Roland

Since some on here reject the concept of a Mythical Jesus, and are highly critical of people like Earl Doherty's attempts to explain the "silences" JMers find in the earliest writings regarding Jesus' life and ministry, I was wondering what explanations the non-JMers offer for why the details of Jesus' life seem to become common knowledge only with Justin at around 150 AD. Before that, except for the gospels (which are anonymous and thus, essentially, undateable, and a few comments by Ignatius), the earliest writers seem to talk about Jesus in only the most general of terms (he was born, crucified, died and resurrected). This seems a bit odd considering what a phenomenally interesting life Jesus allegedly led (walking on water, curing diseases, raising people from the dead) and what amazing things he is quoted as having said.

Then, along comes Justin and suddenly, BOOM, no one can shut up about the details of Jesus' life for the next 2000 years or so.

To me, the JM theory provides the most logical explanation for this anomaly. But I am open to other possible explanations. The problem is that I've yet to encounter one that appears more plausible, since most non-JMers seem to spend more time trying to punch holes in JM arguments than proffering positive explanations of their own.

So, I'm asking, why do early writers seem so disinterested in the details of Jesus' life and later writers so intrigued by them? If not JM, what is the best explanation for that phenomenon?

Roger Pearse

They don't. There are two problems here.

Firstly, this idea involves a confusion of what has survived to 2008 AD with what existed at the time, and therefore arguing that if we do not have it, then it never existed.

This is not so; 99% of ancient literature is lost. The corpus of material that we have from the 2nd century relies not a little on a single historical accident, the interest in ancient apologetics of Archbishop Arethas of Caesarea in the 10th century AD, and the consequent manufacture of a codex containing a lot of them, which still exists.

Secondly this presumes that later writers are not evidence as to what earlier writers thought. This isn't so either.

You should indicate that this is your opinion. The evidence is otherwise for both propositions.

Are you sure? Consider Tertullian's Ad Nationes. It doesn't discuss any of this either.

Come, this is the argument from silence. It won't wash.

Neither statement is true.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roland

Roger -

Thanks for your reply to my question.

A few questions for you:

Are you saying that the gospels aren't anonymous? They contain no signatures indicating who wrote them - as do, say, the epistles of Paul - and are only identified by name in the late 2nd Century by Irenaeus. And without knowing who wrote them, what internal evidence can we use to date them to the late 1st Century as so many biblical scholars are wont to do?

I understand your point about lots of early literature possibly being lost, but that still wouldn't explain the trend we see towards more and more knowledge about the life of Jesus in the writings we do have. It's like taking a poll of a thousand people and extrapolating the results out to a population of millions. Unless you're suggesting that only bio-heavy literature got lost and bio-light literature didn't, I think my assertion still has some merit, though I might be willing to concede the point.

But of the literature we do have, I really don't see how you can argue that post-Justin writings don't display far more knowledge of or interest in Jesus' life than pre-Justin writings when the evidence clearly shows otherwise, but I guess that's what makes for lively debate.

mountainman

Have you read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations?



Justin was one of Eusebius' non de plumes.



The reality of the publication did not in fact happen early.
The publication involved a pseudo-history.



Fiction.


Best wishes,



Pete

Doug Shaver

Arethas could not have preserved what had failed to survive up to his time. So, what (or who) determined which documents were preserved between the second and tenth centuries?

Why not? By what logic should I presuppose that later writers have reliable knowledge about the earlier writers whose thinking they discuss?

dog-on

Is the key word, in the above quotation, "manufacture"?

Roger Pearse

The idea that a text is anonymous unless it contains the author's name is curious -- of Tertullian's 31 works, only two do, for instance.

The identity of the authors is indicated by the manuscript tradition and the statements of ancient authors, all of which are unanimous. The idea that the identity was lost has to have evidence for it, and this is not forthcoming. Compare with Hebrews, where this *did* occur, and we see the consequent data pattern of widespread uncertainty as to authorship down to Jerome.

The argument that we can call any text anonymous unless we have an extant text in which someone must choose to name them prior to Irenaeus hardly needs consideration. Some texts don't get mentioned at all in antiquity (e.g. Hermias); does that make them anonymous? As it happens, the witness of Irenaeus, who knew the apostle John's disciple Polycarp personally, is pretty good anyway.

Sorry, but I'm not going to write an essay on the dates of the gospel texts, as I have many other things to do.

I addressed this in my first post.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Chance.

Photius in the 9th century gives reviews of a considerable quantity of literature which he is the last person to know, and which has not now reached us. The big loss of Greek literature is in the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the renegade army originally hired for the 4th crusade. But I can think of two works still extant in 1600 which didn't make it down to us.

I don't know about logic. They tell us that they have their works, and they quote from them, so that suggests to me that they have reliable knowledge that we don't.

I suppose someone could try to tell us that we have 100% of all second century works. But we know it isn't true, and we have lists of now lost works. That means that people in antiquity were pretty much certain to know more about all this than ourselves.

If there were lost works and these were known to Jerome, it stands to reason that he knew more about them than we do. If our only knowledge of Tertullian's seven books on Montanism is because Jerome tells us about it, and why Tertullian wrote it, then we can be pretty confident that he knew more about T. than we do.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

gstafleu

True, but if we don't have it we cannot do anything with it. Unless there is indirect evidence pointing to the lost content, of course. So:
Are you saying that we do have a sufficiency of MSs from C2 that (a) talk about historical Jesus details (HJD) and (b) ascribe this to lost literature (in such a way that it is clear the lost literature was not just quoting the gospels)?

It seems we have two competing hypotheses as to why HJD starts proliferating as of 150CE: (1) it is explained by reference to lost materials: did did in fact abound before 150, but the dog ate the MSs. (2) "Justin did it" (so to speak). Why should (1) prevail?
Ah yes, the old "AFS doesn't count" ploy. It is amazing how easily this apologetic device gets swallowed by the unapologetic. Probably because of the snappy maxim "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," surely a clever manipulation of syllables. However, in the real world an argument from silence (an argument based on the absence of expected evidence) is quite valid.

For example, say I have a theory that predicts that black holes decay over time while, their name notwithstanding, emitting radiation. I then cultivate some black holes, and the silly buggers just sit there being black, unchanging and unradiating. Well, then my theory bites the dust: the absence of expected evidence (radiation and decay) is evidence of the absence of the validity of my theory.

It seems that only in BC&H things don't work this way...?

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

You mean, we cannot do this with it?

Or this?

Do not these statements presume that the lost literature from before 150 lacked HJ details?

Ben.