Doug Shaver

Quite so, but rationalism and freethought are not the same thing. Far from it. Too many people seem to be under the impression that as long as they're thinking freely, they must also be thinking rationally. That isn't how it works.

mountainman

I have no problem with that. There is also a genuine obligation to cite sources of evidence on all sides. Certain hypotheses have infested this field as dogma for quite some time, and part of the working involves genuinely re-examining both these old hypothesis and all new ones put forward, with regard to this evidence.

I have cited evidence of unbelief in antiquity. On the basis of this evidence, the the idea that Jesus did not exist may not be a modern one at all. It is reasonable IMO to investigate the possibility that the Arian controversy was a controversy over the unbelief in the noton that Jesus existed 300 years earlier in the historical sense.

andrewcriddle

Arius was a priest not a bishop.

This is not just a quibble. Part of the sub-text of the Arian controversy is about how bishops should handle controversial priests with original ideas.

Andrew Criddle

Bernard Muller

to Mountainman,
My comments were on 1Jn4:2. I never said that 2Jn7 had been interpolated.
Without the added words in 1Jn4:2, it looks that the epistle was written against those (like Ebionites and Jewish Christians then) who thought that Jesus was not (the pre-existent) Christ and Son of God. Actually "John" is very insistant and repetitive about it. And considering other elements, I think the letter is early (around 75), before gJohn was written, and the author might not have known yet about gMark (contrary to what shows in gJohn). More explanations towards the end of: http://historical-jesus.info/jnorig.html search for "authorship".
However 2John was written much later, when Docetists existed. I think then that 1Jn4:2 got "updated".

mountainman

Docetism


Can we be certain that some of the docetists simply did not believe in the physical historical existence of Jesus? If so, how?

Diogenes the Cynic

It is theoretically possible, but it is not attested anywhere that I know of. The Docetists thought Jesus was a ghost, but they thought he was a real ghost that came down to earth.

mountainman

Did the Docetists think Jesus was born in the Skull Cave?





Questions about the Docetists



What are modern New Testament Scholars writing about the Docetists?

In particular, what do they have to say about the Docetic authors of some of the Nag Hammadi texts?

Does anyone know whether Ehrmans mentions the docetists or the Nag Hammadi Codices in his new book?

Are any Docetists explicitly named in the ancient sources?

Were docetists normal people like people in this forum?

How do you tell a Docetist from an antichrist person?

mountainman

Well its not exactly good public relations for an historical jesus, is it?

It would probably turn people away from the faith, and be bad for business.




The non-existence of such opinion is conspicuous by its very absence.

It is the classic case of negative evidence. The dog did not bark in the night.

There was not one soul who disbelieved in the HJ before the 18th century?

We have it on authority ......................

This has to be the greatest delusion in history.



What do "Ehrman and the Mainstreamers" get paid for their gigs?





:rolling:

Toto

We've been through this before. I think you need to find a new hobby rather than recycling all these old questions.

There was a different conception of "reality" in those days. Christians thought that Jesus was a divine spirit; orthodox Christians thought that he was fully divine as well as being fully human.

When the modern materialist age started, intelligent people stopped believing in ghosts. Where did that leave Jesus? If docetists believed that he was fully divine, did they think he was real? They did by their definition, perhaps not by ours.

Diogenes the Cynic

I was being tongue-in-cheek when I said "real ghost," but they did think that "spirit" had a material reality.