Nomad

Fair enough. You did take my comments out of context, and in doing so made it appear that I was arguing for something that I had stated emphatically I was not defending.

Never the less, you apology is accepted, and we can move on now.

But the problem is that this was not the chain of events. The original thread, where all of this got started was called "Kooks and Quacks of the Sec Web" - A Response to Richard Carrier and the sequence went like this:

1) You claimed that Philostratus wrote his book, The Life of Apollonius based on an eye witness account.
2) I challenged this belief on the grounds that we have no actual evidence for such an account (outside of Philostratus' sayso). There is no textual evidence, we have no external evidence from non-biased sources (or any other kind of sources for that matter), and the actual witnesses themselves would have been long dead by the time Philostratus authored his work.
3) You rebutted that it was plausible that such a primary source existed, and that the Empress would have had the means and interest in preserving such a source. On this basis, you considered the case to be strong enough to form a belief that Philostratus had used an eye witness account.
4) I offered that the Gospel of John also claimed to be written by an eyewitness account, and that this is plausible. Using your criteria for accepting primary sources for Philostratus, I did not see why you rejected primary sources for the Gospel of John.
5) You then started a new thread arguing about whether or not John son of Zebedee was the author of the Gospel, but, of course, this was never the original argument in the first place.

Now, if you have genuine reasons for rejecting eye witness sources for the Gospel of John, then I will listen to them. At the same time, I will be asking if the claims of Philostratus could hold up under a similar level of scepticism. My guess is that it could not, and we are simply being treated to a double standard by which a non-Christian book is accepted as evidence for something, while a Christian book making similar claims is rejected.

Such an inconsistent application of methodology interests me, and I an interested in exploring this issue. Thus, the question remains, why do you accept the claims made in "The Life of Apollonius" being from a primary witness source, yet reject the same claims made in the Gospel of John.

One final point, if I may, but you have yet to meet this obligation, as you promised in your post of June 16, 2001 09:23 AM in which you said:

Fair enough Nomad. I do not wish to have the last word (we'll have to agree to disagree). I will say that since my silence on John troubles you so much I will post my reasons for thinking that the Gospel of John was not direct from the pen of an eyewitness.

If you are withdrawing your offer, then so be it. But please do not pretend that you actually addressed the question, when clearly you side stepped it when you wrote your first post in John not author of fourth gospel. As we can see, you have never explained why an eye witness did not write, or serve as a source for the Gospel of John.

Nomad

[ August 09, 2001: Message edited by: Nomad ]

Toto

Hi Nomad - we all wondered where you were. Why don't you take the time to catch up. If you read past the first post in John not the author of 4th Gospel, you will find that James Still discusses reasons not to believe that the fourth gospel was written by any eyewitness. You need to address them rather than claiming Still has not met his obligation.

James Still

Nomad, I can only assume at this point that you do not intend to engage in honest dialog but would rather engage in rhetoric just to weave and dodge. Behind your claim that an eyewitness wrote the Gospel of John is the unspoken enthymeme "a disciple who traveled with and knew Jesus wrote the Gospel of John" (unless you want to say that this mysterious eyewitness whom you refuse to name is someone other than a close follower of Jesus). When I wrote the reply stating my reasons for why John did not write the gospel I also provided reasons for thinking that no one who was close to Jesus would have written the canonical Gospel of John that we have today. If you think that the Gospel of John was indeed written by an eyewitness then please refrain from talking about Richard Carrier and who said what and just state your case. The burden of proof rests entirely on you. If you do not make a positive case (and instead continue to change the subject by shifting the burden onto me) then I'm left to assume that your case is weak or ill-considered.

Apikorus

Unlike the Indian king, I doubt that Apollonius could provoke me to an interest in philosophy. I'm also not a big fan of history web sites, but one of my favorites is the Livius site: http://www.livius.org/ . Follow the Ancient Greece link to an informative article on the pre-Philostratean Apollonius traditions. The author includes a rather nice assessment of these various traditions toward the end of his article: http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollon...llonius07.html . Regarding the historicity of Apollonius, the author states,

"Stated briefly, it is almost certain that Apollonius lived in the second half of the first century, was a magician and cured several people. Probably, he adhered to the neo-Pythagorean philosophy, and published books On astrology and On sacrifices. This may have brought him into conflict with the institutionalized religion and philosophy."

Philostratus' Life of Apollonius itself is deemed rather unreliable. (This provokes investigation of the pre-Philostratean traditions.)

[ August 09, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

James Still

You might as well know the full context Apikorus. I wasn't defending the accuracy or reliability of Life and I agree that we see within it the same myth-making elements that are in the gospels about Jesus. I did say that I accept Philostratus' claim that he had the eyewitness manuscript of Apollonius' student Damis available to him when he wrote Life. I believe that it is unnecessarily skeptical to discount this claim given that the Empress Domna very likely possessed such a manuscript. I very well might be wrong and I am ready to give up the notion if it is untenable. What Nomad holds against me is an alleged double-standard in which I accept an eyewitness source for Life while remaining skeptical about an eyewitness source for the Gospel of John.

My position at this point is that the burden of proof rests with Nomad to state the case for why we should believe that the Gospel of John was written by an eyewitness. It is preposterous to continue to insist that I must delve even further than I already have in stating why we should not believe it to be from the pen of an eyewitness. He who makes the claim should state the case. I am puzzled as to why he would rather psychoanalyze my motives rather than simply engage us in productive dialog. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I am ready and willing to abandon the notion that John was not written by an eyewitness if provided with reasons for thinking otherwise. I am ready and willing to change my mind at any time. My only request is that he start a new thread so we can give it the full attention it deserves.

Apikorus

James, my purpose was only to summarize the fine article on the Livius site, and not to get directly involved in your debate with Nomad. I would say that if the Damis memoirs actually existed, there is no good reason to doubt Philostratus' claim to having used them. The Livius site author provides a nuanced assessment: http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollon...s06.html#Damis

There seems to be some confusion as to what constitutes an "eyewitness account". Noone is saying (I hope!) that Philostratus was an eyewitness to any part of the life of Apollonius. The obscure Damis would be the eyewitness, and Philostratus would then be writing at least at first remove (assuming the authenticity of the Damis source). If I read Nomad correctly, he is saying that the author of the gospel of John was himself an eyewitness to events in the life of Jesus. I myself find that rather implausible, though not impossible.

[ August 09, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

Nomad

Here has been the problem all along James. This discussion has not been about what I believe in the authorship of the Gospel of John, but, rather, why you accept one claim (Philostratus used an eye witness account in his book), yet reject another (GJohn used an eye witness account), while the evidence for either claim is roughly equivalent. This I why I want to know your reasons for your double standard.

Your confusion has been that you think that I am supposed to prove that John was written by an eye witness, but I am not the one making the claim here. I will be happy to talk about authorship of John when I have the time, but for now I am merely pointing out how you make use of two different standards when deciding what you will and will not believe. Personally, I am happy to accept that Philostratus may have used such a source, but I would like you to clarify why you have not subjected his work to the same demands for evidentiary support as you have for the claimed authorship of John.

First, why are you bringing Richard into this discussion? He goofed in a post, and I corrected him on it. The larger question has remained, as to why you reject eye witness authorship of the Gospel of John, and if you think that later redaction makes your case, then you are simply disqualifying any claims made by Philostratus. After all, Philostratus was obviously a later redactor when he wrote “The Life of Apollonius of Tyana”, yet you feel confident in accepting the claim that an eye witness stands behind his story.

I told you before that redaction is not the issue here. Nor is who specifically authored John. Metacrock even posted some good reasons to think that an eye witness (in fact, John, son of Zebedee) authored the Gospel. He did that on June 19, and I have yet to see your response to his post. Yet this remains beside the point in my view. We can talk about Johannine authorship in a separate thread, but right now my focus remains on your criteria for accepting and rejecting certain claims. As it stands, you use two standards, one for Christian claims, another for non-Christian claims, and it has been my intention to demonstrate that fact.

Quite frankly I am not convinced that you have even read my response to you (dated June 22) on the John not author of fourth gospel thread, as well as my subsequent response to not a theist. You certainly have not addressed my points, nor those raised by Metacrock. So, the ball remains in your court James, even though I think we appear to be played out now. A quick way to resolve this issue would be to demonstrate that the evidence in favour of eye witness testimony being in Philostratus’ work is much better than is that for eye witness testimony standing behind GJohn. Talking about later redactions hardly does that, of course, since both works were obviously produced long after the events themselves. Interestingly, even by sceptical standards, GJohn is still much closer to the time of Jesus than “Life of Apollonius” is to its protagonist, so I guess that argument won’t work in your favour either.

Nomad

James Still

Yes, you are quite correct. No one asserts that Philostratus was himself an eyewitness. My position has been to contrast Life with GJohn. I have said that it is more plausible to think that Philostratus had eyewitness material available to him when he wrote Life than it is plausible to think that the author of John had eyewitness material available to him when he wrote GJohn. That's it in a nutshell. This does not mean that Life is more reliable or that GJohn is less reliable -- it is simply an observation in reaction to those who claim that the stories about Jesus are more reliable than the stories about Apollonius solely because the sources we have on Jesus are closer to him than the sources we have on Apollonius. And all of this is moot since authors in the ancient world tended to introduce mythical elements into the lives of their subjects even when they knew them firsthand. Think of the various encomia to Caesar...

Nomad

Those following this thread may not believe it, but a good part of the reasons why we even began this discussion was because Bill and I were hashing through a theory of whether or not John the Baptist, James the brother of Jesus, and Jesus Himself were Essenes.

Much of Bill's argument focused on the writings of Robert Eisenman in his book, James the Brother of Jesus. Among the more curious theories put forward in this book was that James was probably the Teacher of Righteousness portrayed in the Dead Sea Scrolls authored by the Essenes of the Qumran community. Of course, in order to make this link, Eisenman is forced to ignore the dating of the relevant scrolls to c. 150BC! After all, unless they were prophetic in nature (something I'm pretty sure Eisenman and Bill would reject) anything written 150-200 years before a man lived could hardly be describing him.

A more interesting question, and at least potentially more defensible is the argument that John the Baptist (and possibly James and Jesus) were Essenes. Now, aside from my brief discussion with James Still earlier in this thread, there are several good reasons to reject this theory. Here I will rely on the foremost scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls, who after listing the superficial similarities between Jesus and the Essenes goes on to say:

“The principal difference between (Jesus and Essenes) consisted in their overall outlook and distinctive emphasis on the Torah. The priestly Essenes, while insisting on inward conversion, laid particular stress on the rigorous performance of the minutiae of the biblical commandments, such as the purity, dietary and cultic regulations. Though asserting the permanent validity of the Torah, Jesus, the Galilean popular preacher, in the footsteps of the prophets gave definite priority to the innermost aspects of Mosaic piety. Whereas the rigorous system of Qumran was exclusive, keeping out outsiders, Jesus was keen to convey his spiritual insights to all and sundry who honestly approached him inspired by faith. The publicans and sinners, the friends and table-fellows of Jesus, would have received curt treatment from the leaders of the Dead Sea communities.
So quite apart from the improbability of contact between Jesus and the Essenes in Galilee where the presence of this sect is nowhere attested, the profound diversity of their respective religious perspectives renders unlikely that in his public career Jesus had anything to do with the Qumran movement.”
(Geza Vermes, The Changing Faces of Jesus, [Penguin Books: New York, 2000] pg. 257)

Vermes’ verdict on John the Baptist is equally clear:

“The only possible link between the Essenes and Christianity at its earliest stage must be connected with John the Baptist. This ascetic prophet, who called the Jews to repentance in the wilderness to the Jordan, may have been associated with the Qumran Essenes. However, the fact that the Baptist, like Jesus after him, appealed to the entire Jewish people, to Pharisees, Sadducees, tax-collectors and soldiers, and not just to a select minority, would suggest that if he ever belonged to the Essenes, by the time of his appearance in the Gospels, he was no longer a member of the secretive Dead Sea sect.”
(Ibid. pg. 257)

Note that Vermes emphasizes that the only possible connection between the Essenes and early Christianity is through John the Baptist, and that James is not even mentioned in his discussion. As I noted earlier, he, like other reputable Dead Sea scholars gives very short shift to connecting James to the Teacher of Righteousness theology found in the Scrolls. Bottom line, Jesus and James were not Essene, and in the case of John the Baptist, at least by the time of his public ministry, he too cannot reasonably be connected to the teachings and beliefs of the Qumran community.

Nomad

[ August 09, 2001: Message edited by: Nomad ]

Bede

James Still:

I've been quiet a while but feel I have to jump in here.

Nomad's point seems to be nothing more than pointing out an inconsistancy. To my non-expert eye the evidence for the Life and GJohn being based on eye witnesses looks much of a muchness and yet you see enough difference to come to what appear to be quite radically different conclusions.

What Nomad (I think) and me (for sure) would like to know is what is the qualitive difference between the two. Nomad has nothing to prove as he has expressed no opinion on the Life inconsistant with his opinion on GJohn. And this argument is about your apparant contradiction rather than your opinion.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason