Originally Posted by dog-on

Of course it is not what it is, but what it does that matters!

ps. Justin may have had more luck just telling the emperor that he could keep his "wee wee" intact and, importantly, his ham samich.

Originally Posted by DCHindley

I doubt the emperor (regardless of which one was intended) gave so much as a flying fart about it, if he even heard of it. He would have "handlers" to prevent anything as vulgar as Justin's Apology crossing his ear pans. George H W Bush (not GWB) as President had never seen a supermarket scanner or a laptop in action.

Maybe Justin was really just trying to make a case for it among the philosopher types (the eddy-cated classes), hoping they might read/listen to a book dedicated to the emperor, but I doubt they would have looked at it (or heard it read in the market, whatever) either, except overhearing it recided by pure chance while out to buy bread and vegetables. Then again, GHWB apparently did not go to the market either, as the hoidy toidy types would have slaves to do that for them.

Maybe he just wanted fellow Christians to be able to pretend they believed in something more than a barbarous Jewish superstition. Even then, it would only have appealed to relatively sophisticated Christians, who might pretend to an understanding of philosophy.

DCH

Originally Posted by dog-on

I would agree with the latter possibility.

However, the pee pee issue is more important to the overall success, especially if it was your pee pee under consideration.

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Wee wee monsieur,

By Justin's time, I doubt that there would be much interest in converting to Judaism among the Roman masses. Christianity had long before been gentile-ized and I doubt the number of circumcised Christians numbered in the hundreds at most.

The dividing event was the Jewish rebellion of 66-74 and if that didn't do it the Jewish Egyptian revolt of 111 CE and the Bar Kochba revolt in the mid 130s CE certainly clinched it. Very few Greeks and probably no Romans would even consider it.

On the other hand, they might consider one of those "new age" mystery cults based on barbarous eastern Gods that had become popular among the elite classes and their households in the first century CE. The higher Christology of the Pauline letters would fit that bill. No wee-pee slicing & dicing required.

Still, a true snob (and not all Roman citizens or Greeks were snobs, some were more common folk) would look down on anything less than a "philosophy." Philo tried to appeal to them by dressing up his ancestral faith and practice as a form of Philosophy. Justin just continues that tradition.

DCH

Originally Posted by dog-on

Indeed, quite possible. I might only suggest that it may have been one of those "new age" mystery cults that may have originally produced Paul.

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Dog,

I thought you were referring to the belief among the critics as well as the common folks that Paul was some sort of rhetorical genius or the inventor of the "high" christology expressed in the Pauline epistles.

I guess the marketability of the ideas depends on who you hope your audience will be. Justin's Apology was addressed to the Roman emperor, who would be more inclined to an argument based on philosophical principals than the cruder symbolic christology or lessons drawn from Jewish scriptures presented in the epistles.

Originally Posted by spin

Would you ask a theoretical chemist's views about scholarly aspects of Hindu poetry in the Mahabharata? How about geophysicist's views of literary theory? When you are dealing with literature you get a literary theorist's views. When dealing with history, you get a historian's views. New Testament scholars are not historians. They are text scholars, who mainly and unfortunately believe that there is history in the texts they study. Yet they are not historians. Citing text scholars giving their potted ideas of history is quite a meaningless procedure.

History is based on historical methodology, which involves an aloofness from the evidence being used for analysis. The historian tries to sublimate the stories they are familiar with in order to understand the period they are dealing with only from evidence of that period.

Citing biblical scholars -- who usually have commitments to the text --, as though they were historians, is a vain useless procedure.


spin

Originally Posted by TimBowe

The Gospels were written 35 to 65 years after Jesus' death, not by eyewitnesses. The Gospels were written by Greek-speaking Christians living 30, 40, 50, 60 years later. The accounts they narrate are based on oral traditions. What's more plausible than a resurrection, that Jesus' family stole the body. Is that implausible, or is more plausible that the early Christians had visionary experiences. People have visions all the time, I'm not saying that's what happened. But it's more plausible then the claim that God raised Jesus from the dead. That is not a plausible explanation. But it has to be stressed that we are dealing with ancient texts of a specific time that were not written by eyewitnesses. The only person to claim to be a witnesses to a resurrection appearance was Paul, and that "eyewitness" didn't know Jesus during his lifetime. What is the origin of the belief in the resurrection? One could say that the origin is simple deceit. That the disciples stole the body and claimed that he rose. But I would say that when studied closely it is indeed a vision that lies at the heart of the Christian religion. That vision described in greek by Paul as "he was seen" follows as Paul himself asserted reapeatedly "I have seen the Lord." So paul is the main source of the thesis that a vision is the origin of the belief in the resurrection. When people talk about visions they rarely ever allude to something we experience every night when we dream. That's our subconscious way of dealing with reality. A vision of that sort was at the heart of the Christian religion, and that vision with enthusiasm was contagious and led to many more visions.

Originally Posted by Holly3278

If the resurrection didn't truly happen, then why were the apostles willing to die for a lie?