spin

Thanks. :wave:


spin

Gregg

I need to apologize to Ben C. and do some genuine backpedaling here. I have argued that Paul contends with "Christians" who preach an uncrucified Christ as if this was a verifiable fact. Of course, it isn't; it is only conjecture. I have a tendency to get a little too enthusiastic on this point when arguing the JM case.

In Earl Doherty's supplementary article "Apollos of Alexandria and the Early Christian Apostolate," Doherty makes a case for his view that Paul's defense of the crucifixion against those who call it "folly" in 1 Corinthians, coupled with his attack on apostles who preach a "different Christ" in II Corinthians, strongly suggests that the "other Christ" is one that was not crucified (although Paul does not explicitly state this). I disagree with Earl's claim that Apollos is one of these false apostles--his argument there is very weak, in my view.

It is nevertheless quite significant that Paul never has occasion to defend his belief that a certain crucified man was the incarnate Christ, always speaking of Jesus in mythical and scriptural terms. I think it is quite significant that he emphasizes his gospel is of "Christ, and him crucified" and in another letter to Corinth lashes out at false apostles who preach a different gospel, to the extent of calling them agents of Satan. What were they preaching about Christ that was so radically different that Paul would react in this way? He had his differences with the Jerusalem apostles, including over the pivotal question (Galatians) of whether the gospel was even meant for the Gentiles, but he never says they're in league with the devil.

It is quite significant that all Paul has to say about Jesus is that he was descended from David according to the flesh, that he was "born of a woman, born under the law." This could describe lots of people. Was anybody keeping track of all of David's supposed descendants? How could Paul expect to persuade skeptics that crucified Jesus was the Christ if he couldn't offer up more evidence that Jesus' life had fulfilled Scripture? "But he wasn't writing to skeptics," you might object. No, but he was writing to people who were probably dealing daily with skeptics and with preachers of false doctrine.

It is quite significant that not until post-Mark do we see people attacking Christianity on the basis that Christians worship a crucified criminal. I do not see any hint that Paul had to deal with, or help others deal with, this kind of accusation. The element of his doctrine some object to is the doctrine of the cross. Not that the Christ exists, or that the man Jesus was the Christ; rather, that the Christ was crucified.

I still do not understand why the idea that the Christ was crucified in the firmament is such a sticking point. We know some people believed in progressively more Earth-like heavens; we know they believed in descending and dying/resurrecting gods; we know they believed fallen angels dwelled in the firmament and envied and fought one another; we know they believed "the likeness of what is on Earth is also in the firmament" and vice versa. The problem seems to be that no ancient sources spell it out for us using the exact terms mythicists use, that we do not have any parallels to Pauline Christian belief (as it is understood by mythicists) that are the same in every detail.

But if ancient peoples can imagine gods changing in form and substance as they descend through the heavens, if they can imagine them entering the underworld and undergoing suffering and death followed by resurrection, then what is preventing them from imagining a god entering the lower heavens, the domain of the fallen angels, and undergoing suffering and death there?

I realize the mythicist case does not have a clear "smoking gun," although to me, when it is taken as a whole, it is extremely compelling and convincing. I can understand that not everyone will agree, but what I don't understand is why some people seem to regard the whole idea as utterly impossible, implausible, beyond the pale, unworthy of any serious consideration whatsoever.

Ben C Smith

That is very big of you, and I appreciate the detailed explanation. You may be right. Cheers.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Whoa. My mistake for leaving it in as one of the options. But I think it is time to take a chill pill here.

Ben.

spin

But is the notion I was trying to sell you about traditions here clear or not, the last time round, Ben C?


spin

Ben C Smith

The overall idea is reasonably clear. What I was unclear on was whether you thought that Eusebius received the traditions anonymously and then attributed them to Papias or that the name of Papias was already attached to the traditions by the time they reached him. That was the main point of my question.

Here is the thing. I myself see no epistemological difference between a person writing an entire text and attributing it to a particular person (in the titulus) and a person writing up a little snippet and attributing it to a particular person (in the quote introduction). I am wondering how to set the original burden of proof up against the attribution without opening the floodgates and losing 80% of antiquity. For many ancient historians, for example, we are dependent upon (A) a titulus in a medieval document, (B) an odd quote here and there, and (C) internal considerations for the provenancing of the text, which exists only in late copies of copies of copies. For many ancient fragments (such as those that Felix Jacoby catalogued), we are analogously dependent upon (A) an attribution in some writer somewhere, which also serves as (B) the quote, and (C) internal considerations.

What test(s) do you think the attribution of this fragment to Papias fails that at least some other historical fragments or indeed entire manuscripts pass? Or does none of those other fragments and manuscripts pass muster? I am interested in a comparison, for the sake of consistency.

Let me approach this from a slightly different angle. Irenaeus, a chiliast, who by his own words knew the works of the chiliast Papias and once quotes from them, records a tradition about Mark as interpeter to Peter. Victorinus, another chiliast, who by overlaps between his work and other Papian fragments is believed to have known the works of Papias, also records a tradition about Mark as interpreter to Peter. Eusebius, a nonchiliast, who claims to have access to the works of Papias and lambasts him for his chiliasm, records a tradition about Mark as interpreter to Peter and attributes it to Papias. Now, whether or not Eusebius made that attribution himself or received it from the tradition, that was a rather cherry attribution, was it not? What about an actual Papias having written this tradition down fails to explain these data? Alternatively, if an actual Papias having written this tradition down does explain these data, what about your hypothesis explains them better?

One more question: The person speaking in the Papian fragment claims to know an elder who knew the disciples. This part, at least, was no gradually developing tradition that naturally took on this element over the course of transmission. If it is false, it is intentionally false, made up to appear more ancient than it really is on internal grounds. Would you agree with that assessment?

Ben.

spin

Yo! Ben C. It took me a while to remember, then find, this thread, so sorry this is a little late.

I'm sorry, I didn't understand at the time. Eusebius quote so many sources that I think it was most probable that this was just another source he quoted. I can't rule out either that he penned the material himself or that he put the attribution there, but it seems unlikely to me.

The problem you are grappling with here is analogous to unprovenanced inscriptions that turn up on the blackmarket today. It's truly ugly in its implications. We once had no reason to question them, but can we say today say that the Mesha stone is kosher? Tel Dan? Both may and then neither may as well. The only criterion that comes to mind in dealing with such material as you contemplate regards who stood to gain or lose based on the material. I would rather risk throwing out some good apples than to plant a poison tree.

I've given a quick pass on the answer for these questions, so you can deal with that. It's really a horrific situation to deal with because any of the material could hypothetically be fake, but as it was the norm for works Eusebius and many others published (and other much earlier efforts come to mind, Pliny, Diodorus, Josephus when he uses written sources, etc).

I see no real benefit on touting the chiliast line. Tradition washes all shores. Remember how the LXX was translated from an Hebrew Vorlage which was considerably different from the MT, but this was not the end of the story. There was no inviolable divide between the Hebrew and the Greek. The early MT came back to haunt the LXX and it was affected so much that the Alexandrinus is considered heavily influenced by the MT. The separation between chiliast and non-chiliast might be sufficient for Eusebius not to have liked what was contained in the Papias traditions he received. Eusebius used whatever came his way.

I don't see that there is any milage in the Victorinus angle. As I've already said, Victorinus was only a generation earlier than Eusebius, so the tradition that Eusebius received could easily have been written any time after Irenaeus, notwithstanding the fact that Eusebius was a non-chiliast and may not have appreciated the Papias tradition he received.

Tradition develops around people. It comes from exaggeration, wishful thinking, truth, lies, confusion, conflation, and all those other possibilities that my little sleep-crazed brain can't think of at the moment. Would you call the later developments in the Ebion tradition "intentionally false"? "[I]ntentionally false" is only one of many sources of tradition. In chinese whispers someone who was called well-connected may end up knowing the president along the chain of whispers.

If you didn't get the answers you would have liked, I'm sure you can brow beat me.


spin