Raf

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In II Thess 2:2, readers are warned not to believe forged letters. Fun fact: II Thess is a forgery, warning people not to believe forgeries. Now you may not believe II Thess is a forgery. That's up to you. But if you believe it is authentic then you are forced to admit that Paul himself warned the early church to be on the lookout for letters falsely pretending to be from him. Such letters would claim to be from him, proving that just because a letter SAYS it's from Paul doesn't mean Paul wrote it. Whoever LUKE was, he undermines Paul's claim to have received the gospel directly from God and not from the apostles that came before him. One of them is lying. If Luke is lying, then how can he be trusted to give a reliable account of the resurrection? We KNOW he lied or was wrong about the circumstances of Jesus' birth (census in the wrong year, no flight to Egypt, Joseph would not have been required to go to Bethlehem, etc). What leads you to think he's above lying about the end of the story when he lied so casually about the beginning? Because he was a doctor? He never claims to be a doctor. Never even claims to be Luke! Someone pretending to be Paul said Luke was a doctor. Acts doesn't make that claim. If this were the claim of any other religion you would reject it for lack of supporting evidence.

Here's a good review of Ehrman's book for those who don't wish to buy it or subscribe to his blog.

Another article summarizing scholarship on textual criticism.

Here's a good article on how people can learn from fiction.

It's not about my views. It's about the scholarship of textual criticism. Every single case of forgery pretends to he written by someone who is not the author. It's silly to look at the "signature" as proof of authorship. Using a fictional example is a valid form of explaining how it works. But if you'd prefer a factual example: Hitler's diaries claimed to be written by Hitler but were not. The Book of Mormon claims to be written by people who were not its authors. The Gospel of Thomas was not written by Thomas The Gospel of Peter was not written by Peter. Colossians and Ephesians were not written by Paul. This is not "Raf's view." This is the position of the majority of mainstream scholars whose study goes beyond "well it says right here Paul wrote it. Must have been him."

Then that rules out the Bible

I was using a pop culture reference to explain forgery to you.

This is not about what I will and will not like. It's about actual research that people with no vested interest do when they study the Bible. In the tv show Welcome Back Kotter, one of the characters used to hand in notes to excuse himself for being absent or late, or for missing homework. The notes were always signed, "Epstein's mother." The joke was, of course Epstein's mother didn't write those notes. Epstein only wanted people to THINK his mother wrote those notes. Of COURSE if someone in the ancient world wanted to pass off a letter as an epistle from Paul, that letter is going to say it was written by Paul. THAT'S HOW FORGERIES WORK. They don't announce themselves as forgeries. Start here: https://ehrmanblog.org/faint-heart-authorship-colossians-members/ i will post more when i have time

Forgery was rampant in the first century, and many letters were excluded from the Bible because, even though they claimed to be written by certain people, they were not. Some of those letters made it into the N.T. Colossians was one of them.

Paul didn't write either of those letters. Signed, Epstein's mother.

There is nothing to critically assess. In 19 days I will announce something. Hopefully something awesome, but maybe less than awesome.

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It was a good, good, good, good guess

free post

It's part of the fun. It's personal, and not a sure thing. But worth the anticipation, i think

21

dupe

yes, we are on the same page. i ruled out FF because it was never released at all and the CA TV series because itcwas never supposed to be a feature.... oh snap. it IS Captain America. just not the cheezy tv show.

Must be a shortage of fine people.

So about 75-100 years after it's written, tradition gives us Luke as the author. And that's according to people who believe it WAS Luke. Nelson is not exactly what I would call an unbiased source. Would you expect them to confess Luke was not the author? Not in a billion years. They would lose support among evangelicals, their bread and butter. I would recommend the Oxford Companion to the Bible. When I have time I'll write up their summary. They still think it's Luke, but they're honest enough to show the case is weak and boils down to "why not."

Direct to video. That rules out the unreleased Fantastic Four movie. I'm thinking along those lines though, because you have some reason to think we would know a D2V movie. I know there was a godawful Captain America tv series in the 70s or 80s. But that's not D2V. I don't know either. Don't even know if I'm on the right track. Or tree. Or forest.

Looks like Juedes and I made the same observation: you have to add a word no matter how many you think were crucified with Jesus. Mark, believe it or not, we all know who the Biblical characters of Matthew and Luke are. The issue is not their identity. It is their authorship. Most scholars agree that neither Matthew nor Luke wrote the gospels attributed to them. The case for Matthew is horribly weak, because he's plagiarizing Mark (who wasn't there) and, it must be said, straight up lying about history (the slaughter of the innocents) and fulfilled prophecies (a virgin shall be with child, a prophecy that had zero to do with the Messiah). All that said, you raise good points about the crucifixion. Thank you for the contribution.

I wouldn't say debunked. I don't buy it, but that doesn't make it debunked. The picture of the five crosses in the Companion Bible: THAT's debunked. It had nothing to do with the gospels. But not being an expert in Greek, I can only speculate about whether John meant to say one on this side and one on that side or two on this side and two on that side. Either interpretation involves adding to the text. (It doesn't say two on this side and TWO on that side, nor does it say on either side ONE). It's just bizarre that Matthew mentions two but fails to mention the other two, while Luke mentions the other two without mentioning Matthew's two. Why can't either of them have mentioned all four? (Because there weren't four, and Luke straight up invented the penitent evildoer, manufacturing a contradiction in the process).

I will likely be unable to continue this countdown between now and April 1, so I encourage you fine people to lend a hand.