GakuseiDon

The "embarrassment" scenario is that Christian apologists in 2nd C CE, when building a case for Christianity to pagan Gentiles, would concentrate on broader philosophical ideas than on the life of Jesus, a convicted and crucified criminal.

Given that we have letters from Christians who obviously know about a HJ but don't write about him in some letters (like Tertullian and Tatian) the case for this is strong.

Personally I'm not sure whether this would apply to Paul.

The "lack of veneration" problem in the 1st C CE is because there were no holy sites available in Jerusalem. Obviously the Romans would have objected if Christians tried to put up a shrine on the crucifixion site while they were in charge!

I would imagine that Paul DID visit Calvary. Who said that he didn't?

What you want is a quote from Paul that he did, correct? But you are talking as if we have a realm of material from him. All we have is a few letters, generally written to Gentile churches outside Jerusalem. Paul doesn't even talk much about Jerusalem! It seems redundant to complain that he didn't talk about Calvary.

You seem to forget that Paul is preaching a spiritual Christ, and that his calling is to the Gentiles.

Could you tell me whereabouts in his letters that Paul should have mentioned Calvary?

As for your quote from Doherty: Phil 3:10 seems to be translated as "the fellowship of His sufferings", not "share in His sufferings". Blueletter commentary
Paul is saying that he wants to follow Christ's example, and expects to suffer even to the point of martyrdom, like Christ, by preaching the new gospel.

GakuseiDon

Do you honestly not see the double-standard in that?

If there wasn't a HJ, then the singlemost defining event in all of Christianity are the interactions of the MJ in history via the visions to the faithful. But Paul gives no details on these beyond a bare mention. So why is this just a problem just for HJers?

In Paul's letters, he mentions travelling to various places and meeting various people. No dates. Did he make this all up?

Vinnie

The "Vinnie meter" is based upon the opposition's point. The "more stupider the point" the "more stupider Vinnie calls it". The "more better" the "more better" Vinnie treats it. Come up with something of substance and you'll get a detailed response.

The Gospels are not entirely myth or fiction either. Combination. They are creatively worked history. My methodology works at sifting.

Vinnie

P.S. That shuld have been 26-36 for Pilate..

spin

Sifting will get you nowhere unless there is something useful there to sift out. That something useful that you might sift out will only have significance when you can relate it to events in history.

You'll never do history when you don't know when your texts were written. Guessing is not sufficient. You know if Josephus actually wrote his Jewish War, then it was written between about 75 and 100 CE. Given the proviso, there's no guessing there. He therefore has the potential to have first hand information about the war. In fact a lot of what he says underpins the archaeology relating to the period. He's a good source if used critically (he was after all preserved by xians who were know to interfere with texts, adding messianic bits to Hebrew texts, theological stuff like trinitarianism to nt, pagan sources are an easy target as well).

How do you get to the potential in your sources??


spin

Amaleq13

I think this argument makes it very likely that Paul would visit the site if he knew where it was. If he had visited it, I think it is also reasonable to expect him to mention it somewhere.

It doesn't suggest that we should expect anyone else to follow suit but I suppose it might be more likely for anyone sharing Paul's feelings.

I don't know that this is enough to expect large-scale veneration, though.

Amaleq13

I asked:
What other charges could have resulted in that punishment[crucifixion]? It was my understanding that this was reserved for sedition and murdering a Roman.

Hmmm. I think I'll have to read Fredriksen but that idea seems to have problems. If Jesus wasn't behaving like the traditional Messiah, why would anyone attribute the title to him?

I agree.

Thanks for the reference.

Vorkosigan

I've been telling him this for months now, but the point has not yet penetrated. Content analysis, Vinnie, is what your methodology needs. What any viable methodology needs....

Vorkosigan

Vinnie

and long have I pointed out you were just getting around to form criticism. Of course statification, which in my estimation requires "source analysis" is necessary. No one ever said it wasn't.

Vinnie

rlogan

Doherty's comment about lack of this tradition has been attacked on several grounds that I have tried to zero in on, one at a time.

One charge was that the Jewish in general had no veneration tradition at the time. I have dispensed with that.

A second was that Paul and the disciples would have been too embarrassed, it was too awful, too yucky. I have now dispensed with that. I think the idea of "fellowship" in the suffering is even stronger evidence that Paul would want to share the calvary experience with others and make it a tradition.

There is direct positive statement of Paul favoring the affirmative. There is no contradictory statement offered by Paul that would challenge it.

I am dispensing with the arguments that have been presented, GD. Now you wish to introduce other arguments - how do these new arguments vindicate the old that have just been refuted?

They don't. So we can move on to whatever you wish to bring forward. I am addressing one of the new ones below - that I anticipated already.

Recall again where this argument started. No tradition of veneration in the 1st century. I don't recall a single voice being raised saying "Oh yes there was". This was raised by Doherty and other Mythicists as a problem for the HJ school.

The HJ proponents alighted on a cunning approach. The strategy is to declare the lack of this tradition as a problem for the myth school.

Likewise, I have pointed out the lack of date for the crucifixion is a problem for the HJ school. As I anticipated, now you are asserting it is equally a problem for the Myth school.

What ever the Myth school comes up with as a critique, adopt it as your own. Lack of body: problem for myth school. Lack of grave: problem for myth school. Lack of contemporary historical references: problem for myth school. Etc.

No, GD it is rather a requirement of a myth that it not be anchored so substantively that it can be checked against other sources.

I think you need to start quoting Doherty instead of merely asserting what should be true in the myth view. "According to the Myth scool, a precise date will be given for crucifixion. An exact location of Calvary will be chosen. A monument will be built" No, GD it is the opposite. In the myth view none of that will happen.

Mike, I happily retracted my wallflower comment although it was in jest. I think at every turn where anything has been brought to my attention I have done likewise. You see anything else, and I'll retract that too.

GakuseiDon

I'm willing to run with it if you like. But you need to do more than say "Paul said he wanted to share in the crucifixion". What exactly do you expect Paul to have done at Calvary?

Yes, Paul not mentioning Calvary is a problem for the HJ.

Yes, that is correct. But what is wrong with the response? That veneration requires a holy site, and there were no holy sites established in the 1st C CE? In fact, there were few established until Constantine.

Christianity was either repressed and mostly looked down on for the 1st C. That's not to say that people didn't know these sites - after all, the Gospels had to get the details of Calvary and the empty tomb from somewhere - just that there were no opportunities for Christians to construct holy sites on those places.

Who said that the lack of a date for the crucifixion was a problem for MJers? Not me.

If you are pushing for the idea that Paul would have dated and placed significant events that occured in his theology, then my point is, if Paul was an MJer, why doesn't he date and place the visitations of Christ? It seems a reasonable question IMO, and one I haven't seen Doherty address.

The fact is that Paul rarely dates and places ANY event.

As I said, you are mistaken. Nobody ever said that the first two were problems for MJers.

Who has ever said a lack of a body or grave is a problem for MJers??? Please provide quotes or retract this. I'm not trying to be mean, merely trying to get you to focus on what I'm saying.

Lack of contemporary historical references IS a problem for MJers, where Paul talks about historical events. Jesus appearing to Paul, the 12 and the 500 are, according to Paul, historical events. They are SIGNIFICANT to his theology, but Paul doesn't date or place them. Problem for MJers.

Who has said any of that? Quotes please, or retractions.

Problems for MJers:
* Paul doesn't date or place the visions
* No other early writers who Doherty thinks may be MJers date or place the visions. After Paul, no-one really seems to worry about them.