GakuseiDon

I suspect that the lack of historical details regarding Jesus in Paul's letters is a major part of what convinces many that there is something to the ahistoricist position. And maybe they are correct. It's a good point, and I can only guess at reasons why Paul wrote this way. It isn't something I can readily explain away.

But there is an elephant in the room. The lack of details about Jesus is just one part of the puzzle. Like the blind man who only examines one part of the elephant (as per the image below which I stole from Ben), it isn't a complete picture of the issue.

Paul not only doesn't give details about a historical Jesus, he gives few historical details about anything. And not only Paul: we find the same situation for many other letters, stretching over the first few centuries. Why is it so hard to date many early letters? Toto suggested that Paul could be dated to before 120 CE, and when I asked him how, he said it had to be done via external sources. And that is the case for many other letters as well.

Earl Doherty writes "Something extremely odd is going on here. If one leaves aside Justin, there is a silence in the second century apologists on the subject of the historical Jesus which is almost the equal to that in the first century letter writers."

And he is correct. If you read through the letters on the earlychristianwritings website (which I have done, using English translations only as I have no relevant language skills), the lack of historical details about Jesus is remarkably consistent. Here is a list of letters that have no historical details about Jesus:

· Clement of Alexandria (182-202 CE): "Exhortation to the Heathen"
· Ignatius (early 2nd C CE): "Philadelphians"
· Ignatius (early 2nd C CE): "Polycarp"
· Tertullian (200 CE): "Ad nationes"
· Tertullian (200 CE): "Against Hermogenes"
· Attributed to 'Justin Martyr' (late 2nd C or 3rd C): Horatory to the Greeks
· Polycarp to the Philippians (early 2nd C CE)
· 2 Clement (130-160)
· Tatian (160) "Oration to the Greeks"
· Minucius Felix (160-250) "Octavius"
· Theophilus of Antioch (180) "To Autolycus"
· Athenagoras of Athens (180) 3 letters
· Unknown (130 to 200) "The Epistle to Diognetus"

In fact Paul has more details about Jesus than many of those letters.

For Doherty, the explanation is that some of those writers writing until late into the Second Century were ahistoricists. I think that he HAS to propose that. Much of the force of his argument about the lack of details in Paul is lost if there are similar examples which were written by historicists. After all, how can one use the criterion of "lack of historical details" if it is one shared by historicists and ahistoricists alike?

A second part of the elephant in the room is the time-line by which the letters were written. If ahistoricists were writing up until the Third Century, then why weren't they noticed by the heresiologists like Irenaeus and Tertullian? Irenaeus himself was in Rome shortly after Tatian was there, but he never seemed to have noticed that Tatian (a student of Justin) had any non-orthodox views. So, when were these later "pseudo-ahistoricist" letters written? And how do they fit into the time-line of the development of orthodoxy?

A third part of the elephant in the room is that of forgery and interpolation. Rlogan wrote on another thread, "Josephus is obviously the highest priority for forgery. It is something they MUST do because it's absence in Josephus' works is the most damning silence". But, if lack of historical details were a concern, then why make entries in Josephus (and Tacitus) but leave works like Paul and the other early letters? Why is the silence so much more meaningful in those pagan works than in early Christian works?

I suppose it could be argued that many early Christian works were well-known, so they were more difficult to change. But aren't changes in those works -- unintentional ones via marginal glosses, as well as intentional ones -- generally granted to have been done anyway? So, it WAS possible to make changes in the early works... but no-one ever thought to include historical details about Jesus? No-one was ever concerned enough to have Paul write about how he discussed Jesus with Peter and James?

Rlogan proposes that deliberate changes to early texts were made "at the time of Eusebius when the canon was formed as literal history as a matter of official state policy." But if an interest in literal history came about so late, doesn't that mean that earlier Christians -- even orthodox ones -- weren't interested in writing about historical details? And if that was the case, then why can't Paul simply have been a representative of that group?

I can't say for sure why Paul didn't include historical details about Jesus, but I can say that Paul is not unusual in this regard. That's the elephant in the room.

show_no_mercy

It seems like an elephant in the room for HJs. I figure there are three (or four) explanations for the silence.

1. There was a historical Jesus, but he was just a regular person who didn't do anything spectatular except get (unjustly or willingly) crucified.

1a. There was a historical Jesus, but he was rightfully crucified because was a violent insurrectionist and this is incompatible with the Christ of legend - Jesus Bar-Abbas. Thus it's a silence that's necessary.

2. There was a historical Jesus, but the 1st and 2nd century apologists didn't have a consensus about his actions on Earth until the four gospels were circulating consistently throughout all of the early church

3. There was no historical Jesus so there was no history to write about, thus 1st and 2nd century apologists didn't have a consensus about his actions on Earth until the gospels are in wide dissenemation.

There are possibly more explanations for the silence. The problem is picking the scenario that explains the most about early Christianity.

ph2ter

Such a Jesus would not attract anybody and his death would never start any religion or cult.

But then they would write the details about the Christ of legend.

In that case everyone of them would present his version of Jesus' actions before crucifiction.

Of course, this is most plausible.

The fact that Paul is not unusual in this regard is actually what is expected in the case of nonhistoricity. The first Christians were no different from today Christians. They both regard Christ as essentially an heavenly being. But Paul who was supposed to be contemporary to Jesus should treat him differently than later writers, if Jesus really existed.

show_no_mercy

I agree - the reason people point out Paul's lack of historical detail about the "living" Christ is because he's supposed to be his contemporary. Ignatius isn't a contemporary of the "living" Christ.

We don't even know if Paul considered himself a contemporary of the living Christ, since Paul offers no clue whatsoever of when this Christ lived on Earth (except in the Pastorals where it mentions Pilate, but the Pastoral's weren't written by Paul).

Including the pseudepigraphs of Peter, John, James, and Jude, there's no mention of the living Christ's actions on Earth, and these people were supposed to be his contemporaries as well. More than contemporaries, they were supposed to have seen and spoken with the living Christ which makes their silence (if we accept them as authentic) more damning.

Ben C Smith

You definitely need to qualify this statement. Irenaeus chastises Tatian for starting the encratic heresy (extreme abstinence) in Against Heresies 1.28.1. I have this passage on my Tatian page (which is quite underdeveloped in other respects).

But you are correct that Irenaeus does not seem to notice that Tatian was a mythicist.

Ben.

dog-on

The elephant in the room, of course, is that Jesus of Nazareth, based on the evidence as we have it, is every bit as likely as Kal-El of Krypton.

You are just trying to stick that elephant behind a lamp post and claim, "Nothing to see here, folks, no siree!".

premjan

For that matter the guys who created Kal-el were Jewish too.

rlogan

"Paul" claims to have encountered Jesus celestially, not personally. So it is far more than just an absence of physical details on Jesus. It is the positive description of him as a celestial personage, not a human.

You are posing this as an anomaly when it is exactly what you would expect.

The counter-proposition is silly: Paul does not write about historical details. Therefore we expect historians to write excruciatingly detailed passages of this non-entity, with profuse eloquence on everly lock of hair and wrinkle?

Solo

It isn't to be explained away, GDon. It needs to be understood in the context of Paul and his times. You will not be able to grasp what Paul taught if you keep projecting into his writing the halo effect of the Christ personna walking on earth that defined 1,600 years of western culture. Paul was not responsible for this myth. Paul knew that Jesus was no saint on earth ! So, the simplest explanation for Paul's silence on the historical comes from Paul himself. 'I once knew the Christ historically, but don't consider him, or anyone else (!), that way any more. All that matters to faith is the 'new creation' in Christ'. The end is near !

Luckily for us, this elephant is shrinkable.

But is it the same silence, GDon ? Paul does not want talk about Jesus' earthly career because God revealed to him directly (and to the other wise ones through Paul) that though Jesus appeared foolish and blasphemous, he was nonetheless a unique human being, and the worthlessness assigned to him on earth was God's ruse. IOW, the more worthless a human being is made to appear (to flesh), the greater he or she is in God's eye. Paul felt worthless about himself (as all melancholics do) and could not explain it by other means than projecting that feeling on Jesus (though he knew nothing of him personally !). And then he was "introduced" by God to the resurrected one ! (Imagine that Paul got suddenly and very inexplicaby happy to a point of extasy) Am I the only one who is getting this ? :huh:

Why are the later "silences" related to Paul ? Paul did not think what happened "before" was at all germane. It's the here-and-now of suffering and the heavenly rewards coming soon that counted for Paul.

The second century apologists deal with different issues.

One important clue to their silence would be the distribution patterns of the gospels in the early church. Were they sacred relics to be guarded - especially given that rivalry existed between the different groups making claims on knowing the Ultimate Truth ? Would it not make sense to protect the emerging proto-orthodox faith's prized possessions to "mutilations" by heretics ? Would not publicizing them widely be akin to giving that which is holy to the dogs, and throwing pearls before swine ?
So, e.g. would not the silence of Minucius Felix be explainable in terms of the accusation which he features in his polemic: For why do they [the Christians] endeavour with such pains to conceal and to cloak whatever they worship, since honourable things always rejoice in publicity, while crimes are kept secret? (Octavius, X.)

And again would anyone who reads in the 'Address' of Tatian guess that he knew the gospels to the point of thinking it useful to harmonize them ?

baby elephant body part ?

As I said, the two types of "silences" point to different things. But what makes you think that Paul was not interpolated ? He says (2 Cor 5:16) he no longer considers Christ 'kata sarka'...and it's not a trivial matter. The whole Pauline theosophy stands and falls with the flesh-to-spirit conversion. This of course did not fit with post-Pauline verities, so Paul was made to confirm Jesus Davidic descent (Rom 1:3). The apostolic access to the resurrection had to be made when Peter became the alpha apostle and the stand-in founder of the Church. (I say stand-in because it seems probable that James' church did not originate with Jesus and therefore James became unsuitable figure for the Christ's church self-creation myth.) So, Paul had to be made "witness" of that. (1 Cor 15:3-8) A dispute arose in the early church over the Eucharist - the Didache supplied a liturgical schema, which was at variance with a more popular Christ as sacrifical meal ritual. Paul was brought in to rule on it in by revealing it as originating with the risen Lord (1 Cor 11:23-28).
But back to rlogan's opinion. He believes the Eusebian TF interpolation a "proof" of non-existence because he fancies Eusebius thought Josephus silence "damning" (I am taking your word for it). But that's a leap isn't it ? Josephus silence would have diminished Jesus historically as an important person, and this in Eusebius time was sort of a no-no, the church having committed itself to grand history ! So the TF forger - Eusebius likely - would have sought to counter the profound obscurity of the historical figure, and not necessarily (or even likely) his non-existence.
But the truth may be simpler. Jesus was an unimportant figure in his own time - a blip on the historical radar that was missed. The mysterious throngs in Mark that surround Jesus wherever he goes were never there in reality. They transparently symbolize the believers in the gospeller's time accessing Jesus through the spirit. To make them real, and to upsize Jesus historically, (athwart Paul !) one of course has to resort to forgery.

Jiri

Toto

I think you are setting up a straw man. There is much more.

I think I gave an answer to this in a previous thread. This new thread is just a rehash of GDon's obsession. I still think GDon is trying to impose modern categories on ancient writers. It seems to be a big deal now whether Jesus existed as an actual person or was a mythic founding figure of Christianity, but it was not the critical issue in the first three centuries of Christianity.

Something is off here. Doherty's argument is much more complex than you seem to think, and is based on much more than "lack of historical details in Paul."

I still think that you are misusing the term historicist for these early Christians. They believed in a historical Jesus as a matter of dogma, but they found evidence in the Scriptures, not in actual historical facts or relics.

Again, there were no "historicists" at this time. Irenaeus was concerned with heretics, and one did not need to produce actual evidence that Jesus was historical to avoid heresy, only affirm as a matter of dogma that Jesus was born of a virgin and crucified under Pilate.

At this point, you have overworked this poor elephant. Forgery and interpolation have hardly been ignored.

Walker seems to think that most of the interpolations in sacred literature were done and solidified in the late second century, when the Christian writings were more fluid. Pagan writings and non-canonical texts remained more fluid.

I think that if you actually tried to get into the mind set of the time, that these questions would not be issues. But you seem to be more interested in showing that they thought like we do, more or less, except that they didn't care about the details of Jesus' life.

No, they didn't anticipate modern objections. The interpolator was only concerned about inserting formulaic bits of dogma about "born of woman" or "in the flesh." The idea of looking for actual historical confirmation of Jesus' existence was not on the radar.

An interest in historical details is part of our basic mentality. Can you find a reson why no one was interested before Constantine - other than that there were no historical details because there was no historical Jesus?

Why are you spending your time trying to force early Christian writings into you preconceived notions?