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[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

That probably never happened. The early church not only debated whether John is an authentic document, but even among those who accepted it most either did not believe this particular story or thought it was metaphorical. Considering he never does anything like this elsewhere and it's 100% out of character for him, I tend to agree. Note that the other gospels only mention his driving them out, nothing about the whip.

[–]ephrem_moseley[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

We'll need a ruling from an authority on this.

The Bible came from the Church that assembled it.

What is that "Church" today?

What does it call itself?

They would know if the whipping occurred, don't you agree? They would know better than you or me, don't you agree?

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

No, they only cared about controlling people and neutralizing Christianity's threat. That's why they assembled the Bible and burned all the other books.

[–]ephrem_moseley[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

The Book of Thomas wasn't burned

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Yes it was. We only have one single copy of a poorly-made Coptic translation of it, because by a freak accident someone recently found it in a jar that had been buried for almost 2000 years. We have a few tiny scraps of a Greek version, but that's it. Everything else was burned. Why do you think there's such a complete lack of any texts from before the 3rd or 4th century? That just so happens to be about the time the church began persecuting "heretics" and burning their books. What happened to all the extra-canonical books, and the original versions of the canonical ones? Where are all the Marcionite Bibles? Where is the gospel of the Hebrews, Ebionites, and Nazarenes, and the "Judaikon"? How about Secret Mark? Most of the gnostic books? What happened to the so-called Q source? Why was the original Hebrew of Matthew only kept by Jews? Where is the book of Enoch? The Hebrew of certain apocrypha books? The gospel of Peter? Why are all these important scriptures missing? Most of them survived well into the middle ages and even revolutionary times. It's because the church persecuted "heretics" and burned their materials because they didn't want anyone reading them. If anything still survives it's locked up deep within the Vatican's secret archives.

[–]ephrem_moseley[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Tldr

Who is the authority on this?

What historian can we agree on?

Jehosephus maybe?

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

No one denies that most of these books existed. So why are they all missing, and why is there nothing at all from before the church redacted the ones we do have?

[–]ephrem_moseley[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Read what you just wrote, because I am unable to parse it.

Thanks!

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I don't see anything wrong with it.

[–]ephrem_moseley[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

well that figures