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Old 02-28-2010, 06:51 PM   #71
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The evidence from Athanasius at face value suggests that Athanasius is presenting a story in which Arius is presented as a satirist, in the sense that he is playing down the role of Jesus in the whole scheme of things. Athanasius quotes a verse from Arius' writings which is a description of the passion of Jesus on the cross. Arius writes not that the sky was darkened when Jesus purportedly drew his last and final human breath, but that the Sun himself, impatient with the entire drama being enacted, withdrew His Light and made the day sunless.

Arius shifts focus to Helios.
Jesus becomes but a backdrop.

Athasanius is shocked and horrified at this expression!
For Athanasius, Constantine's Jesus should be at the very center of things!
Jesus had to come first!
Thus Athanasius 3 times recounts Arius to be a disgusting satirist.
This is on the surface of things, according to the textual evidence.



It is an element of the available elements of evidence to make the effort to reconstruct what the position of Arius (and Athanasius ) was. Other elements of the data include Constantine's Letters to Arius.



Yes of course - such is political reality!

However there is further evidence suggesting other people about that time thought Arius was a filthy little underserving heretic because he wrote wrotten meters about Jesus. In fact there was an entire empire-wide controversy over this issue. What is the historical truth of these events? In order to approach this question we need to examine the referential integrity between all the elements of the available evidence.
All the available evidence, yes.
All the available evidence within the epoch surronding the Council of Nicaea and the closer to that date the better --- hence the relative importance of the writings of Athanasius, Against Arius which were purportedly authored withn decades of the events so described, if not contemporaneous.

One of the key documents of that period is an extant letter written by Constantine
From the Letter of Constantine
LETTER: Emperor Constantine to Arius
Type: Early Arian Document (Urkunde) 34 (=AW III2 no. 27; CPG 2042)
Date: 333 CE
Source: Athanasius, Defense of the Nicene Definition 40 (TLG)
Also found in Socrates, Church History 1.9.30
and Gelasius, Church History 3.19.1
Trans: Coleman-Norton, P.R.,
Roman State and Christian Church, London:
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
(SPCK) 1966, #67.

Arius - the Author of Books - in terms of the Christian Church and Jesus

Analysis of this letter will establish that Constantine tells
the readers of this letter the folloing things about Arius ....'

He brought state orthodoxy into the light;
He hurled his wretched self into darkness.
He ended his labors with this

He wrote that he did not wish God to appear to be the subject of suffering of outrage
He wrote that (on the above account) he suggested and fabricated wondrous things indeed in respect to faith.
He wrote books that collected and gathered terrible and lawless impieties
He wrote books that agitated tongues [Editor: Very popular books]
He wrote books which deceived and destroyed

He introduced a belief of unbelief.
He introduced a belief of unbelief that is completely new.
He accepted Jesus as a figment
He called Jesus foreign
He did not adapt, he did not adapt (it was said twice) to God [Editor: the "new" orthodox God]
He was twice wretched

He reproached the church
He grieved the church
He wounded he church
He pained the church
He demoted Jesus
He dared to circumscribe Jesus
He undermined the (orthodox) truth
He undermined the (othodox) truth by various discourses
He detracted from Jesus who is indetractable
He questioned the presence of Jesus
He questioned the activity of Jesus
He questioned the all-pervading law of Jesus
He thought that there was a place outside of Jesus
He thought that there something else outside of Jesus
He denied the infiniteness of Jesus
He did not conclude that God is present in Christ
He had no faith in Christ
He did not follow the law that God's law is Christ
He had little piety toward Christ
He detracted from the uncorrupted intelligence of Jesus
He detracted from the belief in immortality of Jesus
He detracted from the uncorrupted intelligence of the Church
He was barred publicly from God’s church

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And all the available evidence includes the evidence of the existence and the doctrines of the Arian churches of the fifth and sixth centuries. That evidence disproves your theory.

Evidence from the fifth and sixth centuries concerning the epoch surrounding the council of Nicaea and the "Arian Controversy" which raged for centuries from the council of Nicaea 3.325 CE ON ACCOUNT OF THE SOPHISMS OF ARIUS is relatively late evidence.
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Old 02-28-2010, 09:19 PM   #72
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...And there is some middle ground because Paul seems to have a problem with the resurrection happening with flesh so he’s showing some Gnostic/orthodox hybrid thinking. The reason he thinks this is because the nature of matter is contrary to that which is eternal so more rarified bodies would be needed from his POV.
Your post is just highly speculative and unsubstantiated however the time zone for Paul cannot be ascertained and with time works attributed to Paul have been withdrawn or deemed to be of uncertain authorship.

Unless it can be ascertained when the Pauline writings were made it is pointless relying on an author that the Church itself seemed to have lost track of.

It would appear that Church did not know what Paul wrote. How can you tell if the fake Paul did not write Romans and that the real Paul wrote Hebrews? After all, some believed Paul wrote Hebrews.


It would appear that the Canon produce by the Church is filled with bogus information about the dating, authorship and chronology of the writings within.

The Pauline writings do not match the time zone in which they were placed no historical source external of apologetics can account for the Pauline doctrine or character in the 1st century from Aretas to Nero. There is no external historical where Jews were worshiping a man as a God.

Up to the middle of the 2nd century, Justin Martyr only accounted for a single book found in the Canon by the name of Revelation.

It would appear that the Church destroyed and manipulated their own history and then want others to retrieve and re-construct their past with forgeries and bogus information.

The history of Jesus believers may be lost forever due to deliberate fraud within the Church itself.
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Old 02-28-2010, 09:33 PM   #73
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Originally Posted by mountainman View Post
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All the available evidence, yes.
All the available evidence within the epoch surronding the Council of Nicaea and the closer to that date the better --- hence the relative importance of the writings of Athanasius, Against Arius which were purportedly authored withn decades of the events so described, if not contemporaneous.

One of the key documents of that period is an extant letter written by Constantine
From the Letter of Constantine
LETTER: Emperor Constantine to Arius
Type: Early Arian Document (Urkunde) 34 (=AW III2 no. 27; CPG 2042)
Date: 333 CE
Source: Athanasius, Defense of the Nicene Definition 40 (TLG)
Also found in Socrates, Church History 1.9.30
and Gelasius, Church History 3.19.1
Trans: Coleman-Norton, P.R.,
Roman State and Christian Church, London:
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
(SPCK) 1966, #67.

Arius - the Author of Books - in terms of the Christian Church and Jesus

Analysis of this letter will establish that Constantine tells
the readers of this letter the folloing things about Arius ....'

He brought state orthodoxy into the light;
He hurled his wretched self into darkness.
He ended his labors with this

He wrote that he did not wish God to appear to be the subject of suffering of outrage
He wrote that (on the above account) he suggested and fabricated wondrous things indeed in respect to faith.
He wrote books that collected and gathered terrible and lawless impieties
He wrote books that agitated tongues [Editor: Very popular books]
He wrote books which deceived and destroyed

He introduced a belief of unbelief.
He introduced a belief of unbelief that is completely new.
He accepted Jesus as a figment
He called Jesus foreign
He did not adapt, he did not adapt (it was said twice) to God [Editor: the "new" orthodox God]
He was twice wretched

He reproached the church
He grieved the church
He wounded he church
He pained the church
He demoted Jesus
He dared to circumscribe Jesus
He undermined the (orthodox) truth
He undermined the (othodox) truth by various discourses
He detracted from Jesus who is indetractable
He questioned the presence of Jesus
He questioned the activity of Jesus
He questioned the all-pervading law of Jesus
He thought that there was a place outside of Jesus
He thought that there something else outside of Jesus
He denied the infiniteness of Jesus
He did not conclude that God is present in Christ
He had no faith in Christ
He did not follow the law that God's law is Christ
He had little piety toward Christ
He detracted from the uncorrupted intelligence of Jesus
He detracted from the belief in immortality of Jesus
He detracted from the uncorrupted intelligence of the Church
He was barred publicly from God’s church

Quote:
And all the available evidence includes the evidence of the existence and the doctrines of the Arian churches of the fifth and sixth centuries. That evidence disproves your theory.

Evidence from the fifth and sixth centuries concerning the epoch surrounding the council of Nicaea and the "Arian Controversy" which raged for centuries from the council of Nicaea 3.325 CE ON ACCOUNT OF THE SOPHISMS OF ARIUS is relatively late evidence.
It nevertheless disproves your theory.
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Old 02-28-2010, 09:36 PM   #74
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Some good points there, but I don't think the early Christianity was just Gnostic, or even proto-Gnostic, the point is it was varied - e.g. some had a purely philosophical take, some were sort of verging on gnosticism, some more Jewish, some had a nascent view like the one you are arguing, etc., etc. That divergence is precisely what you'd expect as a response to a visionary kick-off from Paul. (As opposed to the words of the Founder being treasured, and the ground he tread being worshipped in pilgrimage, etc., etc., etc.)

We know that Paul's congregation had people making up stuff ("prophecy", tongues, etc.) Orthodoxy was the stopping of all that (the creation of new gospels), in whatever form it took, and its replacement by a firm, settled idea (which I agree was also quite mystical, although I wouldn't necessarily take the orthodox opinion about Gnosticism as being defined as world-hating to heart, in fact it's contradicted by some of the hereseologists own words - again, there was no "gnosticism" as such, only divergent views riffing off the original myth/vision - also what the hereseologists were fighting against circa 200 CE onwards was more developed and self-conscious than what was happening in the early days). Also I think you have it mixed up a bit - the "intermediary" introduced by orthodoxy is the priesthood (the Apostolic Succession). Gnosticism needs no intermediary like this, the gnostic IS CHRIST ("Christ in you"), Christ is that very chip of God in all of us that cries "Abba! Father!" The bit in us that stirs uneasily and asks "is this all there is?" (therefore an "intermediary" in another, sort of Platonic sense - an intermediary in our very hearts, mediating between the inconceivable Absolute and the creature of flesh and blood).
I agree that a mystic is going to cause some confusion and variance in interpreting what he is doing or speaking about. I of coarse think its Jesus that’s the mystic in question and not Paul who is causing all the confusion. I think if it started out as a faith based movement it would also lead to this since there isn’t an established interpretation/understanding of what is going on because it isn’t the understanding that is important but the faith the follower has. This faith based movement would also be why there wasn’t an emphasis on his teachings about the universe or morality early on because Christ crucified was the central tenet not a specific teaching that was going to usher in a new age.

The orthodox movement is going to have a problem with the Gnostic movement if they are trying to divert faith away from Christ but are instead using Christ as a spokesperson for their particular metaphysical view that they believe will lead to some kind of salvation.

You are correct about the earthly intermediaries found in the orthodox church would oppose a mystical approach of direct connection to the spirit but I was only speaking about the intermediary in the platonic sense that Jesus is personifying/replacing in some interpretations of the story.

It’s easy to see the argument from a mystic offshoot against the orthodox promotion of earthly leaders as the church broadened their power base as your standard power grab. Why let these guys tell you about having faith is enough when we can show you how to connect to the same spirit and have the same mystical experience as Jesus. The reason that the mystically minded individual is going to have problems with the orthodox position is because they are usually looking for the solution for the individual not for the whole. It’s a case of micro vs macro salvation.

Also if you don’t believe in a literal resurrection of the dead then the orthodox position is going to be tough to justify so alternate salvation routes are going to be required. Such as it is understanding his teachings or connecting to the same spirit that is the source of the salvation since faith in him being resurrected is just nonsense from your world view.

The problem with the mystical or Gnostic interpretation is what does a mystical experience do for you or how does any level of Gnosticism no matter how detailed and correct save you or solve any of the world’s problems in any way? Yea Jesus and Paul were mystics but what they gained from their mystical experience wasn’t gnosis but faith that Jesus was the Christ. What drew people like Paul to Christianity wasn’t the followers’ mystic ability or their level of gnosis but it was their faith by their willingness to die that helped convince him that an actual resurrection was possible after they established a new kind of kingdom where Christ alone is king. From this perspective the mystics and Gnostics are just mentally wacking off and getting in the way of real work in trying to not only fix the world but get your name on the list to be called back up during an age of eternal life in the future.
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Old 03-01-2010, 06:52 AM   #75
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As has been pointed out many times already in this thread, other "God-man" myths developed and had substantial followings in spite of the fact that the subject of that myth probably never existed. Hercules, Perseus and Dionysus are a few other (among many) sons of some god and a mortal woman. None of these characters probably existed in a historical context, but each of them influenced many believers.
Yes, indeed - but also, we have to bear in mind that those figures might have been historical-to-their worshippers - i.e. they might have actually believed that Hercules existed historically, as a hero of giant strength, etc.

In all these debates, it has to be kept separate what's "historical for us" (as modern, rational inquirers) and what might have been "historical for them" (as believers with low standards of rationality, putting it probably more rudely than one should). With any of those figures, you can sometimes see other people saying "pah, your god never existed, it's just a fable, but OUR god existed, he's no fable". And a few more rationalistic thinkers, even then, thought it was all a crock of shit (or thought that there might have been "historical cores" to some of them).

But for us, as modern rational inquirers, only a man would do as a "historical Jesus", we can't accept the mythical superhero-like figure as ever having existed. But also, as rational inquirers, if we want to say this myth has euhemerist roots, then that has to be shown separately, from external evidence (you have to find the man and be assured that he existed, before you can say with confidence that he must have been the real person at the root of the myth - and therefore, before you can take any elements of the myth and say "this sounds reasonable, it might have been part of this fellow's actual biography").
It's not that I disagree with you, but I don't see where any of this has any relevance with regard to the three questions under discussion here:
  • Did Christianity begin just like it says in the bible?
  • How could it have begun if Jesus didn't exist?
  • What made the first teachers/preachers of it so enthusiastic about it?
It seems reasonable to think the first people who took the Jesus story seriously may have seriously believed that Jesus was a historical character. Similarly it seems reasonable to conclude based on historical evidence that there were once people who believed that Perseus, Hercules and Dionysus were real people.

It's possible that the "first teacher/preacher enthusiasm" was genuine and based on profound belief in the validity of the message. It's equally possible that the enthusiasm was feigned and resulted from the way this message gave a skilled messenger considerable influence, power and financial gain.

Either way it's a cinch that Christianity did not begin "just like it says in the bible". A recently resurrected Jesus didn't magically float off into heaven. Twelve apostles weren't sitting in a room one Pentecost morning when a sound of a strong wind was heard combined with cloven tongues like fire sitting on the heads of each one. They didn't immediately begin speaking in foreign languages, nor did 5,000 pious Jews cry out with remorse over having crucified Jesus and get baptized in his name that afternoon. There was no tiny band of miracle workers healing blind, paralyzed, deaf, mute or demon possessed people. Nobody was struck dead for lying to the holy ghost. There was no bloody persecution of early Christians by Jewish leaders, no letters of authorization to travel to Damascus or other places to hunt down, imprison, torture and/or kill Christians. This entire colorful history was fabricated to provide drama and sympathy, to entice people to join the ranks of Christians.

The actual evidence indicates that Christianity evolved slowly over many decades (possibly even centuries) from loosely associated myths into more organized belief systems. For a long time there was considerable disagreement as to when this messiah figure might have lived, where he lived, where he traveled, what he did, when he died and how he died, even whether or not he got married and started a family. Many didn't even believe he ever had a physical body. The non canonical gospels are evidence of this wide disparity of beliefs.

At some point a group of powerful and influential people organized in an effort to squelch competing beliefs. They used their influence, power and sometimes good old fashioned book-burning to force "orthodox" Christianity on everyone, branding any versions that weren't compatible as "heresy".
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Old 03-01-2010, 01:43 PM   #76
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Again, some good stuff there Elijah, and although I disagree with some of it I like the way you think about it. Just to say something on this.

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The problem with the mystical or Gnostic interpretation is what does a mystical experience do for you or how does any level of Gnosticism no matter how detailed and correct save you or solve any of the world’s problems in any way? Yea Jesus and Paul were mystics but what they gained from their mystical experience wasn’t gnosis but faith that Jesus was the Christ.
That kind of doesn't make sense, mysticism has little to do with faith, it's experiential (cf. Sam Harris), it's something that happens to you that knocks you for six, not something you choose (except of course in what one might call the "strategic" sense, in choosing to undergo the rituals and disciplines of one's chosen sect's practices) . I agree that it COULD have been Jesus, I just don't find any good evidence for such a fellow.

Judging from the evidence we have, including Paul, Chrisitianity is a very small beer thing to start with, basically a bunch of people sharing ideas. You get the impression from the gospels that this was all a big deal - but if we are going for a human, HJ, we can't accept that it was a big deal, it must have just been a tiny movement (that remained tiny till well into the 2nd century, and even then plateaued as a relatively minor religion until Constantine.

So it's a bunch of people sharing ideas. Now I would be prepared to countenance that they were sharing ideas in response to some human teacher called "Joshua" if there was any external evidence of such a fellow (outside mentions, artefacts, archeological stuff, etc.), or any internal evidence that any of the people who wrote the earliest texts (supposing stuff like Paul, Hebrews, Didache, etc., to be genuinely the earliest), or anybody known to anybody writing those texts, knew a human being called "Joshua the Anointed One". But so far as I can see, there isn't any such evidence, neither external nor internal.

So the most plausible alternative, failing finding evidence of the human fellow who got blown up into the ridiculous (albeit moving) and well-known myth, is that they were sharing ideas in response to one or a combination of: mystical experiences (states of profound absence of the ordinary sense of self, concomitant with the presence of a sense of being the Universe, or the Absolute, or the All, or however one's culture conceives the ultimate context of all contexts); visionary experiences (trance states with real-seeming encounters with divine or angelic beings, and/or demons); and philosophical and theological ideas, often sparked off by, or sparking such experiences. And that's the evidence we have - from the apologists, for example, one gets a sense of a philosophical kind of Christianity (again, remember Plotinus actually engaged with the Gnostics - he disagreed with them, but took them seriously enough to engage in argument, obviously partly because their philosophy was closely competitive with his, quite similar in some ways, not leaast including the emphasis on experience). From Paul we get the sense of an experiential, already-verging-on-gnostic religion, and from Hebrews and Didache, we get the sense of a disciplined, Philonic Jewish sort of deal - related to Gnosticism via a common acceptance of Middle-Platonic ideas.

There's even more variety than that as time goes on, but that's already a varied bunch. Some of that could have been started by a living man, but until we find such a man, it could also easily have started sua sponte, with lesser lights responding to ideas "in the air" at the time.

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What drew people like Paul to Christianity wasn’t the followers’ mystic ability or their level of gnosis but it was their faith by their willingness to die that helped convince him that an actual resurrection was possible after they established a new kind of kingdom where Christ alone is king. From this perspective the mystics and Gnostics are just mentally wacking off and getting in the way of real work in trying to not only fix the world but get your name on the list to be called back up during an age of eternal life in the future.
I don't think Paul is of this ilk, but yes, you are pin-pointing a syndrome that no doubt existed - only a bit LATER. The evidence is (if Bauer is right) that this wasn't a dominant position from the start. There was no dominant position in the early days, orthodoxy was one amongst a spectrum of responses to ... what? Some plump for Jesus; I can't find him (plus I find the diversity comes too immediate after a supposed HJ's life for comfort) so I plump for a standard type of religious startup in whacky experiences.

It's the experience, knowing, and the pursuit of knowing, that gives the conviction. Religious founders are people who inspire - they inspire to action. This kind of conviction comes through the conviction of having personally experienced something remarkable (again, it could have been a real crucifixion/hysterical reaction, but there's no evidence for it). It doesn't come from mere belief.

So originally it was a small, scattered movement of geeks, geeks and, on the whole, contrary to later on, somewhat well-to-do, somewhat educated people; but geeks who were having ideas, visions and unitive experiences based on some kind of collective celebrations (cf. Paul on the situation with his congregations - some pretty whacky stuff going on there) or philosophical discussion groups. Some of the congregations would be more ritualised and/or riotous, some would be more philosophical and sedate. The philosophical circles would have been more like the later Hermetic circles (cf. book by Garth Fowden) or like some Vedantic discussion circles (satsangs) - you'd have a teacher with personal experience, perhaps of Plotinian philosophical ascent, or Jewish ascent mysticism, or some kind of non-dual philosophy; or they might have a claim to experience of encountering deities, spirits or demons. And you'd get some local well-to-do "New Agey" types who would go and listen to them talk, and do any exercises recommended.

The name, Joshua Messiah, Joshua the Anointed, has the air of a construct. It's like saying "Everyman Messiah". The entity was probably first conceived through poring over Scripture to glean theological insights. Some geeks found signs, hidden in Scripture (I'd guess probably based on linguistic or numerological tricks) that there had already secretly been some kind of Messiah in the recent-ish past. The High Priest stuff, the "secret long hidden", etc. Then some of them will have had visions of the entity in question. It might well have personally given some of them a "gospel" of sorts, some kind of mini-biog ("Know ye that when I was on earth I did such-and-such.") Others might have had mystical experiences inspired by contemplation of the philosophical symbolism of the idea.

I think, actually, that the apocalyptic stuff may be a red-herring, as traditionally interpreted (in fact it was an embarrassment for later Christians, obviously). Something Ehrman said really rang a bell for me: that proto-Gnosticism may have started off as "disappointed apocalypticism". Hence, I think, there are remnants of apocalyptic language in Paul - but it's an interiorisation and spiritualisation of the apocalyptic trope (due to failure of standard apocalyptic expectations).
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Old 03-01-2010, 01:57 PM   #77
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The actual evidence indicates that Christianity evolved slowly over many decades (possibly even centuries) from loosely associated myths into more organized belief systems. For a long time there was considerable disagreement as to when this messiah figure might have lived, where he lived, where he traveled, what he did, when he died and how he died, even whether or not he got married and started a family. Many didn't even believe he ever had a physical body. The non canonical gospels are evidence of this wide disparity of beliefs.

At some point a group of powerful and influential people organized in an effort to squelch competing beliefs. They used their influence, power and sometimes good old fashioned book-burning to force "orthodox" Christianity on everyone, branding any versions that weren't compatible as "heresy".
Good post, I agree with most of what you're saying. When I was stressing that some probably did believe in a living (and most probably superhero-like, divine) being in the recent-ish past, I meant that to guard against the tendency some mythicists have (and the tendency of some to assume that this it is the default mythicist position) to hold that the early believers believed that their Jesus never had a physical aspect.

Check my post to Elijah above for some things relevant to this too.

And also, of course, all this could have happened with an HJ, it's just that it needn't have happened with an HJ for it to have happened, and in the absence of good evidence for an HJ, there's no good reason to suppose it did happen with an HJ, and therefore it's more likely to have happened via some conglomeration of philosophy (ancient philosophy as practical, involving ethical, mental and meditational exercises), theology and visionary/mystical experience.
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Old 03-01-2010, 06:30 PM   #78
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That kind of doesn't make sense, mysticism has little to do with faith, it's experiential (cf. Sam Harris), it's something that happens to you that knocks you for six, not something you choose (except of course in what one might call the "strategic" sense, in choosing to undergo the rituals and disciplines of one's chosen sect's practices) . I agree that it COULD have been Jesus, I just don't find any good evidence for such a fellow.
What you are describing in my opinion is a mystical experience not mysticism. Mysticism is using technique and practice to manufacture and control those mystical events, the idea being that there is some kind of benefit from this experience and practice in the next life. Gnosticism is that the knowledge or the pursuit of the knowledge is of benefit but not the mystical experience but in those practices a mystical experience could be induced to confirm a metaphysical/Gnostic principle.

The point I was trying to make was that the orthodox position is that despite Jesus and Paul and maybe all the early Christians being mystics, what they gained from the experience was that Jesus was the Christ not a gnosis about the universe or salvation from the mystical experience itself. Salvation was seen in establishing a new kind of kingdom with a spiritual king that could work like a meme-virus within existing empires like Rome, creating a new day. For that faith in Jesus is all that is needed not mystic ability or a specific Gnosticism and arguing for that just creates divisions slowing the progress down which is why they were persecuted.

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Judging from the evidence we have, including Paul, Chrisitianity is a very small beer thing to start with, basically a bunch of people sharing ideas. You get the impression from the gospels that this was all a big deal - but if we are going for a human, HJ, we can't accept that it was a big deal, it must have just been a tiny movement (that remained tiny till well into the 2nd century, and even then plateaued as a relatively minor religion until Constantine.

So it's a bunch of people sharing ideas. Now I would be prepared to countenance that they were sharing ideas in response to some human teacher called "Joshua" if there was any external evidence of such a fellow (outside mentions, artefacts, archeological stuff, etc.), or any internal evidence that any of the people who wrote the earliest texts (supposing stuff like Paul, Hebrews, Didache, etc., to be genuinely the earliest), or anybody known to anybody writing those texts, knew a human being called "Joshua the Anointed One". But so far as I can see, there isn't any such evidence, neither external nor internal.
So the most plausible alternative, failing finding evidence of the human fellow who got blown up into the ridiculous (albeit moving) and well-known myth, is that they were sharing ideas in response to one or a combination of: mystical experiences (states of profound absence of the ordinary sense of self, concomitant with the presence of a sense of being the Universe, or the Absolute, or the All, or however one's culture conceives the ultimate context of all contexts); visionary experiences (trance states with real-seeming encounters with divine or angelic beings, and/or demons); and philosophical and theological ideas, often sparked off by, or sparking such experiences. And that's the evidence we have - from the apologists, for example, one gets a sense of a philosophical kind of Christianity (again, remember Plotinus actually engaged with the Gnostics - he disagreed with them, but took them seriously enough to engage in argument, obviously partly because their philosophy was closely competitive with his, quite similar in some ways, not leaast including the emphasis on experience). From Paul we get the sense of an experiential, already-verging-on-gnostic religion, and from Hebrews and Didache, we get the sense of a disciplined, Philonic Jewish sort of deal - related to Gnosticism via a common acceptance of Middle-Platonic ideas.

There's even more variety than that as time goes on, but that's already a varied bunch. Some of that could have been started by a living man, but until we find such a man, it could also easily have started sua sponte, with lesser lights responding to ideas "in the air" at the time.
I don’t really see Peter and the early apostles as the jewish version of Greek philosophy groups or as advanced leveled or promoters of mysticism. I see them as working class, eager for a messiah to save them in a time of need. If the GJohn is correct then they were followers of John the Baptist who played the role of Elijah and picked the guy for God who he thought should be king of the Jews. This pick causes him to get some notoriety and followers which makes the Jewish leaders go and try to discredit or disprove him but when they fail it creates more buzz he could be the messiah so they have to get rid of him.

John the Baptist has already been killed so Jesus knows his time is short so instead of running forever he just faces his death and tries to get it to work for the cause of establishing this new kingdom John and himself were prophesying. So Jesus tells his followers that it is his intent to die but the followers don’t understand why but when he does have the faith to go thru with it they believe him more then they understand what the hell was going on.

At this point there is no way anyone could have really foreseen the effect of his sacrifice and more importantly him asking his followers to follow his example in being willing to sacrifice their lives. This creates a meme that every time you kill a Christian it becomes “the seeds of the church” which brings them closer to the goal in Christianizing whatever particular nation they were working on.

That IMO is why Jesus is sacrificing his life and how Christianity got going. Not because of a desire to promote mysticism or Gnosticism.
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I don't think Paul is of this ilk, but yes, you are pin-pointing a syndrome that no doubt existed - only a bit LATER. The evidence is (if Bauer is right) that this wasn't a dominant position from the start. There was no dominant position in the early days, orthodoxy was one amongst a spectrum of responses to ... what? Some plump for Jesus; I can't find him (plus I find the diversity comes too immediate after a supposed HJ's life for comfort) so I plump for a standard type of religious startup in whacky experiences.
There was no dominant position because there was no position. It was a faith based movement on a promise made by a guy who sacrificed his life. The initial followers probably weren’t educated enough to have a developed position on this, they just believed. That’s what made them his followers, not that they shared his understanding of the universe or mystical practices. It isn’t till later when more educated Jews like Paul see someone martyr themselves does he believe that they have true conviction and like you he assumes it is because they saw something, in this case the dead raised making them willing to die. Them believing he was the messiah but having no developed position is why Paul could come in there and make ideological changes and bring the gentiles in on the basis of their faith because that’s what he saw as defining the apostles, not their Jewness or their mystic ability or gnosis.

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It's the experience, knowing, and the pursuit of knowing, that gives the conviction. Religious founders are people who inspire - they inspire to action. This kind of conviction comes through the conviction of having personally experienced something remarkable (again, it could have been a real crucifixion/hysterical reaction, but there's no evidence for it). It doesn't come from mere belief.

So originally it was a small, scattered movement of geeks, geeks and, on the whole, contrary to later on, somewhat well-to-do, somewhat educated people; but geeks who were having ideas, visions and unitive experiences based on some kind of collective celebrations (cf. Paul on the situation with his congregations - some pretty whacky stuff going on there) or philosophical discussion groups. Some of the congregations would be more ritualised and/or riotous, some would be more philosophical and sedate. The philosophical circles would have been more like the later Hermetic circles (cf. book by Garth Fowden) or like some Vedantic discussion circles (satsangs) - you'd have a teacher with personal experience, perhaps of Plotinian philosophical ascent, or Jewish ascent mysticism, or some kind of non-dual philosophy; or they might have a claim to experience of encountering deities, spirits or demons. And you'd get some local well-to-do "New Agey" types who would go and listen to them talk, and do any exercises recommended.

The name, Joshua Messiah, Joshua the Anointed, has the air of a construct. It's like saying "Everyman Messiah". The entity was probably first conceived through poring over Scripture to glean theological insights. Some geeks found signs, hidden in Scripture (I'd guess probably based on linguistic or numerological tricks) that there had already secretly been some kind of Messiah in the recent-ish past. The High Priest stuff, the "secret long hidden", etc. Then some of them will have had visions of the entity in question. It might well have personally given some of them a "gospel" of sorts, some kind of mini-biog ("Know ye that when I was on earth I did such-and-such.") Others might have had mystical experiences inspired by contemplation of the philosophical symbolism of the idea.

I think, actually, that the apocalyptic stuff may be a red-herring, as traditionally interpreted (in fact it was an embarrassment for later Christians, obviously). Something Ehrman said really rang a bell for me: that proto-Gnosticism may have started off as "disappointed apocalypticism". Hence, I think, there are remnants of apocalyptic language in Paul - but it's an interiorisation and spiritualisation of the apocalyptic trope (due to failure of standard apocalyptic expectations).
I don’t believe people’s conviction tends to come from visions but more often comes from encountering other people of conviction and that conviction spreading from individual to individual (usually within families). I think a lot of the strong atheists could be traced to knowing or meeting an atheist with really good conviction that there was no god and that conviction spreads making a new atheist the same way conviction in Christ would be spread, person to person, but with Christianity there was the martyrdom to give it that extra bit of evidence that they really believed and weren’t faking.

Basically I think you are over emphasizing the effect of a vision and under emphasizing the effect of seeing someone with enough conviction to sacrifice their life as the catalyst for the formation of Christianity.
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Old 03-01-2010, 07:05 PM   #79
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At this point there is no way anyone could have really foreseen the effect of his sacrifice and more importantly him asking his followers to follow his example in being willing to sacrifice their lives. This creates a meme that every time you kill a Christian it becomes “the seeds of the church” which brings them closer to the goal in Christianizing whatever particular nation they were working on.
But, sacrificing humans to Gods is anti-Christian. Jesus believers and Christians did not entertain the sacrifice of humans to Gods. It is completely forbidden.

This is found in "Octavius" by Minucius Felix

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The Roman sacrificers buried living a Greek man and a Greek woman, a Gallic man and a Gallic woman; and to this day, Jupiter Latiaris is worshipped by them with murder; and, what is worthy of the son of Saturn, he is gorged with the blood of an evil and criminal man.

I believe that he himself taught Catiline to conspire under a compact of blood, and Bellona to steep her sacred rites with a draught of human gore, and taught men to heal epilepsy with the blood of a man, that is, with a worse disease.

They also are not unlike to him who devour the wild beasts from the arena, besmeared and stained with blood, or fattened with the limbs or the entrails of men.

To us it is not lawful either to see or to hear of homicide; and so much do we shrink from human blood, that we do not use the blood even of eatable animals in our food..
It is just plain absurd to think that in antiquity Christians were involved with sacrificing humans to God.

See http://www.newadvent.org
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Old 03-02-2010, 02:15 AM   #80
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...And there is some middle ground because Paul seems to have a problem with the resurrection happening with flesh so he’s showing some Gnostic/orthodox hybrid thinking. The reason he thinks this is because the nature of matter is contrary to that which is eternal so more rarified bodies would be needed from his POV.
Your post is just highly speculative and unsubstantiated however the time zone for Paul cannot be ascertained and with time works attributed to Paul have been withdrawn or deemed to be of uncertain authorship.

Unless it can be ascertained when the Pauline writings were made it is pointless relying on an author that the Church itself seemed to have lost track of.

It would appear that Church did not know what Paul wrote. How can you tell if the fake Paul did not write Romans and that the real Paul wrote Hebrews? After all, some believed Paul wrote Hebrews.


It would appear that the Canon produce by the Church is filled with bogus information about the dating, authorship and chronology of the writings within.

The Pauline writings do not match the time zone in which they were placed no historical source external of apologetics can account for the Pauline doctrine or character in the 1st century from Aretas to Nero. There is no external historical where Jews were worshiping a man as a God.

Up to the middle of the 2nd century, Justin Martyr only accounted for a single book found in the Canon by the name of Revelation.

It would appear that the Church destroyed and manipulated their own history and then want others to retrieve and re-construct their past with forgeries and bogus information.

The history of Jesus believers may be lost forever due to deliberate fraud within the Church itself.
Would it then be fair to summarise your answer to the question 'How did Christianity begin?' as 'There's no way to tell'?

Because that would bring the tally of answers up to five.
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