Antipope Innocent II

A physicist can be rather more certain about, say, the velocity of an object than an ancient historian can be that Tacitus is correct about the causes of the Boudiccan Revolt. So no, not "just as a historian does" at all actually.

We have clear evidence that people believed that Jesus had been a real, living person just a few decades before they were writing about him. Most people find the idea that this was because he had indeed been a real living person within living memory is rather more plausible than the alternative explanations.

If you've been around here for a while I think I can assume you already know why they believe this. Clearly you disagree with them enough to be agnostic on the issue.

From who? From me? I don't believe I ever made that claim.

youngalexander

My point concerned the identical scientific methodology, 'evidence and to provide an hypothesis to explain it' - not the relative accuracy of the evidence in each discipline.

Specifically, it is incumbent upon those proposing an HJ to supply evidence and to argue their case.

The 'evidence' is highly contentious and disputed.
please ...

No, but you were quite content to quote Grant who did make it. Again, as I pointed out above, highly contentious and disputed.

Jeffrey Gibson

Thanks for the google quote, Jay. Yes, I am aware of this mime. I am also aware, as scholars such as Darby have noted, that The Crucified Bandit is the only.mime in which a crucifixion occurs. And which Catullus are we talking about, Jay?

Care to tell me what Martial actually says?

in Rome on a stage set up in an amphiteater

"In a farce called "Laureolus," in which the chief actor falls as he is making his escape and vomits blood, several understudies so vied with one another in giving evidence of their proficiency that the stage swam in blood."

Hmm. No mention of crucifixion. But an indication that this play was not typical of other mimes and was the only one of its kind..


Quid si numquam adeo foedis adeoque pudendis
utimur exemplis, ut non peiora supersint?
185 consumptis opibus uocem, Damasippe, locasti
sipario, clamosum ageres ut Phasma Catulli.
Laureolum uelox etiam bene Lentulus egit,
iudice me dignus uera cruce. nec tamen ipsi
ignoscas populo; populi frons durior huius,
190 qui sedet et spectat triscurria patriciorum,
planipedes audit Fabios, ridere potest qui
Mamercorum alapas. quanti sua funera uendant
quid refert?

Again, a statement that the play (the Crucified Bandit) was unique in its content and atypical of mimes -- even other ones written by Catullus!.

Same with Tertullian.

So ... how nice of you to check what your cribbed citations actually say, Jay! And how nice of you to draw unwarranted inferences from the evidence (that you apparently did not consult!)

But the issue is not whether there were any mimes that contained crucifixion scenes. It's whether crucifixion was a stock/prominent theme of mimes in general.

So can you now point me please to any other mime in which a crucifixion occurs or any secondary evidence or scholarship that asserts that crucifixion was a stock, if not one of the most prominent, theme(s) in mimes? That, after all, is your assertion isn't it?

Does Segal or Darby (Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World (or via: amazon.co.uk)) claim this? Does Jerome Carcopino, who devotes some pages to a description of mimes and of their poularity in his Daily Life in Ancient Rome: The People and the City at the Height of the Empire (or via: amazon.co.uk)?

[/QUOTE]

Hmm. first centuries C.E. Not before your alleged author wrote her mime? And where does he mention Judea? You are drawing an inference that he might not support. But I'll write him to see.

[/QUOTE]

Talmud -- 200 CE. Christian sources, like Tertullian who is late second century? Gained immense popularity when and where?

A bit vague, is it not?

Jeffrey

Malachi151

Uh, yeah we can apply all kinds of criteria, and when we do so, we find that the Gospels are in no way historical.

Apparently he doesn't apply much in the way of criteria or so much in the way of analysis.

I've done my analysis and given a host of reasons to reject the Gospels as even vaguely historical here:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...ospel_mark.htm

No, its not the lack of corroboration, it is the nature of the story in conjunction with the lack of corroboration.

I've given some brief comparison of the Gospel of Mark to other historical works here:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar..._history.htm#2

Do people define "history" as supernatural claims based on ancient scriptures? I didn't know that. Do they define history as stories with obvious plots, suspense, morals lessons, literary allusions, religious symbolism, and social commentary? Typically these things are described as fictional stories.

The Bacchae possibly... by Euripides.

http://www.mala.bc.ca/~Johnstoi/euripides/euripides.htm

So you think that people never wrote stories that were set in recent times? The Gospels would be the first example in human history of someone writing a fictional story set within 40-50 years of the writing of it? Wow, this is a major discovery!

You're still locking into the outmoded idea that if someone wrote something that wasn't absolute historical fact, then they mush have written it with the intention of deceiving people into thinking that it were true, and thus if they were to do this they would set the story back in time far enough that people wouldn't be able to know if these things really happened or not.

Here are the problems with such a line of though.

#1) You are assuming that the author wasn't simply writing a fictional story that he intended to be read as a fictional story. (Analysis of the Gospel of Mark shows that this is unlikely, it is written in the form of a fictional story with elements that HAVE to be understood as fictional in order to "get it")

#2) You are assuming that people back then had the same standard for "truth in reporting" that people have today, yet obviously they didn't. If you did want to deceive people, you could just as easily write stories about things that happened yesterday a province over and they would never know the difference anyway.

#3) You assume that the author of the story had knowledge and foresight of the eventual popularity and usage of his writing. This is basically never the case. When you write any story you never know what will become of it. You can't use the reception of a story to judge the intentions of the author.

#4) You assume that this story was written as a foundational religious document, but there is no reason to assume this, indeed there are good reasons not to believe this. For one thing, the Gospel of Mark is practically an anti-Christian story. It certainly is a polemic against the so-called apostles, against Peter, John, and James. It is essentially a polemic against the early movement. It portrays everyone associated with Jesus in a bad light. That's hardly the sign of a document that was intended to be the foundation of a major religion. The document was LATER used by other people in ways that the author could have had no idea would have happened.

#5) You seem to forget that if the author wrote fictional things that he would have wanted to ensure wouldn't be discovered by other people by setting his story farther back in time, that does nothing to address the things in the story that everyone still believes are false.

In other words. You claim that someone wouldn't write a story about a fictional person set so recently, because then it would be obvious that the person were fictional (you assume that the author actually cared about this), yet the story is still filled with clearly fictional events, such as walking on water, casting out demons, transfiguration, being able to throw people out of the Jewish temple, cursing fig trees, etc.

So are you arguing that every detail of the Gospel of Mark is accurate and historical, because in order for your argument to be consistent that is what you would have to argue, and your whole argument rests basically on the timing of when it was written without taking anything else into consideration, hardly a reliable method.

#6) You ignore the fact that historical events can be taken into account that greatly impact the writing of this story. The Jewish War of 67-73 CE was a major catastrophic event, around which stories involving the Jews would likely be written, or written in relation to. The influence of the war on the writing of the Gospel of Mark and the setting of the story cannot be ignored, and certainly explains why someone would write such a story around 70CE and why they would set it within recent times.

Because its not nearly as important an issue. Who cares? I don't. Secondly, what is at issue here, and what I am talking about, is not even whether or not "Jesus" existed, I'm simply discussing the "historical" validity of the Gospels.

Even if there were "some" Arthur, no one claims that any of the stories about Arthur are "historical" or that any of the events in the stories happened or that any of the dialog reflected the "true words" of Arthur.

Actually, the timing makes the non-existence of Jesus even more likely.

The reason for this is that the Gospels are clearly NOT historical, they get basically everything from scritpures and are filled with a bunch of obvious nonsense.

If Jesus did actually die around 33 CE, then we would expect Paul, the author of Hebrews, and the authors of the Gospels, to have had more real information about this guy. Yet, the fact is, that even stories written supposedly about 40-50 years after this guy supposedly died, still based every detail of his life on scriptures. Every scene in the Gospels is still fabricated.

Likewise, the obvious reliance on a single source for so much of the Gospel narratives also points to the fact that there was no real person to base anything on. And keep in mind, this is ALSO why tradition has said that the gospels are four independent accounts, but it is clear now that they aren't, they are all based on the Gospel of Mark.

Indeed, every single writing about the life and deeds of Jesus is ultimately based on the Gospel of Mark. This isn't something that we would expect to be the case if there were some real person whom many other people had interacted with and gotten their own information about and impressions of.

The overwhelming reliance on the Markan narrative, even so close to the supposed time of the real existence of this guy, is indeed a major blow historicity.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Roger,

As 'ad Valentinus' is a reference to adversus Valentinianos, it is not correct to say that 'ad Valentinus' doesn't exist. Valentinus is simply the English translation of Valentinianos. If I had written Tertullian's Valentinus, it would have been quite correct. The 'ad' was an abbreviation for adversus and should have been 'ad.'. Since I was remembering a number of different citations and it was around midnight, I find a missing period a rather trivial error. The missing of a period in an abbreviation and the mixing of Latin and English words are worthy of note only in grammar classes.

I was not simply "silently copying" source references, when I cited the reference, but I was reading from your excellent website.

Now, regarding more serious matters, the amazing thing that struck me about the text is that Tertullian is actually comparing a Valentinian Christian text involving crucifixion to a mime play. This is quite similar to what I did with the gospels of Mark and John.


Note this from Tertullian (10):

So Valentinus' text definitely involves crucifixion.

Now note this (13):

and from the text you quoted (14)
There are two things that we should take from this. First, it is significant that Tertullian finds an early Christian gospel to be similar in structure to a play. We may suppose that Valentinus, or a follower writing this material, is getting their source material from the same place that the writers of the gospels of Mark and John are getting there's. The reason that Tertullian is finding it so much like a play is because it originally comes from a play. Tertullian is quite perceptive as to the dramatic theatrical elements in this gospel of Valentinus, but it is to be expected that he would be blind to the dramatic theatrical elements in the gospels of Mark and John.

Secondly, note that he casually refers to Laureolus by Catullus and assumes that his readers will know the play and that it involves a crucifixion. He is writing this around 205 C.E.

We know from Tertullian and Suetonius that the play was performed in 41 CE and from Marial that it was performed, or a variation of it, in 80 CE. We know from Tertullian, it was still well known in 205 CE. The probability is that the play was written by the poet Catullus circa 60 BCE. Therefore, we are talking about a mime play about a crucified leader of bandits that was likely well known in intellectual circles for over 250 years.

Anyone who studies genres in media knows that virtually every piece that is successful will spawn imitations. We may suppose that the original gospel play was an imitiation or variation on Catullus' successful Laureolus.

Now note this from Suetonius' Gaius (57)

The vomiting blood scene while the bandit escapes can be compared to the Jesus sweating blood scene before the capture scene in the original gospel play. Both are great visual special effects that would wow a theater audience.

Also there are hints through many early Christian texts of Jesus visiting the lower world after his crucifixion. One may suppose that these scenes were also in the original gospel play and the parts were representated by Egyptians and Aethiopians (dark-skinnned people?).

To sum up, it appears to me that one popular play tells us about a bandit leader vomiting blood, being crucified, and visiting the underworld and another popular play tells us about a bandit leader sweating blood, being crucified, and visiting the underworld.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Roger Pearse

Just to be accurate: 'Adversus Valentinianos' means "Against the Valentinians", and has no connection with 'Valentinus', except that the Valentinians were those who followed Valentinus.

"To Valentinus" would be "Ad Valentinum".
"Against Valentinus" would be "Adversus Valentinum".

All the best,

Roger Pearse

PhilosopherJay

Hi Roger,

Good point.

In Adversus Hermogenem, Adversus Marcionem, and Adversus Praxean, he is primarily attacking a single Christian leader of a sect, while in Adversus Valentinianos, he is attacking Valentinus and his followers who each have their own sects: Colorbasus, Ptolomaeus, Heracleon, Secundus, Marcus the seer, Theotimus, and Axionicus among others.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Antipope Innocent II

In that broader sense (which is quite different to what I was saying about certainty), that's fine.

To supply evidence and arguments, certainly.

The evidence in many aspects of ancient history is highly contentious and disputed. That comes with the territory. This is why those who demand "evidence" that "proves" things in ancient history will find themselves getting frustrated and having to be "agnostic" quite regularly. This question about the historicity of Jesus is far from unique in that respect.


Pardon? Sorry, did I say something that's factually incorrect?



Look at the context. Pete was claiming Grant was a historian who inclined towards Mythicism. I simply quoted Grant to show Pete that he was dead wrong. If you want to dispute what Grant said you could take it up with Grant - though that might be a bit hard since he died three years ago.

Toto

This can't be allowed to stand. What exactly are you talking about? We don't have clear evidence, even by the relaxed standards of evidence in ancient history. We have a few vague quotes from non-Christian sources that can be interpreted as references to a historical Jesus, but might be based on second-hand rumors from Christian sources, or might be later forgeries. We have the earliest source (Paul) unclear on whether Jesus was a spirit or something else, even after being worked over by the orthodox church. We have Mark writing what might be history but more likely is legend or fiction, from 40 to 80 years after the alleged death (but if he's writing fiction, that number is not especially signficiant, is it?). We have some "sayings" that maybe came from a particular person, maybe not, but no clear indication that this person got himself crucified by Pilate.

We have a major war and the destruction of the Temple between the time that this Jesus allegedly lived and the time we get any of the allegedly biographical details.

It seems to be that there are a number of highly plausible explanations other than there was a real person who inspired all this.

Jeffrey Gibson

Is that really what Tertullian is doing?

What **early** Christian Gospel? And where does Tertullian speak of the stucture of either this "early" gospel or the play in question?

At best, the only thing the evidence will bear is that it was writen before it is first mentioned (i.e., if not Martial in 80, then Juvenal sometime later) or, if the Josephan story about Gaius is not fictitious, before it was viewed by Gaius in 30 CE. To say that it was wriiten some 60-80 or 90 years earlier than our ealiest attestation to it, is to stretch the what is warrented by the evidence to suit not what it indicates or allows, but what one wants to believe.

Furthermore, as all scholars who have studied the mime and the references to it in Juvenal etc. note, the author of the mime is NOT the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus, as you seem to think, who never wrote mimes. It is another Catullus altogether, and one who was not a poet, but, as scholars have dubbed him, "hack writer".


Which notably does not attest to a crucifixion scene in the version of the mime he was familiar with.

Vommiting is not sweating. And, more importantly, the "tradition" that Jesus sweated blood" before his arrest is a misreading of the the only text which has a claim to to contain a notice of Jesus sweating before his arrest -- Lk. 22:44b and the autheticity of this text is extremely doubtful ( Several important Greek mss (Ì75 א1 A B N T W 579 1071*) along with diverse and widespread versional witnesses lack 22:43-44. In addition, the verses are placed after Matt 26:39 by Ë13. Floating texts typically suggest both spuriousness and early scribal impulses to regard the verses as historically authentic. These verses are included in א*,2 D L Θ Ψ 0171 Ë1 Ï lat Ju Ir Hipp Eus. However, a number of these mss mark the text with an asterisk or obelisk, indicating the scribe’s assessment of the verses as inauthentic). It's a poor text on which to rest your comparison and your claim that it was part of your Gospel Vorlage.

Not before the middle of the second century. And the pleroma is not the "lower" world into which Jesus in those late traditions Jesus descended.

A case that rests on false or forced parralles and a misrepresentation of the evidence is not a good case.

Jeffrey