Sheshbazzar

I expect that as scholars of all of these various texts, they have devoted much of their professional careers, not to simply taking the church's word on these things, but to the task of diligently comparing these texts, and what known historical facts that may be gleaned.

I find it no personal embarrassment that I cannot expend the multiple lifetimes that these various highly educated textual scholars have collectively expended upon the study and publication of their findings and professional opinions to provide us with public knowledge on this material. I don't as yet see any skeptic as having accomplished overturning this collective scholarship.

If you go to read up on what has been written on Celsus and Origen, What do you find?

I know what I have found, and don't know what you are opposing it with other than empty and snide denials.

Duvduv

You are avoiding my question. What does erudition have to do with claiming that so-and-so lived specifically in the second century without empirical evidence and based on church dogma?

aa5874

Please, you are wasting your time telling me what I must do. I deal with the evidence from antiquity NOT with flawed opinion.

Jesus in the short gMark is a GHOST.

Jesus in the long gMark is a Ghost.

Jesus in the long +short Mark is a Ghost.

Jesus that end at Mark 16.8 is a Ghost.

Jesus in gMatthew is the Son of a Ghost.

Jesus in gLuke is the Product of a Ghost.

Jesus in gJohn is God the Creator.

Now, your link presented erroneous information. Sinaiticus gMark DOES mention the resurrection.
Please examine Mark 16.6.

Sheshbazzar

I am not avoiding your question.
Well read and educated academic scholars have devoted lifetimes to the minute study of these writings.
Most, unless they are in the employ of a religious institution, are not making making their judgments on the age or the integrity of the texts they are working with, to accord with any church dogma.
They find the empirical evidence of a texts age and authenticity within the content of the texts, and their body of knowledge of other texts, and of the then contemporary social and political conditions.
Thus they are aware when something is an anachronisim or doesn't jibe with what is known of history.

Now provide one credible scholar that places the writings attributed to Celsus or Origen in the 4th century CE. So that we may all examine his or her evidences and arguments.

I haven't found one.

I presume from your continued depreciation of the present collective concensus of learned scholarship on these matters, that you can produce at least one well known scholar who has demonstrated that the writings of Celsus and Origen date to the 4th century CE.
If you cannot, you are only blowing a lot of hot air.

aa5874

An Expert Opinion is NOT, NOT, NOT evidence. This is basic and universal.

It is the witnesses, the physical evidence, that is primary and must be used to resolve any matter at any level

Scholars will tell us that the Pauline writings were composed BEFORE c 70 CE without a shred of evidence and then turn around and ridicule ordinary people who present evidence that the Pauline letters are NOT only late but historically bogus.

There may be Thousands of Scholars but it is the evidence that matters.

The stories of Jesus were written for people who were NOT Experts and may have been illiterate.

The Jesus stories must have been extremely extremely easy to understand and did NOT require a PhD 1800 years ago.

Jesus was the Son of God--A myth fabricated in the 2nd century.

If a person can understand Greek Mythology like Plutarch's Romulus then gMark is even easier--a piece of cake.

Sheshbazzar

Then provide us with your evidence that the writings of Celsus and Origen were not written in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE.

Duvduv

You are the one accepting the standard line, but have no empirical evidence to support it. Do we accept the church claims on their say-so?

mountainman

The empirical evidence (and dating) of both Origen and Paul must be resolve via the desk of "Eusebius". But to be specific there are hypothetically two theologians called Origen of the 3rd century: Origen the Christian and Origen the Platonist. Both of these Origens were supposedly pupils of one of two Ammonii who lived in the 3rd century: Ammonius Saccas the Platonist and Ammonius the Christian.

About the 2nd century Celsus Momigliano writes ....

Our knowledge of the wonderfully argumentative pagan Celsus and the Christian Origen (who skilfully and masterfully refuted him) is derived from the thesis in history which was submitted to the Journal of Hellenic Studies by Eusebius Pamphilus of Caesarea in the 4th century under the title "Historia Ecclesiastica", along with other supporting works and studies, maps, quick reference reckoners and the like. I don't think it was peer reviewed.


Our knowledge of Origen the Platonist and Ammonius the Platonist has been derived from many independent and inter-disciplinary dissidents submitting theses on the Platonic lineage to educational institutions since the Age of Enlightenment

By the Holy Ghost of Socrates why would anyone bother to write about Plato when there's Paul and Jesus standing around everywhere you look?

Sheshbazzar

I have already addressed that question, many of the independent academic scholars that have studied these texts have no connections to the church or its dogmas.
And in many journals and publications have demonstrated their willingness to refute church cherished traditions and dogmas when the evidence warrants it.

Evidently even the best of scholarship, (even if you wish to claim that 'very best' can be found within this Forum of dilettante scholars) have not been able to produce evidence that the writings of Celsus and Origen were not authentic and written before 254 CE. If they have any such evidence they certainly have been doing a good job of hiding it under a bushel.

Until you can produce some credible evidence to the contrary, as I said, you are only blowing a lot of hot air.
Produce that credible evidence, give me solid text based reason to reject the opinions of these learned scholars, and I will change my opinion.

mountainman

Thanks for that JJ4.

There must have been wonderful opportunities for "chrestos" writers at some stage.