avi

Thaank you MaryHelena
much apapreciated

avi

avi

.

Stephan: Isn't that the whole point of this forum, to challenge the prevailing interpretation?

avi

stephan huller

Avi

Of course it's fun to speculate but there's so much we don't know about earliest Christianity why fuck around with the things we know with absolute certainty. The Catholics never claimed that Paul wrote a gospel. They also said that Luke was Paul's gospel (though written by a disciple). The Marcionites said that he wrote and believed in just one gospel. What you are proposing doesn't fit anywhere

If Irenaeus could have said everyone always used four gospels he would have said so. He couldn't because he wouldn't have been believed. There were limits to his ability to make up stuff. This is encouraging for us because after fumbling in the dark this represents an “edge” to the proverbial table

mountainman

Who can resist such a forceful argument from the authority of absolute certainty? What things do we know about early christianity with absolute certainty apart from the fact that we have no evidence for it?



Did the "scriptures" become the "4 gospels" when Diocletian read them and formed the Tetrarchy?

"The Leadership of Four" became a novel political reality in the Roman Empire. Diocletian had obviously read the four gospels and decided to model the Roman political and military state on the model of the leadership of four. Is that possible?



Did the "scriptures" become the "4 gospels" by dismissing the earlier Pauline Forgeries?

One might also answer this question by examining the problems of "Acts" and "Paul's Letters", which when are removed from the new testament essentially only leaves the four gospels. We dont know how old the controversy really is over the forgeries of the Pauline sections of the NT. We do know that the forged correspondence between Paul and Senecca may not have assisted "Paul", and we know this correspondence was probably fabricated in the 4th century.



Did the "scriptures" become the "4 gospels" by the invention of the "Canon Tables"?

Another way to approach this question is to understand that the "Eusebian Canon Tables" were specifically designed for the 4 gospels and did not include "Paul". The reason for this is usually that the 4 gospels authors are generally considered to be the "four independent eyewitnesses" in the Roman Law Court of antiquity, who could stand and up and say they personally knew the historical Jesus person. For that reason, these were considered the PRIMARY CORE. The Gospel canon tables present a WHO SAID WHAT and WHO AGREED WITH WHO and HOW MANY AGREED WITH WHO, etc, etc. Sort of a ready reckoner for what really happened.

Perhaps then the "scriptures" became the 4 gospels when the "Gospel Canon Tables" were designed and invented and laboriously compiled for the edification of textual pundits. We can see that these things were one of the earliest "meta-layers" invented by early christians in regard to the books of the new testament.

Eusebius says this happened in the 2nd or 3rd century, by one of the two Ammonias Saccas's who are known to the classicial (i.e. not "Biblical") historians to have existed at that specific time.

maryhelena

So, all of *us*, everyone of us, is going to rise after three days - with some type of halfway house healing on the second day? Well, now, it seems that this little prophecy is a bit of a let down...

Stephan, reality must kick in somewhere along the line with all this interpretation of OT ideas etc. And no, your position that one should not try to 'figure things out' for oneself will simply get the short shift such an admonition deserves.

Anyway, since there was no historical gospel JC, the whole 3 days in the grave scenario is obsolete as to having any literal significance. On the other hand, if one wants to go the symbolic numbers route - well them, there might be more to gain from the resurrection storyline. At least this way, god is not some Johnny come lately but the god of the twinkling of an eye...:blush:

Philo

gurugeorge

Ah, but is it? There are other alternatives as I've pointed out. It looks like orthodoxy, realising that Paul talking about the gospels doesn't make sense, made him out to be talking about prophecies of their Jesus in the OT.

i.e. they made Paul out to be saying "the OT prophesied this recently-deceased Messiah whom some of us knew personally"

But what if he was actually saying "the OT tells us that the Messiah has already been" without that being a reference to a recently-deceased putative Messiah claimant some of the people he was talking to knew personally? i.e. just as a revisioning of the Messiah myth itself, got from poring over scripture and having visionary experiences?

And this was misinterpreted at first (at a much later time) as referring to the gospels (as Scripture), and then later revised again to refer to the OT as prophesying the orthodox Jesus?

Consider the general weight and tone of the Messiah myth at that time (AFAIK): he was a spiritual being to some extent, but he was much more of a military, kingly leader who would put the Jews on top. i.e. the myth was that "someone will come" who is like that.

The orientation is towards the future.

If you read Paul the way I'm suggesting, what it looks like is you've got a small cult who has a revisionist idea of the Messiah myth itself - they're saying "don't expect him to come, he's already been; don't expect him to be a military victor, he was a spiritual victor".

If I'm right, it's a curious, knife-edge irony on which almost the whole of this history has been balanced: what was initially a revision of a myth (placing the mythic entity in the past rather than the future) eventually came to be believed as the historical fulfillment of the older form of the myth.

Doug Shaver

I've told you why I think not.

stephan huller

But this is the danger of having an emotional attachment to the subject matter. The pious are ever defending; the 'mythicists' (aka atheists) are ever attacking. Why does it matter if the ancient Christians believed the world was flat? If there were some passage in the letter of Peter which said 'and furthermore Christ came down into the flat earth ..." we should smile and move on. We're trying to understand the way they thought. We are trying to figure out the way all the pieces fit together. When we put our 'scholar's hat' on all our needs and desires should be left at the door. Otherwise we end up imitating a modern evangelical minister or worse yet Pete where all the evidence is marshalled according to an already established agenda.

It's like trying to have an affair with the lady that cleans your house and have her still function in a purely professional manner. It ain't going to happen. Once you open the door to emotions it is difficult to close that door. We have to decide what we are attempting to accomplish (i.e. defend, attack or understand).

maryhelena

:banghead:

stephan huller

The point is that I get the feeling that you and your ilk only take an interest in early Christianity in order to prove how stupid they were.