Gamera

And you know that based on . . . ?

J-D

So, are you going to answer my question or not?

Toto

Are you assuming that the date of the MSS is the date of composition? I think it is reasonable to assume some sort of accuracy in transmission. If you do that, we have quotes from contemporaneous people who actually knew Alexander, but nothing like that for Jesus (with the possible exception of John's beloved disciple - although that gospel would be the last place one might look for an eyewitness.)

We know furthermore that the mythologizing started immediately after Alexander's death (if not before), along with the more sober history.

What difference does the time make? Mythologizing can start immediately, and the NT documents do not look like history. gMark has no indicia of historical reliability.

That's the problem - the thing called Christianity was virtually invisible until after Jerusalem was leveled, and took a few centuries before it overwhelmed the known world thanks to Constantine's armies. You can easily explain the spread of Christianity without a historical Jesus. You can't very well explain the history of Greece without Alexander.

spin

The more primary evidence you refuse to get your brain dirty with.


spin

spin

I'm glad to see you're still persisting with this butterfly logic. I can understand that you must ignore the coins themselves.

Please try to answer my questions:

Who produced the Alexander coins in mints in Egypt and Mesopotamia as well as Macedonia and various places in between coincident with the Greek occupation of these places and the fall of Persia? Who produced the Philip coins previously and the Philip Arridaeus coins afterwards? Why were Alexander's alone spread across what was the Persian empire matching what later writers describe as his anabasis and those before and after were of much more limited scope?

A refusal to answer them would suggest that you know that even the coins are sufficient to scuttle your conceit, so you don't go there.


spin

Steven Carr

Where does P52 mention Jesus?

And where is the Alexandrian Paul, telling people to wait for a soldier-king to appear, and drawing inspiration from the life story of Achilles, not Alexander?

Steven Carr

Are there NON-mythicists who think literary imitation is a negative point against the historicity of , for example, Judas receiving 30 pieces of silver?

Isn't the entire argument in Layman's thread a classic case of Christian strawman-bayonetting?

French Prometheus

The name written on the coin is that of Alexander (in the genitive).

You can see it better on the following tetradrachm (minted in Amphipolis in the late 320's BCE):
AΛEΞANΔPOY BAΣIΛEΩΣ [= of King Alexander]

spin

This is the same sad sorry half-assed drivel that Gamera has ratted on about ever since I can remember. Playing in the world of secondary literature. If it's not there, he can ignore it.

Take away the literature and Alexander can be demonstrated (while Gamera's candidate just can't). Something happened in the ancient world after the death of Philip II. Somehow the Persian empire disappeared. Alexander coins were suddenly minted throughout the lands of the Persian empire. Lots of coins were minted afterwards with many different names on them, but not with the same wide distribution.

Secondary literature has no historical value unless it can be anchored in the past. Tacitus time and again gets support from archaeology and epigraphy from the period he is dealing with. The same is true for Josephus's writings of his own times. They mightn't always be right, but even eye-witnesses aren't always right. We use these texts as though they were historical data because they have been shown to contain substantial historical data.

(And, no, Achilles cannot explain the existence of the information about Alexander.)


spin

J-D

I see a parallel there. It seems to me that Gamera's point can be paraphrased and expanded along these lines:

Take away the literature and Jesus can be demonstrated. Something happened in the first and second centuries. Somehow a new religion appeared.

And this is precisely what makes me think that there must have been an original leader of the original group of Christians. Where else did they come from?

The later accretion of fictitious and fabulous stories around a historical figure is absolutely commonplace, as the case of Alexander himself exemplifies. Of course there never was such a person as Alexander the son of Zeus Ammon, but that doesn't mean there never was such a person as Alexander.