JoeWallack

JW:
As that great 20th century philosopher, Kramer, would say, "Uh, bingo!". I have not put the Timelion completely together yet in The Tale Wagging The Dogma. Which "Mark" Wrote "Mark"? A Dear John Letter but this is what it is looking like regarding claimed Source of witness to Jesus, Revelation verses Historical:

c. 50. All Revelation.

Emphasis on the Impossible - Sacrificial atonement and resurrection. Note that the starting point for Christianity here, the Impossible, Requires a Revelation source. It can not have a Historical source. No mention of historical disciples.

c. 90. All Revelation. No change from c. 50

1st century is all Revelation, emphasis of Impossible and no claim of Historical witness. Note that for 1st century if there was HJ c. 30, than there would have been decent HJ witness for two generations (those who knew HJ and those who knew someone who knew HJ). While HJ witness exists it is not used by Christians because it does not support Paul's Assertians.

c. 100. All Revelation. No change from c. 50

c. 110. Toned down Revelation.

Peter is mentioned, not as Disciple but with implication of historical witness. Start of movement to Historical claim. Something is happening here. Introduction of distinction between orthodox and Gnostic Christians.

Development of Peter/Historical witness -

1) An Apostle

2) Jesus' Passion had historical witness

3) Birth is added to Doctrines of Passion and Resurrection

4) Doctrine of virginity of Mary added

c. 125. Transition from Revelation to Historical.

Competing claims between orthodox and Gnostics.

Development of Peter as Historical witness

1) There were 12 historical disciples

2) There are HJ Sayings

3) A Gospel exists (unnamed)

4) Peter was the source for Sayings of Jesus

c. 135. Emphasis on Historical witness.

Orthodox and Gnostics agree that there was historical witness. Disagreement is whether historical witness understood Jesus. Gnostics say no, so Revelation is still required.

c. 145. Emphasis on Historical witness.

Continued Assertian that Peter was Historical witness but no established doctrine of specific and authoritative Petrine document. First claim that Peter and all the disciples wrote a Gospel.

We can see the gradual development here of orthodox claims of Peter as Historical witness to Jesus:

1) Revelation from Paul. Peter is ignored.

2) Development of Doctrine. Passion and Resurrection.

3) Assertian that there was Historical witness as supplement to Revelation.

4) Assertian that there were Disciples.

5) Assertian that Disciples were Historical witness.

6) Assertian that Peter was a Disciple and Historical witness.

7) Assertian that Historical witness documented Jesus.

8) Assertian of HJ Sayings.

9) Assertian that Peter documented HJ Sayings.

10) Historical witness from Peter. Paul ignored/minimized.

This leads us up to the time of Justin Martyr, c. 155, who reflects an orthodox Christianity that asserts that Gospels exist which are historical witness to Jesus and that Peter has contributed (but is unaware of the author "Mark") and makes no mention of Paul. His clear competition is Marcion who accepts that a Gospel exists which documents historical witness but still accepts the Revelation of Paul as necessary to understand what historical witness did not understand. Marcion is likewise unaware of the author "Mark".



Joseph

gurugeorge

No more than you do with Justin.

And you have denied his existence partly on the basis of internal (i.e cultic) evidence - Justin's non-mention of "Paul".

As spamandham says, it's all grist for the mill, and everything has to be looked at and weighed. There's a slight distinction between internal and external evidence (cults are prone to lie and exaggerate), but it doesn't bear all that much weight (lying and exaggeration can usually be seen through, and there's likely to be some truth excavatable from cultic documents). One approaches every bit of evidence with neutrality - it might be lying, or it might not. How one judges whether to accept or not is partly based on one's over-arching proposed story.

Why work this way? Because, as I said, there's no reason to expect the existent evidence to be sufficient, to be representative (some traces might have disappeared or be inaccessible - e.g. eroded or still buried in jars in the desert).

gurugeorge

Provisionally happy with some of it.

All textual evidence is subjective, in that it's all from someone's point of view.

Don't be silly, what possible external evidence could there be for personal revelation or visionary experience?

gurugeorge

Great stuff. I'm glad to see that my independent investigations tally with yours.

It's really all just a curious accident, partly the result of "political" machinations within the early Church.

A detail that's particularly interesting to me that you seem to be starting to fill in is the question of when the idea crept into early Christian thought that the early apostles, or some of them, had eyeballed the cult figure personally. I think it must have been a gradual, at first an innocent collapsing of the ambiguity of "onomai" in 1 Corinthians 15 in favour of the "seen literally" direction - i.e. at first it's just a post-Diaspora variant interpretation of the myth, but eventually the "political" advantage of claiming a (in fact spurious) lineage back to people-who-eyeballed is grasped and taken advantage of.

I think one major key in all this is the speech by "Peter" in the "Kerygmata Petrou" about how eyeballing trumps visionary experience. That's the nub of the thing right there, the tail that wags the dog.

In fact, I may or may not have mentioned this elsewhere, but I think the "Kerygmata" was of the same "genre" as Acts - perhaps an attempt by a more Jewish-oriented Roman faction to present an Acts-like pseudo-history, or possibly a proposed and rejected alternative to Acts, or a portion thereof.

aa5874

[QUOTE=gurugeorge;5649472]Please tell spamandham that his idea was silly. "Paul's revelations cannot be judged objectively without some external evidence.

Now, if there is no known evidence of Paul himself, and his so-called leters have manipulated, forged, or have been written deliberately to distort the history and identification of Paul, then it is not really known what Paul's gospel was.

gurugeorge

That's not what spamandham was saying - he said that internal evidence can be objectively judged, i.e. that you can tease out facts from internal evidence. Sometimes people let slip little details referring to objective facts that can be checked (e.g. linguistic usages or doctrinal propositions that could only have come into existence at a certain time, or incidental references to facts otherwise known to be historically true, which can help date the text). This is irrespective of whether or not the main "entity" spoken of can be shown externally to have existed.

But the idea that whether or not someone had a visionary experience can be checked objectively is ludicrous. Such things are totally subjective. All that can be checked objectively is such things as I mention above - e.g. if the revelation contains points of doctrine that we know from other sources could only have come into being at a certain time (i.e. the visionary experience used a certain language and imagery that is known from other sources to have come into usage at a certain time).

aa5874

You seem not to understand the difference between accepting Justin writings as true and highlighting the contradictions or difference in his writings to other church writers.

For example, Justin only quoted from writings the memoirs of the apostles and claimed that they were read in the churches, however Irenaeus later claimed that the gospels were written and known to have been written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Whether Justin is true or Irenaeus is, these differences are too blantant to be ignored. Therefore, I cannot just accept one and reject the other.

gurugeorge

Exactly - but the only basis on which you can judge is on the basis of your over-arching theory. I believe this is where you are going wrong - you seem to think that evidence dictates theory. It's completely the other way round. Theory dictates what counts as evidence.

Now you have a theory at the back of your mind just like everyone else, according to which you see some things as evidence-for and other things as evidence-against; but you seem to be unaware that this is what you are doing and you think you are letting the evidence dictate.

spamandham

I agree as well, good stuff. Joe's timeframes and sequence roughly match what seems to me to be the most probable history as well.

The things I would add though, are the motives for turning Jesus into a historical figure, and some clarification on Paul. The historical Jesus movement may have started in reaction to the fall of the temple, and strengthened for political purposes through the Hadrianic war. What better way to motivate the Jews to fight the Roman Goliath than to convince them the messiah had already come and would return just in time?

After that 2nd defeat, Rome probably rewrote the movement (why on earth wouldn't they? why couldn't they?). I think that's why the canon we have today is so Rome-friendly, something that otherwise makes little sense.

I also don't think Paul, per se, is a historical figure. Detering makes a compelling argument in that regard, IMHO.

spamandham

I suppose since I consider your approach absurd, it doesn't bother me if you think my ideas are silly. Still, it would be nice to know which idea you're referring to.