Polycarp & Ignatius and False Apsotalic Succesions.

Polycarp and Ignatius have come up a lot when I talk about Heresies of Asia Minor and questioning alleged Apostolic Succession from John.  I want to further make clear here that I do not mean to demonize them, they both died Martyrs and for that they will be rewarded regardless of how wrong I feel they were on certain doctrines.

First and foremost, in their own writings they never claim to be students of John or to have known him, none of the authentic Epistles of Igantius or Polycarp make any references to knowing John.  Even the personal letter Ignatius wrote to Polycarp does not mention their alleged important common mentor.  In fact Ignatius never even quotes any book attributed to John.  The claim they were students of John came later.  Papias, who was contemporary with them in near the same region, explicitly distinguishes the John he knew from the Apostle referring to him as John the Elder.  Ireneaus and Tertullian are our oldest sources on either of them knowing John and they only mention Polycarp not Ignatius, and in Irenaeus it's clarified the John who Polycarp knew was the same one Papias knew.  Polycarp interestingly doesn't seem to support the Monarchical Church structure popularized by Ignatius and later supported by Irenaeus and Tertullian, since he identified himself as one of a group of Presbyters not a Bishop.

Ignatius as Bishop of Antioch was also an Apostolic Successor of Peter (if you believe in Apostolic succession), but claims Peter personally chose him are a much later tradition.  Unlike Rome, The Bible supports Peter having been in Antioch.  Ignatius was martyred in Rome, so what if he appointed some Bishops or Deacans while he was in Rome and that was the origin of Rome having an alleged Apsotalic Succession from Peter?

I still firmly believe Peter was never in Rome, but I'm not as invested in the Simon Magus conspiracy theory as I once was.  I now desire to explain the origins of these wrong traditions as having more to them then just people lying.  This theory about Ignatius in Rome is one such possibility.

Another has to do with Mark.  The basis for claims of Peter in Rome are tied to claims about the origin of Mark's Gospel being him writing down what Peter preached.  Papias did not give any clue where Peter preached or where Mark wrote, it's later writings referencing him that want to read that into Papias.

I disagree with the desire of Eastern Traditions to separate all the Marks of the New Testament.  The John Mark of Acts 12-15 has close connections to Peter and Banabas, so I think he is also both the Cousin of Barnabas and the Marcus referenced in 1 Peter.

Some references to Mark in Paul's Epistles do have Mark with Paul in Rome.  But again if Peter was there at the same time why isn't Paul mentioning him?  Over half the Latin words in the New Testament are in Mark's Gospel, some have even theorized the Gospel of Mark was originally in Latin.  So it could be Mark published his Gospel in Rome based on what Peter had preached in Antioch and Mesopotamia.

BTW I don't think Mark was actually ever in Alexandria, I think that tradition is just as shaky as the ones about Peter in Rome and John in Ephesus.

There is solid evidence the Roman Church was not originally Monarchical, but had many Elders who were all Bishops(Overseers) the Monarchical system emerged over the course of the Second Century probably from the influence of Ignatius.

I think the traditional succession of Bishops of Byzantium between Andrew and the founding of Constantinople were probably also Bishops in Rome.  Andrew was never associated with Byzantium prior to Constantine, the 2nd Century Acts of Andrew places his Martyrdom in Patras west of Corinth.  Byzantium is mentioned briefly in the Acts of Andrew, but only as a place he stopped at on the way to Thrace, like Paul stopping at Samothrace on the way to Macedon. 

Constantine is known to have taken many people (including Senators) from Rome to Constantinople when he founded it.  The Bishop of Constantinople who was at Nicaea was a native of Calabria in Italy.  Castinus a supposed Bishop of Byzantium from the 3rd Century was also said to have been a Roman Senator.  Meanwhile the supposed second Bishop of Byzantium is Stachys a name also mentioned in Romans 16 as someone in Rome.  And the third is Onesimus who could be the same as the Onesimus of Philemon who we know was also in Rome.

As far as John Son of Zebedee goes, I've been considering the possibly that maybe he was Martyred at the same time his brother was in Acts 12, since Papias arguably implies that.  The last explicit reference to him is in Acts 12 when identifying James as his Brother, maybe that verse meant to say both brothers were killed then?  For James this is viewed as fulfilling what was prophesied of the Sons of Zebedee in Matthew 20:20-23 and Mark 10:35-40.  Galatians 2 mentions a James, Cephas and John when giving his account of the Acts 15 council, but this isn't referring to the usual big three since we know this James can't be the Son of Zebedee.  I think John Mark could be the John who Paul was referring to here.

So that would make all extra-biblical traditions about either of them traveling to other lands invalid.

I take Sin very seriously, but I take The Son more seriously

A common accusation against someone like me, who both teaches Universal Salvation and argues for more permissive attitudes towards Sexual Morality, is often that we don't take Sin seriously enough.  How can I justify Paul saying "all have Sinned" if there are so many things I don't think are sinful?

But to me, it's mainstream Christianity that isn't taking real Sin seriously enough when they tend to focus on the same kinds of things the Pharisees focused on.

Jesus said the greatest Commandment is to Love God with all your heart mind body and soul, and the second greatest is to love your neighbor as you Love yourself, and He said those were the whole of The Law.  James and Paul in both Romans & Galatians also repeated that the second greatest commandment is the gist of the Law.  The greatest Sin is failure to Love, and in a way that's what all real Sin comes down to.  And I certainly fail to Love God and my neighbor constantly, I don't need a laundry list of specific actions to tell me I'm a Sinner, I just need to look at my own heart.

So I am opposing Sin when I oppose the aspects of Traditional Christianity that lead to justifying Hate.

The epistle known as 1 John in chapter 4 verses 7 and 8 says that God is Love, and that everyone who loves is Born of God and that everyone who Loveth not Knoweth not God.  Chapter 3:14 says everyone who loveth not his Brother abideth in Death.  This Epistle is not dividing humanity into two categories, but listing two categories into which every human has fallen.

Chapter 4 verse 10 and up clarified we are saved not because We Loved God but because God Loved us and gave His Son as the Atonement for our Sins.

I just spent a Week in the Hospital

Because of a Bowel Obstruction.

I thought about my faith quite a bit, the strength of the my Faiht is even stronger.

I still have healing to so so if anyone want to Pray for me feel go right ahead. 

I want to thank My God and My Lord for helping me thought all of this, and making sure I was in the hand of a killed physician.

Hebrew Textual Variations

I have been a strong supporter of staying strictly Masoretic for the Hebrew text.  And I'm still against any changes that are supported only by the Septuagint.  But I've rethought a few things.

Number one would be differences that do not actually change a single letter, but just the vowel indicators that didn't come into existence till well after New Testament times (and thus can't be included in the Jot and Tittle reference).

This can explain why Acts 15:16 says Man/Mankind(Anthropos) where Amos 9:12 says Edom.  Edom and Adam are spelled the same in Hebrew but pronounced differently.  From that I've wondered if other apparent references to Edom could be the same, like Isaiah 34 which lacks any references to specific Edomite tribal or place names like Teman or Mt Sier.  (Ezekiel 35-36 however does refer to Mt Sier.)

And it seemingly was also merely a difference in vowel indicators that lead one now gone Interlinear Torah website I used to visit to say that Nimrod's name means Rebel in the Masoretic Text but Leopard in the Samaritan Pentateuch.  The spelling is the same, the difference is if it's Marad with an N prefix or Namer with a D suffix.  The Samaritan meaning makes sense in the immediate context of Nimrod being a hunter since Leopards are animals who hunt.  And contrary to what people who want to vilify Nimrod will tell you "Before The LORD" here is not an expression of hostility in the Hebrew, it's the same phrase used of many things done in worship of Yahuah elsewhere.  So no Nimrod isn't rebelling against anything here.  So it's interesting then that Jeremiah 13:23 poetically compares Cushites to Leopards.

But that leads me to the subject of variations that would require changing at least one letter, or more, since the Samaritan Pentateuch has plenty of those.  But it is a received text as well, not some random text found rotting somewhere like the Alexandrian Bibles.

Any Samaritan variation about Mt Gerizim I inherently don't trust, those were motivated by their peculiar reverence for that mountain. And in the case of Deuteronomy 27:4 there are reasons why even non Samaritans might be uncomfortable with placing the Law on Mount Ebal, the Mountain of the Curse, so no, one DSS text agreeing with the Samaritan here doesn't impress me.  But for Christians Paulian Theology explains exactly why that was, meanwhile both Joshua 8:30-33 and Archaeology agree that Mount Ebal is where the Altar was constructed.

Some have suggested the Vulgate supports saying Moreh instead of Moriah in Genesis 22, but that's based on it translating the meaning rather then transliterating the name which really fits both names equally, in meaning Moriah is just Moreh made into a Yah theophoric name by the adding of one additional Yot. And in Genesis 12 Moreh is a plain not a mountain.

But for differences that aren't in any way connected to that issue, the possibility that the Samaritan could be closer to the original is worth considering.  But one thing I'll always be looking for is another witness to that alternate reading.

First off is the Chrono-Genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11.  The Book of Jubilees agrees with the Samaritan on the Genesis 5 ages but not 11.  The Samaritan matches the Septuagint for Genesis 11 except that it doesn't have an additional Cainan/Kenen between Arphaxad and Selah (something I think Christian copyists added to the Septuagint) and has different dates for Terah having him die when Abraham is called at 75 therefore lacking a timeline confusion other versions have.  Someday I could make a whole post on just this issue.

Meanwhile in Genesis 10 what reads Dodanim in the Masoretic is Rodanim in the Samaritan.  However all texts of 1 Chronicles 1:7 read Rodanim here, and the Septuagint transliteration also begins with an R rather then a D.  Yet the KJV uses Dodanim in 1 Chronicles 1:7 even though there is no Hebrew or Greek textual support for that, and the Strongs just claims Rodanim is a scribal error.  I will be doing a post soon (right here) that will explain how the context of what Javan actually refereed to in antiquity fits this name referring to Rhodes better then any identity a spelling that begins with a D leads to.

I've also seen it claimed that the Samaritan Pentateuch agrees with the Septuagint in saying Gog rather then Agag in Numbers 24:7.  Here is a website talking about that issue without firmly taking a side on it.
http://mydigitalseminary.com/gog-or-agag-jesus-or-david/
Now I can add that some have theorized Agag and Gog are basically different forms of the same name.  This is another subject that could become it's own post.  The Samaritans don't revere Ezekiel or any Prophetic books, so there is no reason for them to want to add Gog to a verse he wasn't originally in.  Meanwhile Ezekiel seems to say Gog is a figure already foretold elsewhere.

I may update this post to add more examples in the future.  For now these are the ones that have caught my attention.  None of them change any essential doctrine of Scripture, and are more relevant to my interests as a History Nerd.

Update: DSS(Dead Sea Scrolls) and the Isaiah Scroll.

I guess I should talk about DSS variants, one I already alluded to above in the case of Deuteronomy 27.  I also talked in my Sethie View post about a DSS variant in the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32) where the Samaritan sides with the Masoretic against the DSS variant.

The Samaritan is of course only relevant to the Pentateuch.  That now dead interlinear website I mentioned above compared Masoretic and Samaritan versions and included DSS readings when there were some, however there were not many from what I recall going over.

The Isaiah Scroll is the only complete book among the DSS manuscripts.  When it comes to talking about how much it agrees with the Masoretic text Wikipedia is the most unbiased discussion of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Scroll#Scribal_Profile_and_Textual_Variants

Now at first it may look like the statement that it mostly agrees with the Masoretic might seem contradicted by saying there were 2600 variations.  Isaiah is a big book, you could theoretically fit that many variations into one of the longer chapters.  Most of them are just stuff like different spellings of the same word or the words being in a different order, in ways that do not effect the meaning at all.  A lot of them could just be the Isaiah Scroll using less Yots and Vavs then the Masoretic in places where the Masoretic used those letters as vowels.

There are other DSS fragments of Isaiah, and when it comes to these variations other DSS Isaiah texts tend to agree with the Masoretic over the Isaiah Scroll.    So it doesn't make much sense to use the Isaiah Scroll to invalidate the Masoretic text, yet people try to sometimes to fit various agendas.  Maybe the very reason the Isaiah Scroll is unique among DSS manuscripts of Canonical texts in being complete is because it was a variant non standard text?  But again the variations aren't even significant.

In Isaiah 34:14 the Masoretic Text uses the spelling Lilith but the Isaiah Scroll uses Liliyyoth. I don't know if there are any other DSS manuscripts of Isaiah 34:14 but the Lilith spelling is used in Songs of The Sage (4Q510–511).  The Wikipedia page for Lilith says the Masoretic Spelling is singular and the Isaiah Scroll spelling is plural, but elsewhere ending with a th at all is defined as inherently a feminine plural while the feminine singular is ending with a Heh.  The context of Lilith's reference in 4Q510-511 has everything else listed around Lilith being plural.  So I think the meaning is intended to be plural regardless of which spelling is the original.

An author named Margraret Barker has claimed that the Isaiah Scroll reading of Isaiah 7:11 says "Ask a sign from the Mother of the LORD your God".  Most scholars disagree with this reading of the Isaiah Scroll, and I myself am far from convinced of it.  But Barker popularized this claim to support a fringe theory of ancient Hebrew Goddess worship.  The idea that it could instead lend support to the Christian reading of Isaiah 7:14, that Immanuel is YHWH incarnate, isn't talked about much.

Do Paul and James Disagree?

When it comes to accusing The New Testament of being ideologically inconsistent with itself, the biggest factor is suggesting an inherent conflict between The Epistle of James, and what Paul taught particularly in Romans and Galatians.  With how most Christians try to reconcile this being filtered through which presumed position they take.

First off I think Paul's Soterolgoy is misunderstood as I explain in The Free Gift of Grace.  Justification and Salvation are not the same thing, in Ephesians Paul says we are Saved by Grace through Faith with the Faith being the Faith of Jesus.

Among skeptics and Anti-Paul cults this accusation goes beyond just saying they don't agree, but saying James wrote his Epistle specifically against Paul.  Thing is a lot is missing if that was the plan.  James never brings up the issue of Circumcision even once. Nor does his discussion of the Law of Moses actually make it binding in the minutia, since in Chapter 2 Verse 8 like Paul and Jesus he makes the point that you're doing fine as long as you "Love thy Neighbor as you love thyself".  James also agrees with Paul that no one is without Sin.  He also never names Paul in it, which if it was directed against a single notable heretic is what I'd expect.

Paul and James are emphasizing different things because they are dealing with different issues.  But Paul still stressed the value of good works.  And James clarified what good works he cared about in Chapter 1 verses 26 and 27 which are not the Laws the Hebrew Roots movement obsesses over.

It is often alleged that Paul himself refers to being in conflict with James.  The problem is three out of four times the name James appears in 1 Corinthians and Galatians Paul is clearly referring to him positively and stresses their agreement, and Acts is the same, no evidence of conflict between Paul and any James exists in that book.  It's only because of what Paul said we even know Jesus Brothers including James specifically became Apostles, the Gospels alone at face value do not tell us that.

But Galatians 2:12 then refers to the Legalists as "certain came from James".

First of all the grammar in the Greek is not so explicitly implying people sent by an individual, so even if the same James refereed to so positively a few verses earlier is the James meant, these people's actions may not accurately reflect the will of that James.  It just says there came certain people, and they are in some way "from James".

In 1st Corinthians there's no references to people saying they are "of James" but rather to groups saying they are of Peter, Apollos, Paul himself and even Jesus.  Here everyone understand Paul is not blaming either Peter or Apollos themselves whatever issues these people have, and we see even some putting emphasis on Paul himself get rebuked by Paul.

But here is a fact about the name James people overlook when discussing this issue, that name doesn't actually exist in the Greek at all, it's just the name Jacob.

Every time you see Jacob rather then James in the KJV New Testament it's examples where the Greek spelling just stops at the B with no additional suffix to help clarify grammar.  Most of those are references to the Jacob of Genesis.  But it was also the name of Joseph the husband of Mary's father/ancestor according to Matthew's genealogy which perhaps contextualizes him giving that name to his second son (first he actually begat), Jesus's name was given by the Angel.

Every time it appears with any additional letters at the end the KJV makes it James.  And it seems in Galatians 2:12 that suffix is the basis for the word "from" in the translation.

So it could be the IakObou of Galatians 2:12 is not any contemporary Jacob, but Paul's way of referring to those who want to keep the Faith as Nationalist/Ethno-Centric as possible.  Who's successors today are British Israelism and Two-House Theology, which sometimes overlaps with the Hebrew Roots movement.

The Egyptian Heresy of Eternal Damnation

Augustine of Hippo and other Latin writers of his time are usually given as being the chief popularizers of Endless Torment (Augustine admitted in his writings that the majority believed in Universal Salvation).  But the key to most of Augustine's beliefs, (at least the ones I think he was wrong on, which are a lot of them), was his preference for an Allegorical Non-Literal interpretation of Scripture and willingness to borrow from Platonic Philosophy.

In the Greek speaking Church those two things were primarily characteristic of the Alexandrian School.  And indeed Augustine was known to have communicated with Cyril of Alexandria, and Cyril also taught Endless Torment.

And so ought we to reckon for ourselves; for to endure patiently, and maintain the conflict with courage, brings with it great reward, and is highly desirable, and wins for us the blessings bestowed by God: while to refuse to suffer death in the flesh for the love of Christ, brings upon us lasting, or rather never-ending punishment. For the wrath of man reaches at most to the body, and the death of the flesh is the utmost that they can contrive against us: but when God punishes, the loss reaches not to the flesh alone;----how could it?----but the wretched soul also is cast alone; with it into torments. Let our lot therefore rather be the honoured death; for it makes us mount up to the commencement of an eternal life, to which of necessity are attached those blessings also which come from the divine bounty: and let us flee from and despise a life of shame; a life accursed, and of short duration, and which leads down to bitter and everlasting torment.

From his Commentary on Luke Sermon 87.  The correspondence between Augustine and Cyril further confirms this (Letter 4*).

Sometimes Cyril has been cited as a supporter of Universal Salvation, but that is based on his reference to the Harrowing of Hell, which plenty of enemies of Universal Salvation do still believe in.

Don't forget that the text of the Apocalypse of Peter that removes the reference to the eventual Salvation of all Sinners is the one found in Egypt.  I have argued that that scene was in the original version.

Alexandrians who were okay with Universal Salvation like Clement, Origen and maybe Athanasius were okay with it in-spite of their Alexandrianism not because of it.  With Cyril we see there were counter examples among the Alexandrians, but I can't find any counter examples among the highly Literalist Antiochene School.  Even the Cappadocians' support of Universal Salvation seems to reflect closer affinity to Antioch then Alexandria, Cappadocia was not far from Nisibis and Edessa where offshoots of the School of Antioch existed during their lifetime, and Basil had been Bishop of Caesarea, home of another related school, and Gregory of Nazianzus obtained the position of Bishop of Constantinople with the help of Meletius of Antioch..  Gregory was also critical of Origen on some issues.  Among the Antiochians who strongly opposed the Allegorical approach of Origen was  Eustathius of Antioch who was at the Council of Nicaea and a strong ally of Athanasius in opposing Arianism, he blamed Origenism for Arianism, Eustathius's possible support of Universal Salvation is disputable.

Athanasius does seem to be an exception to the general rule among prominent Christian figures of Alexandria in general, his writings rarely quotes anything outside The New Testament and the few times he discuses Greek Philosophy he doesn't seem to have understood it well.   Maybe he wasn't a Literalist in a similar way to the Antiochians, but he was different from other Alexandrians.

It was the Alexandrian acceptance of Plato that opened the door for the endless punishment doctrine taught in The Republic to creep into the Church.  That Eternal Torment seemingly took the longest of any Platonic ideas to catch on in even the Alexandrian Church is all the more evidence of how Unbiblical it was.

Plato's later dialogues like Republic, Timaeus and Laws are thought to be heavily influenced by the Pythagoreans, Pythagoras was said to have spent some time in Egypt.  Plato also presents his family as passing down knowledge Solon learned in Egypt.  Clement of Alexandria himself claims Pythagoras and Plato got many of their teachings from the Egyptians.

The Ancient Egyptians believed the Hearts of the Impure were devoured by the monster Ammit condemning them to eternal restlessness.

The Bible itself gives good reason to trust Antioch over Egypt when it comes to Church History.  Acts strangely doesn't record an Apostolic Church being set up in Egypt at all, but Antioch is where Believers were first called Christians, and where Paul started most of his missions, and we know Peter was there for a time thanks to Galatians.

Many will accuse Universal Salvation of being something taught to appease the world, but to me it looks like the secular world, even specifically the politically and socially liberal or leftist world, doesn't actually object to hell that much.  The Horror Genre is now unwilling to settle for just death, they have to literally depict people going to Hell, like in Drag Me To Hell, or American Horror Story The Coven.  I watch a lot of YouTube Video Essays about popular culture from fellow SJWs, (Like Renegade Cut's Little Shop of Horrors video) and they're often obsessed with wanting actions to have consequences, ya know like the Hindu concept of Karma.  And some fans of The Last Jedi think Kylo Ren is beyond redemption.

What they find offensive about specifically Evangelical Christianity is the notion that Belief is the sole or primary determining factor. That it might be possible for a believer to lose Salvation, but impossible for someone who never believed no matter how nice they were to avoid Hell.  And these Christians sadly think that idea is how to separate Biblical Hell from the Egyptian concept of Ammit.

My old Second Resurrection post wasn't directly about Universal Salvation at all, simply arguing that there may even be some Unbelievers who aren't cast into the Lake of Fire to start with.  But since then my views have shifted a bit on the Lake of Fire.  Now I like to stress how backsliden believers will have it worse on the day of Judgment then those who never Believed based on passages like Luke 12.

But what's really controversial is that I'm even contemplating the possibility that after death/resurrection punishment is only for Believers. Jesus paid the full price of Sin, which was death, but those who enter a covenant relationship with Him take on certain responsibilities in addition to the benefits of that decision.  I'm not willing to state this definitively yet, but I see reasons to suspect it could be the case.

Which opens the possibly that some Nazis won't qualify at all, we can debate Hitler himself endlessly but some Nazis certainly hated Christianity, and wanted people to think Hitler was with them on that hence the dubious quotes in Table Talk.  And nothing is more offensive to the Left right now then suggesting Nazis could get off scottfree.  Oh and pretty much none of Japan's war criminals were Christians.

But I suppose they'll still find that preferable to the typical Christian view that whether or not Hitler gets into Heaven the Six Million Jews he killed certainly won't.

Why include that rant in a post mainly about associating the mainstream doctrine of Hell with Egypt?  Because lots of Conservative Christians see Egypt in The Bible as often representing The World.  Hence why Chad Schafer's book is doing so well.  So I'm showing that endless torment and/or annihilation is the doctrine of the Egyptian World.

Robin Parry on Universal Salvation in The Nativity Narratives.

12 Days of Christmas: Robin Parry – A Universalist Christmas (NS03)
From NomadPodcast.co.uk

The Magi are Gentiles, and Simeon's Prophecy hints at how Israel's Salvation is the Salvation of The World.

John 1:3 refutes Arianism regardless of John 1:1

Even if you can justify an "a god" translation of John 1:1, John 1:3 says The Word created everything that was created, therefore The Word can't be a created being.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

That's the KJV translation.

I've been looking into the Coptic texts of the Gospel attributed to John for various reasons.  And I've found JWs will use Coptic Texts of John 1:1 to support their translation of that verse.  But the same Coptic texts have this same implication in John 1:3.

Everything came into being through him, and without him nothing came into being. That which came into being

https://depts.washington.edu/cartah/text_archive/coptic/coptjohn.shtml

Even the JWs own translation doesn't solve this implication of John 1:3.

 All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence.

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/john/1/

When discussing the Nicene Creed it's often made out as if in that Creed only the word Homousias makes Arianism incompatible with it.  (Of course that word only conflicts with Arianism in an Ancient Greek Platonic conception of what Divine Substance meant, to us every Son is made of the Substance of their parents.)  In fact full Proper Arianism is incompatible with the Creed simply from saying "begotten, not made", Arius and JWs see Jesus as a Created Being.

Now Semi-Arianism may accept the "begotten, not made" part, but some Semi-Arians were fine with Homousias as well.

Basil of Caesarea and Universal Salvation

The first link to come up on a google search for "St Basil Universal Salvation" is unfortunately this link.
http://classicalchristianity.com/2011/06/16/st-basil-on-universalism/

You see the writing of Basil quoted here is one often viewed as inauthentic, or if authentic in origin one that has been highly altered.  Here is the quote in question.

St. Basil of Caesarea ca. 330-379
In one place the Lord declares that “these shall go to eternal punishment” (Mt. 25:46), and in another place He sends some “to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt. 25:41); and speaks elsewhere of the fire of gehenna, specifying that it is a place “where their worm dies not, and the fire is not extinguished” (Mk. 9:44-49) and even of old and through the Prophet it was foretold of some that “their worm will not die, nor will their fire be extinguished” (Isa. 66:24). Although these and the like declarations are to be found in numerous places of divinely inspired Scripture, it is one of the artifices of the devil, that many forgetting these and other such statements and utterances of the Lord, ascribe an end to punishment, so that they can sin the more boldly. If, however, there were going to be and end of eternal punishment, there would likewise be and end to eternal life. If we cannot conceive of an end to that life, how are we to suppose there will be and end to eternal punishment? The qualification of “eternal” is ascribed equally to both of them. “For these are going,” He says, “into eternal punishment; the just, however, into eternal life.” (Mt. 25:46) If we profess these things we must recognize that the “he shall be flogged with many stripes” and the “he shall be flogged with few stripes” refer not to an end but to a distinction of punishment. (Rules Briefly Treated 267)

The inconsistency between this very quote and what Basil generally taught is addressed by this link.
https://www.scribd.com/document/281876746/Basil-and-Apokatastasis
Starting on page 132. Though it was much earlier in the PDF that it first went into detail on how Basil defined Aionios ("Eternal" in the above cited passages from Matthew).  This source offers a meaning for Aionios I hadn't heard yet, "World to Come" though I would render it "Age to come".

I don't care what the "Early Church Fathers" said as much as most of my allies on Universal Salvation do.  But I also care about correcting misinformation.

What was the error of the Nicolaitans?

They were not named after a man called Nicolas.  The Nicolas of Acts 6 is mentioned in a positive context.  We don't need to go outside scripture to determine what this doctrine was, it's deduced from the etymology of the name.

Nico-, combinatory form of nīke, means "victory" in Greek, and laos means "people", or more specifically, "the laity"; hence, the word may be taken to mean "lay conquerors" or "conquerors of the lay people".

The fact that this error is mentioned in only two messages doesn't necessarily mean it's relevant to only those two.  Only Ephesus is specifically commended for rejecting it and only Pergamos is specifically criticized for having some who fully hold it.  It might be possible others Churches had a more in-between version of it.  It also seems like it may not have originated in either of these cities.

That's been my position in the past, but I'm prepared to change my mind if new information comes to my attention.

A lot of confusion about this issue comes from thinking it's the same thing as the doctrine of Balaam also mentioned in the message to Pergamos.  In the message to Pergamos Jesus talks about them following the error of Balaam (Pornea/Whoredom and eating food sacrificed to Idols), then says they also have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolatians.

This is why the opinions of the "Early Church Fathers" are not very credible on this issue, because right from the first of them to bring up the subject, Ireneaus, they are being treated as if they're the same.  This is a mistake I myself have made talking about the issue in the past, so it's understandable.

It's not till the Seventh Century people start saying the Nicolatians' error was that Nicolas let other men lay with his wife.  When Clement of Alexandria mentions this story he's referring to it as a positive.

However what if there is a third Church in Revelation directly relevant to this issue?

The second through sixth Churches in Revelation 2&3 are addressed as "The Church in _____".  But the first is addressed as the "Church of Ephesus" and the last as the "Church of the Laodiceans".

The city of Laodicea was named after a Seleucid queen Laodice.  The Greek roots of the name are Laos (people or laity) and Dike meaning either Justice or Vengeance depending on who you ask.  Notice how if you replace only one letter you get the same roots as Nicolatians.  That could support this name carrying a similar meaning, or maybe you could interpret it has having an opposite meaning.

Early Church Tradition says the first two Bishops of Laodicea were people named in Colossians 4:15-17, (one of them being a woman, Nympha, interesting), they could well have been before the major problems Revelation deals with emerged.  The third known Bishop of Laodicea was Diotrephes, a man refereed to very very negatively in the Epistle known as Third John, in fact he's been interpreted as being the first Monarchical Church Bishop.

And thus this all further backs up the premise of my Heresies of Asia Minor post, as well as The Gospel of The Beloved Disciple.

However the "victory over the people" meaning could also apply to Legalists, people who's issue was the polar opposite of the error of Balaam.  Which could justify equating them with Cerinthus or the Ebonites.

The Incarnation of The Logos and Divine Impassibility.

There are a number of disputes within Christianity where I take what can be labeled the "Compromise" position.  There is a natural tendency to think the "Compromise" is least likely to be true, and maybe that's the case when it comes to Political and Economic policies.  But when it comes to debating The Bible I've come to feel many major ongoing disputes within Christianity are based on both sides agreeing on something that is actually wrong, that wrong assumption creates contradictions where there are none, and so they fight over how to reconcile that.

For example my taking what can be considered a "Mid-Trib" position on The Rapture.  You see Post-Tribers and Pre-Tribbers actually agree that Revelation 19 depicts the Parusia (Second Coming) while I have observed that chapter 19 has nothing in common with any description of the Parusia.  Post-Tribbers will see The Parusia in the same passages of Revelation I do, and then will garble it's chronology to make them happen at the same time as Revelation 19.  While Pre-Tribbers will separate the Rapture from the Second Coming thus defining it badly and refusing to see it in Revelation at all.

Arminians and Calvansits both agree that not everyone will be saved, and so they both take opposing routes to reconcile that with how God can be both All Powerful and All Loving.

Hebrew Roots people and "YHWH is Satan" people both agree that if The Law was a curse that must say something bad about the God who wrote it.  So one side denies that Paul said The Law is a Curse, and the other says an Evil God wrote it.  I however simply conclude that The Law was a "Curse" that served a purpose.

I've been trying to decide what side to take in the Chalcedonian v Miaphysite v Nestorian dispute about the Nature of the Incarnation of Jesus.  All three agree with the Nicene view of The Trinity, and that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine.

Nestorius and Cyril were the opposites here, but the Council of Chalcedon happened after Cyril died so Calcedonian denominations consider Cyril a saint and deny that his theology was more Miaphysite even though Miaphysites defined their position entirely on what Cyril taught.

Cyril taught that Jesus had One Nature that was both Divine and Human somehow.  Nestorius taught that Jesus had two Natures that were entirely separate.  And the position agreed on at Chalcedon was that Jesus has two Natures that are mixed.

I lean towards that third position, but to a certain extent consider it all semantics that is certainly not essential to understanding The Gospel.  And I know that both Nestorians and Miaphysites have had their position misrepresented a lot by those who disagree with them, so I want to be careful talking about them.

The position taken at Chalcedon seems like a middle ground reached once Cyril and Nestorius were both no longer around.  So the question I asked was, is there a wrong assumption that Cyril and Nestorius both shared?  For awhile I couldn't think of one, but then I read this article about Cyril.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/10/jesus-christ-god-son-without-human-person/

St. Cyril consistently discussed the differences between Jesus’ divinity and humanity, affirming those differences as continuing after the incarnation, so he would be able to say the one Lord Jesus Christ, God, died on the cross, suffering only in relation to his humanity while being impassible in his divinity.

The sentiment that it was only the Humanity and not the Divinity that Suffered was also expressed by the Nestorians that I'd read a few times before this and was always uncomfortable with, the main thing really that kept me from embracing the Nesotrian position since I have a lot of sympathy for them looking at what happened at Ephesus and during Jusitnian's Reign.

And I'm not the first person to note that Cyril and Nestorius agreed on this, calling it Divine Impassibility.
http://www.drurywriting.com/john/GodTastedDeath.pdf

It seemed intuitively obvious to all parties involved that if God suffered, then God would cease to be God.

I feel inclined to consider this wrong, I believe the Incarnation was partly about God becoming Man and experiencing what we experience.  That's what I feel Hebrews is actually saying.  Revelation 5 has The Lion of Judah at the Right Hand of The Father in the form of "A Lamb as it had been slain".

It can be interesting to compare this dispute to the one I mentioned earlier, because Calvanists love to identify themselves with Augustine and Arminains somewhat more reluctantly identify with Pelegius.  Allies of Pelegius joined forces with Nestorius while Cyril had ties to Augustine.
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/orthodoxyandheterodoxy/2013/09/05/original-sin-and-ephesus-carthages-influence-on-the-east/

The concept of Impassibility comes from Plato and Artistole's views of God, YHWH in the Hebrew Bible is a very emotional God.

But I should again stress that most people called Nestorians do not necessarily believe the fullness of what Nestorius taught, and Nestorius own views were often misrepresented.  In fact a Patriarch of the "Nestorian" Church during the reign of Justinian accepted Theotokos as a title of Mary.

Update April 2019:

I should stress that I'm aware of arguments that Cyril's Christology wasn't really Miaphysite and perfectly compatible with the later Chalcedonian Confession.  Even if that's true Miaphysite Christology still emerged as an extreme reaction to Nestorianism that had it's roots in extreme rhetoric Cyril used in opposing Nestorius.  And while both sides of the Chlacedonian Schism claim Cyril, the Miaphysites are clearly way more invested in Cyril.

I know that most Christians we call Nesotrian are not really all that interested in the peculiar Christology of Nestorius but simply a Communion of Churches that split off from Imperial Christianity at Ephesus (and perhaps to same extent people who split off a the Fifth Council later joined them) because they didn't agree with condemning Nestorius as a Heretic.

I wonder how much the same is true of Miaphysite Churches, particularly the Coptic, Nubian and Eritrean Churches in Africa which may have nominally become Miaphysite simply because it was through Egypt they entered Communion with Roman Christianity.

The Great Commission

When I see people object to Universal Salvation by asking "What about the great commission? what's the point of spreading the Gospel then?" I feel like asking in return "Do you want to boast?".

Cause that's what a lot of modern Soul Winning is, I know someone who worked at a local Christian Book Store in my town who said one Church she went to treated it as a competition, everyone kept score of how many people they "got saved".  That terminology about "getting someone saved" is to me just a semantic way to get around that they're clamming credit for that person's Salvation.

There is no Door to Door soul winning in Acts, nor is there Street Preaching.  Paul preached The Gospel at places where you were expected to be talking about religion.  Now today Christianity isn't a sect of Judaism anymore so trying to bring up Jesus in a Synagogue isn't appropriate anymore, the equivalent of that today is in Church, where nominally everyone believes in Jesus already but they may not have the same Gospel you do.  Paul was never pushing his religion on people who don't want to hear it.

The Great Commission is to "be a witness", we should try to be good credible people so that maybe others will actually want to know what our views on God are.  Our mission is to deliver the Good News, not a threat or an ultimatum.

The thing I feel people miss about the Riot of Ephesus in Acts 18 is that the Christians weren't doing what they were accused of.  I feel too many modern culture warriors skim over the chapter and go "we're supposed to be making the Pagans mad".  But at first the only people upset were the people making less money because less people were buying idols, they didn't actually care about respecting Artemis at all.  They then got people riled up by convincing people simply not standing for her flag was an attack on her.  You see the sad irony is today American Christians act like the Pagans of Ephesus not the Christians of Ephesus.

Also the Book Burning of Ephesus was just new Christians burning books they already had from before their conversion.  It was not making a public show of it, or obtaining books just to burn them, and certainly no attempt to ban anything.  It's no more comparable to a Nazi book burning then Linkara burning his copy of Holy Terror is.

I do want to increase the Church's numbers, I want people to know the Good News that I know.  And I believe there are potential benefits and rewards for being a Believer in this life which I'd like the current non-believers I care about to share in some day.  But I also know that being aggressive about it is counter productive to achieving that, and I understood that even before I believed in Universal Salvation, but it was difficult to reconcile that with the urgency that the traditional Western view of Hell instills in us.

Now that I understand the True Gospel I can relax.

The Free Gift of Grace

Grace is a Free Gift by definition.  Many Protestants and Evangelicals are good at correctly pointing out that it isn't "Free" if you have to earn it or can lose it.  Yet they've taken on a mistaken notion that it's not a "Gift" if it can't be rejected, that you have to willingly "receive" it.

If a doctor finds a man beaten, bleeding and unconscious on the road and then chooses to heal him without charging a medical bill, is that not a Free Gift that that the man did not have to take any part in receiving?  That is in fact how Jesus presents Mankind's predicament.

The phrase "Free Gift" appears in the King James Bible only in Romans 5 verses 15-18, not once is any notion of someone needing to "receive" it mentioned.  Quite the contrary it says the Free Gift came upon All, no exceptions.

Paul reiterated repeatedly that Grace is entirely about Jesus with no assistance from us lest we should boast.  Even saying we have to "receive" it undermines that Gospel.

As many have argued before, when Ephesians 2 says we are saved by Grace through Faith, the Faith being refereed to there is of Jesus not our Faith.  In Paul's writings our Faith Justifies us but doesn't Save us, those are different things.  Justification is necessary to receive Citizenship in New Jerusalem and potentially Rewards.

It is actually only Jesus who ever refers to people being saved by their faith (Luke 7:50 and 18:42), and those contexts were in more immediate senses, they do not make Faith necessary for ultimate Salvation.

I affirm Free Will, but my understanding of Free Will is neither a Calvinist or Arminian one.
https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2018/08/free-will-is-not-argument-agaisnt.html

Limited Atonement vs Arminian Atonement, who is the Most Illogical.

When I cite 1 Timothy 4:10 as evidence of Universal Salvation "we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe". the response I get is something like "Jesus is the Savior of all because He Died for All but that doesn't mean everyone will be saved".

They are arguing that Jesus is the Savior of people who are not Saved, and think I'm the one using twisted tortured logic.  I don't believe failure is possible for Jesus, He is your Savior, therefore you will be Saved.

So why then are believers "especially" saved if no one suffers endless torment or annihilation?  First and foremost because we're aware of our Salvation, we are currently in Light and they are in Darkness, which is what it means to be "lost".  Now I could also elaborate about the issues of Rewards and Citizenship in New Jerusalem, but I actually think believers can lose those things if we fall away or screw up too badly.

John Calvin himself never addressed the issue of Limited Atonement, he went further then Martin Luthor in developing Augustin's Predestination heresy by saying God does choose not to save some people, but Limited Atonement was developed later, chiefly at the Synod of Dort in 1618.

Wikipedia says there were two things both sides of the Arminian v Calvinism debate agree one.

"It is particularly associated with the Reformed tradition and is one of the five points of Calvinism. The doctrine states that though the death of Jesus Christ is sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world,^[1] it was the intention of God the Father that the atonement of Christ's death would work itself out in the elect only, thereby leading them without fail to salvation."-"Both sides of the controversy agreed that this efficacy was limited to the elect."

I think many disputes in Mainstream Christianity are resolved by realizing both sides actually agree on something that is wrong, and that error thus creates apparent contradictions in Scripture where there are none.  In this case what both sides agree on are logically inconsistent with each other, at least they are if God is Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient.

As an analogy for what both Arminians and Calvinists agree on, let's say I'm someone living in the Pokemon world.  Some shop is selling all 802 Pokemon, I paid enough money to buy all of them, but by the time I get home I only have 153.  The Calvinist would say those were always the only ones I wanted, I just over paid for them to show off that I could.  An Arminian would say the others ran away because they didn't like me.  One option makes me very wasteful, the other makes me a very bad trainer.

Calvinists take the route they feel respects God's Sovereignty, while Arminians tried to take the route that respects God's Love and Mercy.

Calvinists have to agree that Jesus Atonement was sufficient to Save everyone to get around the verses that contradict Limited Atonement.

Mostly I think of Calvinists as being the most wrong sect of Christianity.  But there are two things on which Calvinists are correct. 1. God is Sovereign, He will get what He Wants.  2. It is Illogical to say Jesus died for Everyone and yet there will still be some who aren't Saved.

The problem in what they agree on is that the word "Elect" (Chosen) is used in many senses.  Some verses are about those who currently Believe in their Mortal Life.  But Paul in Romans 11:22 is clear that unbelieving Jews are still Elect, and Jesus included Judas when He said that He had Chosen the 12, and yet Judas was a Devil.  Ultimately all Humans were Chosen by God to be made in the Image and Likeness of God and have dominion over the Earth in Genesis 1 and Psalm 8.

Both verses that refer to few being chosen, Matthew 20:16 and 22:14, also say many are called.  The second occurrence I believe is meant to help explain the random occurrence earlier, and on that occasion it ends the parable of the Wedding Feast, where the Many Called is indeed everyone, but only one person is Chosen and that's the one cast out into Outer Darkness.  In Isaiah 42:1 The Elect is The Servant who in chapter 53 is bruised for our iniquities.  I have argued that Gehenna could be the site of the Crucifixion.  1 Peter 2:6 also calls the Stone that is Jesus Elect.  We are Elect because we are The Body of Christ.

Many verses contradict Limited Atonement by implication, including ones mentioned in this post already, like at the start.  But there are two passages that directly render that notion impossible.

1 John 2:1-2, "propitiation" in the KJV is the Greek word for Atonement.

1 Timothy 2:4-6, which also demonstrates that God's Will is to Save everyone along with Matthew 18:14.

We need to Lower The Voting Age

We also need to end the Electoral Collage and Gerrymandering.  And in my opinion if we've come to a consensus on the Senate not being for it's original purpose, we should just abolish it altogether.

But with how things are Republicans can still win the Popular Vote sometimes, they did in 2004 and for just over half of all elections in the 20th Century.  And while individually Trump had the weakest popular percentage of any winner in my lifetime, and even weaker then some past losers.  When you look at all the 3rd Party Votes cast, Johnson, that Mormon guy in Utah and the Constitution Party candidate got enough votes to put the number of people who voted for right of center candidates over 50% of the Popular Vote, and that's without even adding the write in votes for Ron Paul and Colin Powell.

However there was a Map floating around Tumblr back in late 2016 showing that if only Millennials could vote the only State Trump would have won was Wyoming.  And exit-polling data for this recent 2018 Midterm that only broke things down by age and ethnicity, showed the only demographics Republicans won were White People over 45, White People 30-44 were close however, a nearly 50/50 split, but White People 18-29 were significantly voting Democrat, meanwhile People of Color that young were a downright landslide for the Dems.

Now many Republicans might feel vindicated by this, "older people are wiser" says conventional wisdom.  There is a quote attributed to Winston Churchill that goes something like "A man who isn't a liberal at 20 has no Heart and a Man who isn't a Conservative at 50 has no Brain".  And so some Conservatives even try to argue for raising the age you can Vote at.  However the way things actually work isn't that simple.

One factor in why this is is that Wealthier people live longer statistically, between being able to afford better medical care to lower income communities always having more Crime and Violence.  That same data on the 2018 Midterms did have the Dems winning People of Color over 45 and even over 65.

And then there is the factor that as society has Progressed the political "Center" has moved to the Left.

But emphasizing those two factors too much might seem like an attempt to deny the commonality of people who's minds actually did change to the right as they got older.  Because current young Liberals don't want to think they will become their Bigoted Parents some day.

I know from my own family of the existence of Baby Boomers who were radical Bobby Kennedy and McGovern voting hippies in the 60s and 70s but were voting pretty consistently Republican by the end of the 80s.  So does that change happen because of time and experience making one smarter and wiser?  Again, actual Marginalized groups continue to not trust Conservatives no matter how old and experienced they get.

This is another product of Toxic Nostalgia, young voters tend to vote thinking about the future, but then once you've been working for awhile you get more and more worried about the present and start more and more voting on short term needs, and then once you get old you start looking at the past with rose tinted glasses (especially if you were relatively privileged in your youth) and next thing you know you wanna "Make America Great Again".

Nothing makes me laugh more then seeing Baby Boomers on Facebook share "In my day kids respected their elders" sentiments.

So basically, if I'm going to trust older voters for their age and experience it's gonna be the less privileged ones, who've actually lived through tough experiences, but it's more difficult for those people to live long enough to get old.

With all those factors in mind, the fact that the age at which privileged White People on average start moving to the right is about half way through the average life expectancy, makes it really unfair that you're not allowed to vote till your life is statistically almost a quarter over.

In some states you're old enough to consent to sexual intercourse and get married at is as young as 16.  If you're old enough to contribute to the future by starting a family and potentially create new life, you should be old enough to vote.  People have been tried as Adults for crimes including the crime of murder at as young as 15.  And plenty of religious customs declare a person an adult at as young as 12 or 13.  Also anyone in High School is able to get a part time Job, and sometimes are expected to, which means they're paying Taxes which means they should have a vote in how that Tax money is used.

I'm an unusual person in that I'm a White Christian Cis-Male (who's mostly identified as Heterosexual) who's political life has been the opposite.  First year I was old enough to Vote was 2004 and I'm ashamed to admit I voted for Bush back then, and probably would have if I could've voted in 2000.  But from 2007-2012 I was a radical Ron Paul Libertarian.  By the time I started this Blog I had already become more liberal then I was during the Ron Paul era, and over the course of this blog my further progression to The Left has been documented.  I wish I could say that change was because of some life experience Secular Conservatives would respect, but it wasn't.  It's mostly been caused by my reading The Bible and deciding to trust what it plainly says removing the filter of Western Traditionalism.

Of course at no time during my past as a Young Conservative was I a proto Alt-Right person, and I'm not just saying that because of the worst stereotypes about the Alt-Right, as a Young Earth Creationist both then and now I would never have supported even the most sanitized form of "Race Realisim", and if anything I questioned the traditional narrative of WWII less then then I do now.  I never even trusted the Tea Party.

I make this distinction because the Alt-Right are also an exception to this general trend, they come from the minority of under 30 White People who voted for Trump.  They have a few older intellectuals in their pocket, but no one born before 1980 has ever been a regular 4Chan contributor.  So I can't help but wonder how many Kekistani flag wavers will be Communists by the time Trump leaves office?

And that's why The Alt-Right can't truly be called Reactionaries in any true sense of that term, they don't want to restore any past status quo, they are proposing a twisted kind of Utopian Fantasy.

Now I'm not gonna suggest a maximum voting age, even the oldest people have the right to be concerned about what future they have left.  But I do think we should have a maximum age at which you can hold office, even Aristotle, a pretty Conservative guy in his time, argued against allowing people over 70 to hold office.

But back to the main topic.  This is also why Liberals should be concerned about declining Birth Rates, this Birthrate problem is going to give older voters even more of an advantage in coming Elections.   In Japan it's already the main reason the Left can't win, they probably still have more people Nostalgic for the 30s then the 90s.  The Overpopulation myth was always Capitalist Propaganda in origin as documented in Peter Coffin's documentary.

Dear Dems, if you wanna win in 2020, don't nominate a moderate.

Every Election cycle this conventional wisdom that the "moderate" candidate is more electable keeps being perpetuated by the media.  But as far as the Presidential Elections go it has consistently failed every Election in my living memory, (1992 to the Present).

In each of those Elections one of the major parties nominated an "electable" moderate and the other someone perceived as representing the Populist base of the Party.  And each time it was the Moderate who lost.

Now look, I know full well lots of Progressives insist Obama was a Moderate, and plenty of Conservatives insist Bush was not very Conservative at all.  But that's not my point, compared to the other viable options in those primaries, Bush and Obama were the Radical choices and they won.  Meanwhile the John Kerrys and John McCains lost.

As far back as 2014 I was figuring the upcoming Election would follow this pattern.  Trump however was unusual enough that I started to think maybe, maybe, this one will break it.  But no, he still won, and I still wasn't that surprised.

But I also know Sanders would have won.  The Rust Belt states which were the key to Trump's victory were filled with people voting on the Protectionism alone, I live in one of those states, Wisconsin.  The key to Trump's victory here, a state that hadn't gone to a Republican in a Presidential Election since 1984, was a lot of those one issue voters who voted for Sanders in the primary but Trump in the general.

Now, dethroning a sitting President is inherently more difficult.  But the last three Successful Reelections were indeed partly because the opposition nominated a dull moderate.

But I do think defeating Trump will probably require someone even more radical then Sanders, Sanders feels a lot less Radical now then he was in 2016 because of how much progress the Left has made online in such a short time.  We're going to need someone calling for a Basic Income.

If the Dems nominate an Elizabeth Warren, they will lose.  The Dems most recent victories have been with younger candidates, ones barely old enough to be eligible to run.  On average younger candidates are more radical.

A Candidate who can't get their own base excited, isn't going to get anyone else excited.

Agape and Eros are synonyms actually.

We keep hearing it declared that the Greek Language had multiple mutually exclusive words for "Love", the big three being Eros (Sexual and Romantic Love), Agape (Familial Love) and Philia/Phileo (Brotherly Love, which you're supposed to have for everyone).  From theologians like the late Karl Bart to to C.S. Lewis to YouTube videos like the Overly Sarcastic Productions summary of Eros and Psyche (a story that originated in the 2nd Century AD BTW).

The thing is, there is a lot of context about the history of the Language being left out of that.  I don't know if that's an accurate representation of how people in modern Greece use these words, but there are some important facts about the Ancient usage I need to point out.

First of all, and this is semi-well known, "Eros" is suspiciously missing from The New Testament, the closest we get is one guy's name seems to have Eros as one of it's roots, (Erastus mentioned in Acts 19:22, Romans 16:23 and 2 Timothy 4:20).

A popular theory for why is that the first Generation of Christians were a bunch of prudes seeking to reject Sex and Marriage so they had no need to discus Eros.  Well this entire Blog is partly dedicated to refuting that notion.

It's also been proposed that these early Jewish Monotheists wanted to avoid saying "Eros" because it was also the name of a Greek god.  Thing is lots of Greek words in the New Testament are also names of Greek gods, from Ouranos to Hades to some Olympians being explicitly mentioned.  But maybe there are nuanced reasons why Eros would be different, after all twice the Epistle known as 1 John says that "God is Love (Agape)".  Also not every deity in Greek mythology had an active cult of worship, most primordial deities were not as active as part of Greek pagan religion as Eros was.

But wait, why isn't there a Greek god named Agape?  A lot of abstract concepts and emotions are personified in Greek mythology, even some pretty trivial ones.  Well you see the well known academically but not so casually well known fact is that Agape is a word that was almost never used by Greek speaking Polytheists.  Apparently Homer used a form of it but not in any way comparable to it's NT usage.

In other words, Eros and Agape are a bit like Clark Kent and Superman, you kind of never see them in the same place at the same time.

The first problem with excluding Romantic and Sexual Love from the meaning of Agape is that Paul uses Agape of the Love that Husbands are supposed to have for their Wives in Ephesians 5.

But then there is the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.  As I've said before in my view the Septuagint is at least partly Pre-Christian in origin but the final from we typically know was copied and preserved through Christian hands.  Both Eros and Agape are used in the Septuagint, but Eros far more rarely.  It is the main place you find both being used.

Both words are used to translate the same Hebrew word, Ahav and other forms of Ahav like Ahavah.  But Eros is NEVER used in The Song of Songs that is Solomon's.  That's right, the most explicitly Erotic part of the entire Bible used Agape and not Eros.

I can't help but wonder if Agape might actually be Hebrew in origin.  There is a rarely used synonym for Ahav that only appears in Jeremiah 4:30, and Ezekiel 23&33, Agab, Egeb and Agabah (Strongs Numbers 5689-5691).  For whatever weird reason, Bs sometimes change to Ps in ancient transliterations, so Agape could easily have come from this word.  Some of it's uses do seem to imply a Sexual sense.  The Strongs definitions for the words say things like Sensually and Amorousness.  However I lack a smoking gun on this theory since I can't find a place where this word became Agape in the Septuagint, in the Jeremiah verse it is translated Eros.

So Agape can definitely include Romantic and Sexual Love in ancient Judeo-Christian use.

Meanwhile Eros was definitely used by Gentile Greeks of more then just Sexual Love.  Plato is someone who's attitudes towards sex I've strongly opposed on this Blog, but he is a witness to how the word was used, and Platonic Love was indeed Platonic Eros.  However what we today means be "Platonic" doesn't always match what Plato actually meant, so it's complicated.

So when 1 John 4:7 says that "everyone who loves is born of God and knows God" using Agape.  You can't say that's separate from the Love Homosexuals feel because of some modern notion of Agape and Eros being distinct.  Agape is used in negative senses sometimes, but that's only when Love for some thing gets in the way of one's Love for God.  It's never used of love for people.  Sexual Love can be sinful when it is expressed or taken against someone's will.  But calling any consensual romantic love Demonic is in my view potentially Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Update: So I recently learned of a minor Greek Goddess called Philotes, she was associated with both Friendship and Sex, so that right there is evidence that Philia wasn't completely divorced from Sexual connotations either.

Luke 12:47-48

As they read in the KJV.

And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.  But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

I've cited these verses as evidence that Believers will be punished more then Unbelievers which in turn backs up the Doctrine of Universal Salvation.  But I read recently a typical Evangelical site that quoted these passages as if they are only about Unbelievers.  And I was simply scratching my head.

First of all any reference to the Punishments not being the same weakens the notion that Endless Torment is the minimum sentence regardless of who is who allegorically.

Secondly, the modern world may have a lot of Unbelievers who've read a lot of The Bible and so intellectually know what it says.  But if they don't believe, then they don't "Know" it's The Lord's Will.

And if anything, if you want to say both categories in this passage are more specific then all of Humanity.  Other passages in the New Testament imply only Believers can be called God's Servants.  And there are plenty of passages that have had me contemplate that perhaps God will only punish Believers and that he won't hold people Jesus died for to rules they never agreed to follow.  But I'm hesitant to go all the way with that.

The verse before these verses, verse 46, says.

The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.

Perhaps this website I read was made by people who don't believe in Eternal Security, and see this as referring to fallen Believers being treated as Unbelievers.  But Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 assures us that even the most failed of Believers are still saved.

There is no getting around the Universal Salvation implications of what Jesus taught here.  The last verse of chapter 12, paralleling a passage from Matthew 5, is clear that Punishment is finite not infinite.

The Gospel According to The Beloved Disciple

This post is kind of a follow up to my Heresies of Asia Minor post, and with also some prior groundwork laid by my Mary Magdalene and Bethany post.

One of the reasons that I can't put too much stock in what The Early Church Fathers said is that the Patristic Tradition is pretty unanimous that the Gospel we commonly call "The Gospel According to John" was written by John Son of Zebedee brother of James who one of the Twelve.  But the fact is the text of that Gospel tells us who wrote it, and it's not one of The Twelve or someone named John.

At the end of The Gospel we're told "The Disciple who Jesus Loved" wrote The Gospel (21:20-23).  Normally an analysis will say Chapter 13:23-25 is the first time this Disciple is mentioned.  However if you just read The Gospel without bringing prior assumptions into it, it's clear that this verse is identifying someone we were already introduced to.

But first I need to note that most of the traditional Beloved Disciple verses use Agape, but chapter 20:2 uses Phileo.

In chapters 11 verse 3 the sisters of Lazarus inform Jesus of his death by saying "he whom thou lovest is sick" using Phileo.  Verse 5 says that Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus using Agape.  In verse 36 the Judeans observe "look how Jesus loved him" using Phileo again referring to Lazarus.

Chapter 12 depicts Lazarus sitting next to Jesus just as the Beloved Disciple does in 13:23-24.

The argument that the Beloved Disciple must be one of the Twelve is dependent on verses from the Synoptics that are taken as saying only the Twelve were at the Last Supper, but they don't actually say that, they emphasize the Twelve being there but do not say it was only the Twelve. In fact it is made clear in the Synpotics that someone else owned the house they had it in.

Chapter 21 does mention the Sons of Zebedee, so if you wanna assume the Beloved Disciple can't be mentioned by any other designation in this Gospel, that rules them out as well. 

Others have proposed this theory before me, but I have some differences from them.  For example I'm rather skeptical of the whole connecting Lazarus to the family of Beothus theory.

http://www.alanrudnick.org/2017/04/13/john-was-not-the-disciple-whom-jesus-loved/

https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/bibleandculture/2007/01/was-lazarus-the-beloved-disciple.html

I also like to stress based on 11:5 that the designation can be expanded to include his Sisters, which helps explain 20:2, and I also still lean towards it being Mary who was entrusted with his mother in 19:25.

I also disagree with the idea that the ending of the Gospel is implying the Beloved Disciple had died before it's final publication.

But biggest of all, I don't think John the Presbyter was a student of the Beloved Disciple.  I don't think either John or the Bethany family ever went to Ephesus, Ephesus is mentioned quite a bit in the New Testament with no hints at any of them being there.  But Revelation 2 does refer to there being False Apostles in Ephesus, I think one of them claimed to be John and claimed credit for all five books traditionally ascribed to John, and then came to be sometimes known as John the Presbyter based on the 2nd and 3rd Epistles.  And because the "Apostolic Succession" of the early Church went back to his alleged students like Ignatius and Polycarp, that false attribution came to be accepted at face value.  In the authentic writings of Ignatius and Polycarp they never claim to be disciples of John or anyone else, and it seems Papias distinguished the John he knew from any of the Apostles.

There is an ancient Eastern Extra-Biblical Tradition that Lazarus received his Bishop's Omophorion from The Virgin Mary. It was apparently something she wove for him.  So there is some evidence their association was remembered.

Most even Atheist scholars agree that all three Epistles commonly called "of John" probably have the same author as The Gospel.  The first of them I don't even view as an Epistle since it doesn't have an Epistle style introduction or ending.  I think it was an Appendix to the Gospel.

It's Revelation that scholars have trouble seeing as being by the same author.  And I think that argument can hold up better then attempts to deny certain Paulian letters had the same author.  The issue is that usually The Gospel is given first dibs on being the true Son of Zebedde (though plenty of Atheists think none could have been written by a Galileen Fisherman) while I'm pointing out that Revelation is the only of these books who's author actually claims to be named John.

These books being dated to between 90 and 100 AD is often itself seen as evidence against them being written by Eye Witnesses because of the modern obsession with saying people didn't live as long back then.  The problem with that narrative is "average" life-span statistics are skewed by how there used to be higher infant mortality rates.  I think the Twelve Disciples were younger then Jesus to begin with, and Paul was younger then the Twelve.  In every era of history some people have successfully lived to 100, therefore some people born around 5 BC could have made it to 96 AD.

Quadratus letter to Hadrian says some people Jesus healed and rose form the dead were still alive at the time he wrote that letter.  That's a category Lazarus specifically fits into.  Simeon the second Bishop of Jerusalem was said to have been 120 when he was martyred during the reign of Trajan according to Eusebius.  If some theories about the Bethany family are true, he could have been the father of Lazarus and his sisters, or the same person as Lazarus, because the Simon of Matthew 26 and Mark 14 seems to have something to do with the Bethany family when you cross reference it with John 12.

Below is additional theorizing that is much more speculative.

Maybe part of the reason the Gospel became associated with the name of John is how it talks about John The Baptist at the beginning.  It's not the only Gospel to kind of begin with John but it's treatment of John is arguably unique.  John is the first personal name mentioned in the text.

The name Lazarus is often thought to be a nickname. (It being a presumed form of Eleazar never sat right with me, all other El theophoric names still begin an E in their Greek forms, and I don't think a spelling like Lazarus is ever used in Josephus of someone known to be an Eleazar.)  A theory that among other things complicates how he relates to the Parable in Luke 16.  So he could be someone also named John which was a common name.  However there are the Ossuaries at Dominus Flevit which have a Mary, Martha and Eleazer together.

Wikipedia pages about the Eastern Traditions of Lazarus and his sisters say they preached the Gospel in many lands not just Cyrpus, but I can't find specifics about that.  What I find unlikely about the Cyprus tradition is that Lazarus would be ordained by Paul and Barnabas when Paul's own definitions of Apostolic Authority would place Lazarus ahead of him.  Paul's time on Cyrpus with Barnabas is recorded in Acts 13 with no reference to them visiting Kition or ordaining any Bishops or meeting Lazarus and the Bethany sisters.

If the traditions of Lazarus on Cyprus do have some truth to them, it's notable that they only account for about 30 years after his Resurrection, which takes us to 60 AD or 66 AD at the latest.  I'm confident he did live a lot longer then that. 

Update April 2020:  I have decided that The Disciple who Jesus Agape when used of a single individual is Mary, and Magdalene and the sister of Lazarus are the same Mary.  And The Disciple who Jesus Phileo when used of a single individual is Lazarus.

I have abandoned my past flirtation with the idea of Mary Agdalene as Jesus Sister.  But I do still think "Mother's Sister" in John 19:25 should probably means "Maternal sister" and so I now think Mary of Cleophas is one of his Sisters. 

In verse 26 when Jesus "his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he apagao" both character refereed to here are ones identified in the prior verse.  The male pronouns are possibly just translating pronouns not actually originally meant to be gender specific.  When He says refers to this disciple as "son" so His Mother he means the legal meaning of sonship, not biology or gender.

I don't think Jesus was Poor.

As a type of  Socialist the fact that Jesus repeatedly taught to give to the Poor is something I love to emphasize.

But I kind of feel like what that says about Jesus is more meaningful if He wasn't poor Himself.  It's easy for a poor person to say you should care about the poor, the problem is too many rich people, even ones who formally were poor, lose that empathy as they live in luxury.  This is my greatest self doubt about myself, if I'd still maintain the values I have now if I became wealthy in the future.

Jesus mostly lived like a poor person during his ministry, of that I have no doubt.  But he did so by choice just as he took on mortality by choice.

Even if Jesus family wasn't well off before He was born, at His Birth they received some very expensive gifts from the Magi.

We also know Jesus descended from Royalty.  We tend to assume this branch of the House of David must have been impoverished for generations due to the Captivity.  But my post on Misconceptions about The Magi and The Census shows that Joseph was at least a Land Owner.  They were not turned away by any Innkeepers, that's all extra Biblical fan fiction.

Tekton, the Greek word translated Carpenter in reference to Joseph and at least once to Jesus himself, can also meant Architect.  Tekton is also possibly being used here as the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew word Charash used in Zechariah 1:20.

The whole argument between Jesus and Judas in Bethany after Mary Anointed Jesus for Burial in John 12, Matthew 26 and Mark 14 makes the most sense as being between people who were not poor themselves.  Mary of Bethany at the very least was not broke if she could buy ointment that expensive.  Judas here comes off as one of those rich people who pretends to care about the Poor but really doesn't.

And then there is my argument that Joseph of Arimathea was most likely Jesus' Brother Joses.

Luke 2:24 is what gets cited to argue Mary and Joseph were poor.  All this verse tells us is they offered Two Turtle Doves or Two Pigeons in accordance with The Law, Luke doesn't directly mention the presumed conditionality of that.  We have to go to Leviticus 12 to read the context that ideally this offering should be a Lamb and one Turtledove or Pigeon, but if you are unable to offer a Lamb you replace it with a second bird.  However the passage not only doesn't limit poverty to being the cause of that but doesn't even mention poverty, it implies nothing about why.  It could be Lambs good for Temple offerings weren't available at all, even to the rich, since they had to be a Year old and without blemish.  It could be this tells us more about the time of year then anyone's financial situation.

I realize that we have traditionally valued the Poetic contrast of the true Ruler of The Universe incarnating into the most humble circumstance imaginable, imagining Him to be born in a smelly barn. But nothing in The Bible ever actually tells us to think of it that way.

The core difference between Capitalism and Feudalism is that Capitalism in theory doesn't respect ancestry, the irony of some Superhero stories being called Randian is that Rand hated the idea of specialness being something one is born with, or given by luck, Capitalism is about alleged "Merit".

Under Feudalism a "rags to riches" story is not something to celebrate, a commoner becoming a rich or powerful person was abhorrent.  And a story like that was only tolerable if the person in question was secretly royalty all along.

So really the whole narrative of Jesus as being dirt poor actually serves to make Him the ultimate version of the "American Dream", it plays into Capitalist ideology..

How much should Christians Agree with Mainstream Academia on the Origins of The New Testament?

There are a lot of Christian scholars trying to not break with mainstream Secular Academia on when particularly The Gospels were written as much as possible, Brad Jersak, Inspiring Philosophy, the Casual Historian, ect.  Part of it is to avoid hypocrisy, since we appeal to the general consensus of mainstream Secular Academia when refuting the Christ Myth Hypothesis and other pseudo-historical conspiracy theories of the New Atheist movement.

Well in a way I'm not going to be as radical as those being the opposite on this would be either.

I think Greek Matthew and Greek Mark were possibly written when they are currently dated, between 60 and 80 AD.  But Matthew I think was originally in Hebrew and that Hebrew Matthew could be Q, and Mark I think was originally written in Syriac Aramaic in Mesopotamia, where Peter was.  Both I think were written before 42 AD, maybe even before 37 AD.

Luke is the only Gospel where I need to place the Greek Text sooner then mainstream scholars do, which I then place Acts at about the same time.  And I'm doing so out of Faith right now and not claiming to have a solid argument to do so.

When it comes to Revelation, the disagreement is chiefly about who wrote it not when since I place it's authorship when most Futurists do.  The disagreement about who is primarily about if it could have the same author as John's Gospel and Epistles, since textual scholars can't really claim to know whether either was ever a Galilean fisherman or not.

I'm actually very open to suggesting Revelation had a different author from the other books attributed to John.  The difference is when most open the door to this distinction it's The Gospel who's given first dibs on being written by John brother of James son of Zebedee who was one of the Twelve.  However it's only Revelation who's actual text identifies it's author as bearing the name of John.  The Gospel says at the end the "Disciple whom Jesus Loved" wrote it, and using that Gospel to interpret itself, three disciples are associated with that description in chapter 11, none were among the twelve, they are the three siblings, Lazarus, Martha and Mary of Bethany.  The first Epistle doesn't identify it's author in any way which is why I'm not sure it truly qualifies as an Epistle, frankly I have come to view it as an appendix to Gospel of the Beloved Disciple.  The authors' of 2nd and 3rd John simply refer to themselves as the Elder.

When it comes to the arguments against the writings of Paul or Peter having the same author, I find myself wondering if the diverse literary careers of many modern writers would seem like they're the same to these scholars looking at them without already knowing.  Particularly when they say "stylistic and linguistic grounds".  Sometimes a writer's style changes over time, or they'll deliberately write in different styles.  And as far as linguistics go, the traditional authors of these books where not native to the language we have them in anyway.

We know Paul's letters were at least sometimes dictated because of how Tertius inserts himself into Romans 16, which is one of the Paulian Epistles considered pretty universally to be authentic, if it wasn't written by who we think of Paul as being then there was no Paul at all.  I think they were all dictated, and I think both Paul and Peter were actually reciting in Hebrew and the recorder was translating it, so the linguistic style could very often be the product of different recorders.  And Hebrews I think was originally written in Hebrew and what we have is a Greek translation that came later.

There is not quite universal agreement on which Paulian Epistles are authentic, Romans and Galatians are pretty agreed on, which is convenient for me since they include passages vital to my core ideologies.  There are 5 or 7 that are pretty commonly excluded by secular scholars, Hebrews which even believers will debate since it doesn't identify itself as Paul's at the start, the pastorals, and the sequel to Thessalonians. Disputing II Corinthians is actually more rare then I originally thought it was.

The arguments against the two sequels is mostly them allegedly contradicting their predecessor.  Again, how many modern sequels would fail the same test?  These are not like poorly planned fictional narratives however, the reason for these apparent contradictions is that in the 1st letters to these churches Paul was addressing specific issues they were dealing with.  The second letters were needed partly because some of what he said in the first was being misunderstood.  II Thessalonians 2 was written specifically to correct the the Imminence interpretation of I Thessalonians 4. 

The letters written to individuals rather then congregations could in many ways be different because of that difference in audience.  Just as Hebrews is different because it's written to a Jewish rather then Greek audience.  It's still consistent with Paul's faith over works message as shown by Chapter 11.  And you really can't complete Paul's 'we're not under the Law anymore' doctrine without bringing up Hebrews discussion of Jeremiah's prophecy of the Law being written on our Hearts.

For The Pastoral Epistles, most of the argument against their authenticity comes from the reasons to believe they came later.  They are dated later then most Paulian Epistles, but still not later then 100 AD, they're still in the first century.  Irenaeus quoted all three of them, writing around 180 AD, so they must have been around for awhile already.

It's relevant even to the "linguistic and stylistic grounds".

The problem is we are traditionally conditioned to assume Peter and Paul died in 64 or 67 AD, but The Bible never says that, and I have for reasons irrelevant to this issue rejected the traditions of either dying in Rome, and Peter I believe was never in Rome at all.  I think Paul's conversion happened in 37 or 38 AD, and I think he was in his 20s when that happened, pre-conversion Paul has a zealousness typical of a 20 something.  So if he was born between 10 and 17 AD, he could easily have lived into the 90s.  2 Timothy does seem to be written by an old man expecting to pass away soon.

Take for example this argument.

Literary style. Paul writes a characteristically dynamic Greek, with dramatic arguments, emotional outbursts, and the introduction of real or imaginary opponents and partners in dialogue. The Pastorals are in a quiet meditative style, far more characteristic of Hebrews or 1 Peter, or even of literary Hellenistic Greek in general, than of the Corinthian correspondence or of Romans, to say nothing of Galatians.

Maybe this difference is because he mellowed with age.  And also that the concerns the Church is facing have changed with the times.

The argument about "The letters as reflecting the characteristics of emergent Catholocism" is also related to this time-frame issue.  But I should note that I reject that these Epistles support the monarchical Church structure they are often presumed to support.  What "emergent Catholicism" means to secular scholars is different from Protestants debating how early what we object to about the Roman Church emerged, it's mostly about the development of Ignatius' organized church structure.

There are some who attempt to extend the late dating of the Pastorals into the second century, but I've already talked about evidence to view them as contemporary with Marital.

Colossians is apparently considered inauthentic by 60% of Scholars, and  Ephessians is now considered inauthentic partly because of presumed dependence on Colossians.  Again these arguments overlaps with reasons the Pastorals are dated later.  I think Paul might have been composing these two letters at the same time in a way where much of Colossians was written first yet it was finished last.  You see I agree with the argument that there is no Epistle to the Laodiceans, it was from Laodicea, and that the Epistle Paul alluded to there was Ephesians, which would have likely traveled through Laodicea if it went to Colossae.  And maybe these two were also post 70 AD.

Traditional timelines of the Epistles by people who question none of them already mostly tend to make the Agreed upon ones the earliest, with the rest being after he came to Rome in 62 AD at the soonest. Needless to say a lot of things changed for Paul then. He may well have had access to none of the recorders he had before, and the dialect of Greek in the western empire was likely different.  The outlier is 2nd Thessalonians which some seem to think was written right after the first, but I find that unlikely regardless of this dispute, I think it took time for Paul to realize that Church developed all new problems he needed to address.

There is also a lot of overlap between arguments against the Pastorals being authentic Paul and arguments against 2 Peter being the same author as 1 Peter.  But again a difference in what the author is concerned with talking about can be explained by when without doubting who wrote it.  But I also think Peter's two Epistles were written to different audiences, the first to Hellenistic Jewish communities in Asia Minor, and the second probably to a more Aramaic community.

I do not believe James and Jude were written by the half brothers of Jesus with those names, but rather by the James and Jude who were bothers among the 12.

Frankly a lot of the arguments about the authenticity of Letters attributed to the 12 reminds me of Anti-Stradfordian arguments, the massive incredulity that simple Galilean fisherman could have ever become capable of writing in such sophisticated Greek.  But this time it's those of us opposing that elitist argument who are viewed as fringe.  And Shakespeare doesn't have the excuse of being believed to have been Supernaturally assisted by The Holy Spirit.

And then there is the issue of referring to the Temple's Destruction being itself proof a book must have been written later cause we won't even entertain the notion of a real Prophecy.

So I guess The Wreck of the Titan: or, Futility must have been written after The Titanic sank.  And the Lone Gunman Pilot must have been written after September 11th 2001.  And that Simpsons episode where Donald Trump becomes President can't have been written any sooner then 2015.

"Wait, aren't you making Jesus prediction not even supernatural by comparing to things like that?"  Well I'm a Continuationsit who points out how sometimes The Holy Spirit even uses unbelievers like Balaam. In my opinion those predictions were supernatural whether to not the writer claimed to be a Prophet (with the Lone Gunman either it's supernatural or the Conspiracy Theorists are right).  But the fact still remains, if you think those things just happened because they were naturally predictable, well Jerusalem inevitably revolting against Rome and getting crushed it can be argued was predictable even in 30 AD.

The fact is Jerusalem falling and being lead away into Captivity again was already in Old Testament Prophecy, Daniel 9 and Zechariah 14 were prophecies made when Judea was returning from the Babylonian Captivity predicting another would be inevitable, in Daniel it's arguably even specifically said that The Temple will be destroyed again.  It was already in the Torah that this was a cycle that's going to keep playing itself out as long as Israel keeps backsliding.  So frankly it would have been weird for a 1st Century Jewish Prophet to not be saying all this is going to happen again.  And the Olivte Discourse does specifically cite Daniel, while Luke 21 uses terminology from Jeremiah "Desolation of Jerusalem".

What Jesus said is vague enough that both Atheist and Christian scholars will sometimes disagree on if Mark 13's account is about the 70 AD fall or the Bar-Kochba revolt.  Everything that seems really specific in what Jesus said arguably comes from echoing the fall to Babylon and/or drawing on what Daniel and Zechariah said.  Because the fact is the Roman Captivity was that history repeating itself on many levels.

In some cases it's not about "Prophecy after the fact" but just saying some things about the present scenario implied in a text must be post 70 AD.  Frankly however I feel that the author of Hebrews would have explicitly refereed to The Temple being destroyed to make his point if it had been.

Still some New Testament authors could have lived past 70 AD, Paul as I argued above, John who I think could have been a Nephew of Jesus, as well the Beloved Disciple Candidates, even Peter since I reject the tradition of him being in Rome at all.  And again since I don't view James and Jude as brothers of Jesus they could have.  Jude could have even if he was, Simeon the second Bishop of Jerusalem was a brother of Jesus who tradition says lived into the reign of Trajan.