aa5874

My position is that Jesus Christ was ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY and is found in writings of antiquity, the Extant Codices, DATED by paleography to the 4th century.

ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY is RELEVANT to ANCIENT HISTORY.

This is so basic.

GakuseiDon

Also keep in mind that the NT canon was written entirely by mythicists, according to Doherty (with 1 Tim as a possible exception IIRC). The historicists couldn't get one lousy epistle into the NT, even though according to Doherty the canon was settled years after the mythicists had disappeared! Other than Acts, everything else was the work of MJers.

That I think is where the argument will need to eventually go. Even if an MJ became mainstream, scholars will still want to track when the early materials were written and where, to try to determine where the switch-over to a HJ occurred. I've got the dates that Doherty gives in J:NGNM that I could get together here:

http://members.optusnet.com.au/gakus...view2.html#2.4

Toto

There were no real historicists until the modern era. The NT was written and edited by people for whom Jesus was divine. You persist in calling people who thought that Jesus was god "historicists" as if they thought historically.

aa5874

Well, based on "Against Heresies" 1 25-26, the Ebionites, the Cerinthians and those of Carpocrates did claim Jesus was human and had Joseph as his father.

The Church writers of antiquity claimed it was a LIE and Heretical to proclaim Jesus was an ordinary man with a human father.

Since the 2nd century based on Irenaeus there were people who were claiming that there was an "historical Jesus".

However, the QUEST for the "historical Jesus" was STARTED by BELIEVERS of God who REJECTED the Jesus of Faith.

TedM

This comment seems designed to portray the orthodoxy as having no interest in Jesus' historical life as described in the gospels. Such a portrayal can then be used to minimize any controversy that may have existed between groups that did not believe that the Jesus of the gospels existed and groups that did.

However, we have clear evidence of the marcion, docetic, and gnostic controversies about the nature of Jesus' flesh. And, we have clear evidence that the differences between gospel account of marcion with orthodoxy were highly controversial.

Why should we then NOT expect there to be evidence from a slightly earlier period of the gospel accounts being accepted as allegorical only, or being rejected outright by the Pauline Christians? Why would Valentinus, said to be a student of Theudas who in turn was a student of St. Paul, show no awareness of the heretical nature of the gospel accounts if Paul had never preached such a Jesus. Instead according to http://www.gnosis.org/library/valent...ntinianism.htm Valentinus seemingly accepted Mary as mother, Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist, and a one year of teaching ministry. He is seen as both human and divine, and there appears to be no controversy regarding events and characters mentioned in the gospels:

How could it be possible for Valentinus, the student of Paul's student, to have not rejected the gospels as heretical writings? How could he have accepted theology that was completely at odds with Paul's non-earthly, pre-existent, divine Jesus? How could he have accepted as historical gospels which never even mentioned Paul, but consistently showed Jesus' favoritism of twelve disciples, some of which went on, according to the history, to found the Church?

I just don't see how we can reasonably expect there to have been a shift from a purely divine 'other worldly' Jesus to an early gospel Jesus when the evidence we have from the 'line of Paul' shows no evidence of such a shift, and the controversies for which we do have significant documentation show great concern by orthodoxy of anything that questions the very nature of Jesus as described in the gospels.

It just doesn't add up toto.

J-D

If ancient mythology is not a reliable historical source, how is it relevant to ancient history?

aa5874

Read Plutarch's "Romulus".

J-D

Plutarch says that it is possible for parts of a mythological story to be historically true. ('This narrative for the most part given by Fabius and Diocles of Peparethus, who seem to be the earliest historians of the foundation of Rome, is suspected by some, because of its dramatic and fictitious appearance; but it would not wholly be disbelieved, if men would remember what a poet fortune sometimes shows herself, and consider that the Roman power would hardly have reached so high a pitch without a divinely ordered origin, attended with great and extraordinary circumstances.') Is that what you are saying?

aa5874

I am saying that ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY is relevant to ANCIENT HISTORY.

I really don't know what you are saying because it does NOT make much sense.

Examine what you wrote previously.

The Greek/Roman Myth Gods and SONS of God are RELEVANT to ANCIENT HISTORY.

That is so basic.

Toto

I don't understand what you mean by "minimize."

They were controversial for theological reasons.
See Valentinian Scriptural Interpretation

Members of the Valentinian school rejected the way most of their contemporary Christians interpreted the Bible as being overly literal. In their view, the Bible has to be interpreted in a spiritual manner. In some cases, the literal teaching is the spiritual meaning. e.g. the Sermon on the Mount. But for other, passages, the true spiritual meaning lay hidden behind the literal text in allegorical symbols. Valentinians claimed to have the secret to unlocking this hidden spiritual meaning. They supported these conclusions by citing Jesus himself: "The knowledge about the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but to the rest it comes by means of parables so that they may look but not see and listen but not understand"(Luke 8:9-10 cf. Irenaeus Against Heresies 1:3:1). According to the Valentinian tradition, Paul and the other apostles revealed these teachings only to those who were 'spiritually mature' (1 Corinthians 2:6). They identified their own teaching with these secret teachings that Jesus taught the to the apostles.

...

In their view, the Bible and all of the events and characters within it had to be read as metaphors that pointed to a higher reality. Literalist interpretation acts as a barrier to true understanding. As on writer said, "Truth did not come into the world naked; rather it came in prototypes and images: the world will not accept it in any other form" (Gospel of Philip 67:9-12). The Gospels and all of the events described in them "are representations of ones in that other realm" (Ir1:7:2) and are "a symbol and a dispensation for the conversion and salvation of humanity" (Acts of John 102). Valentinians treated the Bible as an allegory that disclosed an inner process of redemption in metaphors.

That's because you have imposed your own modern mindset on the issue. You think that there must have been a vast difference between believing that Jesus existed in real historical time, or not, because that is an important issue in our materialist age. The ancients were not necessarily materialists.

And why do you refuse to capitalize my name?