Duvduv

James, if you mean the fellow claimed to have lived in the mid-2nd century, consider all the factors:

a) Nearly nothing is known about his life;
b) He was said to live in a Christian community in France in the 2nd century when according to some estimates there were only about 50,000 "Christians";
c) Living in a faraway place like Lyons, France under such circumstances is about as likely as a chassidic Jew living in a chassidic community in the Congo.
d) He supposedly wrote some 30 or so years after Justin Martyr is said to have written and lived, yet within that short span of only 30 years we move from a Justin who knew nothing of the four gospels, the epistles of Paul and Acts to an Irenaeus who knows all about them.

This scenario of Irenaeus makes sense only within the context of the apologetics of the orthodox over their enemies in the 4th or 5th century.

aa5874

Which one???

Duvduv

I meant 50,000 "Christians" in the whole world. Of which there is this "bishop" in far away Lyon......

James The Least

I'm as skeptical of all this as you guys are, but if we don't assume that at least some of it has some basis in history, then we essentially have nothing to study or talk about. We're tilting at windmills.

I don't think we have much reason to suspect that the gospels are rooted in anything that happened in reality. But Irenaeus? It really doesn't take much to accept his historicity.

Duvduv

But James, what does historicity mean? That a guy named Irenaeus lived at some time? In this case as I describe below, almost nothing is even known about him. Heck, even more is "known" about Jesus and Paul than about Irenaeus.

Maybe some of the writings were attributed to a guy named Irenaeus in the 4th century, but in the SECOND century, only 30 years after Justin? Doesn't make any sense as I described below.

The scenario accepted as gospel truth for the mid to late 2nd century makes no sense based on what is claimed about Justin and Irenaeus with Marcion as discussed by Eusebius etc.

aa5874

Your own words betray you. You are NOT really skeptical at all. You want to PRESUME your own history or else you will tilt windmills.

This is the MOST interesting and FASCINATING part. You won't have to tilt windmills when you find out that "Against Heresies" is a massive forgery.

The past is NOT reconstructed by Presumptions but by CREDIBLE DATA FROM ANTIQUITY.

Sheshbazzar

Well there you have it. I've lived to hear over 60 years of religious lunatics spout their insane religious ideas, and either quote their cult's religious history from others, or when that wasn't sufficient, make up and assert as being history, their own imagined scenarios on the fly.

Arguing or reasoning with people seriously infected with the brain eating Zombie Jebus Virus is like arguing with the delusions of the patients in a self-admitted Mental Institution.
You can examine, reason, explain, and argue until the day you drop dead, and tomorrow they will crank out yet another of their unsound and insane reasons to 'believe' the kind of crap that they wish to believe, and remain securely behind the thick walls of their self imposed religious mental Institution
There is no way of rescuing them from their chosen form of insanity unless they finally get fed up and disillusioned with it, and wish to escape themselves. And a great many never will.

Ever listen to those Catholics who go on and on with their bogus Martyrology tales?
Most of it is nothing more than pure unadulterated and unhistorical horse-shit, but that does not give them the least bit of pause, because they want to believe these outlandish tales are the true history of their church and religion.
Historical fact, unbiased logic, and reality have nothing at all to do with it, promotion of religion everything.
Southern Baptist and Pentecostal 'witnessing' is not one bit more grounded in reality or honest reporting.

Sane discussion is for sane persons, or for those seeking a better understanding of reality, or seeking an escape from that cognitive dissonance that their religious indoctrination has imposed upon them.
The history of the church, or of the Christian religion, when presented from a Christian perspective will always be nothing more than fabricated tales and outrageous lies that have been taken on faith, or invented on faith.
To meet it on its own ground, or take its many claims about its origins or its named hero's as being serious history will always be tantamount to tilting at the windmills of religious insanity.
Secular history does not, and should not need to 'buy' everything that religious 'history' offers.
Extreme skepticism is the only way to deal with Christian claims and versions of history.
How far can you throw a Christian? That is total distance you ought to trust anything about their religion that they might claim.

James The Least

At what point does Christianity become historical? Forth century? Fifth? Do we just dismiss every person prior to that as mythical, their writings forgeries?

James The Least

Are there any Christian documents from antiquity that aren't forgeries?

James The Least

Historicity just means that somebody named Irenaeus existed. We don't need to know anything else about him to accept that. There is nothing at all extraordinary about the claim that somebody connected to the church wrote a book called Against Heresies in the second century. This is exactly what we would expect somebody connected to the church to have done, since they continued to write against heresies for a few hundred more years.