Approaches to Eschatology

[timtams]

Sometimes when things look like discrepancies, we just have to dig deeper.

 

[parousia70]

The Muratorian Canon (A.D. 170)
"the blessed Apostle Paul, following the rule of his predecessor John, writes to no more than seven churches by name."

"John too, indeed, in the Apocalypse, although he writes to only seven churches, yet addresses all. "

The relevant portion of the document states that "the blessed Apostle Paul, following the rule of his predecessor John, writes to no more than seven churches by name" and "John too, indeed, in the Apocalypse, although he writes to only seven churches, yet addresses all."

The writer of the Canon clearly teaches that John preceded Paul in writing letters to seven churches. Yet, church historians are agreed that Paul died before A.D. 70, either in A.D. 67 or 68.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Sometimes when things look like discrepancies, we just have to dig deeper.

Correct.

The well is deep, but for some, the bucket rope is short..............

Genesis 29:8-12
“We can’t,” they replied, “until all the flocks are gathered and the stone has been rolled away from the mouth of the well. Then we will water the sheep.”
When Jacob saw Rachel daughter of his uncle Laban, and Laban’s sheep, he went over and Jacob rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep.
Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep aloud.
He had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and a son of Rebekah. So she ran and told her father.

John 4:4-14
Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.
Where can you get this living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well
and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.
Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

John 7:37
In yet the last great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cries-out, saying,
"If-ever any-one may be thirsting, let him be coming toward Me and be drinking"

Rev 7:17
because the Lambkin that is in the midst of the throne shall be shepherding them,
and shall be guiding them unto living fountains of waters, and wipe away shall God every tear from their eyes.'

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

 

[Biblewriter]

The Muratorian Canon (A.D. 170)
"the blessed Apostle Paul, following the rule of his predecessor John, writes to no more than seven churches by name."

"John too, indeed, in the Apocalypse, although he writes to only seven churches, yet addresses all. "

The relevant portion of the document states that "the blessed Apostle Paul, following the rule of his predecessor John, writes to no more than seven churches by name" and "John too, indeed, in the Apocalypse, although he writes to only seven churches, yet addresses all."

The writer of the Canon clearly teaches that John preceded Paul in writing letters to seven churches. Yet, church historians are agreed that Paul died before A.D. 70, either in A.D. 67 or 68.

What do we actually know about the Muratorian Canon? It is a single sheet from a codex style manuscript. This single sheet obviously does not contain the entirety of the original document, so it is called the Muratorian Fragment. And the codex in which it is found is called Codex Muratorius, or sometimes the Muratorian Manuscript. In the nineteenth century this manuscript was examined in detail by Brooke Faust Wescott. This is the same Wescott of Wescott and Hort fame, who has pronounced favorably on manuscripts that numerous others completely reject. But here his judgment was exactly the opposite. He wrote concerning the “Muratorian Fragment:”

“The fragment from Ambrose (De Abrahamo, 1. 3. 15) which follows the Fragment on the Canon furnishes a fair criterion of the accuracy to be expected from the scribe. And by a remarkable accident the piece is more than usually instructive, for the whole fragment is repeated. Thus we have two copies of the same original and their divergence is a certain index of the inaccuracy of the transcriber which cannot be gainsaid. The second copy differs from the first in the following places:... [Here Wescott gave a line by line list of the differences in these fragments.]
“Thus in thirty lines there are thirty unquestionable clerical blunders including one important omission, (p. 11b 29), two other omissions which destroy the sense completely (p. 12a 11 merito, I9 dicitur), one substitution equally destructive of the sense (p. 12a 9 decem et octo for τ), and four changes which appear to be intentional and false alterations (p. 12a 6 scivit, 11 populosu exercitu, 23 filii, 25 sacrificat). We have therefore to deal with the work of a scribe either unable or unwilling to understand the work which he was copying, and yet given to arbitrary alteration of the text before him from regard simply to the supposed form of words...
“In the sheet which precedes the Fragment on the Canon the same phenomena appear. There is in that also the same ignorance of construction: the same false criticism: the same confusion of letters and terminations. If we now apply the results gained from the examination of the context to the Fragment on the Canon, part of it at least can be restored with complete certainty; and part may be pronounced hopelessly corrupt. It has been shown that a fragment of thirty lines contains three serious omissions and at least two other changes of words wholly destructive of the sense, and it would therefore be almost incredible that something of the like kind should not occur in a passage nearly three times as long. Other evidence shows that conjecture would have been unable to supply what is wanting or satisfactorily correct what is wrong in the one case, and there is no reason to hope it would be happier in the other.” (“A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament,” by Brooke Faust Wescott D.D., London, Macmillian and Company, 1866, 4th ed., 1875, pp. 522-524.)

The only known other copies of any portion of this Canon are twenty-four of its eighty-five lines included in a Prologue to the Epistles of Paul. This Prologue is contained in three eleventh century and one twelfth century manuscripts of the Corpus Paulinum at the Benedictine monastery on Monte Cassino, and was first published in Miscellanea Cassinese, ii (1897). These can be found in “The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon,” by Geoffery Mark Hahneman, Clarendon press, Oxford, 1992, pp. 9-10.

 

[timtams]

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[Biblewriter]

And you haven't addressed the fact that Irenaeus said that the Nicolaitans were active "a long time prior to" the writing of the Fourth Gospel.

I'm confused. What do the Nicolaitans have to do with this discussion?

 

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[Biblewriter]

Irenaeus says that the Nicolaitans were active at the time that Revelation was written (Haer. 3.3.4). He also says that they were active "a long time" before John wrote his gospel (Haer. 3.11.1). Irenaeus therefore must have believed in the early dating of Revelation.

I do not follow your logic.

 

[timtams]

see post below

 

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