Doug Shaver

When I see their arguments, I'll tell you how cogent I think they are.

There are no miracles in A Tale of Two Cities, either, but I still don't believe that Dickens was writing a factual history of the French Revolution.

I see no reference to Jesus' ministry there.

According to the author, in what way did Jesus walk such that we ought to walk the same way? In what way is that kind of walking something that can be done only in this world?

I see no reference to Jesus' ministry there.

I see no reference to Jesus' ministry there.

You're assuming your conclusion. This whole debate is about, among other things, whether Christians of that time believed that temptation was something that could happen only to human beings inhabiting this material world.

When and where, according to the author, did "we" hear "him"? And who were "we" on that occasion?


According to the author, when and where did this happen?

Can you show me where Paul, or the author of I Peter, or any other Christian of their time -- in his own words, please -- expresses a belief that only in this world can a man live not to please himself, or live sinlessly, or never lie, or never threaten or fight back?

What you need to show to make any point at all is that, in the thinking of first-century Christians, they could be characteristic only of human beings living in this material world.

GakuseiDon

Sorry, I think I confused things by my last statement: I shouldn't have referred to Jesus there. My bad. My question was related to your comment:

Same here, but ever since I first read Doherty I've been trying to augment my understanding by doing my own research into Hellenistic thinking. Time and other constraints have precluded any deep research so far, but I haven't found anything yet that is inconsistent with Doherty's thinking.

In your opinion, how would we go about showing Doherty's view is inconsistent with Hellenistic thinking?

I wonder how strong that argument really is. Maybe there were few such writings after all, and this was simply the way things were at that time? On the webpage in Earlychristianwritings regarding Papias, we find (my emphasis):
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/papias.html

But I shall not be unwilling to put down, along with my interpretations, whatsoever instructions I received with care at any time from the elders, and stored up with care in my memory, assuring you at the same time of their truth. For I did not, like the multitude, take pleasure in those who spoke much, but in those who taught the truth; nor in those who related strange commandments, but in those who rehearsed the commandments given by the Lord to faith, and proceeding from truth itself. If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings,--what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples: which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice...

[As the elders who saw John the disciple of the Lord remembered that they had heard from him how the Lord taught in regard to those times, and said]...

[Papias, who is now mentioned by us, affirms that he received the sayings of the apostles from those who accompanied them, and he moreover asserts that he heard in person Aristion and the presbyter John. Accordingly he mentions them frequently by name, and in his writings gives their traditions. Our notice of these circumstances may not be without its use. It may also be worth while to add to the statements of Papias already given, other passages of his in which he relates some miraculous deeds, stating that he acquired the knowledge of them from tradition. The residence of the Apostle Philip with his daughters in Hierapolis has been mentioned above. We must now point out how Papias, who lived at the same time, relates that he had received a wonderful narrative from the daughters of Philip...

Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard

I've emphasised those sections referring to where Papias is getting his information from. We know from Papias that oral tradition was still highly valued in those times. But maybe Papias is telling us something more: that there really was very little literature around for him to use in the first place. There are a couple of references to "books", but Papias is travelling around personally to gather information and traditions. Yet how often would people have had the opportunity to travel around talking to people to gather material for a book in those days?

It may be that the reason we don't see very much literature from that time was because very little literature was, in fact, produced. Papias got most of his information from listening to people. If the books that Papias is referring to are tied into the development of the Gospels, then perhaps a case could be made that there never was much more than that.

TedM

It's possible that what seems most logical to me based on a number of reasons is influenced by prior conditioning, but if that is the case I guess I'd be the last to see it, and no one on these threads has had a good answer against several of my various reasons. I should have prefaced my comment however with the belief that this passage well could have been interpolated, and my conclusion assumes it is not.

ted

Niall Armstrong

If you want to discuss whether Jesus had a brother named James, this is the place to do it: http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=200746

Solo

There is something in psychology called the 'halo effect'. It is the propensity to describe real people by some dominant aspect of their personality, or see them in terms of a social, political, or religious function they have been assigned. I don't think that any historical figure of the West suffers from halo effect more than the one around whose halo the civilization developed for seventeen hundred years.

When I read the posts of both contending groups on BC&H (formerly 'Abrahamic Religion', formerly 'BC&H'), it is obvious that the individual writers are either defending Christ's 'halo' or trying to annihilate the credibility around which (they think) it is built.

For example, the PRO group extend itself to deny certain obvious negative aspects assigned to the earthly Jesus, most prominent among which is what Bertrand Russell called 'revenge psychology' on which the gospels are built and which are present in Paul also. Further, the halo will completely blind people like Jeffrey, Ben, Chris, or Roger to the most obvious likelihood for Paul's silence on the deeds of the earthly Jesus. Paul "knew" before his conversion that Jesus was an executed criminal. How does that project into his thinking after he received his revelation ? Does it not project at all ? How probable is it that in the original view of Paul, it was Jesus, and not the Cross, who was "the scandal" ? (And is that not what Paul says whe he says he knew Jesus after the flesh but knows him as such no longer ?) I believe Ben when he says he cannot follow my thinking. He cannot follow because his halo of Christ makes my view of historical Jesus a taboo to him.

Opposite to them stands the AGAINST group or MJ'ers. Their target is not really a Historical Jesus, but Christian religion, which they believe with the certainty of rank Chekists (Lenin's secret police), is the root of all evil on the planet (with the possible allowance that other "fundamentalist" religions are not better). They, including Doherty, deny any difference between liberal biblical study, and the literalist forms of the creed, and will attack the disciplined scholarship of the academics by conflating it with the cruder forms of the fundy babblefest. But like with the academic altar boys, the halo of Christ with which they are obsessed, will not allow the MJ'ers to evaluate historically the probability of a Jerusalem Temple-going Torah-thumping ascetic puritans worshipping a Platonic saviour thesis crucified in the abstract.

The sober assessment of the knowledge that we have of the era and the internal indicators of the early creed, would be, in my non-halo reckoning, that Jesus most likely existed and was executed for some controversial transgression(s). That we do not have reliable historical evidence for other biographical detail is just the way "she played", not a proof of fraud or conspiracy or non-existence.

Jiri

spamandham

We all have our ideas about what happened that seem most plausible to each of us. There's nothing wrong with your hypothesis here, but the execution of Jesus is not part of the historical concensus. It's just one of many mainstream competing hypotheses each supported by more or less equivalent evidence.

"Mark was originally written intentionally as a work of fiction and Jesus was an intentional fictional character" is most parsimonious with what I know, but that isn't really saying much. I waffle back and forth on this every few months. Maybe we'll call this the FJ position (fictional Jesus).

I see serious holes in all the HJ and MJ positions I've seen. I can't see any serious holes in the FJ position. All that is necessary is to show how a religion can form from a known work of fiction, and how people can rapidly forget it was a work of fiction and begin acting as though it were historical. Scientology has proven this can happen very quickly, as has the Jedi religion. I see no reason to think ancient people had greater critical thinking skills than modern people, and they certainly didn't have TV and the internet reminding them constantly their religion was based on a known work of fiction.

andrewcriddle

Almustafa is either historical or fictional.
He is not mythical in the sense meant by Doherty.

I think that you may be confusing the argument that telling stories about the actions of a person on earth need not mean that the person is being claimed to have really existed; with the argument that telling stories about the actions of a person on earth is compatible with believing that the person really and genuinely existed but not on earth.

Andrew Criddle

spin

TedM,

If the gospels have Jesus rejecting family, which must include the relationship with his brother James, if the book of Acts doesn't find time to specify that the James of Acts 15:13 and 21:18 is the brother of Jesus, and if Paul doesn't indicate that James was the brother of Jesus, we are left with the opaque phrase "James the brother of the lord" and later tradition which turns it into "James the brother of Jesus". Surely it is only the weight of tradition, and no evidence at all, which dictates to you how you interpret the figure. Isn't that correct?


spin

Doug Shaver

I was responding to this:
Considering the context, I construed that to be a claim that since the Didache clearly implies Jesus to have been a teacher, it follows that he was probably historical. Whatever Paul might have thought he was, was not germane to this particular argument.

TedM

The gospels do not specifically have Jesus rejecting his family. He says in general a man must hate his family, but that was for comparison purposes--ie follow God before all else. Otherwise, Jesus would have rejected the commandment, to Honor thy father and mother. He doesn't do that, and in fact lists the obeying of it as the way to salvation (for the rich man). In addition, at the cross Jesus directed the beloved disciple to replace him as son to Mary. It is generally assumed that the replacement was an act of kindness toward his mother.

In any case, why weigh the 'rejection of family' any more than the specific mention that Jesus had a brother named James?

It doesn't 'find time' to even INTRODUCE James, yet it does 'find time' to mention Jesus' brothers and mother in the first chapter as part of the original believers. I believe it is likely that James was introduced and for some reason that part has been lost or replaced.


That's what is in question.

And again, the "brothers of the Lord" in 1 Cor, who are married.

Not just the weight of tradition. It is also various other arguments I mentioned in the recent thread on the topic.


ted