spin

I find these responses sad but understandable.

The writers find solace in the nice little nuggets of christian witnessing found in Josephus and Tacitus and aren't at all bothered that the first glimmers of christianity that come to us from generally accepted sources are the far less witnessy discussion of christians in Lucian's Passing of Peregrinus and the brief mention in Marcus Aurelius or even Pliny the Younger. (The case with Suetonius is different from the passages in Josephus and Tacitus: one example is simply wishful thinking regarding a Roman called Chrestus who stirred up the Jews, while the other example regards a sentence quite out of context with the rest of the text.)

It could be like a bunch of liars saying what you want to hear rather than what there was to be said and you respond that surely not all of them are liars. This is not a response to the problem at all. Perhaps not all of those mentioned by andrewcriddle are false, but one can't get there by such a weak implicit plea to statistics.

Would one argue that, of the overtly trinitarian material which found its way into the christian testament, at least some of it must have been original??

Perhaps not all the onomastic references to 'bosheth' (ie "shame") came into the bible through scribal intervention. Perhaps Ishbaal was really called Ishbosheth at times.

I don't think that it is at all strange that all these passages crept into pagan sources which were maintained for many hundreds of years by christian scribes. Perhaps what is strange is that there aren't more.


spin

Clivedurdle

Woman! Thou shalt not post late at night!

lpetrich

Paul says things like he was "born of woman, born under the law" (whatever that means), but not born of a virgin. That's in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Mark starts out with Jesus Christ already being full-grown and ready for his mission, while John has a rather metaphysical sort of "birth story".

I think I'd prefer to call it divine impregnation rather than virgin birth, because I think that that's a more important feature.

That story is rather pagan-like, since divine impregnations were common in Greco-Roman mythology; even some historical people like Pythagoras, Plato, and Alexander the Great were claimed by some to have had divine biological paternity.

By contrast, the Old Testament is rather lacking in divine impregnation; "children" and "sons" and "daughters" would often be metaphorically extended, as in calling kings "sons of God". But some of the writers of the Gospels interpreted "son of God" literally, in the fashion of Greco-Roman mythology.

Clivedurdle

Still sounds like made up stories - virgins, woman, law, word - can't even get details of mum consistent!

GakuseiDon

Even closer to that time period: Caesar and Augustus were declared to be gods, but they had to have had some god ancestor in order to do it. I think that for Jesus to have been palatable to the pagans as a god, he had to show a similar ancestory.

andrewcriddle

I certainly don't regard the expansion in 1 John v 8 as authentic, which other passages do you have in mind ?

(I'm aware that some OT pasasges became sort of Trinitarian by bad translation from Hebrew to Greek but I don't think that's what you are referring to.)

Andrew Criddle

Vorkosigan

In any case this is a bad example, since Carlson has argued cogently that the Tacitus and Josephus interpolations are related, removing the type of independence you'd need to make your case here. Really there is only one story, interpolated into several different documents, over time. You might have a case if the time window wasn't 800+ years -- in the case of Tacitus, and 300, in the case of Josephus, and if there weren't so many forged and redacted documents in ancient Christianity.

In other words, your post makes sense only because you remove the context necessary to understanding why so many people might believe -- given the vast forgery machine of ancient Christianity -- that numerous other texts might also be interpolated. One might also consider all the other texts that have Christian alterations and interpolations -- Greek philosophical texts, several rescensions of the Alexander Romance, some of the other romances and historical fiction, and so on, as well as the tendency to Christianize authors and contexts -- the way a Greek fiction writers becomes a Christian bishop in tradition, for example. Once you restore Tacitus, Suetonius, and Josephus to the context of all the other forgery and alteration and cultural imperialism of ancient Christianity, then it makes perfect sense to believe that the few surviving texts of ancient history might have been altered by ancient Christianity -- in fact, it is easy to see what desperate straining is necessary to argue that they weren't.

Vorkosigan

mountainman

Hi Vorkosigan,

Your analysis is consistent with the argument that no desperate
straining should be required in the hypothetical consideration that
cultural imperialism of christianity may have been thrust upon the
empire in the fourth century, and no earlier, by Julian's "wicked men".

How do you view this argument, or differentiate its claims from
your own above?


Best wishes, and welcome back,




Pete Brown
AUTHORS of ANTIQUITY
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_029.htm

Vorkosigan

How do you account for documents and archaeological discoveries with an earlier date?

Vorkosigan

aa5874

The Bible makes an outrageous claim: If you do not believe the words written you will be damned in eternal torment.

Mark 16:16, 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned'.

Now, after reading those words, I must scrutinize this book 'un-mercifully' to ascertain its veracity. I have spent thousands of hours reading and examining the Bible and found it to be fiction.

I have found that the entire Jesus story is fabricated and in effect has no bearing whatsoever on reality.

I cannot recall reading any other book, where my belief of written text affects me after death.
Every single letter of this book should be examined thoroughly, with a microscope, if possibly, to expose its false outrageous claims.

Look at the book called Revelation 22:18-19, 'For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book'.


Can you refer me to any questionalable ancient writings that claim if I do not believe the writings, I will burn in Hell? I would like to scrutinize it with un-merciful ferocity.