Roman Empire Languages (Except Latin and Greek)

Q

How many languages were spoken in the Roman Empire, other than Latin and Greek?
https://www.quora.com/How-many-languages-were-spoken-in-the-Roman-Empire-other-than-Latin-and-Greek/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-2

Hans-Georg Lundahl

studied Latin at Lund University

Answered just now

Someone mentioned the big survivors.

Coptic, Aramaic, Brythonic & Gaulish (not sure if Gaulish did survive all the way to 476), Punic, someone else added Berber languages. Add Aquitanes speaking some version of Basque. And Illyric may well have been some early version of Albanian.

There is another side to it too.

Some did not survive Roman Empire:

Etruscan, Oscan, Umbrian, Siculic, Iberic, Celt-Iberic, Ligurian, Thracian, Dacian, Luwian, Lydian, Lykian, Akkadian. Probably Sumerian even.

Yes, Akkadian and Sumerian were spoken 1st C BC, when Seleucid rule was under the Republic, and Akkadian one century more.

And some came in from the outside, just before the fall, I have mentioned Germanic and Hunnic languages. If you count East-Rome, add Slavic to this.

Tracing Efforts Continue : Given that Trent Session V treats Adam as an individual man, when did modernist Catholics start treating him as just an allegory?

Incredulity on Literal Adam and Eve, a Tracing Problem (Quora) · Tracing Efforts Continue : Given that Trent Session V treats Adam as an individual man, when did modernist Catholics start treating him as just an allegory? · Continuing Sci Debate with Marc Robidoux · Marc and Alex between them · My answer to Marc Robidoux' long comment · Answering Pismenny, More Than One Comment

Q answered by Barry Etheridge

Given that Trent Session V treats Adam as an individual man, when did modernist Catholics start treating him as just an allegory?
https://www.quora.com/Given-that-Trent-Session-V-treats-Adam-as-an-individual-man-when-did-modernist-Catholics-start-treating-him-as-just-an-allegory/answer/Barry-Etheridge-1

Barry Etheridge

BA (1st Class Hons) Theology & Philosophy, University of Kent (1988)

Answered May 20

There is nothing in the Session that prevents the interpretation of Adam, the first man, as Adam, all humans (in their original, innocent state until the act of defiance of God) as I read it. It is likely that at the time of the Council, if not before, some priests were already treating the Eden story as metaphorical, albeit privately. One should always remember that all determinations of doctrine are likely to be diluted by the personal conscience of those who are required to work with it, especially where the distance to its source (be it geographical, cultural, or emotional) is great.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 20

“There is nothing in the Session that prevents the interpretation of Adam, the first man, as Adam, all humans (in their original, innocent state until the act of defiance of God) as I read it.”

I’ll quote from it’s decree on original sin to challenge your reading.

1. If anyone does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he transgressed the commandment of God in paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice in which he had been constituted, and through the offense of that prevarication incurred the wrath and indignation of god, and thus death with which God had previously threatened him,[4] and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil,[5] and that the entire Adam through that offense of prevarication was changed in body and soul for the worse,[6] let him be anathema.

Now, an immediate loss of holiness means a sin that’s individual. You cannot have a sin that is collective that’s immediate and involves an immediate punishment.

Also, “in paradise” means in a place where all humans did not dwell.

2. If anyone asserts that the transgression of Adam injured him alone and not his posterity,[7] and that the holiness and justice which he received from God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has transfused only death and the pains of the body into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul, let him be anathema, since he contradicts the Apostle who says: By one man sin entered into the world and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.[8]

This involves two major problems for your position.

We speak of “his posterity” meaning we talk of an individual ancestor.

Also, the council specifically quotes, as uncontrovertible ipso facto dogma since Biblical, the “one man” passage of St. Paul.

One may also presume that a previous innocent state to you may mean pre-agriculture, and this would involve people who died.

But it so happens, death and pains of the body are here in canon two attributed to punishment for Adam’s sin, therefore the human bones you think of must be post-sin.

Btw, here is a link to the document and translation I quoted:

Decree Concerning Original Sin & DECREE CONCERNING REFORM | EWTN
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/decree-concerning-original-sin--decree-concerning-reform-1495

“It is likely that at the time of the Council, if not before, some priests were already treating the Eden story as metaphorical, albeit privately.”

If this is the case, and by “metaphorically” you mean metaphoric rather than historic about the ancestry of mankind, rather than historic about ancestry, metaphoric about Christ, their private or rather secret deviation from doctrine is no such thing as a clue to correct interpretation of the Council.

Barry Etheridge

May 20

Thank-you but I’m fully aware of the wording as I re-read the Session prior to giving my answer. As someone who regularly recites the Apostle’s Creed in church knowing that what I mean by it is not necessarily what the person standing next to me or the minister of the day means by it, I am also fully aware that all such statements are open to private interpretation. I stand by my answer. There is nothing in the Session that prevents a less than absolute literal interpretation of the words “Adam, the first man”, especially given that anyone even slightly aware of the Hebrew text knows that just such an interpretation was intended all along.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 21

It seems you love the kind of private interpretation that Trent also condemned.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 21

“especially given that anyone even slightly aware of the Hebrew text knows that just such an interpretation was intended all along.”

Except there is a Catholic Encyclopedia text from 1907, perfectly aware of the Hebrew text, which disagrees with you.

Q answered by others

Given that Trent Session V treats Adam as an individual man, when did modernist Catholics start treating him as just an allegory?
https://www.quora.com/Given-that-Trent-Session-V-treats-Adam-as-an-individual-man-when-did-modernist-Catholics-start-treating-him-as-just-an-allegory

I

Answer requested by

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Alex Pismenny

Catholic Christian.

Answered May 20

I don’t know when exactly. Recently, for sure, my guess would be 20th century. I can guess why: too much pressure from two sides, the skeptics who dismiss the account of Creation completely as contradicting cosmology and evolutionism, and the fundamentalist Protestants who treat everything in the Bible as literal history. Rather than explaining to each 15-year-old that creation of a single man from mud does not imply that there wasn’t millions of years of evolution between mud and Adam it became tempting to just call it allegory and leave it at that.

Interesting that on the score of singularity of Adam and Eve science is with the Bible: genetics do show that mankind has a single set of parents.

A new study revealed that all humans are descendants of the same man and woman who lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. (Turns out all of humanity is related to a single couple; it is not new either, Newsweek put it on the cover decades ago)

It is also true that some elements of the Creation story are indeed allegorical; it is not hard to imagine a medieval theologian seeing in the two trees of Paradise not botanical phenomena but veiled references to the Cross, the Eucharist and the Last Judgment.

Dismissing the post-Vatican II silliness, the question of singularity of Adam had existed as purely theological question. Printed in 1907, Catholic Encyclopedia admits so much:

In the Old Testament the word is used both as a common and a proper noun, and in the former acceptation it has different meanings. Thus in Genesis 2:5, it is employed to signify a human being, man or woman; rarely, as in Genesis 2:22, it signifies man as opposed to woman, and, finally, it sometimes stands for mankind collectively, as in Genesis 1:26. The use of the term, as a proper as well as a common noun, is common to both the sources designated in critical circles as P and J. Thus in the first narrative of the Creation (P) the word is used with reference to the production of mankind in both sexes, but in Genesis 5:14, which belongs to the same source, it is also taken as a proper name. In like manner the second account of the creation (J) speaks of "the man" (ha-adam), but later on (Genesis 4:25) the same document employs the word as a proper name without the article.

[…]

Considered independently, this account of the Creation would leave room for doubt as to whether the word adam, "man", here employed was understood by the writer as designating an individual or the species. Certain indications would seem to favour the latter, e.g. the context, since the creations previously recorded refer doubtless to the production not of an individual or of a pair, but of vast numbers of individuals pertaining to the various species, and the same in case of man might further be inferred from the expression, "male and female he created them." However, another passage (Genesis 5:15), which belongs to the same source as this first narrative and in part repeats it, supplements the information contained in the latter and affords a key to its interpretation. In this passage which contains the last reference of the so-called priestly document to Adam, we read that God

created them male and female . . . and called their name adam, in the day when they were created.

And the writer continues:

And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son to his own image and likeness, and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam, after he begot Seth, were eight hundred years and he begot sons and daughters. And all the time that Adam lived came to nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.

Here evidently the adam or man of the Creation narrative is identified with a particular individual, and consequently the plural forms which might otherwise cause doubt are to be understood with reference to the first pair of human beings. (CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Adam)

I think, we can conclude that the biblical account of Creation truly contains complexities where multiple explanations of what exactly “Adam” or “ha-Adam” signify in each passage, independently of the unfortunate tropes of modernism.

i

with subthreads a and b.

Hans Georg Lundahl

May 20

“the fundamentalist Protestants who treat everything in the Bible as literal history.”

Do you have any document from the Church prior to 1990’s that reject this position?

“Rather than explaining to each 15-year-old that creation of a single man from mud does not imply that there wasn’t millions of years of evolution between mud and Adam”

Where do you get it from that Adam even could evolve, rather than need special creation? Btw, as you say Adam, I hope you mean an individual, I have been adressing people who take it as metaphorical for a collective.

“It is also true that some elements of the Creation story are indeed allegorical; it is not hard to imagine a medieval theologian seeing in the two trees of Paradise not botanical phenomena but veiled references to the Cross, the Eucharist and the Last Judgment.”

I have never denied that.

All of OT is allegorical about NT, mostly about Christ and Mary and the Church and about their enemies (Haman about Antichrist, his tens sons about the ten Antichrist kings and so on).

The thing I adressed is “just an allegory” namely allegorical rather than literal about what the story itself is purportedly about, namely human origins.

Your reference to 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia ends by resolving the doubt in clear favour of Adam’s individuality, except perhaps for Genesis 1, and the idea Genesis 1 refers to pre-Adamites had been raised by the convert from Judaism Isaac La Peyrère whose thesis had then been condemned.

Alex Pismenny

May 20

Adam did not further evolve. We are of his species.

The Fathers of the Church often find allegories, — more often than we do — in biblical stories. But, characteristically, allegory was in their thinking coexisting with the literal rather than displacing it. As you say, it is especially often finding Christian prefigurements. I am not aware of any Church document that specifically condemns literal reading in Fundamentalist style and I hope there won’t be one.

Yes, the Catholic Encyclopedia ends up with singular Adam. I brought it up so that to point out that other theories had existed prior to Vatican II.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 21

True enough about existing, but the polemics would have been against Protestant (Liberal Protestant) or Jewish (dito) readings.

Unfortunately, Ratzinger signed such a document in the 90’s.

The problem is not if Adam further evolved, we can be of his kind even if he did. The problem is if he could have resulted from evolution.

Alex Pismenny

May 21

Can you give me a link to Ratzinger’s document?

Yes, a theory that Adam resulted from a divinely controlled evolution is permissible in Catholicism. To the best of my knowledge, literal reading of Genesis 1–2 is likewise permissible.

a

Marc Robidoux

May 21

Really? Catholics can believe in ‘stuff’ in Genesis literally, as long as it is in Genesis 1–2? Wow, that takes picking and choosing to another level, no wonder ‘Cafeteria Catholicism’ is so common.

Alex Pismenny

May 22

No wonder at all.

As best I know, correct, while allegorical interpretations are very much in vogue, the Church does not forbid literal reading in the fundamentalist fashion: 6 24-hour day creation, Adam straight from mud like a clay doll, etc.

I don’t know if I told you, but coming from Orthodox background, I am quite aware of a peculiar Orthodox Fundamentalism (as I would call it). It advises faith that coexists with empirical knowledge but does not feel challenged by it. A Russian engineer might be building airplanes and know the underlying science of air travel down pat, and also believe that when Our Lady died, immediately all the bishops of the worldwide Church gathered around her bier, just as the icon of the Dormition depicts the event (An Interpretation of The Dormition Icon, The Icon of Hope).

The analytical mind of the Western Church, developed by the Scholastics is foreign to the East. However, the West does not oppose Eastern mysticism at all.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 22

“ A Russian engineer might be building airplanes and know the underlying science of air travel down pat, and also believe that when Our Lady died, immediately all the bishops of the worldwide Church gathered around her bier,”

I see absolutely no contradiction, miracles being miracles. Air planes aren’t built by the levitation of either Our Lord on Ascension or Simon Magus when trying to fool Rome, but on factors that we can humanly regularly manipulate, those factors being non-miraculous.

Btw, I’d rather say the miraculous gathering was of the eleven apostles remaining after St. James the greater had already been martyred, and this time too, St. Thomas was absent, and he opened Her tomb and found the veil and the belt. Not all the bishops.

I don’t see anything in an analytical mind, if Catholic, that contradicts this.

Marc Robidoux

May 22

Of course you see no contradiction, “miracles being miracles”, the only contradiction is for us other people who are more inclined to be scientific minded, in that miracles are not real, no evidence exists of any miracles ever occurring, anywhere. Other than that, no contradiction…miracles are miracles.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 22

I don’t see what a man inclined to atheism has to do on a question relating to Catholics between Catholics.

I mean, by definition, we do believe in miracles, like Christ rising from the dead or bread and wine being invisibly transsubstantiated …

If Alex Pismenny invited you, it would seem he is as happy to turn to an atheist for evolutionist scientific view points as I to some Protestants for creation science.

Alex Pismenny

May 22

Marc and I tend to have prolonged conversations on these topics from thread to thread. He doesn’t need my invitation.

Marc Robidoux

May 22

I enjoy the sport of debating with Alex, he is well read and quite knowledgeable, particularly wrt. Russia and the Soviet Union. We are diametrically opposed on social issues, no doubt , and I admit to sometimes getting carried away in opposition, but we have mostly managed to remain civil to each other.

I have had similar debates in other theistic spaces, surely due in part to my “one-dimensional view on how science and faith interact”.

I must say this is the first time I encounter a Catholic YEC, there’s a feather for your cap Hans…and Alex’s comment above here revealed an aspect of Catholicism I was not aware of, hence the upvote.

My experience with ‘true believer’ Catholics has been in large majority with believers of science within their faith. As I related in another spot on Quora, I once had the pleasure of interacting with a very scientific astronomy professor, who was also a Catholic priest, and his knowledge of the universe was absolutely astounding. He was most definitely not a YEC.

Marc Robidoux

May 22

Sorry, but do you think Quora is segregated, and only Catholics should comment on answers related to Catholicism? As Catholicism goes, I have a fair basis to comment as, although I am an atheist, I managed to get married in the eyes of the Catholic Church, so even in your segregationist model for Quora, I would be entitled to comment here as the Catholic church believes me to be a Catholic.

Alex Pismenny

May 22

I agree completely. I was pointing it out for the benefit of Marc Robidoux who, as Atheist sometimes has a one-dimensional view on how science and faith interact.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 23

[to above demand by MR, against segregation : fair enough]

“As I related in another spot on Quora, I once had the pleasure of interacting with a very scientific astronomy professor, who was also a Catholic priest, and his knowledge of the universe was absolutely astounding.”

Would that be Consolmagno, no he’s a brother, not a father, or a Fr Coyne?

b

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 22

http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PBCINTER.htm

I have commented on it here:

Apostatic Rejection of "Fundamentalism" in 1994

“Yes, a theory that Adam resulted from a divinely controlled evolution is permissible in Catholicism.”

I was in fact not asking about the permission, but about the possibility. To me, it’s like a permission to think the Earth is flat.

Alex Pismenny

May 22

I read your article with interest.

I also read Cardinal Ratzinger’s (or, rather, Pontifical Biblical Commission’s) paper from the start and down to “F. Fundamentalist Interpretation”. The correct link is The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church | EWTN.

The document represents a polemic in favor of interpretation that is now dominant: a certain synthesis of historical criticism, textual criticism and traditional exegetical methods. It is sharply critical of fundamentalism. It is not, however, a doctrinal statement; if you read in the beginning, it states as its purpose “to give serious consideration to the various aspects of the present situation as regards the interpretation of the Bible—to attend to the criticisms and the complaints as also to the hopes and aspirations which are being expressed in this matter, to assess the possibilities opened up by the new methods and approaches and, finally, to try to determine more precisely the direction which best corresponds to the mission of exegesis in the Catholic Church”.

So, the answer to my question the other day, is there “any Church document that specifically condemns literal reading in Fundamentalist style” seems to be No. Pontifical Biblical Commission did not condemn the “6 x 24” view as heretical.

Moreover, Ratzinger’s criticism (with which I wholly agree) is criticism of specifically Protestant fundamentalism. It does not touch upon much broader “Orthodox Fundamentalism” (I am coining the term), that I attempted to describe yesterday. A typical Orthodox would not say, — it is written “6 days” so geologists are wrong. He would rather say, — it is written “6 days” so in some mysterious sense there were 6 days, and I don’t know and do not wish to reconcile that with geology.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 23

"The correct link" - ah, they changed it, which explains why it didn't show with title last time.

"A typical Orthodox would not say, — it is written “6 days” so geologists are wrong. He would rather say, — it is written “6 days” so in some mysterious sense there were 6 days, and I don’t know and do not wish to reconcile that with geology."

I'd disagree.

The geologists simply are at loggerheads with parts of the evidence. I asked one if there were any place on earth where a pelycosaur lay correctly under a dinosaur (pelycosaurs like dimetrodon can be from "Permian" and dinosaurs more typically from "Jurassic" or "Cretaceous" a "few" million years "later"). Yeah, North Dakota. Turned out, the dino was in one end of ND, the pelyco in the other end and the "above" and "below" refer to hypothetic layers. In each place, several stone or rock layers, but one of them containing actual fossils, which is perfectly compatible with them both being from the Flood of Noah or perhaps a post-Flood landslide.

Btw, nice to hear it isn”t supposed to be a condemnation. It’s still against traditional exegesis, where the “Fundie exegesis” is the first of the four senses. Therefore apostatic. And some over here (in France) are willing to treat Trent’s condemning Sola Scriptura as a condemnation of Fundie exegesis. And obviously the part of “textual criticism” called “higher criticism” is very highly at variance with traditional exegesis.

ij

with subthreads c and d.

Marc Robidoux

May 20

Newsweek apparently didn’t understand the science if they suggested that - “ … on the score of singularity of Adam and Eve science is with the Bible: genetics do show that mankind has a single set of parents.“ - This is categorically false.

Science is not “with the Bible” on this or on anything actually. If you trace back the DNA in the maternally inherited mitochondria within our cells, all humans have a theoretical common ancestor. This WOMAN, known as “mitochondrial Eve” (only labelled “Eve” as a nod to the biblical story), lived between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago in southern Africa. She was not the first human, but every other female lineage eventually had no female offspring, failing to pass on their mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is only passed to offspring through the mother. As a result, all humans today can trace their mitochondrial DNA back to HER. There is no equivalent DNA “Adam”, and there is no equivalent DNA “Adam and Eve” couple. The offspring of “mitochondrial Eve” mated with other DNA lineages and those lineages were passed on in their offspring, but only her female offspring passed on their mitochondrial DNA to female offspring who passed it to a continuous lineage of females and on and on through to today. Your mitochondrial DNA passed along from “mitochondrial Eve” came from your mother, but your own offspring only have it from their own mother, not from you. If you don’t have female offspring, then it stops there, your sons have no way to pass on mitochondrial DNA to your grand kids, but those kids would receive it from their mothers and on and on.

Alex Pismenny

May 20

Thanks. Maybe someone versed in genetics can comment.

c

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 21

In fact, I have some grounds in genetics.

True, this science has not identified the first woman.

There is in fact a Y-chromosome Adam, who is not Adam. Arguably Y-chromosome Adam is Noah. All other males on the Ark descend from him.

Mitochondrial Eve can very well have lived before the three daughters in law of Noah without being Eve herself.

Theoretically, there could even be one daughter in law of Noah ousting the others after the Flood.

As to the places and times presumed, we deal with a reconstruction I obviously dispute as Biblical Creationist.

Marc Robidoux

May 21

Well, if we bring the variables of Noah and the Ark into this, that is quite a bit removed from anything known in genetics. There is no genetic choke point where humanity was down to a single male within the last 200000 years, and any Y-Chromosome Adam would necessarily have been co-existing with a lot of other male humans at the same time. Noah couldn’t possibly be the progenitor of all humanity today even if he was ‘vigorously active’ throughout his purported 900yrs and that was business he was exercising 100000 years ago.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 21

“within the last 200000 years”

I dispute the reconstructions behind that dating.

Datings of old genes are off, and molecular clock is adapted to agree with that, plus presumes larger populations than we had immediately after the Flood.

“any Y-Chromosome Adam would necessarily have been co-existing with a lot of other male humans at the same time.”

Feel free to make a discourse on why … “necessarily”?

“Noah couldn’t possibly be the progenitor of all humanity today even if he was ‘vigorously active’”

He wasn’t. He had three sons and three daughters in law, surviving the Flood. Any son born after the Flood would have had a problem finding a wife.

So, obviously, feel free to say why “couldn’t possibly”?

Marc Robidoux

May 21

Why?

Well, if you want to deny scientific evidence in your ‘grounds in genetics’, you have to deny the verified fact that small populations below ~100 individuals have been shown to eventually die off due to inbreeding. A population of 3–10, would definitely be insufficient to seed a proper gene pool for sustained growth. How many humans would it take to keep our species alive? One scientist's surprising answer https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/how-many-humans-would-it-take-keep-our-species-alive-ncna900151 You would only need to consider all that if you actually managed to believe there was a global flood and all the animals and plants we see today, Kangaroos, Koala bears, Polar Bears etc. etc. we’re all brought together on an ark within the last 10000years. I’d add that some creationists actually believe there was dinosaurs on that ark as well, but belief is not evidence. There is no evidence, of any kind, for a global flood, or a genetic choke point, for any species at all, at any time, not 200000 year ago, not ever.

“Datings of old genes are off“, feel free to provide any scientific reference to evidence for this.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 22

“small populations below ~100 individuals have been shown to eventually die off due to inbreeding.”

It so happens:

• the observation has been made by bigger populations living next to them and probably as often as not putting them under pressure and diluting them;
• it has also been made after the genes were deteriorated to make for lower life spans.

“You would only need to consider all that if you actually managed to believe there was a global flood and all the animals and plants we see today, Kangaroos, Koala bears, Polar Bears etc. etc. we’re all brought together on an ark within the last 10000years.”

Polar bears would certainly have evolved from the bear couple on the Ark since then. Like there was one hedgehog couple, ancestral to 16 hedghog species in 5 genera, and perhaps also to another 5 genera of gymnures and therefore to a total of 25 species.

" I’d add that some creationists actually believe there was dinosaurs on that ark as well, but belief is not evidence. There is no evidence, of any kind, for a global flood,"

Except fossils all over the world (ok, some would be from post-Flood floodings like Lake Missoula Flood).

" or a genetic choke point,"

Except after c. 40 000 BP carbon dated (which would be reducible to the real date of the Flood) we don't see any more body parts of any Neanderthals. I know Gorham cave has a date of 28 000 BP, but that is from charcoal in the cave entrance. Similarily, no pure Denisovans exist after this point.

"feel free to provide any scientific reference to evidence for this."

Datings of old genes, definition:

• Neanderthals in El Sidrón carbon dated to 40 000 - 50 000 BP
• their genomes mapped by Svante Pääbo.

And obviously, the carbon date on any Catholic pov would be that of the Flood with a real date 2957 BC (give or take a few centuries).

But perhaps by “scientific reference” you meant excluding all young earth creationist interpretations of the evidence? If so, you are an enemy of scientific actual debate.

Marc Robidoux

May 22

Oh so you don’t believe in inbreeding???

But you do beleve a single pair of polar bears was the genetic source for all polar bears that ever came into being?

And you do believe kangaroos somehow managed to hop over oceans to make it down to Australia after the flood?

By Scientific reference, I mean pointing to actual science, backed up by scientific evidence. There is no “young earth creationist interpretations of the evidence”, science doesn’t work like that. You propose a scientific theory (such as in your case ‘The earth is young’ ) and then look for evidence to support your claim (in your case, there is none). There is very solid evidence that the earth is 4–4.5Billion years old, read all about it here

Faure, G., 1986. Principles of Isotope Geology, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley.

YEC sites, and other facsimile science (science deniers) purveyors are fond of making scientific sounding claims (which you call ‘creationist interpretations of the evidence’), but never submit any scientific material for examination by independent third parties (aka peer review).

That is how you end up with folks like Ray Comfort claiming bananas were designed for the human hand, have a look at this:

https://youtu.be/BXLqDGL1FSg

Embarrassing, I know…

Actual scientific evidence is the basis of knowledge that drives achievements such as this:

[Pic of process behind vaccination]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 22

"Oh so you don’t believe in inbreeding???"

I do believe it can be founder events if genetic material at its base is sound. I also believe it can be deleterious, if otherwise.

"But you do beleve a single pair of polar bears was the genetic source for all polar bears that ever came into being?"

No, I believe a single pair of BEARS was the genetic source for all post flood either polar or grizzly or brown bears, and probably lots more than just these three.

"And you do believe kangaroos somehow managed to hop over oceans to make it down to Australia after the flood?"

It seems you are very behind the times since you arguably use an anti-creationist argument from 80's without checking for refutations since. Sahel-Sunda rings a bell? Well, YEC usually, me too, put Ice Age at post-Flood centuries. There would have been a fairly short stretch of water to cross by reed rafts or even with the post-Flood men coming to Oz.

"By Scientific reference, I mean pointing to actual science, backed up by scientific evidence."

Yeah, OK ...

"There is no “young earth creationist interpretations of the evidence”, science doesn’t work like that."

It does. Science very regularly deals with conflicts of interopretations of same evidence. Was just looking at a conflict between Behar and Elhaik on Ashkenazi Y-chromosomes.

// You propose a scientific theory (such as in your case ‘The earth is young’ ) and then look for evidence to support your claim (in your case, there is none). There is very solid evidence that the earth is 4–4.5Billion years old, read all about it here Faure, G., 1986. Principles of Isotope Geology, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley. //

You have heard of the rebuttal that U-Pb and Th-Pb are ill equipped since some Pb could come from original make up of sample? I'll add that the halflives are so long they cannot (unlike C14) be tested against datings of objects with historically known age.

"YEC sites, and other facsimile science (science deniers) purveyors are fond of making scientific sounding claims (which you call ‘creationist interpretations of the evidence’), but never submit any scientific material for examination by independent third parties (aka peer review)."

Mark Armitage got his C14 dates of dino bones precisely from independent third parties. By the way, Evolutionists do not submit their material to examination by third parties independent of Evolutionism : which is why YEC sites examine it anyway.

"That is how you end up with folks like Ray Comfort"

Ray Comfort is first and foremost a preacher, not very much even of an amateur creation scientist. A level higher, Kent Hovind is at least a good amateur scientist. And higher than that you have references like those you omitted, AiG and CMI. Or Mark Armitage.

"Actual scientific evidence is the basis of knowledge that drives achievements such as this:"

I note you took an example from what Creation Scientists like to call "observational" or "operational" science, and omitted "historic science" or forensics, which is where the conflict lies. I also note you bow down to Med corps and their vaccines, even if aborted feti were used at some stage.

Marc Robidoux

May 22

Sigh, the Sahel bridge, yes during the Pleistocene, ( 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago) right, that’s how the kangaroos got down there from Mt Ararat. You’re a real hoot. I’ll have to take your word for it I guess that the dating is off.

It’s a real shame you can’t access a library to check on the validity of your YEC refutation of radiometric dating, here’s a link from the Web maybe you can read up on it

A Radiometric Dating Resource List

If you could make it to a library, maybe you could find:

Becker, B. and B. Kromer, 1993. The continental tree-ring record -- absolute chronology, 14C calibration and climatic change at 11 ka. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 103 (1-2): 67-71.

…even in France…

I think you may be referring to the finding by Cook in 1966 (an absolute eon ago by YEC standards) that PB decay models were off. His actual finding was that an ore dated to 622 million years by conventional methods should be dated to 70 MILLION years. That’s a bit off your YEC timelines…

Cook, Melvin A. 1966. Prehistory and earth models. London: Max Parrish.

“Evolutionism”, wtf is that? There is Biology, there is Paleontology, there is Geology, there is Physics, there is Chemistry etc etc. and all those science fields confirm evidence for each other. And all the evidence for evolution crosses these fields and is peer reviewed across them. If YECs have claims they should have them peer reviewed by experts in all the relevant fields, but they never do. There is no "observational" or "operational" or "historic science" separations of these fields of science, achievements in biology come from evidence based knowledge of biology.

Have you read anything from Dr Mark Armitage at all? He doesn’t actually make any claims about dinosaurs being 6000 years old, if he made such claims they are outside scientific artifacts reviewed by scientific peers.

Soft sheets of fibrillar bone from a fossil of the supraorbital horn of the dinosaur Triceratops horridus

I do bow down to medical science, as it is evidence based. I’ll take vaccine over dying from Covid thank you very much.

[Pic of Ricky Gervais]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 23

“I’ll have to take your word for it I guess that the dating is off.”

Let’s put it like this …

I have seen the best non-YEC resource on tree rings online, it is not reassuring. Not all that far back.

I made a model (after 2005 when this list was last updated) on carbon 14. During the Flood the level would have been still as low as 1.444 pmC. At carbon date 11 600 years ago (just some after Sahel Sunda disappeared on your view) I’d say it had risen to c. 43 pmC. Meaning the real dates would be 2957 BC for “40 000 BP” and 2607 BC for “11 600 BP / 9600 BC”.

And any method with higher halflives than C14 has halflives that are uncheckable. The lab check for C14 was 5568 years, the check with historically dated things or tree rings (for closer years, when they are more reassuring) gave a correction to 5730 years. They are called Libby halflife and Cambridge halflife. Such a check cannot be done for these higher halflives.

“He doesn’t actually make any claims about dinosaurs being 6000 years old, if he made such claims they are outside scientific artifacts reviewed by scientific peers.”

He gives the dates given by labs, vastly lower than the pretended millions of years, then adds we know this is too high an age too, but thanks to the labs for proving the other age is too high.

"There is Biology, there is Paleontology, there is Geology, there is Physics, there is Chemistry etc etc. and all those science fields confirm evidence for each other."

And in each field, there are evolutionist and yec positions about certain things.

"And all the evidence for evolution crosses these fields and is peer reviewed across them."

By evolutionists. Sure, YECs provide a post-publishing review too, but you prefer to ignore it.

"If YECs have claims they should have them peer reviewed by experts in all the relevant fields, but they never do."

Oh, they do have a peer review, where claims are reviewed by YEC experts in all the relevant fields - but you'd prefer evolutionists to get peer review from evolutionists only and YECs also to get peer reviews from evolutionists only.

"There is no "observational" or "operational" or "historic science" separations of these fields of science, achievements in biology come from evidence based knowledge of biology."

I'm sorry, but the distinction is fairly obvious. Historic science cannot quite well be checked by achievements in technology.

I don’t think most people would die if not taking the vaccines. And some did die after taking them. Duke of Edinburgh got a jab, got ill, got better, and was dead a month later. There are stories from Sweden and Norway where the delay was way shorter.

EDIT : no, I was not referring to Cook 1966. I was referring to a common sense objection.

d

Marc Robidoux

May 21

Maybe someone versed in genetics, I’m sure you mean someone who actually believes in the scientific evidence that backs up genetics, can comment.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 22

I certainly believe in the scientific evidence from genes shown now, but the problem is, it doesn’t back up your genetic clock theory, as has been pointed out by YEC sites.

Incredulity on Literal Adam and Eve, a Tracing Problem (Quora)

Incredulity on Literal Adam and Eve, a Tracing Problem (Quora) · Tracing Efforts Continue : Given that Trent Session V treats Adam as an individual man, when did modernist Catholics start treating him as just an allegory? · Continuing Sci Debate with Marc Robidoux · Marc and Alex between them · My answer to Marc Robidoux' long comment · Answering Pismenny, More Than One Comment

This begins with someone else answering a question. And me then interacting with him and also with the one posing the question. Michael Anglemyer and Eric Luxner, here we go:

Submission accepted by

Alex Pismenny:

Michael Anglemyer

Mon

Former Intelligence Analyst at 3rd Infantry Division

answered

Which scriptures confirm that Adam and Eve were or will be thrown in hell because they were the first humans to disobey God?
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/Which-scriptures-confirm-that-Adam-and-Eve-were-or-will-be-thrown-in-hell-because-they-were-the-first-humans-to-disobey-1

Adam and Eve are generally understood as allegorical, but even if Genesis is to be interpreted in a strictly literal sense, scriptures indicate they were remorseful for their disobedience. There would be no reason to presume God’s punishment. In fact, we don’t know that anyone is in Hell, with the exception of Judas Iscariot, whom Jesus said it would have been better if he had not been born. He betrayed the trust of his friends, he knew Jesus first hand, but still rejected Him and despaired of God’s forgiveness.

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

18h ago

“Adam and Eve are generally understood as allegorical,”

Since when?

Michael Anglemyer

12h ago

Possibly since the Renaissance and Counter Reformation. Definitely since the Enlightenment. When I attended the seminary 35 years ago, we were taught that Genesis was Hebrew literature — inspired literature. It was not a history book. It used allegory and near eastern tropes to impart certain important truths. The narrative of events is not meant to be interpreted literally; however, it is not a mere fable. There are doctrinal truths contained in the text, such as God created man, creation is inherently good, and sin entered the world as a result of man’s failings.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

6m ago

“Possibly since the Renaissance and Counter Reformation.”

Definitely not.

“Definitely since the Enlightenment.”

Not among Roman Catholic actual believers.

“When I attended the seminary 35 years ago, we were taught that Genesis was Hebrew literature — inspired literature. It was not a history book.”

35 years ago sounds reasonable. Especially in the territory of USCCB or whatever your bishops’ conference is abbreviated.

Thank you for answer, anyway.

II

Eric Luxner

Mon

I’m interested in the idea that Hell will be the end of those who do not follow Jesus. I mean that they will cease to exist. John 3:16 says, For God so Loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that those who believe in Him will not perish (cease to exist being my interpretation), but have eternal Life. This not a Roman Catholic idea, as I understand, but there are plenty of Scriptures that support it.

That being said, my answer does not directly answer the question, as obviously Adam and Eve were not aware of Jesus. Yet, Jesus was present at the creation and eternally before. In the beginning (of creation, being my interpretation) was the Word.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

John‬ 1:1‬ KJV‬‬

https://www.bible.com/1/jhn.1.1.kjv

Hans-Georg Lundahl

3m ago

In fact, Adam and Eve were very much aware of Jesus as God, it was He who talked to them, and since hearing Him adress the serpent, also of the upcoming Saviour.

And they had 930 years after that to make penance for their disobedience.

However, if they hadn’t repented, they would have been damned, but on the contrary, Catholic and Orthodox iconography portrays them as first of the saved when Jesus descends to Sheol, as He greets His ultimate parents, 72 generations back.

Responding to "Creation Myths" on Neanderthals

5 Minute Myth: Neanderthals Descended from Homo sapiens
12th of August 2020 | Creation Myths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSkbul-U3d0

1:23 You are presuming here on the genetic clock.

Or on dating methods.

This debunk of common ancestor being older than YEC timeline is therefore highly moot.

1:49 On some levels I think Neanderthals and Denisovans may have been hypermutating : due to nephilim ancestry.

I do not think a normal Neanderthal was a pure Neph, though.

Nephs are described in Baruch 3 and the vegetarian Neanderthals (just people were veggies before the Flood) in El Sidrón (dental calculus) seems to confirm more normal and salvation compatible humanity.

For pure Denisovans I don't know, I think they are synonym for Antecessor (who were cannibals in Atapuerca, see test of ancient genomes by Pääbo and similar) and for Heidelbergians (who are morphologically close to Antecessor).

2:00 Less genetic diversity - compatible with hypermutation in one ancestral generation only (the nephelim generation).

4:21

• Sister group to Homo sapiens - acceptable, since Homo sapiens = post-Noah humanity. While Noah was tenth from Adam on one line (Adam was 2⁹ in Sosa-Stradonitz in that one, Eve 2⁹+1) this does not preclude his being further off from Adam on other lines (what was the maternal relation to Adam for instance? 3*2^?). Obviously Neanderthals - including those half breeds or quarter breeds who came on the Ark - could have been even further off from Adam. 2242 years is quite a while.
• Inbred, little diversity - compatible with being spread by the violence of at least possible Nephelim ancestry.
• Violation of timeline is in fact not a scientific fact but a hypothetic and disputable conclusion.
• The main evidence for hypermutation would be the divergence from Homo sapiens, one must presume Noah was at least physically rather closeish to Adam.

See also my self introduction to him, under this video:

Welcome to Creation Myths
14th of June 2020 | Creation Myths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZcQh_-_t7I


[after the video] 42. Matthew 1 and HHGG vibes. I have been arguing with Evolutionists over the internet, sometimes commenting under their youtubes (I don't upload any of my own, as yet at least) since 2001.

Another Video with Paulogia, Up to &t=634s

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Another Video with Paulogia, Up to &t=634s · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : The Answer I Tried to Add

Final Nail to Apostle Martyrs? (Sean McDowell vs Paulogia)
4th June 2020 | Paulogia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CHV6dXZRUc

As usually, commenting after noting time signatures to where in the video the comments fit.

5:15 Actually, Acts 6 through 7. The Deacon and Proto-Martyr Stephen. Acts 8, but not 9 deals with another of the seven first Deacons, who is actually already briefly mention in chapter 6.

Now, that kind of momentary "my brain just fucked up and this is all I remember" is by one who has read the things pretty accurately.

I'll not question your credentials bc you confused two James'.

5:44 I think there may have been some debate on whether James the Son of Alphaeus was in fact the cousin, hence "brother" of Jesus.

7:07 "the person who makes the claim on any side, bears the burden of proof to see if we should trust this testimony"

Disagree. It is dismissing a testimony that takes a burden of proof, not accepting it.

Now, we should be aware testimonies have different dignities, like whether one has seen it oneself or speaks from a "vulgate" (I think the word is so used) but even a vulgate from back then beats a dismissing of that vulgate done now without good proof counter to it.

Otherwise, one could never establish any history, since the credibility of a testimony would be established by other testimonies which equally we cannot cross examine orally, but have to take as a text from back then with a credibility yet to be established.

I know this approach will get results that seem counterintuitive to some, like accepting lots of stories from the corpus globally referred to as "pagan myth". This the Church Fathers also did, like the one who dismissed Perseus and Andromeda being taken up to the stars as a lie of the devil, but left the rest of their story untouched, I think it was St. Justin Martyr, or St. Augustine opening De Civitate by giving what appears to be complete credence to Aeneas picking up the statue of Athena to save it from burning Troy. His point thereon being, Athena didn't really help her devotees in Troy that much. Or someone (not sure whether St. Justin or Lactantius or some) who said "Hercules was a strong man, but not a god" (last words also readable as "but not God" since Latin lacks definite article).

8:43 Yes, a very good point. I take the Bible as a historical source for Resurrection happening. I also take the Mahabharata as historical source for Krishna dying. However, for Krishna being received as supreme god by spirits up in heaven, Mahabharata is not a historical source, since Mahabharata put this "fact" into the dream of a poet, perhaps Vyasa.

Nevertheless, let's not forget the Mahabharata can't have been written down until sth like 5th C BC, and unlikely even then. And its action, according to Kali Yuga, is set in a time span including 3102 BC. So, I don't quite as much accept Mahabharata as historical as I do it with the Gospels. Nevertheless, the parts where I dismiss it as unhistorical are not its theophanies - the devil could do that, for that matter God could have done some and the memory of it could have been distorted among non-Hebrews. Where I dismiss it as unhistorical is where it conflicts with what I take as a better source, for theological reasons, namely early chapters of Genesis.

Kauru and Pandu had an ancestor "Bharat" who was both a city founder and received into heaven ...? Ah, wait, one Henoch was city namer when his father Cain founded a city, and another Henoch was received into heaven.

Pandavas were wood hermits, living a hunter-gatherer life? Wait, Jabal was father of such as rear livestock and live in tents ... as we know from Abel, he didn't invent pastoralism, but it seems he or his sons, presumably identifiable as Pandavas, invented the combination of pastoralism with nomadism.

If I were a Hindoo, I would arguably instead try to fit Genesis 4 and 5 into Mahabharata frame. But from what is supposed to have happened in Mahabharata, one can argue this fits very nicely with Genesis 6:5. And God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times - sound pretty close to a war in which "finally the deeds of the good men could no longer be distinguished from those of the bad men" (as I recall a recounting of Mahabharata / Peter Brook).

Now, obviously, Acts and Gospels are way closer to their events than either Mahabharata or even Moses to 3102 BC. It would take even stronger reasons to dismiss even partially their historicity.

9:19 Historians want to match up claims in one source with external sources.

Want to is ambiguous. If you mean would like, I agree. If you mean need to, no, that is not consistently applied. We have no external source for Julius Caesar "building" (i e ordering his men to build) a bridge of wood over Lake Geneva (Bellum Gallicum, book I). Yet no one doubts it.

9:37 "a discreet claim in the Bible, that doesn't correspond to any external source"

The problem is, most claims in most books that most agree to take as historical aren't, when we go this far back. Partly, because the culture was less written than ours is, partly because much more of the writings from then are lost.

10:17 [Sean] "I am not sure at all we can tell where history ends and where legend begins"

The test is not Thomas Gospel being later, though that is part of its problem. The test is, the Gospels are part of the auto-documentation of a community we later came to call the Catholic Church, which credibly traces its origins back to Jesus (in much more detail than one could trace re-tellings of the Mahabharata story). The Thomas Gospel simply doesn't fit that community, cannot be attached to any community with better claims, was rejected very explicitly by that community.

The problem isn't "legend" but forgery by a momentary rival sect to Catholicism.

10:21 Yes, I have seen this diagram.

It doesn't correspond to any historical testimony about when the books in question were written, it corresponds to a reconstruction, made with the actual purpose of assigning as much of the historical visible facts as would imply the supernatural to sources as late as possible and as contaminated as possible with "later legendary accretions".

Historical testimony says Matthew wrote the first Gospel and at first in "Hebrew" (which may have meant Aramaic).

It also says, St. John wrote the Gospel as last survivor of Apostles, c. AD 100, while St. Peter had written his letters before he died under Nero. Those who accept the Infancy Gospel of St. James as genuine assign it to being a common source both to Matthew and to Luke, each of which cite different parts of it, therefore very early.

(at 11:30, sth)
I tried to answer a very pertinent question, and my answer was taken down for some reason ... ?

I am not sure I'd attribute to you same kind of intellectual integrity you do to Sean McDowell.

[next day: I actually did manage to copy from the post and then post the comment, and am now commenting on, from 15:11 on, which will make a new post.]

Apostolic Succession: How Much Evidence Do You Want?

Q

Is there reliable evidence of apostolic succession in the Catholic Church?
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-reliable-evidence-of-apostolic-succession-in-the-Catholic-Church/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Answer requested by

Carolyn Barratt

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Catholic convert, reading many Catechisms

Answered just now

I do not know what your criteria of reliable evidence are.

If you want the claim “our bishops descend from the apostles” proven by newspaper articles from New York Times ranging from ordination of Matthias just before Pentecost in AD 33 to Pope St. Sylvester getting ordained, you won’t get it. New York Times was not yet being printed.

If you are an atheist, you have certain objectives in denying continuity of the Church anyway,like, the less continuity there is, the more wiggle room you get to pretend miracles are latter accretions. Dito for a Jew who would prefer Christianity to have been founded by a wayward Pharisaic disciple of Joshua Ben Pekharia (a wayward disciple whom I rather take to be Odin).

But if you are a Christian, if you believe the Bible, if you believe historic sources from after the Bible was written, there is plenty.

• Christ promised continuity of the Church up to Doomsday
• Christ made this promise to the eleven
• Acts 7 or 8 describes Apostolic succession going on
• Paul and Barnabas receive it
• Paul has handed it on to Titus and Timothy and instructs them to hand it on.

The only conclusion possible is, Christ meant apostolic succession to continue to the end of times, and He meant “with you and your successors” when He said “with you”.

After that, you see some years where it is not directly documented all that much, but when Roman Empire converts, you get conflicts with sects like Arians, Novatians, Donatists and some of the points of the conflict is how Apostolic succession functions (like, if a Donatist bishop converts after being consecrated by a Donatist bishop who had been a Catholic bishop, would the convert have to be reordained or not?) and you get lots of detail.

Even before that, you get hints most notably in St. Irenaeus Adversus Haereses, where he speaks, not so much of Apostolic succession as of the series pastorum in Rome.

So, your choice would be, either Christ meant Apostolic succession to go on as we find it functioning in post-Nicene fathers, or something went wrong, you have no alternative place where it went right and Christ broke or never made the promise in Matthew 28:20.

A somewhat different question is where the pure and unadulterated and perfectly licit apostolic succession resides, you have basically the options:

• Roman Catholics
• Eastern Orthodox
• Copts
• Armenians
• Nestorians / Assyrians.

Paulogia Starting Christianity Without Resurrection (OR trying To)

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Paulogia Starting Christianity Without Resurrection (OR trying To) · Debates under That Video · Φιλολoγικά / Philologica: Is Vyasa Proof Anonymous Works Can Easily Get Authors? · back to Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Paulogia Attacked Tradition

How Christianity (Probably) Began... No Resurrection Required
Jan. 28th 2019 | Paulogia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUCI3cMJCvU

I

2:32 neighbours talking to neighbours, merchants talking to customers ...

• 1) contradicted by actual Christian self documentation of its beginnings (yes, I believe self documentations of other religions too, I believe what Muslims say about Mohammed and what Mormons say about Joseph Smith, except that their revelations came from God, which is more a theological than per se a historic proposal);
• 2) involves a type of Evangelism very clearly not invented back then, but coming from clergy-less sects pretending laymen are the proper missionaries since no clergy is needed anyway. These sects are a branch of Protestantism, and arose after 1517. Possibly they had predecessors in some Medieval sects (Albigensians, Waldensians, Lollards), but nothing reaching back to the early days of Christianity.

II

2:44 "as the movement began a life of its own, Peter the Fisherman was not around to personally affirm or correct the tales being told."

As a solution to Christianity arising without an actual Resurrection, you have painted yourself into a corner.

How did after this the self documentation screw up sufficiently to affirm what you are denying and pretend Peter was preaching in Jerusalem on Pentecost day (49 days after events at least purported as resurrection) and personally heading the "movement" (more correctly termed Church) along with clergy still around from when Jesus named them?

III

3:21 "Saul changed his name to Paul, and began recruiting for Christianity and writing letters to Churches"

Again, a blatant contradiction against the even social and personal events recorded, as in Saul retired to Arabia and was vetted by a "movement" (or better called Church) that was already very much solid enough to see if he was in line with what was already being taught or not.

3:30 You take Galatians 2 as Paul once meeting Peter and John but not seeing eye to eye on things ...

Actually, if we suppose Cephas and James and John are identic to apostles Peter, James and John (which has been disputed), there were more than one meeting, and the one where they didn't see eye to eye was concerning only Peter and concerning a kind of taqqiya he did to please Jews.

If we suppose they weren't so identic, we see St. Paul had to deal with "false brethren" masquerading as clergy, and unmasking them bc of a doctrine which real "pillars" at Apostle Council in Jerusalem, had dismissed.

Note, there Sts Paul and Barnabas certainly met the real Peter.

IV

3:32 "after several decades, a variety of Greek speaking people, who had never met Jesus or even Peter, took it upon themselves to begin to write down some of the stories that had circulated"

Key to your point is Gospellers:

• all coming after several decades
• all coming without having seen either Jesus nor Peter
• all being concerned with stories circulating, none with eyewitness testimony.

With such a scenario, why would any Christians who were still around from the time of the Crucifixion have accepted it, or if none were, why would anyone have accepted things they knew were written with no bigger authority than their own hearsay?

Crucial to your point is, original followers of Jesus being totally gone, leaving a void, and actually another group filling in the gap.

It may work for Pentecostal sects, but we are dealing with a "movement" (better called Church) that actually required attendance on Sundays. And got it. No trace of any break, other than local, when having to flee.

V

4:10 No, Mark doesn't show a very low profile about the supernatural. Healing of the paralytic with power to forgive sins. I'll give the due credit to Karlo Broussard, even if he's a Vatican II-er. Here's his essay:

https://catholicexchange.com/the-divinity-of-jesus-according-to-mark

VI

5:31 It is in fact not consistent with the spread of all other world religions.

Would you pretend for a moment an equally central claim to Islam, namely God speaking to Mohammed, was one he never actually made and arose only decades later?

Would you pretend that Islam was not organised on June 8th 632, and that the Caliphate only later developed sayings into Surats, and only later claimed the Surats were direct revelations from God?

On the contrary, you admit very readily that the Ummah was sufficiently organised on June 8th 632 to already get a Caliph within days or weeks and to clearly remember very well what Mohammed's life was all about.

So, why don't you admit the same about the Church? Well, because the self documentation given by it involves facts which your philosophy won't accept as even possible.

It is not consistent with human nature that a very loose movement reinvents its historic origin making it look as a very well established and organised one from day 1.

Abandoned Void

Islam did indeed likely exist prior to Mohammad, and much of the Quranic texts and hadiths were written long after he supposedly lived. So your point here is moot, but it doesn't really matter for the sake of the video, anyway

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Abandoned Void Written down is one thing.

Oral tradition can more or less faithfully take a text from oral redaction to later writing down even centuries later (like from Homer to Peisistratus) and therefore obviously also decades later (like from Mohammed to Omar, or whoever it was who made the writing down from seven copies).

A group like Islam is actually not known from pre-Islamic Arabian peninsular history. Your "likely" is simply a likelihood of pure ignorance.

VII

5:38 No, a hallucinating fisherman making it to rally a totally new crowd while making it believe they are just the old crowd plus newcomers, and that new crowd disappearing or nearly enough so to when someone else hallucinates and resets it totally on new bases, thereby founding a third crowd which even so has the impression to be the first crowd plus newcomers ... that is neither mundane, nor boring, and least of all exactly what you would expect.

It doesn't rhyme with human nature and is not consistent with how other world religions arose and spread either.

VIII

5:55 You are making the word "legend" a magical, cover all, explanation.

Real texts actually marked out as actual "legends", ecclesiastic or popular, seem to have a far firmer grasp on factual realities than what you are proposing for the rise of Christian Story. But your problem would partly be, you have a very loose grasp on what legend is supposed to mean outside the contexts when you find it useful.

6:06 I suppose the lives of the apostles are also in the genre you dismiss as "legend" (and they are in a book called "legenda aurea").

The thing is, what the actual use of that word is, most of history is in fact legend more than your pretended requirements of proven historicity.

IX

6:17 "Gospels are anonymous"

No, the fact remains, the Church has accepted them as coming from:

• Matthew, one of the twelve
• Mark, a disciple of Peter who was one of the twelve
• Luke, a disciple of Paul and a researcher among eyewitnesses
• John, a disciple, often identified with one of the twelve, certainly either way some eyewitness.

How many other anonymous works on your view have acquired full authorship status?

Mahabharata's Vyasa would be a case in point, but that's a totally other culture, less good on documentation.

Abandoned Void

The Church is, and this might shock you, completely wrong and at odds with history. The gospels don't even claim to be written by those figures, and they were written long after these people would have been alive. They're absolutely anonymous accounts. And they're competing accounts of different traditions within early Christianity, no less, with gospels like Luke outright claiming to be the only true gospel. That isn't getting into how our oldest copies of each show some quite extreme textual variances, implying that they were being constantly rewritten in earlier traditions and likely the composed work of several different authors building on the original stories.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Abandoned Void "The Church is, and this might shock you,"

A fact if I accepted it like that might shock me, but a claim I do not accept ... I've heard it since I was 1/4 of my now age.

"completely wrong and at odds with history."

Where do you claim to get your historic knowledge from? I claim to get it from a community called Church, what community back then do you get yours from?

Reconstructions from now don't arbitrarily trump knowledge from back in the relevant days, even if a host of academic institutions were to give them more creedence.

"The gospels don't even claim to be written by those figures,"

No, but Papias, an early Church Father, claims it for them.

"and they were written long after these people would have been alive."

That amounts to an alternative claim about authorship. Did you live closer to the relevant people's lifetime than Papias did? He wrote the claim c. 150 AD.

"They're absolutely anonymous accounts."

This is however incompatible with any alternative claim of authorship.

"with gospels like Luke outright claiming to be the only true gospel."

It actually doesn't. Here is the relevant text, Luke 1:

[1] Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a narration of the things that have been accomplished among us; [2] According as they have delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word: [3] It seemed good to me also, having diligently attained to all things from the beginning, to write to thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, [4] That thou mayest know the verity of those words in which thou hast been instructed.

• It doesn't state that these "many" were doing a bad job, Luke doesn't claim to do an "I'm better" just a "me too";
• He doesn't mention who the other ones were, and the tradition by Clement the Stromatist implies he was ignorant of Matthew, while both Mark and John were later than he.

"That isn't getting into how our oldest copies of each show some quite extreme textual variances,"

The oldest copies aren't necessarily the best ones. Sinaiticus (probably not what you meant, but one of the earlier codices of whole Bible) is one of the older ones, uniquely or nearly preserved from back then - but probably so because it was rejected for reading and yet not burnt as an Arian pseudo-copy. You forgot to mention what you count as "quite extreme" textual variances ...