how about these? i don't know when Mara Bar-Serapion lived. nor do i know when these Talmud references were made. i posted a link to some of these earlier in this thread. Mara Bar-Serapion × Sometime after the fall of Jerusalem (70 A.D.), Mara Bar-Serapion (a Syrian) wrote a letter from prison to his son "What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished...Nor did the wise king die for good; he lived on in the teaching which he had given." (quoted from McDowell, p. 52) The Talmud "On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favor he was hanged on the eve of the Passover!" By the way...Josephus mentions Jesus more than once...here's the "non-controversial" mention, as i understand it: "Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done."
common ancestor: The most recent ancestral form or species from which two different species evolved http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/glossary/glossary.html
you posted this originally: to which I posted that article in response. We are also talking about all humans common ancestor only in this thread, not humans and some other species
Funny thing is that biblical historians lean toward the earliest possible dating of NT books, while atheists lean to the latest possible datings. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between. I have included two *scholarly* passages below wrt dating on the NT books. The main points are that our ignorance is outstanding and any cases built for NT book datings is entirely speculative. The Formation of the New Testament Canon Rather than try to commit to specifics here, I will just give the possible ranges of dates that have been argued and which are at least possible. The material for this section is taken from my own survey of scholarly consensus found in numerous sources. It is believed that Jesus died c. 30 A.D. Specifically, if he died under Pontius Pilate, the date must have at least been between 26 and 36, the ten years we know Pilate to have served in Judaea [1]. Whatever the date, Paul's conversion follows one to three years later. The earliest known Christian writings are the epistles of Paul, composed between 48 and 58 A.D. Some of these are of doubted authenticity (and were even in antiquity), but the debate is too complex to summarize here. The other letters, and the Revelation (a.k.a. the Apocalypse of John), are of even more uncertain authorship and date. They are presumed to have been written in the same period or later (1 Peter, for instance, may have been written, some scholars say, as late as 110 A.D.). The Gospels cannot really be dated, nor are the real authors known. Their names were assigned early, but not early enough for us to be confident they were accurately known. It is based on speculation that Mark was the first, written between 60 and 70 A.D., Matthew second, between 70 and 80 A.D., Luke (and Acts) third, between 80 and 90 A.D., and John last, between 90 and 100 A.D. Scholars advance various other dates for each work, and the total range of possible dates runs from the 50's to the early 100's, but all dates are conjectural. It is supposed that the Gospels did not exist before 58 simply because neither Paul nor any other epistle writer mentions or quotes them, and this is a reasonable argument as far as things go. On the other hand, Mark is presumed earlier, and the others later, because Mark is simpler, and at least Matthew and Luke appear to borrow material from him (material that is likely his own invention, cf. my review of The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark). All the Gospels except John contain possible allusions to the destruction of Jerusalem, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., and thus it is likely they were all written after that date [2]. But that assumes the statements attributed to Jesus are apocryphal--they may have been genuine, the usual doom and gloom apocalyptic fantasizing, and then confirmed only by accident (or, if one is a believer, divine destiny) when the city and its temple were actually destroyed. They could also have been added to the text later. On the other hand, it has been argued with some merit that Luke borrowed material from Josephus, and if so that would date his Gospel (and Acts) after 94 A.D. [3] Finally, there are good arguments for the existence of a lost source-text called Q which was used by Matthew and Luke to supplement their borrowing from Mark, and this has been speculatively dated as early as the 50's A.D. [3a] This is only an example of the state of ignorance we are in whenever scholars try to debate the dates of these writings. Although it remains possible that all the Gospels were written after 100, those rare scholars who try to place all Christian writings in the 2nd century have nothing to base such a position on. At least some of Paul's epistles can be reasonably taken as dating no more than 16 to 32 years after the oral tradition had begun to flourish after the death of Jesus, although adulteration of those letters by later editors remains possible, and it is also possible that even in Paul's day forgeries were being made and circulated (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:2). The Gospels were not likely to have been written down so soon, and we have clear evidence, in numerous variations, that they were altered at various points in their transmission, and scholarly work in the last two centuries has gone far to get us to the earliest versions possible. Nevertheless, any number of unknown alterations could still have been made that have not been detected (a great many have been--both errors and deliberate alterations or omissions), and it is important to note that the ancients did not have at one glance the scope of manuscript data we have, nor did they (with a few exceptions) even have the analytical and palaeographical skills now employed to derive a reliable manuscript archetype from a scientific collation of numerous exemplars. In other words, no one in antiquity ever saw a completely accurate collection of what would eventually become the 27 New Testament books, until perhaps the time of Origen or Clement of Alexandria (see XII and XIV), and even then most likely only those few scholars would have enjoyed the privilege. But this is still doubtful--it does not appear that either man went out of his way to find and trace the history of all existing manuscripts, in all churches, and in all translations, yet that is what would have been required to decisively collate a close approximation to the original texts (and with regard to facing an even worse problem today, cf. M 267ff.; and for an example, see Bible). Dating Early Christian Gospels To steer clear of this unwarranted prioritization, all early gospels should be regarded simply as products of pre-canonical Christianity.[40] All parts of all early gospels were likely written after the death of Jesus (ca. 30 C.E.), but before Irenaeus created a broad consensus that only four[41] individual[42] gospels could be regarded as authoritative scripture (ca. 180 C.E.). The period for the writing of the early gospels might reasonably be narrowed to something like 60-150 C.E., but the gospels should remain in a broad, rather than narrow, context. This will make it easy to see that all early gospels are analogous developments of the Jesus tradition. They have a great deal in common.
I don't think it's too much to take on, because it's everything there is. I see now it's all there is. -- Andrew Largeman, Garden State
Just curious....for Protestants, how are events after the NT determined as messages from God? It seems like there's a line drawn between human history and God's history.
Well, based on the biological definition of what a common ancestor is, it seems you should double check the relevancy of your article. Because if the article is using common ancestor in the terms that biology does, which seems to me more likely given the biological interest of this study, then he would be talking about the point at which the human race developed from another species. Hence this mathematical model (which is pretty ludicrous in the first place) would be incongruous with your claim that ALL the species on the planet and one family were on a boat for forty days and when that single family came out it spawned the entirety of the human race.
i'm protestant...if protestant means Christ-follower who isn't Catholic. but i don't understand your question.
Not really. Note I said "some kind of historical figure". You are right it can't be proven but most do believe there was someone. Believe. Not know. Until around the 18th century, history never attempted to be about truth or accuracy so it always becomes belief and guesswork. Dating the gospels can only be framed. As I said before, it is impossible to know specifics. I am most comfortable with between 70 (after the Jewish War - I would think some time would be needed but who knows how long) and 120 (10 or so years between each) ce. rhester - thank you for admitting the horror of Hislop. I was a bit rude in my response to your bit about Christians reading the bible and I apologize. I know you are a pastor and that is why I did it. It is also such a judgmental position and, as with the historical Jesus, it is impossible to know. In any event, people in general do not read enough of anything, much less the most popular book of all time, the Bible. Further, most people (and thus Christians) know nothing of history and so cannot frame any reading they do do. That is why I respond extra strong against things such as Hislop.
lookk you said the concept of one family breeding the entire human race is too much for you to believe, I showed you an artcile that mathematically proves it's possible. Pure and simple, I did not delve into biology. If that was what you were going after, perhaps you should have said that more clearly.
For example, LDS followers have the Book of Mormon as an addendum to the Bible. The Koran borrows parts from the OT and NT. I'm assuming they're continuing God's message, post-Bible. I'm not too sure about this, but for Catholics, doesn't their methods of Canonization or Dogmatic decrees serve the same principle, to continue the line of the Supernatural (I'm drawing blanks for a PC word...) that splinters from recorded (natural) history? So for non-Catholic/LDS Christians, what's their method of making new works Sacred, if they have any? I wouldn't mind a data dump, if anyone has some links.
No, what I was going after was what the meaning of "most recent common ancestor was." I was pretty sure it didn't mean what you claimed it did in presenting that article. I did some research after my brain gave out on LSAT studying and here's what I came up with. In statistical terms, most recent common ancestor does not refer to the source point of all human life, it merely is a statistical representation of an individual we might all be related to in some way. Wikipedia clarifies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor So, the article you're referring to in no way proves that a viable gene pool of billions of people could have come from a single family in a short time, it merely claims that we can all claim some relationship to an individual who's genes have been spread throughout the pool.
Fair enough, Max. It doesn't really settle my bubbling thoughts on this topic, but a msg board wouldn't settle it anyways.
