Freethought & Rationalism Archive

GakuseiDon · 12-18-2003, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Amaleq13
The question remains, however, how one could come to consider a living Jesus to have become the Risen Christ without knowing anything about him before the crucifixion. It is "almost" as if a belief in a human Jesus (or at least one connected to a specific point in history) was not even necessary for those early Christians.

Isn't this addressed by the "embarrassment" hypothesis?

Tertullian in his Apology clearly believes in a HJ, but talks little about the human Jesus.

Earlier in this thread, Doherty says:

... the silence encompasses much more than that. There is not even *mention* of these places, no indication that they figure in early Christian thinking. I spoke of a "disembodied salvation myth" in Paul and other early writers, with not even signs of traditions *about* Calvary and details of the crucifixion or the empty tomb. Can we envision a host of "dusty disciples" going about the empire, preaching, writing epistles, talking about the great salvific acts of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and yet never give us any tie to the time and place and circumstances of those events?

Apparently, the answer is "yes"! In Tertullian, we have someone how CLEARLY believes in a HJ, yet doesn't give many of the etails that Doherty says should appear. Tertullian's apology:

(1) Never uses the word "Jesus"

(2) Never says where or when Jesus was crucified (except as under "Pilate of Syria"). No mention of Calvary.

(3) Other than a brief reference to miracles, doesn't give any biographical details of Jesus's life.

Isn't this a smoking gun? What explanation can mythicists offer for Tertuallian not mentioning these things, that can't also be applied to Paul's writings?

rlogan · 12-18-2003, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Amaleq13

God's Savior Messiah = Jesus Christ

Sometimes I feel so stooooooooopid. Stupid stupid stupid.

It's generic, and the theory of the epistles evidencing an HJ takes a torpedo midship. Groaning steel. Water rushing. Men dying.

Carnage.

Toto · 12-18-2003, 06:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GakuseiDon
. . .In Tertullian, we have someone how CLEARLY believes in a HJ, yet doesn't give many of the etails that Doherty says should appear. Tertullian's apology:

(1) Never uses the word "Jesus"

(2) Never says where or when Jesus was crucified (except as under "Pilate of Syria"). No mention of Calvary.

(3) Other than a brief reference to miracles, doesn't give any biographical details of Jesus's life.

Isn't this a smoking gun? What explanation can mythicists offer for Tertuallian not mentioning these things, that can't also be applied to Paul's writings?

Some mythicists would explain this by saying that Tertullian (or a contemporary) established the idea of a historical Jesus as an item of church doctrine, but knew (or suspected) that it was false. But emphasizing the belief was a convenient way of weeding out the gnostics.

In addition, we are reasonably sure that Tertullian had copies of the gospels, so he knew the story, and it is reasonable to read the gospels into his writings. If the standard dating of texts is even close to true, Paul did not have the gospel stories, and reading the gospels into Paul is not reasonable.

rlogan · 12-18-2003, 07:07 PM

Well, Tertullian does expressly defend the use of the name "Jesus" in response to the charge that that shouldn't really be his name in the first place (Rather, Emmanuel):

"But if the Christ," say they, "who is believed to be coming is not called Jesus, why is he who is come called Jesus Christ?"

Tertullian gives a rather long and dreary defense that basically it is an appropriate title:

"Thus, therefore, each name is appropriate to the Christ of God--that He should be called Jesus as well (as Christ)."

Moreover he gives pretty specific data in the defense of the personage in the Gospels:

Let us see, moreover, how in the forty-first year of the empire of Augustus, when he has been reigning for xx and viii years after the death of Cleopatra, the Christ is born.

"To whom succeeded Tiberius Caesar, and held the empire . . xx years, vii months, xxviii days (20 etc.). (In the fiftieth year of his empire Christ suffered. being about xxx years of age when he suffered"

I'm just an amateur with a computer and I can't triangulate these dates exactly - but its clear to me throughout he is defending the gospel accounts.

I am very curious which version of birthday he is following here, and most particularly interested in what year the above fixes the crucification. If anyone can figure this out it would be appreciated.

Edited to add source: An Answer to the Jews...

Llyricist · 12-18-2003, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GakuseiDon
Isn't this addressed by the "embarrassment" hypothesis?

Tertullian in his Apology clearly believes in a HJ, but talks little about the human Jesus.

Earlier in this thread, Doherty says:

... the silence encompasses much more than that. There is not even *mention* of these places, no indication that they figure in early Christian thinking. I spoke of a "disembodied salvation myth" in Paul and other early writers, with not even signs of traditions *about* Calvary and details of the crucifixion or the empty tomb. Can we envision a host of "dusty disciples" going about the empire, preaching, writing epistles, talking about the great salvific acts of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and yet never give us any tie to the time and place and circumstances of those events?

Apparently, the answer is "yes"! In Tertullian, we have someone how CLEARLY believes in a HJ, yet doesn't give many of the etails that Doherty says should appear. Tertullian's apology:

(1) Never uses the word "Jesus"

(2) Never says where or when Jesus was crucified (except as under "Pilate of Syria"). No mention of Calvary.

(3) Other than a brief reference to miracles, doesn't give any biographical details of Jesus's life.

Isn't this a smoking gun? What explanation can mythicists offer for Tertuallian not mentioning these things, that can't also be applied to Paul's writings?

It seems you refute your oiwn argument with those exceptions, here's what I found so far of the details Tertullian gives in his apology:

Quote:

They themselves read how it is written of them that they are deprived of wisdom and understanding-of the use of eyes and ears. 30 As, then, under the force of their pre-judgment, they had convinced themselves from His lowly guise that Christ was no more than man,

it followed from that, as a necessary consequence, that they should hold Him a magician from the powers which He displayed,-expelling devils from men by a word, restoring vision to the blind, cleansing the leprous, reinvigorating the paralytic, summoning the dead to life again, making the very elements of nature obey Him, stilling the storms and walking on the sea; proving that

He was the Logos of God, that primordial first-begotten Word, accompanied by power and reason, and based on Spirit,-

that He who was now doing all things by His word,
and He who had done that of old, were one and the same.
But the Jews were so exasperated by His teaching, by which their rulers and chiefs were convicted of the truth, chiefly because so many turned aside to Him, that at last they brought Him before Pontius Pilate, at that time Roman governor of Syria; and, by the violence of their outcries against Him, extorted a sentence giving Him up to them to be crucified. He Himself had predicted this; which, however, would have signified little had not the prophets of old done it as well. And yet, nailed upon the cross, He exhibited many notable signs, by which His death was distinguished from all others.

This is orders of magnitude more detail than can be found in any of the pre gospel epistles, and I don't know whether this is exhaustive, as I haven't read that whole thing.

So what was your point?

Edited to add: And the "mention of Pontius Pilate" DOES place the event in a specific timeframe.

GakuseiDon · 12-18-2003, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Llyricist
It seems you refute your oiwn argument with those exceptions, here's what I found so far of the details Tertullian gives in his apology:

This is orders of magnitude more detail than can be found in any of the pre gospel epistles, and I don't know whether this is exhaustive, as I haven't read that whole thing.

So what was your point?

Edited to add: And the "mention of Pontius Pilate" DOES place the event in a specific timeframe.

I'm not saying that Tertuallian didn't necessarily know these things. Reread the quote from Dooherty again:

Can we envision a host of "dusty disciples" going about the empire, preaching, writing epistles, talking about the great salvific acts of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and yet never give us any tie to the time and place and circumstances of those events?

Tertullian has written an apology without once referring to the name "Jesus" or to "Calvary" or without specifically placing Jesus doing anything in Jerusalem. My point isn't that these things weren't known, it was that they weren't the focus of Tertullian's belief. So Doherty's rhetoric question above can be answered "yes"!

And, as usual, Doherty never sees that this problem also applies to the MJ. Can we envision these disciples going about the empire and not giving more details about an MJ to a pagan crowd? Or can we say that Paul wasn't concerned with anything else but the crucifixion?

Who did the MJ break bread with and say the words "this is my body"? Who crucified the MJ on the "lower celestial realm"? He was "born of a woman" - who? What other things beside divorce(!) did the MJ reveal?

GakuseiDon · 12-18-2003, 08:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rlogan
Well, Tertullian does expressly defend the use of the name "Jesus" in response to the charge that that shouldn't really be his name in the first place (Rather, Emmanuel):

Edited to add source: An Answer to the Jews...

I'm not trying to say that Tertullian didn't know the name "Jesus" - just the opposite, in fact.

As Toto says, we can be fairly confident that he knew about the gospels, but even so doesn't talk much about the human side of Jesus - not even mentioning his name, for example. It shows (IMHO at least) that what Doherty is suggesting in the quote I gave is wrong.

Llyricist · 12-18-2003, 08:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GakuseiDon
I'm not saying that Tertuallian didn't necessarily know these things. Reread the quote from Dooherty again:

Can we envision a host of "dusty disciples" going about the empire, preaching, writing epistles, talking about the great salvific acts of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and yet never give us any tie to the time and place and circumstances of those events?

Ok, so because he doesn't mention the place, even though he goes into quite some detail about the circumstances, and at least gives a time frame.... you have caught him out because used the word "and" in between all of them

What is meant here is that ALL of those details are excluded, NOT that they should have mentioned ALL of those details.

As for the other points, Doherty addresses those as well, and I'm not as good as Amaleq at teasing out and articulating them

, so I'll leave it to him.

GakuseiDon · 12-18-2003, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rlogan
Sometimes I feel so stooooooooopid. Stupid stupid stupid.

It's generic, and the theory of the epistles evidencing an HJ takes a torpedo midship. Groaning steel. Water rushing. Men dying.

Carnage.

Not really. I believe that "Jesus" (or "Joshua") was a fairly common name for that period, there being a few listed in Josephus and the Talmud.

Amaleq13 · 12-18-2003, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Toto
Some mythicists would explain this by saying that Tertullian (or a contemporary) established the idea of a historical Jesus as an item of church doctrine, but knew (or suspected) that it was false. But emphasizing the belief was a convenient way of weeding out the gnostics.

In addition, we are reasonably sure that Tertullian had copies of the gospels, so he knew the story, and it is reasonable to read the gospels into his writings. If the standard dating of texts is even close to true, Paul did not have the gospel stories, and reading the gospels into Paul is not reasonable.

He apostatized didn't he? Joined some heretical sect or something? Montanists?

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12-18-2003, 07:07 PM	#74
rlogan Banned Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Alaska Posts: 9,159	Well, Tertullian does expressly defend the use of the name "Jesus" in response to the charge that that shouldn't really be his name in the first place (Rather, Emmanuel): "But if the Christ," say they, "who is believed to be coming is not called Jesus, why is he who is come called Jesus Christ?" Tertullian gives a rather long and dreary defense that basically it is an appropriate title: "Thus, therefore, each name is appropriate to the Christ of God--that He should be called Jesus as well (as Christ)." Moreover he gives pretty specific data in the defense of the personage in the Gospels: Let us see, moreover, how in the forty-first year of the empire of Augustus, when he has been reigning for xx and viii years after the death of Cleopatra, the Christ is born. "To whom succeeded Tiberius Caesar, and held the empire . . xx years, vii months, xxviii days (20 etc.). (In the fiftieth year of his empire Christ suffered. being about xxx years of age when he suffered" I'm just an amateur with a computer and I can't triangulate these dates exactly - but its clear to me throughout he is defending the gospel accounts. I am very curious which version of birthday he is following here, and most particularly interested in what year the above fixes the crucification. If anyone can figure this out it would be appreciated. Edited to add source: An Answer to the Jews...

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