seymour foley's thoughts

 The Persecution of the Christians by Domitian, 94, seems to have been bloodless. We know the most prominant Christian leader was exiled to Patmos and famously wrote the Apocalypse there.  What other literature might we have from this time?      The letters of 2 and 3 John are mere postcards, what accounts for their survival?  Obviously they are of relic value of a beloved leader, writer of 1John and gJohn, and Apocalypse,  but why keep these.      2John begins with John introducing himself with phrases probably already known to the whole church from 1John. But he is  being mysterious for some reason that 3John might clear up. 2Jn goes on with a warning against a gnostic theme, and ends with what i think is the real message, he is on the run and needs a place to crash.      In 3John he is writing to an individual, Gaius, who is known to be helpful. Diotrephes, an official at a church, has got a letter from John asking...

 Dueling Epistles, Galatians and James, and the consequences reflected in the books of Corinthians.      Letter to the Galatians definitely proves Jesus existed , shows the doctrines Paul persecuted and converted to and Paul's emphasis from the Christ prophesies that Paul thought the earlier church did not realize, and, if we read Galatians, James, and the Corinthian letters as sequential history instead of as harmonious static Scripture, we might gain a larger keyhole than we have had to view the first century church.       The letter to the Galatians proves Jesus existence by showing us how early Paul persecuted and converted to the church. He mentions that when he was converted he went to Arabia for 3 years, then he met Peter and James Jesus brother and 14 years later he returned to Jerusalem but he does not write directly after that but his writing of the letter to the Galatians corresponds with a dateable Roman official, putting the writing of the...

 The Lost Second Book of the Acts of the Apostles  Surely luke planned at least one more book in his series.            He ends by leaving Paul in Rome he says for two years. Luke evidently knows what happens after two years, but he does not tell us.           It is against narrative logic to describe one set of characters and events and halfway througgh introduce another character and follow the second character without mentioning something that happened to the first bunch, but Luke does exactly this, he drops Peter halfway through and follows Paul.  Evidently he has composed a usual length of a handy scroll and finds a nice transition to take up the dropped characters in the next volume.           And most of all reasons to show Luke meant to write at least a second book of Acts, our Acts of the Apostles  ends exactly when the most interesting decade in the histiry of the church, from t...

      The Gospel of Mark as we have it today is unfinished, a mere rough draft, and with its notes,  escaped its authors death and found its way to the cult core where it was finished twice, over 20 years, and was used more leisurely  by John and finally published and survives today in anthology with at least the Gospel of John.            Three approaches show gMk is unfinished.  It has no ending, classically unfinished. The ending from 16.9 on was tacked on after the Fourfold Gospel was already a canonized riddle. It has two speeches of topically sorted teaching, parables and apocalypse, but has no speech devoted to like antiestablishment or ethics or the greatest hits material Mattew puts into the Sermon on the Mount.  And, the gospel of Mark was finished twice, and those authors knew it was unfinished.      I assume for reasons discussed later that gMk and so-called Q were written by Saint Mark who was p...

       Here are a number of thoights, some my own theories, some others theories, some obvious of my view of the first century church.       The chronology an be broken down to the life of jesus till 30, the petership of simon bar jonah till 64, the petership of john bar zebedy till 94, petership of jude bro jamestheless and maybe petership of polycarp till 155.      Peterships after Simon peter are my own theories to prove or not, of course, but some of the other theories and observations progress through the times.     My theory a second book of acts was planned and perhaps mostly written, and its most likely contents, spans the time acts leaves paul in rome to probable reasons it was not published (leaving aside theological meraphisical reasons) and perhaps i can suggest some nepharious role for Luke's historical rival, josephus.      My theory on the Gospel of Mark, that it is an unfinished draft an...

                       Gthom = Strom 8     I will show that the Gospel of Thomas is the lost eighth book of the Stromata by Cleement of Alexandria,     The end of the seventh book sets up an expectation for the lost eighth book.     " These points then haven't been formally thoroughly treated, end the department of ethics having been sketched summarily in a fragmentary way as we promised, and having here and there interspersed the dogmas  which are the germs of true knowledge, so that the discovery of the Sacred traditions may not be easy to anyone of the uninitiated,  let us proceed to what we promised.     " now the Miscellanies are not like Parts laid out, planted in regular order for the Delight of the eye, but rather like an umbrageous and Shaggy Hill planted with Laurel and ivy and apples and olives and figs, the planting being purposely a mixture of fruit-bearing and frui...