John A. Broussard

I find it hard to believe that the Romans really distinguished Christians from Jews or from other contemporary mystery cults. Pliny was exceptional in that he was an educated, intelligent person with a healthy curiosity about the world around him. I doubt that most of the consuls and proconsuls of that time knew much about religious distinctions and certainly wouldn't have cared what reasons were being offered for not worshiping the Roman gods.

In addition, these new religions undoubtedly sold themselves especially to slaves. With a history of slave uprisings, and with Christians and other cults worshiping secretly, it wouldn't have been hard to start thinking about conspiracies.

So, persecutions probably included far more than Christians. It's just that the others didn't survive to write about it.

Yuri Kuchinsky

YURI:
Well, so then please provide a coherent and believable scenario how the relationship between Jesus and John could have been invented at some later point by Jesus believers. So that all Jesus believers came to believe this.

This assumes that Mk was the earliest gospel.

So when do you date Mk, in any case?

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

All this is based on a misunderstanding of Yuri's logic... <sigh>

I'm not asking why they were willing to be martyred, but rather for a believable chronology that will place their willingness to be martyred in the context of everything else that any particular mythicist happens to propose about early Christianity.

So the chronology for the early martyrs is the key.

Yuri.

rlogan

Hi Yuri.

Well, I for one have abandoned the martyrdom = historicity of Jesus link.

You've denied that is your logic and so we ought well enough to set it aside.


Now as a concession from you I would like that you also acknowledge that there is no single "mythicist" view, and that you cannot treat the whole lot of us who have some version of it in our minds as one body - thereby claiming there is "inconsistency" in "the" mythicist view.

OK?

In polls I have seen here over the years it seems the majority have a "part myth/part history" view in mind.

I cannot speak for "the mythicist" view, but I have already answered what I feel was a very good general chronology given by Vork.

You claimed to have responded to it, but in sincerity I do not see that you have. It makes very good sense chronologically to have a mythical idea precede the "historical" idea that was subsequently motivated out of the necessity for consolidating power.

As I look at the early letters (eg the Ignatius thread) I see the hand of the forger smuggling in the message of central church authority under the disguise of some spurious and vague pretext.

This is strong evidence to me, along with all of the other various things we have discussed over the years.

I just don't see how the issue of Martyrs is so all-fired important. You keep insisting it is a "key", but that is merely bluster.

Take for example the alleged Domitian persectution. I feel the evidence is weak. But it would not be probative insofar as the origins of Christianity for me either way. I see that Christian beliefs evolved over time and what one was "dying for" in the very late first century would differ from what one was "dying for" many years later.

So just exactly how does your insistance on martyrdom history prove probative towards the mythicist view?

badger3k

So let me get this straight. You think that the mythicist position requires some kind of dispersion that would take longer than the historical position? So that if someone died for his belief in, say, 60 CE, he had to be an HJ believer, since for some reason the MJ theory couldn't account for that?

Either that, or you seem to want some kind of grand unified mythicist theory that can account for every theory of the mysticists. Hell, I haven't seen one for Christianity now that we know the orthodox history is bogus.

The key is still why they would be martyred. Belief is belief is belief. The message of a mystical god or an earthly god would transfer and disseminate around the region at the same speed. Unless you feel that there is some overriding historical fact that says otherwise. If so, what is it, please. Something like that could change the present theories and maybe help narrow them down. Isn't the truth more important than anybodys beliefs?

edit to state my own position - I think there might have been a human being who ended up being called "christ" and getting heavily mythicized, so I am probably in the middle. I know detail of very few theories, but the topic is of minor interest, so I follow threads here and see what develops.

Marxist

I think this is a pretty safe assumption.

The standard dates, plus maybe a decade, look fine to me.

I was thinking the other day, that the Tacitus reference to the beliefs of Christians at the time of Nero may be more damaging to the mythicist position than thought. For if authentic, the passage indicates that Christians believed Jesus had died under Pilate as early as what, 64? That’s even earlier than Mark. So the Tacitus reference to martyrs would seem to establish that Mark didn’t make that part up, and it would seem to give much greater weight to the historicity of Jesus.

What do you think, Yuri?

Vorkosigan

Tacitus refers to beliefs in his own day (after 100) rather than under Nero. In any case, there are a number of funky issues with that passage. See here.

Marxist

The thought occurred to me that this could be the case, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason to prefer it.

Would you say that the mythicist position is untenable if the passage is authentic and refers to the beliefs of Christians in 64?

Vorkosigan

No, of course not. Paul's letters don't change because some Christians are murdered under Nero.

As I recall, Josephus was in Rome around this time, maybe just before, but also does not witness to large numbers of deaths in the wake of the fire, although he is reticent on Nero. Yet many of those killed must have been Jewish converts to Christianity.....

Vorkosigan

Marxist

Ah, but if authentic and if it refers to beliefs of Christians in 64, that means the belief that Jesus was crucified under Pilate didn't originate with Mark. I don't think the mythicist case can stand on Paul alone.

Yes, there does appear to be many oddities about the passage, and the silence of other authors is quite strange.