How true is the Bible?

[Common Soldier]

Nice catch on Constantine/Theodosius, Cyclops, I don't know how I managed to miss it. If Constantine had established Christianity as the empire's official religion, he would first need to punish himself.

Constantine did establish Christianity as a favored religion, if not "the official" religion. Other than requiring offering sacrifice ficez for the empire and emperor, the empire as a whole did not have an official religion as such, just a.few pagan rituals everyone was expected to obsere, with an exception for the Jews. After Constantine, Christianity was made the only religion allowed, with an exception for the Jews.

Firstly, Paul is claiming that he speaks more language than his audience*, not everyone else, which would be quite heretical. He's referring to the miracle of the Pentecost, which, generally speaking, has no historic value, as the affair violates several of the most principal laws of physics. However, even if someone personally perceives the fiery tongues of the Pentecost as a true fact, the conclusion that Paul spoke Latin is still arbitrary and based on subjective interpretation. According to the Acts of the Apostles, the only biblical chapter describing in detail the events, everyone heard them speak in his own language". This heavily implies that the alleged glossolalia consisted of the Apostolic speech being supernaturally understandable to everyone and not of the Apostles suddenly possessing the knowledge of every language in Earth. Of course, in different passages, like the Gospel of Mark, 1st Corinthians or even the Acts of the Apostles themselves, it is inferred that the Apostles (and Paul) did speak in different languages, which is another testament (to return to the topic) of how the Bible is marked by often irreconciliable contradictions, which will perplex our unfortunate theologians for centuries to come.

*After all, he definitely spoke Aramaic, Greek and almost certainly Hebrew, so his statement was not necessarily hyperbolic or inaccurate.

The claim.that Paul spoke Latin is not abritrary, even if unproven. If Paul was a Roman citizen as claimed, then it is entirely possible and likely he knew Latin, most peoople who had Roman citizenship at that time did speak Latin, being descended from Roman colonist of the Latinized Confederates. We don't know about those who were grants Roman citizenship could speak Latin or not, it would be likely that they could speak Latin if they were granted citizenship for their services to the empire, since Latin would make it easier to communicate with their Latin speaking bosses. While we have no evidence one way or the other if Paul spoke Latin, it would be a likely conclusion if we accept Paul being a Roman citizen. (Note, PAul never claims to be a Roman citizen in his letters, only in Acts does it claim Paul was a Roman citizen. That Paul was a Roman citizen is consistent with all ancient tradition and his alleged fate, but it is possible that claim.was wrong.)

Proving a negative is pretty much impossible and the fact that the requirements for citizenship are not officially stated indicates that they were not codified. Especially in the east, the citizenship was casually granted to the members of the elite, in order to strengthen the Roman control of the region and to cement the relationship of the conquering commandder with a subgugated city or people. Knowledge of Latin was irrelevant, as long as the loyalty of the benefited aristocrats was guaranteed. I suppose it was a welcome perk that allowed direct communication, without the interval of interpreters being necessary, but what truly mattered was the establishment of client system between powerful Romans and the "nobility" of, in the case of Paul, recently annexed Anatolia.

Actually, proving a negative would be easy in this case, since all you need to produced a single example of someone with a Roman citizenship who could not speak Latin, which is not impossible as you claim. And simply because we don't have records for any codified laws regarding the granting of citizenship, does not necessarily mean they don't exist. Lots of records were lost from those times. If you are going to make an assertion, it is up to you to provide evidence to back it up. You have repeatedly made claims without any evidence to support them. Even if something is not specifically written down, there may still be N unspoken understanding. Although there isn't any formal requirement written down to know English to become a US citizen as far I know, it was generally understood that person becoming a US citizen would know English. Laws are written down when a need exist, if most of those.granted Roman citizenship knew Latin during their course of rendering service to the empire, there would be no need to codify the requirement. It would be interesting to know the extent, in any, Latin was known to those granted Roman citizenship in the Greek speaking East. And even if Paul did know Latin, it does not mean he could have written letters in it the same.way he was able to with Greek.

Finally, Paul often employed professional scribes to write his letters, he could have had a scribe write and translate his letter into Latin.. There are far better grounds to reject the Seneca letters than the claim Paul.did not know Latina, such the language and ideas in them were are different from Senaca's genuine letters.