Dr Paul Allen

STATION II: Jesus accepts his cross (Photo credit: contemplative imaging ) In the bestseller Holy Blood, Holy Grail , the authors claim that in A.D. 303  Emperor Diocletian destroyed all Christian writings that could be found. That’s why, they assert, there are no New Testament manuscripts prior to the  fourth century . Later, Emperor Constantine commissioned new versions of these documents, which allowed the “custodians of orthodoxy to revise, edit, and rewrite their material as they saw fit.” It was at this point that “most of the crucial alterations in the New Testament were probably made and Jesus  assumed the unique status he has enjoyed ever since.” In response to this book, Dr. Daniel B. Wallace , a New Testament Greek scholar, says, “Do these authors know anything about history at all? Diocletian did not destroy all the Christian manuscripts. He did destroy several, but mostly in the East and South. As far as having no manuscripts prior...

English: This is a map of first century Iudaea Province that I created using Illustrator CS2. I traced this image for the general geographic features. I then manually input data from maps found in a couple of sources. Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar. The Acts of Jesus. HarperSanFrancisco: 1998. p. xxiv. Michael Grant. Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Charles Scribner's Sons: 1977. p. 65-67. John P. Meier. A Marginal Jew. Doubleday: 1991. p. 1:434. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Titus 2:11–14 In the bestseller Holy Blood, Holy Grail , the authors claim that in A.D. 303 Emperor Diocletian destroyed all Christian writings that could be found. That’s why, they assert, there are no New Testament manuscripts prior to the fourth century. Later, Emperor Constantine commissioned new versions of these documents, which allowed the “custodians of orthodoxy to revise, edit, and rewrite their material as they saw fit.” It was at this point that “most of the crucial alter...

Head from a statue of Diocletian at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) In the bestseller Holy Blood, Holy Grail , the authors claim that in A.D. 303 Emperor Diocletian destroyed all Christian writings that could be found. That's why, they assert, there are no New Testament manuscripts prior to the fourth century . Later, Emperor Constantine commissioned new versions of these documents, which allowed the "custodians of orthodoxy to revise, edit, and rewrite their material as they saw fit." It was at this point that "most of the crucial alterations in the New Testament were probably made and Jesus assumed the unique status he has enjoyed ever since."  Titus 2:11-14 In response to this book, Dr. Daniel B. Wallace , a New Testament Greek scholar, says, "Do these authors know anything about history at all? Diocletian did not destroy all the Christian manuscripts. He did destroy several, but mostly in the East and South. As far...