User talk:Tgeorgescu/Archives/2018/April

Mahalalel , ancestor of humanity.

What are you doing ? Why have you reverted my edits ? I do not understand. I am right. Mahalalel is our ancestor. He is our common ancestor. We come from him. We are from Mahalalel. He is the great-great-great-grandfather of Noah. All humans come from Mahalalel. All humanity comes from him. 90.16.180.172 (talk) 21:41, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

We all descend from Mahalalel. We are descended from him. He lived in Asia. He loved during 895 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.16.180.172 (talk) 21:45, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Are you a troll? Please read WP:NPOV: you may not state your religious beliefs as objective fact, in the voice of Wikipedia. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:17, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Anonymous gospels

````No Anonymous gospels exist```` Twice you reverted my edit about the non-existent of anonymous gospel (I have two different accounts since I'm on two different gadgets and places). The notification said "fringe view". This is not a fringe view. The fact is, when scholars say that the gospels are anonymous, they mean that in the body of the gospels the name of the writers is not mentioned. This is common practice. You don't see the name "JK Rowling" or "JRR Tolkien" in the body of Harry Potter or Lord of the Ring. It's in the title that you would see the name of the author. The same goes with the gospels. Every manuscripts we have that bear the title, there's always attribution to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In fact, we have no competing tradition whatsoever saying otherwise (ex. some church father saying that what we know as the gospel of Mark was written by Peter). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bubengsiaucut (talk • contribs) 23:28, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

@Bubengsiaucut: Of course they do: adding a title on an anonymous work is a piece of cake, the titles have been added later. The consensus of mainstream Bible scholars is that the NT gospels are fundamentally anonymous: there is no way to know the names of their authors, these are false attributions. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:52, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Bart D. Ehrman (1999). Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. Oxford University Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-19-512474-3. But are these traditional ascriptions correct? The first thing to observe is that the titles of the Gospels were not put there by their authors—as should be clear after just a moment's reflection. Suppose a disciple named Matthew actually did write a book about Jesus' words and deeds. Would he have called it "The Gospel According to Matthew"? Of course not. He might have called it "The Gospel of Jesus Christ" or "The Life and Death of Our Savior" or something similar. But if someone calls it the Gospel according to Matthew, then it's obviously someone else trying to explain, at the outset, whose version of the story this one is. And in fact we know that the original manuscripts of the Gospels did not have their authors' names attached to them.¹ 1. Because our surviving Greek manuscripts provide such a wide variety of (different) titles for the Gospels, textual scholars have long realized that their familiar names (e.g., "The Gospel according to Matthew") do not go back to a single "original" title, but were later added by scribes.

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:29, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Bubengsiaucut reply:

1. Pray tell, if you're an author where would you put your name in the book you wrote? If you're like majority of authors you would NOT put your name in the body of your writing. But instead you would put it on the cover of your work.

Now, bear with me, if your publisher put your name on the cover of your book, would anyone accuse him of false attribution? No.

Given any draft for a book, any sane publisher would put the name of the author on the cover of the book.

So if a manuscript bears a title "euangelion kata matthion" one can't jump to conclusion and say that it's a false attribution. It's a common practice, even till today, to put the author's name on the cover of a work.

2. There is no manuscript that has the first page of a gospel, attributed to other than Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Ehrman is being misleading and dishonest when he said that "our surviving Greek manuscripts provide such a wide variety of (different) titles for the Gospels," There's no such thing.

Here's from Dr. Bran Pitre in his book The Case for Jesus (rather long):

==

• No Anonymous Copies Exist*

The first and perhaps biggest problem for the theory of the anonymous Gospels is this: no anonymous copies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John have ever been found. They do not exist. As far as we know, they never have.

Instead, as New Testament scholar Simon Gathercole has demonstrated, the ancient manuscripts are unanimous in attributing these books to the apostles and their companions. Consider, for example, the following chart of the titles in the earliest Greek manuscripts of each of the Gospels.12 (chart is not included for the sake of brievity).

Notice three things about this evidence. First, there is a striking absence of any anonymous Gospel manuscripts. That is because they don’t exist. Not even one. The reason this is so significant is that one of the most basic rules in the study of New Testament manuscripts (a practice known as textual criticism) is that you go back to the earliest and best Greek copies to see what they actually say. Not what you wish they said, but what they actually say. When it comes to the titles of the Gospels, not only the earliest and best manuscripts, but all of the ancient manuscripts—without exception, in every language—attribute the four Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.14

Second, notice that there is some variation in the form of the titles (for example, some of the later manuscripts omit the word “Gospel”). However, as New Testament scholar Michael Bird notes, there is “absolute uniformity” in the authors to whom each of the books is attributed.15 One reason this is so important is because some scholars will claim that the Greek manuscripts support the idea that the titles of the Gospels were added later. For example, Bart Ehrman writes: "Because our surviving Greek manuscripts provide such a wide variety of (different) titles for the Gospels, textual scholars have long realized that their familiar names (e.g., 'The Gospel according to Matthew') do not go back to a single 'original' title, but were added later by scribes."16 Look back at the chart showing the titles of the earliest Greek manuscripts. Where is the “wide variety” of titles that he is talking about? The only significant difference is that in some later copies, the word “Gospel” is missing, probably because the title was abbreviated.17 In fact, it is precisely the familiar names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that are found in every single manuscript we possess! According to the basic rules of textual criticism, then, if anything is original in the titles, it is the names of the authors.18 They are at least as original as any other part of the Gospels for which we have unanimous manuscript evidence.

Third—and this is important—notice also that the titles are present in the most ancient copies of each Gospel we possess, including the earliest fragments, known as papyri (from the papyrus leaves of which they were made). For example, the earliest Greek manuscript of the Gospel of Matthew contains the title “The Gospel according to Matthew” (Greek euangelion kata Matthaion) (Papyrus 4). Likewise, the oldest Greek copy of the beginning of the Gospel of Mark starts with the title “The Gospel according to Mark” (Greek euangelion kata Markon). This famous manuscript—which is known as Codex Sinaiticus because it was discovered on Mount Sinai—is widely regarded as one of the most reliable ancient copies of the New Testament ever found. Along similar lines, the oldest known copy of the Gospel of Luke begins with the words “The Gospel according to Luke” (Greek euangelion kata Loukan) (Papyrus 75). Finally, the earliest manuscript of the Gospel of John that exists is only a tiny fragment of the Gospel. Fortunately, however, the first page is preserved, and it reads: “The Gospel according to John” (Greek euangelion kata Iōannēn) (Papyrus 66).

In short, the earliest and best copies of the four Gospels are unanimously attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There is absolutely no manuscript evidence—and thus no actual historical evidence—to support the claim that “originally” the Gospels had no titles. In light of this complete lack of anonymous copies, New Testament scholar Martin Hengel writes: "Let those who deny the great age and therefore the basic originality of the Gospel superscriptions in order to preserve their 'good' critical conscience give a better explanation of the completely unanimous and relatively early attestation of these titles, their origin and the names of the authors associated with them. Such an explanation has yet to be given, and it never will be.19"

==

WP:WALLS. The consensus of mainstream Bible scholars is a fact from outside of Wikipedia. If you have a problem with that, see WP:RGW. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:28, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

It's the "consensus" of all the manuscripts we have that the title of the gospels bears the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and no one else.

This is a verifiable fact.

People need to know this fact.

Scholars go on saying "the gospel is anonymous" knowing that fact. But people are being misled (average people,not scholars who actually look at manuscripts) because of scholars' scholarly term (ie. "There's no anonymous gospel").

Let's scholars have their misleading term. But the fact that all manuscripts is atributed to Matthew etc needs to be put out there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bubengsiaucut (talk • contribs) 23:06, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

You don't establish facts for wiki, mainstream Bible scholars establish facts for wiki. It's not your call (or Pitre's). Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:08, 18 April 2018 (UTC)