Solo

But you see, Malachi, this is a naive view of how information spreads. Irrespective whether Jesus existed or not, if some fantastic tales about him appeared, say in Alexandria and Syria, they would spread horizontally as well as vertically. If there was a bunch of illiterate folks who spread the "news" of Jesus they would (and did, in fact) hit the literate echelons of the Jewish community, i.e. people who either were well educated or who thought themselves well educated. For example, Philo and Paul. Philo would have likely considered these tales "a [small coin] a dozen" that did not merit his attention. Paul, on the other hand, having some pretensions of his own to know God's mind, pretensons not terribly well schooled, would be very offended by the tales of Jesus and - through whatever happened in his head to convert - he would begin the process of a historical record of the movement. So the spread of the misinformation would have been checked, at some point, either by the disinterested philosophical types, or by a competing theo-political agenda.

It is my view that the latter did occur in Paul, and if Paul - a fanatical devotee of God - did not say, "such man never walked on earth, so keep these crazies out of our midst", but preached instead a fantastic apologia for Jesus through an assumed connection to him post-mortem, then it is a significant statement on one side of the debate.

Jiri

Ben C Smith

Your view is (once again) noted. Thanks for your input.

Ben.

Amaleq13

And that gentiles who believed in Christ were not required to adhere to Jewish purity codes.

And that believing gentiles were just as legitimate inheritors of God's promises to the Jews as natural born Jews.

It seems fairly clear to me that they are drifting away from Paul's teachings about believing gentiles not being required to adhere to Jewish purity codes. To preach something else was to preach "another" gospel.

Amaleq13

Are the members actually serious about that? I always thought it was a joke. If they are serious, this one is certainly a keeper.

Dianetics is generally categorized as "Religion/Philosophy" rather than "Fiction" despite the fact that Hubbard was a science fiction author and despite the fact that it virtually indistinguishable from science fiction. Fear of the ubiquitous Scientology lawsuits?

Shaky ground for inclusion on the list, IMO.

I think I found a better #2 for your list: Matrixism

gstafleu

How would one test such a hypothesis? It posits that a bunch of literature--legend or otherwise--is based on a historical figure. At the same time it posits that we cannot find evidence for such a figure (because he was not interesting enough at the time). It seems that this hypothesis is inherently non-confirmable and non-disconfirmable. That is not very good science, I'd say.

Gerard Stafleu

spamandham

I don't know if they're serious or not, but I presume they are.

...of course, I left off the list perhaps the best fiction-becomes-religion parallel, The Odyssey. It might be fun to compile a complete list of this type of phenomenon.

Vinny

Thanks for the plug Toto! Here is a bit of what I wrote about Sherwin-White on my blog:

The first thing I noticed is that the book has nothing to do with the historical reliability of the resurrection accounts or any of the miracle stories. As the book’s title suggests, Sherwin-White’s interest was Roman law and society. The book addresses the procedural and jurisdictional issues that arise in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ trial and the issues of Paul's Roman citizenship that arise in the book of Acts. "[O]ne may show how the various historical and social and legal problems raised by the Gospels and Acts now look to a Roman historian. That, and only that, is the intention of these lectures." (emphasis added) (RSRLNT p. iv)

Sherwin-White’s analysis did not require him to reach any conclusions about the historical reliability of the New Testament stories. He simply offered his opinion on the extent to which the accounts reflected what historians knew about the legal system of ancient Rome. Much as a doctor might comment on the extent to which an episode of E.R. reflects real medical practice or a lawyer might comment on the courtroom scenes in Law and Order, the Oxford professor offered his opinions about the events reported in the gospels and Acts in light of contemporary scholarship (as of 1963) regarding ancient Rome. This does not mean that Sherwin-White either affirmed or denied that any particular story in the New Testament was factual or fictional. For his purposes, the question was not relevant.

Nevertheless, after discussing legal issues for 185 pages, Sherwin-White took 7 pages to “consider the whole topic of historicity briefly and very generally, and boldly state a case.” (RSRLNT p. 186) He declared himself an amateur in the field of biblical criticism, but he questioned those skeptics who declare that “the historical Christ is unknowable and the history of his mission cannot be written.” (RSRLNT p. 187) He admitted that "a deal of distortion can affect a story that is given literary form a generation or two after the events," (RSRLNT p. 187) but his response was that the gospels were no more obviously distorted than many of the sources that historians of ancient Rome must deal with on a regular basis. He did not assert that the gospels were historically factual. He asserted that they could be used to do history.

thedistillers

That's what I think too. :huh:

When we consider those 2 facts:

- People lie all the time.
- Many people believe all kind of weird stuff, even if they can easily verify that it's not true.

Those 2 facts alone are enough to refute the bogus argument of Craig and co. that it's impossible for myths to grow in a short period of time.

Toto

Hi Vinny - welcome to BC&H.

I think that it is clear that apologists have abused Sherwin-White, but I think that most of the skeptics here disagree with his idea that the gospels can be used to do history in any meaningful sense.

Sherwin-White is usually cited for the proposition that there was not enough time for "legendary development," and therefore there is some historical core to the gospels. KrisK10 claims that Sherwin-White actually proposed that

If there are literary records where the mythical tendency has prevailed over the hard historical core of the oral tradition in the first two generations, there will always survive another less legendized source or sources to guide the later historian.

I don't have the book in front of me, but I doubt that this proposition can be supported, since the survival of historical documents can be somewhat random. :huh:

andrewcriddle

IIUC KrisK10 was suggesting that this is what Sherwin-White's argument implied. I don't think KrisK10 meant that Sherwin-White said this in so many words.

Andrew Criddle