Thursday, May 07, 2009

[science and technology] five questions for you



1. Mrs. Thomas Smith of Ryde, NSW, Australia, produced a new variety of fruit in 1868. What is it called?

2. Name anything that happened in Britain on September 3rd, 1752.

3. The prefix mega- is a millionfold in the SI units and giga- is a billion. Tera is a trillion but what is the quadrillionfold (10 to the power of 15) prefix?

4. Truth, beauty, strange, charm, up and down are types of what?

5. If the camel with one hump is called a dromedary, what’s the other type called?

Answers

The Granny Smith apple; nothing happened - after September 2, the next day was September 14, due to the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, peta, quarks, bactrian

[illegal immigrants] why post when someone already has

Deogolwulf can be slightly inaccessible at times to those without that sort of mind but this is one everyone can comprehend:

Illegal immigrants gathered openly in Trafalgar Square yesterday to protest against the “injustice” of not being British citizens, and yet for some reason they were not rounded up and put into camps ready for deportation. Still, I suppose the sight of the authorities taking seriously the integrity of the country and its laws might scare the voters away, millions of whom haven’t even arrived yet.

[darling's pisstaking] tyburn hill


Eamonn Butler:

When the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee asked how he decided to impose the new rate on everyone earning £150,000 or more, he replied: “There was no science behind it. It was simply my judgment.”

My mate just said:

'If that was private organization and someone [the one payrolling me] came to me and said there was a recognized mechanism for determining these things and I stuck two fingers up to tell him where to go, I'd be sacked on the spot. And it's not the first time he's ignored the recommendations of committees, just because he doesn't like those recommendations.'

I can't improve on that, nor on this comment by a fellow blogger on the Adam Smith site:

Lord T, May 06, 2009
It would take more than a day to work out the true level of public sector debt we have. I would:

Bring back Capital punishment for a day for Treason. Hang Blair, Gordo and his entire cabinet as well as every MP who voted for the Lisbon Treaty. Pref in a slow way. Televise the event and move the May day holiday to this day to remember it.


Then just cancel everything this lot has ever done. Repeal all the laws, cancel all the contracts and fire all the new staff. Don't forget to cancel capital punishment as well.
Make it so every second year in May we vote for a new Government. No MPs to serve more than 4 years. Fix them so they are unchangeable.

Any new laws would be put on a web site and voted for by the public where their inputs are considered if above a certain number of voters. Any will automatically expire after four years unless approved again in which case they become permanent.
Retire. You now have the PM's pension. Whoo Hoo.

My own comment is that if Eamonn Butler's words can be taken at face value, then Darling is taking the piss, quite openly. I do believe that, on the grounds that he is bringing that attitude to the disbursement of public monies, he should either resign henceforth or be up on treason charges, on the further grounds that he is, with malice aforethought, combined with criminal negligence, attempting to dismantle the British economy.

I mean really up on treason charges, not just blogger words of ire.

[chavs rule] rise of the new ignorance


Paul Trout, in Student AntiIntellectualism and the Dumbing Down of the University, wrote, in 1996:

Students demonstrate the anti-intellectual mindset in a number of ways: by not reading the assigned works; by not contributing to class discussions; by complaining about course workloads and lobbying for fewer assignments; by skipping class; by giving low evaluations to instructors with high standards or tough requirements; by neglecting to prepare for class and tests and not bothering to do extra-credit work or take make-up exams; by not consulting material placed on reserve or picking up class handouts; by refusing to learn any more than is necessary to get a good grade; by boasting about how little time is spent studying; by ridiculing high achievers; by being impatient with deliberative analysis; by condemning intellectual endeavors as "boring"; by resenting academic requirements as an intrusion on free time, etc., etc., etc.

There are a number of comments and questions:

1. Has it got any better or worse since 1996? The truth is, the problem has always been present in the student, in his/her self-actualizing tendency and one has only to read Evelyn Waugh, Douglas Adams, Pink Floyd and others for anecdotal evidence that it is a ‘base instinct’ of students to be that way.

The question then is whether the universities and staff are any better or worse these days. Trout:

Faced with growing numbers of high-school graduates who resent and resist the rigors, demands, and pleasures of higher education, colleges and universities have lowered standards to keep students happy and enrollments up. The reason, of course, is obvious: body count equals money. As long as larger enrollments mean larger budgets, and larger budgets mean administrative success, enrolling and retaining as many students as possible, regardless of their attitudes or aptitudes, is more important than making sure students achieve, learn, and produce. This explains why administrators monitor credit hours and student evaluation ratings, but not how much students actually learn. There is no economic incentive to do so. So, over the long haul, enrollment-driven funding weakens commitment to high academic standards (Stone 20-21).

Faculty, of course, are complicit in the dumbing down. Few ever question the recruitment, enrollment, or grading policies that ultimately bring money to their departments. Most department heads and chairs champion educationally fraudulent policies and practices, even when they are ultimately ruinous to staff morale, as long as they believe such policies and practices strengthen the department and protect it from being cannibalized. So, as long as administrators control the purse strings, "there is a great incentive for faculty collectively to support the administrative emphasis on growth" regardless of its negative impact on academic quality and standards (Stone 15).

This explains, in part, the phenomenon of grade inflation, for which faculty must bear most of the blame. "The incentive for institutions to emphasize rigorous grading standards is minuscule" because grade inflation--higher grades for lower achievement--keeps more students on campus, and more students on campus means larger budgets for all (Stone 10). "In essence, there is a substantial body of informed opinion suggesting that grade inflation has come about mainly because enrollment-driven funding has made grade inflation bureaucratically profitable" (Stone 9).

Lower standards and grade inflation make campuses safe for students who have little hunger for knowledge, little love of learning, and almost no appetite for hard work. Although students have many reasons for going to college, a very large number--71.3 percent of the entering class of 1995--do so not to enrich their minds but their pocketbooks. "The only reason most of us are going to school is society says, 'this is your meal ticket'" (Sacks 139).


You can read the rest of these excerpts here. So my answer would be yes, it is worse now and my post not so long ago looked at it from the research perspective. The combination of the students’ base instincts, the commericalization of higher education to a degree not seen before, the socialist hijacking of the curriculum and the accompanying social dislocation of young people and there is the recipe for disaster for the next generation or two.

2. Is it any different in, say, Russia? Well no, in fact it might be worse. Russia is a country of extremes and when I arrived, they were still in the throes of authoritarian soviet education, which nevertheless produced the goods in terms of intellectualism. I’ve mentioned one Russian student who was below average over there, she came to our school in 1996 and swept the board.

Yet the process had already begun, it seems, in some parts of the country, as early as 1993 [all attribution in the Trout addendum]:

Andrei Toom, an adjunct math instructor from Russia, reports his dismal experiences trying to teach anti-intellectual undergraduates consumed by the consumer mindset. "As soon as I started to explain to them something which was a little bit beyond the standard course, they asked suspiciously: 'Will this be on the test?' If I said, 'no,' they did not listen any more and showed clearly that I was doing something inappropriate" (Toom 125). When asked by students why he gave math problems unlike those in the textbook, Toom responded: "Because I want you to know elementary mathematics." Immediately an imposing train of students "stood up and tramped out" (Toom 127). A colleague of Toom's was also criticized for asking his students to learn more than students in another section (Toom 127). Students viewed this not as better teaching but as an iniquity.

I can’t say I found this in the early years but it certainly was so in the later stages.

A broader view

Swinging away from education itself to the broader picture, Trout asks:

Sad to say, the problem of anti-intellectual students is … the result not only of misguided educational policies and practices K through 16, but of vast social and cultural forces well beyond the classroom. These forces include family dysfunction and divorce, disengaged and permissive parenting, peer pressure to regard education derisively, youth-culture activities that militate against serious and sustained intellectual engagement, a widespread deligitimation of reading and print culture, and, an ambient popular culture that glorifies triviality, coarseness and mindlessness. How is it possible to overhaul the entire system--from popular culture and family life to the educational establishment--simultaneously?

That puts it succinctly. Many argue that things are no better nor worse than in previous generations and in previous eras. Some have this cyclical view of society which holds water to a point.

However, we’ve never before had the rampant prostituting of under 18s across all western nations and many eastern ones, down to such young ages, we’ve never had the nightclubbing culture where youth goes out en masse, without parental strictures to be bathed in dark, primaeval entrancement [I should know because I’ve listened to enough of it], supported by drugs, we’ve never had the level of alienation, we’ve not seen the gaming culture completely supplant the officially transmitted mores to this extent.

In ASDA recently, I overheard three girls of around fourteen discussing a fourth and how she’d just got pregnant recently. They were laughing about which boy it might have been. I wasn’t privy to the rest of the discussion as we were passing by at the time but I caught the tone and it was along the lines that it was par for the course for their entire sub-group to be doing it, the only demarcator being whether the girl got pregnant or by some miracle, didn’t.

It’s a question of percentages – there was always a proportion into this but not to this extent. Some say that with the advent of the internet, we simply know more of what’s going on now than before and in fact it went on just as much earlier.

I have to disagree. In a previous post, the point was made that the age of the girls and the much harder nature of the acts they’re expected to do in pornography is completely different today than in previous years. Again, the percentages doing those shoots is small but that doesn’t mean it’s not going on in real life.

I call this process evil. It’s a debatable point whether we can sheet this home to Them or not, to the socialists or not or to whomever but the fact is - it’s wrong. Some point out that Polynesian societies have relations at very low ages and there’s the example of Mohammed of course but I challenge that it was accompanied, in those societies, with the breakdown of the whole infrastructure and dark values driving this dystopia on, as it is here.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

[handguns] protecting your future or boys with toys


They love their guns in the U.S. of A. and with good reason. Apparently the fear of Obamamerica is about and suppliers are running out of stock. Here in the U.K. of course, guns are illegal, which leaves us all defenceless and at the mercy of Gordo's troopers but one man who did something about it [see pics above and below] was f-ed over real well.

Now, my legal advice is that you can show how to make a gun on a blog, as long as you don't encourage anyone to make it and you don't make it yourself. That's how they got him. If it's the issues you're interested in, Joe Huffman is your man.

Pity this debate is dead in the water in this country because it is more relevant now than ever before.


[wordless wednesday] thank you so much


Click pic to read more clearly.

[the kiss] a tragedy of boylean proportions

The question of Susan Boyle is a tragedy, to judge by every organ so far, except this blog, a tragedy which has transfixed the population now that Jade Goody has passed on.

Your humble blogger is at a loss for words. There are those who’ve probably come to terms with their lot, for whom the world of the opposite gender might not be a major priority in their lives and good luck to them.

For me it is a priority, I’ve never been one for the constant company of men, except in the gym where you don’t need the distraction of women and with one or two mates to have a bit of a laugh with. YHB just enjoys the company and the conversation of one woman at a time please, that’s where the true pleasure is and he could do this for hours and hours but anything further, of course, is another question.

That’s where Ms Boyle apparently finds herself and on sheer looks, the benchmark of the average punter, she doesn’t measure up [join our club], so she’s considering some sort of make-over but why a Demi Moore is beyond me -surely Ms Boyle would want to mimic someone she could look up to?

I’ve known some girls/women who’d pass for beautiful and they had their crosses to bear as well. In the public eye, Kylie is an example of this – a woman fishing in the wrong pool and coming up with piranhas every time [are piranhas ever found in pools?]. My own situation is that I’ve somehow found myself entangled on occasions, after a bit of groundwork surprisingly produced a result but I’m hanged if I detected anything remotely approaching ongoing love and my own cold heart might have had much to do with that.

In the hallway of our house, my life partner of an almost forgotten era once tried the word ‘darling’ on me for size, thought about it, decided nah, it doesn’t sit well and never bothered again - I remember the incident well. She wasn’t quite so reticent about calling me a bastard and a male whore [this latter has always puzzled your humble, celibate, faithful, virtually ineligible and near-virgin blogger] but there you go.

Ms Boyle says she’s never been kissed. That’s probably never been your own problem, dear reader and it’s not been mine but we all have our crosses to bear. My cross has always been that she, whatever the age, looks around to see no one is watching, then ‘allows’ herself to go with me, wonders afterwards how she could ever have allowed herself to do that but keeps returning to the well anyway for some time and so I’ve spent most of my life as the secret assignation but not one you can whisper about to your girlfriends. Alternatively, for light relief, some have been quite defiant about being with me.

Some people would settle for that but we always want what we can’t get, don’t we and some sort of stable relationship would have been nice. Like Simon and Garfunkel, I once heard the word ‘love’ and have forgotten what two affectionate arms around the neck feel like but then, when you think of Ms Boyle, it would be nice if two arms went around any part of her and two lips upon hers.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that we have our lot allocated to us, we’re physically what we are [a particular dear heart once looked up at me and asked, ‘Why can’t you be taller?’ to which I replied, ‘I want to kiss you, not pat you on the head’] and though we can train in the gym and watch what we eat, it doesn’t fully compensate for the person we project to others.

I’m not sure that a Demi Moore makeover would change much in Ms Boyle’s case – perhaps she just needs a bit more of the ‘come hither’ in her eye although done amateurishly, it could be counterproductive. Many years ago, one particularly dedikated miss, with a penchant for the colour green [she even wrote in that colour], spent forty minutes licking her lips and doing the heavy staring thing into the eyes, which only resulted in a bout of chuckling on my part.

I don’t know what to suggest to Ms Boyle. The critical test, of course, is to ask oneself, ‘Am I the man for the job?’ and if the answer is in the negative, then how can that be changed to an affirmative? What would have to take place first?

It’s a dilemma and may your own special dilemma also find a solution.


Check this out.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

[thought for the day] tuesday evening

A stupid person can imagine being bright but intelligent people … can’t imagine what it is like to be truly stupid.

[Tom Paine, July 16th, 2007]

[survival kit] which ten items would you choose


You're going into the hills for one week with one other person. Which 10 items, which you'll have to carry on your person, would you take?

[cities, best and worst] another poll


Another poll:

Holidaymakers, be warned: London has the worst food, Paris is the most overrated and Brussels is the most boring, according to a survey of what travellers think about European cities.

In the poll of nearly 2400 travellers, by website TripAdvisor, the British capital was voted the dirtiest in Europe, home to the worst-dressed people and the most expensive.

Paris did not come off any better, with travellers saying it was the least friendly city and the second-most expensive.

But both popular destinations redeemed themselves in the online poll, with Paris voted as having the best cuisine and best-dressed people, while London was seen as having the best nightlife, best public parks and most free attractions.

"Europe's capital cities all have their highs and lows, but no other continent offers travellers' such a wealth of culture and sights within such short distances," TripAdvisor spokesman Luke Fredberg said in a statement.

"Despite London emerging as the dirtiest and most expensive city, its fantastic free attractions prove that you don't need to be a millionaire in order to enjoy the capital."

Venice beat both Paris and Rome as Europe's most romantic destination, but it was also voted the third-most expensive, after Paris and London.

Travellers seeking friendly locals should go to Dublin, while the health-conscious may prefer Denmark's Copenhagen, voted the Europe's cleanest city.

Prague was picked as the best bargain destination, while people seeking visual treats should head for Spain's Barcelona, but avoid Warsaw in Poland, which were seen as the cities with the best and worst architecture respectively.

And the most boring city? Travellers voted for the Belgian capital Brussels, with Switzerland's Zurich a close-runner up.

What fantastic free attractions?

[what's wrong with this pic] answer


There might be much wrong in yesterday's pic but the thing I noticed was this: There's a young boy sailing the boat and it doesn't seem anyone else is on board. Now, these boats carry about 235 square feet of sail and even in a light wind, it takes an adult to balance. If you look at the pic above here, you'll notice two grown-ups, both on trapeze wires, trying to balance the craft. Look again at yesterday's pic and you'll notice the boat is 'heeling' or leaning over, so there is actually a breeze and the sails are 'sheeted' or pulled in.

I surmise that dad was in the boat behind, ready to come alongside and take over. Hell of a risk though for a photo opportunity.

Monday, May 04, 2009

[amon duul II] archangel's thunderbird

[what's wrong with this pic] occasional series


Answer tomorrow.

[berlusconi] get away quickly, dear


I'd like to tell Berlusconi to go to hell but as that's clearly where he's [allegedly] going anyway, there's little point:

Silvio Berlusconi has demanded an apology from his wife after she accused him of "consorting with minors" and said she wanted a divorce.

The Italian prime minister, 72, told the Corriere della Sera that he did not think their marriage could survive. Veronica Lario spoke out after her husband attended the 18th birthday party of a friend's daughter. She has also clashed with her husband over his choice of inexperienced but attractive female election candidates.

"Veronica must apologise publicly - and I don't know if that will be enough," Mr Berlusconi said in an interview with the Italian daily newspaper. "It is the third time she has done this to me in the middle of an election campaign. It's too much," the billionaire prime minister said.

Asked whether his 19-year marriage to Ms Lario could survive, he added: "I don't think so. I don't know if I want it to this time."

Good riddance to the archetypal [alleged] 'Them'ist. He's [allegedly] decimated Italy and is an [alleged] criminal with a Capital C. Actually, the Christian thing would be to hope he can redeem himself - shouldn't be too much of a problem - Italy's the country of churches, if he's interested before he [allegedly] dies.

[mish mash] bits of everything

Hope you're enjoying your Bank Holiday Monday.

Did you know that in Russia, it's a big holiday weekend too where they try to go to their dachas if the weather is reasonable and open everything up for the new season? More properly, it's the May 9th holiday next weekend when this goes on, with shovels, hoes and all manner of bulbs but it starts this weekend for many.

The Christianity posts. I really didn't expect anyone except Sonus to read them and all they were for was to set him up for the 'real' posts today on Satanism. These are where I get stuck in. I appreciate the time some people took to wade through yesterday's lot.

I'm trying to post some alternative music at the moment as well and there's a strange one coming up this evening. One or two people are liking these, as well as the barbarian series.

With no internet of my own yet, it's damned difficult getting it all done and I'm trying to visit. Today I've set up a mechanism whereby I can be sure to do that faster. Also, the book is now being loaded and will be ready, I hope, by Wednesday.

Thanks to JHL for that post as well.

Phew! I think about covers it for now. Enjoy the remainder of your holiday. Do you guys over in the U.S. of A. have one, by any chance?

[the dark one] alive, kicking and sentient [2]



Some modern historical context


The Committee of 300

This one’s just a snippet, it’s not that interesting:

Founded in 1729 by the black nobility through the British East India Company to deal with international banking and trade problems and to support the opium trade, it is run by the British Crown. It comprises the world banking system and the most important representatives of Western nations. Through the Committee of 300, all banks are linked to the Rothschilds.

1875 - Russian occultist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky founds the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claims that Tibetan holy men in the Himalayas, whom she refers to as the Masters of Wisdom, communicated with her in London by telepathy. She insists that the Christians have it all backwards - that Satan is good and God is evil. She writes: "The Christians and scientists must be made to respect their Indian betters. The Wisdom of India, her philosophy and achievement, must be made known in Europe and America."

JH – you see, it’s not just the Christians who polarize good and evil – the pagans do it too.

Feb. 5, 1891 - Rhodes joins his group from Oxford with a similar group from Cambridge headed by ardent social reformer William Stead. Rhodes and Stead are members of the inner "Circle of Initiates" of the secret society which they found. There is also an outer circle known as the "Association of Helpers."

1934 - "The Externalization of the Hierarchy" by Alice Bailey is published. Bailey is an occultist, taking over from Annie Besant as head of the Theosophical Society. Bailey's works are channeled from a spirit guide, the Tibetan Master [demon spirit] Djwahl Kuhl. [Her teachings form the foundation for the current New Age movement.]

She writes: "The hour for the ancient mysteries has arrived. These Ancient Mysteries were hidden in numbers, in ritual, in words, and in symbology; these veil the secret. There is no question therefore that the work to be done in familiarizing the general public with the nature of the Mysteries is of paramount importance at this time.

These Mysteries will be restored to outer expression through the medium of the Church and the Masonic Fraternity." She further states: "Out of the spoliation of all existing culture and civilization, the new world order must be built."

Nice people.

The book is published by the Lucis Trust, incorporated originally in New York as the Lucifer Publishing Company. Lucis Trust is a United Nations NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) and has been a major player at the recent UN summits.

JH - Djwahl Kuhl now masquerades, by the way, as Lord Maitreya, the teacher, the Christ amongst us and he even has a website, replete with their beloved, diffused light blues, pale yellows and vague expressions of love and all-inclusiveness [read relativism]. If you ever see a company or government department using this colour configuration, odds are …

[By the way, did anyone ever see a miracle performed in Nairobi?]

April 1978 - The U.S. Department of the Army adds in its "Chaplain's Handbook of Religious Requirements" new religions which had become federally recognized and which could be legally practiced on all military bases throughout the world. These "new" religions are Satanism, witchcraft and other occult religions.

April 25, 1982 - A full-page ad appears in major newspapers around the world proclaiming: "THE CHRIST IS NOW HERE." The advertising campaign coincides with the beginning of a speaking tour by one Benjamin Creme, a British theosophist. In various interviews and speeches, Creme explains that in speaking of "the Christ," he does not mean Jesus Christ but Lord Maitreya, the World Teacher.

According to Creme, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, and others are merely disciples of Maitreya. These Ascended Masters comprise an enlightened Spiritual Hierarchy which has guided humanity's evolution throughout history.

He maintains that Lord Maitreya fulfils the expectations of all peoples. Maitreya is the Christ awaited by the Christians; to the Jews he is the Messiah, to the Moslems he is the Imam Mahdi, to the Buddhists he is the Fifth Buddha, to the Hindus he is Krishna.

In the past, Creme tells us, these Ascended Masters have usually worked through disciples, but now they're among us and ready to help our world take its next step. [Benjamin Creme's publication "Share International" is now produced in association with the U.N.'s Department of Public Information.]

Muslim take on the whole thing

"At that time suddenly Jesus son of Mary (on whom be peace) shall appear among the Muslims. Then the people will stand up for the Prayer, and he will be asked, 'Step forward, Oh Spirit of Allah (and lead us in the Prayer); but he will say, 'No: your own leader should step forward and lead the Prayer.' Then, after offering the Morning Prayer, the Muslims shall go forth to fight the Dajjal. "

Meanwhile, the dark one and his legion indulge in their delusions of grandeur …

In "The Illustrious Lineage of the Royal House Of Britain" (First Published in 1902 by The Covenant Publishing Co., Ltd., London, England), the authors easily trace Prince Charles' lineage back to David and beyond.

The College of Heralds (London) has also traced Prince Charles to be the 145th direct descendant of King David. This claim was also made, in May of 2000, in a documentary on Israeli television.

Charles also claims descent from Islam's prophet Mohammed. [!^&*$%!]

Prince Charles' Coat of Arms and Crest was designed for him by the British College of Heraldry, using a system of guidelines over 500 years old. It contains ALL the Biblical symbols of the Beast.

It has a dog supported by a roaring lion and a unicorn, (called a wild beast with a straight horn, a wild oxen, or 'little horn').

Revelations 13:2 "And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. "

On Prince Charles' Coat of Arms are representations of the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. These are the animal symbols for France, the leopard; Germany, the Bear; and England, the lion. These nations represented the western arm of the Holy Roman Empire.

His Coat of Arms contains ten heraldic beasts, which is a first for the British Monarchy. All previous British Monarchs had either three or six, but none have ever had ten.

Prince Charles has a red dragon on his coat of arms from the flag of Wales. At his coronation (investiture as Prince of Wales) in 1969, he sat on a chair with a large red dragon emblazoned on it.

During the ceremony, his mother said:

"This dragon gives you your power, your throne and your own authority."

His response to her was:

"I am now your Liege-man, and worthy of your earthly worship."

Revelations 13:2 says:

"And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority."

Another symbol on Prince Charles' Coat of Arms is that of The Order of the Garter. The Order of the Garter is the parent organization over Freemasonry worldwide. When a man becomes a 33rd Degree Mason, he swears allegiance to that organization.

On June 26th 1994, Charles announced that when he becomes king he will relinquish the monarch's role as head of the Church of England. He said he would rather be seen as "defender of the faiths," rather than "defender of the faith."

On June 2nd 1953, with the knights of the garter carrying and holding the canopy over her head, Elizabeth II was anointed and crowned as "Queen of Thy people Israel".

Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II claim to be of the bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Jesus is claimed to have married Mary Magdalene and fathered a number of children.

This bloodline is referred to as the "Holy Grail", with those possessing it believing themselves the rightful heirs to the throne of Jerusalem. They believe that a new king of "the holy seed of David" will preside over the Israel and the world.

Prince Charles' link is through the Merovingian Kings of France. He is allegedly descended from the Merovingian Hildegarde. Princess Diana's Bloodline can also be traced back to the Merovingians.

In 1992 (just before the full unification in 1993) Charles applied to the EU to be made King of Europe. He was turned down by the European parliament. [WTF!%^&*£*?]

According to Prince Charles, "I am sure that many people consider that the United Kingdom is in an ideal geographical and historical position to act as an interpreter and mediator between the United States and Europe."

Right on, Your Highness!

The perversion and misery are his legacy

Dirty, cruel, painful things, arrogantly done to the Common Man by grubby, empty people in clean, crisp uniforms - the evidence is there if only you will look.

1* Evidence exists that mind-control and behaviour modification technology is presently concealed behind Non Lethal Defense (NLD) initiatives. In an announcement in 1995 that non-lethal weapons - including high powered microwaves and radio frequency devices - are to be 'transited' to the law enforcement sector was met with dismay in some quarters.

This joint programme, known as 'Operations Other Than War', opens the way for the military to move into the civilian domain - a move precluded by the American constitution. The stated aim is to more effectively tackle narcotics trafficking, terrorism and other criminal activity.

2* There is profound evidence in favour of the iatrogenic pathway to DID [and so] my only possible conclusion is yes, you can create full tilt DID artificially from ground zero. There is absolutely no limit on the quantity, complexity, reality, congruence and plausibility of false memories that you can insert into somebody's mind - wittingly or unwittingly.

They didn't tell me that in medical school. This is a little sub paradigm revolution in the DID field. There is a huge wealth of information, experimental information and clinical anecdotal information of DID that's been up and running and full tilt in the mental health field for 50 years now. This did not spring out of nowhere in 1980.

Bluebird and Artichoke were two programs that ran from 1951-53 and these were then rolled over into MKULTRA, which ran from 1953 to 1963 and then there are 149 sub-projects. That was then administratively rolled over into MKSEARCH which ran until 1973. Contiguously with that, and in collaboration with Edgeware Arsenal, was MKNAOMI, which involved MKULTRA, ARTICHOKE and BLUEBIRD type research done abroad.

Martin Orne was on the Scientific Advisory Board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, as was Richard Ofshe, an expert on coercive mind control and cult persuasion techniques.

In his book, "Making Monsters", Ofshe ridiculed nuts who believed that the CIA had been creating MPD. Next there was Joly West, funded under MKULTRA to study the psychobiology of dissociation. He was also the only person to ever kill an elephant, at Oklahoma City Zoo, with LSD. Joly West started his professional career interviewing American pilots who had come back from Korea, having been captured and brainwashed by the Communist Chinese.

3* Tate (1991), who examined a number of these British cases and compared them to North American and Dutch cases (Hudson 1991; Jonker and Jonker-Bakker 1991; Snow and Sorenson 1990), was struck by the similarities. Because many of these children reported SRA without attending adults encouraging them, Tate concluded that either there exists a worldwide conspiracy among toddlers or the children are speaking the truth. [Onno van der Hart, "Reports on Ritual Abuse in European Countries: A Clinician’s Perspective," 1998]

Approximately 80 youngsters came forward and made allegations concerning sexual abuse, forced prostitution, and cult activities including the human sacrifice of small children and babies at satanic rituals. Many of the children stated that they were placed on private jets and flown to Washington DC and other cities for sex orgies with U.S. Congressmen, U.S. Senators, at least one top official in the White House, and other public officials.

These same children were also used in an organized child kidnapping/sex slave operation that facilitated the abduction of yet other children from playgrounds and off the street, who were then used in child porn and snuff films or sold into slavery. "Sales" of abducted young American children to foreigners was common.

A 10-13 year old blue-eyed blonde child could be auctioned off for more than $50,000, near an air strip close to Las Vegas or Toronto and then placed on an unmarked plane, never be seen or heard from again. One of those planes was identified as a DEA (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) plane.
Of the 80 children who originally came forward, only four were willing to sign statements.

Two of the four later recanted, but the remaining two, Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci, refused to recant and held fast to their allegations. Criminal charges were filed against both of them. Owen was convicted of perjury before a grand jury and spent two years in solitary confinement. Six months after refusing to recant and prior to her perjury trial, Alisha's brother, Aaron Owens, committed 'suicide' in a correction center cell.

Overlaying the Franklin Cover-Up case is a CIA front operation, called The Finders. Gunderson outlined the mission of The Finders in a description included in his 1993 report, "Child Kidnapping in America; The CIA Connection" thus:

"CIA Front established in the 1960's, kidnapping and torture-programming of young children throughout the U.S. They use a fleet of unmarked vans to grab targetted children from parks and school yards. In doing so, they use children within their organization as decoys to attract the victims close to the vans where they are grabbed by the adults. They then drug the children and transport them to a series of safe houses for keeping.

They are then used in their ceremonies, for body parts, sex slaves, and some are auctioned off at various locations in the northern hemisphere. In the past, they have been auctioned off at locations near Las Vegas, Nevada and Toronto, Canada. Marion David Pettie, a leader of the cult, is an identified homosexual, pedophile, and CIA officer. His son was an employee of Air America, which was notorious for smuggling drugs destined for the U.S., out of the Golden Triangle into Saigon during the Viet Nam War."

In Gunderson's report on The Finders, he included copies of letters containing allegations and supporting documentation sent in 1992 to the Nebraska Attorney General, Dan Stenberg, the Nebraska FBI, the Director of the FBI, William Sessions, the Governor of Nebraska, and the Attorney General of the United States, William Barr, among others.

JH – these people are about in the UK, I could name some locations and while the finger is pointed at showcase paedophiles who are a problem, not playing that down one bit, the drugs and child abductions/prostitution is the province of Them, the suited ones and the female power dressers. I know some of these people personally, I used to move in their circles.

Many victims of satanic ritual abuse and government sponsored mind control technologies have come forward in recent years with books describing their experiences. Cathy O'Brien, a 'presidential model' mind control victim reveals, in Trance Formation in America (1994), about conditioning, using ritual terrorization of her and her daughter, Kelly.

Brice Taylor's 1999 book, Thanks for the Memories, goes even farther than Cathy O'Brien's book in its revelations of known celebrities and insiders such as Bob Hope.

Gunderson's former comrades in the FBI have long ago turned their back on and shunned him. If readers are interested in reaching Ted Gunderson, you can mail him at: Finder of Missing Persons 2118 Wilshire Blvd. #422 Santa Monica, CA 90403 tel. 310-364-2280

4* It is Luciferian, and they teach their followers that their roots go back to the ancient mystery religions of Babylon, Egypt, and Celtic druidism. They have taken what they consider the "best" of each, the foundational practices, and joined them together into a strongly occult discipline. Many groups at the local level worship ancient deities such as "El", "Baal", and "Ashtarte", as well as "Isis and Osiris" and "Set".

These are NOT nice people and they use and manipulate others viciously. They cut their eye teeth on status, power, and money.

a. The Celtic branch of spiritual believes that power is passed at the moment between life and death. They will do rituals with children, or even older adherents, where the person is tied down, and an animal is bled to death on top of them. The belief is that the person receives power from the departing spirit, which "enters" the person. It is also highly traumatizing and horrible to have an animal go through its death throes on top of you. Throw in a few threats that "this will happen to you if you ever tell," and a quite strong impression is made on small children.

b. Opening portals and dimensions: I know, this sounds like stuff from a sci-fi film, but these people really believe that there are other spiritual dimensions, and that to pass into them, first a major sacrifice is done to "open a portal", usually several animals. I have also seen animal sacrifices done to protect from the demonic, or blood used to "close a circle" so the demonic cannot penetrate it.

c. Sacrifices are also done on high holy days. I have also seen human sacrifice, but these were very rare (I believe I have seen two or three real ones in my life, the rest were set-ups). They really don't want to kill off their children, they want a new generation to grow up and continue the practices. More often, I saw animals used in sacrifices and rituals.

d. Other loss of life, rare but horrible, I saw as a head trainer because of my job. Rarely, a trainer would push a person too far, and didn't check for signs of stress. Especially with some of the newer medications used to create trance states, their meds covered the more obvious signs of trauma and stress (elevated heart rate, rapid breathing, tremors, pupil size changing), or blunted them and they NEVER COME BACK. They become a vegetable, or worse, they scream and scream for hours without end.

5* The gold or bronze statue of Baal is in a holy grove on a large private estate between Quebec and Montreal. Since I was only 12 years old when I went there, the details aren't quite as clear. But the ceremonies there were full of people in white gowns, lots of flowers and fruits and votive offerings, singing, then the final sacrifice in the arms of the statue.

Why isn't child pornography stopped? We have the evidence, law enforcement knows it exists, yet it is a multi-billion dollar industry. HOW do these people "hide" from justice and capture? Why don't the police stop them? Because these people aren't stupid. They work under secrecy. They change locations frequently, and kill those who talk to law enforcement. Bribes and other means are used to cover their tracks, and they hire excellent lawyers.

It is always hard for me to go back into this, it seems that no matter how many years go by, it is still very painful. There was trauma done in the form of being stuck with pins and needles, being burned, hung by my feet - sometimes to crosses, spun, dropped off a table as an infant, near drowning, sexual abuse and orgies, being drugged, food and sleep deprivation, and then adding to that when I was around five, was all of the military mind control that was done with instrumentation and chairs and electroshock ... That was all done to create a shattered psyche that I believe was used later for all these different personalities that were created for the mind control purpose.

I was taken to military bases in Long Beach, California as a child where they used means of light and sound combined with electroshock and drugs and all sorts of torture and hypnosis.

What I understood was that they were planning a complete and utter economic collapse of the nations that would make the Depression of 1929 look like child's play and through that, bringing people financially to their knees, they would then come in and control them, and bring in whatever other measures they would want to in the guise of rescue - when it certainly wouldn't be that at all.

JH – don’t forget that this last piece was written over ten years ago, so the collapse was well known about then.

This is the legacy of Old Nick, as Sonus so euphemizingly portrays him – human desolation, misery and despair. Great legacy.

Motifs of the satanic

JC said you’d know them by their fruits, so here are some of the fruits:

* Secrecy and non-transparency in real terms whilst espousing these aims publicly

* Dualism, of which the peace symbol is a perfect example. Creating a construct that the dark and the light are interwoven and must be balanced, the idea is that you can do anything bad you like, as long as you balance it with a good deed.

Thus you run a multi-billion dollar corporation and screw people but at the same time are known as an international philanthopist who goes to church on Sundays and passes round the collection plate.

Dualism is merely a channel to the gradual abandonment of all decency and succumbing to one’s base instincts, especially sexually, the Satanist Bible’s ‘do as thou will’. Doing good is only a smoke screen.

* Lies. Just that. A perfect example was when Blair was asked if he’d attended a Bilderberger Conference and denied it, which was a pity because his name was on the guest list which got out. Brown has mastered the technique as well, with a smile on his face.

* They take something good, like early feminism or the green movement to conserve our resources and not rape the earth, they hijack these, corrupt and pervert them for their own ends, to the point where people hate feminists and greenies, which was their plan in the first place, to prevent any real progress being made or to have it explode in the faces of people who pursue good causes.

* Treason – they’ll stab you in the back and then climb over you.

* They ape good. Anything fine in the world is aped, masses become black masses, the lightbearer, JC, becomes the lightbearer, Lucifer. He has and they have no imagination – they’re automatons of the state. As creative people, he and his legion make good destroyers.

* Militarization of the organs of state, e.g. arming of the police

* Increased security, ID cards,curfews etc.

* Increased restrictions on the free movement of people and their right of association

* Encouragement of the population to inform on neighbours

* State mentoring of children

* Criminalization of the ordinary person so that it is impossible to go through the day without having committed some breach they can haul you in for.

* Sticklers for the letter of the law in your case while they bend the rules, sticklers for legitimacy in law, even when the need for it has now passed

* Destruction of the institution of marriage and encouragement of divisive philosophies and social movements to separate people on gender grounds, ratcheting up natural differences which result in more and more people opting to live alone, making them prime targets

* Invocation of financial crises to bankrupt the common man and lead him into economic and social slavery [credit cards help in this]

* Working towards a global dream – the Grand Plan

* Flowery and arcane language, steeped in mysteries which always have as their root the leader, the loyal elite and the plebs, the sheep, e.g.

He drew himself up then and began to declaim, as if he were making a speech long rehearsed. "The Elder Days are gone. The Middle Days are passing. The Younger Days are beginning … Our time is at hand: the world of Men, which we must rule. But we must have Power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see. [Tolkien, Lof the R]

* Jaundiced view of humans and the little people, along with their codes of conduct:

Hitler also believed that the new humanity would be free of "the dirty and degrading chimera called conscience and morality," as well as "the burden of free will" and "personal responsibility" which should rightly be borne only by the few with the fortitude to make the awful decisions necessary for the good of humanity. (Sklar, p.58)

The Nazi sacred symbols and concepts - the swastika or "gamma cross", the eagle, the red/black/white color scheme, and ancient Nordic runes (one of which became the insignia of the SS) - were all adopted from occult traditions going back centuries, shared by Brahmins, Scottish Masons, Rosicrucians, Manichaeans and others. (Angeberts gives detailed histories, p. 194-200)

Finally

There was neither the room nor the time, in these articles, to go into the eye of Horus, the Bilderbergers, Tavistock, Common Purpose, Morgan, the Fed, the Thirteen families, the CFR, the world psychiatric community and so on and so on.

I had to stop somewhere.

Sonus is a fine chap, sharp and astute and yet he need not concern himself over niceties like the confusion between Lucifer and Satan, while Rome burns before him. It’s time to act on this entity who portrays himself as his former self, Lucifer, when in reality, he has become a fat, bloated, gnarled, bitter parody of the days when he stood straight and tall, wearing super-cool gear and kicking butt.

What hope for us?

As Mr. White said: ‘The first thing you must understand is that we have people everywhere. Am I right?’

My answer would be: ‘You’re right, Mr. White but we also have people everywhere, far more than you do. Every little person has that kernel of good inside him/her, plus the ability to quickly associate and all it needs is for us to reconnect with our Maker and you lot are gone. All we need is the self-belief that it’s possible, to overcome our fear and embarrassment and you lot end up on your own Molochian funeral pyres.

Coals of fire, Lucifer, to give you your respected title, coals of fire.

[the dark one] alive, kicking and sentient [3]



Your guess is as good as mine about how we got here, why G-d doesn’t step in and so on and that’s all we have – guesses, for the simple reason that our mental equipment can’t comprehend other dimensions. However, a man can speculate and this is my motion of how it might be.

The following is a diatribe from Chapter 25 of the last book, just as things are getting nasty and everyone’s killing one another. Our gallant band are holed up under a hill, everyone asks why it is so and this is one explanation:


‘Why not?’ asked Hugh. ‘Why do we have to go all gobbledegook about it? Why can’t the real scenario be quite mundane, quite easily explained in another dimension, although we can’t conceptualize it ourselves?’

‘I feel another Jensen rant getting close.’

‘You want to hear one?’

‘Go on,’ Sam groaned.

Hugh grinned. ‘Who is G-d?’

‘The Big Boss of the Sky,’ grinned Sam.

‘Let me put a scenario to you all or rather a series of questions. From all the destruction we’re seeing out there, what’s the purpose of the enemy?’

‘To destroy the world,’ said Genevieve.

‘And mankind in particular. OK, what has been the purpose of every government in the late 00 years?’

‘To enslave us,’ said Emma.

‘And to remove free will and substitute coercion. That’s what Genie’s and Sophie’s mind control were all about – to control them, to eliminate their free will. The enemy hates free will. OK, who have been the sworn enemies of the state since the dawn of states themselves?’

‘The philosophers, the free thinkers,’ supplied Jean-Claude.

‘Especially any philosophy in which people adhere to an ethereal deity, an afterlife and moral rules, therefore caring little for the powerful controlling tools of the enemy – money, power, status and sex.

Here’s a scenario.

Imagine that the science fiction books and films actually mirror the truth – there really are parallel universes, there are other dimensions, there are other worlds, wormholes, time warps and so on.

Imagine if, in many of these or even almost all of them, there is no linear time, no direction, north, south, east, west, no up and no down. There simply ‘is’.

In one sector of this ‘is’, an Ascended Master discovers the secret of how to harness, create and destroy the lifeforce of the cosmos. He immediately constructs booby traps around the secret to prevent others from having it because, even among his team colleagues, power without intellect is a dangerous thing, like a child driving a car.

He knows that the whole secret to this lifeforce is free will. Now comes his tour de force. He creates bite sized chunks of this force, calls it ‘soul’ and He holds the patent – he can insert it or remove it at will and no one else can.

One of his team who fancies himself as a rival of our AM doesn’t like this at all and insists the AM share the secret with all of them, meaning him, of course.

Nothing doing.

What’s worse, the AM now has it in His head to create a race of super-beings with this ‘soul’ inserted in each unit. This is more like it, the light bearer thinks, until he discovers that the AM plans to create a special universe to house his experiment, complete with a world with water, air and life supporting things like animals.

The final insult is that the AM is going to put this soul into millions of little clones of himself, meaning Man but with one twist – each is going to have unique features, both physically and in character. Each man will be a little god in himself.

‘Are you crazy?’ complains the light bearer. ‘Man will evolve and discover the secret of life himself. Give the power to someone more worthy, angels like us.’

‘Don’t worry,’ smiles the AM. ‘Man won’t be able to. I’m not going to equip him with our time and space coordinates. We use polar axes, he’ll use Cartesian. He’ll have limited perception, although his ego might lead him to think he understands more.’

‘No, no, a thousand times no, you’re threatening the whole of life as we know it,’ cries the light bearer. ‘You can’t go about giving this horrible little Man the power of good and evil.’

The light bearer promptly starts a war in this sector of the other dimension where they reside. For convenience, let’s call it ‘heaven’.

The AM, meanwhile, puts His plan into action, Adam and Eve are created and a really choice garden plot is set aside for them.

‘Stuff this,’ says the light bearer and heads through a portal to snuff out Man before he gets up and running. But he doesn’t succeed, goes back through the portal to heaven and causes so much trouble that he and his henchmen are thrown out.

They zip through the portal and land on earth.

Now, being much larger than Man, these giants wander around, copulating with every female they can stick their things into and try to inject the gene pool with their own DNA, thereby creating a race of ‘kings’ who will rule the earth in perpetuity.

Now they set about destroying Man’s belief in his maker and substituting opposite values for every good one Man holds. So, instead of barter, there is money, instead of vaginal sex, there is anal and so on. Everything black is painted white and vice versa.

Everything is done wrongly.

The light bearer goes completely off his rocker and through his ‘kings’, introduces more or less endless warfare and slaughter, each king begetting a new ‘king’ and so on.

One of the AM’s good colleagues says, ‘Listen, Boss, do you think this is such a good idea? The light bearer’s causing mayhem in your little pet world.’

‘Can’t do anything about it,’ replies the AM. ‘I encoded free will into Man.’

‘Oh come off it,’ says Michael. ‘You have the power to create and destroy.’

‘No, I gave it away; I put it into my children instead.’

‘You mean you can’t alter anything?’

‘I can in a macro-way, floods, getting Hitler to halt at the channel etc. but individually, no, not unless that individual has his spiritual receiver turned on.’

‘Meaning?’

‘He has to believe in me. Once he does that, then I have influence. As long as he keeps his belief circuits switched off, I can’t do anything.’

Michael is frustrated beyond endurance. ‘You won’t stop that devastation out there?’

‘Not won’t, Michael - I can’t. I programmed the power into Man himself, to pass to his children at the point of conception and birth.’

‘Look,’ said Michael, ‘that silly sod the light bearer is holding rituals down there where everyone’s praying to him and they kill some child or other and drink its blood so that the power is passed to them at the moment of birth or death.’

‘Yes, forlorn exercise and he’ll get his for doing that to my creation.’

‘He might eventually get his but meanwhile, what about those poor men, women and children? They’re suffering.’

‘I can only help them if they have their belief circuits switched on.’

‘Well, make them switch them on.’

‘That’s not free will. Without free will, Man disintegrates as a life form. It’s programmed in. You can’t have it both ways. Either he’s free or he’s not. It’s a fait accompli.’

‘Well, what about the people with their belief circuits switched on? They’re down there and suffering too.’

‘Yep, they’re being beamed up to the orbs soon.’

‘Why not beam up all human beings?’

‘I would.’

‘Well?’

‘The onboard beamer can only connect with someone with his belief circuit switched on. Look, Mick, I gave Man enough warning, didn’t I? I sent down a piece of me to walk around and tell people that he who believes will be saved. What more can I do?’

‘Most people don’t believe John 3:16.’

‘That’s unfortunate. If they switched on their belief circuits, they’d be beamed up.’

‘But that’s murder, genocide.’

‘Yes.’

‘So save them.’

‘I am saving them. I’ve sent through the portal three billion orbs to take every man, woman and child out of the horror. All they have to do to be beamed up is -’

‘Don’t tell me – to switch on their belief circuits.’

‘Right. I promised I’d come, I’m there, I’m waiting for them to switch them on.’

‘And if they don’t?’

‘The portal has a time limit and when it closes, the orbs must return here with however many they’ve got on board.’

Hugh turned to the other five and said, ‘That’s all, folks.’ He sat down and Emma gave him a drink.

There was silence all round.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Conundrum

Conundrum

Read the following sentence and count the number F's. Count them ONLY ONCE. DO NOT go back and check.

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.




ANSWER:

There are six F's in total Most people only find 3! If you got all six go to the top of the class!

Found on my packet of cigarette papers.

I must admit I could only find 3, and started to post this pointing out that they must have made a mistake when after several re-readings I still could only find 3. Then I found a 4th...then a 5th...and finally the 6th!

Of all things! (Geddit?)

[christianity] is fair discussion possible [1]

DISCLAIMER 12.04.12: This series is now old, as you can see from the date. It fitted the context of the time, which was focussed on the early or late dating of the gospels but new material has come my way since then which puts many points better. Also, to have titled it "Christianity" was not as accurate as titling it "The Gospels" perhaps. It's in the process of being rewritten and recollated, to get it into a less rambling form. Once that's done, I'll take excerpts from it for a post at Orphans. I'm giving myself a week for this. For any who've come over from the Atheist article at Orphans, this here is therefore not the series of posts I'm putting forward and relying on to back me.

..........................................

You can call this saccharine sweet but it's still an endangered species.
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Part 6



Method


To answer Sonus’s article on Satan, the approach I’m taking is to first establish the historicity and dating of the Gospels, then to deal with the historicity of Jesus, thus leading to the question of the existence of G-d, which then defines Satan as an altogether different personage to that which Sonus contends.

The article on Satan himself, answering Sonus, follows this series and will be posted next week.

To start the ball rolling, this is not a bad article by Shandon L. Guthrie on various aspects of the resurrection but I include it here only as an illustration of methodology:

Naturalism

The first presupposition that needs to be jettisoned is the view of naturalism (or anti-supernaturalism). Naturalism supposes that the only events that can occur in history are purely physical, natural ones. Of course this precludes even the possibility of any supernatural events in the history of the universe. Once someone's mind is exclusive to explanations that posit natural elements then a Resurrection of any sort is barred a priori. Naturalism is a self-contained rejection of the supernatural.

Hume

First, Hume argues that our "firm and unalterable experience" militates against the reality of miracles. Any claim of miraculous intervention, therefore, must be matched with our uniform experience and weighed appropriately. Therefore, any miracle claim will be disconfirmed by our "firm and unalterable experience" on the matter.

Hume's second argument deals with the factual improbability of miracles. That even though the principle is sufficient to render miracles impossible, it is in fact true that miracles have never occurred in human history because any natural explanation outweighs a supernatural one. Thus anyone examining the historical evidence surrounding a miracle claim will conclude that something else must be the better explanation.

Hume's first argument has been recognized to be a classic case of petitio principii (begging the question) because Hume begins by assuming that our "firm and unalterable experience" already excludes a history of miracles. It is only when he assumes that our uniform experience does not involve the miraculous can he conclude that miracles never occurred. But surely this is putting the cart before the horse.

Secondly, one can disavow Hume's approach even if we suppose that he means to suggest that an improbability yields a disconfirming conclusion. There are no good reasons to suppose that because an event is improbable that it is, therefore, impossible. If one were to argue for the improbability of an event then such evidence would have to include that event as the best explanation of the surrounding facts.

So one must now ask, With respect to what is the notion of miracles improbable? If anyone is to confidently conclude a high improbability of a miraculous claim then the arguer owes it to the Christian to supply the backdrop of the improbability.

Antony Flew

Contemporary attackers of the claims to the miraculous suggest a new twist to the Humean problem. Instead of dealing with probabilities based on historical observation they surmise an analogy between the present state of affairs with that of history. This is to say that the regularities of today's events must be consistent with the regularities of history.

For example, there are no observations of mermaids in today's world and none seem physically possible. Thus, one ought not to think that a mermaid may have been observed by a 19th century seagoing captain simply because no confirmations of mermaids subsist. Captains probably mistook manatees for mermaids.

The only difference between Antony Flew and Hume, in this respect, is that uniform experience consists of only one's current experiential data. Flew posits a similar construction that bases its assessment of miracle claims on the general experience of the modern man.

Flew calls this the "critical history" approach. He contends that no good historian can adequately do good history unless claims that contradict contemporary experience are disposed of. Presumably no contemporary experience involves the miraculous.

The issue that has to be dealt with is whether or not Flew's methodology is true given the historical analogy to contemporary events. By way of evaluation, I think there are several problems with Flew's defense.

First, analogical arguments are probabilistic in that they do not claim identity but merely claim verisimilitude. For example, laboratory testing on mice may give analogous effects to human responses but the fact remains that mice are not human beings. Analogies, in this respect, serve to conclude the probability of a hypothesis based upon relevant similarities.

So, even if we can agree with Flew that an analogy is warranted (as I believe it is) then the analogy serves to undergird the relevant factors of today with those of history.

Now the question becomes, "What relevance do contemporary events have with miraculous events of history?" The Christian could appropriately deny the connection while pleading for the uniqueness of historical, miraculous events.

Secondly, it appears that Flew is special pleading. Miraculous events are generally not repeated events and are very much unlike standard events as we see both in history and today. Why should non-unique events be disqualified by the analogy of today if an event, by definition, is infrequent?

In this respect, Flew's argument appears to take on a Humean flavor by making a special methodology already suited for the non-believer in miracles. But this is precisely what is at issue.

Thirdly, Flew believes (like Hume) that miracles are impossible events in principle. But as with Hume, this is question-begging.

Fourthly, if Flew were correct then there would be no historiographical fecundity. Something is said to be fecund if it opens the doors to further investigation in additional areas. Flew's analysis certainly precludes this sort of methodology and does not open the door to any unique investigations.

Fifthly, Flew's analysis is a resurgence of the late German theologian Ernst Troeltsch who advocated a similar "principle of analogy" which appears to badly falsify historical claims of the miraculous.

The problem with a Flew/Troeltsch historiography is that it fails to affirm an analogy and, at best, can only disconfirm the non-analogous.

So, in order for analogy to be properly viewed with respect to history it must explain, for example, how the Resurrection appearances are analogous to, say, mass hallucinations. It does no good to suggest that a miraculous claim of history is non-analogous to a current event because it may very well be a unique and unprecedented occurrence.

Historical explanations are not employed by repeating experiments for the desired observable outcome (since in most cases the historical context is unrepeatable).

Instead, historians seek to explain a historical event by the surrounding context in which it had taken place.

This evinces a slightly different approach. Instead of seeking circumstances by which a historical hypothesis can be put to the test, the historian, like the geologist and archaeologist, investigates the surrounding context of the event.

As The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy correctly summarizes, we see that the historian is primarily concerned with two governing factors:

1. the temporal progression of large-scale human events and actions, primarily but not exclusively in the past

2. the discipline or inquiry in which knowledge of the human past is acquired or sought.

A debate on the Resurrection between William Lane Craig and German New Testament critic Gerd Ludëmann threw light on the method of discovery.

The objective of the debate was to assess the New Testament for reasons to either accept or reject the Resurrection of Jesus as a historical event.

As the debate came to an end, Dr. Craig made an interesting analysis that there are two roads that lead to the same affirmation about the reality of Jesus' Resurrection:

The historical road and the personal road. The former is the pursuit of the historical information on Jesus in an effort to evaluate the material for the Resurrection hypothesis (which is what the debate hammered out and what this essay has concentrated on). The latter is not only a road to finding the authentic Jesus of the New Testament but an existential path to finding the meaning to our lives.

[christianity] is fair discussion possible [2]

You can call this saccharine sweet but it's still an endangered species.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6


Historicity and dating of the Gospels


Below are a number of articles dealing with this issue. Rather than collating them, I present them as is:

Most academic historians believe that such texts are valuable historical sources, but that their meaning depends on a variety of factors. Historians generally assume that the Gospels, like other historical sources (for example, the works of Josephus), were written by human beings.

Some argue that a text with a clearly identified author (for example, the Gospel of Luke) was written by someone else, or by several authors, or by an author drawing on several sources.

A close reading of the Gospels suggests to historians that most people addressed Jesus as lord as a sign of respect for a miracle-worker (especially in Mark and Matthew) or as a teacher (especially in Luke). [Wiki]

Destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. , Luke and Acts

None of the gospels mention the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 A.D. This is significant because Jesus had prophesied concerning the temple when He said "As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down," (Luke 21:5, see also Matt. 24:1; Mark 13:1).

This prophecy was fulfilled in 70 A.D. when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and burned the temple. The gold in the temple melted down between the stone walls and the Romans took the walls apart, stone by stone, to get the gold. Such an obvious fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy most likely would have been recorded as such by the gospel writers who were fond of mentioning fulfillment of prophecy if they had been written after 70 A.D. Also, if the gospels were fabrications of mythical events then anything to bolster the Messianic claims -- such as the destruction of the temple as Jesus said -- would surely have been included. But, it was not included suggesting that the gospels (at least Matthew, Mark, and Luke) were written before 70 A.D.

Similarly, this argument is important when we consider the dating of the book of Acts which was written after the gospel of Luke by Luke himself. Acts is a history of the Christian church right after Jesus' ascension. Acts also fails to mention the incredibly significant events of 70 A.D. which would have been extremely relevant and prophetically important and garnered inclusion into Acts had it occurred before Acts was written.

Remember, Acts is a book of history concerning the Christians and the Jews. The fact that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple is not recorded is very strong evidence that Acts was written before A.D. 70. If we add to this the fact that acts does not include the accounts of "Nero's persecution of the Christians in A.D. 64 or the deaths of James (A.D. 62), Paul (A.D. 64), and Peter (A.D. 65),"1 and we have further evidence that it was written early.

If we look at Acts 1:1-2 it says, "The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when He was taken up, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen." Most scholars affirm that Acts was written by Luke and that Theophilus (Grk. "lover of God") "may have been Luke’s patron who financed the writing of Luke and Acts."2 This means that the gospel of Luke was written before Acts.

"At the earliest, Acts cannot have been written prior to the latest firm chronological marker recorded in the book—Festus’s appointment as procurator (24:27), which, on the basis of independent sources, appears to have occurred between A.D. 55 and 59."3

"It is increasingly admitted that the Logia [Q] was very early, before 50 A.D., and Mark likewise if Luke wrote the Acts while Paul was still alive. Luke's Gospel comes (Acts 1:1) before the Acts. The date of Acts is still in dispute, but the early date (about A.D. 63) is gaining support constantly."4

For clarity, Q is supposedly one of the source documents used by both Matthew and Luke in writing their gospels. If Q actually existed then that would push the first writings of Christ's words and deeds back even further lessening the available time for myth to creep in and adding to the validity and accuracy of the gospel accounts. If what is said of Acts is true, this would mean that Luke was written at least before A.D. 63 and possibly before 55 - 59 since Acts is the second in the series of writings by Luke. This means that the gospel of Luke was written within 30 years of Jesus' death.

Matthew

The early church unanimously held that the gospel of Matthew was the first written gospel and was penned by the apostle of the same name (Matt. 10:2). Lately, the priority of Matthew as the first written gospel has come under suspicion with Mark being considered by many to be the first written gospel. The debate is far from over.

The historian Papias mentions that the gospel of Matthew was originally in Aramaic or Hebrew and attributes the gospel to Matthew the apostle.5

"Irenaeus (ca. a.d. 180) continued Papias’s views about Matthew and Mark and added his belief that Luke, the follower of Paul, put down in a book the gospel preached by that apostle, and that John, the Beloved Disciple, published his Gospel while residing in Asia. By the time of Irenaeus, Acts was also linked with Luke, the companion of Paul."6

This would mean that if Matthew did write in Aramaic originally, that he may have used Mark as a map, adding and clarifying certain events as he remembered them. But, this is not known for sure.

The earliest quotation of Matthew is found in Ignatius who died around 115 A.D. Therefore, Matthew was in circulation well before Ignatius came on the scene. The various dates most widely held as possible writing dates of the Gospel are between A.D. 40 - 140. But Ignatius died around 115 A.D. and he quoted Matthew. Therefore Matthew had to be written before he died. Nevertheless, it is generally believed that Matthew was written before A.D. 70 and as early as A.D. 50.

Mark

Mark was not an eyewitness to the events of Jesus' life. He was a disciple of Peter and undoubtedly it was Peter who informed Mark of the life of Christ and guided him in writing the Gospel known by his name. "Papias claimed that Mark, the Evangelist, who had never heard Christ, was the interpreter of Peter, and that he carefully gave an account of everything he remembered from the preaching of Peter."7 Generally, Mark is said to be the earliest gospel with an authorship of between A.D. 55 to A.D. 70.

Luke

Luke was not an eyewitness of the life of Christ. He was a companion of Paul who also was not an eyewitness of Christ's life. But, both had ample opportunity to meet the disciples who knew Christ and learn the facts not only from them, but from others in the area. Some might consider this damaging to the validity of the gospel, but quite the contrary. Luke was a gentile convert to Christianity who was interested in the facts. He obviously had interviewed the eyewitnesses and written the Gospel account as well as Acts.

"The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when He was taken up, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. 3 To these He also presented Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God," (Acts 1:1-3).

Notice how Luke speaks of "them," of those who had personal encounters with Christ. Luke is simply recounting the events from the disciples. Since Luke agrees with Matthew, Mark, and John and since there is no contradictory information coming from any of the disciples stating that Luke was inaccurate, and since Luke has proven to be a very accurate historian, we can conclude that Luke's account is very accurate.

As far as dating the gospel goes, Luke was written before the book of Acts and Acts does not mention "Nero's persecution of the Christians in A.D. 64 or the deaths of James (A.D. 62), Paul (A.D. 64), and Peter (A.D. 65)."8 Therefore, we can conclude that Luke was written before A.D. 62. "Luke's Gospel comes (Acts 1:1) before the Acts. The date of Acts is still in dispute, but the early date (about A.D. 63) is gaining support constantly."

John

The writer of the gospel of John was obviously an eyewitness of the events of Christ's life since he speaks from a perspective of having been there during many of the events of Jesus' ministry and displays a good knowledge of Israeli geography and customs.

The John Rylands papyrus fragment 52 of John's gospel dated in the year 135 contains portions of John 18, verses 31-33,37-38. This fragment was found in Egypt and a considerable amount of time is needed for the circulation of the gospel before it reached Egypt. It is the last of the gospels and appears to have been written in the 80's to 90's.

Of important note is the lack of mention of the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 A.D. But this is understandable since John was not focusing on historical events. Instead, he focused on the theological aspect of the person of Christ and listed His miracles and words that affirmed Christ's deity.
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1. McDowell, Josh, A Ready Defense, Thomas Nelson Publishers; Nashville, Tenn., 1993, p. 80.
2. Walvoord, John F., and Zuck, Roy B., The Bible Knowledge Commentary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Scripture Press Publications, Inc.) 1983, 1985.
3. Mays, James Luther, Ph.D., Editor, Harper’s Bible Commentary, (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc.) 1988.
4. Robertson, A.T., A Harmony of the Gospels, Harper & Row; New York` 1950. pp. 255-256.
5. Douglas, J. D., Comfort, Philip W. & Mitchell, Donald, Editors, Who’s Who in Christian History, Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; 1992.
6. Achtemeier, Paul J., Th.D., Harper’s Bible Dictionary, (San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc.; 1985
7. Douglas, J. D., Comfort, Philip W. & Mitchell, Donald, Editors, Who’s Who in Christian History, (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; 1992.
8. McDowell, Josh, A Ready Defense, Thomas Nelson Publishers; Nashville, Tenn., 1993, p. 80.
9. Robertson, A.T., A Harmony of the Gospels, Harper & Row; New York` 1950. pp. 255-256.

Dating the Gospels

Reverend George H. Duggan, S.M., is a New Zealander. After earning his S.T.D. at the Angelicum in Rome, he taught philosophy for fifteen years at the Marist seminary, Greenmeadows, and then was rector in turn of a university hall of residence and the Marist tertianship. He is now living in retirement at St. Patrick's College, Silverstream. He is the author of Evolution and Philosophy (1949), Hans Kung and Reunion (1964), Teilhardism and the Faith (1968), and Beyond Reasonable Doubt (1987). His last article in HPR appeared in October 1992. He writes:

D. F. Strauss (1808-1874), in his Life of Jesus, (published in 1835-6), anticipated Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) in holding that the Gospels, although they contain some historical facts, were mainly mythology and were written late in the 2nd century. Similarly F. C. Baur (1792-1860), an Hegelian rationalist, held that the Gospels were written between 130 and 170.

But Strauss, in the words of Giuseppe Ricciotti, "honestly confessed that his theory would collapse if the Gospels were composed during the first century."

If they were so early, there would not be enough time for the myths to develop. Moreover, it is plain that, the nearer a document is to the facts it narrates, the more likely it is that it will be factually accurate, just as an entry in a diary is more likely to be accurate than memoirs written forty or fifty years afterwards. John A. T. Robinson was therefore justified when he ended his book Redating the New Testament with the words: "Dates remain disturbingly fundamental data."

The current dating of the four Gospels, accepted by the biblical establishment, which includes scholars of every persuasion, is: Mark 65-70; Matthew and Luke in the 80s; John in the 90s. These dates are repeated by the columnists who write in our Catholic newspapers and the experts who draw up the curricula for religious education in our Catholic schools.

For much of this late dating there is little real evidence.

This point was made by C. H. Dodd, arguably the greatest English-speaking biblical scholar of the century. In a letter that serves as an appendix to Robinson's book Redating the New Testament, Dodd wrote: "I should agree with you that much of the late dating is quite arbitrary, even wanton, the offspring not of any argument that can be presented, but rather of the critic's prejudice that, if he appears to assent to the traditional position of the early church, he will be thought no better than a stick-in-the-mud."

Many years earlier the same point was made by C. C. Torrey, professor of Semitic Languages at Yale from 1900 to 1932. He wrote: "I challenged my NT colleagues to designate one passage from any one of the four Gospels giving clear evidence of a date later than 50 A.D. . . . The challenge was not met, nor will it be, for there is no such passage."

In 1976, the eminent New Testament scholar, John A. T. Robinson, "put a cat among the pigeons" with his book Redating the New Testament, published by SCM Press. He maintained that there are no real grounds for putting any of the NT books later than 70 A.D.

His main argument is that there is no clear reference in any of them to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple which occurred on September 26th of that year. This cataclysmic event brought to an end the sacrificial worship that was the center of the Jewish religion and it should have merited a mention in the NT books if they were written afterwards.

In particular, one would have expected to find a reference to the event in the Epistle to the Hebrews, for it would have greatly strengthened the author's argument that the Temple worship was now obsolete.

Robinson dated the composition of Matthew from 40 to 60, using dots to indicate the traditions behind the text, dashes to indicate a first draft, and a continuous line to indicate writing and rewriting. Similarly, he dated Mark from 45 to 60, Luke from 55 to 62, and John from 40 to 65.

Robinson's book was the first comprehensive treatment of the dating of the NT books since Harnack's Chronologie des altchristlichen Litteratur, published in 1897. It is a genuine work of scholarship by a man thoroughly versed in the NT text and the literature bearing on it.

But it was not welcomed by the biblical establishment, and it was not refuted, but ignored. "German New Testament scholars," Carsten Thiede has written, "all but ignored Redating the New Testament, and not until 1986, ten years later, did Robinson's work appear in Germany, when a Catholic and an Evangelical publishing house joined forces to have it translated and put into print."

In 1987, the Franciscan Herald Press published The Birth of the Synoptics by Jean Carmignac, a scholar who for some years was a member of the team working on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He tells us he would have preferred "Twenty Years of Work on the Formation of the Synoptic Gospels" as a title for the book, but the publishers ruled this out as too long.

Carmignac is sure that Matthew and Mark were originally written in Hebrew. This would not have been the classical Hebrew of the Old Testament, nor that of the Mishnah (c. 200 A.D.) but an intermediate form of the language, such as the Qumran sectaries were using in the 1st century A.D.

Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor, who died about 130 A.D., tells us that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, and Carmignac has made a good case for holding that the same is true of Mark. He found that this compelled him to put the composition of these Gospels much earlier than the dates proposed by the biblical establishment.

He writes: "I increasingly came to realize the consequences of my work . . . . The latest dates that can be admitted for Mark (and the Collection of Discourses) is 50, and around 55 for the Completed Mark; around 55-60 for Matthew; between 58 and 60 for Luke. But the earliest dates are clearly more probable: Mark around 42; Completed Mark around 45; (Hebrew) Matthew around 50; (Greek) Luke a little after 50."

On page 87 he sets out the provisional results (some certain, some probable, others possible) of his twenty years' research and remarks that his conclusions almost square with those of J. W. Wenham.

In 1992, Hodder and Stoughton published Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke by John Wenham, the author of a well-known grammar of New Testament Greek. Born in 1913, he is an Anglican scholar who has spent his life in academic and pastoral work. He tells us that his attention was drawn to the Synoptic Problem in 1937, when he read Dom John Chapman's book Matthew, Mark and Luke. He has been grappling with the problem ever since and in this book he offers his solution of the problem; but his main concern is the dates of the Synoptics.

Wenham's book received high praise from Michael Green, the editor of the series I Believe, which includes works by such well-known scholars as I. Howard Marsall and the late George Eldon Ladd. The book, Green writes, "is full of careful research, respect for evidence, brilliant inspiration and fearless judgement. It is a book no New Testament scholar will be able to neglect."

Green may be too optimistic. Wenham will probably get the same treatment as Robinson: not a detailed refutation, but dismissed as not worthy of serious consideration.

Wenham puts the first draft of Matthew before 42. For twelve years (30-42) the Apostles had remained in Jerusalem, constituting, in words of the Swedish scholar B. Gerhardsson, a kind of Christian Sanhedrin, hoping to win over the Jewish people to faith in Christ. Matthew's Gospel, written in Hebrew, would have had an apologetic purpose, endeavoring to convince the Jews, by citing various Old Testament texts, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of David and the long-awaited Messiah.

The persecution of the Church in 42 by Herod Agrippa I, in which the Apostle James suffered martyrdom, put an end to those hopes. Peter, miraculously freed from prison, went, we are told "to another place" (Acts 12:17). There are grounds for thinking that this "other place" was Rome, where there was a big Jewish community and where he would be out of the reach of Herod Agrippa. There, using Matthew's text, and amplifying it with personal reminiscences, he preached the gospel. When Agrippa died in 44, Peter was able to return to Palestine. After his departure from Rome, Mark produced the first draft of his Gospel, based on Peter's preaching.

Luke was in Philippi from 49 to 55, and it was during this time that he produced the first draft of his Gospel, beginning with our present chapter 3, which records the preaching of John the Baptist.10 It was to this Gospel, Origen explained, that St. Paul was referring when, writing to the Corinthians in 56, he described Luke as "the brother whose fame in the gospel has gone through all the churches" (2 Cor. 8:18).

We know that Luke was in Palestine when Paul was in custody in Caesarea (58-59). He would have been able to move round Galilee, interviewing people who had known the Holy Family, and probably making the acquaintance of a draft in the Hebrew of the Infancy Narrative, and so gathering material for the first two chapters of the present Gospel. In the finished text he introduced this and the rest of the Gospel with the prologue in which he assures Theophilus that he intends to write history.

There are no grounds for putting Luke's Gospel in the early 80s as R. F. Karris does,11 or, with Joseph Fitzmyer, placing it as "not earlier than 80-85."

The date of Luke's Gospel is closely connected with that of Acts, its companion volume, for if Acts is early, then Luke will be earlier still. In 1896, Harnack put Acts between 79 and 93, but by 1911 he had come to the conclusion that "it is the highest degree probable" that Acts is to be dated before 62. If Luke does not mention the outcome of the trial of Paul, it is, Harnack argued, because he did not know, for when Luke wrote, the trial had not yet taken place.

C. J. Hemer, in his magisterial work, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, which was published posthumously in 1989, gives fifteen general indications, of varying weight but cumulative in their force, which point to a date before 70. Indeed, many of these point to a date before 65, the year in which the Neroian persecution of the Church began.

In 1996, Weidenfeld and Nicholson published The Jesus Papyrus by Carsten Peter Thiede and Matthew d'Ancona. Thiede is Director of the Institute for Basic Epistemological Research in Paderborn, Germany, and a member of the International Papyrological Association. Matthew d'Ancona is a journalist and Deputy Editor of the Daily Telegraph, a London newspaper.

The book is about several papyrus fragments, and in particular three found in Luxor, Egypt, which contain passages from the Gospel of St. Matthew, and one found in Qumran, which contains twenty letters from the Gospel of St. Mark.

The three Luxor fragments-the Jesus papyrus-came into the possession of the Reverend Charles Huleatt, the Anglican chaplain in that city, who sent them in 1901 to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he had graduated in 1888. They did not attract scholarly attention until 1953, when Colin H. Roberts examined them. He dated them as belonging to the late 2nd century. Then in 1994, they came to the notice of C. P. Thiede, who suspected that they might be much older than Roberts thought. Examining them with a confocal laser scanning microscope, and comparing them with the script in a document dated July 24, 66, he came to the conclusion that the fragments should be dated as belonging to the middle of the first century.

The Qumran fragment is small-3.3 cm x 2.3 cm-an area that is slightly larger than a postage stamp. It contains twenty letters, on five lines, ten of the letters being damaged. It is fragment no. 5 from Cave 7 and it is designated 7Q5. A similar fragment from the same Cave-7Q2-has one more letter-twenty-one as against twenty, on five lines. The identification of this fragment as Baruch (or the Letter of Jeremiah) 6:43-44 has never been disputed.

In 1972 Fr. José O'Callaghan, S.J., a Spanish papyrologist, declared that the words on 7Q5 were from the Gospel of St. Mark: 6:52-53. This identification was widely questioned, but many papyrologists rallied to his support, and there are good reasons for thinking that O'Callaghan was right. Thiede writes: "In 1994, the last word on this particular identification seemed to have been uttered by one of the great papyrologists of our time, Orsolina Montevecchi, Honorary President of the International Papyrological Association. She summarized the results in a single unequivocal sentence: 'I do not think there can be any doubt about the identification of 7Q5.'"14 This implies that St. Marks' Gospel was in being some time before the monastery at Qumran was destroyed by the Romans in 68.

Those who object that texts of the Gospels could not have reached such out of the way places as Luxor or Qumran as early as the 60s of the first century do not realize how efficient the means of communication were in the Empire at that time. Luxor was even then a famous tourist attraction, and, with favorable winds a letter from Rome could reach Alexandria in three days-at least as quickly as an airmail letter in 1996. Nor was Qumran far from Jerusalem, and we know that the monks took a lively interest in the religious and intellectual movements of the time.

New Testament scholars dealing with the Synoptic Gospels will obviously have to take more notice of the findings of the papyrologists than they have so far been prepared to do, however painful it may be to discard received opinions.

When was St. John's Gospel written?

That John, the son of Zebedee, and one of the Apostles, wrote the Gospel that bears his name, was established long ago, on the basis of external and internal evidence, by B. F. Westcott and M. J. Lagrange, O.P., and their view, though not universally accepted, has not really been shaken.

St. Irenaeus, writing in 180, tells us that John lived until the reign of the Emperor Trajan, which began in 98. From this some have inferred that John wrote his Gospel in the 90s. But this inference is obviously fallacious. The majority of modern scholars do indeed date the Gospel in the 90s, but a growing number put it earlier, and Robinson mentions seventeen, including P. Gardner-Smith, R. M. Grant and Leon Morris, who favor a date before 70. To them we could add Klaus Berger, of Heidelberg, who puts it in 66. Robinson decisively refutes the arguments brought forward by Raymond Brown and others to establish a later date, viz. the manner of referring to "the Jews," and the reference to excommunication in chapter 9. He adds: "There is nothing in the Gospel that suggests or presupposes that the Temple is already destroyed or that Jerusalem is in ruins-signs of which calamity are inescapably present in any Jewish or Christian literature that can with any certainty be dated to the period 70-100."

Robinson also points out that John, when describing the cure of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda, tells us that this pool "is surrounded by five porticos, or covered colonnades" (5:2). Since these porticos were destroyed in 70, John's use of the present tense-"is"-seems to imply that the porticos were still in being when he wrote. "Too much weight," he admits, "must not be put on this-though it is the only present tense in the context; and elsewhere (4:6; 11:18; 18:1; 19:41), John assimilates his topographical descriptions to the tense of the narrative."

This article will have served its purpose if it has encouraged the reader to consider seriously the evidence for an early date for the Gospels, refusing to be overawed by such statements as that "the majority of modern biblical scholars hold" or that "there is now a consensus among modern biblical scholars" that the Gospels are to be dated from 65 to 90 A.D.

The account I have given of the writing of the Synoptic Gospels is categorical in style, but it is presented only as a likely scenario. However, it would seem to be more likely than one based on the assumption that among the Jews, a literate people, it was thirty years or more before anyone wrote a connected account of the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.

"I do not wish," C. S. Lewis once said to a group of divinity students, "to reduce the skeptical element in your minds. I am only suggesting that it need not be reserved exclusively for the New Testament and the Creeds. Try doubting something else." This something else, I suggest could include the widely accepted view that the Gospels were written late.

It will be easier to do this if the reader is acquainted with the judgment of the eminent jurist, Sir Norman Anderson, who describes himself as "an academic from another discipline who has browsed widely in the writings of contemporary theologians and biblical scholars." At times, he is, he tells us, "astonished by the way in which they handle their evidence, by the presuppositions and a priori convictions with which some of them clearly (and even, on occasion, on their own admission) approach the documents concerned, and by the positively staggering assurance with which they make categorical pronouncements on points which are, on any showing, open to question, and on which equally competent colleagues take a diametrically opposite view."

1 The traditional dating is given in the Douay-Rheims-Challoner version in its introductions to the Gospels: Matthew about 36; Mark about 40; Luke about 54; John about 93. 2 Ricciotti, The Life of Christ (E.T. Alba I. Zizzamia), Bruce, Milwaukee, 1944, p. 186. 3 Redating the New Testament, SCM Press, London, 1976, p. 358. 4 Thus in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1989, D. J. Harrington puts Mark before 70; B. T. Viviani, O.P., puts Matthew between 80 and 90; R. J. Karris, O.F.M., puts Luke 80-85; Pheme Perkins puts John in the 90s. 5 Redating the New Testament, p. 360. 6 Quoted in J. Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Hodder and Stoughton, London, p. 299 note 2. 7 C. P. Thiede and M. d'Ancona, The Jesus Papyrus, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1996, p. 45. 8 J. Carmignac, The Birth of the Synoptics, (E. T. Michael J. Wrenn)

Franciscan Herald Press, Chicago, 1987, pp. 6, 61. 9 Ibid., p. 99 note 29. 10 Robinson suggests that this may be the case, op. cit. p. 282 note 142. 11 R. J. Karris, in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 670. 12 Richard Dillon and Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., in The Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice-Hall International, London, 1968, Vol. 2, p. 165. 13 J. Wenham, op. cit., pp. 225-226. 14 C. P. Thiede and M. d'Ancona, op. cit., p. 56. 15 Robinson, op. cit., pp. 272-285. 16 Ibid., p. 275. 17 Ibid., p. 278. 18 "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism" in Christian Reflections, Geoffrey Bles, London, 1967, p. 164. 19A Lawyer Among Theologians, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1973, p. 15.

The Gospels

Concerning the provenance of Matthew's writing of his Gospel, there is very little to acknowledge. But perhaps it is likely that Matthew wrote somewhere in Syria, for those who think that Matthew's geography discloses any significance. New Testament scholars D. A. Carson, Douglas Moo, and Leon Morris declare that "we cannot be certain of the geographic provenance of this gospel. Syria is perhaps the most likely suggestion, but nothing of importance hangs on the decision."

Some external sources from the early Church Fathers suggest this line of reasoning, including Irenaeus, Tertullian, Papias, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen (the latter two are seen in the writings of Eusebius). Their writings make an association between Mark and the Apostle Peter such that their testimony ought not to be rejected unless there are some defeaters to that view.

If some early Christians desired to bolster the Resurrection account they would have spruced it up with well-known authors and would have used the "bigger" names such as Peter, Thomas, Barnabas, and so forth. In fact, the first two centuries of Christianity indicate that this is precisely what occurred. The so-called Gospel of Peter, the Nag Hammadi texts, and other apocryphal gospels were produced to enhance the Christian message. This makes the unlikely names of Matthew, Mark, and Luke a credible factor in sustaining their authorship.

For example, the 1961 finding of an inscription of the name "Pilate" delegates specific extra-biblical confirmation for the Gospel accounts of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, who sentenced Jesus to his death. Also, the discovery of an ossuary containing the remains of a man who had been crucified with nails in his ankles seems to verify such execution techniques during Jesus' time.

In addition, the 1992 discovery of the bones of Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest during the time of Jesus, silenced skeptical queries about Caiaphas' existence. The close similarities of the events depicted between biographies and historical literature and the Synoptics demonstrate that a general continuity and reliability are to be seen. Given the genre of the literature, the Synoptics ought to serve as historical sources.

The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem was predicted not only by Jesus but also by other learned Jews of the time. There are 3 fragments in the Talmud which refer to something terrible happening "40 years before the destruction of the Temple", which is said to have had various consequences, one of them being that the "sacrifices lost their efficacy".

Johanan Ben Zakkai, a friend of Nicodemus, cried out when the Temple gates once opened of their own accord, "O Temple, Temple . . . I know that thou shallt be destroyed!" He was referring by this to Zech. 11:1, "Open your doors, O Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars!" 'Lebanon', according to the Rabbis, is a cryptic name for the Temple, because its root letters form the word 'whiten': the Temple therefore "whitens" the nation's sins.

The clearest prophecy of the destruction of the Temple is of course the 9th chapter of Daniel, referred to in passing by the Jewish historian Josephus, who also recorded the remarkable fact of the Temple's east gate opening of its own accord during the night.

The strongest proof that the destruction of the Temple was considered possible is in Josephus' Jewish Wars: During the Feast of Tabernacles "four years before the Jewish revolt", when "the city was still flourishing and in perfect peace", a certain Jesus, the son of Ananus began to proclaim strange tidings, crying out with great volume: "A voice cries out against Jerusalem, against the Temple of God, against the whole nation!"

He continued night and day "in all the streets and alleys of the city", and even though both Jewish and Roman officials scourged him until his bones were laid bare, "he shed no tear nor did he rebuke his torturers". He kept this up for "seven years and five months, right up to the siege of the city". Finally, to his cry of "Woe to thee, Jerusalem!" he added the words "Woe, woe to myself also!". Soon after the seige commenced, Josephus tells us, he was killed by a stone from a Roman ballista.

Doctor Bo Reicke writes in one of his studies that "it is nothing short of jingoistic and uncritical dogma to claim in New Testament criticism that the gospels must have been written after the Jewish revolt [AD 66-70], simply because they contain prophecies of the destruction of the second Temple which could only have been inserted at a later date".

In addition

Clement of Rome was a Christian bishop who wrote to the Corinthian church, basically asking them why they were not obeying what Paul wrote 50 years earlier. Clement's letter was written in 97/98 A.D.

This one is hard to dismiss.