Jeffrey Gibson

If the argument is about the characters, yes, we must.


Reminds me of the semi literate high school drop who asked asked a professor what was so good about having an education. The professor replied "Have you ever met anyone who would trade places with you?"


Jeffrey

Johnny Skeptic

In some cases, for sure. For instance, how in the world can Bible scholars be reasonably certain which of Paul's supposed writings were written by him, and when? They can't, but many of them do not want to admit their uncertainty because that would make them look less scholarly, and/or because they are too lazy to conduct more research.

manwithdream

I think Earl Doherty doesn't need reviews in scholarly journals because he is well-known on the internet and he is probably selling enough books without scholarly reviews. Bible scholars will eventually discuss his book if his ideas become so popular that they feel that they have to. Dr. Robert Cargill and Dr. Eric Cline have written articles saying scholars should respond to amateurs earlier, but I don't think scholars have the time or desire to answer every amateur who writes a book about the Bible.

Jeffrey, please don't ask me to prove everything I have said here because I can't. This is just my own personal opinion.

Kenneth Greifer
(also an amateur who has written a "book" about the Hebrew Bible)

Toto

I have in the past wavered between two different theories: one, that Christianity started with a historical Jesus who was a deranged scoundrel, probably bipolar, similar to Sabbatai Zvi, and the later efforts to clean up his image resulted in all historical details being removed from the record - or two, that Christianity started sometime after 70 CE and the gospel Jesus was invented as an allegorical representation of the defeated nation of Israel.

If my first theory bears any relation to what actually happened, I would not be surprised at the silence in the second century apologists. But under this scenario, Jesus will never be "historical" until some long lost documents turn up to confirm this story.

Solo

Sabbatai Zvi indeed was indeed bipolar and both his messianic consciousness and apostasy seem well explained by his condition. (Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (or via: amazon.co.uk)). I don't know that he was a scoundrel, a label I would reserve for someone who is fully accountable for one's morally reprehensible acts. I am not aware that SZ committed acts deserving such a label, nor at any rate, that he could be said to be fully responsible for them.

The one thing to understand about manics....and here is a big revelation to those not familiar with the condition is that it naturally tends to proclaim itself in acts of antinomianism. Jesus' imputed behaviour in the Temple is classically antinomian. Paul's activity was antinomian - literally. James the Just evidently had his own run-in with the established order of things.


....or, equally, as an allegory for the defeat of messianic expectations, which the grandiose spirit invites but which in the Pauline view need to be handled by reason (...when I was a child, etc...).

I would agree that until the the question of parousia was settled, the historical dimension of Jesus (which was never more than a vector for the apostolic authority of the church - as the panzer pope confirmed last year) did not have much play.

But I am very skeptical regarding the gospels: they will never be historical, and unless Jesus did not cure me of Jesus, documents substantially confirming them as history beyond a rough outline are not even worth while pondering. The gospels are a witness of a passing from a therapeutic manual in restoring bi-polar mystics to sanity through faith (Mark & Thomas) to a corybantic general religious celebration of frank mania (John).

Jiri

avi

I would suggest a scenario wherein the argument concerned the message conveyed by the assembly of characters, rather than the meaning of individual characters, themselves, though of course that perspective could be unduly simple.

Thank you for this. I am always looking for evidence that this Paul/Saul fellow actually lived....

avi

Petergdi

The merit of Earl Doherty's argument depends critically upon the question "Can the Greek text possibly mean what Earl Doherty takes it to mean?" The only person who can answer that question is someone who has very solid Greek.

Peter.

GakuseiDon

Yes. And it would ALSO provide an explanation for the First Century silence as well, correct? Now, there may be reasons why it couldn't, but it would be wrong to at least not raise the question.

And that is exactly my point: Earl has stated quite clearly that the Second Century silence is part of an argument for Second Century versions of Christianity without a HJ. Obviously, if the Second Century writers could be shown to have not believed in a HJ, then this strengthens his argument for the significance of the First Century silence.

But, also obviously, the reverse is true: If the silent Second Century writers DID believe in a HJ, then his argument can be reversed. THAT is what I am arguing. I'm not saying "this definitely explains First Century silence", I'm saying that the question hasn't been addressed.

Earl believes that Tatian's "Address to the Greeks" shows a Christianity lacking a HJ. I think that this argument is on the same level as Acharya S's "ancient advanced Pygmies who traveled the world" concept. I'd love to see him present his Tatian argument in a peer-reviewed format, because if he is right, he has made the most amazing discovery. But if he is wrong, then we start can start looking at the implications of this.

GakuseiDon

Doherty proposes that most of the extant Second Century apologists were Christians who believed in a Christianity without a HJ at its core, and uses silence as part of the justification for this. I've always thought that this was a good entry point to examine his methodology, since if he is wrong about the Second Century apologists (I argue he is on my website) we need to see why he is wrong and then see the implications (if any) on his evaluation of First Century writings.

Toto

Under at least one variation of this theory, Crazy Jesus inspired Christianity and got it going. The first century church removed all references to his earthly presence from their documents because he was an embarrassment, leaving nothing for the second century apologists to know. So the two centuries have different reasons for their silences.

We've gone around this before. I think you are imposing modern concepts on the second century. We think in materialist terms; Jesus must have existed, or he was a myth/fictional character/whatever you want to call him. I don't read any of the apologists as thinking in these terms. Jesus "existed" in their story line. That was enough for them.

But, as I tried to explain before, if the second century writers did believe in a historical Jesus, they did so for theological reasons, not because they actually had any evidence of his existence (from our moderm materialist point of view.) They derived their knowledge of him from interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures, or perhaps from visions or prophecy. They didn't actually know that he existed, just that the scriptures said that he had to have certain characteristics.

Why drag Acharya into this? A smear by association?

Anyone can read Tatian's Address to the Greeks and see that it doesn't mention Jesus, that it mentions resurrection without mentioning The Resurrection.


Re-imagining Tatian

(I can't find the last reference.)

The question is how you interpret this - does it mean that Tatian has some reason for avoiding any mention of Jesus, or does it mean that his religion was not based around the historical figure of Jesus?

Who would you ask to review this? What criteria would they use?