spin

You're missing the significance of the statement. Once could understand Tertullian saying "not 200 years have passed", implying that it hadn't reached 200 years, though it was getting towards it. "[N]ot 300 years" implies that it's getting towards 300 years. You're not asked to defend Tertullian, but to understand what he said.


spin

steve_bnk

I have seen the Great Pumkin, take it on faith, the Great Pumpkin will appear to the true believer.

sschlichter

oh, I did not realize this was a serious statement.

It is not that I am missing the significance, it is an inability to imagine you think it is significant.

Tertullian quotes from both Acts and Corinthians and attributes Corinthians to Paul while discussing monogamy. he specifically states that corinthians was written 160 (150?) from the time that he wrote 'On Monogamy'. He is aware that the Paul of Corinthians is the same Paul as in Acts. The same Paul that met the apostles. the same apostles that followed christ. I suppose it is possible that Tertullian is not aware that Paul was not 200 years old when he died but other than that, there is emphatically no reason to be confused about which Jesus Tertuullian is referring to.

He also first stated that 250 years have NOT passed before he stated that 300 years have NOT passed since the name of christ. if he is including the life of Christ then it would have been around 200 years. 200 years is less than 250 and 300. Now that you have me defending Tertullian, I would point out the accuracy of his statement.

250 years NOT passing precludes the figure from 100BC.

~Steve

spin

Joh 8:57.

Tert.'s lot was born with the death of christ, ie 250 years ago. + not yet 50 to the birth of Jesus.


spin

sschlichter

that is not what he said, that is what you say. He says Paul was married 160 years before writing On Monogamy and it is highly demonstrable that he is talking about the same Paul in Acts who met the apostles, who lived at the same time as the one and the same Jesus that is the subject of all of their writings combined.

He also says in the same context of the 250 years that...

This name of ours took its rise in the reign of Augustus; under Tiberius it was taught with all clearness and publicity; under Nero it was ruthlessly condemned, and you may weigh its worth and character even from the person of its persecutor.

Did he not know when Augustus was Ceasar? or he is talking about another Augustus, Tiberius, and Nero as well?

This also clarifies what he feels is the starting point of his very estimated stopwatch. the reign of Augustus containing the birth of christ.

It is evident that he is making an argument to avert blame of the Christians for events. Whatever events he is focused on or belevies his detractors are focused on made him use a 250-300 year timeframe. as if to say, you cannot blame us for events that happened 300 years ago because we have NOT been here 300 years.

If I accused you of stealing something at my house at 11pm, you would tell me you were not at my house at 11pm. you may have left at 3pm but you used 11pm because that is the accusation.

Vinnie

That says a lot. HCM is standard.

HCM, as the lat word literally reads, is a method used to reconstruct the past. I read all the relevant sources, Christian and non-Christian, and later authors. Certain texts make mention of events or names that allow them to be chronologically stratified. They also mention other texts and people that exist and of course, do not mention texts or other people that do not yet exist.

A text does not need to be 100% like the "autograph" in order to be useful in reconstructing history,

Nobody posseses exhaistive knowledge of the second century. I only claim partial knowledge and fully admit that I know a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of all that happened in the second centtury. Historians do not claim to know everything, just something.

If a document is filled with "I love jesus, he is my Lord the Maker of the Universe" I take it as immediate and obvious evidence of Christian composition. Unless the said example is a description of behavior, a parody or a quote. If it is the author's own view then said author = Christian. If it waddles, quacks, swims an eats like a duck, it is a duck.

Then it serves to show you know very little about the New Testament and its sitz im Leben. The same applies to the second century as well.

Textual criticism and there is no certainty. We work from the texts we have, compare different manuscripts from different areas, dome of which are comparably early, compare it to direct citations of it by various other writers, use the synoptic problem to show that Mark is still significantly, in tact, if not completely.

So there are some Christians writings in the first century. Many Christian writings in the second century. Many Christian writers in the third and fourth century who mentions these second century Christian and their written documents, which are often quoted. There is Christian papyri dating to the second century. There are also non=Christian historical reports (Tacitus) and official government letters (Pliny) and evidence of critiques (Celsus).

Yet there is only a paucity of questionable evidence for historical Christians in the second century? Remarkable! You were most certainly NOT lying when you suggested the historical-critical method was a meaningless string of words to you.

Vinnie

spin

Knock off the hokey analogies. These guys were depending on source texts. They apparently conflicted. You can't rationalize the conflict, butterflying from one text to another, for your own convenience. Just think of the modern college starters' sketchy knowledge of history: were Washington and Lincoln historically close? It's easy for you to check it up, if you're Wiki-literate. Tertullian didn't have a connection.


spin

Roger Pearse

If you say so. But I would advise you to get a better religion.

sschlichter

I certainly can butterfly all the works of Tertullian to find out what Tertullian knew. The connection Tertullian demonstrates is with the book of corinthians, in whihc he pointed out was written 160 years before ON Monogamy, which Tertullian has connected to Paul, whom Tertullian has demonstrated is connected to the apostles, whom Tertullian beleives are connected to Jesus of Nazareth, whom Tertullian has demonstrated is connected to the reign of Augustus. Tertullian has demonstrated that he knows these pieces of information and Tertullian has also made the claim that the rise of the name of Christians has occurred PUBLICLY

If you do not want to discuss Tertullian as a whole then just use the context from which he said 250 and 300 years where he is pointing out that Christians were NOT around in those timeframes. it is in this same context that he grounds the rise of the name of Christians to the reign of Augustus - no butterflying necessary.

Do you not find a Washington / Lincoln analogy hokey somehow?

Chaucer

Actually, that analogy does not originate with Spin, so he can't be blamed for it. It's mine, and I used it from a historicist angle in another thread. Heck, maybe it is hokey, but in my case, I used it to show that extravagant embellishments in the "record" (like Washington's tossing a coin clean across the Delaware(!) or Lincoln doing impossible things with logs(!)) do not necessarily discount the historicity of anyone.

Sincerely,

Chaucer