There is a fifth debate that Dr. White against Shabir Ally - "Did Jesus Claim Deity?" - March 22, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R15NElGhXSA

Yeah, using Mashallah that way is a big mistake. I know from experience in being in a Muslim country for 3 years and ministering to Muslims for 30 years that Mashallah is not the circumcision ceremony. They may say it a lot to the boy who is getting circumcised as an expression of congratulations and a wish for God to protect, but it does not mean the ceremony itself.

Mashallah can mean "May God protect you" or "way to go", "good job", "alright! God has blessed you", "congratulations", etc.

it is also said to protect babies from evil spirits and the Jinn, and it is written out on the Turkish buses and taxis for protection against evil spirits and trajedies.

Turks call the circumcision party a "Sunnet" (tradition, custom) (related to the Arabic word, Sunna and Sunni) Mashallah is probably used as a congratulations saying a lot during that ceremony.

It is a big deal in Turkey - they dress up the boys like they are a little prince and honor them.

In Turkey they do circumcise the boys around 6 or 7, because of Ishmael. but Genesis 17:25 says Ishmael was 13, but in Turkey, it is done at 6 or 7.

Sometimes Muslims claim that the text of John 16:7 has been corrupted, so that "parakletos" (as written, meaning comforter) should be "parakletus" (meaning "praised" or something similar).

For you info:
Muslims claim it should be periklutos - περικλυτος - meaning "praised one". But there is no textual evidence of this. This is important because one can see that there would have to be changes of at least 3 letters, whereas the way you have it, there is only a one letter change at the end, the o to u, which does not really change the meaning.

Appreciate all your dilgence. Good to see you back blogging.
Ken Temple (Farshad in channel)

You don't accept Josephus' record of the martyrdom of James, half-brother of Jesus?

Paul being beheaded by Nero - who is first to record that?
Do you accept that?

Doesn't 2 Timothy point to at his martyrdom?

seems like good evidence that Thomas went to India - the Mar Thoma churches there that go back a long way.

the Coptic Church claims Mark brought Christianity to Egypt.

Yes; that is what she seems to be doing with everything; but, then it seems to me, that the title of her book is misleading - the title makes it sound like everything was a total fabrication, when what she is really saying is that some stuff was later embellished and glorified.
But the full story of the Martyrdom of Polycarp is usually included in the Apostolic fathers, but even Michael Holmes in the introduction to Martyrdom of Polycarp notes that different scholars disagree on exact date, but various theories of a range of dates between 156 AD to 180 AD. (Apostolic Fathers, Greek Text and English Translations; 2nd Edition, Michael Holmes, editor and reviser; 1992; pages 222-223) (originally Lightfoot and Harmer- 1891, 1956)

Even if written around 165 AD sometime after his death and martyrdom, and even if they gathered his bones and brought them out to remember him on the day of his death, that still does not make that practice apostolic (that is a long way away from 96 AD and earlier) ; and it doesn't mean that Polycarp himself would have approved of it; and it doesn't actually have the details of veneration that other later developments seem to have.

Also, the early 200s AD is not so far removed from 165 AD. (or 156 AD - I get him and Justin Martyr's dates mixed up all the time)

To remember someone and their example of faith, etc. (as Hebrews 10, 11, 13:7 tells us) seems good; but to venerate their bones, etc.; that is wrong.

Is she also saying the other accounts of the death of the other apostles is all fabrication?
Matthew, Thomas, Andrew, Bartholomew, Simon the Zealot, Paul (beheaded by Nero), James, half-brother of Jesus (in Josephus), etc. ?

Do you know the earliest traditions of those accounts?

http://bloggingtheology.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/10880/

Muslims and liberals (Huffington Post article linked within Paul Williams' article) seem to be trying to use Moss' book to discount the persecution completely.

So far, your three articles on Candida Moss' book have focused on the implications of other issues that affect Roman Catholic claims ( exaggeration in the account of Polycarp's martyrdom, and veneration of his bones after his death - that was very interesting) and issues relating to exalting the bishop of Rome and development of Papacy.

I guess the important thing for me is that Christianity did not use the state and it was not married to the state government until 380 AD with Theodosius and that speaks well of Biblical Christianity and the first 3-4 centuries and relates to why it took so long to get the canonical books all under one book cover (along with other factors not necessarily related to persecution). The difference between early Christianity and Islam is stark, in that sense.

Political liberals who are part of the "gay agenda" seem to like Moss' book and are using it in an apologetic sense of the myth of persecution in promoting their "gay agenda", it seems.

Does she agree that those persecutions were real ? (the ones I listed) but just saying that they are later exaggerated by Eusebius and afterward from 325 AD onward?

Are you reading her book systematically?

Is she discounting the persecutions of
Nero
Domitian
Trajan
Septimus Severus
Marcus Aurelius
Decius
Valerian
Diocletian
?

or is she just saying what we already know - that the persecutions were not constant all the time being fed to the lions, but were usually localized with on and off intensities, etc.

Does she totally discount Polycarp?
Justin Martyr?
Ignatius?
The group in France that suffered that Irenaeus mentions? (Lyon, 177 AD - among them Polythius, Irenaeus' predecessor)

The famous martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas that took place in North Africa, in Carthage (ca 202-204)

Cyprian ? (beheaded)

Tertullian's famous descriptions and famous statement - "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church" ?

Origen being tortured, released, and died later as a result of torture

All the other evidence of burning of manuscripts and the all the evidence in the writings of the early church about what to do about those who caved in and offered a salt offering to Caesar or surrendered manuscripts, etc. - controversies over what to do about them in allowing them back into fellowship in the church, etc. ?

Is she just saying that some things are exaggerated or that all these instances are all exaggerated?

which ones do they accept and which ones do they not accept? I thought they think it is all RC and that early things like baptismal regeneration, penance, and mono-episcopate are things that they claim show that they are the true early church.

Would you agree that those 3 traditions of man are the earliest discernible corruptions in church history?