Evangelion

Toto -

When can we see an example of his famous "writing"? Thus far, I have seen only a series of allusions to his appallingly subjective methodology, which does not inspire confidence.

Oh yes, I forgot that every theologian alwys does this. Silly me.

So do theologians.

Go and read McDonald & Porter's Early Christianity and its Sacred Literature, for example. It might help to get some of those preconceptions out of your head.

Evangelion

Toto -

Ooooh, I'd be delighted!

Let's use GakuseiDon's post as an example. It is, after all, the very post I was criticising:

Spot the fallacy of equivocation.

One points to a superficial similarity and claims that because they look the same (or at the very least, similar), they must be the same.

Gandy and Freke provide a wealth of examples, but Acharya S is even worse. (If such a thing were possible.)

It doesn't always rely on an ambiguous word; the essential mechanics of the fallacy itself, constitute the confusion of one concept with another on the basis of a superficial appearance.

And that is precisely the form of nonsense upon which Acharya S et al have predicated the entire basis of their respective arguments.

Toto

I beg to differ, but you accused me and all atheists of intellectual dishonesty. I've not read much of Acharya S, and you fill not find many of the infidels on this site who follow her.

This would be like someone accusing you and all Christians of wanting to burn heretics at the stake.

If you want to talk about the problems of Acharya S, start your own thread.


Then why are you cluttering up my thread with it?

Many commentators have noticed the close correlation of Christian theology with Philo's writings. You get real.

From m-w.com:

I don't find your definition there. If Christianity were derived from Judaic sources exactly as some early Christians claimed, it would not legitimize it in any recognized sense. It would not prove that it was true or lawful in any sense of the word.


"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."



And you engage in the practice of ill-informed hyperbole that ignores the particular point under discussion in this thread.

If you search the IIDB you will not find many followers of Acharya S. You may find a quote where Robert Price called her the atheists Josh McDowell.

Please, no more about Acharya S.

I can see that you don't want to talk about the topic of this thread. It is demonstrably true that early Christians claimed to draw their theology from Jewish scriptures, although they claimed that they had a special way of reading the scriptures. That does not make their religious legitimate in any sense of the word any more than showing that the theme of the dying and rising Savior delegitimzes it. Some Christians through history have been happy to recognize the parallels between their own religion and others, since it seems to them to show that their religion is an expression of a universal theme that transcends their own culture.

But you cannot find all of the details of the Passion Narrative in the Septuagint - so where did they come from?

Alexandria is not that far from Jerusalem, and both were parts of the Roman Empire. Go back and read the beginning of this thread for the borrowing.

You can read the first chapter of his book online, and you can order the book. There are links in the opening post.

There is nothing especially subjective about his methodology, if you're used to reading literary criticism or history in general.

YHWHtruth

Most Bible translations say Christ was "crucified" rather than "impaled." This is because of the common belief that the torture instrument upon which he was hung was a "cross" made of two pieces of wood instead of a single pale, or stake. Tradition, not the Scriptures, also says that the condemned man carried only the crossbeam of the cross, called the patibulum, or antenna, instead of both parts. In this way some try to avoid the predicament of having too much weight for one man to drag or carry to Golgotha.

Yet, what did the Bible writers themselves say about these matters? They used the Greek noun stau·ros´ 27 times and the verbs stau·ro´o 46 times, syn·stau·ro´o (the prefix syn, meaning "with") 5 times, and a·na·stau·ro´o (a·na´, meaning "again") once. They also used the Greek word xy´lon, meaning "wood," 5 times to refer to the torture instrument upon which Jesus was nailed.

Stau·ros´ in both the classical Greek and Koine carries no thought of a "cross" made of two timbers. It means only an upright stake, pale, pile, or pole, as might be used for a fence, stockade, or palisade. Says Douglas' New Bible Dictionary of 1985 under "Cross," page 253: "The Gk. word for 'cross' (stauros; verb stauroo . . . ) means primarily an upright stake or beam, and secondarily a stake used as an instrument for punishment and execution."

The fact that Luke, Peter, and Paul also used xy´lon as a synonym for stau·ros´ gives added evidence that Jesus was impaled on an upright stake without a crossbeam, for that is what xy´lon in this special sense means. (Ac 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Ga 3:13; 1Pe 2:24) Xy´lon also occurs in the Greek Septuagint at Ezra 6:11, where it speaks of a single beam or timber on which a lawbreaker was to be impaled.

The New World Translation, therefore, faithfully conveys to the reader this basic idea of the Greek text by rendering stau·ros´ as "torture stake," and the verb stau·ro´o as "impale," that is, to fasten on a stake, or pole. In this way there is no confusion of stau·ros´ with the traditional ecclesiastical crosses. The matter of one man like Simon of Cyrene bearing a torture stake, as the Scriptures say, is perfectly reasonable, for if it was 15 cm (6 in.) in diameter and 3.5 m (11 ft) long, it probably weighed little more than 45 kg (100 lb).-Mr 15:21.

Note what W. E. Vine says on this subject: "STAUROS (???????) denotes, primarily, an upright pale or stake. On such malefactors were nailed for execution. Both the noun and the verb stauroo, to fasten to a stake or pale, are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed cross." Greek scholar Vine then mentions the Chaldean origin of the two-piece cross and how it was adopted from the pagans by Christendom in the third century C.E. as a symbol of Christ's impalement.-Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, 1981, Vol. 1, p. 256.

Significant is this comment in the book The Cross in Ritual, Architecture, and Art: "It is strange, yet unquestionably a fact, that in ages long before the birth of Christ, and since then in lands untouched by the teaching of the Church, the Cross has been used as a sacred symbol. . . . The Greek Bacchus, the Tyrian Tammuz, the Chaldean Bel, and the Norse Odin, were all symbolised to their votaries by a cruciform device."-By G. S. Tyack, London, 1900, p. 1.

The book The Non-Christian Cross, by J. D. Parsons (London, 1896), adds: "There is not a single sentence in any of the numerous writings forming the New Testament, which, in the original Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used in the case of Jesus was other than an ordinary stauros; much less to the effect that it consisted, not of one piece of timber, but of two pieces nailed together in the form of a cross. . . . It is not a little misleading upon the part of our teachers to translate the word stauros as 'cross' when rendering the Greek documents of the Church into our native tongue, and to support that action by putting 'cross' in our lexicons as the meaning of stauros without carefully explaining that that was at any rate not the primary meaning of the word in the days of the Apostles, did not become its primary signification till long afterwards, and became so then, if at all, only because, despite the absence of corroborative evidence, it was for some reason or other assumed that the particular stauros upon which Jesus was executed had that particular shape."-Pp. 23, 24; see also The Companion Bible, 1974, Appendix No. 162.

Max

Toto

[GakusaiDon's post was a parody that missed the point.]

Sorry, GakusaiDon, you've got to work on that sense of irony. It just passed right over Evangelion's head.

Thi is a pretty wild mischaracterization of a lot of scholarship.

AFAIK Acharya S is unique, but I suspect that you keep bringing her up because you can't deal with any of the more serious academic works that find parallels and influences between different religions. Have you read Joseph Campbell? Is all of his work based on a fallacy?

In any case, Leidner is not of this school of comparative religion. He bases his theories strictly on the literature of the period, including the Qumran scrolls, the Jewish wisdom literature, Hellenistic Jews such as Philo, and an analysis of the texts of early Christians and the New Testament.

Evangelion

Toto -

*snip*

No I didn't. Go back and read what I wrote. And for goodness' sake, stop playing the persecution card. I'm not interested.

Because whether you like it or not, you're pushing the same basic argument: superficial similarities prove that Christianity was merely derived from paganism, and has no legitimate claim to be a development of Judaism.

*snip*

...such as?

See, this is where you're going to retreat into one of these stupid "similarity" games. I can see it coming. Don't you ever stop to ask yourself if this wild idea is actually consistent with the historical facts?

Oh, really? I am using it in the sense of vindicating a claim, ie. proving the claim legitimate. This is consistent with one of the definitions found in The Chambers Dictionary.

To whit:

• Genuine.

Christianity's claim to be a development of Judaism (as anybody with half a brain can see for themselves) is indeed genuine. It is legitimate. And that claim is legitimised (ie, proved genuine) by (a) the historical data, and (b) the NT mss.

*snip*

Well duh, I already said I wasn't using this to prove that Christianity is 100% true.

So you can skip the semantics and get on with the argument.

I can't wait to see on what basis that "ill-informed" accusation was made. What the hell are you talking about, anyway?

Amusing, but irrelevant.

*snip*

Sorry, but I'm going to keep on pushing the point. If you employ the same methodology, you're (a) equally wrong, and (b) you will suffer from the same lack of credibility.

*snip*

Wildly false. The topic of this thread is "The origins of the Passion Narrative." I am arguing that the origins of the Passion Narrative are taken from the Jewish Scriptures. You (somewhat hilariously) deny this claim. You believe that it was taken from Philo. (!?)

So yes, I do indeed wish to talk about the topic of this thread, and I am still waiting to see some evidence to support your peculiar claims.

Again: I am not claiming that this makes it true. I made this abundantly clear in my previous post.

I recognise certain superficial similarities, but that is all.

ROTFL! Just so I know what you mean here: how many details are you demanding? Which ones are they? How do you arrive at this list; by what methodology do you conclude that these must be the ones?

Nobody (not even the 1st Century Christians) claimed that all of the details of the Passion Narrative are found in the OT. But these points are:

• The Messiah would be betrayed.
  
• The Messiah would be humiliated, beaten and mocked.
  
• The Messiah would be slain for the sins of men.
  
• The Messiah would rise again on the third day.

The apostle Paul even provides a summary for us:

• Acts 26:22-23.
  Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come:
  That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.

As far as Paul's concerned, that's what he's supposed to be proving on the basis of the OT revelation. He doesn't claim to have discovered every single detail of the Passion Narrative in the OT, and neither does anybody else.

But all of the essentials are there, and that's the bottom line.

Non sequiter. You need objective proof that the Christians borrowed from the Flaccus narrative. How soon can I expect to see it?

*snip*

OK. So Leidner claims that the person of "Jesus" of the Passion narrative is supposed to be derived from:

• Carrabas.
  
• Flaccus.
  
• An unspecified number of Jews who were crucified at the third hour.

Correct?

Well, if you're going to just keep dragging bits and pieces out of the story and cobble them together in order to arrive at a pseudo-Passion Narrative, then yes, you can "prove" just about anything you like. But that doesn't really prove anything. It's just a blatant example of picking out the parts you want to use, and ignoring the rest. Any idiot can do that. I could probably reconstruct a Wagnerian opera from Homer's Illiad, if I tried hard enough.

But let's indulge you by taking a look at the narrative itself. I'll be using this version of Against Flaccus.

Concerning the person of Carrabbas.

• VI. There was a certain madman named Carabbas, afflicted not with a wild, savage, and dangerous madness (for that comes on in fits without being expected either by the patient or by bystanders), but with an intermittent and more gentle kind;
  
  this man spent all this days and nights naked in the roads, minding neither cold nor heat, the sport of idle children and wanton youths; and they, driving the poor wretch as far as the public gymnasium, and setting him up there on high that he might be seen by everybody, flattened out a leaf of papyrus and put it on his head instead of a diadem, and clothed the rest of his body with a common door mat instead of a cloak and instead of a scepter they put in his hand a small stick of the native papyrus which they found lying by the way side and gave to him;
  
  and when, like actors in theatrical spectacles, he had received all the insignia of royal authority, and had been dressed and adorned like a king, the young men bearing sticks on their shoulders stood on each side of him instead of spear-bearers, in imitation of the bodyguards of the king, and then others came up, some as if to salute him, and others making as though they wished to plead their causes before him, and others pretending to wish to consult with him about the affairs of the state.

This is supposed to be Jesus, correct? (Although Goodacre wants to have it both ways; he's choosing to read Carabbas as Barabbas and Jesus simultaneously. Yeah, right.) So you're taking the mockery of Carabbas as a "source" for the mockery of Christ before Herod, and taking his name as a "source" for the character of Barabbas. Correct?

Well, never mind the fact that (a) Carabbas hasn't been betrayed by anybody, (b) Carabbas is just a local madman (not a great teacher or wandering rabbi), (c) it was not unheard of for a madman to be mocked in the ANE (yes, it actually happened quite often, or so I am led to believe), and (d) Carabbas isn't actually crucified at all.

Great. Piecemeal methodology a' go-go. Very convincing, I'm sure.

Concerning the holiday (or festival day), the crucifixion and the third hour.

• I have known instances before now of men who had been crucified when this festival and holiday was at hand, being taken down and given up to their relations, in order to receive the honors of sepulture, and to enjoy such observances as are due to the dead;
  
  for it used to be considered, that even the dead ought to derive some enjoyment from the natal festival of a good emperor, and also that the sacred character of the festival ought to be regarded.
  
  But this man did not order men who had already perished on crosses to be taken down, but he commanded living men to be crucified, men to whom the very time itself gave, if not entire forgiveness, still, at all events, a brief and temporary respite from punishment;
  
  and he did this after they had been beaten by scourgings in the middle of the theater; and after he had tortured them with fire and sword; and the spectacle of their sufferings was divided;
  
  for the first part of the exhibition lasted from the morning to the third or fourth hour, in which the Jews were scourged, were hung up, were tortured on the wheel, were condemned, and were dragged to execution through the middle of the orchestra;
  
  and after this beautiful exhibition came the dancers, and the buffoons, and the flute-players, and all the other diversions of the theatrical contests.

Concerning the crucifixion on the festival day -
Philo says that he has known:

• Other cases where men were crucified on a festival day.
  
• Other caes where men received pardon on that day.

No "derivation" argument can be made, therefore, on the basis of the fact that Jesus is crucified on a festival day. It was not a rare occurance; it had happened plenty of times before, and would doubtless happen again. The parallel means nothing. It's pure coincidence.

Concerning the third hour.
Philo does not make any reference to (a) a crucifixion at the third hour, or (b) the death of Carabbas at the third hour, or (c) the death of Flaccus at the third hour, or (d) the death of anybody at the third hour.

What he says is this:

• but he commanded living men to be crucified, men to whom the very time itself gave, if not entire forgiveness, still, at all events, a brief and temporary respite from punishment;
  
  and he did this after they had been beaten by scourgings in the middle of the theater; and after he had tortured them with fire and sword; and the spectacle of their sufferings was divided;
  
  for the first part of the exhibition lasted from the morning to the third or fourth hour, in which the Jews were scourged, were hung up, were tortured on the wheel, were condemned, and were dragged to execution through the middle of the orchestra;

Philo says that living men were tortured in the theatre from the morning to the third or fourth hour, being scourged, hung up, tortured on the wheel, and tortured with fire and sword. After all of this, they were finally dragged away to be crucified.

So we see that (a) your reference to the third hour was not just misleading, but also totally irrelevant, and (b) none of this actually corresponds to the Biblical account. Certainly, none of it happened to Carrabbas or Flaccus.

Concerning the alleged "betrayal scene."

• And when he heard that he was supping at some persons' house in company with Flaccus, he did not relax in his speed, but hastened onward to the dwelling of his entertainer;
  
  for the man with whom they were feasting was Stephanion, one of the freedmen of Tiberius Caesar; and withdrawing to a short distance, he sends forward one of his own followers to reconnoiter, disguising him like a servant in order that no one might notice him or perceive what was going forward.
  
  So he, entering in to the banqueting-room, as if he were the servant of one of the guests, examined everything accurately, and then returned and gave information to Bassus.
  
  And he, when he had learnt the unguarded condition of the entrances, and the small number of the people who were with Flaccus (for he was attended by not more than ten or fifteen slaves to wait upon him), gave the signal to his soldiers whom he had with him, and hastened forward, and entered suddenly into the supper-room, he and the soldiers with him, who stood by with their swords girded on, and surrounded Flaccus before he was aware of it, for at the moment of their entrance he was drinking health with some one, and making merry with those who were present.

There is no "betrayal" here at all. There is only espionage; a servant is disguised and enters the supper-room to confirm that Flaccuis is there, and the soldiers, being subsequently in receipt of this information, go in to arrest him. Certainly, there are no parallels here to Judas and Christ.

Concerning the nature of Flaccus' death.

• The officers therefore pursued him without stopping to take breath and arrested him; and then immediately some of them dug a ditch, and the others dragged him on by force in spite of all his resistance and crying out and struggling, by which means his whole body was wounded like that of beasts that are despatched with a number of wounds;
  
  for he, turning round them and clinging to his executioners, who were hindered in their aims which they took at him with their swords, and who thus struck him with oblique blows, was the cause of his own sufferings being more severe;
  
  for he was in consequence mutilated and cut about the hands, and feet, and head, and breast, and sides, so that he was mangled like a victim, and thus he fell, justice righteously inflicting on his own body wounds equal in number to the murders of the Jews whom he had unlawfully put to death.

Well, it seems that Flaccus was basically cut to pieces by a bunch of swordsmen. Gee, does that sound like an echo of the Passion Narrative? No, it does not.

So really, all you've got here is a few bits and pieces extracted with considerable care from a historical narrative which bears no relation to the Passion Narrative at all, with the alleged "similarities" being totally contrived (and in some cases blatantly fabricated) in order to make them fit the original argument.

Not only that, but it is obvious that Flaccus does not actually contribute anything to the argument itself. We could remove all mention of him (leaving only Carabbas and the crucifixion of the Jews) without detracting from the argument in any way, or we could leave him in and correctly observe that he brings no detail which might be pressed into service as a "Passion parallel."

The whole thing is a total scam from start to finish.

*snip*

We've just seen that there is. It's rife with a blatant abuse of context.

Evangelion

Toto -

I was really kicking myself over that one when I finally nutted it out. :banghead: But GD's post did not miss the point at all. It was, in fact, right on the money.

No it's not. It's a highly accurate description of the methodology employed by three particular scholars who are specifically identified by name.

Freke, Gandy and Acharya S.

She's not, and neither is her methodology. You're employing the exact same techniques. So is Leidner. So is Goodacre. So do many others.

I have already agreed that there are some similarities. I do not take issue with the appearance of similiarities per se. What I take issue with, is the totally ridiculous claim that Christianity borrowed its ideas from just about every mythological tradition under the sun, simultaneously.

Some.

Knowing Campbell's fine reputation, I'd argue "No." I certainly haven't read anything that might give me cause for concern.

But of course, Campbell isn't doing what you're doing here. He's arguing for a global monomyth on the basis of certain elements which exist within the human psyche.

Indeed, his book Hero of a Thousand Faces is strikingly similar to another book of my acquaintance; to whit, Leeming's Voyage of the Hero, which I studied at university.

I'll give you a rundown of Leeming's thesis in my next post.

Well he's certainly not in Campbell's league, no. He's just a rookie with a barrow to push.

Evangelion

This is taken from one of my old university essays.

• Irrespective of whether a culture possesses a dominant magical, religious, animistic or agnostic world view, it is likely to share links to other cultures and belief systems, through the curious synchronicity of the mythological tradition. An extraordinary number of parallels seem to exist between the thousands of legends which have been taught over centuries of human existence.
  
  I have chosen to focus on the tradition of the mythological hero, which is specifically dealt with by Leeming’s Mythology – the Voyage of the Hero (1973.)
  
  Leeming identifies eight common characteristics of the hero myth:
  
  
• The miraculous conception and birth, and the hiding of the child.
  
• Childhood, initiation and divine signs.
  
• Preparation, meditation and withdrawal.
  
• Trial and quest.
  
• Death and the scapegoat.
  
• The descent to the underworld.
  
• Resurrection and rebirth.
  
• Ascension, apotheosis and atonement.
  
  
  Leeming’s book contains more than one hundred and sixty-six stories taken from over two dozen different cultures, spanning several thousand years. In all of them, the eight themes listed above were clearly present.
  
  I approached Leeming’s thesis with caution, because I was concerned that he might have drawn up his categories in advance, and fished for legends to suit them. However, this does not appear to be the case. Leeming compiled his material eclectically, and looked for correlations afterwards.
  
  He paints a picture of the mythological hero as a cultural archetype, whose life contains all the rites of passage, trials, quests, joys, and sorrows necessary for the achievement of the ultimate human goal - immortality. The eight mythological themes represent eight phases of life, culminating in a scapegoat’s death and a triumphant return from the grave.
  
  These phases are treated differently by every culture, with some placing greater emphasis on the physical achievements of the hero – as seen in the legend of Heracles – and others emphasizing the serenity which comes with spiritual development, represented so beautifully in the Arthurian Grail Quest mythos.
  
  There are sub-themes, too; the magical legacy which is the privilege of twins is explored in Mayan and Greek mythology, and the haunting Celtic tale of “Jack who was his Father” deals with the inseparable bond between parent and child.
  
  The evidence presented in Leeming’s book, combined with my personal studies in Greek, Norse, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Christian and Jewish mythology, has led me to believe that there is a common source for many of the primal myths found throughout history – but I do not feel qualified to present a theory that might explain this phenomenon.
  
  The last word therefore, belongs to Leeming:
  
  “Mythology, then, as the term is used in this book, is the expression in symbols and images of the most basic level of the human psyche. That we be concerned with this level is of crucial importance. As Jung wrote,
  
  ‘It is possible to live the fullest life only when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them. It is a question neither of belief nor knowledge, but of the agreement of our thinking with the primordial images of the unconscious.’
  
  Jung felt that modern, rational, technocratic man has lost contact with the ‘inner centre’ – with the daimon, or real ‘self’, which is revealed in dreams and in myth. Only by reestablishing contact with that centre – by creating a mythical consciousness – can Western civilisation hope to achieve psychic balance.”

Of course, the biggest problem with the attempt to claim that Christianity purloined its ideas from pagan mythology, is the question which inevitably arises: "So what about all those other pagan religions which look exactly the same or nearly identical? Where did they come from, eh?"

I guess you just have to convince yourself that everybody borrowed from everybody else, right?

Evangelion

At this point it's probably worth pointing out that I studied mytholgy at university.

Did you?

Toto

I am at a disadvantage. I studied math. I think too logically for some people.

Let's back up. Leidner is not arguing that Christianity was borrowed from pagan religions. That is not the subject of this thread. (It's already been hashed and rehashed on other threads.)

Leidner is from a Jewish background and he traces the origins of Christianity to Jewish sources. Got that?

The relationship between Philo (a Hellenistic Jew) and Christianity is quite well noted. From Earl Doherty's page

See also The Role of Philo in Fusing Judaism with Hellenism Philo Judaeus , and Philo on the Essenes.

No one actually knows if Philo directly influenced Christian doctrine or not. But there are so many similarities it would be obtuse not to notice them. The similarities are not vague or superficial, but have to do with basic Christian doctine - in particular the Logos as intermediary between God and the world.

So to show a relationship between Philo and Christianity is very different from your strawman argument about pagan derivation.

I repeat: Christianity was derived from Judaism, but this does not "legitimate" it in any sense. (Pagan religions are legitimate religions.)

So now we get to your treatment of the Passion Narrative. Are you claiming that all of it came from Jewish scriptures? I started this thread with a cite to a paper from Mark Goodacre, apparently a Christian or someone who thinks that the Christian scriptures are a valid source of history. He thinks that the Passion Narrative must derive from history, since so many elements are not derived from Jewish scripture. Do you agree or disagree?

Leidner's book attempts to refute the idea that there is any history in the Passion Narrative (PN for short.) There is no dispute that you can find references to the Jewish scriptures throughout the New Testament. This is in fact an argument used by atheists and liberals to show that there is no real history embodied in the NT -- the events described there were "prophesy historicized" - legends made up based on the Septuagint.

As for your attempt to dispute the parallels: the person of Jesus in the PN is not derived from Carrabas - the scene of mockery in the gospels is derived from the scene of mockery described in Philo. John Crossan has noticed and described this parallel, so I think you should not assume that it is superficial or shallow.

I am going to have to put off responding to the rest of your garbled account (I have to get to work tomorrow.) You have misconstrued the argument (since you haven't read the book and I have't laid out all of the details, and you have missed some of the details that I did lay out.) But briefly, Judas is modeled on Flaccus; his betrayal of the Jews is analogized to Judas' betrayal of Jesus.