mountainman

Hereticism as a reasonable position on the HJ

One reasonable position that is based on the pattern of available evidence which one may adopt on the Historical Jesus, is hereticism. That is, Jesus and the christian cult was invented and the fabrication of the "universal christian church history" (for which we can find no corroborating evidence for outside of Eusebius) is a common fiction.

Hereticism appears to have been a widely held and very contraversial position shared by many figures in the 4th century. Absense of orthodoxy prior to the 4th century leads the heretic to be highly skeptical of the orthodox heresiological accounts of heretics any earlier.

The motto for the 21st century heretic and infidel who finds Jesus best assessed to be ahistorical fictional, can be adequately borrowed from any of the five sophisms of Arius of Alexandria. For example .... "He was made from nothing existing".

jgoodguy

IMHO the gospel story of the Christ is fiction written and edited for the Catholic Church as an instrument of state as well as faith. For me, as a rather agnostic HJer, the question is was there a historical figure whose life or actions were the spark that started Christianity even if he and his beliefs would be heretical a few centuries later.

Toto

The idea that Constantine or Eusebius invented the gospel story is your own invention. There is no support for it.

You are just wrong. You are misinterpreting Arius. Arius was heretical because he did not believe that the Son was the same as the Father - he believed that Jesus was born at a particular point in history, before which Jesus did not exist.

We have had this discussion before. You were wrong then and you are still wrong. Why are you pulling this again?

Juststeve

Toto:

Other than the prologue to the Gospel Of John do you think Jesus' preexistence is taught anywhere else in the N.T Canon?

Steve

Toto

Don't change the subject.

We're not talking about the NT Canon here. Arius' statement has to be read in the context of Catholic orthodoxy in the 4th century.

Pete has been misinterpreting Arius' statement for years to claim that Arius claimed that Jesus was invented in the 4th century, when Arius was only claiming that Jesus was not preexistent.

Pete has no support for this misreading. I have no more patience for it.

stephan huller

And to Steve's point - yes there are earlier sources for the ideas in the prologue. Philo of Alexandria. I am not even so sure that the intro to John wasn't a part of the other gospel traditions as well. It is such a beautiful bit of writing. I strongly suspect the words were present in the Marcionite gospel. The bit about the word becoming flesh in a text called the besora - especially if the ideas were originally written in Aramaic - provides a proper context for the name of the work 'the gospel (besorah) of Jesus.'

The earliest Diatessaron traditions have Mark 1:1 followed by John 1:1. I think that is how the earliest gospels appeared. I don't think the words of the prologue were exclusively 'Johannine.' I think they were common to a number of gospel traditions

Littlejohn

"..which one may adopt on the Historical Jesus, is hereticism.."

It's surely a step forward (so much forward!) compared to the inconclusive position which it claims the 'fictional' nature by Jesus of Nazareth. However, this position should be corrected firmly.

In fact, for 'Hereticism' you must to mean the position of those who had much in common with 'orthodox' catholicism, but differed from it about some aspects that forger fathers affirmed to be irreconcilable with their teaching, and to which they wanted not give up(*).

For 'heretical' literature, should be understood only the one defined 'apocryphal'. Nor the 'montanism' also, to which Tertullian eventually join, can be considered a heresy of Catholicism, because it was a variant of the classic jesuan gnosticism, which had many aspects, since those who gave birth to the various gnostic-jesuan sects, knew a different Jesus each other. As just one example, the roman gnostics, followers by Jesus, knew him not as 'Iesous', an attribute that was given to him in the ionian Greek (now western Turkey), but with the attribute CHRESTO (or ' Chrestos', or 'Chrestus').

Quite different was the case of the Gnosticism (**), which, in practice, was a religion unto itself and that was not a heresy of orthodox Catholicism (something that many scholars have only recently begun to 'perceive')

And it is just in the gnostic 'milieu' that it is to be researched the historical Jesus. Outside of that context he is not found! ..

The fact that about three centuries later the begin of the exegesis by the New Testament on scientific-rational basis, it have not been yet revealed the true origin of the catholic-christianity, nor the true historical profiles of the characters involved in the evangelic story, is clearly there to show it...

"...That is, Jesus and the christian cult was invented..."

Here we go again ....

To demonstrate that the catholic-christian worship is the result of astonishing lies, puzzling deceits and endless historical mystifications, it is necessary groped, against all logic, to prove that Jesus never existed ??... This is really incomprehensible ....

Among other things, this is true 'self-harm', since to the forger clergy it does extremely comfortable that on the network one talks about a fictional Jesus, never existed, rather than you go to 'dig' at home of the Vatican, seeking for embarrassing buried 'skeletons'....


Greetings

___________________________________

Notes:

(*) - One thing that has many points of convergence with such an aspect, is the question about the 'minim' (heretics) and 'notzrim' (Nazarenes), as found in the Talmud and other rabbinical literature. The modern catholic apologists, no less counterfeiters than those who preceded them in centuries past, trying 'desperately' to do believe that with these words, the rabbis would have meant, in practice, the same thing: BUT IT IS NOT SO'!!. .. Behind such an aspect, highly ambiguous, lies one of the truths, between the one most burning, which you find to the origins of the catholic-christianity

(**) - obviously the one 'jesuan', parallel, till to a certain extent, to the one johannite and to the ebionite one by James the 'minor 'or 'the Just', which, in practice, inherited the leadership of the survivors of the sect by John the Baptist: ones, that is, who did not flee beyond the borders of Palestine.


Littlejohn

.

mountainman

The idea that there was no historical Jesus is common to a number of positions, not just the radical position which I have been testing. We have only to go back to the chart of the various non historical Jesus options presented below to see this state of affair quite plainly:

The following data has been taken from the last 4 (of 8) original options listed at
R.G. Price's Jesus Myth Spectrum


HERETICISM: Theories which entertain the hypothesis that the HJ (historical jesus) never existed


[T2]{r:bg=lightgray}{c:bg=slategray;ah=center}Type of NON HISTORICAL Jesus
|
{c:ah=center}Status
|
{c:ah=center}Gospel Characteristics
|
{c:ah=center}Description of the Type
|
{c:ah=center}Published Proponents
|
{c:ah=center}#
||
{c:bg=RoyalBlue}Anecdotal Jesus
|
Mythical Jesus - A Collection of Anecdotes
|
The Gospels are mostly fabricated stories inspired by a real person or persons from a spectrum of time from events as far back as 200 years before the supposed life of Jesus.
|
Over time stories were put together that cobbled various political events and persons into a single "Jesus Christ" figure. The events and teachings in the Gospels are mythologized, but based on real-life events that took place over time and were done by a person or various people. The Gospels come almost entirely from legends and scriptures, but are still based on the actions of some real people, without which the story of Jesus would never have come into existence.
|
Earl Doherty (?) and a few others
|
[5]
||
{c:bg=RoyalBlue}*Completely* Fabricated
|
Fabricated Jesus - using Jewish cults
|
The Gospels are completely fabricated stories based on scripture, legends, and the mystical beliefs of existing Jewish cults
|
There is no human figure at the center of the Gospel stories at all. The Gospels were generally written in the same manner that most scholars claim, during the late 1st century to early 2nd century, but there is no person at the core of them, whether all of the writers themselves knew it or not
|
R.G. Price
|
[6]
||
{c:bg=RoyalBlue}*Completely* Fabricated
|
Fabricated Jesus - using Pagan cults
|
The Gospels are completely fabricated stories based on pagan myths about figures such as Dionysus and Mithras.
|
The Gospels were written by directly mixing Jewish and non-Jewish religions and beliefs into stories that borrow from both traditions. The meaning of the Gospels has been largely lost and generally has little to do with Judaism.
|
Perhaps Acharya?
|
[7]
||
{c:bg=RoyalBlue;ah=center}Imperial Pious Forgery
|
Fabricated Jesus - by imperial fraud
|
The Gospels are completely fabricated stories that were intentionally crafted to deceive people, and there is no historical person at their core
|
The Gospels were really written anywhere from the 2nd century to the 4th century and much of early Christian history has been fabricated. The writers of the Gospels knew that there was no Jesus and the whole crafting of the religion was part of a political tool by Roman Emperors or others of a similar kind.
|
Francesco Carotta, Joe Atwill, You-Know-Who
|
[8]
[/T2]


None of the above theories concede the historical existence of any HJ, and as a direct consequence of this fact, they may be categorised as "heretical" with respect to the HJ.


What sort of "crystal ball" are you looking at?

I have the right to put forward and defend with reference to the evidence my interpretation of the historical figure of Arius of Alexandria. I object to your authoritarian position, which appears to blindly follow without any leeway or critical or skeptical questioning, the history of Arius of Alexandria through the Council of Nicaea and through the resultant "Arian Controversy", as reported by the three continuators of the orthodox victorious "state religion" over one century after the events. FYI these three "historians" after "Eusebius" are: Socrates, Sozomenus and Theodoretus.

The OP here concerns the reasonableness of "hereticism" as a position on the historical Jesus, and in the presentation of the above tabulated data, everyone can immediately perceive that this position is shared by a spectrum of various theories, ranging between "mythicism" (as championed by Earl Doherty) and "pious fraud" (see above).


Has to be read in this context ......... ?
My, that's a bit strong dont you think ?

Catholic orthodoxy is celebrated from the council of Nicaea 325 CE which according to many reports was specifically convened on account of the words of Arius.

mountainman

No. I reject this luke-warm approach. What I mean by hereticism is the simple hypothesis that there was never any historical jesus who lived on planet Earth in the 1st century of the CE. I subscribe to this position, and will defend it as a reasonable position to hold with respect to the hypothesis of the historical jesus.

mountainman

When this question is assessed and then answered in the negative, we arrive at the classification of "Christian belief" best described as "hereticism". If you wish to answer the question with a "maybe" then you "maybe embracing hereticism". This position of "maybe" is - yes - kind of like agnosticism.

But the OP here is not about "maybes". The OP position here is arguing that it is entirely reasonable that there was never any Historical Jesus in the first place. I have listed a rangle of theories subscribing to this "hereticism" in the above table. I am arguing that this position is a reasonable position to hold.