Evidence of the Early Church

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TheAristocat

TheAristocat

Senior Member
Oct 4, 2011
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I just thought this was interesting: CHURCH FATHERS: Letter to the Corinthians (Clement) I've read that this was written anywhere from 95-96 AD - about 62-63 years after Christ's crucifixion. I've seen varying dates for it, but they seem to rest between 80-140 AD.

It's interesting to note how many passages are recorded here in this early text that are preserved so well in our Bibles today - roughly 1900 years later.
 
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Another interesting tidbit: Pliny the Younger and Trajan on the Christians Even taking the oldest accepted date of this work which is 113 AD and taking Pliny's word that there were some Christians at this time who had been saved for 25 years that puts the earliest known Christians at 88 AD - about 55 years after Christ's crucifixion. But one can also imagine an earlier date unless Pliny had seen all there was to see in the way of Christians and these were indeed the most recent.
 
TheAristocat said:
I just thought this was interesting: CHURCH FATHERS: Letter to the Corinthians (Clement) I've read that this was written anywhere from 95-96 AD - about 62-63 years after Christ's crucifixion. I've seen varying dates for it, but they seem to rest between 80-140 AD.

It's interesting to note how many passages are recorded here in this early text that are preserved so well in our Bibles today - roughly 1900 years later.
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There is no comparison between the Bible and other ancient documents. Did you know that the bible has over 20000 complete manuscripts some dating back to less than 50 years after they were written and the second closest has less than 500 and a much bigger date gap. Also if you destroyed every manuscript and every printed copy you could reconstruct the New Testament exactly as it is now, minus 8 verses! All from the letters between the churches from the 1st century.
 
CanadaNZ said:
There is no comparison between the Bible and other ancient documents. Did you know that the bible has over 20000 complete manuscripts some dating back to less than 50 years after they were written and the second closest has less than 500 and a much bigger date gap. Also if you destroyed every manuscript and every printed copy you could reconstruct the New Testament exactly as it is now, minus 8 verses! All from the letters between the churches from the 1st century.
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Interesting stuff, Canada. Do you mean there are copies of original texts written within less than 50 years of the original texts or do you mean these manuscripts are written within less than 50 years of the actual events? Because I believe that at least some books in the Bible were an on-going process and only completed some years after the earliest events they recorded took place. Take Ezekiel for instance. In it there is a prophecy made and then years later Ezekiel writes again how this prophecy was fulfilled.
 
These are manuscripts that have been copied from the originals, so would only be 2-3 copies maybe. Most other ancient documents have more than 700 years between original and closest copy.
 
CanadaNZ said:
These are manuscripts that have been copied from the originals, so would only be 2-3 copies maybe. Most other ancient documents have more than 700 years between original and closest copy.
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Can I get a link and the dates for these early copies?
 
TheAristocat said:
Can I get a link and the dates for these early copies?
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There are a few I could suggest, but probably the most completely researched is by Josh McDowell (josh.org), he has done his homework on this one. The most interesting part is he did a huge chunk of his original research as a Atheist intellectual trying to show christianity to be the joke he though it was and in the end met God and has had a huge impact on christianity particuarly in the Youth and Apologetics areas.
 
CanadaNZ said:
There are a few I could suggest, but probably the most completely researched is by Josh McDowell (josh.org), he has done his homework on this one. The most interesting part is he did a huge chunk of his original research as a Atheist intellectual trying to show christianity to be the joke he though it was and in the end met God and has had a huge impact on christianity particuarly in the Youth and Apologetics areas.
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Oh, I've done research myself into the historicity of Jesus. And with what I know one could still dispute his miracles, but it would be hard to take them seriously if they still chose to dispute a historical Jesus unless they knew something I did not. It involves Tacitus, a real historical Pilate and the Acta Senatus. By the way, here's the Pilate inscription: http://www.bible-history.com/empires/pilate.html

I will definitely try to check out your link though. Always love learning about this stuff!
 
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