gurugeorge

"Odd reading"? I don't think it's odd at all.

As I understand it from when I checked, "according to Scripture" can be translated as like "according to the BBC" or as like "in accordance with Directive X". Both are viable. I'm choosing the former. Not "in fulfillment of Scripture" but "as Scripture tells us".

Then, beyond that, what I'm doing is simply taking the referent literally as referring to The Messiah, i.e. the [mythical] one everyone had been waiting for.

What everyone else is doing is imagining that the referent is a specific entity potentially locatable in time and space. (i.e. taking it for granted that "Christ" is a kind of proper name).

Which is more "convoluted"?

"Examples of this sort of thing happening"? People revise and jiggle about with their religious concepts all the time, don't they?

The Messiah is a mythological concept. People then expected a Messiah, to them an entity who would be real, a human being divinly inspired; all these particular Messianists were doing was shifting the advent of The Messiah into the past, i.e. altering, revising the very concept itself. Still (they thought) a real being. (However, it's notable that their revaluation of the Messiah concept also reverts to an older version of the ideal, the ancient "anointed good kings" were considered "Son of God".)

But that shift of the concept to an advent in the past leaves hostages to fortune. Naturally people confabulate and fill in details.

archibald

The one which involves people went around saying that a messiah had recently come to earth in the vicinity when no one had.

I'll take that as a, 'no, I don't have another example'.

mountainman

So who burnt the books of these heretics, and why? They were busy protecting the interests of the church and the glory of the canonical books over the blasphemy of the gnostic heretics.

There is other stuff from Nag Hammadi such as NHC 11.1

"But our generation is fleeing since it does not yet even believe that the Christ is alive.

There is also possible evidence from Nestorius in the 5th century concerning heretics who subscribed to "theories of fiction". Also you might want to check what Emperor Julian wrote about Jesus and in ... "the fabrication of the Christians is a fiction of men" ...


Far less speculative that an historical jesus writing a letter (in Syriac script) to King Agbar congratulating him for BELIEVING he was real.

sloncha !

mountainman

I prefer as even more convoluted the Pontifex Maximus's claim that the Roman poets Cicero and Virgil in the epoch BCE retweeted the Sybil's prediction of the birth of Jesus on earth before it didn't happen.

Iskander

“The pontifex maximus “... conveys no useful information. What are you trying to say?


And when you say it, have you made certain that it meets aa5847 exacting requirements? I would not want him to call you names.

aa5874

Please, refrain from calling me brilliant.

I ONLY present the WRITTEN sources of antiquity JUST as I found them.

I have a RED LETTER KJV BIBLE and a LAPTOP and I SHOW people what is INSIDE. That is all.

What is so brilliant about showing that in gMatthew 1.18 Jesus was described as the Child of a Holy Ghost. and that in Galatians 1.1 a Pauline writer claimed he was NOT the apostle of a man but the resurrected Jesus Christ?

I don't have to be a ROCKET SCIENTIST to PRESENT the written statements in my KJV.

I am afraid that the "brilliant" people are those who claim there was an HJ of Nazareth that was NOT born in Bethlehem and have ZERO sources of antiquity to support their "BRIGHT" ideas.

At least, your explanation is based on some figure of history FOUND in the writings of Josephus but the "BRILLIANT" HJers based their explanation on their IMAGINATION and Forgeries.

What "brilliance" HJers possess?????

gurugeorge

Who says anything about "vicinity" and "when"? Can you find anything in "Paul" or Hebrews that suggests The Messiah's advent was pinned down, in their minds, to some time and place within their living memory? All we can say for sure is that they conceived it to be after the revelation of Scripture, and before their then-contemporary present.

And actually there seems to be quite a bit of variation as to "when Jesus was" in early Christianity (I think Wells goes into this, Joe Wallack here on this board also did a few posts about it IIRC).

And, again, bear in mind that this thing, according to "Paul", is a "revelation" of a "mystery hidden for long ages past".

That doesn't fit very well with a recently-crucified Messiah claimant now being hailed as a dead/resurrected Messiah; but it does fit rather well with my interpretation - i.e. that these people claimed that everyone else had misunderstood what the Messiah was (i.e. his true nature), what sort of "victory" he would win, and the timing and manner of his advent.

No you can take it as, "Are you kidding me? No I can't be bothered marshalling evidence for something that's so obvious and ubiquitous"

Examples of religious change, and even schism, arising from shifting, variant concepts about deities? That's virtually the whole history of religion.

What about YHVH? - tribal totem, cosmic lawgiver, jealous King-God, spiritualized, personalized concept, etc. etc.

Is Krishna a local godlet, a remnant of "Dravidian" religion, an incarnation of Vishnu or the Supreme Being in his own right?

Was Laozi an old librarian or a magical being equivalent to the Dao itself?

Change in religious concepts is everywhere, constant, it's one of the main things people struggle over, a major driver of history.

In that context, the idea that a bunch of Messianists might have thought they saw a reason in Scripture why other Messianists had gotten it wrong, and might have revised their conception of what the Messiah was, is by no means a stretch or "convoluted" and it fits perfectly with the texts and with the absence of external evidence for any human Joshua The Messiah.

aa5874

You DON'T know that there are ONLY two possibilities when you cannot establish when the Pauline writings were composed.

Logically There are MORE than two possibilities.

1. It is NOT known that the Septuagint contains any scripture with a character called Jesus Christ.

2. It is NOT known that the Septuagint contains any Scripture that claim Jesus Christ DIED for our Sins, was Buried and ROSE on the THIRD day.

3. NO Extant JEWISH non-apologetic writer up to the END of the 1st century documented a character called Jesus Christ in Hebrew Scripture or the Septuagint.

4. It is KNOWN that the EXTANT Codices contain SCRIPTURES where Jesus DIED for our Sins, was Buried and Rose the THIRD day.

5. It is KNOWN that the Gospels were regarded as Scriptures by the Church.

6. There was a TRADITION in the Church that "Paul" was aware of gLuke.

It is LOGICALLY possible that "Paul" referred to the Gospels as Scriptures and NOT the Septuagint.

archibald

You think it was outside Israel, for some reason?

And regarding the timing, if it hadn't 'happened' (even your way) then why imagine the Kingdom was coming, and that people were 'still alive', though some had 'fallen asleep' and their fellow cult members needed to be reassured by 'Paul' that this didn't mean the eschatological stuff wasn't actually happening. Pull the other one, George. it's got bells on.


So, still no examples of your scenario then. Ok.

archibald

Whatever. There were heretics around in the early days. They were slated. What I need is evidence that any of the heretics thought he hadn't existed in some form, on earth. Docetism doesn't seem to qualify.

I would like to look into this more. Do you have a link to the context? Can anyone else comment? Is there more from Nag Hammadi you would cite?

Sounds interesting too. Do you have a link to the context? It being 5th C doesn't inspire me. I'm more interested in early sources. By 5th C, as now, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if things were so remote that there wouldn't have been at least some few wondering. Depends on what basis, or what texts, they were doubting. Could be just like mythicists here.

By the way, I know it's not impossible. I just don't see enough reason to prefer it.