archibald

It is estimated that paul was fairly contemporary. Yes, he only drew on what he heard. And as regards his vision, it is my contention that he clearly describes what he saw as a vision of someone who had died. Or should I say, the extant text describes it that way.

It is my understanding that Ignatius' writings contain many of the same sayings that are in the gospels, so I am not sure if it is fair to say that he does not acknowkledge them. Here's some examples regarding Matthew:

http://www.textexcavation.com/ignatiusmatthew.html

If it is the case that he does not acknowledge them by name, then you will have to ask someone else why that is, since I don't know the answer, since I am not sure when it is likely they would have been available to him, given that they were not, as far as I know, centrally collected until a certain time.

I personally would not jump on Tacitus. I see it much as you say, evidence that there were early Christians in Rome, who, according to Tacitus' account, appeared to believe in an earthly Jesus. Tacitus wrote in 110CE, I think, though his account relates back to 64CE, and I believe it is possible to infer that his Christians may have been in Rome as early as 49CE. There is some debate, usually around Tacitus' likely sources, as to whether the Christians nearer the time of his writing believed the same basic thing (that Jesus had lived and died) as the earlier ones, but I do not think there is any good, evidenced-based reason to conclude that they had changed this fairly central view.

Within the terms in which we are operating (the objective study of ancient history) even the latest of those dates is fairly close to purported events. We surely cannot ask for more evidence that it is reasonable to expect in the circumstances?

There isn't, IMO, any one piece of 'killer' evidence. There is, I am suggesting, one which is a slightly better explanation for the overall pattern of pieces. At least, that is my position at this time.

It may be worth adding that my reading of Paul is that he was writing to early Christians in Rome about a Jesus who had lived and died. This in fact is what the extant text says. I do not yet prefer the 'lived and died in an upper realm' explanation, for reasons given in the OP. As such, 'my' Paul appears to corroborate Tacitus.

I have a feeling that the house of cards for Jesus is no worse, and may even be better, than for most minor figures of that time.

archibald

Can't fault that. I think that when it comes to 'possibilities', one could make an even longer list. :]

I wouldn't rule any of them out. I might readily take off numbers 1 and 8. As for the rest, I have leanings towards numbers 2-4.

Stringbean

I lean more toward 7 & 8 myself....6 is a possibility....

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...h_followup.htm

J-D

I wonder whether it would be easier to discuss the likelihood of various possible explanations if you first defined more explicitly what it is that you are trying to explain.

aa5874

You have contradicted yourself. You claim that "Paul" ONLY drew on what he heard and still claimed he describes what he SAW as a vision..."

And further, Paul claimed to be a WITNESS of the resurrected Jesus, not a vision.

"Paul" is claiming to be a CORROBORATIVE source for the actual resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

1Co 15:15 - Your feelings have betrayed you. You don't seem to be Agnostic since you have a lot of feelings for HJ.

An ordinary man who was baptized by John does NOT explain Jesus of the NT.

Only mythology can explain Jesus Christ.

mountainman

I can understand taking 1 off the list, but out of interest why would you remove 8?

mountainman

What is being attempted to be gauged is the historicity (or otherwise) of, not Bilbo Baggins or Bob Marley, but the Jesus figure who appears (in a coded form) in the earliest Greek books of the canonical new testament, such as Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Sinaticus -- and the and noncanonical texts in Coptic such as Codex Tchacos, and the Nag Hammadi Codices etc.

Historicity is a measure of historical authenticity and genuineness that at best can really only be described as a measure of probability. Consequently for simplicities sake we can say that the historicity of any event or person etc (e.g. the jesus figure defined above) must be some probabilitistic value in the range between 0 and 1.

Kapyong

Gday,

Good question.
I have put together a chart here showing just that :

http://members.iinet.net.au/~dal.sah...FOC/Table.html

The Gospels start to get mentioned in early-mid 2nd century or so.



K.

J-D

I wasn't talking about what you are attempting to gauge, I was talking about what archibald is attempting to explain. Your post doesn't say what it is you're trying to explain, but even if it did it might not be the same as what archibald is trying to explain.

GakuseiDon

They all do appear to quote from Gospel-like sources, though they never refer to "Gospels" themselves. "Gospel" just means "good news".

Richard Carrier writes (my emphasis):

The first Christian text that did not become canonized but was respected as authentic is the first epistle of Clement of Rome, reasonably dated to 95 A.D. (M 40), and contained in many ancient Bibles and frequently read and regarded as scripture in many churches (M 187-8). This is relevant because even at this late date two things are observed: Clement never refers to any Gospel, but frequently refers to various epistles of Paul. Yet he calls them wise counsel, not scripture--he reserves this authority for the OT ("Old Testament"), which he cites over a hundred times (M 41-3). On a few occasions he quotes Jesus, without referring to any written source. But his quotations do not correspond to anything in any known written text, although they resemble sayings in the Gospels close enough to have derived from the same oral tradition...

The next such text is the collection of letters by Ignatius... he borrows phrases and paraphrases from many Pauline epistles, yet never tells us this is what he is doing (he probably could not recall which letters he was drawing from at the time). Likewise, he borrows phrases or ideas which are found in Matthew and John, and on one occasion something that appears to be from Luke, but again he never names his sources or even tells us that he is drawing from a source at all...

... Ignatius recounts a debate he held with Judaizing Christians in which it is clear that only the OT was regarded as an authority (M 48-9). Instead of referring to any NT writings as evidence, he simply says that Jesus Christ is the witness to the authority of the tradition. This suggests that none of the NT was regarded even then as an authority. Like Clement, Ignatius and other Christians probably regarded these texts as wise counsel or useful collections of their oral traditions, and not as "scripture" per se.

In the same period, Polycarp wrote a letter which cites "Jesus" for certain sayings a hundred times, and the sayings match closely those appearing in the Gospels (and even things written in numerous Epistles, which were not originally attributed to Jesus), but he does not name any sources (M 59-61). We see the authority of oral tradition is again elevated above the written--like all the previous authors, no NT text is called scripture, though many OT texts are, and the only cited source for NT information is the report of 'unnamed' evangelists (Epistle of Polycarp, 4.3). However, a sign of a change lies in the very purpose of the letter: it is a preface to a collection of letters by Ignatius which another church had requested be copied and sent on to them. The interest in written documents is thus rising among Christian congregations in this period (unfortunately, this could also be a source of interpolated Gospel quotations in Ignatius). And so it is in this milieu, between 138 and 147 A.D., that the first philosophical defense of Christianity addressed to an Emperor (Antoninus Pius) appears, written by Aristides of Athens, in which there was vaguely mentioned "what [the Christians] call the holy Gospel writing" (M 127-8) which is alleged to be powerful in its effect on readers.

So the idea of Gospels as "scripture" was something that only started to appear in the second half of the Second Century.