Johnny Skeptic

We do not have to reject it, but you insist that we accept it. Why can’t we agree to be agnostic on the issue? Regarding “Let’s hold onto all the data,� you of course mean all of the data held onto by the historical winners. Consider the following:

Elaine Pagels: For nearly 2,000 years, Christian tradition has preserved and revered orthodox writings that denounce the Gnostics, while suppressing and virtually destroying the Gnostic writings themselves. Now, for the first time, certain texts discovered at Nag Hammadi reveal the other side of the coin: how Gnostics denounced the orthodox. The 'Second Treatise of the Great Seth' polemicizes against orthodox Christianity, contrasting it with the 'true church' of the Gnostics. Speaking for those he calls the sons of light, the author says: '...we were hated and persecuted, not only by those who are ignorant (pagans), but also by those think they are advancing the name of Christ, since they were unknowingly empty, not knowing who they are, like dumb animals.'

Larry Taylor: How does this apply to the story of Jesus? Simply that all of the early critics are dead. Skeptical opinions were banned. Christian opinions, other than those of the establishment, were banned. Books were destroyed, and later, heretics were burned.

In other words, Roger, Christians have rigged the deck, the deck meaning the surviving historical records.

Now Roger, it is Christians themselves who make a big deal out of the issue of eyewitnesses. Just take a look at Lee Strobel’s ‘The Case For Christ,’ J. P. Moreland’s ‘Scaling the Secular City,’ and ‘In Defense of Miracles,’ edited by Gary Habermas and J. Douglas Geivett. Would you like to present a case for Christianity without referring to the eyewitnesses?

You claim that Papias was most likely a hearer of John the Evangelist. John the Evangelist was supposedly an eyewitnesses. That makes John’s supposed eyewitness testimony important, and yet you said “This seems to be a long list of demands that you make of Andrew -- why is it his problem rather than yours? --, and I don't see the relevance to the rest of the thread.� You don’t see the relevance of eyewitnesses? Well, that puts you in a distinct minority indeed.

At http://www.infidels.org/library/mode.../montgmry.html Richard Packham says “The testimony of Papias is the earliest authority for the authorship of the Apostles, but it is scarcely ‘solid.’ We do not even have Papias' direct testimony, since his writings are lost. Our information about Papias' testimony comes only by way of Eusebius, who wrote in the fourth century, and who portrays Papias as being somewhat gullible. The ‘John’ of whom Papias was a student was more likely John Presbyter than John the Evangelist (or John the Apostle, if they can be proven identical). In short, the ‘solid’ evidence is not as solid as Montgomery would like us to believe.�

Now please Roger, it is in fact your assessment that the majority of the modern educated world has declined to accept. Typical of fundamentalist Christians you attempt to put ordinary historical claims in the same category as claims of the supernatural. The modern historical method does not work that way. That is because of the issues of repeatability, frequency, and probability, which are all related. The claims that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born of a virgin, died and rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, if true, were claims without prior precedent or subsequent duplication in all of human history. While the claims, if true, are of great eternal significance, whether or not Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River is of no eternal significance whatsoever. If new evidence came out that suggested that Caesar did not cross the Rubicon River, you would not be concerned in the least.

The Bible claims that there is tangible evidence of God’s power thousands of years ago, but what tangible evidence is there of his power and involvement in the lives of humans today? An unusual healing can happen to anyone, not just to Christians. In the world today, there is every indication that tangible good things and bad things are not distributed equitably, and that they are distributed according to the laws of physics, not by divine intervention, calling into question claims that miracles occurred thousands of years ago.

Christians often accuse skeptics of being predisposed against the existence of miracles, but such a notion is preposterous. There is no evidence that any miracles have ever occurred, but any skeptic would love for miracles to be available to help us with our many burdens. If I thought that there was only a 10% chance that miracles exist, I would go out of my way to prove that they do exist. I am defining miracles as events that are beyond the abilities of humans, and made possible by an extra-terrestrial being for the express purpose of benefiting humans.

Any skeptic would love for a benevolent God to provide him with a comfortable eternal life if he thought that it was available, so there should be no doubt whatsoever that all that skeptics are asking for is irrefutable evidence of God’s existence and good intentions.

There are plenty of loving skeptics in the world, some a lot more loving than the typical Christian. A loving skeptic would quite naturally be attracted to a loving human being, a loving alien or a loving God. This is just plain old common sense, Roger. If I thought that the Devil whom the Bible depicts exists, if I were able to kill him I would do so. Would you? Birds of a feather flock together. I detest the Devil whom the Bible depicts.

Matthew 14:14 says “And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.� We need compassion today just as much as people did back then. It seems to me that there are only two possibilities here, either that God is no longer compassionate in tangible ways, or that he never was compassionate in tangible ways.

yalla

S.C.Carlson points out that:
Irenaeus had all of Papias' work
We only have the bit Eusebius gives us.
Eusebius could be accidentally/deliberately misinforming us.
Is that correct?

So I checked.

Irenaeus refers indirectly to the fourth of five works of Papias. Eusebius cites the preface of Papias. I presume they are not the same thing.

Yes I can see that Irenaeus is possibly correctly interpreting something else of Papias that we do not have and that Eusebius is [accidentally/deliberately] misleading everyone by misquoting Papias.

A trap for young players?

But a no win situation for the credibility of our Christian sources.
Someone, Eusebius or Irenaeus, is misleading. Or even both.

And someone must have misled old players too, such as Marsh, Kummel, McNeille and Barrett all of whom say Irenaeus is wrong. These guys are biggies in the field. I trusted them. Silly me. [Actually that looks flippant but it's not meant to be].

And one of them, McNeille, suggests that "Irenaeus may be mistaken in his recollections which he claimed to have of Polycarp's teaching" And he goes on to say [p.285] "So far nothing has been written which proves that Eusebius, in insisting on the 2 Johns, misunderstood Papias, though he may wrongly represent him as claiming to have been an actual hearer of Aristion and the Elder John".

What can be made of this?

And I seem to recall, and I reckon I'll be corrected if I'm wrong [as I should be], that it was Irenaeus that badly attributes a quote to Jesus that came from a entirely different source [apocryphal Jewish?], something to do with fruits of the vine I think.

If so what we have is a fair degee of uncertainty all round as to whether any of these quotes and ancient writers can be fully trusted [not necessarily lying].

Which is where I came in in the first place when I said that I thought Roger's statement re Irenaeus/Polycarp/John was too simplistic and strong for the edifice on which it was based.

And I still, on reflection, think Irenaeus was wrong [he has motive as well because he is trying to assert apostolic succession in an in-fight in the church] and the material we DO have supports that. It is hard to base conclusions on material that we do NOT have. But it's not as simple as it seems so I'll console myself with that and the thought that Barrett and co. are with me.

Do I owe Roger an apology?
I still think his statement was too strong [can't give it up].

S.C.Carlson

Welcome to historical criticism. If everybody were 100% credible, it would be easy.

Well, they were the biggies in their field, but the field has moved on since then. For example, Richard Bauckham has pointed out that Irenaeus never actually John as the son of Zebedee, an assumption that permeates much of the older scholarship. Just because they were biggies doesn't mean that all their assumptions are correct.

You're probably thinking of Irenaeus, Adv haer 5.33.3-4. It has parallels with 2 Baruch, but it was not derived from it. They both go back to something much older in Judaism.

Again, welcome to historical criticism. It is necessary to decide which ancient sources to trust and to what extent to trust them. It's not easy.

In the case of Eusebius, I trust the pride he had in his showing off the extent of his library a lot more than his critical judgment.

Stephen

yalla

"Which is much the same that I was trying to say: " So just because something is written, and written in Eusebius, does not mean it should be accepted"....as authentic and true.[I should have added this previously]"

By me in post #14.

It came back to bite me in the bum.

Roger Pearse

There is no evidence for this claim, tho, is there? Are we really saying that Irenaeus only knew those portions of Papias quoted by Eusebius

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

It's an easy allegation to make. But it leads straight to subjectivism.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Johnny Skeptic

It is not subjective. It is a fact. Early Christians made no effort at all to preserve the Gnostic writings and other opposing writings, and there must have been a whole heap of 'em. Any claim to the contrary is patently absurd. If the Gnostics had been the historical winners and we only had a few existing copies of New Testament manuscripts, you would use exactly the same argument that I am using. You might also use the following argument used by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona in 'The Case For the Resurrection of Jesus':

"We would like to point out that, for the Christian, there is a difference between knowing that Jesus rose from the dead with reasonable historical certainty and living on the personal assurance that Christianity it true. Paul wrote in Romans 8:16 that 'the Spirit Himself testifies with out spirit that we are children of God.' The Christian has the Holy Spirit who testifies to her that Christianity is true and that she belongs to God. The historical certainty we have of Jesus' resurrection only reinforces that God's Spirit had indeed spoken to us."

Of course, the authors spend a good deal of time discussing the "historical certainty" elsewhere in the book. In fact, Bible apologetics primarily deals with evidence based historical certainty.

Did the disciples believe in a historical certainty and the importance of multiple eyewitness testimonies? Well of course they didn't. Luke 24:33-34 say “And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.� The word "indeed" is quite infatic and leaves little room for doubt. Now here we have the disciples “and them that were with them� believing that Jesus rose from the dead based solely upon the testimony of Simon, even though initially virtually no one thought that Jesus would rise from the dead. John backs this up by saying that when Peter saw the empty tomb, he went away confused, and that Mary thought the body had been moved. You can't have it both ways. Either Luke 24:33-34 are fraudulent, or the prevailing views about Jesus' promise that he would return from the dead as told in the New Testament are fraudulent.

I am quite certain that no more than a relative handful of Christians in the world today would believe that Jesus had returned to earth based solely upon the testimony of their spouse or best friend, even though unlike people back then today's Christians are all expecting Jesus to return to earth.

You have misjudged the character of early Christians and Christians in subsequent centuries. Consider the following:

In his book titled ‘The Religious Quests of the Graeco-Roman World,’ Christian author S. Angus, Ph.D., D.Lit., D.D., says the following:

“No one could have dreamed that the Christians, who had themselves suffered so much from persecution and protested so vehemently against the injustice and futility of persecution, would so quickly have turned persecutors and surpassed their Pagan predecessors in fanatical savagery and efficiency, utterly oblivious of the Beatitude of the Divine Master (Matt. V. 10, 44, 45). It became ominous for subsequent history that the first General Council of the Church was signalized by bitter excommunications and banishments. Christians, having acquired the art of disposing of hostile criticism by searching out and burning the objectionable books of their Pagan adversaries, learned to apply the same method to the works of such groups of Christians as were not in power or in favour for the time; when this method proved unsatisfactory, they found it expedient to burn their bodies. The chained skeleton found in the Mithraic chapel at Sarrebourg testified to the drastic means employed by Christians in making the truth conquer otherwise than by the methods and exemplified by the Founder. The stripping and torture to death with oyster-shells in a Christian church and the subsequent mangling of limb from limb of Hypatia, the noblest representative of Neo-Platonism of her day, by the violent Nitrian monks and servitors of a Christian bishop, and probably with his connivance, were symptomatic and prophetic of the intolerance and fanaticism which Christianity was to direct throughout the centuries upon its disobedient members and troublesome minorities until the day – yet to dawn – when a purer, more convincing because more spiritual, Christianity gains ‘the consent of happier generation, the applause of less superstitious ages.’�

When I posted that at the Theology Web, James Holding commented on it but he did not oppose it.

The largest colonial empire in history by far under a single religion was conquered by Christian nations by means of persecution, murder and theft of property. The victors often warred among themselves for the spoils of victory. Few Christians would favor the United States embarking upon colonial conquests at this time, but if every Christian who is alive today had been transported at birth back to 1650 A.D., when colonial conquests were widely accepted by Christians, there should be no doubt whatsoever that the majority of them would have favored colonial conquests.

Will you claim that today's Christians "just got lucky" by being born at a time when humans are more civilized?

yalla

I'm back. Glutton for punishment?
I've been reading Irenaeus re the 10000 vines stuff "Adv Her V 33 3-4."
Certainly looks like 2 Baruch 29. 5-8 to me.

Anyway it is immediately prior to THE reference to Papias as the hearer of John.
"Adv Her V.33.4"
Have I got that right? Are there others or is this IT?

And it says "And these things..." and they are the reference to the vine stuff.
#4 refers back to #3.
And then goes on to say "are born witness to in his writings by Papias..."
So Irenaeus got the vine stuff from Papias or at least they agree, according to Irenaeus.
Where in Papias is this vine stuff?
From ".. in his fourth book....''.
So that is what his reference to the the fourth book of Papias is concerning.
Now I thought that he got his "Papias knew John" from the fourth book. And nobody corrected my misunderstanding.

Now stuck in the middle of this is the reference to Papias "..the hearer of John.."

There is no indication that it came from any particular place.
It is not indicated that it came from the fourth book of Papias.

So why is there speculation that it came from anywhere else other than where Eusebius says it came from ie the preface?

On what basis has it been stated that Eusebius is misquoting Papias to contradict Irenaeus by manufacturing a false quote and not citing something else.

Is there any evidence that the preface of Papias is NOT the source of Irenaeus claiming Papias knew John?

There is evidence that it is.
Namely Eusebius.

Which, if the above is correct, gets us back to the starting point.

Namely Irenaeus says Papias was a hearer of john.
There is no indication that that opinion is based on anything else than the preface of Papias.
In which case Irenaeus got it wrong, [and he has motive for so saying].

So what am I missing this time?

andrewcriddle

There is a problem about precisely what Papias said concerning the death of Judas. IMS Some of the ancient citations have more lurid details than others.

In any case I see no reason to doubt that Papias records ancient tradition here although I doubt if it has any historical value.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

IMO one can't firmly establish whether or not Papias was a hearer of the apostle John.

However one should probably avoid multiplying Johns without necessity and there is really very little evidence for a late 1st century CE 'John the presbyter or elder' distinct from John the son of Zebedee.

Andrew Criddle