Jeffrey Gibson

Umm .. aren't you confusing GJohn with the Apocalypse of John?

Jeffrey

lumax

I don't know if you ever heard of or read this book "Deconstructing Jesus" by Robert M. Price. I just came across it and even though I'm only in the 1st chapter I find it completely engrossing. To get to the point, he is discussing early sects of christianity and types of gospels put forth and the parallels of ancient Hellenistic writings. My feeling is that Pauline inclined Gospels took what suited their need from other sources only as a way to assimilate converts from various Christian and non-Christian sects. This was true in the later expansion of the Christian/Catholic church and I view the idea must have originated early in clerical authority.

spin

I haven't found a tongue-in-cheek smilie yet.


spin

spin

Despite the eating after resurrection and the doubting Thomas scene?

If the original tradition was of the death and it was backed up by text, how could it happen? I can imagine competing developments, one of a real death, one not, coming from an oral tradition previously unspecified on the matter of the death. Later disputes revolved around issues not dealt with directly in the gospels. Earlier disputes I would think would be the same.

Obviously reacting to innovation, wouldn't you think? Could you hold gnostic beliefs if birth narratives, etc., were part of the received tradition?

Interesting point, though Josephus was hardly an innovator.

I don't understand how docetism could have developed with an established written gospel tradition. Even walking on water was put in the context of Peter doing so. Mt 14:25-29 is quite interesting here. The disciples thought Jesus must have been a spirit until set straight.

Agreed. And even 1 Cor 15:5 has Jesus appearing to the twelve.


spin

Ben C Smith

These must be some of the more specific traditions you had in mind. I agree that these sound like anti-docetic passages.

That is exactly what I have in mind. The death as described in the gospel of Mark is just a death (though of course accompanied by wonders), and could hypothetically go in either direction; indeed, I think we have evidence that it did go in both directions.

I am envisioning pretty much the same thing here as with the death narratives. If the birth narratives just talked about a birth, one group could imagine that birth as water through a tube while another could imagine it as taking substance from the mother. Is there anything in the canonical birth narratives that would insist against the tube idea? (I do not know for certain; I am just asking. And, honestly, I am not naturally inclined to treat the birth narratives as especially early, though of course I am open to them being so.)

Agreed, but somebody had to start doubting that Moses died.

Not even if that written gospel tradition was either (A) docetic or (B) neutral, able to go both ways?

I am not at all certain that this is why Peter makes it into the story, but, even so, the Matthean version seems clearly later (to me, at least) than the Marcan version, which lacks Peter performing the feat.

This is what I mean by a text potentially going both ways.

And one also wonders whether the twelve in the Ascension of Isaiah and in Revelation are supposed to be including Matthias.

This is a likely scenario I am envisioning overall:

1. The first written gospel materials (Mark?) either imply birth and death or describe them in simple terms.
2. At least two groups spring up: (A) Those who think the birth and death were illusory in some way and (B) those who think they were real.
3. More gospel materials are now composed (Luke and John?) in order to push the former over and against the latter. (Still other gospel materials may have done the opposite, but they are probably either lost or fragmentary now.)

Ben.

mountainman

This is what the christian victors assert. However I'd suggest that you go through the exercise of reading back the above, and everywhere you write "christian", read back "pagan". We are told that the heretics were "christian" but that would probably just be a load of garbage, seeing the pagans had the total majority. It appears quite obvious to consider the possibility that the original heretics were simply pagan dissenters, like Arius.

The early heretics and the pagans seem unable to be distinguished except in the literature of Eusebius. Luckily his work was preserved.


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

judge

But is this the case? There is only one verse anywhere in the NT that seems to indicate Judas died before Jesus and several in the NT contrary to this, Acts 1:18-19, 1 corinthians 15:3-5, Luke 24:33, John 20:24.
If the preceding verses were to make sense (and I dont argue they must) then they only make sense as a whole if Judas is alive after Jesus dies.

judge

Well that would depend on how strong and widespread the said "gospel tradition" was. Were all areas and people equally under the sway of such a tradition or was the spread more uneven?

Clivedurdle

Are there not a billion assumptions here that should be challenged?

Are we not looking at a superb story telling culture?

What is the evidence of someone writing down some allegedly traditional stories, or more likely, composing and authoring written stories and plays from whole cloth?

Is Shakespeare's Macbeth the original Macbeth? What is their actual relationship?

What of the relationship between Arthur and a Yankee at his court?

Joshua, Moses and Mark?

When looking at the play Macbeth we do so in the context of its author. When looking at a play "Jesus" maybe we should look to its author, who we call Mark, as the creator of xianity?

aa5874

My position is that "Christians" predated the anecdotes of Jesus of Nazareth, that is, as Tacitus and Suetonius recorded, there were people referred to as Christians before the fabrication of the Synoptics and the character called Jesus Christ. Even, the Pliny letters did not mention any one called Jesus Christ.

Based on Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch and Athenagoras, it appears to me that the word Christian was probably a derogatory word at one time, and did not initially or inherently have any link to the anecdotal tales of Jesus of Nazareth.

Theophilus of Antioch Orthodoxy in Christianity appears to have occurred after the collusion of Constantine and Eusebius.