Gregg

I'm sorry, but this "the entire NT was made up under Constantine" stuff, offered up without any evidence, only speculation and assertion, is the kind of thing that sets alarm bells ringing in my head. Now, I am hardly any stranger to accepting hypotheses that seem far out at first glance, as long as lots and lots (and lots) of evidence is provided to support the hypothesis. I accept Earl Doherty's Jesus Myth hypothesis because he examines the evidence in a methodical and exhaustive manner and builds a plausible and highly persuasive case.

Now, what you're saying is that while Doherty's conclusion is not wrong, his entire case is superfluous because he's proceeding from faulty assumptions (namely that the books of the NT were written more or less on the timeline that scholarly consensus places them). Well, while I don't think Earl is some kind of infallible superman, I also don't think that if the scenario you describe above was so obvious, someone like Earl would have failed to see it.

Do you honestly believe the mainstream "claim" that "the NT shows an evolution of literary generation across the first three centuries" is based solely on a statement of Eusebius? Do you think it's a simple matter to forge not just a single document (like Deuteronomy) but dozens of them, all showing clear evidence of multiple redactions over a period of time, all showing evidence of having been written at different times and places because they address different issues at different times of "church" history? (I use quotation marks there because I do agree that there was really no "church" until Constantine created it.) Why would forgers have written fake "early Christian correspondence" that makes no mention of the gospel events that were supposedly being written about at the same time? Why would they write a Damascus road vision experience for Paul, then not have his "own" account match up with it? Why would they write the gospels the way they did? I'm not saying people in the fourth century couldn't be very sophisticated and devious, and obviously the written word had more power and influence then than it does today (and thus there was more motive for manipulation of written material), but please. Do you really think they had such brilliant forgers that they could create something like this? Four documents, two of them clearly based on the first one, the fourth (John) less so, but not as much as it appears at first glance. All showing signs of redactions and additions, all with different doctrinal emphases and even different doctrinal viewpoints entirely (sometimes subtle, sometimes less so). not to mention different biases. Irreconcilable contradictions among them, and so on.

Furthermore, if the intent of forging all this stuff and having the Supreme God of the Universe getting snuffed by Rome was to send the message "don't f**ck with Rome," they sure did a lousy job of it. Sure, there are those messages from Paul in there about obeying rulers because they are appointed by God, but this is kind of overwhelmed by Jesus' kingdom-preaching about the mighty being humbled and the poor exalted, not to mention the gospels ending with Jesus triumphant. And how about Revelation, which apparently portrays Rome as Babylon and predicts its destruction? Why would they write stuff like this? OK, I can think of one reason, but it's hardly compelling in context--because they were playing some kind of reverse psychology game, saying "Yeah, the Empire sucks, but if you just sit tight, God's going to destroy it one of these days" so the people would not take it on themselves to rebel. Problem with this is, why would they create such intricate and sophisticated texts for this purpose, if most people couldn't read anyway? Deuteronomy was not nearly so intricate and sophisticated, it was more like a whack on the head with a 2X4.

In other words, they created texts they were actually afraid of, so they kept them from general knowledge. And they were right to be afraid, because once the texts got out to an increasingly literate public, they had a church schism on their hands, not to mention that the kingdom teachings had secular implications as well--the potential to inspire the "powerless" masses to rise up against the powerful, and being willing to face death with the promise of resurrection and eternal life. Why would they forge dangerous texts they didn't want anyone but the priests to read? It just doesn't make sense.

I certainly accept that Constantine and the Roman church destroyed a vast amount of material and redacted existing material in the process of making Christianity the official religion of the Empire. But that's what the evidence points toward--the redaction of existing literature that was an imperfect fit for their purposes (and still wasn't a perfect fit after redaction). You're going to have to start showing hard evidence that all these texts were forged all at the same time, and explain why the Empire would have forged texts that were dangerous to itself when in the wrong hands, and not just make broad assertions based on political theory.

Zeichman

My comment stands. He suggests it was possible, and I acknowledged earlier that it is totally unnecessary to his conclusions and what he's talking about, so it's not like I'm misleading anyone. Nor did I ever say he committed to it. To even acknowledge the possibility of such being the case indicates he doesn't understand the premises behind Kloppenborg's conclusion. As I said earlier, an "oral Q1" is an absolutely meaningless and self-refuting idea.
Yes, it can be. If he doesn't understand several things he's presupposing, there's a great likelihood that a) he hasn't read many secondary resources, b) that he made similar mistakes, c) that he will make mistakes built off of the ones already. His discussion of Q's stratification often seems to confuse tradition history with compositional history (Thomas/Q parallels come to mind), a

Here I was referring to his use of the Mack/Vaage form of the cynic hypothesis, not Kloppenborg's compositional one. Please re-read what I said with that in mind. I apologize if I wasn't clear in stating that.

Are you kidding? You misunderstood what I said as referring to a Christian/Jewish distinction, which was wrong. Back to my original points: how can the gentile origin of Q1 stand if he ignores sayings that clearly indicate otherwise? Since he seems to take Q1 from a non-Jewish background, the evidence that suggests otherwise goes far in undermining what he has to say. Additionally, his changes to the cynic hypothesis are ones which have already, albeit mistakenly, addressed and refuted by numerous scholars.

My point was that he doesn't engage with those who disagree, unlike Goodacre. I think it's best we drop this point since we're just running in circles here.

Again with equivocation. I didn't say anything about things being unargued or being beneficial to his worldview, only that (to say it in more clear language) his stuff is best read as a "personal statement" of his personal beliefs and conclusions about Mark, not anything to convince others. Again though, this part of our conversation has become anything but productive. If you want to drop the Turton-talk, I'm fine with it.

To address your question earlier: And honestly, for as much of a jerk as I feel like I'm coming off as, I really appreciate your willingness to engage in this discussion with me. I'm doing an independent study on Kloppenborg's hypothesis and the historical Jesus, and I am devoting a section to Doherty's use, and there's a decided lack of resources on that, when compared to Mack, Crossan, Allison and others. I am still but a lowly undergrad.

spamandham

Huh? Aren't the oldest extant copies of the gospels dated 100 years earlier than this?

spin

mountainman won't believe it until he finds a copy that's witnessed and dated. Or at least carbon-dated. Palaegraphy, which he knows little to nothing about, he excludes. It's because he wants to believe that Constantine and Eusebius confabulated to create a new religion to unify his disparate realm. He also won't accept the testimony of churchfathers prior to Eusebius, because they must have been written by Eusebius and his cohorts of rampant scribes.


spin

Ted Hoffman

He never makes it appear that it is necessary to his conclusions. He never states it is necessary to his conclusions either. So you have latched on and proceeded to attack something that does not exist.
Do you want to argue that every phrase in the sections of TJP adressing the question of Q is necessary for D's conclusions?
If not, why do you imagine that this specific aside, this non-comittal phrase is necessary for his conclusions?
Probably that is why Doherty doesnt state that Q1 was oral anymore than he states that it was written.
You are now swimming in the sea of speculation. Stay with the facts, dear Zeichmann.
One can read many secondary sources and still make mistakes so argument (a) is not logically sound. You will have to demonstrate that the mistakes you are prophesizing (I am yet to see any) are comitted as a direct result of failure to read "many secondary sources". How many is many? Five? A dozen? A hundred? Who are you to tell?
Cite him or explain exactly how he confuses the two and why the distinction is important. Does he label them as you do - or are you labelling them and imagining that he has the two mixed up?
Where does D state that he is referring specifically to the Mack/Vaage form of the cynic hypothesis? How can he use Mack/Vaage form and then end up "misunderstanding Kloppenborg"?
Is NT Wright wrong in his definition of Jewishness or not? I asked and you did not answer.
What are these changes? Refuted where?
It depends on whether or not he wants to engage Goodacre in his work. Not every scholar who believes Q existed addresses arguments from anti-Q scholars in his works. HJ Scholars dont engage Price and Doherty in their work. That alone doesnt make their work lack value.
Just before we drop it, please offer a brief critique of Turton's negative criteria in his methodology.
I am sure you will make a useful contribution to the field. All those giants were all once just lowly undergrads.

Zeichman

I went out of my way to say that it was not necessary earlier. My point was only that it is apparent he doesn't understand Kloppenborg's hypothesis, if he thinks there is even the remotest possibility that Q1 was oral.

Except he does admit its possibility.

Do you want me to cite other mistakes? Copied and pasted from my footnotes in my paper:

*Allison, The Intertextual Jesus, passim. Q 6:20-23, 10:4, 10:5, 12:33-34, 14:26, and 17:34 contain the most secure allusions to the Hebrew Bible according in Q1 to Allison. A helpful summary of his study’s relevance to Kloppenborg’s hypothesis is found on pp. 206ff.

*"critical scholars" by which he presumably means the Jesus Seminar and its fellows, have apparently found only Q1 sayings to be authentic (Doherty, Jesus Puzzle, p. 147. Cf. pp. 149, 152.). Indeed, they found the two “acts” attributed to Jesus most likely to be authentic were from Q2! Q 11:15-17 (The Beelzebub controversy), and Q 3:1-20 (A voice in the wilderness), respectively. The act they rated the third highest, the baptism of Jesus, which if in Q, is certainly in the redactive stratum. cite needed. Additionally, for the sayings of Jesus Q 14:16-23 (only Luke), Q 11:19-20 (only Luke), Q 11:33 (both Matthew and Luke), Q 11:43 (both Matthew and Luke), Q 11:21-22 (Matthew and Luke), Q 11:17-18 (only Luke), Q 12:58-59 (Matthew and Luke), Q 7:24-25 (Matthew and Luke), Q 11:24-26 (only Luke), were all deemed Q2 by Kloppenborg and given pink designations by the fellows of the Jesus Seminar. Funk, Five Gospels, 549-553. Admittedly, no Q2 sayings were given a “red” designation by the Seminar, but to say that these sayings were found to be "unrelated" to the genuine Jesus is wrong.

*Doherty, Jesus Puzzle, p. 152. “Those [sayings] judged ‘authentic’ [in Thomas] by the Jesus Seminar are from the stratum similar to Q1.” Contrast Funk, Five Gospels, 549-553. Thomas 64//Q 14:16, Thomas 33:2-3//Q 11:33, Thomas 35:1-2//Q 11:21-22, Thomas 10//Q 12:49.

*the son of man “shall arrive at the End-time to judge the world” (Doherty, Jesus Puzzle, p. 146), something that is simply untrue in Q. Unless he has, without stating so, found that Q 22:28-30 referenced the son of man, going against what is essentially consensus. Or if he is, without justification, equating "ho erchomenos" with the son of man.

*a suggestion of the possibility that the order of Q1 was reworked by its redactor (Doherty, Jesus Puzzle, p. 147, 153), something that would undermine an essential premise for Kloppenborg’s hypothesis

*the proposal that Q1 chriae such as 9:57-60 were instead isolated sayings in this edition of Q, based on a tradition-historical analysis of a parallel in Thomas (pp. 162-163).

Certainly! p 162-163. On 162 there is a discussion of the tradition-history of Q 9:57-62// Thomas 86. He then suggests (tradition-historically) that the one from Thomas is more primitive. He thus concludes that Q1 did not mention Jesus at all (second full paragraph on 163).

This is irrelevant. I was discussing two separate issues, Kloppenborg is not related, almost at all, to the cynic hypothesis, and I apologize if I spoke confusingly.

I don't know enough about the issue to disagree with good reason (but Carrier's discussion of the diversity of Judaism in one of his resurrection papers does come to mind against it), so I will assume Wright is right for this discussion. Torah concern quite clearly appears (16:16) as does the issue of race (the issues of gentiles I cited earlier). I hardly need to cite examples of "economy and justice" being a concern in Q1 material.

The issues which substantively go against Doherty's approach, to quote Kloppenborg where relevant:
1) The dearth of Cynic sources from the time of Cercidas to Demetrius raises the possibility that Cynicism lack real influence during the intervening centuries.
2) The supposition that Cynics were present in Galilee may be no more than... "fanciful conjecture."
3)the genre and structure of Q are not sufficiently close to Cynic lives to make for cogent parallels (or dependence in this case)
4) stratigraphical analyses of Q do not support its characterization as cynic-like (thus his ignoring of 16:16, among other things).

All but 4 are irrelevant to Vaage and Mack's claims, but immediately harmful to a hypothesis that posits dependence on cynic sources.
Tuckett (1996), Betz (1994), Robinson (1994, 1996, 1997), and Arnal (1997, 2001) have provided these and other substantive arguments.

Nor do they engage with Freke and Gandy. Several scholars have reviewed Price's books and found them lacking. That a self-published non-scholar has not been the subject of the academy's attention is hardly surprising. Also, the fact that I have taken the time to respond to some of Doherty's claims clearly indicates that I do find it having some value.

I can't find his page, or if I have (http://users2.ev1.net/~turton/GMark/...chiasmjpg.html) I can't get it to load.

cheers.

mountainman

There exists an hypothesis at the foundation of BC&H.
This hypothesis is that the ecclesiastical historiography
generated in the reign of Constantine by Eusebius of
Caesarea, is essentially a true and correct historiography.

We are not here dealing with "a statement" by Eusebius,
but in the words of one commentator "a mass of writings".

Essentially mainstream has extended hitherto the benefit
of the doubt to the integrity of Eusebius, as an honest
and trustworthy historian of antiquity. It is Eusebius who
presents his canon (presumably inheriting Origens') at the
command of Constantine to first bind the "Bible" together.

Neither mainstream's nor Earl's position attacks the Eusebian
chronology, whereas the postulate that I have been
examining is that Eusebius wrote fiction.

Philosopher Jay may be entitled to term this position as one
that is overly skeptical, nevertheless, the hypothesis IMO
deserves at least a hearing and preliminary exploration.

If you are interested in the reasons that I think this postulate
needs to be explored I have listed them, as citations against
the overall honesty of Eusebius as an historian.

One of the implications of the postulate is that christianity did not
exist until the time of Constantine, and that Constantine could have
created a new Roman religious order, seeing as though he wielded
an absolute military power in the empire from 324CE, and in the
west from 312 CE. Twelve years of literary activity.

Said twelve years of literary activity match precisely the
estimated production span for Eusebius' Historia E.
Only our position, in the exploration of the Eusebian fiction
postulate, includes the same regime fabricating the entire
series of NT books, in this same time frame.


Dont forget about that "mystery of historiography" known as
"Historia Augusta", generally taken to be a collegiate forgery
quoting fake documents, originating within the bounds of the
rule of Constantine?

They wanted "priority dates" for the discussion of things that
were related to the word "christian" in the earlier 3 centuries.
Perhaps the classic example to cite here is the TF in Josephus.
Very valuable citation towards the establishment of a new
tribe on the planet earth called by Eusebius, and surprisingly
also by Josephus Flavius (as Olsen points out) "the tribe of
christians". A particularly shameless hour.


YES. Here again I will cite the "Historia Augusta".
We all know that this was created.

Our position is this. We are testing a postulate.
The Eusebian fiction postulate.
Eusebius wrote fiction in the fourth century.
Which fourth century regime created the historia Augusta?
We dont yet know.

Constantine never lost a military battle. HE was a supreme
imperial mafia thug dictator, and eminent christian theologian,
and he edicted for the beheading of anyone caught secreting
the writings of that "Prorphyrian" Arius. Render unto ..

Have a read though Eusebius' "Life of the THRICE-BLESSED Emperor
Constantine" and see how many predictions of Revelations Eusebius
writes as becoming true with the influence of Constantine.

Constantine needed to woo the aristocracy and learned. While he was
certainly a supreme imperial mafia thug, and christian theologian, he
must also be considered as very well read. He attempted to replace
the Hellenic culture, with a new one, and succeeded, although not perhaps
entirely in his lifetime.

Contemporary historian Victor calls Constantine "a brigand"
for the period until c.325 CE, and then for the final period
of his rule to 337, "a ward irresponsible for his own actions".

Within 30 years of Constantine's death, and within a small
number of years of the (newly created) christian regime
losing a christian emperor, Julian writes that he is "convinced
that the fabrication of the Galilaeans is a fiction of men
composed by wickedness".


I refute the necessity of the mainstream view that perhaps, when the
supreme imperial mafia thug dictator, and christian theologian, first
embraced the new "christian religion", there was in fact some existent
group of people who knew themselves as "the tribe of christians".

That christianity is wholy a 4th century phenomenom, fabricated
by the regime of the literary and theologically inspired Constantine,
for the purpose of robbing "the pagans" and uniting the empire, as
Ardashir and Shapur I united the Sassanian empire 100 years earlier,
is not refuted (to-date) by existing scientific carbon dating citations.

I have taken the time to collate apparent exceptions to the postulate
(of Eusebian fiction), and have prepared a number of articles at
this page.

The postulate (and any subsequent theory) is refutable.
I am not defending an unfalsifiable position IMO, and I
tend to clasify this as an exercise in history, rather than
in theology.

“The revolution of the fourth century,
carrying with it a new historiography
will not be understood if we underrate
the determination, almost the fierceness,
with which the Christians
appreciated and exploited

"the miracle"

that had transformed Constantine
into a supporter, a protector,
and later a legislator
of the Christian church.”

— Arnaldo Momigliano (1908-1987),
Pagan and Christian Historiography
in the Fourth Century A.D; (1960)
[Considered in the foremost of
20th century ancient historians]

spamandham

Ok, suppose Eusebius was a liar and charlatan. A good liar twists stories that already exist rather than making them up from scratch. Isn't the simpler explanation that Christianity, and perhaps many of the biblical stories already existed in some form, and were taken and twisted to suit Constantine, rather than Constantine ordering a new work of fiction from whole cloth complete with historical entries, letters of church fathers bickering and chastising defunct sects that never actually existed etc? This seems terribly far fetched.

mountainman

My position is stated here.

Essentially the dating process for all prenicene citations
is 100% by means of "paleographical assessement".
In any other words, handwriting analysis.

There are 2 C14 citations on NT related documents.
Both of these are within bounds of Nicaean origination
of christianity.

mountainman

The exclusion of paleographical assessment is on the basis
that our original postulate being explored is Eusebian fiction.
The existence of the Historia Augusta is sufficient to alert an
historian that collegiate exercises in history-writing were not
unknown under Constantine.

If they/Constantine fabricated pseudo-historical texts, and executed
neo-pythagorean philosophers, why would they not forge an ancient
hand, in order to gain further credibility?

It is not a belief that is being here entertained, but a postulate.
The logic of the situation is that Eusebius either told the truth, and
there was indeed an existent tribe of christians, with a bundle of
literature, or he was paid to write a pseudo-history by Constantine,
and there was not a christian footstep on the planet before the
supreme imperial mafia thug ductator, and eminent theologian,
sponsored their appearance, in more ways than one.