(December 3, 2014 at 6:09 pm)abaris Wrote:

(December 3, 2014 at 6:08 pm)Exian Wrote: A poll: All those who remain unconvinced say

Some poor sod up to the task of counting the he used instead of presenting an argument?

Oh I'm convinced.

Jesus was the son of god
He died and was resurrected
He's coming back soon
He's now mowing lawns in Texas.

(December 3, 2014 at 9:32 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Remember that we have no original documents written by any "paul" character.

It would be nothing short of a miracle if we possessed any "original document" from that time, by which I take you to mean a copy that was distributed from the hand of Paul (or any writer) himself. But it is my understanding that quite a bit of Paul's letters are quoted or referred to in other late first century and early second-century writers, such as Clement and Ignatius. Marcion's an interesting character that I think goes to demonstrate that there was no monolithic sect called "Christianity" in the first two or three centuries of the common (or any time since) but a plethora of competing groups centered around a Christ-like figure.

"Clement" which jesus freaks have tried to date to 96 AD based on the persecution of Domitian has run into a serious problem. Domitian did not persecute xtians. He may have offed a few jews. He was after all the son of Vespasian and brother of Titus who kicked the crap out of the jews in the Great Revolt. As noted here:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/1clement.html

Quote:Loisy maintains that the author of 1 Clement was a distinguished Roman elder who flourished 130-140 and that this Clement was named in the Shepherd of Hermas (Vision, 8:3), which is also to be dated to the mid second century. Notably, a writing is mentioned in 1 Clement 23:3 in which the challenge is quoted, "These things we did hear in the days of our fathers also, and behold we have grown old, and none of these things hath befallen us." Because this source document for 1 Clement must have been written when the hope of the imminent parousia was waning, and because 1 Clement itself must have dealt with the same issue, the document can scarcely be dated to the time of the first Christian generation. Other indications of lateness include the tradition in chapter 5 that Paul traveled to the extremities of the west (i.e., Spain) and the emphasis on the appointment of "bishops and deacons" (42:1-5). Most notably, there is stated to be "a rule of succession" for bishops and deacons who have "fallen asleep" (44:2). This suggests a second century date for 1 Clement.

Again, not to belabor the point, but 140 is the era of Marcion.

Ignatius is even worse. Scholars are still arguing about the authenticity of his so-called epistles in addition to their dating.

http://historical-jesus.info/ignatius.html

As the conclusion of this points out, the studies of Ignatius' letters date from the 1870's and 1880's and all by devout churchie types and are in serious need of an update. Carrier writes (pg 315-16) of Ignatius:

Quote:Those letters survive. If tradition were correct about how they were produced, then this would be the next earliest datable Christian writing after 1 Clement (outside the NT).44 However, almost every single element of this tradition has been challenged by modern scholars, many of whom do not believe Ignatius wrote these letters, or that they were written so early, or even in the circumstances assumed.

We desperately need someone to go after this stuff.

So putting much stock in any of these writings, edited and forged as they were over the centuries as church doctrine evolved, seems pretty pointless. I do agree with your conclusion. There were lots of xtian (or perhaps chrestian) sects around, all with their own traditions - Pliny seems to have run into one such group in Asia Minor c 110 AD. Ehrman's Lost Christianities deals with the subject and the emergence of the proto-orthodox and their subsequent re-writing of church history to make it come out the way they like.

If you want to read it, I have an electronic copy. PM an email address and I'll send it to you.[/quote]

Thanks Min, there's actually a few Ehrman books I plan to get next year that I hear are very good, including Lost Christianities, Forged, and The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. I would take you up on the PM but I much prefer to read hard copies (and have them on my shelf)...actually, I will never convert to electronic books!

I can't argue with your claims because I'm simply not edumacated enough. Just last month I read Earl Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle, Bart Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?, and Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth, edited by Frank Zindler and Robert Price, and I discovered just how much of a cobweb it is to really dig deep into all of the issues involved in coming to an informed opinion about the historicity of Jesus, much less the other figures that wrote on him. I suppose the initial skepticism (I'm sure I've said this before, but it will probably be my view until I--if I--get around to exploring the topic further) I have in dismissing the legitimacy of certain characters and a "standard" dating of their works, such as those we've touched upon (Paul, Clement, Ignatius), is that even the majority of secular academics (such as the Jesus Seminar--remember when they were all the rage?) seem to find such claims to be extreme, and these are people who aren't particularly favorable to orthodoxy.

---

On another note, whether it's fair to judge it this way or not (okay, it's not, but in terms of perception), I did feel that the mythicist case received a major boost when Thomas L. Brodie came out in support. You might know about him, but for those who don't, he's a practicing Catholic priest in the Dominican order (you can imagine how that went over).

I used to prefer books, too. Until my eyes started getting cranky. Now I find that the lighting on my tablet is much superior to lighting from lamps and the ability to adjust the font size is a major upgrade.

Just one more observation on the point I think you were making.

The story - and I mean "story" - that the church tells would have us believe that ole jesus gets whacked somewhere between 29-36 and then 'paul' comes along at some time thereafter - a really shaky story and anything based on Acts of the Apostles is almost certainly total horseshit.
He runs around starting churches in the 50's AD and within a hundred years there are all these 'heresies' breaking out which later proto-orthodox writers have to denounce. With me so far?

Carrier's point is that the earliest xtian sects were mystery cults. They had no written canon until Marcion came along and again, Marcion was 'paul's' champion and there would not have been anything in there that Marcion did not want there. Did Marcion write 'paul?' We'll never know.
But the other xtian sects were indistinguishable from the other mystery cults which were rampant at the time: Mithraism, Isis, Cybele, Dionysius, Eleusinian, etc. Knowledge was communicated orally, from
Master to initiate. As the initiates learned they moved up the scale.

Now, what is more likely: That there was some monolithic church which fragmented within a century into all of these differing..and generally regional...heresies? Or, that there was a widespread Hellenistic cult - perhaps centered in the lower classes - devoted to someone who bore the title of Christos...or Chrestus. Later, one of these groups attained a measure of political power and moved to suppress all the others in the interests of goose-stepping to a common goal?

It's funny how Paul forgeries are not even forgeries of Paul, but whoever was pretending to be Paul by what you say. Pretending to be the guy pretending to be Paul.

Haha. Evidence dismissed.

Tricky technical question there.

Did Charles Dickens "forge" David Copperfield because he chose to write it in the first person?

Quote: CHAPTER 1. I AM BORN

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

We simply cannot know the intent of an ancient author. There was a 4th century "Acts of Pilate." Was this a forgery? Modern scholars agree that it is but this assumes an intent to defraud. We simply do not know if the author said "I'll write this piece of shit and pass it off as real" or, if he said, "if Pilate had written a report, what might he have said?" That subsequent purveyors of xtian bullshit tried to portray it as real does not reflect on the original author's motives but their own or their ignorance as in the case of the Shroud of Turin.

This began its existence as a rather gaudy exhibit at a Passion Play in medieval France. Centuries later, after it had faded to virtually nothing it got its picture taken and some jackass looked at the negative and said "THERE'S JESUS!" This does not reflect on the original artist and only shows that the photographer was a moron.

Carrier is another guy who's books I'd like to get into at some point. He's definitely a smart fellow. In terms of the mystery cults, what we know about them, and Marcion's role in shaping 'mainstream' Christian thought, how much of this is based on hard evidence--that is , direct sources--rather than speculation and theorizing?

Sadly what we mainly know of them comes from the denunciations of later xtian propagandists.

Still, there is little reason to think that they misrepresented their positions because no matter what they were they were going to denounce them. The whole point of writing a denunciation of heresy is to point out the flaws in their argument and how your bullshit is so much better than their own. We see drippy ineptly trying to do this on a daily basis.

What would be the point today of writing a piece which denounces the "jews" for butt-fucking children in their convents? The jews would simply say, "what is this meshuggah jackass talking about? We don't have convents." And they would be right. But if you substitute catholic for jew then you have something which needs to be defended.

So when the Heresiologists wrote that the docetists did not believe in the actual crucifixion or the Ebionites were being denounced for only using gMatthew and rejecting "paul" - again, late 2d century writers at the earliest - there is no reason to doubt they are speaking the truth otherwise their targets would say "get the fuck out of here...." or words to that effect.

I believe the phrase is "go forth and multiply".