Gamera

A particular Alexander who may have had nothing to do with the narrative that is taken as history relating to him. Like I say, he could have been Alexander the Mediocre, who had neither ambition nor much success, but good PR. Only the texts give us the narrative that is Alexander the Great, and they are very very young.

Now, the fact that a particular religion arose shortly after the purported life of Jesus, as evidence by numerous textw not very distant in time as antiquity goes, is evidence of a particular person called Jesus, who started the movemente that would become Christianity.

Now, I have no trouble with Alexander's historicity or the narrative that give him flesh. But by the same token I have no problem with the historicity of Jesus. It's the double standard that is at issue.

spin

Yours.


spin

Gamera

Well, it's an insightful question, Mr. T, I'll give you that.

But I think you're barking up the wrong tree. In my brand of Christianity the historicity of Jesus isn't even required. I mean if God could send a savior in the form of his son who is also himself, and thus sacrifice his son and himself and in some mystical way proffer salvation via this set up, well, he's powerful enough to provide for salvation by a story totally made up by a literate housewife eating bon bons in a Jerusalem suburb. Indeed, I find that even more interesting!

So, I don't need an historical Jesus to justify my faith.

No, my standard is based on something that you might find even more troubling and that is the whole tenuous nature of historicity. In a profound sense it is always constructed by the present, using whatever narratives it has at the moment to understand itself. In that context, I have no problem with the historicity of Socrates, or Pericles, or a whole host of persons from antiquity that are clearly a pastiche of cultural concerns assembled around a particular person in the past who may or may not have existed.

We can never know if Socrates existed in the sense that you and I do now, but then does it really matter? He has historicity by virtue of how we treat him. The same is true of Jesus. Socrates and Jesus and Alexander (based on what happened after their deaths) seem to have the kind of historicity that relates to somebody once having an existence like ours, but I'm not that concerned if Jesus's is a little less than Alexander's and a little more than Socrates'. Ultimately historicity is what we agree it is, and nothing more. If we wanted to, we could insist on an historicity that required images of the purported person, or texts written not less than 50 years from the purported person's life. Etc. Whatever rules we come up with, will result in different outcomes about who existed and who didn't. I guess my point is, under the current accepted regime for historicity (which I'm happy with), Alexander and Jesus make the cut.

Gamera

I have challenged you to show us that the numismatic Alexander is Alexander the Great (the person whose historicity is at issue) without reference to the (very late) narratives that constitute Alexander the Great.

I see you're not going to take me up on the challenge. And I understand why.

Gamera

Would we? How. Make the connection between the numismatic Alexander and the guy whose conquests are related in narratives much much later, without referernce to those narratives.

Good luck.

Gamera

This is it. The fact that a king, called Alexander, had some coins minted and that they spread to the Persian empire tells us that the numismatic Alexander is Alexander the Great that conquered Persia and fought elephants in India, not to mention got pickled in honey and sent specimens of animals to Aristotle. All from those coins.

Please.

For all we know that Alexander settled in Alexandria, hired some really good PR ad men and made up the whole story. He died fat and happy with his concubines. Years later, his successors, seeing the benefit of the myth of his power, married into the Persia royal line and found the coins a useful fictive devise.

I made that up in 5 minutes. I can think a hundred other scenarios that explain the dispersion of coins to Persia without having Alexander the Great conquer that Empire.

See your problem now. Your entire explanation of the coins relies on narrative written 1000 years after the fact. At least Jesus doesn't suffer from that weakness.

Now, again, I think these late narratives are pretty much on the mark, with a whole bunch of legendary material thrown in. Just like with Jesus, except the Jesus narratives aren't so late and hence are arguably more reliable.

spin

As you refuse to get your brain dirty with facts, you seem bound not to represent reality. We are talking about what can be said historically. Is that so difficult for you? Instead you gush with what juicy bits you can extract from later literature. Really useful.

Oh, yes, please, find another strawman that at least looks a little like what you are supposed to be dealing with.

And it's obvious. It saves dealing with evidence.

You still haven't grasped the evidence. What value would even one of your scenarios be? Yup, no value whatsoever.

Just as wrong as you said this sort of thing the first time. I've given you enough data to cause you to reflect. All you have done is ignored it. Remember the comments about mints??? Naa, you're too busy talking rubbish.

You wouldn't know. You have no criteria to judge.


spin

spin

All you've done is to say that you don't want to know. We are dealing with a need to know basis. You don't want to know, therefore you don't need to know, therefore you'll ignore the evidence thus far given to you.

You simply refuse to look at the coins. You simply disregard the importance of the mints. You simply don't care about the iconography. Ignorance is still bliss.

I'm not going to spoon feed you, but I will supply more if you really prepared to argue the stuff you've been spouting. (Just show a little preparation.)

Once we've dealt with the coins, we can look at the epigraphy.


spin

Gamera

Reduced to invective, you still can't connect the numismatic Alexander to Alexander the Great of the narratives that are at issue.

And everybody can see it.

spin

Mints.


spin