Good thing I write for myself as much as I write to others 
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No. I’ve been reading this whole thread, and no one has said anything close to that.
Pro Tip: When you dramatically mischaracterize the statements you disagree with, you make it hard for readers like me to agree with your position.
Best,
Chris
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And I was talking about the NT in general.
I never said they were in this discussion, but the vast majority of the people in the first century were. Which leaves some that were skilled at reading/writing. And it is more than a matter of literacy. Writing materials were expensive. No Dollar Store to run into and grab a stack of papyrus. It was imported from Egypt.
We have writings from the period that are known to be “forgeries” so yes it did happen. The why is not always clear. I find it ironic that the earliest attested Gospel is that of Thomas.
The canon didn’t close on a given date across the entire known world. It was a gradual process over time and space.
Aune was talking about “early Christian literature” which included more than what made it into the canon. Literature that cast the emperor in a bad light would get you in trouble with Rome rather quickly.
What do you mean by earliest attested Gospel? Are you taking about the proposed Sapiential layer (Arnal) that may have been overlaid with a gnostic layer? Many scholars think the sayings source Q also had an early Sapiential layer as well (Kloppenborg). Interestingly enough, something that may be an early version of Q is found in undisputed Paul (missionary discourse— see Allison). I don’t think the extant version of GThomas with 114 sayings can be securely dated earlier than all of the canonical Gospels. Some of it may pre-date some of them. Unless you are referring to textual grounds? There is a fragment of Thomas ca 200 IIRC. Or did I tske this completely wrong and you just mean first Gospel to self-identify as coming from an Apostle?
Vinnie
I was shooting from the hip and after I walked away I wondered if I spoke correctly. I as pretty sure if I wasn’t somebody would correct me. 
I have been bouncing around in The Biblical Canon so it was something McDonald said in there. Such as:
And possible some mention of the texts that have been found.
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“Peter was an illiterate peasant” Dr. Ehrman
Bart Ehrman : ‘The disciples were lower-class, illiterate peasants’
Ehrman said they “were uneducated lower-class Aramaic-speaking Jews from Palestine” *(How Jesus Became God)
“Christians came from the ranks of the illiterate. This is certainly true of the very earliest Christians, who would have been the apostles of Jesus. In the Gospel accounts, we find that most of Jesus’s disciples are simple peasants from Galilee—uneducated fishermen, for example. Two of them, Peter and John, are explicitly said to be “illiterate” in the book of Acts (4:13).
In Forged, he writes: “We know for certain of only two (1st century) authors in Palestine who produced literary works (in Greek)…Josephus…and a man named Justus (p 73).” “it is highly probable that [Peter] could not write at all” (p.75).
“Why didn’t people realize this at the time? Mark reinterprets (misremembers) Jesus’ life to make sense of this. Mark says that Jesus intentionally kept his mission a secret; and he did tell his disciples, but they were just too dumb to understand. That’s why Jesus death was such a surprise to everyone. Mark seems to be letting his readers in on this secret for the very first time. He is reinterpreting what it means to be the messiah, and misremembering Jesus life to fit into that interpretation.” BE
I wasn’t saying “you” in particular or anyone else on this thread. I meant “you” plural as in scholars like Ehrman who insist it was impossible for any of the earliest followers to write the gospels.
The way he framed his statement cannot be accurate. He does not and he cannot be certain of its veracity. To state it as fact is not good scholarship.
Dont fret Ralphie. Preach the Gospel in season and out. Those who repent and believe will see the Lord but those who continue to make excuses for sin will be condemned. Evil men will worm their way in and do what they can to pervert what Jesus did on the cross. They will end up denying the Lord in word and action all the time confessing Him as their Lord. But you remain faithful, steadfast in faith and obedience knowing a reward awaits those who are steadfast to the end in their faith, love and obedience to Jesus.
While evil men will increase who proclaim that sin, fornication, love of self, lovers of pleasure, worshipers of creation rather than the creator, men who sin sexually with men and women with women, people who idolize others and things, lovers of money, they pervert the scriptures to their own destruction but let the faithful followers stay true to Him. This statement is true, if we died with Him, we will be raised with Him and abide with Him forever. We died to the ways of this world in our union with Him on His cross and we have already been raised to life with Him in union with His resurrection. And we will be safe if we continue in faith, hope, love and obedience. Rejoice in the Lord and again I say rejoice.
And as if to underscore the very point I’m making in regards to furthering a narrative disconnected with actual facts…
This claim is an absurdity bordering on mendacity. Yet I have seen it so very often carelessly tossed around to further similar narratives, but that is all it remains: a falsehood that gets repeated because it helps further a certain narrative. Anyone interested in actual objective facts in the texts would never make such a grossly false or casuistic claim.
To repeat such gross absurdities to further a narrative essentially demonstrates my point and illustrates my frustration with those who think the “critical” perspective is somehow objective or scientific. Rather, I stand by my initial conviction… and this all-too-oft repeated claim of rape advocacy only confirms to me that that people have indeed…
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In a prophecy against Babylon in Isaiah 13, God talks about their infants being dashed to pieces before their very eyes, their houses being looted and their wives being raped as punishment for their sin. No mercy will be shown to the womb and no pity granted to children. It is as plain as day to me.
Isaiah 13:16 Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.
How is that not God advocating rape in a time of war?
Vinnie
I suggest you go back and edit the post where you misspoke, as opposed to just clarifying here. Do you know how to use the edit function?
In addition, whether they were literate or not has very little to do with authorship, IMO; Peter could easily have had a scribe take dictation and possibly even translate from Aramaic to Greek on his behalf. The question of authorship would then hinge more on correlating vocabulary and syntax choices with linguistic evolution in the first and second centuries.
Best,
Chris
Fascinating how that works. Is there a heinous crime Jesus didn’t commit? Somehow, through this brilliant transformation, reserved exclusively for the crème de la crème, satan begins to look like he is the hero.
Where are you getting this stuff, Ralphie?! Who around here is saying this? I can’t find anybody saying such things except you!
Let’s message each other
If you honestly cannot tell, I doubt I could convince you otherwise.
But for anyone else reading with an open mind, it should be rather obvious. Just a few chapters earlier in Is. 10, God similarly reveals that Assyria is the “means” of God’s judgment against Jerusalem, much like he revealed in Is. 13 that the Medes were the means of his judgment against Babylon. And God planned to punish the Assyrians for the sins they committed while so doing. The fact that Scripture describes God as using some people’s sins as judgments doesn’t keep them from being sins.
For that matter, God similarly predicted/planned the death of Christ [“delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God”], and all the other places where it explains that God had specifically purposed and planned and given his son, etc., etc., etc.
Well, this must be indisputable proof that God advocates betrayal, false testimony, unjust trials, and the execution of innocent people…
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None of that changes the fact that God directly says it is his judgment to have their women raped. Nice guy he is. You just don’t like that I use the word “advocate.” How about dealing with the real problem instead of a peripheral issue? God totally annihilating people with rape, tearing open pregnant womb, dashing infants on the ground, etc. Similar ideology is all over the place in the OT.
Personally I think its all bad theology based on the mistaken ideology behind things like Amos 3:6: “Does disaster befall a city, unless the Lord has done it?” There saddest part of the text is that people today actually believe it.
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Passages like Deuteronomy 9:4-6 (“ it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before you ”), Deuteronomy 18:12 (“ because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you ”) and Leviticus 18:24-25 (“ Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants ”) Even Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 found that God is intolerant of sin.
Sin is a word discredited in many circles today, but it is just as ugly to God as it ever was. God punishes unrepented sin, sooner or later. Let there be no mistake. Jesus came here to forgive our sins. We must receive that gift or we will be severely punished for our sin. Hell is punishment. God punishes people and always has and always will.
It is the gravest of error to think otherwise.
What we find quite often is the notion that people who believe sin is deadly are somehow enchanted by the very idea that God is going to punish sinners.
I dread the thought. Don’t go to hell. Receive the free gift of salvation and avoid His wrath here and forever. Whatever else you do, DON"T risk hell. It is the most awful horrible terrible disgusting place ever. I beg you not to go there.
Lot of external processers around these parts from what I’ve seen.
God told Israel that if they obeyed Him He would be their shield, their protector, but if they rebelled He would punish them. He said their enemies would overtake them. When they were obedient God did protect them but when they turned their backs on Him He withdrew His protection and let their enemies have free reign. Do you think it is different now? Annanias and Saphira droped dead when they lied to the Holy Spirit. Those who continued to be rebellious in a certain congregation Paul commanded that they be turn over to the devil in hopes it would bring them to repentance. God can withdraw His protection from me, you or anyone else who continue in sin.
Jesus said if a demon is castnout of someone he leaves but he comes back and findshis old house empty he will bring 7 other demons and that man will be worse off than he was before. That man should have filled his house with the Spirit of God through faith in the Father but he didnt. Take heed or this could happen to me, you or anyone else who turns their back on the living God.
“…someone being inspired to piggy back off Paul’s fame?” vinnie
There’s no evidence anyone tried to piggy back off Paul’s fame.
God is guilty of rape, genocide, killing millions of babies, deceit, treachery, and much more. How do we know? We believe every despicable detail portraying God as a monster. What about the GJohn? That was written from heaven’s perspective. The resurrection is true. Morality and the resurrection are trustworthy aspects of the bible. And everything that proves God is horrible, that’s all true, too.
Jesus was God at some point. We don’t know much else about him because of memory loss, the phone game, many years passing between his appearance and when someone who may have been literate (or found someone who was) started to write about him.