Robert M. Grant writes (The Anchor Bible Dictionary, v. 3, p. 1133): Justin’s first work seems to have been his treatise Against all Heresies [now lost] . . . Later he composed his Apology now divided into two parts. The work is addressed to Antoninus Pius and his two adopted sons. Its date may be…

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1692442 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-roman-studies/article/abs/aelius-aristides/DFF046FE09114840DFFAF8FA6116A623 A short speech preserved among the writings of Aelius Aristides is addressed to an unnamed emperor. At present, it is generally agreed to be spurious, spoken by an unknown orator before the emperor Philip the Arab. It has been called ‘the only preserved specimen of the oratory of the third century’, ‘perhaps the…

Introduction. The Church Histories, hitherto in dealing with early Christian literature, have given Aristides along with Quadratus the first place in the list of lost apologists. It was known that there had been such early defenders of the faith, and that Quadratus had seen persons who had been miraculously healed by Christ; but beyond this…

Like Quadratus, Aristides is said to have presented his apology to Hadrian (c. 117-138 CE). Here is the reference from Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. IV.3.3. Aristides also, a believer earnestly devoted to our religion, left, like Quadratus, an apology for the faith, addressed to Adrian. His work, too, has been preserved even to the present day…

In a comment on Ehrmans blog under this article, he explicitly says the following: I think what Professor Metzger was saying was that he himself was confident that he knew with relative certainty the wording of 99.5% of the NT. He cannot have been saying that we actually certainly have that 99.5%, because unless you…

The New International Version of the Bible, or NIV, was first published in 1978. Since then, it has become one of the most popular English Bible translations, and almost certainly the most popular one among Evangelical Christians. It is also one of the worst translations for anyone who is seriously interested in what the Bible…

Mark 16:9-20 is not original, it is corrupted.The famous “Longer Ending of Mark” is the single longest textual variant in the New Testament. Most contemporary textual critics would reject Mark 16:9-20 to be original:The passage is not found in א or B (two of the earliest complete texts of the NT in Greek dating to…

Mark 1:1 no longer says Jesus was the Son of God. Mark’s opening line now says merely: ‘The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.’A footnote in the NRSVUE to this opening verse says ‘Other ancient authorities add Son of God.’ In the previous edition the NRSV rendered Mark 1:1 as: ‘The beginning of…

Pericope Adulterae is an interpolation.For a thousand years prior to the Renaissance, the Latin translation known as the Vulgate had been the Bible in common use, and the Greek text was largely ignored. This changed in the 1500s, which brought a renewed interest in compiling the original versions for study and comparison with Latin. The…

The Johannine Comma (1 John 5:7) reads:For there are three who bear witness in heaven: the Father, the word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are oneInauthenticityBruce M. Metzger writes:That these words are spurious and have no right to stand in the New Testament is certain in the light of the following considerations.(A) External…