Iasion

Greetings Student Don,


Actually,
on Celsus - I can see that Hoffman's reconstruction is rather, er, controversial

My quoting his words of Celsus' is not very scholarly - I will leave Hoffman out of it from now on and try to argue directly from Origen etc.

Nonetheless,
I think it is excessive to say that Hoffman "changed the meaning completely".

According to the words of Origen -

"And since Celsus has introduced the Jew disputing with Jesus, and tearing in pieces, as he imagines, the fiction of His birth from a virgin, comparing the Greek fables... "

Celsus' Jew (literary device?) attacked the virgin birth story as fiction,
and compared them to Greek myths.

The meaning is not "completely changed" - Celsus criticised the virgin birth story as fiction and compared it to pagan virgin birth myths.

So,
while it is true that Hoffman's words are "fiction" (it is a reconstruction after all), I do not believe it is true to say he "completely changes around the meaning".

Note that while Roger Pearse criticises my excerpts of Hoffman's reconstruction as being not the WORDS of Celsus - he says nothing about whether the MESSAGE was wrong (that the virgin birth was fiction, like similar myths.) I think this shows that Hoffman's meaning was accurate, even if the words were artificial.


What do YOU think these words of Origen tell us about Celsus' critique?


As for the vexed subject of M.Felix -
Yes, he argues at length about the cross - yes, the cross seems to have been important to Felix (c.f. Clement's and Paul's odd comments about the cross), BUT -

He specifically tells us they DON'T worship a criminal crucified on a cross, but does NOT in any way go on to explain that Jesus WAS crucified, but wasn't a criminal - his denial of the incarnation further makes it clear there is NO crucifixion of a person in his beliefs.

No, I think M.Felix (like Athenagoras and Theophilus) is one of those of odd cases of an early Christian who did not believe in Jesus at all - even though he had heard the stories.


Iasion

Iasion

Greetings Don,

On Porphyry,
the words are from another Hoffman reconstruction from Macarius Magnes,

and the Julian quote
comes from Thomas Taylor's reconstruction based on Cyril of Alexandria,


I'll see if I can get to the original sources for these quotes.



Cites of sceptics -

* preachers of "OTHER Christs"

Whoops, sorry -
Paul - 2 Cor. 11 warns of those who preach "another Jesus"


* some who deny the incarnation and/or resurrection -

M.Felix denies the incarnation - "Men who have died cannot become gods, because a god cannot die; nor can men who are born (become gods) ... Why, I pray, are gods not born today, if such have ever been born?" (Octavius Ch.23)

Hegesippus, late 2nd century reports sects that did not believe in the resurrection (nor possibly the incarnation) - " But the sects before mentioned did not believe, either in a resurrection or in the coming of One to requite every man according to his works; "

Marcion and Valentinus and Basilides, in mid 2nd century, claimed Jesus was a phantom or spiritual entity, and not born of Mary : “Marcion, I suppose, took sound words in a wrong sense, when he rejected His birth from Mary...� (Origen, On John 10, 4)
“...they deny ... His humanity, and teach that His appearances to those who saw Him as man were illusory, inasmuch as He did not bear with Him true manhood, but was rather a kind of phantom manifestation. Of this class are, for example, Marcion and Valentinus� (Hippolytus, Dogmatical Treatise, Fragments, 10)

Simon and Cleobius, according to The Acts of Paul : “For there were certain men come to Corinth, Simon and Cleobius, saying: There is no resurrection of the flesh, but that of the spirit only: ... and that Jesus Christ was not crucified, but it was an appearance (i.e. but only in appearance), and that lie was not born of Mary, nor of the seed of David.�

Sadducees, doubted the resurrection (according to Tertullian in early 3rd century) : "Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, sets his mark on certain who denied and doubted the resurrection. This opinion was the especial property of the Sadducees.� (Against Heretics Ch.33)


(* those who claim the Gospels were fiction -
Celsus, Porphry - discussed elsewhere)


* those who follow a Christianity without a Jesus -
Theophilus, Athenagoras, Minucius Felix, Epistle to Diognetus, Address to Greeks (attr. Tatian)


* those who deny Jesus "came in the flesh"

2 John 1:7 warns of those who don't "acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh".

Polycarp's epistle refers to those who do not agree Jesus came in the flesh : "For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist"


* those who claim Jesus was a phantom -

Marcion et al - “...they deny ... His humanity, and teach that His appearances to those who saw Him as man were illusory, inasmuch as He did not bear with Him true manhood, but was rather a kind of phantom manifestation. Of this class are, for example, Marcion...� (Hippolytus, Dogmatical Treatise, Fragments, 10)

Basilides, in mid 2nd century, denied Jesus was really crucified, and the physical resurrection : "Christ sent, not by this maker of the world, but by the above-named Abraxas; and to have come in a phantasm, and been destitute of the substance of flesh: that it was not He who suffered among the Jews, but that Simon was crucified in His stead: whence, again, there must be no believing on him who was crucified, lest one confess to having believed on Simon. Martyrdoms are not to be endured. The resurrection of the flesh he strenuously impugns, affirming that salvation has not been promised to bodies" (Tertullian, Heresies, Appendix, Ch.1)


* those who claim Jesus was a spiritual entity (much like the above) -

Axionicus and Bardesanes, in mid 2nd century "...assert that the body of the Saviour was spiritual" (Hippolytus, Heresies 6, Ch.30)


Iasion

Ted Hoffman

GakuseiDon,
This question does not merit a response so I will ignore it. If you want to make an argument regarding a HJ being mythicised, make it and I shall gladly take it apart.

1. Richard Carrier, gives Plutarch's description of the realm where the Gods dwelt from On Isis and Osiris, and Plutarch says the realm was:
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...uspuzzle.shtml

2. In Sumerian stone tablets, we learn that the goddess Inanna descended from Heaven, past earth, down into Hell, crossing seven gates there - where she got killed by a demon and after three days and three nights had passed, she got resurrected - christ-like. You can get this story from Samuel Kramer's, History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Man's Recorded History.
These myths/Legends were an expression of the worldview of the ancients - they believed the universe was made up of layers.

They believed that the "spheres" made up the universe and the sumerians/mesopotamians hankered and prayed for a reflection of heaven on earth. Mankind fell from the higher levels to abasement in the earth below (aeon-like). The Mesopotamian prayer phrase "as above, so below", expresses this idea, and in the Lord's prayer, we find probable remnants "...thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven".

In the platonic worldview, the around us is a reflection of (an)other perfect world(s)/truth where gods dwelt. The earth was the worst and was the lowest layer in a multi-layered universe.
Platonism influenced gnosticism and we see gnostic ideas in Paul's letters. Paul stated that he had died and resurrected with Jesus. Even in the manner Paul mapped the role earthly high priest to Jesus' role in heaven

Ted Hoffman

double post - sorry

GakuseiDon

It depends on what you are arguing. I agree that Celsus is skeptical of Christian claims about the virgin birth. (Editted to add: I see I've been misunderstanding your point here - yes, you are right)

In fact, he does. From here:
Note that he isn't saying, "we don't worship a person who was crucified", but that "we don't worship a criminal, or an earthly being, who was crucified". It seems an odd choice of words to use if he just wanted to deny the crucifixion. His answer matches the charge that was layed against Christians at the start of the apology: that Christians must be wicked because they worshipped "a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness".

I just don't see the evidence for it, I'm afraid, but I'm happy to agree to disagree.

GakuseiDon

Iasion, I appreciate the work you put in here. I think I misunderstood your original point, which was on people who raised questions about the nature of Christ. Blame it on battle fatigue! Yes, I agree with you. You have made your points well here.

GakuseiDon

Well, let's look at what Carrier quoted, and then let's look at it in context.

Carrier quoted, "Far removed from the earth, uncontaminated and unpolluted and pure from all matter that is subject to destruction and death...[where] he becomes the leader and king [of the souls of the dead and where] Isis pursues and is enamored and consorts with Beauty, filling our earth here with all things fair and good that partake of generation (382e-383a). ... For that part of the world which undergoes reproduction and destruction is contained underneath the orb of the moon, and all things in that are subjected to motion and to change (376d)."

So, the context of the first part is here - I've bolded where it matches Carrier's quote:
That's the first part. No-one denies that Osiris is the king of a non-earthly realm, but where is the "fleshy" sublunar realm? Since he is dwelling in a place "pure from all matter that is subject to destruction and death", I don't see how this helps you.

The second part of Carrier's quote comes from an earlier section in Plutarch's book, here:
Well, other than a reference to "moon", can you tell me how those things relate to a sublunar "fleshy" realm? And what the heck does "the rattle" have to do with it? (You've quoted Carrier, so I'm sure you can understand how the sentences in context relates to the topic).

And so...? Did they believe that Inanna physically appeared on Earth, or spiritually appeared?

OK.

The dilemma here, JA, is that if these beliefs were common among pagans, why did paganised Christians so quickly get Paul wrong? The problem is that neoplatonic views influenced Christianity for centuries afterwards, people like Origen and Augustine, and no-one seemed to pick up that they were getting Paul wrong in this platonic paganised environment.

Ted Hoffman

Gakusei,
Innana/Attis died. Death took place in a certain lower realm (close to the mortals). The gods did not dwell among men (mostly) - at least as per your quote. So to die for salvific purposes, they had to come down to lower realms in order to die - and sometimes, like Innana's case, we are told, she even passed earth on her way down to hell. Of course the concept created lots of confusion and the mechanism of this reincarnation, death and resurrection wasn't clear. This is evidenced by the multiplicity of sects around this issue - like docetism, Paul's Christ (another mixture), christ Logos, Marcionism, the Historical Jesus and so on and so forth.

The bottom line is, that a god/saviour figure died, does not necessarily entail that his death took place on earth.

"fleshly" is in reference to Paul's Kata sarka. It is not to be taken to mean earthly necessarily IMO.

Who got Paul wrong? (I mean, who are the paganized christians you are referring to?). If you are referring to the HJers, those are two strands of christianity and one came up on top: they never got him wrong. They were just different.

One can easily assume Gospal material into Paul's brand of Christianity, I would think they did that.

GakuseiDon

The point is, we know that because that's what the text says. It's unambiguous. People understand it. Yet somehow Paul leaves it any clear references to sublunar realms, such that the people following him have no idea that he was referring to such things, even though they were brought up in the same environment as Paul. It takes 1800 years for Paul's real meaning to be derived.

JA, you're just restating what you've already asserted.

Was there a lot of confusion among the early sects about the nature of Christ? Let's look at some of the early sects, and what they believed about Jesus:

Pauline Christology: what Paul believed is the crucial point, but certainly his successors (e.g. Corinth church) seemed to believe in a HJ.
Docetists, Marcionists: they believed in a HJ, just one that wasn't born through flesh.
Ebionites: believed in a HJ that was born of normal parents

Now, you add the sects that believed in a MJ.

OK.

The ones I am referring to: Papias, the Christians referred to by Tacitus, Justin Martyr - in fact, all Christians everywhere seemed to have not understood that Christ didn't live on earth, despite a lot of them being exposed to the same environment of Paul.

By the way, could you explain those passages that Carrier quoted from, and their relevence to a "fleshy" sublunar realm? You said that they provided "proof of concept".

(Ed. I just noticed that the links I gave earlier don't work. This is the link to Section 5 of Plutarch for the first part of Carrier's quote: http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/e...Osiris*/E.html

This is the link to the second part (which is actually Section 4): http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/e...Osiris*/D.html)

Iasion

Greetings Aussie Student Don,

Thanks for your kind words

Re M.Felix again, I wrote -
"He specifically tells us they DON'T worship a criminal crucified on a cross, but does NOT in any way go on to explain that Jesus WAS crucified, but wasn't a criminal - his denial of the incarnation further makes it clear there is NO crucifixion of a person in his beliefs. "

You answered -
yes, he does, here :
"For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth, in thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to be believed God. "

I'm sorry, but you are mistaken - his words are clearly explaining why they don't worship a crucified criminal - because no criminal, or earthly being, deserves worship.


His words do NOT explain that Jesus wasn't a criminal,
his words do NOT say they worship Jesus,
he NEVER even uses the word Jesus ONCE in his entire book,
he NEVER mentions anything about Jesus or his actions.

But,
he DOES say they do NOT worship a crucified criminal,
he DOES say they do NOT worship an EARTHLY BEING.

How more obvious could it get?

That's what I consider the smoking gun -
M.Felix claiming NO "earthly being" deserves worship.

Iasion