Malachi151

Alexander left his own writings, and many things were written about him during his own lifetime. We don't have to originals today, but we do have writings that cite these originals. Its not true that nothing was written about him until hundreds of years later, which is what many people claim.

We also have coherent descriptions of him from Jews, Persians, Indians, Greeks, Egyptians, etc.

We also tombs in the Alexandrian line, including the tomb of his half brother and son. The tombs contains artifacts related to Alexander.

http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Mu..._Berginas.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergina

spin

I've looked for substantiation that the tomb is actually that of Philip, but I've found nothing other than an article which suggests that the bones may have been Philip III Arrhidaeus, Alexander's half-brother. (Here.)


spin

Malachi151

Yeah, see my edits above.

spin

If you keep going you might give Gamera some inkling of the physical evidence that sustains the existence of Alexander, though I could be wrong. He's working hard to keep his eyes shut. La-la-la-la.


spin

Juma

No, by using the same standards for Alexander and Jesus its obviously shown that there is no evidence for Jesus.

The historicity of the empire of Alexander really necessarily implies a ruler, whoever (s)he may have been. The existence of the religion of Christianity do not necessarily imply an historical Jesus.

spin

Gosh, Gamera has suddenly become quiet in this thread.

Oh where, oh where has Gamera gone, oh where, oh where can he be?

ynquirer

There is no substantial difference from my first posts on the coins to the last. spin's plays the ostrich.

Forceful epistemology, spin's. :boohoo:

smokester

Juma
I don't know enough to argue one way or the other, but am curious as to what the Christian religion does imply if not an historical initiator of some sort. Who might that be?

spin

Who was the initiator of the Osiris religion? Osiris? What about the Dionisian religion, Dionysus? I could go on with numerous examples and you wouldn't be able to answer any of them. Why should the christian religion necessarily spawn a different answer?

Beliefs bear further beliefs. Where did apocalyptic messianism come from? Christian messianism is an offshoot of that, isn't it? -- whether there was a Jesus or not. There were numerous messiahs (including Judas the Galilean, the Egyptian, and Theudas) in the century prior to the Jewish War and an extremely famous one circa 132-135 CE called Simeon ben Kosibah (called Kochba). These figures would have had no significance had there not been a messianic tradition behind them. The religious belief gave some existence to the various movements.

Paul, steeped in the Jewish religion as well as the pagan beliefs of his home territory, knew of different versions of messianism and attempted to protect his flock from them and adherent to his. He also would certainly have known about the various saviours of the Hellenistic world. We don't know the full range of thought behind Pauline messianism and we don't know exactly what was written by Paul in the tradition that now bears his name, though there are numerous bogus works bearing his name, but exactly how many of those in the nt were actually his and how much of each?

We can see in the christian literature additions to texts, simple big bits like the end of Mark, the stoning of the whore in John, and smaller bits such as the trinitarian insert in 1 John 5. In fact we get single words changed in the manuscripts so changes took place at all levels. We can see two complete overhauls of the gospel of Mark one by the Matthew community and the other by the Luke community. In these latter two we have birth stories and resurrection stories added to what was found in Mark.

We however have a serious problem at this point: how do we get before the earliest literary indications we have in the gospels? We have a growing literary tradition before us, whose origins we can't really get at. That tradition involves a figure who was born in the time of Herod the Great according to Matt, but at the end of the reign of Archelaus according to the implications of Luke (material discussed elsewhere on this forum). Each aspect you can investigate creaks at the edges. If Jesus was born in Bethlehem, how could he be called Jesus of Nazareth? If Jesus had his home in Capernaum (Mk 2:1) how again could he be called Jesus of Nazareth? Did Jesus go to Jerusalem three times as per John or only once according to the synoptic gospels?

What we can see in this quagmire is an enormous amount of literary activity relating conflicting information, almost none of which was available to Paul, yet Paul, with only his vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus had enough to go out and proselytize the gentile world. He certainly didn't need a real person behind his message. He never saw one. He had the conviction that the end was imminent, brought on by the end of the age marked by his saviour's death.

What happens when Greek saviour tradition meets Hebrew messiah tradition? It is a marvelous cocktail. Beliefs bear further beliefs.


spin

smokester

spin
I like the marvelous cocktail
So the account given in the gospels of the birth and the resurrection of Christ is a noble fairy story with no more claim to historical accuracy than any other myth?

It seems to me that language and specifically the historical aspect of language would come in handy when considering the goings on of this time period.

It would be interesting to see if a student of language could determine if a great change took place between the death of Alexander the Great and the birth of St. Augustine in the meanings of key words which would account for the strength of this particular 'Savior myth' in the minds of men. For example, the Greek word for discourse, word, or reason---'logos'---would be a good word to analyse.