Amaleq13

I tend to agree with your summary of Paul's beliefs but the description under discussion does not seem consistent with the notion that the Jesus Paul is talking about is someone known to or assumed by his listeners to have just recently been walking, talking, and preaching in Galilee and Jerusalem. If that were the case, I would expect him to offer arguments that this particular fellow they knew or heard about was the incarnation of the Son of God rather than arguments that the Son of God had actually been incarnated. He seems to assume more familiarity on the part of his audience with the Son than with Jesus. In fact, you get the impression he is dealing with an existing belief in the Son and trying to convince them of an added incarnation and execution.

This is the opposite approach of the Gospels where we start with the man and proceed to "arguments" that he was more than he seemed. Mark, for example, does not feel compelled to declare that Jesus was born of a woman but he does feel compelled to describe him being declared God's Son. Paul, on the other hand, starts with God's Son and feels compelled to declare he had been born of a woman.

Once, given the problems already described and not addressed, is clearly insufficient to establish your conclusion.

Ted Hoffman

Carrier,
Thanks again for your thoughtful response. You write that "...the movement that became the modern Church is clearly an evolution of the movement that began with the appearances under Pilate to Peter and Paul and gang. It began with a singular event, in a singular place, within a singular sect."

You add that "All other Jesus talk before then in other sects was different and more in line with standard Jewish teaching about the messiah (from the expectant to the mystical--a la Philo)"

And you conclude "Thus, when we are faced with the need to explain the rise of Christianity, it is the creed first preached by Peter and gang, and modified shortly thereafter by Paul with Peter and gang's eventual permission, that we need to explain the rise of."

You note: "For the evolution of Christianity, that's a different story--by all means we need to take into account how external groups and their different ways of talking about the messiah affected the development of the Church(es)"

You therefore make three main points:

1. Christianity began from a central point, its central source being the movement by Peter, Paul and the rest presumably during Pilate's tenure. You emphasize: "a singular event, in a singular place, within a singular sect". I will call this hypothesis "Big bang Christianity"

2. All other pre-Christian sects were strands of Judaism.

3. All other sects after the events involving Pilate and Peter's gang were branches of what Peter and gang started (Christianity).

Problems with Big bang Christianity

a) The twin traditions and spurious linkages

The only texts that portray what you are claiming are the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. Paul only fits in if you assume that the divided christian communities we see in Pauline epistles were inspired by the alleged events and group in Jerusalem (which the gospels narrate).

So, most of my criticism will target the gospels as a historical source even though I know you don't ascribe much historicity to them. You can however clarify the source of your idea of single event, time and sect, if it is something other than the gospels.

In Birth of Christianity (1998), Crossan argues that Christianity was a convergence of two twin traditions. The Galilean tradition and the Jeruisalem tradition. Crossan uses archaeology, history and anthropology to unearth a picture of Lower Galilee in the 20s of the first century and then uses the texts (GThom, Q, the gospels etc) to construct the roots and emergence of the Galilean movement which was a peasant resistance movement provoked by the injurious effects of increasing rural commercialization and fed by traditional streams of religious idealism for social justice. This movement, which was basically a lower class resistance to Roman rule, brought about political unrest, increase in banditry and finally to a full-blown revolt culminating in the disastrous Jewish War of 66-70. At least this is the picture Crossan paints. Jesus was supposedly a revolutionary peasant at the center of this Galilean movement.

Helmut Koester had earlier pointed out that in the Pauline kerygma, there are no traces of Jesus' sayings. Q does not see the death of Christ as part of the Christian message and GThom, which is more primitive starkly lacks the creed of the passion and resurrection. Both Q and GThom fail to mention the death and resurrection of Jesus, which were "the keystone of Paul's missionary proclamation". Q and GThom, both sayings collections mention no details of Jesus on earth. Neither does Paul thus, we are faced with two independent and parallel traditions, which Crossan calls the twin traditions. Crossan links the two groups because they both have characteristics of common radicalism and common interest in eschatology.

Doherty asks in his review of BoC: "Certainly Q is concerned with the End-time and the arrival of the Son of Man. The Pauline tradition also looks toward some imminent end or transformation of all things. But considering that virtually every sectarian and reform/resistance movement of the first century, Christian, pagan or Jewish, had some kind of eschatological expectation, this hardly links the two Traditions in a meaningful way. And what of the common elements that are lacking between the two eschatologies? Paul shows no sign of either Jesus' own reputed predictions about the End-time as contained in the Q2 layer, nor his identification with the Son of Man. He shows no linking of Jesus with John the Baptist and his preaching. Q and Thomas in turn contain no thought that Jesus will return from heaven one day to bring about this end phase. Why are all the eschatological associations with Jesus in one area totally different from those in the other?"

How does Big bang Christianity explain how a central event can generate two separate and independent traditions with no clear links? What separated these two traditions if they emerged from a single event? Why the stark difference in kerygma, Christology (where present) and soteriology?

How do you deal with the problems of a HJ (no mention of him outside the NT) - why was he killed?
Paula Fredricksen has shown that it was very unlikely that Jesus could have caused the temple ruckus as portrayed in the gospels. She has also given plausible reasons why, if Jesus was a rebel, his manner of death could not have been as it is narrated in the Gospels.
We know that Pilate's characterization by the evangelists is inconsistent with Philos.
Crossan, again using anthropology and sociology has plausibly argued why it is very unlikely that a gang of thirteen men could have been wandering idly around Galilee as women and children worked in the fields. In a honour-and-shame society like ancient Galilee, it could not have happened as narrated in the Gospels.
Ted Weeden has argued that Judas for example, is a literary creation by the writer of Mark (because of conflicts in other texts).
Luke has Jesus thrown off a cliff in Nazareth yet Nazareth is located in a basin. Archaeological evidence rules out the possibility that there was a synagogue in Nazareth. Michael Turton's Commentary on Mark breaks down Mark to tiny pieces and peers under each piece and we dont get any history from the fragments. Even those who argue that you cannot know how a cat works by opening him up - you end up with a deat cat, and have thereby used literary analysis as opposed to form-critical methods find mark to be a metaphorical text and this is consistent with the works of Kermode, Kelber and Tolbert.
Thomas Brodie (1998) has plausibly argued that the Jesus story is constructed with the Elijah-Elisha cycle in Kings as the hypotext.
You yourself have stated that Mark is 99% fiction and was a metaphorical text.
That basically means there is no "record" of this big bang that you talk of. None whatsoever.

So, why believe there was an event at the core and not several, successive unrelated events? Why even pose it as a possibility?

b) Your argument seems to rely on the Acts of the apostles to link Peter and Paul. I know you do not regard the Acts of the Apostles as historical. How do you link Peter and Paul as you do in point (1.)?

Paul was written much earlier compared to the Gospels. Paul lacks the sayings we find in the Gospels and relies on the OT and revelation for his kerygma. From Pauline epistles, Jesus appeared to Cephas and the 12. I hope to god that you are not assuming that Cephas refers Peter? (as spin wrote , KHFAS and PETROS are *not* cognates).

In any event, I would like to know how you link Peter with Paul as being part of the same initial movement.

c) Why did Jesus, a galilean peasant, cynic priest, charismatic preacher or Marginalized Jew (depending on who you ask), go to Jerusalem?

d) Which texts narrate these appearances to Peter and Paul that you talk of? What did Peter and gang start?

e) Why did this unknown event have to be constructed from scripture? Why is it that the entire narrative can be broken down to echoes of scripture?

f) How come that *none* of the witnesses to this putative event ever gave a first hand account of it? Did the event only start affecting people (non-eyewitnesses) after 40 years?

g) What would have led Paul to convert a man he never met to a cosmic saviour?

h) In John, Jesus does not suffer. There is no salvific consequence of his death or atonement therefrom and the Eucharist, because it is based on sacrificial concept, it deleted from the story. Why was this "event" so malleable? Is this textual fluidity a phenomena generally seen in historical events?

My point is that, this big bang hypothesis runs into so many problems, raises more questions than answers and is inconsistent with both history, textual analyis, sociology and archaeology.

But lets see you give it a leg to stand on.

On pre-Christian sects being strands of, or offshoots from Judaism

I think Odes of Solomon may fall under this category with a "son of God" comparable to the Danielic son of man. This can apply to the original Ascencion of Isaiah and perharps Shepherd. But it is consistent with Doherty's thesis and challenges the Big bang theory.

What about the dating? These are late 1st century texts. Over 50 years after the putative death of Jesus yet they never heard of him? How can we possibly call the obscure event that triggered them of as the "big bang" if 50 years later Shepherd of Hermas community have not even heard of Jesus. Odes of Solomon cult have not heard of Jesus? They do not mention any "event" in their texts?

Did Judaism have the concept of Logos? What about the messiah - was he spiritual of political? Jewish saviour or cosmic saviour? How do you differentiate syncretism from the branching from one central sect and establish the latter?

It is possible that Judaism had several sects from around the Hasmonean era when temple worship was messed up, we had the Qumran group leaving Jerusalem in protest to go to the dead sea, the War further scattered them further and whipped up apocalypticism and these several sects evolved relatively independently but with some syncretism and ended up being forced together by Constantine. Why would this be implausible?

All other sects after the events involving Pilate and Peter's gang being branches of what Peter and gang started (Christianity).

First of all this is an assumption that would need to be demonstrated. Because it is indeed true that these sects didn't just pop up full blown but had antecedents. But the question arises, why should we believe Christianity was their singular antecedent?

First of all the "son of man"/"heavenly man" concept appears to be too widely diffused to be emanating from a single source. Doherty explains that scholars like Charles W. Hendrick, in Apocalypse of Adam believe that gnostic writings like Apocryphon of John and Apocalypse of Adam are independent of Christianity. That is, they had no link to Jesus of Nazareth. tJP, p.137

Doherty explains that Apocalypse of Adam (78-72) "speaks of the Illuminator as being born from a virgin womb, by a desert, in a garden, dropped from heaven into the sea, borne by a bird onto a mountain, carried by dragons into a cave." He adds that these are all mythical ideas and have nothing to do with an actual human being.

You Carrier, would need to explain to us why such texts have any specific event behind them. Doherty explains that they "are reflective of a pervasive form of esoteric mythology of the time" (p.138).

Hippolytus of Rome (c.226 CE) described the sect of Naasseni as comprising knowledgeable sectarians who had a doctrine of a “spiritual one� who is “born again� and who followed the teaching of James. He wrote that they derived their name from the serpent, which is Naas in Hebrew.

In one of their hymns, he writes the mournful chants of a soul lost in a dark labyrinth seeking the light of God but unable to escape. Then Jesus, looking on and filled with sympathy, tells his father (God), as Hippolytus narrates in Philosophoumena (Refutation of Heresy), v. 10. 2:

“'Behold, O Father! this tempted being who, far from thy influence, wanders miserably on earth. He longs to fly from bitter chaos, but he knows not how to ascend. For his salvation, O Father! send Me; that I may descend with the seals in My hands, that I may traverse the aeons, that I may open the mysteries, that I may reveal unto him the essence of God, and announce unto him the mystery of the holy life which is called the gnosis.�

W. B. Smith in The Pre-Christian Jesus and mythologists like Drews argued that the Jesus in this hymn was a celestial being with no contact with Christianity.

Hilgenfeld (Der Ketzergesch des Urchistentums) opposed their arguments and argued that the Naassenes used Pauline epistles and John in composing the hymn. Bousset argued that the text was corrupted. Goguel explains that the name of Jesus appears to have been necessarily interpolated into the text because “at the beginning of the hymn there is presented the ‘Nous’ along with Chaos, and the Soul to be saved�

IIUC, in Valentinian Gnosticism, the Nous refers to an aeon that, together with Aletheia, produced Christ and the Holy Ghost, who were to restore order in the pleroma. The juxtaposition of the Nous and chaos is indeed inconsistent with Gnostic thought as Bousset and Goguel argue, but this, alone does not necessarily imply that the text is corrupted. It is perhaps a sign of syncretism of certain beliefs, or a sign that among some Gnostic sects, the Nous could descend to the chaotic spheres, or it could simply be an error. Goguel’s argument that the name ‘Jesus’ was a later insertion is thus not supported by the presence of this peculiarity.

I have not examined the Hilgenfeld’s argument that the hymn, or sections of it, were derived from Paul and John but suffice it to say that the occurrence and the usage of the words aeons (traversing the aeons), nous, seals and casting the earth as a chaotic realm escapable only by ascension casts the hymn as a Gnostic hymn. The upshot of this is that this hymn contains non-Christian ideas: at least Christianity as per the gospels because it has Gnostic thought, expression and cosmology. Yet it has the name "Jesus".
In addition, Hippolytus characterizes the Naasseni as Gnostics who derived their doctrines from the teachings of Musaeus, Linus and Orpheus.

Thus I hesitate to concur with Hilgenfeld that the hymn may have been borrowed from Christian texts. Hilgenfeld’s underlying assumptions (that Gnosticism emerged after Christianity) are further challenged because later scholarship supports the idea that Gnosticism predated Christianity.

According to Paul, (the Phillipians hymn) the "event" that made Jesus get worship status, was, Jesus, volntary "descent" and suffering. Of course, Paul doesn't locate his "suffering" anywhere on earth. Paul doesn't mention Pilate, Mary, Golgotha etc and talks of Jesus being killed by the archotons.

How do you dovetail this diversity to a big bang?

Carrier, how do you define "Christian"? To Theophilus of Antioch (who converted to Christianity after reading Jewish scriptures c.168 in To Autolycus), a Christian is one who is anointed with the oil of God.
We see Second century apologists like Athenagoras of Athens in A Plea for The Christians, Epistle to Diognetus (addressed to Hadrian or M. Aurelius), Tatian in Apology to the Greeks promulgating Christianity without citing any man, or event as central founder or genesis respectively. It is only much later that we start seeing familiarity with a HJ and with the gospels.

How do you dovetail this silence to a big bang?

How can the event that caused them not be central to their message? How can the gang that started them (Paul, Peter and gnag) not be mentioned in dozens and dozens of apologetic treatsies?

Please, help us understand.

Jacob Aliet

PS: By the way Carrier, I have always wondered: Why is it that, out of all the hundreds of books written in NT scholarship, you have given the one written by an uncredentialed scholar (Doherty) the most thorough treatment in your review?

GakuseiDon

It is not true that "only much later that we start seeing familiarity with a HJ and with the gospels". Doherty's examples all date from at least 160 CE, except Epistle to Diognetus, where the dating is uncertain (either 130 CE or 200 CE). We have references to a HJ earlier than Doherty's examples, in Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and some fragments of writings from Papias, some gnostics and others.

We also have letters from Tertullian and Ignatius where they don't even cite "Jesus" or "Christ", yet there is no doubt they believed in a HJ. From Irenaeus and internal evidence, it seems certain that Tatian appears to have been a follower of Justin Martyr when he wrote Apology to the Greeks.

As for the name "Christian", both Justin Martyr (writing 30 years before Theophilus) and Tertullian (writing about 15 years after Theophilus) explains the meaning of the name in the same terms as Theophilus. From Tertullian's "ad nationes": "The name Christian, however, so far as its meaning goes, bears the sense of anointing." Note that Tertullian doesn't mention the names "Jesus" or "Christ" in that letter, but he believes in a HJ.

Ted Hoffman

I wrote: "only much later that we start seeing familiarity with a HJ and with the gospels".
Jesus allegedly died c.30CE. Ignatius, who is the earliest reference of a HJ outside the gospels is dated c110CE.
That is 80 plus years after the "event".

80 years is "much later". I am questioning why the blast wave of this big bang took 80 years to spread from its epicenter (presumably Jerusalem) to other parts of the Roman Empire. And even after 80 years, Ignatius only alludes to a HJ and not a Jesus of Nazareth as per the gospels.

Irenaeus (175-185), Justin (150-160), Tertullian (197-220) are all late second century (these are ECW datings btw). Papias (110-140) is unreliable and still late (more than 100 years after the big bang). So, these are all consistent with my argument.

Please do not be shy to support your claims. What internal evidence in Apology to the Greeks? The difference between Diatessaron and Apology to the Greeks is clear and only shows that the former had input from Justin's Harmony. Feel free to challenge the arguments..

Regarding Theophilus, his definition of the word "Christian" without mentioning Jesus Christ shows that, in some Christian circles, the acts (death and resurrection of Jesus) and teachings of Jesus had no centrality to the Christians, or were unknown to them.
It can indicate to us that the role of Jesus' alleged death was a later invention, or reached some Christian cults much later.

Theophilus even explains why Christians believe in the resurrection without mentioning the idea that Jesus resurrected.

Some time back, Sodium presented this problem as follows:
As someone who has the temerity to claim that Doherty "shamelessly misrepresents" 2nd century apologists, you have done very little to show us how exactly Doherty does that.

Since it took you a year to realize that you are ill-equipped to address Doherty's arguments on Paul and since we do not know how long it will take before your essay on the 2nd century apologists is released, you could instead just give us a summary of this misrepresentation that you claim. Then take your sweet time on the job the way you'd like.

Just a summary. How about that? :huh:

Richard Carrier

Ted, I don't usually devote my time to forum debates, but this is worthwhile, IMO, since there is too much flawed method here to let stand.

First, a minor but important point. You rephrase my claims as including:

So was Pauline and Petrine Christianity. I did not mean to imply that any form of Christianity was anything other than another sect of Judaism. Separation from Judaism only begins to appear as an interest after the Jewish War (and one can see already why the War would have that effect on the Christian movement).

And:

It might not be that simple. The influence could run both ways: e.g. a Jewish messianic sect adopting aspects of Pauline-Petrine Christian ideology. Thus, it is not a question of "branching" from a central authority (which implies continuity of leadership) but of influence and development across the board. A Christian sect could pop up--without a leader from another sect having defected, but from a Jewish sect simply hearing the Christian ideas and incorporating them.

For example, it looks like this is exactly what Apollos did (if we trust Acts 18:24-26, 19:1-3). He was a Baptist Jew who heard the Christian teachings and came to believe and defend them, without any formal baptism into any Christian sect (whether he was "instructed" within a sect or "instructed himself" is hard to say--Acts is vague since the participle is both middle and passive--but either way Apollos is here said to have been directly influenced by the Pauline-Petrine church, and not an independent inventor of the risen Christ idea).

That clarifies what I meant. Now to what you say about Big Bang Christianity:

There is no evidence against this, and there is evidence for it. You can no more assume that these communities pre-existed Paul's or anyone else's mission than the reverse, and the better theory is the one that has evidence, not the one that lacks it. All the evidence we have is that these communities were produced by missions from the Petrine church. Of course, one can "explain away" this evidence, but only by theory--there is no actual evidence that this evidence is false. This is an example of where Doherty's theory can be made to fit the evidence, but is not thereby proved to be true.



I also make a sharp distinction between Luke and Acts. The Gospel of Luke was a faith statement based on the use of faith documents that all indications suggest were never even intended to be history (Mark and Q), and what is added or altered appears to be the product of the standards of historiography of the day (e.g. Luke fills in blanks and harmonized by supposing that what he thinks probably happened or must have happened, did), though perhaps some oral traditions of questionable origin or reliability got added in, too (or lost faith documents, e.g. the Road to Emmaus story looks like a symbolic fable, i.e. a parable, and not something Luke invented as a "probable" event, so I suspect Luke had a source for that--reliable or not).

But Acts is a radically different animal--Hemer is correct that Acts bears numerous signs of having been crafted with an eye to historical accuracy and was written as a historical document (a community's actual "memory," suitably sanitized and dressed up), and it contains elements that make more sense as historical traditions with a core origin in true events, than as the contrivances of probability assessments or built from prior faith-based documents. That doesn't mean Acts is all true or reliable. But the objections against reliability in the Gospels do not apply to most of Acts.

As just one example of what I mean: Acts is completely devoid of any of the fabulous miracles found in the Gospels, even in the Gospel of Luke (with the sole exception of the continuation of the Gospel in chapter 1). Instead, all the miracles in Acts are known natural phenomena that have been frequently reproduced in other religious traditions--and still are to this day--and they are also the only "miraculous" phenomena mentioned by Paul in his letters. Similarly, all the visions in Acts are realistic, i.e. they are described with details that match the known natural causes and content of religious hallucination (you can confirm hypnagogia, for example, as a cause of one of Peter's visions, while the amorphous content of Paul's vision is far more typical of the real thing than the fanciful tales told in the Gospels of how Jesus appeared).

If Luke or his source traditions were fabricating, we should see more ridiculous miracle claims in Acts. Luke has no qualms against introducing them into his Gospel, so why should he get squeamish when it comes to the history of his community's Apostolic tradition? In contrast, look at the patent absurdities heaped into the Acts of Peter. I think the best explanation for Luke's sudden restraint in Acts is that he was reporting what he believed to be true, and what he believed to be true was largely in fact true (with, of course, still some stylization, embellishments, and insertions of details that Luke or his sources simply "assumed" had to be true, etc.). This is the best explanation of why the miracles in Acts happen to conform so well to known natural phenomena. Since Luke could not possibly have known that these phenomena have natural causes, whereas the miracles in the Gospel (or Acts of Peter, etc.) do not, the fact that Luke got it right is too amazing a coincidence--unless he is relying on at least a core of genuine history.

That's only one example of what I'm talking about. There are other elements of Acts that suggest it is based on genuine historical traditions, in a way the Gospels are not. Again, please don't take me to mean we can trust Acts on every detail or even most of the details. I am only saying that we need to take seriously the prospects of finding history in Acts, even amidst lies and distortions, such that the thesis that Acts is wholly fabrication is not at present the best explanation of its contents.

That covers the general points. Now to specifics:

Crossan also thinks Jesus would have been tossed into a pit of corpses, which is completely untenable in light of the archaeological facts and what we know of Jewish law and custom at the time. For that reason, I am highly suspicious of Crossan's "interpretations," especially since (if I recall correctly--I may be confusing him with someone else) he asserts the pit theory as if it were a fact and not his opinion, thus clouding the distinction between the two, which casts into doubt anything else he claims to be a "fact." As a result, I don't trust anything Crossan says unless it is independently corroborated by independent research.

BTW, that's actually a good idea for every historical question. Remember, historical fact is established just as in science: by peer review, independent corroboration, and consensus--not by lone wolfs staking a claim to the truth.



I have no doubt that such a movement existed and played a major and important part in the origins of Christianity. But it does not follow that there was a Jesus who was a revolutionary peasant. This is that whole problem of the false dichotomy between black-and-white, historicity or ahistoricity. It just doesn't work that way. Any elements of "memory" of a warlike revolutionary, especially in the Q tradition, may well come from leaders of movements that were eventually imported into the Christian faith by an actual Jesus or later adherents, and these leaders' teachings became assimilated to those of the actual Jesus (perhaps the one crucified under Pilate, if that is the actual HJ).

This is particularly the case knowing that the Zealots were Essenes and that also, so it would seem, were the Christians. Yet these two groups proposed diametrically opposite solutions to the same problems (see my article "Whence Christianity" in the most recent issue of the Journal of Higher Criticism, 11.1, Spring 2004, which may not be out yet). The Zealots chose war. The Christians chose submission and counter-cultural subversion. Instead of trying to take over society, they chose to create their own society separate from the general society even as it lived and coped within that general society. This is in turn unlike the solution of the Essenes at Qumran, who sought the same divorce, but made it physically complete by actually not trying to live within the general society but physically away from it. Thus, we have three Essene sects, each trying a completely different solution to the same problem. Only one of them preached a risen Christ. The fact that this risen-Christ teaching was essential to the success and logic of their novel solution (as I explain in my JHC article) argues in favor of this being a novel idea of one sect and not something independently arrived at several times (a theory for which we have no evidence, just contentious interpretations of evidence).

Even so, they may well have assembled this solution by drawing on surrounding Jesus traditions. I am not arguing against that. I just don't see any evidence that these other movements claimed to have been told by God that Jesus actually died and rose again, as opposed to claiming that this would happen--e.g. the Ascension of Isaiah is a prophetic vision of what was going to happen, not a claim to what actually had happened. So the Ascension motif could be read as a mystical type of God's process, a la Philo, rather than an actual past or future event in history. What distinguishes Christianity's talk of the "two Adams" (in 1 Cor. 15) from, e.g., Philo's talk of the "two Adams," is that Christianity alone claimed the fate of the second Adam as an historical event--in fact, a recent historical event that portended that the End was Nigh. This is the claim that inspired the church of Cephas, and Paul. And all subsequent Christian movements appear to derive knowingly and consciously from the Pauline-Petrine church, not independently (beyond, that is, cross-fertilization like that claimed of Apollos in Acts).

On that point, more later. The point here is:

(1) Doherty's mystical thesis is not inconsistent with Big Bang Christianity, because asserting that the prophecy had now come true does not entail it came true in an earthly man (Doherty is right, IMO, that it could be asserted to have come true for a heavenly being, and I concede there is at least some evidence supporting this).

(2) But the evidence and my analysis above is also consistent with this prophesied "type" of a savior being mapped onto a real man, and indeed a real charismatic man in the right historical circumstances could have encouraged or inspired exactly this mapping. This does not tell us what is being mapped onto the man, and what was actually the man (hence my point about the false dichotomy--the historicity question is more complex than that). But one can certainly narrow the field down, by finding pre-existing details for mapping. Though some of those could have matched real facts about the man, coincidentally or by design, probably most do not.

So there is a whole range of different concepts of historicity. It is correct, though, that we may end up with a historical Jesus who is trivial for Christians (e.g. a mere rabbi hung for sorcery in 100 B.C. who merely "inspired" what later became a full-blown movement). But such a Jesus would not be trivial for secular historians. That is why I take Doherty to task in my critique for not carefully distinguishing the Religious Hypothesis from the Secular Hypothesis. Christians need to believe things about their Jesus that mere historicity does not require.

For example, when Paul says that Jesus was "martyred" under Pilate (1 Timothy 6:13), the Greek can literally be read "who testified to the good news in the time of Pontius Pilate." Thus, it may well be that Jesus was not executed by Pilate or even under Pilate, but that he "appeared" to Peter under the reign of Pilate. If so, this is consistent with Doherty's ahistoricism and Big Bang Christianity. Or it could be consistent with Jesus being an inspiring man who started the fundamental thinking and who may even have predicted his future appearance long before (e.g. the Jesus executed solely by the Sanhedrin a century earlier). Or it could be consistent with a Jesus actually stoned and hung by the Sanhedrin during Pilate's reign, without any factual involvement of Pilate (and no Roman crucifixion). Both the latter are historicist origins, yet neither would be a comfort to Christians. Doherty sometimes conflates all historicist theories and sometimes acts as if refuting one refutes them all. It's not that simple.



And what difference does this make? So there was a growing collection of teachings attributed generically to Lord's "savior" that in fact may have originated with numerous historical leaders over time, and this collection was then assimilated to the Jesus of the Christian tradition. That says nothing against Big Bang Christianity. The movement still begins with appearances of a risen Jesus under Pilate to Peter and (later) Paul.

That it later was influenced by outside Jesus traditions is not anything I deny. Such influence does not argue against a historical Jesus or even a historical encounter with a purely "mystical" Jesus in one specific time and place. Indeed, the influence of outside Jesus traditions leading to the expectation of such an historical event may well have caused the origin of Christianity via Cephas and Paul.



It would link them from a Christian's point of view--it was typical of the time to assume that what someone else was saying about "The Savior" must have been true of your own savior (so long as it agreed with dogma--and here we see they do: both Jesuses were apocalyptic, etc.), and thus to adopt those teachings. This is how the Greeks and Romans so casually assumed that Egyptian gods were just Greco-Roman gods by other names, and this assumption led to widespread syncretism even in Egypt, where the Egyptians themselves modified their view of their gods to incorporate exactly this Greco-Roman assumption. In a similar fashion, Jews and Christians often took the philosophical tradition of Greece as an incomplete revelation from God and thus modified their beliefs to incorporate the philosophical ideas that agreed with God's revelation, as if those ideas were themselves revealed (e.g. this is unmistakable in Philo and directly asserted by Eusebius).



Because the import came after Paul (or within a branch from Cephas Christianity not under Paul's care). There is also, of course, the possibility that Paul didn't care about the earthly connections between Jesus and John, because only what was revealed now from heaven mattered. And so on. My point is not that I believe these things. My point is that they are consistent with the evidence, and we just don't have enough data to justify ruling them out completely.



The sayings do not derive from a risen-Jesus tradition--by Doherty's own admission. So in what way does that community count as "Christian"? I just don't see the logic here. Yes, there were lots of ideas, often mystical ones, about The Savior all throughout Judaism. That doesn't explain the rise of a belief that The Savior recently died and rose from the dead and therefore we are saved (or, if we suppose this was itself not a historical event, it was at least only recently revealed by God, e.g. Romans 16:25-26). The latter is Christianity. All other talk about The Savior is not. Therefore, the central event (the revelation alluded to in Romans 16:25-26 or the event thus revealed) caused not two movements, but one movement, which later absorbed parallel movements, such as the Galileean sayings tradition. That is what I am talking about. And such a scenario does not argue against Big Bang Christianity, nor against (a suitably qualified) historicity.



First, we have no reason to expect any historical record of a HJ. We are lucky to have any sources at all from that time and place, and those sources do not record every movement or its founder. Indeed, consider Josephus: though we know the names of about thirty sects of Judaism, Josephus only mentions about six (and says next to nothing about most of them, and neglects to discuss the founders of any of them, except perhaps the Zealots). Thus, an Argument from Silence is inadequate here (the case from Paul is a different story, I admit--see my discussion of the AfS in my critique of Doherty).

Second, as to why he was killed, Paul essentially says he was charged with violating some Jewish law that carried a capital sentence. That we have a later Jewish account of a Jesus stoned and hung for sorcery around 100 B.C. is thus intriguing, and forms the basis of the book Jesus 100 Years Before Christ (again, notice how we have no other historical sources for this other Jesus--does that mean there was no Jesus stoned for sorcery then as our Jewish source says?), and to this theory one can add the support of Jesus the Magician.

Likewise, that the Jewish record of the trial of another Jesus (the one whom the Jews believed to be the Christian Jesus) excludes any mention of Roman authorities or punishments, and solely follows strict Judaic law and hence completely contradicts the Gospels, is likewise intriguing, and suggests that the HJ was not killed by Pilate or by Roman crucifixion (two claims nowhere in Paul), but was executed fully in accord with Jewish law, probably for pissing off the Jewish authorities. Whether Jesus actually violated the law or was falsely condemned is an open question--he may well have broken the law, and later Christian attempts to depict him as innocent would be the inevitable whitewash that hero-worshippers all throughout history love to engage in. But the point is, historicity is not black-and-white.

I must make sure I am clear: I am not saying these Jewish sources are accurate. The same problems attending the Gospels attend them. What I am saying is that we do have evidence for a different HJ than the Christians need, but for a HJ all the same. How one interprets this evidence is then a subject of theory, and on the theory of many-to-one vs. Big Bang Christianity, I see Doherty losing by a margin, even as I see him winning by a margin on the mystical Jesus question--though winning by a mile on the mystical resurrection question (i.e, even if there was a HJ, Doherty's case still makes a very strong argument against the Gospel narratives of the resurrection).



True. But irrelevant. The HJ issue is not all-or-nothing. Obviously, most of what's in the Gospels is not true. That does not mean there was no HJ.



Again true, but irrelevant.



Even if true, this is again irrelevant. But it is dubious--and another case of Crossan's specious reasoning. The Gospels nowhere say that is what happened. It says that the Jesus movement relied on the charity of friends and family and polite strangers who remained in established homes. It also does not assert that none of them kept working from time to time as there was work to be had (the fact that it leaves out such mundane details is irrelevant--the Gospels don't record Jesus taking a dump, either).

The fact is, there were many itinerant workers who could go months without work--an example of the problems plaguing ancient society that the Jesus movement wanted to solve, while the Romans and Greeks tried to solve it with the ancient equivalent of government welfare checks. Likewise, there were hermits and itinerant holy men all over the empire that lived off the charity of others as they traveled from town to town.

And in fact, this was possible precisely because of the honor-shame society they lived in: today, most of us would close our doors to a random stranger asking for dinner and a bed, whereas in antiquity it was practically a sin to do this, for it was expected of all persons (in Greece, Rome, and Judaea) to be gracious hosts to traveling strangers in need--as Paul says, such travelers could be angels in disguise to test your hospitality, aping the Greco-Roman belief that the gods did the very same thing. That the Jewish elite were abandoning these values is exactly one of the main criticisms leveled at it by the Jesus movement. So there is nothing implausible in the Gospel accounts of a small band of holy men traveling from town to town to spread their "good news," living off what minimal charity and gleaning they could get. The poor in modern-day Afghanistan get by on far less.



I agree. So what? That does not mean there was no HJ.



False.

First, archaeology has confirmed a stone building in Nazareth of the size and type to be a synagogue, and it dates from the time of Christ. See the entry in the Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land. If you are relying on Zindler here, be warned: Zindler is wrong about almost every single thing he says about Nazareth.

Second, the Gospels do not say Jesus was (going to be) thrown off a "cliff." It says he was to be thrown off the "brow." Anyone who bothered to read the Mishnah's description of the legal requirements for stoning would know that the "brow" is a wooden platform (like a gallows) specifically built for this purpose. The stoning victim was to be hurled from this gallows first, and if he survived the fall, was then pelted with stones from above until dead.



Again, you are playing at a false dichotomy. Yes, Mark is a myth and every single thing in there has a mystical meaning. That does not mean this myth was not inspired by or mapped onto a real set of core events. For example, I can find no plausible basis for making Nazareth the home of Jesus, other than it actually being his home. So everything else said about Nazareth may well be symbolic fiction, yet that does not mean Jesus did not come from Nazareth.

Now, if you know of any reason Mark would have to invent Nazareth as his home, do let me know--and please present all the evidence supporting your theory. I would find that helpful. But Doherty makes no such case in his book as far as I recall.



Because it is possible, because it fits all earlier evidence, because we have no clear evidence against it, because historical founders are the most common cause of historical movements (thus, qualified historicity at least of Cephas-as-founder has a higher prior probability), and because such a founder still explains some evidence that Doherty can't prove has any other explanation (e.g. all the passages in Paul that historicists cite as supporting historicity of Jesus--at least some of those remain problematic for Doherty--while all the Pauline references to the historicity of Cephas remain insurmountably problematic for Doherty's anti-BB thesis).

On Cephas founding the Church, the evidence is strong, and Doherty has no direct evidence against it.

But on Jesus, I must reiterate what you keep losing sight of: I am saying we can't claim from all you say that we know there was no HJ. That is simply not a valid logical inference. It is a valid inference that there might not have been a HJ, and so Christians are wrong to assert that this is impossible or implausible, and in light of all you say and more, they are wrong to assert that historicity is provable on present evidence--it is not. But this is not equivalent to asserting ahistoricity either. We just don't know.

But let me also be clear about one thing: there is room for progress. In my critique of Doherty I pointed out that his book does not adequately explain why the mother of Jesus was named Mary. This was an example of a detail that qualified historicity still explained better than his theory. However, I since found the explanation I asked Doherty for, and I am quite certain I am correct: Mary is a deliberate type of Miriam, the sister of Moses (just as his father being Joseph is a type of the patriarch Joseph). In like fashion I can explain all three women at the tomb in Mark's narrative as symbolic creations. Since discovering this, I was pulled one more notch toward Doherty's theory. But it is still not enough to be sure there was no HJ of any kind whatever--and it is certainly not enough to deny Big Bang Christianity, HJ or no.

I should add that I now think I also know the symbolic basis for inventing a man specifically named "Joseph of Arimathea," too, and as the burier of Jesus no less. And I think I can explain why a man named Simon of Cyrene was invented to carry the cross (I explain this in a chapter in The Empty Tomb), but I have yet to find a reason to claim he was "the father of Alexander and Rufus" other than scribal interpolation serving an eponymous community tradition, which I cannot prove.

In like fashion, if anyone has found a basis for Mark contriving a Nazarene origin, I would find that very valuable. But similar explanations need to be found for every peculiar detail in Mark before we can rule them all out as probable fictions, and even then we would not have proved there was no founder named Jesus at all, because such a founder could have become totally obscured behind symbolic myth.



As to Acts, I discussed my reasons above. We need to rely on that source cautiously, but we cannot dismiss it as 100% fiction.

But Acts is not my only source. Paul links himself with Cephas in 1 Cor. 1:12, 3:22, 9:5, 15:1-5 and Galatians 1 and 2. I am very suspicious of Paul's account in Galatians, but if he really is telling the truth, his connection with Cephas would be indirect: i.e. he heard the creed expounded in 1 Cor. 15 during his persecution of the followers of Cephas and so knew the movement began with Cephas, and thus when he felt secure enough, went to Cephas for his sect's endorsement. This is the strongest evidence for Big Bang Christianity: if there were disconnected Jesus movements everywhere, Paul would have no reason whatever to seek the endorsement of Cephas's church, nor would Cephas sit at the heart of the kerygma that Paul preached.

The fact that Paul believed he needed the endorsement of Cephas's church, plus the fact that Paul believed Cephas's church was the first to "see" the revelation of Jesus alluded to in Rom. 16:25-26 and described in 1 Cor. 15:3-5, both entail that Paul knew this was the original and founding church, and was aware of no other independent movement. Had he been so aware, he would be forced to justify why he chose the endorsement of Cephas's church instead of some other (or, in fact, why he would need any church's endorsement--since he had his marching orders straight from God), and he would have to have explained to his flock why he preached that Cephas's church was the first to receive the founding revelation of their entire faith.

For example, Apollos was meddling in Paul's church, as we know from 1 Cor. Yet Paul implies several times that he was teaching the same thing as Apollos. Now, that had to be true otherwise Paul would be shooting himself in the foot. For instance, he says the Gospel he preached them started with appearances to Cephas. If Apollos was not preaching this, the Corinthians would know that, and thus would have required an explanation of why Paul's gospel included Cephas but the gospel of Apollos did not. And if Paul claimed Apollos was teaching the same gospel, and the Corinthians knew that was false, Paul's credibility would be shot. So Paul would not use an argument he knew his readers would immediately know to be false, nor would he state a gospel contrary to that of Apollos without defending his gospel as correct and that of Apollos as mistaken or incomplete. And, ultimately, we have no evidence whatsoever that Apollos taught anything differently than the minimal kerygma in 1 Cor. 15:3-5, no matter what else Apollos might have taught differently than Paul.



Who says they were cognates? They are still the same name--in different languages, both of which Paul spoke. Cephas is a translitteration of the Aramaic for rock and Peter means "rock" in Greek. The Aramaic is kepa (and the related keba is Hebrew for "fixity" in exactly the sense used in the NT of Peter--a common Jewish term for fixity of doctrine).

Do you think it is a coincidence that Paul uses the Hebrew form of the name "Peter"? I don't. But it doesn't matter--call the original church the Church of Cephas rather than Peter. It's still starting with one man in one place at one time. Paul still says it started with Cephas (1 Cor. 15:5), and still thinks he needs the permission of this Cephas to continue his mission (Gal. 1:18, 2:9, 2:11, 2:14). Paul certainly implies this Cephas is the Peter who is the Apostle to the Jews (Gal. 2:7-8), and there is no evidence he regarded them as different people. But even if he did (or even if these verses are interpolations), Paul still says the movement began with Cephas and that Cephas was the head of the central church that Paul needed endorsement from, and the Gospels and Acts explicitly identify Cephas as the man they mean when they talk about Peter.



First, why assume he did? You are assuming the only possible HJ is the entire Gospel Jesus. That's simply not valid reasoning.

Second, why wouldn't someone intent on challenging the Jewish elite go to the center of their power to challenge their authority?

Third, it was standard practice for Jews to visit the Temple. Jesus was a Jew. It is impossible to believe he would never go to Jerusalem, when all Jews went there at least once in their lives, if not routinely.

Fourth, there are ample motives for Jesus to go there (to fulfill what he thought was prophecy, for example, or by being extradited there after his arrest, as Paul nearly was, and he only escaped this extradition by asserting his rights as a Roman citizen--and those are just two examples).



Forget your distracting obsession with the Greek word and stick with what Paul says: a man named Cephas was the first to receive the revelation of the gospel (Paul says Jesus appeared to Cephas and what he started was the belief that The Savior actually died and rose and was now revealing this fact first to Cephas and, later, Paul), and Cephas was the head of the Church that Paul regarded as the authority whose assent was required--Paul mentions no other, and assumes there was no other (e.g. he does not defend his reasoning to go to that church for permission--which entails his readers simply understood the reason: because it was the church). Add that to the credible core facts related in Acts, and we have at least a better case for this than Doherty has for the reverse. That he "can" explain all this evidence away does not make his explanation fact.

Again, this does not argue against his mythicist theory, only against his many-to-one theory. Please don't lose sight of the difference.



The "unknown event" you are referring to is the resurrection. Hence, I agree the case is pretty solid that there was no resurrection on earth, just scriptural and "revelatory" confirmation of a resurrection. That does not mean the man whose resurrection was "discovered" in scripture and visions didn't walk the earth.

Notice that the "gospel" Paul gets from scripture is not that Christ died on earth, but that he died for our sins, which obviously could only be known from scripture or revelation (it is not a fact that could be observed, even by someone who watched Jesus die); and it is not that Christ was buried, but that he was buried and rose on the third day, which again does not entail the burial alone was only known from scripture. Thus, the evidence is entirely compatible with a qualified HJ. This HJ clearly would have just died and been buried (and elsewhere Paul says he was executed and hung under Jewish law). That his death secured atonement for us all, and was followed three days later by a resurrection, that is the secret plan of God that was only recently revealed.

Again, this same evidence is also compatible with the thesis that there was no HJ. I am not challenging that observation. I am simply saying the evidence is insufficient to prove there was no HJ (except, at best, by a small and thus shaky margin).



Josephus records several holy men who commanded followings of thousands in Palestine and records roughly six sects of Judaism and even names numerous leaders within some of them. We don't have any eye-witness records from them, either. So, too, we have no documents from Cephas, Apollos, James, or anyone Paul names. We don't even have the letter the Corinthians wrote to Paul (1 Cor. 7:1), or the Epistle Paul wrote from Laodicea (Col. 4:16) or the first Epistle Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 5:9).

Thus, we have no reason to expect that any letters would survive--we are lucky in fact even to have the few letters from Paul (and not even a complete collection at that), and we are incredibly lucky to have any textual scraps from the other branches of Christianity. Nor should we expect many letters to have been written. Most Christian teaching and leadership was oral, and there was no posterity to write for, since the End was Nigh.

By comparison, consider the Cult of Glycon: despite its impressive fame and influence, not even Alexander its founder appears to have written anything, nor did any of his followers or devotees or any witnesses at all except the skeptical Lucian. We are thus incredibly lucky Lucian happened across the cult and being a literary wit was motivated to write about it. Otherwise, writing about their lives or anyone else's wasn't what most people thought to do. The literary urge was a rare occupation of the scholarly elite. Even the Jewish Mishnah Law didn't get written down until around 200 AD--before then, the Jews were content to keep it purely oral. So, too, the Talmud, and all the teachings of the Schools of Hillel and Shammai (which began not long before the time of Christ). Thus, it is absurd to expect anyone who new the HJ to have written about it, and even if they did, we can't expect what they wrote to have survived (especially if the subsequent Church didn't like it).

But one thing is clear: this only holds if the HJ was relatively unremarkable, and thus no more amazing or influential than Alexander of Abonuteichos or the man called the Egyptian, for whom Paul was mistaken, or Judas the Galilean who launched the Zealot movement, and so on. Therefore, it is extraordinarily unlikely that the HJ was anywhere near as impressive as the Jesus of the Gospels, which is bad news for Christians, but it doesn't settle the issue for secular historians.



Doherty is faced with the need to answer that question as much as anyone. And however Doherty answers this question will be just as viable whether there was an HJ or not and whether the Big Bang theory of Christian origins is true or not.

As to what I myself think would rationally persuade Paul, see my article "Whence Christianity" cited above. As to what could have nonrationally persuaded him, a hallucinatory epiphany seems to have done the trick--at the very least, Paul claimed to have had one, and asserts that this is what converted him. Indeed, he claimed to regularly have conversations with god, which suggests either that he was mildly schizophrenic, or routinely willing to fabricate revelation to sell his ideology (if the latter, we need a rational motive, and that is what I provide in my article "Whence Christianity").

That this revelation from God came from someone Paul knew had once walked the earth would be wholly irrelevant--a revelation from God is still a revelation from God. Is he going to doubt God? This is also how his congregations would respond, even if Paul fabricated his revelations--they were not going to doubt that God told him the truth, so long as they believed Paul was telling the truth about what God said (of course, the evidence Paul lists for believing him omit any reference to things like empty tombs and such because there were no such things: the resurrection took place in heaven, a fact that annoys Christians, but that is nevertheless almost certainly what Paul and the original Christians believed, regardless of whether there was an HJ). As to why Paul would fabricate a revelation from a deified human, apart from the reasons I articulate in "Whence Christianity" the proximate cause is obvious: because this was already being taught by the Church of Cephas, which Paul knew because he was persecuting it. Thus, the idea was already in his head that this HJ had now appeared to people from heaven with an astonishing revelation about his post-mortem fate. Again, the motives for Cephas, etc., to assert this are the same as Paul's (both rationally and nonrationally).



Yes, it is. Look at the varying accounts of Alexander the Great--even the eyewitnesses often told radically different stories (as Arrian attests). But this is especially the case for religious doctrines wholly established by mystical interpretations of scripture and private revelations from God. This allowed anyone to tweak the doctrine any way they wanted--all they had to do was find a clever new way to interpret the text, or claim a vision (and the church was awash with self-proclaimed prophets--so much so that Paul is compelled to regulate and normalize mass prophetic activity in 1 Corinthians). Since none of this was history (that the HJ's death atoned was a doctrine of faith, not something that could be historically observed, and of course we both believe the resurrection was likewise apparent only to the eye of faith), there were no facts to anchor the story. Otherwise, all sources (maybe even Paul) are agreed Jesus was executed under Pilate on a charge of violating Jewish law--could this agreement be because this was a historically anchored fact? Maybe. Not necessarily. But maybe.

Incidentally, this inability to control deviations in doctrine is what led to a hardening of hierarchical control within the eventually-successful sect of the Church, and it was this hardening that actually secured the eventual triumph of this Church over all others, because that hardening alone allowed a stable doctrine to grow in adherents without fragmenting further, which in turn allowed the greater accumulation of wealth and power that could in turn be used against smaller fledgling groups in the struggle for dominance. Thus, Christianity would never have become "a Church" if it didn't find a way to put a stop to newly revealed alterations of doctrine. But this does not mean these early deviations represent a many-to-one origin. It simply means there was no hierarchical control over revelation within the church, until it was large enough that such control could finally be assembled and asserted.

So much for the logical point. But your historical point isn't correct, either. Christ is more adamantly and overtly cast as the Atoning Lamb in John than in any other Gospel (explicitly in 1:29 and 1:36 and by glaringly obvious symbolism in the passion and burial narratives). So I have no idea where you get the notion that John erases the "salvific consequence of his death or atonement therefrom." He might de-emphasize it in his narrative in order to play up the role of the Holy Spirit (14:26, 20:22) as guaranteeing the authority of those (supposedly) elected by the Disciples, but it is clear from the fact that John identifies Jesus as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of Israel" both explicitly and symbolically.



You have not demonstrated a single one of these assertions. I see no problems identified above that BB has no greater trouble with than Doherty's theory, and in fact Doherty's many-to-one thesis has less evidence supporting it and faces more problems explaining the evidence than the BB theory. It also raises no questions that don't already have answers, is completely consistent with all the historical evidence we have, faces no challenge from textual analysis or archaeology, and far from being challenged by it, is actually supported by the predictions of sociology (e.g. that major movements more typically begin with charismatic founders than not; that post-founding syncretism and schism is routine; that egalitarian revelation-movements are particularly prone to rapid deviations in doctrine; etc.).

But again, don't get me wrong: this does not mean Doherty's mythicist thesis is wrong. The BB theory is fully consistent with ahistoricity.



No, it doesn't. Because none of these texts claim the resurrection of The Savior has happened--except the Odes, which most scholars believe to be a late 2nd century Gnostic Christian composition and so hardly relevant to the origins of Christianity, and the Hermas, which is plainly a text written by a Christian from within the tradition begun by Peter and Paul (see below). As to the events (atoning death and resurrection) actually having happened, only Christianity claimed that, and in fact it is that very claim that distinguishes Christianity from any other sect of Judaism, and is clearly the central, founding claim of the Christian movement as far as Paul knows.

Prophetic texts are not always Christian texts. For example, Daniel: when Daniel was written, were there people around who believed anything even remotely like the core creed of 1 Cor. 15:3-4? No. Daniel was foretelling the future. No one thought that future had come yet. But we do know there were a great many Jews who expected this Danielic prediction to come true in the 1st century AD--is it any surprise that a sect would take advantage of this expectation to start a movement exactly then? So, too, the Ascension of Isaiah, which is again just a prophetic vision of the future. So these things could and probably did pre-date Christianity--and may even have helped form and inspire Christianity. None of that contradicts the BB theory.

As to the Odes of Solomon, I don't know how you argue from its contents to an independently-begun "risen Christ" movement. The Odes say the Savior has already risen and atoned for our sins. It is thus just a Christian hymnal. There is no evidence it was not written by someone who derived his doctrine ultimately from the traditions originating with Cephas and Paul.

As to the Hermas, Hermas himself says he came from the Christian church in Rome and was a colleague of Clement of Rome. We know Pauline-Petrine Christianity was already long established in Rome by then, as both Acts and Romans confirm, as well as Clement himself (who asserts Paul and Peter his ideological predecessors). Though some scholars think Hermas means a later Clement and thus wrote around 140 AD rather than around 100 AD, either way, how can anyone suppose that Hermas wrote completely independently of the Roman Church? That is simply absurd.

I know Doherty argues that this Church was not established by any missionary from the Cephas Church or a branch thereof, but he has no evidence for this supposition, so this is the same as his arguments regarding Apollos: pure theoretical conjecture, not established fact. Otherwise, all the evidence we do have points toward the Roman Church being a branch of the one started by Cephas in Jerusalem, and Hermas was a member of that church--regardless of what he thought to write (which was all private visions relating to the present and the future, and not history--thus it is folly to expect him to relate the narrative of any HJ). At any rate, it seems quite certain that Pauline doctrine had influenced Hermas's church before he wrote, and so Hermas did not write independent of the knowledge of the Gospel as asserted by Paul in 1 Cor. 15.



That is theory. Most scholars place the Odes in the late 2nd century, and the date of Hermas is debated. Any earlier date is pure speculation, not fact. The other works are irrelevant, because they do not assert the predicted plan of God has already taken place, and thus they are just like Daniel: anticipating and speculating about God's messianic plans, not asserting those plans to have been fulfilled in any person, real or celestial. And for Hermas, since that was written c. 100 or maybe c. 140 AD by a member of the Roman Church, independence is implausible.



The Odes are written in Syriac and contain numerous occasions of the word "Savior." Jesus means "Savior" in Hebrew. It's the same word. And the Odes end by saying the Savior carried his cross, died, rose, and now forgives sins. Never heard of him? Sounds like the author heard of him to me. Maybe you are expecting poetic hymns to contain plainly stated historical facts. Pick up a hymnal at your local church--then you will see that's not what hymns do. Hermas, likewise, is a collection of visions, not a history book about HJ.

As to the other texts, again, they all predict the future. Yes, texts like this may have inspired Christianity. But they are not themselves Christian (apart from the redactions in, e.g., the Ascension of Isaiah--another problem with texts like this: they were heavily toyed with by Christians, so we can't be sure how they looked before the Christians meddled with them).


Yes, they do. The final Ode refers to the death and resurrection of Jesus, for example. And Hermas says he came from the Roman Church, which we know knew all about Paul's creed (Paul wrote to the Romans to tell them about it, long before Hermas), therefore one cannot claim that Hermas knew nothing about this. He even refers to several other branches of the Church that spread heresies--thus clearly he is aware of other sects of Christianity, thus if he represents a deviation, it cannot be concluded that this was not a deviation from an originating sect, nor can it be claimed he "never heard" of Jesus. And, again, since his book was not about the HJ, it is simply bad method to expect it to contain anything about the HJ.

Likewise, since the book is all mystical, symbolic visions, it is also bad method to expect anything to be in there in plain terms. He might not say "Jesus" but he refers to the Son of God as the Holy Spirit that inhabits the Church. That may be poetic license, but it is still the same thing. Hermas says the Son of God "suffered" in order to "purge" the sins of man, and that this was preached to the world by the Apostles, and then he refers to the need to bear the name of the Son of God to be saved, but he never says what that name is. Does this mean he didn't know the name? Hardly. It means that he didn't want to write the name. And here the skills of a paleographer change our perspective: the names of God were still regarded as sacrosanct in the Christian Church, they were called "nomina sacra," and thus were typically abbreviated in manuscripts, because it was considered sacrilegious to spell the whole name out. This included both the words "Jesus" and "Christ." There was therefore already motive to simply not use those words.

Therefore, it may be that Hermas does not write the name of the Lord's Son out of respect for the nomen sacrum. Those who did this appear to have been extremists, but lo and behold, the moral doctrine in Hermas is indeed extremist--thus, Hermas is excessively religious (the Romans would say, superstitious). Therefore, that he omits the name of the Lord, though refers to it obliquely (and thus he knows what that name is), can easily be explained without recourse to the incredible hypothesis that somehow Hermas had never met any other Christians in Rome.

Hence Doherty simply has no secure evidence for his many-to-one hypothesis.



Yes. Indeed, the concept comes from Heraclitus. It then became an element of Greek mysticism that entered Jewish thought in pre-Christian times, via Middle Platonism. The Logos is already an element of Philo's theology, and he was a contemporary of Jesus and Paul.



Both. Practically every conceivable way of formulating these things was formulated by some Jewish sect or other. This has no bearing on whether Christianity had a definite origin with one group in one place at one time.



That's Doherty's problem, not mine. He's the one claiming to be able to tell the difference. He is the one asserting the unusual hypothesis rejected by most experts in the field, which goes against the plain language of Paul in Galatians and 1 Corinthians, and has no definite evidence in its support. So he is the one who needs to show why he is right and they are wrong. And at best all he can prove is that they can't refute his thesis. But that is because the evidence is too sparse and vague, not because his thesis is irrefutable. Ultimately, he can only maintain his many-to-one thesis by maintaining a complex array of unproven "assumptions" about what certain texts "really mean." That's not doing history. It's speculating.



Plausibility is not the issue. The question is: is that what in fact happened? The evidence is not sufficient to establish that it did. What evidence we do have is in favor of the opposite--of BB theory. The only way to get the evidence to suggest the reverse is to "reinterpret" all that evidence in light of contentious and unsupported "assumptions." And though this could become a valid part of an ABE (as in the case of Doherty's case for ahistoricity, which in turn provides the needed support for his interpretive assumptions), there is simply no comparable ABE here for his many-to-one thesis. The evidence is against him, and his "reinterpretations" in this particular case are without foundation.



Wrong. BB is the plain fact of what Paul and Acts says. To argue that we are misreading Paul and that Acts lies about the relevant details--that is what needs to be demonstrated. We are starting with what the sources say and what the evidence of history suggests, e.g. none of the "other" texts Doherty appeals to predate the Jewish War except those (like Daniel) that do not asset the prophesied events they contain have happened. Hence all the diversity we find is either not Christian, or long post-dates Paul's mission. That fits BB theory, not "simultaneous arising."



Which sects? Those that don't mention a creed like 1 Cor. 15:3-4? Those aren't Christian. Those that do? They post-date Paul. Therefore, the first and natural inference is that they derive from there. To argue the reverse requires evidence of that creed predating Paul or arising literally at the same time as Paul without any contact with Paul. Doherty has no such evidence. Otherwise, all the evidence we have, as well as the precedent of other major religious movements, is of singular origins begun by a charismatic leader (whether Cephas or Jesus, depending on whether there was a HJ).

In other words, there is a difference between finding Jewish precedents that inspired or influenced Christianity, and finding several Christian sects that arose completely in isolation from each other (a remarkable claim, IMO). The latter is the extraordinary claim against the plain reading of the evidence we do have. Therefore the latter needs demonstration. Doherty has not demonstrated it.



But that is not Christianity. To speculate about god's future plans is not the same thing as asserting that those plans have been fulfilled. Doherty conflates historical periods here, by using late sources as if they represented early beliefs. That cannot be established. The only sources outside the NT that can actually be established as early do not assert a Christ has in fact risen. That appears as far as we can tell only in one place and time, and then the idea spreads from there--no doubt being picked up by factions of other groups who were already expecting this to happen, but still being picked up, not independently invented.



But Paul did not preach a Jesus "of Nazareth." See what you are doing? You are conflating historical periods. The Nazareth element could have been added later to a faction of the Christian movement originally begun by Paul. Meanwhile, other factions that branched off from Paul's movement developed Paul's doctrine differently. There is no evidence here of independent invention, nor any need to appeal to such a hypothesis. Occam's Razor as well as sociological precedent leads us to from-one-comes-many, not from-many-comes-one. The latter is a remarkable hypothesis that requires far better evidence than we have.

Indeed, the evidence here is extremely problematic. The Apocryphon of John exists only in late Coptic texts that were heavily redacted. Any attempt to reconstruct the date of its original form, much less its original contents, is pure conjecture--indeed, worse than the usual efforts at such reconstruction, since we don't even have the original language, and thus all linguistic clues have been lost. And the Apocalypse of Adam is also Coptic and can't be dated nor are its contents secure. But besides that, it mentions no salvation for believing in a risen Jesus, nor does it say anything about the atoning death. In fact, it mentions no savior, no Jesus, no messiah, no Christ. All it mentions is an "illuminator" who came in the time of Solomon--not the same thing. Therefore, this document is not Christian, even if it was used by Christians (as were all the books and apocrypha of the OT).



Indeed. But so what? This book also says this took place in the reign of Solomon--it also gives twelve different accounts of the origin of the "illuminator." It does not say this is Jesus, or the messiah, or Christ. So this is simply not a Christian text. It may well have influenced or inspired Christianity, but that is not the same thing as being Christianity. Again, to the extent that this document proves the Jews were toying with ideas like these does cast into doubt many elements of the historicity of Jesus--but not necessarily all possible historicity. And it has no relevance to establishing or refuting the BB theory.



The Apocalypse of Adam does not, because it is not Christian. It has no connection with Christianity except perhaps by containing ideas that helped inspire or influence Christianity (just as many other books of the OT did, from Isaiah to the Psalms). The Apocryphon of John is obviously a product of the Coptic church and therefore beyond any doubt its author or redactor knew all about the entire contents of the NT and therefore was not writing or redacting independently of the movement begun by Cephas and Paul. On both points, the burden is on Doherty to prove otherwise, and he has not.



Indeed they do. But that is not what I am talking about--again, you are assuming the Apocalypse of Adam is Christian. It is not, as anyone who reads it can plainly see, while the Apocryphon of John is evidently a late Christian text, or a late redaction of a non-Christian text.

Yes, certainly, the Jews were toying with Jesus myths, and Christianity represents a variety of that. But the Christian movement is unique in two respects: it alone claimed that the Christ had come, died, and rose, and now was forgiving the sins of believers (this is the idea that originated with Cephas, was picked up by Paul, and led to the sects that produced all known Gospels, in and out of the NT); and Christianity alone (thanks to Paul) recruited more Gentiles than Jews and thus became a significant movement spreading beyond the small and isolated Jewish communities (and therefore unlike all the other Jewish experiments, Christianity's ideology was spread far and wide).

The burden is on Doherty to prove that the Christianity of Cephas and Paul was not unique in these two respects, that these two elements pre-existed them or were independently arrived at by others elsewhere at the same time. Doherty has not shown this--and cannot, because there is no relevant evidence. All the evidence we have is either not Christian, or comes so late that it is incredible to suppose its authors were unaware of the movement Paul and Cephas began, and just "by coincidence" came up with the same soteriology and kerygma all on their own. That's an extraordinary claim. It requires extraordinary evidence. There is none.

Once again, let me reiterate: I am not saying this undermines the ahistoricity argument. It does not. But it does undermine the many-to-one thesis. That thesis is simply untenable to me--it is rooted in a whole slew of arbitrary and unsupported assumptions about how the evidence is to be dated and interpreted, assumptions that go against all mainstream scholarship and thus cannot be asserted as fact until the historical community is persuaded--and persuading the scholarly community will require the kind of evidence that Doherty simply does not have.



So what? This is still a Christian sect, reinterpreting and recasting prior Jewish mythologies--as Hippolytus says, these Naaseni claimed that their mythic savior was embodied in the actual earthly Jesus born of Mary and that they got this idea from James, whom Paul tells us was one of the founders of the Christian movement. So they used pre-Christian mythology about the savior and mapped it onto the Christian savior--that in no way proves this group was not inspired by or was not a branch of the movement begun by Cephas and Paul, but to the contrary, it argues for dependence, not independence. Dependence is plainly what Hippolytus says was the case.

Remember, we are talking about BB theory, not historicity. If anything, this information supports BB theory, rather than Doherty's anti-BB theory. But this information does help Doherty on the problem of historicity, but again that problem is not black-and-white. Such mythologies like this could still be mapped onto a real man. Thus, such mapping does not prove there was no real man, no matter how much myth was attached to him. And I will reiterate yet again: I do think it is slightly more probable than not that there was no real man, but that margin is not great enough to assert it as "proven" that there was no real man.

BTW, you have the wrong citation. The Naaseni are discussed in 5.1-6, not 5.10, and the hymn you quote is from 5.5. And the context is clear fromn 5.1-2: Hippolytus says they took texts written by Jews about Adam (in fact, the two Adams doctrine related by Philo--also not a Christian, by the way), among other things, and that the Naaseni then applied that information to Jesus--exactly what I am talking about as what most likely happened in general, with Jewish texts influencing Christian development. There is no evidence here of the hymn you quote being composed independently of the Christianity of Cephas and Paul. To the contrary, Hippolytus explicitly says they knew of that Christianity and then composed the hymn. Dependence, not independence.



And how do they explain the information that the Naasenes knew James and heard the story of Jesus son of Mary and thus contrived a system around this? Are you cherry-picking from Hippolytus only the information that suits your theory? The evidence in Hippolytus is of contact, not no contact. Otherwise, you have to prove that Hippolytus is lying when you need him to be lying, and telling the truth only when you need him to be telling the truth. And even then, you still don't have evidence the Naasenes had no contact, directly or indirectly, with the Christianity of Cephas and Paul. Do you see the serious methodological problems here?



Indeed. It also does not imply that these ideas were not mapped onto the Jesus myth as originated by Cephas and Paul and then acquired by the Naasenes. You seem to reject your own methods when it suits you to do so. Yes, all these scholars are speculating. So are you. That's my point.



So what? People took many different Jewish ideas and mapped them onto Jesus. How does that argue against BB theory? It does not. You seem to think the "only" way to explain this hymn are all the ways of these other scholars, and then as a result you completely miss the obvious: that all the content of this hymn may well have preceded Christianity, at least in concept, and then been assimilated to Jesus by those who wanted to equate the two or who thought they were talking about the same guy. And this is exactly what Hippolytus said they did.

So why conclude that the author of the hymn never heard of Paul's Jesus? There is no evidence here he didn't, even if all this hymn comes from somewhere else. Indeed, the name "Jesus" is completely unhelpful, since all literature about the Savior is about Jesus, and therefore many texts about a "Jesus" no doubt predate Christianity--that has no bearing on the origin of the unique Christian salvation cult (as contained in 1 Cor. 15:3-4 & Rom. 16:25-26), apart from indicating its possible influences.

Indeed, the name Jesus appears even in the Septuagint 214 times--does that mean the entire OT represents the writings of Christian movements? You seem to forget that the name Jesus is actually the name Joshua. Is a hymn about a heavenly Joshua therefore Christian? If so, then the OT book of Zechariah is a Christian book. But obviously it is not. So your entire methodology is wrong.



No, he says they got the idea for their movement from James the brother of Jesus. They then took all the existing myths surrounding a heavenly Joshua as well as Musaeus, Orpheus, and so on, and attached them to the Jesus preached by James, and claimed all this was secretly taught by James through the Disciple Mary. How does this argue against BB theory? It does not. They took the Christian movement begun by Cephas and added to it all this doctrine from other salvation cults and Jewish texts. That is what Hippolytus said they did.



No doubt. The idea of Gnosticism is Platonic and derives from the mystical cult systems of the Orphics, which had already infiltrated Judaism centuries before the time of Jesus (we have Orphic hymns written by Jews from c. 2nd century BC, and the influence upon Philo's doctrine is already highly developed). But Gnosticism is not Christianity. You can have Jewish Gnosticism, Pagan Gnosticism--and Christian Gnosticism. By conflating all these movements, you get to the false conclusion that if Gnosticism predates Christianity, therefore Christian Gnosticism predates Christianity. Wrong. There is no evidence that the latter predates the movement begun by Cephas and Paul.



So what? What has this to do with BB theory? Nothing. We cannot prove Paul did not know of these things as elements of the oral or secret teachings of the Church, nor can we prove that these things were not known to Cephas and gang even as Paul didn't yet learn them until he spoke with Cephas and gang fourteen years after starting his mission, nor can we prove that these things were not added to the myth by later Christians, especially as symbolic representations of the original Gospel or whatever doctrine they wanted to attach to the Gospel.



All textual diversity long post-dates the movement begun by Cephas and Paul--by as many as two whole generations. As explained above, a movement whose doctrine came from private revelation and mystical interpretations of an undefined canon of countless Jewish texts, a movement constructed around regular private revelations by all members (including revelations about how to interpret the secret meanings of the Jewish texts), will be maximally prone to diverging into different doctrines and different representations of the same doctrine. Indeed, every single Church would rapidly accumulate its own mythology, and as arguments arose, advocates would split off and start their own churches, like a Lernaean Hydra.

All this would happen very quickly, especially if we started with even as few as a dozen evangelists journeying all over the empire starting church after church (much more so if we started with as many as seventy missionaries!), each evangelist with his own ideas, and each church bringing with it ideas of its own. We can identify or infer roughly seventy cities with churches by 100 AD. It can be demonstrated from sociological theory (a la Stark, Finn, and Hopkins) that this matches normal growth from a single origin in the 30's AD. That means we can expect by 100 AD at least 70 different dogmas about Jesus, and that assumes only one per city--when in fact each city's group could have been factionalized and most likely was.

So there is no difficulty for BB theory in explaining the explosion of diversity of Christian views within seventy years of active missionizing. That does not tell us whether there was a HJ, though. BB theory is entirely compatible with there being no HJ.



One who believes the creed of 1 Cor. 15:3-4, which we are told was first "revealed" (Rom. 16:25-26) to Cephas under the reign of Pilate (if we trust 1 Timothy).



Yet this guy wrote with full awareness of the movement begun by Paul and Cephas, over 150 years later, so however Theophilus changed things is irrelevant--it offers no evidence against the BB theory.

We know Theophilus wrote a treatise against Marcion (though it has not survived), so we know he was fully aware of the NT gospels, so when he quotes those gospels verbatim in To Autolycus it is the Christian tradition stemming from Cephas and Paul that he is quoting, not something independent from them.

Ultimately, Theophilus never states his kerygma, so we cannot say he didn't believe in the risen Jesus--but even if he didn't, and chose to change the meaning of the name Christian, that tells us nothing about the BB theory, because he is writing far too late, and we can otherwise show he knew of Pauline Christianity regardless of what he thought of it or did with it.



Athenagoras is also too late to matter--a hundred years too late. His discussion does support ahistoricity, but does not argue against a unique origin of the myth. Athenagoras never discusses the origin of his religion, so it cannot be said he didn't believe it came from Cephas and Paul, nor can it be said he never heard of that sect or was not inspired by it. He might not even have known the origin of his own religion (if his church had not yet gotten ahold of the books of the NT). We just don't know.

The Epistle to Diognetus is also a hundred years late--but it says in chs. 7-9 that Christ was sent to begin the movement at a particular recent time in history (thus naming a man and an event as its unique origin). So this source supports BB theory. This letter also contains the full kerygma of Paul, and in ch. 11 says "the faith of the gospels is established, and the tradition of the Apostles is preserved." Sounds like Mathetes was well aware of and inspired by the movement begun by Cephas and Paul.

Tatian is one or two generations later than even these sources, so again useless for assessing BB theory. And since he composed the Diatessaron and was a pupil of Justin, it cannot be claimed he did not know of Pauline Christianity, nor is it plausible to suppose his version of Christianity is not a derivation thereof. Irenaeus also attests that in now-lost books Tatian tried to use the language of Paul to promulgate his own doctrines, and Hieron says that Tatian "rejected some of Paul's Epistles" and asserted that "Titus" was written by the Apostle Titus. Whatever evidence Tatian provides for ahistoricity, he provides none at all against BB theory and indeed what little evidence he does provide supports BB theory.



This is an obscure statement. The context you put it in does not suggest the meaning you give it later. At first I thought you were claiming that Tatian wasn't familiar with HJ until "much later" even though he was a pupil of Justin, who was clearly and indisputably familiar with HJ. Then I thought maybe you meant the even more astonishing and obviously false claim that no one was familiar with HJ and the gospels until late in the 2nd century.

In a subsequent post you say you were making the trivial claim that we have no documents after Paul until 80 years later. What has this to do with arguing against BB? You seem to be confusing what we are talking about.

Well, even though the historicity of Jesus not what we are talking about, you are still wrong. You can't argue from the silence of documents you don't even have. It would indeed be something if we had documents within that period that show no knowledge of an historical Jesus and yet should have (and therefore the silence in Paul is a good, though not decisive argument for ahistoricity). But just because we have no documents does not mean we can assume there was no history. Thus, the only AfS we can have is from Paul, and I acknowledge exactly that in my review of Doherty.

But back to what we are supposed to be talking about: BB theory. How does a delay of 50 years (not 80--Paul's last letter is c. 58, Acts is no later than c. 100) between Paul and (let's say) Acts disprove or even argue against BB theory? It does not. Since BB theory is based primarily on Paul, and is corroborated by the earliest history of the matter ever written (Acts), and also corroborated by the very chronology you speak of: that we do not hear a peep about Christianity until long after Paul got things started, and then the first peep we hear is of Paul's Christianity. That argues for BB theory, not against. Deviations from this only arise another 50 years later. If BB theory were false, we should have texts like those you cite coming from the same time as Paul, or predating Acts--not texts long postdating both Paul and Acts.



The silence you find is late and inconclusive--and in some cases false. None of these sources provide evidence against BB theory. They do provide support for ahistoricity, but that's a different claim.

That later Christians should believe different things about their religion than was originally taught is obvious and expected, and therefore cannot be used to argue that what later Christians knew or chose to include in their faith somehow tells us how the movement itself got started. It doesn't. To understand the origin of any movement, you don't look to peculiar sectarian writings a century later. You look to the earliest documents available--and here, that means the letters of Paul. Indeed, even Acts precedes all our other documents outside the NT, except perhaps 1 Clement, who also cites Paul and Peter as the movement's primary leaders and even refers to the letters of Paul.



Easily: the movement was based on current ongoing revelations and interpretations of OT scripture. The origins of the movement were thus only important to some. To many, especially later, the current message and involvement of God mattered most, and the start of this involvement was mere trivia. What mattered is that we are saved now, because we have God's presence in our hearts now who tells us so, and because we can confirm it from scripture right here and now. When this good fortune began did not matter to many Christians--it only mattered to those who wanted to assert authority over other churches by appealing to an apostolic succession and approval (as Paul does). Naturally, this is the sect that gained superiority, for obvious sociological and economic reasons.



It would only be mentioned when it mattered (and often it didn't) and only by those for whom it mattered (and for most it didn't).



Because Doherty and his fans harassed me with questions for years until I finally relented and decided to read his book and state my conclusions. Like all my essays, it serves the purpose of not having to repeat myself: now when I get questions, I just refer people to that essay.

I have gotten emails asking me about Doherty's theory so frequently that in ratio to all other books of any sort by anyone about Christianity I have been asked to comment on, the questions I am asked about Doherty's book have probably exceeded all other books on Christian history by 100 to 1. Is it any surprise I gave it the same ratio of attention?

Then of those other books, the ones I was asked the most about were those of Kersey Graves and Dennis MacDonald's, and I did write a short review of both, in proper proportion to the amount of questions I received regarding them. Then I was specifically paid (with a free book) to comment on Brunner, and so wrote a brief report on that. And out of my own interest, I wrote a summary of part of Mason's work. And though not the result of questions about any specific book, I was asked about the canon so many times (I am sure much more often than about Doherty's book) that I composed a summary of Metzger--which is, in proportion to the interest shown in the subject in emails to me, more extensive than my review of Doherty.

Vorkosigan

Fabulous post, Richard. Let me add some more spice to your life. 15:40-1 is the A' bracket of Mark 15:20-2

21: And they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyre'ne, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. 22: And they brought him to the place called Gol'gotha (which means the place of a skull).

40:There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Mag'dalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salo'me, 41: who, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and ministered to him; and also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.

Note that there are:

three named men/three named women

a mother/father of two sons

taking up the cross/following and ministering

from the fields/from Galilee

....to Golgotha/....to Jerusalem

In the last, Golgotha acts as the cosmic hill opposing Jerusalem, if you take Golgotha for a hill (Mark doesn't say it is). Although it's fascinating that Mark simply doesn't have them drag Jesus out to Mt Olivet for the execution, where the Messiah was supposed to begin his mission. Makes one think there's a tradition behind that account somewhere.

Ted Hoffman

Carrier,
Thanks a lot for that. It is dense and I will devote to it the amount of time and effort it deserves.
I see several problems with your response which I will address later, but this one stands out the most:
I do not have a copy of Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land but I would like to know the names of the cited archaeologists or the scholars who are cited in that encyclopaedia stating that there were stone buildings in Nazareth in the first century. I have read dozens of books that talk of Nazareth and scholars like Meyers and Strange, Jack Finegan (The Archaeology of The New Testament, 1992), Reed etc indicate that there were no stone buildings in Nazareth in the first century.

Jonathan L. Reed's, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus (p.131-132) shows that archaeology has found no evidence of public structures in Nazareth from the early Roman period.

I have been investigating the Nazareth problem for quite a while now and may come up with an idea soon enough. For starters, Origen believed that Nazareth was a mythical place. Origen wrote in Homily 33:1, that Nazareth was a mythical place representing Jews (Lienhard, Joseph T. Origen: Homilies on Luke, Fragments on Luke. FOTC: a New Translation, vol 94, p. 134. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996).

Mark's Jesus came from Capernaum, not Nazareth. The Alex texts have NazarhnoV in 10:47. Jgs 13:5 states that "he will be called a Nazirite", and it seems this is what Matthew relied on when stating that, per prophecy, Jesus will be called a Nazarene. "Nazirite" in Hebrew is NZYR. This could have been transliterated to Nazwr add a gentilic and you get NazwraioV as we find in Matthew 2:23. It appears that a Matthean redactor altered the original entry in Mark from NazarhnoV as we get in GMk 10:47.

There are several possible explanations for the shift to Nazareq or Nazara but I will present them later when my essay is ready.

No, I don't rely on Zindler. I was fortunate to get a copy of the Mishnah from my local library and realized he was wrong on many issues.

Regarding Luke being thrown off a cliff, its not aboout how one interprets "brow". Here is the passage in full:

Luke 4:29
So, your statement above may be off the mark.

Amaleq13

Could you elaborate on the "archeological facts" to which you refer here? To my knowledge, only one example of a crucifixion victim has been found and the remains were found in a tomb. Also, my understanding is that a crucifixion victim would be allowed a burial if someone claimed the body but, given that Joseph of Arimathea is a fiction and the disciples are depicted as abandoning him, what evidence is there to suggest the fate of an unclaimed body? Central to Crossan's conclusion is the fact that, out of the thousands of crucified Jews, only one respectfully buried victim has been found. Reacting to that fact, Crossan writes:

"Was burial, then, the exception rather than the rule, the extraordinary rather than the ordinary case?" (Who Killed Jesus?, p.168)

I think you are confusing him with someone else because, despite the carefully laid out argument he presents in the book cited above, he concludes by saying:

"I think I know what happened to their [thousands of other Jewish crucifixion victims] bodies, and I have no reason to think Jesus' body did not join them. As I read the Christian texts about Jesus' burial, from the Cross Gospel in Peter, through Mark, Matthew, Luke, and on into John, I find an utterly understandable movement from hope to hyperbole, from a hopeful burial by his enemies obeying Deuteronomy 21:22-23 in the Cross Gospel to a factual burial by a named Sanhedrist and quasi-disciple in Mark, and from a hurried or inadequate burial by disciples in Matthew to a magnificent and transcendental burial by disciples in John." (p.188, italics original)

In addition to the information mentioned by Ted, our own spin has presented, IMO, a compelling argument from mistranslation to explain "Nazareth". I believe the relevant information is covered here but I think there might be another thread where he discusses it in more detail if anyone else can find it (Toto the Amazing Thread-finder? ).

the_cave

Well! This is very interesting (and that's a long wait for a Spring issue!) If it's unavailable yet, could you maybe summarize one or two reasons for saying the Zealots were Essenes? I'd be very curious to know.

the_cave

No, he doesn't--he says it has a mythical/mystical meaning, but does not say it was a mythical/mystical place.