Sarpedon

always a pleasure rlogan

No, but it does follow that christianity has a historical founder.

I never claimed jesus was the author of the gospels. Its a label for the founder of the cult. Do you claim that they are the same person? I don't think thats necessarily so.

It doesn't matter to me WHO or WHEN or WHERE, what matters to me is HOW. I think that it is enlightening to discuss the origins of christianity in terms of present day cults.

As I said, the stories about him later became exaggerated and mythologized. He was a threat to the establishment only in the minds of his followers. No one else gave a damn. Compare to Kim Jong Il for example. A god to his followers, a dangerous and peculiar loon to everyone else.

Tomorrow, I will endeavour to find links to articles or works by the professor who I heard lecture on this subject, on who's stuff I'm mostly basing these views on.

Oh but we do. The gospels are not evidence of factual events, but they are evidence of christian views. The fact that all of the gospels and the letters of paul emphasize those things is evidence that early christians put importance on them. These themes are common in the parables of jesus and the teachings of paul.

Whoever said we have to accept the official line? All Josephus's silence means is that christianity did not develop in the time and or place it allegedly did. I'm basing my views on a close reading of the bible, not a literal interpretation. I go in thinking; "given that christianity is a false religion, and these 'documents' are suspect, what can we learn from them by analyzing the characters and underlying social message?"

spin

This doesn't point to the mythical nature of John per se. It might point to the late connection of John to the christian tradition. What does John being mentioned in the gospels actually do other than contextualise the Jesus story? It is certainly not an integral part of the story. Jesus doesn't baptise. Jesus doesn't have the same message as John. So why is he there, other than to recognize Jesus?

This is only an argument separate traditions.

Arguing that they could not have been contemporaries won't come from the passage you cite unless you carry a lot of baggage in the term "reincarnation", the motivation for which is not evinced in the text.

rather than "interpolation" try "material for an expanded edition". Gospels I don't think were just written in a single writing effort, but successively through a number of cycles, as the relationship between Matt and Mark shows.

Reminiscent of the Marcionite gospel.

This is an argument for a separate John tradition, not that John was also mythical.

There is no evidence here that there was an interpolation. You have a change in scene to allow time to pass for the apostles to go and do their thing. It's a literary device.

There is so much not included in that table of contents that, if one were to use this style of argument, one would call much of the content "interpolation". Take for example the sixth entry for Bk 18 which deals with Salome's estate (18.2.2/18.31), while the seventh entry deals with the time of Pontius Pilate. That omits the arrival of Annius Rufus, the building of Tiberias, various Parthian events and events in the Commagene. Are all there interpolations?? And that's just one hole in the table of contents.

The War is much briefer than AJ in the matters leading up to the conflict.

There is nothing strange about the passage. If Josephus wanted to include the material, where else could he have put it? If this is an interpolation, is the similar sort of passage about the death of the holy man Honi (Onias) in AJ 14.2.1-2 an interpolation as well? The John story is quite a reasonable example of the sort of thing Josephus did.

It is important to note the differences between the John story in Josephus and in the gospels. The imprisonment of John in Machaerus puts a heavy strain on the gospel story. There is nothing about John speaking out against the Herodias marriage. Herod was pushed into executing John in the gospels, while AJ tells that Herod didn't want to give John the chance to commit sedition. These are quite different stories -- different enough for me to think that a christian knowing just the gospel story couldn't have written the AJ version.


spin

Malachi151

Sarpedon, like many, ignores the facts on the ground. People ask "why", "how", "who"?

But so much of this has to do with some very simply facts.

4th century BCE - Jews ruled by Greeks
165 BCE - Judas Maccabees defeats Greek Army
140 BCE - Hasmonean Kingdom established by Maccabees family
44 BCE - Death of Julius Caesar – Rome moves towards military dictatorship
37 BCE - Herod I declared King of the Jews by Roman authority, ending Hasmonean rule

The end of the Hasmonean Kingdom triggered a whole host of social phenomenon in Judea AND the diaspora Jewish community throughout the Empire.

This triggered the development of many various cults, doomsayers, and would-be prophets.

Yes, a real Jesus Christ could have been among these folks, but there is no evidence for that . Yet, this also provided fertile ground for all manner of teachings being brought up amongst the people.

Indeed the reality on the ground from the history seems to be that Jews and Christians were not really differentiated from each other for quite some time, yet the story of Jesus tells us that the followers of Jesus would have been opposed by Jews from at least the crucifixion on, and that presumably the apostles had to flee Judea.

The reality is that we don't have evidence for Christians in Judea at all early on, but that Jews and Christians cohabitated in Rome, Alexandria, and the other diaspora communities.

There were hundreds of other mystery religions, for Adonis, Dionysus, Osiris, etc. This was just a Jewish version of a mystery religion early on, which clearly shows in Paul's writings.

These were people preaching about a coming savior, not a savior who had already come.

As far as Paul was concerned there was just going to be a coming, not a "second coming".

The book of Hebrews perhaps, and then Mark, are the ones that established the idea that Jesus had already been here.

The Book of Hebrews:

Holy theology batman! Can you say crafted theological explanation?

spin

The process you describe actually started a century earlier. During the war against Antioch various groups were empowered. Besides those who stayed in Jerusalem and collaborated, the hellenists and the proto-Pharisees amongst others, there were various little factions fighting from the Judean countryside, each with their own ideas. Having some political clout gave them the opportunity to develop and express a theological position. Some of the priesthood stayed in Jerusalem, some went out to the countryside.

The Hasmoneans had their version of Judaism; the rump priesthood had their version; if the Hasidim are not the same as the rump priesthood then they had their version; the people who supported Alcimus had their version; the community which expanded Daniel had their apocalyptic version; those responsible for the Animal Apocalypse in Enoch had their version; and so on. The splintering started back in 167 BCE and this lay the foundation for the appearance of the groups who fought against taxation and thus for the liberation of Judea from the oppressors of the time, the Romans.

Of course at the same time Judaism also developed separately in Alexandria (and probably elsewhere) with 1) the wisdom tradition and 2) the amalgamation of Platonic and other Greek ideas into Judaism. The diaspora existed for centuries before the Hasmonean period: large groups of Jews fought both for the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. The Oniad priesthood had established itself in Egypt. A large community of Jews was living in Babylon probably from the time of the exile and Herod procured a high priest from there.


spin

rlogan

That's all there is.

Could go either way. Hijacking John or inventing him, aside from your observations on Josephus. The Christian description of John could be contorted to fit the HB passages.

I guess we have to address in detail his manner of indexing. By rank of import or whatever.

That was helpful, thanks.

Mythra

Could not John the Baptist have been the vehicle that Matthew decided to use to convince the reader that Elijah had indeed come (thereby fulfilling the belief of him being a forerunner to the Messiah) ?

mountainman

That's right, or in the words of Arnaldo Momigliano, using another's
words to highlight his own ...

"In Schwartz's view the history of the Church
was divided into two stages:
the first, that of the Gospels, was for him
THE FORMATION OF THE MYTH OF CHRIST;

the second was the interplay of factions
within the Church which degenerated
into POWER RIVALRIES and led
to the heresies and schisms
which the Councils sought to resolve. "

from: A.D. Momigliano
Studies on Modern Scholarship,
edited by G.W. Bowersock and T.J. Cornell,
U. California, 1994 [found 4/9/96], 193.

The Schwartz, above, is given further:

[Eduard Schwartz 1858 - 1940.
"Mommsen [Theodor Mommsen 1817 - 1903] was a family friend,
and Mommsen was prepared to collaborate with Schwartz
in his edition of Eusebius.... "

"Schwartz was first and foremost
an interpreter and editor of texts. "

"As an editor of the Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius,
he [Schwartz] knew more than anybody else
about ecclesiastical historiography. "

(from: History and Theory,
Studies in The Philosophy of History,
Beiheft 21, New Paths of Classicism in the Nineteenth Century,
Arnaldo Momigliano, Wesleyan U., 1982, 60, 59)].



Best wishes,


Pete

rlogan

Hello again Sarperdon

It does not follow that it was the mythical character himself that founded it.

Neither do I. You claim he is the founder of the religion. It simply does not follow logically. That is one possibility, yes.

What mileage do we get from the tautology that "someone" started christianity? None whatsoever. You cannot go from that self-evident truism to a deduction that it is Jesus.

Sure. Don't you think it wise to familiarize yourself with this religion in particular and, for example, the skirmishes between Marcionites and the proto-Catholics?

I can see that you do not understand the religious theory involved here and how the concept can arrive before "the man".

That there must be sacrifice. That it is required for absolution. That the mother of all sacrifices - the atomic bomb of absolution - was a theoretical idea before it became vested in a historical person.

I see you are not familiar with much of the myth vs historicist debate.

It is backwards from your frame of thought.

It isn't that Jesus was a man that became aggrandized in myth. It is that there was a spiritual concept of Christ before the story evolved that there was a flesh and blood person.

Happy to look at them.


It is an extremely naiive view, and simply factually wrong that Biblical tracts were written by those claimed in tradition, and that they are for the ostensible superficial reasons stated therein (eg letters to a church with dissention and etc.).

Consider that they are pious frauds long after the events allege, and for skirmishes in religio-political battles.

Once you start to ask Cui Bono, and how/when we came into possession of them then at last you are on the right track. Paul's "letters" coming via the hand of Marcion in the 2nd century, for example.

I don't. You mistook my meaning. Christianity is not an offshoot of Judaism as is claimed. That was merely a historical pedigree pasted onto it, as having an ancient origin added to the credentials. You can see this in the defenses offered by the Church Fathers. This was important to them.

So the question is yes, how did it arise. And you are stuck in a rut with no other possibility except as we say here sometimes "the big bang" from Jesus to the Apostles to the larger Church.

I would recommend reading Doherty's Jesus Puzzle and the Dutch Radicals so at least you have some background in a different way of viewing the development of Christianity.

At present this whole manner of thinking is foreign to you, and I understand that. There is a couple thousand years of historical and cultural inertia.

Take care...

rlogan

Matthew is repleat with "validating" Jesus via Hebrew Bible prophecies, and JBapt serves that purpose, yes.

GakuseiDon

What are some of the positive pieces of evidence that Doherty presents?