Roger Pearse

Not so early as that. Few manuscripts were written in these centuries, due to the appalling conditions in the Dark Ages.

There are two families of manuscripts of Caesar's works; those containing only the Bellum Gallicum and which contain allusions in colophons to ancient correctores such as Iulius Celsus Constantinus and Flavius Licerius Lupicinus; and those containing the whole collection of his works (Bellum Gallicum, Bellum Civile, Bellum Alexandrinum, Bellum Africum and almost always in that order). Readings for the BG are markedly different between the two families.

In the first class there is :

A = Amsterdam 73, written at Fleury in the Q3 of the 9th century,
Q = Paris Latinus 5056, 11-12th century, which are related

plus 4 others:

B=Paris lat. 5763, Q1 9th century, from Fleury
M=Vatican lat. 3864, Q3 9th century, from Corbie
+ a 10th and an 11th century ms (in Florence and London).

There are some 75 manuscripts which derive from these, all later.

In the second class, there are another 8, the earliest 10-11th century, latest 12th; and 162 later copies from this group.

Note that there seem to be almost no mss of either family written between 1200 and 1397. The mass of later copies all belong to the renaissance, and lead up to the invention of printing in 1450.

All this from L.D.Reynolds &c, Texts and Transmissions, Clarendon (1983), pp.35-6, article by Michael Winterbottom.

I hope that helps.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Or, indeed, his credit card?

We must consider the little matter of the total collapse of ancient civilisation, language, culture, everything; and 5 centuries of chaos ruled by the equivalent of Mugabe. One Merovingian kinglet heard that the Roman emperor Claudius had created two new letters, so he ordered that all books should be destroyed unless they used some new letters which he proposed to have created.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

This idea derives from 19th century conspiracy theories, based on the extreme difficulty of getting access to the Vatican library at the time. But in fact there was no conspiracy -- the problem was simply that the Pope employed Italian librarians, who were lazy, obstructive, selfish and incompetent (traits not lacking in their successors today). Around 1900 the then Pope got tired of the negative publicity and turned the library over to the Swiss guard. They installed Swiss librarians, who, being Germans, are extremely efficient. (They are the only Italian manuscript library that I was ever able to get a response out of).

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Surely all of us would be rather better off studying anything data-based about antiquity?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Sven

Germans are extremely efficient? You don't know me...

Riverwind

The authors themselves. Their works are often very speculative in nature, which is why they are rarely addressed by mainstream scholars. How can one refute pure speculation? It's a futile endeavor and one that few are interested in pursuing.

Gregg

I'm sorry, Riverwind, but these assertions you are making are simply wrong, very single one of them. I could tell you how wrong they are, but since you are the one making the assertions, maybe I should just let you support them.

Show me your evidence that Paul and his contemporaries knew about the gospels, when the scholarly consensus is that the gospels were written several decades later. I mean, even the majority of the historical Jesus supporters accept this.

Show me the abundant references to Jesus' teachings in the early Christian correspondence, show me their parallels in the gospels, and, if you do find anything that seems like it could refer to a specific teaching of Jesus', and does not appear to be drawn from the Jewish scriptures, explain why:

1. A "teaching" cannot come from an entirely spiritual being.
2. Gospel writers could not have been familiar with Paul and/or other writers of early Christian correspondence, and put the "teachings" of the divine Christ in the mouth of their Jesus character.

Remember, you first have to discredit the scholarly consensus that the gospels were written well after the letters of Paul and his contemporaries.

Next, go to Earl Doherty's Web site (www.jesuspuzzle.org) and read it. Read all of it. Every last article, every last reader response, every last commentary, everything. Then tell me what material Doherty has rejected for the sole reason that it "does not fit his theory." Tell me where he says, in so many words, "I don't like this material, so I'm just going to explain it away with an ad hoc argument that makes no sense in context so I won't have to deal with it."

I have to say, Riverwind, I'm insulted. I'm an intelligent and skeptical person, and I do not entertain "implausible," crackpot theories. Furthermore, It does not matter to me whether Jesus is historical or not. If I found the historical Jesus case more convincing, then I would support it instead (I once was a historicist, by the way). I don't because I find the Jesus myth thesis far more, shall we say, "plausible." It fits the evidence far better and has a great deal more explanatory power.

I encountered the Jesus myth thesis after reading several books by Jesus historicists as well as material by The Jesus Seminar. I also read "Liberating the Gospels" by John Shelby Spong. I am not sure where I first heard the view that Jesus was a "myth," but I know I initially rejected it out of hand as absurd, probably a theory advanced by atheists with axes to grind. However, I skimmed through some of Robert M. Price's work and although I did not find his view that Paul's Jesus was some truly unknown Jewish rabbi from a century or more before Paul's time very convincing, I was impressed by his scholarship and knowledge of his subject, and the rest of his arguments were intriguing. In other words, I no longer regard Jesus mythers as uniformly "crackpot."

It was at this point that I encountered Doherty's Web site, and although I was far more open to Jesus myth theories than I had been, I still approached his arguments with generous amounts of caution and skepticism. Please keep in mind, I had no special desire to be convinced. Jesus being historical or not did not make a wit of difference to me ... I just had (and have) an inquiring mind and an interest in following the evidence wherever it led. Actually, that is not quite true ... I had a bias, but it was in favor of Jesus being historical (without the miracles and etc., of course).

So if Doherty's thesis had seemed "implausible" to me, if I'd noticed that he was "rejecting material" that seemed to speak against his theory without giving very good explanations why (explanations that made sense in context and were not "ad hoc," and were supported by evidence), I would not have accepted it.

Gregg

More nonsense. I have no reason to believe that you have read Doherty's work, or Robert M. Price's, or Richard Carrier's analysis of Doherty's Jesus myth thesis, if you consider their material "pure speculation."

Furthermore, whenever I've read mainstream scholars rejecting the Jesus myth theory, they've never actually addressed the arguments and evidence. Instead they sort of airily dismiss the whole idea, or trot out a strawman Jesus myth thesis and attack that. Or they give the same tired old "proofs" of Jesus' existence (such as the Argument from Embarassment) which mythers have already systematically dismantled.

Do you understand that most of these mainstream scholars have strong confessional interests, or that the livelihoods of many of them depend on not rocking the boat too much? The pressure to ignore or marginalize Jesus mythers and their arguments is very strong. This is not like engineers ignoring crackpots who claim to have developed a perpetual motion machine.

But I think with the Center For Inquiry sponsoring a conference on the Jesus myth theory, it may begin to get more attention from more independent mainstream scholars, particularly with Richard Carrier strongly supporting lay scholar Earl Doherty's work.

Roger Pearse

Are such comments appropriate from someone advocating a view rejected by every mainstream scholar in the world?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Sven

If I've ever seen an out-of-context quote, this is certainly one!

Please note that I'm not a Jesus-myther, I've simply not read all the material. Call me a Jesus-existence-agnostic, if you like.