James's relationship with him was seen as his greatest distinction. But the only reason Jesus can have been famous at the time of James's death was because he was the focus of the Jesus movement, which of course was proclaiming Jesus's resurrection. So to have James, the brother of Jesus who rose from the dead, placed in an ossuary marked to that effect which is then placed in a tomb next to an ossuary marked as Jesus's own ossuary doesn't really stack up.

Good point, however the Jesus movement only developed into Christianity much later, under Paul, who probably never even met him.
Whereas Jesus and the brother James were jews, or jewish christians.
Is it written anywhere that James believed in the resurrection? Certainly he seems to have believed Jesus was a martyr and a messiah in the Jewish tradition (ie a great leader who comes to save the jews in their hour of need) And he seems to have held an official position as a jewish high priest after the crucifixion. Does that translate into an indication that he believed in the divinity of Jesus? I don't think so.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Good point, however the Jesus movement only developed into Christianity much later, under Paul, who probably never even met him.
Whereas Jesus and the brother James were jews, or jewish christians.
Is it written anywhere that James believed in the resurrection? Certainly he seems to have believed Jesus was a martyr and a messiah in the Jewish tradition (ie a great leader who comes to save the jews in their hour of need) And he seems to have held an official position as a jewish high priest after the crucifixion. Does that translate into an indication that he believed in the divinity of Jesus? I don't think so.

Paul is not "much later". It's true that (so far as we know) he never met Jesus, but he was a contemporary of Jesus. Paul's letters are earlier than all four gospels, and they are earlier than Acts, which is our source for James and his role as leader of the movement in Jerusalem. Pauline Christianity is very early.

Paul and James had extensive dealings, and there are fairly clear indications of tensions between them. But the evidence doesn't point to tensions in beliefs; rather, to tensions in practice; they argued about whether Christians should observe Jewish ritual law, whether Gentile converts to the movement had to become Jews, etc, etc. But if they ever argued about the resurrection, nobody recorded it.

James was never a Jewish high priest, or a Jewish priest of any kind. All the evidence is that as leader of the Jerusalem Christians he was at odds with the Temple priesthood.

James is thought to have died in the AD 60s, about 30 years after Jesus, and the Jerusalem Church, which he led, survived until the Bar Kokhba revolt in AD 130. And James was signficant enough as a Christian leader that Paul evidently felt he had to be complementary about him, and to validate his own role by saying that James endorsed and approved it. Not that Paul might be above colouring the story a bit to his own advantage, but the point is that James was clearly a leader of significance. And if James had been denying the resurrection for 30 years, and the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem had been denying it for a century, I think we would know, not least because contemporary opponents of Christianity would undoubtedly have mentioned the fact.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

Paul and James had extensive dealings, and there are fairly clear indications of tensions between them. But the evidence doesn't point to tensions in beliefs; rather, to tensions in practice; they argued about whether Christians should observe Jewish ritual law, whether Gentile converts to the movement had to become Jews, etc, etc. But if they ever argued about the resurrection, nobody recorded it.

But the substance of these arguments is actually about the difference between Christanity and Judaism, ie whether they were still Jews or not. And the biggest difference of all is whether Jesus was a god or not. I admit I have not read the gospel of James entirely, but AFAIK it does not mention anything about a resurrection? And for this reason Martin Luther was critical of it, saying it was "pithy" and barely deserved to be considered a biblical gospel at all.

Peregrinus wrote: »

James was never a Jewish high priest, or a Jewish priest of any kind. All the evidence is that as leader of the Jerusalem Christians he was at odds with the Temple priesthood.

Quoting the source of all knowledge (wikipedia)

In describing James' ascetic lifestyle, De Viris Illustribus quotes Hegesippus' account of James from the fifth book of Hegesippus' lost Commentaries:

After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord surnamed the Just was made head of the Church at Jerusalem. Many indeed are called James. This one was holy from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, ate no flesh, never shaved or anointed himself with ointment or bathed. He alone had the privilege of entering the Holy of Holies, since indeed he did not use woolen vestments but linen and went alone into the temple and prayed in behalf of the people, insomuch that his knees were reputed to have acquired the hardness of camels' knees.

Since it was unlawful for anyone but the High Priest of the Temple to enter the Holy of Holies, and then only once a year on Yom Kippur, Jerome's quotation from Hegesippus indicates that James was considered a High Priest.

And even though the source for Hegesippus is indirect, he seems to have been a reliable and knowledgable writer.

So I think its plausible that Paul waited till after the death of James and then steered the movement in a different direction. And who would know more about about the original philosophy and intentions of the movement, a camel kneed priest and the brother of the founder who was there from the start, or an ex-Roman soldier who had a mental breakdown on the road to Damascus, and had never even met Jesus?

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

But the substance of these arguments is actually about the difference between Christanity and Judaism, ie whether they were still Jews or not. And the biggest difference of all is whether Jesus was a god or not. I admit I have not read the gospel of James entirely, but AFAIK it does not mention anything about a resurrection? And for this reason Martin Luther was critical of it, saying it was "pithy" and barely deserved to be considered a biblical gospel at all.

The "Gospel of James" is certainly not by James, the brother of the Lord. It dates from about AD 150. It deals exclusively with the infancy of Jesus so, regardless of who it is by, it has nothing to say about the resurrection. It has never been considered canonical scripture by any group that we know of.

The Letter of James is canonical scripture. The author identifies himself as "James", but not particularly as that James. Tradition says he is that James; scholarship says that's possible, but there are other possibilities.

The work is not historical in nature. It's whats called "wisdom literature", consisting of precepts and moral exhortations. It's largely directed towards encouragin the community to be strong in times of tribulation. It doesn't mention the resurrection but, then, it doesn't mention any event from the life of Jesus, so not too much can be inferred from that.

recedite wrote: »

Quoting the source of all knowledge (wikipedia)

And even though the source for Hegesippus is indirect, he seems to have been a reliable and knowledgable writer.

To be a Jewish priest you had to be of the tribe of Levi - the status was hereditary. Jesus wasn't of the tribe of Levi, and therefore neither was James, his brother. So both Hegesippus and his (Jewish) readership knew that it was impossible for James actually to have been the High Priest. I think what Hegesippus is saying here is that, as leader of the Jerusalem Church, James was tantamount to being the High Priest; he fulfilled for the Jesus movement the role that the High Priest fulfilled for the people of Israel, living in (ritual) purity and dedicating his life to interceding before God on behalf of the people.

But nobody at the Temple considered him the High Priest, or a priest at all, and had he tried to enter the Holy of Holies he would have been stopped by the Temple guards and dealt with fairly harshly. Hegesippus and his readership both knew thos.

recedite wrote: »

So I think its plausible that Paul waited till after the death of James and then steered the movement in a different direction. And who would know more about about the original philosophy and intentions of the movement, a camel kneed priest and the brother of the founder who was there from the start, or an ex-Roman soldier who had a mental breakdown on the road to Damascus, and had never even met Jesus?

Nitpick: Paul was never a Roman soldier.

Bigger nitpick: Paul didn't wait for the death of James to try to steer the movement. There were constant tensions, arguments, compromises and power struggles between Paul and James. These are recorded in Acts.

Still bigger nitpick: Paul didn't outlive James or, if he did, not by much. What resolved the fights between them was Paul leaving and going off to Rome, while James stayed in Jerusalem. They died within a couple of years of each other and, if Paul did outlive James, he was in prison for most or all of that time. So, whatever accounts for his enduring influence, it's not that.

pauldla

Peregrinus wrote: »

The "Gospel of James" is certainly not by James, the brother of the Lord. It dates from about AD 150. It deals exclusively with the infancy of Jesus so, regardless of who it is by, it has nothing to say about the resurrection. It has never been considered canonical scripture by any group that we know of.

......

Pardon the intrusion, but perhaps recedite intended to refer to the Gospel of Thomas? It could be dated to 40 A.D. (though admittedly it could have been composed/compiled up to a century after that) and iirc it also does not mention the Resurrection?

Not that I'm in any great hurry to get back into the Historicity of Jesus debate again...

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

But nobody at the Temple considered him the High Priest, or a priest at all, and had he tried to enter the Holy of Holies he would have been stopped by the Temple guards and dealt with fairly harshly.

Although the Jerome/Hegesippus quote does say "He alone had the privilege of entering the Holy of Holies".

Peregrinus wrote: »

Nitpick: Paul was never a Roman soldier.

Gestapo then? He seemed to be a Jewish Roman citizen from modern day Turkey, having some official position that involved arresting and extraditing troublesome Jews in Judea.

pauldla wrote: »

Pardon the intrusion, but perhaps recedite intended to refer to the Gospel of Thomas?

Eh... yes of course. (cough)

Hotblack Desiato

recedite wrote: »

"He alone had the privilege of entering the Holy of Holies"

Just can't read that without suppressing a giggle.

Peregrinus

pauldla wrote: »

Pardon the intrusion, but perhaps recedite intended to refer to the Gospel of Thomas? It could be dated to 40 A.D. (though admittedly it could have been composed/compiled up to a century after that) and iirc it also does not mention the Resurrection?

It's a sayings gospel. Doesn't contain any biographical information at all - just a collection of sayings, dialogues and parables attributed to Jesus with no narrative context at all.

So, no, it doesn't mention the resurrection, but we can't infer very much from that.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Gestapo then? He seemed to be a Jewish Roman citizen from modern day Turkey, having some official position that involved arresting and extraditing troublesome Jews in Judea.

We have no reason to think that he ever worked for the Romans, or had any official position with them.

He was a Roman citizen from birth, and Jewish by descent, upbringing and practice. He came from a devout Jewish family and was himself devout. He was born in Tarsus, in modern Turkey, but was sent to Jerusalem for his education. He was educated in a tradition which covered not only the Jewish Law and Prophets, but classical literature, philosophy, and ethics. He wrote excellent Greek, and it was probably his first language from birth, but he also had Hebrew and very likely Aramaic.

We don't know how he made his living before his conversion. He tells us himself that he persecuted the early Christians, but he doesn't suggest that he did so on behalf of the Roman authorities, and we have no reason to surmise that he did. (At the time, the Roman authorities had a generally hands-off attitude to Jews, and took no interest at all in intra-Judaic disputes.) If he was acting on anybody's behalf at all, it would have been on behalf of the Temple authorities. On the other hand, as a Pharisee, he would have been somewhat distant from the Temple authorities. So it is most likely that he persecuted the Christians as an enthusiastic amateur - i.e. nobody commissioned him or paid him to do it; he just did it out of zeal.

FISMA.

Michael OBrien wrote: »

Considering that science showed quite conclusively that the shroud of turin is a fake from around the 12th Century and not the 1st Century, a discrepancy of over 1100 years

Wrong.

Have a read over Ray Rogers', a self proclaimed atheist and lead scientist for the Shroud of Turin Research Project's, last paper, published by Thermochimica Acta entitled "Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the shroud of turin," in which he refutes everything you stated in the above quote.

If reading scientific papers is not your forte, a youtube video entitled Shroud of Turin ..The New Evidence Rogers states in the first 22 seconds: "I can come very close to proving that it was used to bury the historic Jesus."

In the paper's abstract, quoted below, Rogers comments on the results cited by yourself: "The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the shroud."

Scroll to 24:19 to see how Sue Benford and her husband Joe Marino, neither of which have a scientific background, were able to show how mistakes made by the "best scientists" led to the incorrect data and now invalid statements scientists concluded in 1988, repeated above by yourself.

Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the shroud of turin
Raymond N. Rogers
Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of California, 1961 Cumbres Patio, Los Alamos, NM 87544, USA
Received 14 April 2004; received in revised form 14 April 2004; accepted 12 September 2004

Abstract
In 1988, radiocarbon laboratories at Arizona, Cambridge, and Zurich determined the age of a sample from the Shroud of Turin. They reported that the date of the cloth’s production lay between a.d. 1260 and 1390 with 95% confidence. This came as a surprise in view of the technology used to produce the cloth, its chemical composition, and the lack of vanillin in its lignin. The results prompted questions about the validity of the sample.

Preliminary estimates of the kinetics constants for the loss of vanillin from lignin indicate a much older age for the cloth than the radiocarbon analyses. The radiocarbon sampling area is uniquely coated with a yellow–brown plant gum containing dye lakes. Pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry results from the sample area coupled with microscopic and microchemical observations prove that the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin. The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the shroud.

Overheal

The Book of Judah is a legit find though, right?

Chucken

For a gang who don't believe, I have to admire how much is known....about the things that aren't believed in.

pauldla

Peregrinus wrote: »

It's a sayings gospel. Doesn't contain any biographical information at all - just a collection of sayings, dialogues and parables attributed to Jesus with no narrative context at all.

So, no, it doesn't mention the resurrection, but we can't infer very much from that.

Yes, it IS a sayings gospel. And yes, it doesn't mention the resurrection. And yes, we can't infer very much from it, though it does strike me as VERY odd that there is no mention at all to the central, defining moment of Christianity.

When my mate Kevin rises from the dead, I'll be sure to put together a collection of his works that mention nothing about his return from the dead but that does include his opinion of Fine Gael. ((102) Jesus said, "Woe to the pharisees, for they are like a dog sleeping in the manger of oxen, for neither does he eat nor does he let the oxen eat.")

Peregrinus

pauldla wrote: »

Yes, it IS a sayings gospel. And yes, it doesn't mention the resurrection. And yes, we can't infer very much from it, though it does strike me as VERY odd that there is no mention at all to the central, defining moment of Christianity.

When my mate Kevin rises from the dead, I'll be sure to put together a collection of his works that mention nothing about his return from the dead but that does include his opinion of Fine Gael. ((102) Jesus said, "Woe to the pharisees, for they are like a dog sleeping in the manger of oxen, for neither does he eat nor does he let the oxen eat.")

I dunno. if a book of quotations from Oscar Wilde omits to mention his homosexuality, does that mean he wasn't really homosexual?

What you're really saying here, Paul, is that when your mate Kevin rises from the dead you won't write a sayings gospel. Well, bully for you. But we know that the author of Thomas did write a sayings gospel because, look, there it is.

A sayings gospel would only be of interest to people who already regarded Jesus as a significant figure, and presumably that was Thomas's intended readership. We can't tell, from the sayings gospel alone, why they regarded Jesus as a significant figure; in the nature of things, a sayings gospel doesn't address that. So it tells us nothing, one way or the other, about whether they regarded him as significant because he rose from the dead, or for some other reason.

Peregrinus

Overheal wrote: »

The Book of Judah is a legit find though, right?

Well, it's not really a "find" in the sense that it's been known (to Western Christianity" since at least the 13th century, and more or less forever to Eastern Christianity. So it was never "lost".

As to whether it's "legit", probably not, in the fundamentalist biblical sense. It purports to have been written by, or is traditionally attributed to, Judah, one of the twelve sons of the Old Testament patriarch Jacob. SFAIK, no scholar thinks it could possibly be by Judah, or from that period. It may be old enough to predate Christianity, or it may have been written (in Greek, and by Christians) as late as the second century, but based on some pre-existing semitic-language text, now lost.

For obvious reasons, it makes no claims about Jesus, his family, his resurrection, etc. It doesn't mention him at all.

pauldla

Peregrinus wrote: »

I dunno. if a book of quotations from Oscar Wilde omits to mention his homosexuality, does that mean he wasn't really homosexual?

Is homosexuality as remarkable as coming back from the dead three days after a gruesome public execution, though?

What you're really saying here, Paul, is that when your mate Kevin rises from the dead you won't write a sayings gospel. Well, bully for you. But we know that the author of Thomas did write a sayings gospel because, look, there it is.

Well I just might. Kevin really has no time for pharisees at all. 'East Romans', he insists on calling them (though I point out to him that that isn't actually a correct term). He's quite witty when he's had a glass of wine or two, actually (though he never seems to buy any. I wonder where he's getting it from).

But yes, the author of Thomas DID write a sayings gospel. Which contains no mention of the resurrection.

A sayings gospel would only be of interest to people who already regarded Jesus as a significant figure, and presumably that was Thomas's intended readership. We can't tell, from the sayings gospel alone, why they regarded Jesus as a significant figure; in the nature of things, a sayings gospel doesn't address that. So it tells us nothing, one way or the other, about whether they regarded him as significant because he rose from the dead, or for some other reason.

Yes, this is true; a collection of sayings would seem to indicate a noteworthy individual (which is probably why 'The Collected Wit of pauldla' remains sadly unpublished. And it's not even that long). But The Most Significant Event In Christianity warrants not even a hint of a mention in Thomas. It's as if he never talked about it, either before or after the event, and neither did anybody else. The discerning reader must ask, why such coyness?

Peregrinus

pauldla wrote: »

Is homosexuality as remarkable as coming back from the dead three days after a gruesome public execution, though?

Well, it was much remarked upon at the time, I believe.

pauldla wrote: »

But yes, the author of Thomas DID write a sayings gospel. Which contains no mention of the resurrection.

If it contained any mention of the resurrection, Paul, it wouldn't be a sayings gospel, would it?

pauldla wrote: »

Yes, this is true; a collection of sayings would seem to indicate a noteworthy individual (which is probably why 'The Collected Wit of pauldla' remains sadly unpublished. And it's not even that long).

I’d buy it!

pauldla wrote: »

But The Most Significant Event In Christianity warrants not even a hint of a mention in Thomas. It's as if he never talked about it, either before or after the event, and neither did anybody else. The discerning reader must ask, why such coyness?

Oh, I get you. Your point is not so much that there’s no authorial mention of the resurrection, which we wouldn’t expect in a sayings gospel, as that none of the sayings Thomas attributes to Jesus appear to refer to his own resurrection.

That’s (almost) true. But reflect that very few of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the canonical gospels appear to refer to his resurrection either, and the authors offer reasons for this. Even after his resurrection, Jesus doesn’t talk about his resurrection. The evidence for the resurrection in the canonical gospels largely consists of forensic accounts of the empty tomb, plus accounts of the Christophanies. You wouldn’t expect those to be replicated in a sayings gospel.

There are a couple of rather elliptical sayings in the canonicals that the authors tell us refer to the resurrection (notably “destroy this temple . . . “). The authors say things to the effect that, later, we came to understand that this was a reference to the resurrection but at the time we had no clue. (And, as it happens, there’s a version of the “destroy this temple . . . “ saying in Thomas, minus of course the authorial commentary.)

So, if we assume Thomas to be an authentic account of things Jesus said, or an authentic account of what the early Christian community believed or understood Jesus to have said, and if we assume that it is earlier than any other accounts we have, all it tells us is that Jesus didn’t talk about his own resurrection. And the canonicals tell us the same thing, so I don’t think that gets us very far.

robindch

Chucken wrote: »

For a gang who don't believe, I have to admire how much is known.

Two reasons:

Firstly, religion is a potent social force in most societies including our own, so it's useful to understand why this might be the case and what can be done to minimize its many downsides.

Secondly, some people here were religious in the past. Hell, some still are

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

We have no reason to think that he ever worked for the Romans, or had any official position with them. ..

We don't know how he made his living before his conversion. He tells us himself that he persecuted the early Christians, but he doesn't suggest that he did so on behalf of the Roman authorities, and we have no reason to surmise that he did. (At the time, the Roman authorities had a generally hands-off attitude to Jews, and took no interest at all in intra-Judaic disputes.) If he was acting on anybody's behalf at all, it would have been on behalf of the Temple authorities. On the other hand, as a Pharisee, he would have been somewhat distant from the Temple authorities. So it is most likely that he persecuted the Christians as an enthusiastic amateur - i.e. nobody commissioned him or paid him to do it; he just did it out of zeal.

Yes, I've looked into it a bit more and Paul did not work for the Romans. He worked for (or at least derived his authority from) Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest in Jerusalem. This is the same guy who headed up the religious court (the Sanhedrin) when Jesus was interrogated and handed over to the Roman prefect/governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, just prior to the crucifixion.
Damascus was in a different jurisdiction, outside Judea, governed locally by Nabateans (arabs) But the Romans had granted Caiaphas the authority to extradite dissident Jews from other provinces, and so Caiaphas provided Saul/Paul with "letters" giving him the power of arrest in Damascus, as ultimately sanctioned by Rome.

The interesting thing about this is that the dissident Jews which were considered heretics, were largely fleeing Judea. These were the ones that said the prophet Jesus had resurrected from the dead and was a god.

Whereas James was happily ensconced in Jerusalem as leader of the official christian Jewish sect, and able to saunter in and out of the holiest temples without any bother at all. Why was he not arrested, or forced to flee Judea? Maybe because his was the original version of Christianity which saw Jesus as a prophet and a martyr, but not a god. A sect within Judaism.
"As it happens" according to modern Christianity, James and company never mentioned anything about a resurrection. But we are "not to read anything into that".

After Saul had his nervous breakdown and became Paul, he himself ended up fleeing Judea and presumably had to live out his days trying to avoid his successor in his old job, who was still extraditing heretical jews back to Jerusalem. It all turned out for the best though, because the pagans to the north proved receptive to the heresy and eventually outnumbered and eclipsed those who stayed behind in Judea.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

. . . Whereas James was happily ensconced in Jerusalem as leader of the official christian Jewish sect, and able to saunter in and out of the holiest temples without any bother at all. Why was he not arrested, or forced to flee Judea? Maybe because his was the original version of Christianity which saw Jesus as a prophet and a martyr, but not a god. A sect within Judaism.

There was no “official Christian Jewish sect”; Christian Jews were always looked upon with suspicion by the Jewish authorities, subjected to varying degrees of persecution and eventually formally expelled. James only became leader of the Jerusalem church when his predecessor, Peter, escaped from prison and fled Jerusalem; does this suggest to you that he was going to have an easy time of it? We have no reason to think that James was able to “saunter in and out of the holiest temples without any bother at all”. There was only one Temple, and James was never able to go further than the inner courtyard, which any male Jew could do. And he couldn’t even do that in safety for much of the time.

As for why he was not arrested, do you know that he wasn’t? Josephus reports that he was not only arrested but tried and executed by stoning; your friend Hegesippus agrees.

recedite wrote: »

"As it happens" according to modern Christianity, James and company never mentioned anything about a resurrection. But we are "not to read anything into that".

I don’t know what modern Christian has told you this but, whoever he is, you should be a bit less credulous of what he tells you. We know little of what James said; the one text we have that is possibly by him doesn’t mention resurrection, but it’s about an entirely different topic. I don’t think we can infer that, because he doesn’t mention it here, he never spoke of it at all. Still less can we infer that no other Jerusalem Christian spoke of it either.

Plus, we should note that in 1 Cor 15 Paul names James as one of the people to whom the risen Christ has appeared. As James was still alive at this time, and a significant figure in the Christian movement, Paul must have been reasonably confident that James wasn’t likely to contradict him on this point. And the one Jewish-Christian text that has partly survived, the Gospel of the Hebrews, also has the risen Jesus appearing to James. And it has James celebrating the Eucharist explicitly as a celebration of the resurrection.

Finally, we should note that accounts of the arguments between Paul and the Jerusalem Jewish Christians appear both in Paul's own writings and in Acts. There is no suggestion that the resurrection was a point of argument.

So the evidence that James in particular, or Jewish Christianity in general, denied or lacked any belief in the resurrection is really not that strong.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

There was no “official Christian Jewish sect”; Christian Jews were always looked upon with suspicion by the Jewish authorities, subjected to varying degrees of persecution and eventually formally expelled.

We don't know that what labels they used, but we know that Saul was being sent all the way to Damascus to round up a certain type of christian, while another type of christian was able to live freely in Jerusalem right under the noses of the "persecuters".

Peregrinus wrote: »

James only became leader of the Jerusalem church when his predecessor, Peter, escaped from prison and fled Jerusalem; does this suggest to you that he was going to have an easy time of it?

Peter was supposedly broken out of jail by an angel, and subsequently fled to Antioch in Greece/modern Turkey, and then on to Rome where he became the head honcho. Far away from the clutches of the Jewish High Priest in Jerusalem.
Whereas James was obviously of a different ilk, because he was allowed to stay. Those who stayed had to be careful what teachings they were spreading, and to avoid any heresies. Even Stephen who was stoned to death, had protested that he was only following jewish/mosaic law, and he referred to Jesus as the son-of-man, not the son of god. He still got himself martyred though.

Peregrinus wrote: »

We have no reason to think that James was able to “saunter in and out of the holiest temples without any bother at all”. There was only one Temple, and James was never able to go further than the inner courtyard, which any male Jew could do. And he couldn’t even do that in safety for much of the time.

You're still not addressing that Jerome/Hegesippus quote which says he did go inside. Right into "the holy of holies". So I assume you don't accept that as being accurate?

As for why he was not arrested, do you know that he wasn’t? Josephus reports that he was not only arrested but tried and executed by stoning; your friend Hegesippus agrees.

Yes, but that was 18 years later, after a dispute with a different High Priest, aptly known as Ananus. And the motivation was suspect; there was some political turmoil at the time, which Ananus seems to have taken advantage of to settle a personal score. But when the new Roman procurator arrived, people complained about the killing, and Ananus was then removed from his position as High Priest of Jerusalem by the civil authorities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James,_brother_of_Jesus#Death
So James lasted a comparatively long time in Jerusalem, as the top man in the christian sect of the pharisees from about CE 44 to CE 62.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

We don't know that what labels they used, but we know that Saul was being sent all the way to Damascus to round up a certain type of christian, while another type of christian was able to live freely in Jerusalem right under the noses of the "persecuters".

Hold on, hold on. We don't know anything of the kind.

In the first place, the suggestion way back in post #30 was that "Christianity", incorporating a belief in the resurrection, was a Pauline invention, distinct from the original Jewish Christiantity, not incorporating that belief.

But, obviously, there is no Pauline Christianity before the conversion of Paul. So who exactly were these Damascene Christians, and in what point did they differ from the Jewish Christians? What is your evidence for the existence of this schism, and what was the schism about?

You seem to be assuming that there must have been a schism, because Paul was persecuting the Damascene Christians on behalf of the Temple authorities while the Jerusalem Christians were "living freely in Jerusalem right under the noses of the persecutors". But on what do you base the latter claim? Bear in mind that this was before Jame's time as leader; Peter was the leader of the Jewish Christians. He was repeatedly arrested and arraigned before the Sanhedrin, along with other Christians, and eventually had to leave Jerusalem. Not much there to support your "living freely" theory, then.

recedite wrote: »

Peter was supposedly broken out of jail by an angel, and subsequently fled to Antioch in Greece/modern Turkey, and then on to Rome where he became the head honcho. Far away from the clutches of the Jewish High Priest in Jerusalem.
Whereas James was obviously of a different ilk, because he was allowed to stay. Those who stayed had to be careful what teachings they were spreading, and to avoid any heresies. Even Stephen who was stoned to death, had protested that he was only following jewish/mosaic law, and he referred to Jesus as the son-of-man, not the son of god. He still got himself martyred though.

James wasn't "allowed to stay"; he simply didn't choose to flee. And look what happened.

recedite wrote: »

You're still not addressing that Jerome/Hegesippus quote which says he did go inside. Right into "the holy of holies". So I assume you don't accept that as being accurate?

I addressed it back in post #33. For the reasons pointed out there, it is absolutely impossible that James would ever have been allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, or that he could have survived any attempt to do so. Hegesippus knew this; his (Jewish) intended readership knew this; he knew that they knew this. I suggested back in post #33 that Hegisippus meant what he wrote allegorically; James was to the Christian community what the High Priest was to the Jewish people, and he underlines this by figuratively assigning to him the purity rituals and intercessory functions of the High Priest.

I suppose another possibility is that Hegesippus never wrote this at all. We only have this at second hand, in a passage quoted in Eusebius. But Eusebius quotes are generally reliable, so I think the more likely explanation is that Hegesippus did write this, but intended it figuratively. If you know of a scholar who thinks it was literally true, now would be a good time to name him.

recedite wrote: »

Yes, but that was 18 years later, after a dispute with a different High Priest, aptly known as Ananus. And the motivation was suspect; there was some political turmoil at the time, which Ananus seems to have taken advantage of to settle a personal score. But when the new Roman procurator arrived, people complained about the killing, and Ananus was then removed from his position as High Priest of Jerusalem by the civil authorities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James,_brother_of_Jesus#Death
So James lasted a comparatively long time in Jerusalem, as the top man in the christian sect of the pharisees from about CE 44 to CE 62.

James lasted about 18 years to Peter's about 12. But, given the circumstances in which he came to office, and the circumstances in which he left, I really don't buy the picture you paint of bucolic harmony prevailing in between. We know that during this time the Christian movement formalised the admission of Gentiles (AD 50) and this was one of the major things that angered the Temple authorities.