gurugeorge

But why doesn't he make the association in any of his writings? That's the puzzling thing.

I mean (if the orthodox story is true), it's not just a trivial matter, but a remarkable matter, that a person living on the earth a few decades before him should have "appeared" to him in a mystical vision. There were plenty of mythical Logoi around, so the (supposed) fact that this particular Logos should have appeared "in the flesh" (not just in the mythical sense, like any other Logos who'd appeared "in the flesh", but actually in the recent past) ought to be one of the very first things he mentioned, and not just mentioned but stressed. One would think. (After all, many later authors seemed to think it the most remarkable thing!)

It really is amazing when you kind of "step back" from the received version and try and look at it like any other religious story. It just doesn't gel.

GakuseiDon

So, what are the Christian writings that date to the first half of the second century IYO? Are there any?

I only brought up those dates in response to Roland's post. My argument isn't about dates. I'm more than happy to use the dates that Doherty himself gives.

GakuseiDon

Who were the other "mythical Logoi"? Do you mean the pagan gods?

gurugeorge

Yes. But I'm not trying to prejudge the issue.

Here's the situation: there are lots of Logoi around at the time, but this "Jesus Christ" character is supposed to have lived in Paul's recent past. That's remarkable, remarkable enough that you'd think Paul would be stressing it. It's certainly seen as remarkable enough in later apologetics when the issue of "similarity to our pagan deities" is brought up!

GakuseiDon

I don't think that there were any other gods at that time who were described as "Logos". Can you give me some examples?

gurugeorge

Well, I wouldn't want to lean too heavily on the term "logos" itself (after all, Paul himself doesn't use that term as such!), that was just my shorthand, but certainly"the Stoics made of the different gods personifications of the Logos, e. g. of Zeus and above all of Hermes".

As for mystery-type deities, see for example Mithras, who"was the Logos (the Word), meaning the order of the universe, the Persian, Arta".

The main point is, there were quite a few dying/redeeming god cults around at the time, Sons, Suns, etc. It would surely have made propagandistic sense for Paul to have distinguished the uniqueness of his particular vision from all those others by mentioning that it was the vision of a Jewish person recently deceased (and resurrected). That's one of the selling points used later (contra the pagans); why wasn't it used earlier?

GakuseiDon

I've never seen any primary sources calling Mithras "Logos". The link doesn't provide any. It would be an interesting find. It's possible that the concept (though there were more than one idea of what it meant) was applied to Mithras, I suppose. But I've never seen the word itself.

Paul mostly wrote on church matters to already existing Christian churches. Which of Paul's letters to the pagans do you have in mind?

gurugeorge

I wasn't aware that he wrote to pagans in order to convert them, but he did write to people who had presumably only recently been pagans of some sort in Colossians, in what looks like an attempt to reinforce a "gospel" they'd only relatively recently received; but in his adumbration of this "gospel" there's no mention of the detail, so important to later apologists, of Christ's recently being somebody who'd lived in Palestine, etc.:-

"13For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. 21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of[6] your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation-- 23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant."

I mean, whereas the "gospel" we get from the synoptics is totally about a guy with a real biography, living and moving about in (supposedly!) real places, there's none of that here, not a jot nor a tittle. So whatever the "gospel" was that the Colossians received, that Paul is summing up here, and whatever that bit about his shedding of blood and "physical body" means, it doesn't seem to be about a living God who incarnated few decades before in Palestine. Don't you think that's weird (in terms of the HJ theory)?

"He is the image of the invisible God" - what, the supreme God looks like some ordinary human being? Come on! Whatever's going on here (probably "proto-gnostic", as Doherty says), it just doesn't seem to be about a real person who's lived recently.

(Incidentally, the greek word for "fullness" is pleroma, a notoriously gnostic term.)

spin

Heraclitus (Pre-Socratic), Frag 1
(quoted in Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians )

Men have no comprehension of the Logos, as I've described it, just as much after they hear about it as they did before they heard about it. Even though all things occur according to the Logos, men seem to have no experience whatsoever, even when they experience the words and deeds which I use to explain physis, of how the Logos applies to each thing, and what it is. The rest of mankind are just as unconscious of what they do while awake as they are of what they do while they sleep.

One could also add Philo's pre-xian diaspora Jewish perspective for he was also very big on a logos as well.


spin

GakuseiDon

Yes, definitely, and it needs to be explained. There are other threads and webpages where this is discussed, but I don't really want this here. Any discussion of Doherty seems to always end up with Paul! I should have put a disclaimer in the OP - it's as much my fault as anyone's for going OT. I'd like to keep this on Doherty's use of the 2nd C authors if that's okay.