With the hundreds of phony Gospels and letters produced by the early Christian community?

Question

including Gospels and letters supposedly written by Jesus, Mary and every other character that appears in the final version of the New Testament, how can Christians claim that the origins of other religious documents (the Mormons, for instance) are fraudulent or questionable?

Of all of the world's religions, only Christianity seems to have been plagued by huge amounts of fraud right from it's inception.

Early Christianity is the mother load of religious fraud, with hundreds of Gospels and letters ultimately being rejected by the strain of Christianity that finally gained supremacy.

Until the 19th century, even the official books were kept in the hands of the Church, to prevent anyone from looking too closely at them, and since that changed in the last few centuries, half of the letters of Paul have been called into question by scholars and only seven are unanimously considered legitimate.

How can Christians defend the legitimacy of the official books, knowing where they came from?

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Great. You've demoted the status of the New Testament from "The Holy Word of God" to "Horse Sense" from a bunch of people who appear to have had little of it.

Amelie, you're living in a fantasy world.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com
http://www.sacred-texts.com

These three sites are just the tip of the iceberg, as many of the early texts were lost.

Answer 1

You're leaving out a lot of the historical context in your question, which is important.

Most of the specious letters date from the second century or later, and are the product of factions attempting to win an argument. Part of the reason we know they are specious today is that the ante-Nicene fathers declared them to be specious at the time.

Take the much hyped "letter of Judas" from last year. St. Irenaeus denounced this same letter in 180 AD, explaining in full detail how the letter originated, and what the motive of the group propagating it was.

On the other hand, the New Testament seems to be that collective of works that originate in the first century, and which consensus formed around. Unlike urban legend about it, there was no one council that formed the canon of the New Testament - it was slowly arrived at by consensus, as the patriarchs of the earliest time decided, using their own horse sense, which works were late and agenda laden, and which works were truly apostolic, devotional, and/or instructional.

As to all this business about church officials hiding books or whathaveyou, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the well developed exegesis of modern times. We do not have any original manuscripts; all this knowledge about what is and isn't pseudepigraphic comes from textcritical analysis, and not any sort of access/lack of access to "offocial books."

Christians can defend the legitimacy of the official books for a few reasons:

- the apparent care used by our fore-bearers in picking them: even the Gospel of John, considered the most recent gospel, is now known to be first century ancient (the Rylands fragment makes this a near certainty.)

- the fact that it comes from the church, the oldest continuously-existing organization in the world; the church gave the bible, not vice-versa.

- The fact that the bible may have had an extended and unusual redaction process does not mean that it is not exactly what God wants it to be; it may well be anyway. If God is all-powerful, then who can assert that the editorial process that lead to the bible somehow managed to prevent it from being the text God wanted it to be?

Answer 2

What does the evidence say?

Dating manuscripts on thr basis of the copybook that is used is an art, not a science. It provides an indicators for a range of years --- a century or more is not uncommon.
Dating manuscripts using Carbon 14, and similar tools can only give one a range of years --- usually around a century.

a) For the canonical New Testament there are manuscripts, or manuscripts fragments that date to between 65 and 200 CE, using both textual analysis and carbon 14.

For the psuedopigraphia, the earliest known manuscripts date to the fourth century.

b) From the surviving manuscripts of the early Christians, the canonical New Testament is quoted. A couple of verses in one manuscript. A couple of other verses in another manuscript, all down the line. This is not the case for any of the pseudopigraphical books.

c) Examine the provenance of each of the books in the canonical New Testament. Then examine the provenance of the pseudopigraphical material. Does the story about how it was written match the evidence?

d) Every religion has been subject to theological differences, and splits. Those of the Christian church are no greater than that of others. The early Christian church was far more open about the existence of factions within it, than other groups. [You can make a far stronger case that Islam is the epitome of religious fraud, based upon the corroborating evidence of the Q'ran.]

e) The definition of the New Testament canon took centuries, whilst the church leaders argued over what to include, and what to exclude. (You can legitimately argue that it was only in the sixteenth century that it was finalized.) During that period of time, the various books were analyzed, and sifted against each other.

Gnostic Christianity was different from the Christianity of the Early Church Fathers. The only book ascribed to Jesus does not support either side. Did the Gnostics get it right, or was it the Early Church Fathers? One clue is that Gnostic Christian texts refer to either "The Saviour" or "The Master". The non-Gnostic texts don't use that phrasing.

Catholic Christianity, Celtic Christianity, and Orthodox Christianity developed slightly different theologies, based upon the which books were canonical for the Old Testament. In all three instances support for their theology based upon the Old Testament can be found in the New Testament.
The theology of Gnostic Christianity can not be supported from the Old Testament. The theology within most of the pseudopigraphia can not be supported from either the canonical New testament, nor the Tanakh.

f) Until the mid-fifteenth century, the only way a book could be duplicated would be if somebody were to copy it by hand.
* The Holy Roman Catholic Church suppressed translation of the Bible, on the grounds that translations would lead to heretical beliefs. Study of the Bible in Latin was not discouraged.
* Orthodox Christianity discouraged Bible Study _without_ a guide, on the grounds that without an adequate theological background, it is too easy to fall into heresy. Within Orthodox Christianity, Bible Study with a guide has always been encouraged,.
* Protestant Christianity has always encouraged the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, and the study of the Bible by the individual;
* Celtic Christianity appears to have encouraged Bible Study, but distribution of the Bible was a problem due to the expense and time of copying it.

I'll also point out that it is fairly common for some books within the canon of a religious organization to not be distributed outside of the clergy.

g) Paul is a major problem in the New Testament. His time line is not congruent with that of Jesus. _1 Corinthians_ tends to support Gnosticism. _3 Corinthians_ has him teaching against Gnosticism. [Most of the material ascribed to Paul,that is not canonical, is supportive of Gnosticism. The provenance indicates that somebody other than Paul wrote them.] _Acts 28_ leaves one hanging on, about where else Paul went to fulfill "The Great Commission". _Acts 29_ is a missionary journey (sans shipwrecks) that fulfills his plans laid out earlier.

The texts ascribed to Paul --- both canonical and non-canonical --- do have conflicting statements. [His attitude about women teachers being a prime example.]

h) Defending the Canonical New Testament is fairly easy. Look at the evidence. There are roughly ten books whose canonicity was seriously debated. (Half of those books are considered to be canonical.) The rest of the non-canonical books did not merit a debate, because it is obvious that they were not canonical.

i) Appling the same criteria to other religions, their canonical literature, with one exception, crumbles more than that of the Christian New Testament. The sole exception is the Tanakh of Judaism.

Answer 3

Correcting some of the mistakes made by the true believers so far....

It's widely accepted that half of the letters attributed to Paul were actually written in his name by other people. Word usage makes it clear that they have different authorship. Translation smooths over the changes, so it's hard to spot it in English, but startlingly obvious in the original languages.

Thomas as 500 CE? That's ridiculous. We have extant fragments from 140 - 200 CE. All of the linguistic evidence points to a far earlier date, 80 CE is a conservative estimate and Thomas is very likely part of a tradition that predates Matthew and Luke.

Re: 50 years after Jesus' death. Doesn't sound like much, but that's *two* generations. How accurate do you think your gran's memories are from 50 years ago? Plenty of time for revision and theologizing.

I wouldn't call them 'phony' gospels. Early Christianity was a deeply contentious environment. They all slagged each other royally over minute aspects of theology and common practices ('And further more that heretic hangs out with women' was a universal insult. ALL of the groups were supported by wealthy widows.) There were loads of texts and those who won the power struggles got to choose what texts and theology became canon and what was buried in the desert.

That's the way they did things. And they did it so well that we get to live with the lies.

Answer 4

Folk had been suspicious of anybody who could provide them promise. Thus, an overly special letter could have produced powerful affect as to the why of Paul's upcoming seek advice from to their land. It makes natural experience. There had been many parties that had no reasoning at the back of them. Paul used to be justified in his letter writing. This used to be a well factor. What we could then say to those matters? If GOD be for us, WHO will also be towards us? - Romans eight:31. The Lord every day loadeth us with BENEFITS, even the GOD of our salvation. Selah. - Psalm sixty eight:19

Answer 5

Hundreds of phony gospels? Where did you get that info?

What was available to the early Christians were the the 66 books included in the Bible and 15 more, the apocryphal books. The reason why they didn't include these books in the Bible was that they contained folklore and weren't considered inspired by God.

Kallan is making a few sweeping statements isn't he? I know Christians who are scientists, archaeologists, historians, theologians, every possible field of study. How can he say 'they'??

Answer 6

The authenticating of the books of the New Testament has been brought into question at various times in the past. The documentary evidence is overwhelming. The evidence for the authenticity of is more convincing than the evidence for the authenticity of Herodotus' histories or Homer's Iliad (thought to be the most authenticated book in secular literature). The evidence for the "phonies" is severely lacking. The Gospel according to Thomas, for example, can only be traced back to around 500 AD (rough estimate), whereas the Gospel according to Matthew can be placed within 50 years of Christ's death. For a more thorough account of this information (and to answer your question more thoroughly than I could here) See either "Evidence for Christianity," or "Evidence that Demands a Verdict," both by Josh McDowell

Your source, www.earlychristianwritings.com, contains documents that are jewish and decidedly anti-christian (as one would expect jewish writings of that era to be). It also contains documents that do not exist in manuscript. They are assumed to exist based on other writings. It also intentionally defrauds the dates so that it appears the documents are older than they really are. They admit this outright with their "quality of dating" score. You have a questionable source here at the very least,

Answer 7

Easy, by denying everything that contradicts their view, even the bible itself. Christian belief is the strangest of beliefs, where one is considered great if they can look you in the eye and honestly believe that the bible is the inspired word of god himself, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. They just blow it all off as a work of the devil.

Of course, they have no proof of this, but they deny the evidence that proves the whole bible is fraudulent. This religion is the most debilitating of mental diseases, it can make an otherwise sane person delusional beyond rehabilitation, as has been proven by the responses to your question.

Answer 8

"Of all the world's religions, only Christianity seems to have been plagued by huge amounts of fraud right from its inception."


Sounds to me like someone from the beginning had an axe to grind with it, or that the catholic church really does believe it's god on earth.


A book that generates that much influence over the course of two millenia without sign of weakness or loss of authority is obviously going to make enemies among its competitors along the way. Enter the illustrous, catholic, religiopolitical machine, and you have instant confusion and corrupted versions of the original manuscripts which still exist today, much to the chagrine of the vatican.

Answer 9

What is your agenda in asking this question? Do wish to try and topple a belief system all by yourself? I can tell you are a thinking person and for that, I admire you.

With that being said, if you do not believe and you think the Bible is myth, on par with the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and Superman, then why don't you attack those "icons" with the same ferocity?

God has always allowed for there to be enough room for doubt so our faith will not grow fat and lazy. Just as a weight lifter gets stronger and bigger by pushing his muscles to their limits, so does the believer's faith. Thanks for the work out!

Answer 10

Wow, you haven't gotten any answers yet.
Some I've heard are:
"Because my pastor said so"
"because the bible is the inspired word of God and He made sure that the right ones got into the bible"
"God is powerful enough to preserve his word throughout the ages"

and now my answer: the key point to your question is "knowing where they came from". They don't even read their bibles cover to cover, much less study the origins of them. They don't study history, science, archaeology or anthropology either.. you don't have to defend something if you stick your head in the sand and ignore all evidence to the contrary.