Vorkosigan

Ditto for the HJ. Resolving these presuppositions is a thorny problem.

Notsri

Robert L. Thomas states:
From Doherty again:
.

Thomas has this to say:

Vorkosigan

Robert L. Thomas is a professor of NT with strongly conservative religious leanings. In fact, he is a Dispensationalist and the editor of a volume The Jesus Crisis: The Inroads of Historical Criticism into Evangelical Scholarship which regards modern critical historical methodologies as basically dangerous. Even evangelicals find his attacks a bit absurd. The original article is available here.

This passage is widely seen as interpolated by mainstream scholars (Thomas is confessionally constrained to regard this passage as non-interpolated. In discussions here at Infidels would be better to rely on scholars who do not have confessional axes to grind). Schnelle makes a much better argument for authenticity, without basing it on Acts, which is a heavily novelized and highly tendentious account of early Christian history. The accounts of Paul's conflicts with the Jews in Acts are apparently creations of a later age when the two sects were in far more bitter conflict with each other.

Vorkosigan

Amaleq13

I don't buy it. He names specific cities and specific individuals related to his own ministry quite often but never in relation to activities alleged to have taken place during Jesus' ministry.

He is either deliberately avoiding any reference or he has no knowledge of such.

Why would we? There is no reason to think that asserting a historical Jesus would constitute heresy since it would still include the fundamental belief in the significance of the sacrifice as well as the fundamental belief in that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. From the MJ position, asserting that the sacrifice took place at a specific time and place is superfluous but not contrary to the central beliefs. Who do you think MJers would consider "heretics"? It seems to me that anyone who did not share their beliefs wouldn't even consider themselves Christians.

You're ignoring my point and continuing to act as though denying historicity was something MJers would consider important. Historicity is irrelevant to MJ beliefs. There is no reason to assume they were asserting a non-historical Christ. If Doherty is correct, they were asserting nothing except belief in a sacrificed, Son-of-God, Messiah whose death held atoning significance for all believers. Explain why a Christian who also asserted a historical Jesus would have a problem with such beliefs.

Unless you can offer good reasons to date a text that contains explicit historical references before the Gospels, I don't see why this point is relevant. The pattern Doherty describes exists even if we stick with the generally agreed upon dates accepted by the majority of scholars.

As I've already pointed out, this is irrelevant since it is the presence/absence of historical references that is significant. It is, IMO, a legitimate complaint that Doherty is claiming support where it may not necessarily exist but that really doesn't say anything substantive about the thesis, itself.

That is a very relevant consideration but it makes me wonder why so little of the earlier material was preserved. Could it be because it contained beliefs that were later discarded (ie an explicitly spiritual sacrifice)?

Again, this is not necessarily favorable for your position. It is difficult for me to imagine that a collection of sayings actually spoken by Jesus Christ and obtained from his disciples or disciples of his disciples would not be carefully and faithfully preserved by early Christians if they were considered reliable. Frankly, what little we know of Papias makes me wonder if the majority of early Christians considered him no more reliable than I do.

Peter Kirby

Why think that early Christians didn't preserve it? It certainly survived down to Eusebius, who wrote in the fourth century. A 9th century interpolation into Codex Coislinianus 305 cites Papias on something not found in Eusebius (see here). A few even have hope that it is sitting uncatalogued on some library shelf or in an old private collection (an XTalk discussion had claims of early modern references as if extant).

best,
Peter Kirby

Amaleq13

The Gospels were preserved by early Christians because they were copied. Where are the copies of Papias collection of sayings? All we have are fragments reported by later writers and, apparently, the hope that a copy has somehow and somewhere managed to survive by luck.

They faithfully preserved anonymous stories written about Jesus but not a collection of sayings spoken by Jesus?

Peter Kirby

Your argument was that Papias wasn't copied by the early Christians. That was incorrect, as it survived down to the 4th century for sure and probably to the 9th, at the least, possibly more (there is no evidence for an upper bound). So the early Christians did propagate copies of Papias.

Obviously, Christian scribes copied what was significant to them. That usually meant the Bible. It could also include works such as Josephus, Plato, Homer, Eusebius, and Augustine. But the list of greek/latin books for which we have even a dozen complete mss. is short. It would not be far from the truth to say, for example, that Justin Martyr's apologetic work "survived by luck," as our only witnesses to it are one fourteenth century manuscript (Paris gr. 450) and a copy of it made in 1571. And this is fairly typical of works outside the Bible and a small academic canon (including such as Homer and the other authors above). Survival is the exception, not the rule.

best,
Peter Kirby

Ted Hoffman

GDon,
Amaleq
I disagree.

Indicators of Jesus Mythers/Non HJ

1. A pre-resurrected Jesus, in the form of a nameless god as we see in Phillipians and parts of AoI, is definitively a reflection of a MJ.

2. A primitive Christ or son of God, who is either an ever-present power as opposed to a man who died in the past like we see in 1 Clement, Shepherd of Hermas, Didache and Odes of Solomon.

3. Jesus who is definitively son of God and NOT son of man like we see in Epistle of Barnabas who also adds: "Jesus, [is] not a son of man, but the Son of God, and He was revealed in the flesh in a figure. Since then men will say that Christ is the son of David, David himself prophesieth being afraid and understanding the error of sinners; The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on My right hand until I set thine enemies for a footstool under Thy feet."
Barnabas, again doesn't mention Mary, Joseph, Pilate, Jerusalem etc.

4. Sole reliance on OT scriptures for God for God's message as opposed to Jesus' teachings on earth is a strong indicator of a non HJ like Paul and 2nd century christians unaware that Christ had a ministry on earth. If Xstianity sprung from Jesus' alleged movement (as per Funk's reverse Christology for example), this would be a very unlikely if not impossible phenomena. But it is RAMPANT in the second century.

5. Treating Christ's death and resurrection allegorically like Paul when he said he died and resurrected with Christ which means that the death and resurrection of Jesus, to Paul, were spiritual events, not historical ones.

If I had a copy of the Jesus Puzzle with me, I could have typed out that imaginary conversation Paul had with the early Christians that Doherty put in the appendix: it blows away this idea to smithereens. Could someone volunteer? I think its worth the effort because this argument has been parotted so many times that Doherty has even published a rebuttal to it!

Everyone's problem. When HJ proponents have a solution, wake me up.

True. And very good. What is the problem with that?
So, do you admit that "there suddenly seems to be this sudden increase in HJ details" from late 2nd C?

Papias is not a problem for JM hypothesis though he is an unreliable source.

Ted Hoffman

Magdalyn, regarding Pauline authorship of Hebrews, what arguments are used to dispute it? Have you acquainted yourself with the arguments pro and con? If so, please provide a brief summary of them.

Magdlyn

Yes, I have. As I understand it, the authorship of this booklet has been in dispute since the earliest centuries CE. It is now considered to be anonymous.

I think the essay prefacing Hebrews in the Oxford Annotated summarizes the question of authorship well, if briefly.

A Google will turn up even more info.

FWIW, Freke and Gandy seem to think Paul wrote it. That should be enough to make anyone here come down on the side of Barnabas or Priscilla!

cheers, Magdlyn