Doug Shaver

Nor would I, but Porphyry was not the sort of apologist I had in mind. Lee Strobel was the sort I had in mind.

Your syntax is so convoluted I'm not sure what you're asking, though it resembles a question that you've already asked me and I've already answered. (Nothing new about that, of course.)

Just for the newcomers' benefit, I'll take a guess at your meaning and respond accordingly. By way of preface, I note that the word "invention" is yours, not mine.

(1) I don't have a name for the author of the original work of fiction in which the central character was Jesus of Nazareth. The oldest extant revision of that work is called the Gospel According to Mark. Its author is entirely unknown, but for the sake of rhetorical convenience I usually refer to him as "Mark."

(2) Mark probably wrote his work sometime in the second century. The original story might have appeared in the late first century, but there is no unambiguous evidence that it did.

mountainman

Thanks for this summary answer. It could be called the C2 (2nd century) theory as distinct from the C1 (1st century) theory. It would therefore seem, when examined, that 99% of all theories of the origins of the history of christianity (whether HJ or MJ) are either C1 or C2 theories. I dont know of any C3 theories.

It is possible that Robin Lane Fox's "Minimal Historical Jesus Facts" will be represented as "Minimal Historical Jesus Facts" by other people in support of a C1 theory, such as Bart Ehrman.

But I agree with Philosopher Jay in questioning whether "Minimal Historical Jesus Facts" can be differentiated from "Minimal Fictional Jesus Facts"



If we are dealing with a fictional story, unless there are tell-tale anachronisms, it is difficult to tell from INSIDE the text when the text was authored. To determine the date of authorship of a fiction usually evidence OUTSIDE the text is used to estimate when the fiction (i.e. the "invention") appeared.

aa5874

Well, you must understand that I have ZERO use for speculation. An hypothesis or theory is NOT the same as speculation.

Speculation resolves nothing, does NOT need any verified or verifiable data and cannot be tested.

The resolution of any matter is based on the data available. For example, it can be argued successfully that the "TF" is a forgery but the data does NOT ALLOW us to resolve who wrote the "TF" based on the data I have seen.

The quantity and quality of the available data will determine how much questions, if any, can be resolved.

Again, for example, a jury does NOT have to know what a defendant actually did ONLY what the EVIDENCE, presented data, reveals.

If a defendant actually committed a crime but NO credible evidence is presented at the trial then defendant may most likely be exonerated.

In the case of the character called Jesus, and the history of the Church there is an abundance of evidence to show that the ENTIRE Canon is NOT at all from the 1st century and that the character called Jesus, his disciples, including Paul were inventions.

Doug Shaver

What I was summarizing was not a theory of Christian origins. It was a theory about the writing of the canonical gospels. That is only a part, and a small part, of a theory of Christian origins.

mountainman

Good point. How do you see the map of the whole theory, if the gospels are part? Is it as simple as a coin with a canonical and a non canonical side, or must it by necessity be far more complex?

Doug Shaver

There is nothing simple about it, but I don't have anything like a complete narrative to offer yet. Considering how much relevant evidence has been lost, I think it unlikely anybody will ever know exactly how this religion got started. We just don't have enough hard facts on which to base a firm choice among all the possibilities.

It does seem to me that Earl Doherty's account is correct in broad outline. There are at least two points on which I suspect he is mistaken. One is his dating of the canonical gospels, which I think is too conservative. The other is his estimation of the integrity of the Pauline corpus. I do not yet doubt Paul's historicity, but the I think the surviving documents are only suggestive of what he was really thinking. They do suffice to rule out, in my judgment, the notion that Paul's Christ was a man who had lived, preached, and died recently in this world.

aa5874

No, No, No!!!! YOU don't have enough hard facts on which to base a firm coice amomg all possibilities.

Do NOT rope in other people with your LACK of hard Facts.

There is an abundance of WRITTEN statements from antiquity to show that the Jesus story of a Human Sacrifice for Atonement of Sins was NOT likely to have been known at all in the 1st century.

YOU don't have enough hard facts.


You have NO hard facts for the historicity of Paul and doubt the reliability of the writings themselves yet you continue to doubt others when they SHOW you the HARD FACTS that even apologetic sources did NOT know of Paul up to the 2nd century.

There is ENOUGH Hard Facts that Paul, the Pauline writings, and Pauline Churches did NOT exist in the 1st century Before the Fall of the Jewish Temple c 70 CE.

We have NO credible source for the Bishops of Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Ephesus and Colosse. Most remarkably we have letters to Churches and NO credible sources for any names of Bishops of those Churches for at least 100 years after they were supposedly written.

In "Against Heresies" we hear of a Bishop called Clement of Rome of whom the Church cannot recall when he was Bishop. There is Total confusion in the chronology for the Bishops of Rome and for the SIX other Pauline Churches there are NO bishops named likewise for 100 YEARS after the Epistles were supposedly written.

There is NOTHING at all credible coming from a Pauline Church until 100 years after the Pauline letters.

The hard fact is that the the Jesus story is an INVENTION of the 2nd century and that apologetic sources did NOT account for the Pauline letters to the Churches even up to the mid 2nd century.

Duvduv

It is rather interesting how this kind of dispute is reproduced in Islam itself. The Shia argue that they emerged concerning a succession issue involving Ali, and Sunnis argue that this is all myth, that in fact there were no appreciable differences among Muslims until approximately 700 years ago when the whole succession issue, the 12 imams etc. was all made up out of thin air.

Indeed, one piece of evidence to this is that Shia accept much of the hadiths ascribed to Bukhari who was a Sunni from the 10th century. Now had they broken away before that, why would they have accepted anything proposed by an opponent?

Iskander

They didn’t, apparently


Hadith Collections

In the eighth century Malik’s Muwatta
A second early collector Ahmad ibn Hanbal's Musnad, collected between thirty and forty thousand hadith


Canonical Collections of Hadith: Bukhari and Muslim and the “Six Books”

Later in the ninth century the two hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim were collected.

Bukhari’s Sahih (“sound” or “authentic”) contains 2,602 distinct hadith, repeated several times such that each hadith is contained under every topic heading it pertains to, for a total of 9,082 items.

Muslim’s Sahih contains 3,033 distinct hadith.


Together with four other books, those of Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi , al-Nasa`i and Ibn Maja, they form a body of canonical hadith known as “the six books.”

Shiite Hadith

Shiites refer to hadith by the word khabar (pl. akhbar), or “report,” “tiding.” They do not pay as much attention to the isnad beginning with the Companions of Muhammad, but rather to reports transmitted by Shiite imams—12 descendents of Muhammad designated by God, having a near prophetic status. The “four books” of the Shiites were compiled later in the tenth and eleventh centuries. They differ from the Sunni collections mainly in containing numerous references to the Shiite imams, references they believe were suppressed by the Sunnis.


The Koran & Hadith
By Kenneth Garden
The Middle East Institute
George Camp Keiser Library