Before There Was a Bible: Authorities in Early Christianity | Dr. Lee Martin McDonald

[@History-Valley]

➡📚Get his book! amzn.to/4aTwxPy

[@OtherSide73]

Bart Ehrman (NT scholar & ex Christian) proves Bible is corrupt, gospel writers r anonymous. Paul & church hijacked Jesus' teachings & corrupted them

[@JR-hk8tq]

very interesting presentation, things to think about in the development of the Bible

[@dboulos7]

Great Q & A, thank you.

[@integrationalpolytheism]

Another great episode. Loved it.

[@komaichan99]

Why doesn't anyone consider Paul's letters to have been edited and rewritten? See the confusion between the Galatians and the Roman region of Galatia.

[@sciptick]

Everyone seems to agree the real ones were heavily cut'n'pasted. There seems to be no discussion of what was cut, or why, though there must have been reasons.

[@exoplanet11]

@@sciptick Our host, Jacob B. has researched this possibility extensively and come up with some new findings. See his recent videos on "Back to the Christ". He finds anachronisms in the Epistles.

[@pdworld3421]

Overall lots of information nicely presented

[@Simon.the.Likeable]

It was interesting to have Dr. McDonald confirm that the persecution of Christians was local (i.e. not systemic) and linked to control over the Jews by the Empire. I had heard that the Romans had difficulties distinguishing between Christians and Jews at that time. It pours cold water on the claims of apologists that there were an infinite supply of martyrs for their faith in those initial 150 years.

[@andrewsuryali8540]

There WAS a near-infinite supply of martyrs. We actually have this somewhat confirmed by Pliny the Younger because he got corrected by Trajan for creating them. However, there was also a complete lack of demand for martyrs because most Roman officials either didn't GAF or came up with ways to prevent pointless martyrdom. IIRC during the Diocletian persecution there was a North African governor who told the Christians to just bring any book and claim them to be scriptures so he could burn them. I think the state of early Christianity was such that, had the Roman state REALLY gone on a persecution rampage, they would have extinguished Christianity in less than a century. All the hardcore Christians were completely ready to be martyred and once they're gone the less hardcore ones would have had no peer pressure to stick with their convictions.

[@mcosu1]

I agree but it also seems like there were some who actively sought martyrdom, like suicide-by-police for their religion

[@stevendebernardi8291]

This gentleman is sharing a Conservative understanding of the formation of the Xtian faith.

[@dianastevenson131]

When Paul wrote that Christ died and rose again on the third day "in accordance with the scriptures" where is that scripture? Where in the Hebrew Bible or the Septuagint does it say that the messiah would die and rise again on the third day?

[@andrewsuryali8540]

It isn't in the current old testament we use, but some versions of the Septuagint mistranslated Hosea 6:2. Instead of saying "After three days he will rise US up", the "us" is missing so it sounds like the "he" is the one to rise up on the third day. The problem of course, is that this passage in Hosea has nothing to do with the Messiah. This statement by Paul (and the same one in Luke) are some of the earliest examples of Christian "proof-texting": taking passages of the Hebrew Bible out of context to justify their faith. It also shows clearly that these guys were reading the Greek Septuagint, and the wrong version at that. In Paul's case, however, we can't be sure this is all that's happening. Paul was clearly a follower of what in the modern day is called "Merkabah mysticism". It's a Jewish occultist movement whose views are best exemplified by books like Daniel, Revelation, and most clearly outlined in the three books of Enoch. We know that some Jewish sects had additional Merkabah "scriptures" in their collection. The Qumranites (Essenes) had the War Scroll and the Damascus Document which they quoted as if those were scriptures. We know that some early Christians considered Enoch scripture because the Epistle of Jude also quotes I Enoch verbatim. So when Paul starts quoting scripture that we can't find in the Hebrew Bible, we shouldn't assume (like many Orthodox Jews do) that he was making those up. It's entirely possible that he was quoting books that some 1st century Jews considered scripture that didn't make it into the Hebrew Bible.

[@jim6798]

Isiah 53

[@dianastevenson131]

@@andrewsuryali8540 Thanks for this. I've studied Merkavah mysticism but haven't seen anything there that talks about a figure dying and rising on the third day, or dying and rising at all. There may have been Jewish texts with this motif that have disappeared, but it seems strange that Christians didn't preserve such an important proof text. The hellenistic dying and rising gods, however, would have been familiar to Paul's gentile audience.

[@andrewsuryali8540]

@@dianastevenson131 Those are different things. The source of Luke and Paul's three day scripture quote is the Hosea mistranslation. I'm talking about Paul's letters where he claims to quote OTHER scriptures that don't seem to exist anywhere in the Hebrew Bible, like the basis of his angelology and how he thinks heavens work. Those are merkabah, and probably from lost texts. The idea of "dying and rising gods" is a modern invention. Paul's idea of Jesus is not that Jesus was god. He thinks Jesus is some kind of Second Power in Heaven, like Metatron-Enoch in 3 Enoch, basically a super-angel.

[@AaronGardner98]

A great interview! Does anyone know what tradition of Christianity Lee Martin McDonald finds himself in?

[@thenewval]

Baptist according to Oxford Bibliographies

[@AaronGardner98]

@@thenewval I’m a bit surprised by that. Unless he’s a mainline Baptist, I guess I kind of thought he would be in a more ancient tradition of the faith.

[@jansteinvonsquidmeirsteen2256]

@@AaronGardner98 the pronunciation "Judah-ism" is kinda a give away.

[@AaronGardner98]

@@jansteinvonsquidmeirsteen2256 is that a Baptist giveaway?

[@jansteinvonsquidmeirsteen2256]

@@AaronGardner98 hehehe.

[@dianastevenson131]

In most (if not all) synagogues they read the Torah (Pentateuch) from a scroll, it's not just the Orthodox who do that. The Torah scroll is a sacred object which is paraded around the synagogue during the service and people touch the covering of the scroll with their prayer shawls and prayer books.

[@andrewsuryali8540]

He means that only the Orthodox persisted in using ONLY the scroll format for their Torah. Everyone else had no problems writing the Torah in codex form. I think he means the really hardcore ultra-Orthodox. With that said, I do know a Jewish lady from a congregation that still does exactly this. I asked her once how then she could read the Torah on her own, and apparently she doesn't. She's only ever known it from synagogue readings. This is ironically very similar to the case of my Catholic mom.

[@dianastevenson131]

@@andrewsuryali8540 Both Jewish and Christian scriptures were written to be read publically to congregations in a worship service, because for most of history the majority of people couldn't read, and works that had to be copied by hand were rare and precious. It's only after the invention of the printing press and later universal literacy that people had "Bibles" to read at home. The individual private reading of scripture is a modern abberation I would say.

[@Hakor0]

I would say logos means more to do with logic than study even though study is apt logos is like an example of scientific reasoning which obviously study engenders Basically a fact portrayed but not all would understand unless learned What is a fact? But the output of a factory and if you don’t understand the production method it’s somewhat unintelligible but still of use! Like e=mc2 not everyone understands how to garner such an equation but it still has a use to many intellectual pursuits such as roughly how much energy from how much mass

[@frankkhethanidubedube919]

Is it not correct to say they were messianic rather than Christianity

[@bennyhinrichs]

5:45 am I hearing him wrong? Doceō means I teach, not I think

[@renierdeysel2215]

The Greek word "δοκέω" (doceō) has several nuanced meanings, largely depending on the context in which it is used. It can be translated as "to think," "to seem," "to appear," or "to suppose."

[@bennyhinrichs]

@@renierdeysel2215 gotcha, thanks for the reply. I was thinking Latin

[@pdworld3421]

Seems like there are a couple of conclusions the speaker draws that are not neccesarily logical

[@mcosu1]

I don't think we have really discovered the purpose and meaning behind pseudoepigraphy in early Christianity. It's like it's equal parts fan fiction, deception, ideology, history, scripture... who knows what the audiences thought when reading it.

[@sciptick]

Internal evidence suggests that anti-Marcion theology was an important driver of some of them.

[@cpnlsn88]

Did the first Christians need to go to the synagogue to get knowledge of the Old Testament?

[@andrewsuryali8540]

Yes. Then Gamaliel III promulgated the Birkat ha'minim (now the 12th "blessing" of the Amidah) and the Jews started throwing them out.

[@dianastevenson131]

​@@andrewsuryali8540Because they were heretics - just like the Christians threw the Gnostics out. The different ways that orthodoxy defines itself against heresy is always interesting.

[@andrewsuryali8540]

@@dianastevenson131 They were a SPECIAL kind of heretics. The Birkat ha'minim used to condemn them as the noztrim, distinguishing them from the minim. Judaism at the time didn't understand heresy in theological terms. A minim was a traitor to the nation, not someone with weird religious ideas. It was actually the rise of Shabbatai Tzvi in the 17th century that redefined what a minim was and theological disputes (including messianism) got lumped into the term, largely thanks to the influence of the great Jewish heretic hunter Rabbi Jacob Emden. After that point, the noztrim part became redundant.

[@SamKidder-yd2qo]

To believe they had a council at Hierusalem and the 7th day sabbath did not come up is unbelievable. Act 21: 25 has been added to. Peter had already founded a gentile ecclesia at Antioch and had set ordernesses in that ecclesia before Paul. Matthew 28;19 God by and through his Son Jesus the Christ commanded the 12 apostles to teach and to baptize all nations. All nations included the gentiles. The book of Acts is misleading.

[@allenbrininstool7558]

I’ll never go to a church that spiritualizes the texts. Clement was not an Apostle, not scripture

[@AaronGardner98]

Neither was whoever wrote 2 Peter. Or Mark, or Luke, or the author of Hebrews. Or the Pastorals. Or, or, or…

[@frankkhethanidubedube919]

They was Christianity then , as you said .. jews were followers of jehoshua.. that does not make them Christians

[@snowrider4495]

Before the buybull it was paganism where the Jews and Christians copied a lot of their stories from.

[@Instramark]

Uh oh, better watch out for those snobby Gnostics and their "Above it all special Gnosis and Esoterica.

[@sciptick]

Mainstream historians are lately agreed there were no actual Gnostic sects; that gnosticism is a case of wholesale invention by scholars.

[@rhb30001]

Glad he exposes gnostic beliefs as heretical

[@James-ll3jb]

Dubious axegrinders again😅

[@TheLoobis]

Jesus Christ. The host looks dead.

[@pdworld3421]

That's why the Catholics have the most correct Bible

[@jameswright...]

How can you know? We have no original copies to compare and thanks largely to Rome we had large parts removed now completely lost. Of course all that's irrelevant because the bible is man made historically and scientifically wrong and immoral.

[@allenbrininstool7558]

No before there was the NT. The OT has been there many thousands of years. Jesus is Mesiah why wouldn’t Christianity come from Judaism?

[@sciptick]

The OT was no more than a few centuries old, as few as two or three. Daniel, e.g., is known from internal evidence to originate around 165 BC. The stories in the Pentateuch were unknown in 400 BC, a time when Jews were still thoroughly polytheistic.