mountainman

Right with you up until that last sentence Shesh.

I certainly agree with it 100% but I think there is an elephant in the same room. What if we to change your last statement thus:


It is rather obviously both by its content and outlook, the propaganda product of an alien Hellenist that despised the 'Hellenist' relgion and its institutions.


Do you see what I am alluding to?

The propaganda was anti-Hellenist. The Greek intellectual tradition that was in service to the Roman Empire was being set up and targetted for a big Fall. Its temples would fall to their foundations. The Greek (and yes also of course the Jewish) intellectual traditions were suppressed by it for over 1000 years.

mountainman

Try reading Bob Grant instead of Bob Hope.

It's never too late

mountainman

When did the religion move to convert pagans in droves before Nicaea?



Seneca here. Dear Paul, do you know the answer, over, your buddy, Seneca.

Paul here. Greetings Seneca. The conversion business is well. Did u like Acts? over, Paulus the Chain.

Seneca here. Dear Paul, the emperor requests the last words to be "Why didst thou forsake me?"
in memory of His Son Crispus. Thanks for the answers. over, GL with the business, your buddy Seneca.

Grog

How do you determine "early" or "late" Christology? Are you against the findings of modern scholarship that holds Paul written in the 50's and 60's and gMark and all the Gospels not until the 70's and later?

If not, then our indicator fossil is Paul. How can Acts have an "earlier" Christology than Paul?

Matthew uses 90% of Mark, Luke more than 50%. Their entire narrative is built around Mark's. How are they not dependent on Mark?

You want believers to say "Jesus is a myth, he is not real." This really is a vulgar misunderstanding of the mythicist position. We say from our perspective in the 21st century that Jesus was a myth. To Jesus' followers he was real, he existed in heaven. He was revealed to followers in dreams and studying scripture. Paul says explicitly those things. Ancient Jews believed explicitly in those things. Philo held the logos-belief in the 40's, contemporary to the time of the earliest Christianity that we have on record. The logos-belief is not far removed from a heavenly Christ, acting as intercessor with God.

In fact, the Jesus of Paul was just as real to Paul as he is to modern Christians, who also claim to have experienced personal revelations from Jesus. It is the same Jesus. The Jesus myth of Paul is much the same as the Jesus myth held by Christians to this day. The only difference is today's Christians have come to believe in the fictionalized stories that developed around the idea of Jesus coming to earth to be crucified. The relationship to the Savior, though, is the same.

Here is Paul's declaration of what to us is a myth:


1 cor 2:7No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[b]—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.

end

There is no earthly ministry by Jesus in this passage. The mystery is revealed, not by Jesus, but by the Spirit through revelation. That is dripping in the language of mythology, not historical reality. Failure to see that is willful, in my opinion.

Grog

How are you determining "high" and "low" Christology?

By your standings, where does Paul fit into the spectrum? And, determining that by whatever methodology you are using, where does Paul fit into your timeline?

Grog

Who recorded these speeches?

What is a "primitive tradition"?

This is apologetics. Who kidnapped the scholar Bart Ehrman and replaced him the Ehrman the Apologetic Doppleganger?

The speeches in Acts are made up. Surely, Ehrman is aware of that. Of anything, ANYTHING, in the NT, the least reliable source is Acts, and within that, the speeches which are made up. I don't even, ever appeal to Acts. Acts is fiction, useful for a window into the beliefs of mid to late second century Christians, but certainly not for events that actually occurred, probably ever.

Dibelius:
"These speeches, without doubt, are as they stand inventions of the author. For they are too short to have been actually given in this form; they are too similar to one another to have come from different persons; and in their content they occasionally reproduce a later standpoint (e.g. what Peter and James say about the Law in chap. xv)” (A Fresh Approach to the New Testament and Early Christian Literature, p. 262)."

Quoted in F.F. Bruce (google bruce speeches acts)

Bruce says:

"...But later [than Thucydides] historical writers were inclined to imitate the freedom of Thucydides without his historical conscience. They composed speeches freely and put them into the mouths of their characters, not with any consideration of historical probability, but as dramatic or rhetorical exercises in which they tried to show off their highest skill in careful literary composition."

Bruce concludes, nonetheless, that:

"But I suggest that reason has been shown to conclude that the speeches reported by Luke are at least faithful epitomes, giving the gist of the arguments used."

He acknowledges, though, that these speeches were made up by Luke. they are "faithful epitomes".

Now, whether we agree with Bruce that these are "faithful epitomes" or side with Dibelius that "inventions of the author", we can clearly see that Ehrman misrepresents the quality of his evidence. Rather than acknowledge that their is scholarly debate on this very point, Ehrman only allows for his side of the argument to be known to the lay reader. He is hedging his argument.

Diogenes the Cynic

Re: Ehrman, there are preserved speeches in Acts (13:32-33, 3:36) which claim Jesus only became "Lord," "Christ" and "son of God" after he ascended to Heaven. This is a "lower" or "earlier" or (however you want to say it) Christology than Paul's and Luke's because they think Jesus was born Christ. It's lower than Mark, because Mark thinks Jesus became Christ after the Baptism by John. GJohn has a higher Christology than any of them because he thinks the Logos is preexistent and coeternal with God.

The chronological development of the Christology (obviously) goes from the human to the divine. Luke has Paul and Peter quoting speeches in Acts that contradict Luke's own Gospel. That would seem to indicate that Luke is not quoting his own material there (or Paul's either, even though he has Paul give one of the speeches).

mountainman

Textual criticism. The 4th/5th century Bishop Cyril of Alexandria is rated with the highest expression of Christology, and was officially named "The Seal of the Fathers". He was responsible for the textual criticism of Emperior Julian's manuscripts.

Many of the new "Early Christian Crystal Balls" have an inbuilt gauge for "high" and "low" Christology readings of ancient sources.

Adam

Dio is correct. Luke used Mark's chronology, but he already had most of the substance from other sources. See my
Post #230 in Gospel Eyewitnesses

for my explanation of how there is so much Q in Mark that only about the following five chapters (out of 16) originated in gMark. It may be a relatively late strand with heightened supernaturalism.
See also my argument yesterday for Q in gMark,
Post #8 in A Problem With Q.

Steven Carr

So Luke has Paul making speeches that contradict Paul's christology and you claim this is evidence that Luke is not making things up?

Fascinating.

I'm sure even Ehrman knows that Peter's speech in Acts 2 relies on the LXX. Major portions of Ehrman's book 'The New Testament - A Historical Introduction' are about Luke's 'artistry as a storyteller.'