Peter Kirby

Do not overlook my brief exchange with Yuri. I thought it was clear that I had provided a satisfactory answer to the Original Post, although it appears that I took a different tact than most other posters here. Let me explain.

My post is here, and Yuri's reply is here.

In my post I explain why I think that the earliest "Christian martyrs," in the sense commonly understood (arrested by the authorities for confessing the faith and killed for refusing to recant), died between A.D. 90 and 110.

To this Yuri replies: "Fair enough... But then of course you'll also have to specify if you consider Peter and Paul as historical persons, and explain your reasoning in these cases. If historical, they would have been the most famous Christian martyrs, perhaps."

I should have replied to this sooner. Recall that I said that the Christians killed in Rome after the fire in A.D. 64 by Nero were not "martyrs," in the sense commonly understood. They were chosen by Nero as a scapegoat, as Tacitus says--assuming Cassius Dio is wrong in saying that they started the fire and were just being punished! The pogrom against them would not necessarily, nor even probably, involve the classic scenario (depicted in the Martyrdom of Polycarp and hinted at by Pliny) where the martyr chooses between Caesar and Christ. These were not martyrs, as commonly understood, simply because they had no choice. It would not be surprising if two prominent leaders of the Christian sect were rounded up along with the rest--indeed, given Nero's purpose of (making it appear to be) punishment for the crimes of the group, it would be surprising otherwise.

I concluded with, "I would say that the belief in a Jesus killed by Pilate emerged before the first Christian martyrs."

Yuri replied: "Yes, this sounds reasonable. It's a lot easier to believe that the first martyrs already believed in the HJ, than otherwise IMHO. Any mythicist who wants to argue otherwise would have a hard job making his case. Thanks for answering these questions. Most other replies to this thread so far are still missing the point, I'm afraid..."

And that is why I didn't reply right away on the point of Peter and Paul (and then forgot to reply at all). I thought I had got the point and answered the questions in a reasonable way.

In case Yuri returns to this and people want to continue a dialogue, allow me to attempt to systematize Yuri's argument. Yes, it is either a lucky guess or a strawman, as Yuri hasn't made a systematic argument himself. I will allow him to point out the deficiencies and construct his own formal argument.

Here it goes:

1. The belief in the HJ came before the earliest Christian martyrs.
2. If the mythicist hypothesis is correct, the belief in the HJ did not come before the earliest Christian martyrs.
3. Therefore, the mythicist hypothesis is not correct.

As support for (1), Yuri could point to the ancient accounts which regard martyrdom as an imitation of Christ. Yuri might also make a psychological argument that a person wouldn't die for an abstract "out in the great blue yonder" Jesus metaphor.

As support for (2), Yuri needs to point to a mythicist hypothesis on the time of the earliest Christian martyrs and the time of the origin of the belief in the HJ; hence the thread. On Earl Doherty's hypothesis, the belief in an earthly Jesus emerged around A.D. 100. If the mythicist hypothesis stated that martyrs came earlier, such as in the 60s or earlier, then (2) would be true. [If fact itself forced it, and the mythicist hypothesis did not allow early martyrdom, then that in itself would mean the mythicist hypothesis is incorrect. Perhaps Yuri should have been focusing on the date that the belief in a HJ emerged and then establishing that, in fact, martyrs came earlier.]

The conclusion (3) follows from the premises, so the argument is valid (if not sound).

I imagine that both of the premises are contestable. The second premise is contestable by moving the time of the emergence of HJ belief backward in time, or by moving (as much as fact allows) the time of the earliest Christian martyrs forward. The first premise may indeed by true, but the kind of 'deductive' support or 'from general to specific' reasoning (based on background probability of non-HJ Christians becoming martyrs) that I imagine Yuri might provide is questionable at the level of the general principle. That indeed has been the focus of most of the replies to Yuri.

Once again, however, I do invite Yuri to present an argument all his own so that we don't have to rely on my guessing ability. On the other hand, if Yuri doesn't want to make an argument but simply pose a question, I believe that I and Toto have answered his question in reasonable yet distinct ways.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

rlogan

If this is all that was going on then it would not have taken fourteen pages.

More compactly, and also more generally, Yuri's thesis becomes:

People will not die for a "myth".


We must use the concept of "myth" as understood by the "mythicist" that Yuri is arguing with. That is, not an easter bunny, but some strongly held spiritual concept.


The abundance is so overwhelming from so many different cultures that people are willing to die for principles, for love, for pity, for insurance, to pre-empt the enemy, for honor, to take a ride on Hale-Bop comet, and etc.


We have some good data on the mass suicide at Jonestown in 1978. Although Jim Jones began as a Pentecostal Christian, by the end of the "experiment" in Guyana he was declaring the Bible as full of lies and he was instead rambling incoherently for hours from mostly communist literature.

By the time that the 900 killed themselves, he was preaching apocalyptic socialism, or "revolutionary suicide". Jones had people sign documents that they had committed child molestation, were homosexuals, and had Killed John F. Kennedy.



I think this case can be used to demonstrate that it is not only possible for Christians to die before they believe in an HJ, but that even after 2000 years of Christianity people can start with a belief in an HJ and end up rejecting the Bible and becoming martyrs for some other spiritual cause.

It's reversable too, in other words.

Not every person of the 900 killed themselves willingly and there were probably still many that held onto some kind of "Christianity". But clearly, the main thrust of Jones had detached from Christianity and gone to some drug-laden racial/communist/bilgewater insanity.

And hundreds believed they were dying for this bizarre "cause".

Peter Kirby

rlogan, I half expect Yuri to tell me that the formal argument is an inaccurate representation. I ask that Yuri present his own argument clearly, so that others aren't accused of beating on a strawman.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Ted Hoffman

Peter,
You have made the shabby case presentable by formalizing it. Good work.
But let him first endorse it as representative of his argument before we slash it to tiny pieces.
<gestures to the mythicists to sheath their swords and step back>

Ted Hoffman

Amaleq, that was an *excellent* rundown of what has taken place in this thread. Thanks. :notworthy

Ted Hoffman

For the record, I think rlogan has condensed it and detonated it. Assuming of course, that that was Yuri's argument.

Peter Kirby

Rlogan didn't condense it, because you can't have a syllogism with one premise. He attacked the first premise, just the same as almost every other correspondent with Yuri since the first page.

If and when Yuri says that his argument--if he even makes one!--is not what I described, I ask that he present his own clear version of the argument.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Steven Avery

Am I right in summarizing that the basic motif of all the skeptics and such is that ..

a) the NT accounts will be given no real consideration in the context of persecution or execution of believers

b) the Josephus/James account will not consider James as a Christian/believer persecuted for those beliefs

I think if a and b are presups, all other historical evidence is in the 2nd century, (unless we do a type of backward-peering from Talmud, Toldet Yeshu, Justin Martyr, Origen/Celsus, Eusebius)

.... so you have lots of wiggle room to create the alternate theories as above.

a) would bring us back to a dormant thread of the concept of interweaving lots of precise historical documentation with a docu-drama of inserted figures, the basic idea, I gather, of most on this board.

Those who consider this idea weak, of course, will have little interest in the variety of 2nd century wiggle-room ideas.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Peter Kirby

There are two Christians in the New Testament claimed to have been executed, namely Steven and John Boanerges. There is also the prophecy (or "prophecy") that Peter will be martyred in John 21, and possibly a bit about the brothers James and John in the Gospel of Mark. Did I miss any of the executions of believers in the New Testament accounts?

I used to assume this (that he was killed because he was a Christian), but now I see no reason to do so.

However, only my response to Yuri would be affected by early martyrdoms, as commonly understood. Most have responded along the lines of "people die for a cause all the time." (Not saying that I disagree with them, only that that is not the only rebuttal.)

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Ted Hoffman

You are right Peter. But we all know, wrong premise yields the wrong conclusion.