GakuseiDon

The question itself is an interesting one. Why can't we clearly date Paul's letters? Is he hiding when he was writing? This doesn't seem credible. Or is this an indication of forgery? But in that case, why is the forger hiding the date of the writing? And the problem isn't just confined to Paul, it is across the board.

My point is this: The early authors don't appear to need to produce 'dateable' events in early Christianity. (The same is true of some early Jewish writings, as I point out in my review.) And this includes the writings of those we all believe are 'historicists' as well. They wrote to the beat of a different drum back then. How can we do analysis of the writings without recognising that beat?

Ted Hoffman

You just described yourself.

Ted Hoffman

History? The New Testament, whereas it may contain some history, is clearly not a historical book. If you mean NT journals, cite the one that you believe its editors don't believe Christ will come again.
Plus, it wouldn't matter in the end. If, for example, he gets an article like "On the meaning Archontes in Pauline Epistles" published, critics would still argue that, "Yes, he is a published scholar but what he has published is not mythicist articles."

GakuseiDon

Earl, fair comments mostly. Most of this boils down to "GakuseiDon said / Earl Doherty said". At the least, I hope there is enough information so that people can start to investigate these things for themselves. The main purpose of my review is to get people thinking about the issues, and start asking you questions, in order to either validate your views (as you no believe they would) or invalidate your views (as I believe they would). So I encourage people to read my comments and then your comments, and start asking questions.

As such, I will only touch on a few things.

The comment above ("See my website articles at the link above") tells you where I discuss this. The writings are as follows:

* Clement of Alexandria (182-202 CE): "Exhortation to the Heathen" (Use of 'Jesus' and 'Christ', but no historical details)
* Ignatius (108 CE): "Philadelphians", "Polycarp" (Use of 'Jesus' and 'Christ', but no historical details)
* Tertullian (200 CE): "Ad nationes" (No reference to the names 'Jesus' or 'Christ' at all)
* Tertullian (200 CE): "Against Hermogenes" (No historical details, 3 mentions of 'Christ', none for Jesus)
* Attributed to 'Justin Martyr' (late 2nd C or 3rd C): Horatory to the Greeks (No historical details, uses 'Logos' and 'Word' throughout, with a final association to a 'Jesus Christ' in the concluding paragraph)
* From the large fragments of Melito's "Apology" (160-177) that remain, the "Apology" possibly falls into this category as well.

Some of these are Third Century CE. If these invalidate them from consideration from an examination of the wider literature, then so be it. Just tell me what the cut-off point is, and why.

Earl, a simple question: If all we had was Tertullian's "Ad nationes", would you regard him as someone without a historical Jesus at the core of his Christianity? How would you determine this?

That's correct. That is, we cannot necessarily expect them to write as we would have written, we cannot judge their use of language by our own use of language. A certain amount of analysis is required, rather than appealing to "human nature" (as you do below).

I think it is the same: we should not impose our thinking on the ancients. Should we not examine the wider literature of the time, before deciding on what is "human nature"?

Paul is hard to date -- why? Early Christian literature is hard to date -- why? Obviously this has nothing to do with a historical Jesus, since the writers wrote in some time period. Even forgers or 'midrashists' can pretend what period they want to place something. (Isn't that the rationale behind why the Gospels placed Jesus' crucifixion by Pilate?) But that side of the equation is not addressed in your book, in fact it is barely noted as something that exists. Your focus is on references to a historical Jesus. My point is that we should look at the wider literature first, before deciding on what we should expect to find in early Christian literature. You simply haven't done that, as I point out in my review.

I hope my review gets people thinking about the issues, about what was happening in the literature of the time, since they are not going to learn it from your book. The perspective of the wider literature is not offered. Perhaps it supports you, but they won't find that out from your book. Shouldn't they find this out?

Are you saying that these appearances -- seeing the Spiritual Christ AT FIRST HAND, or experiencing the revelation of Christ AT FIRST HAND, are not worthy of recording? Just how do you determine this? Human nature?

Yes, I do regard it as incredible, quite fantastic in fact. But no-one should care what **I** think. Here the reader needs to evaluate Doherty's argument, not against what he has written in his book, but across the literature as a whole. That **I** regard it as fantastic, stupid in the same way as Acharya S's "advanced ancient Pygmy civilization" is laughably stupid, is neither here not there. I have at least hopefully piqued the curiosity of readers who will look into the wider literature for themselves, so that they make up their own minds on the matter, and not just rely on the content of your book.

avi

Yes, I do not think that the presumed date of creation of the oldest extant papyrus necessarily corresponds to the date of the original composition.

However, it is the ONLY evidence thus far cited in this thread. I offered a link to the oldest extant document. It is evidence.

It is not definitive. I grant you that.

P46 is one piece of evidence. I seek additional evidence, for, like you, I am dissatisfied with the existing evidence. Can you provide some? Perhaps you have some evidence to suggest that P46 was copied from a document originally created n years earlier? Can you define "n"?

Earl, in my opinion, if you wish to claim, as I do, a mythical character to JC, then it would seem appropriate to clarify why you consider Paul's epistles to represent bona fide first century documents describing the phantom. Is your contention that Paul wrote in the first century explained in your book, if so, can you please point to the pages, so I can read your explanation?

I regard your claim of a legitimate first century origin to these letters to represent either wishful thinking, sloppy investigation, or deliberate obfuscation. In either case, it is not constructive, in my opinion, to argue a mythicist character for JC based upon acceptance of Paul's letters, content of which focuses on hallucinatory, delusional thinking, stated as having occurred within months/a few years of the demise of the mythical ghost.

You need to spell it out, Earl. P46 may well be unsatisfactory evidence, but currently, it is all we have, until you put something else on the table.

Here's the algorithm, Earl:
1. Using psychotic testimony to impeach the existence, or non-existence, of anyone or anything, is illogical.

2. Mythicist thinking depends upon logic, and evidence, not acceptance of status quo, or superstitious behaviour.

3. To employ testimony of a psychotic, in an investigatory process, one must have confidence that if the testimony itself is suspect, at least the identification of the witness is rock solid.

In my opinion, unfortunately, you are demanding that your readers not only accept the psychotic's observations, but also the paucity of details surrounding his own life--we know not when he lived, where he lived, or why he functioned as he did. We are not even sure which of the letters attributed to him, come from his own quill. We have no assurance that our oldest extant manuscript, ostensibly representing Paul's writing, is a faithful, unredacted, uninterpolated duplicate, of his original epistles.

avi

GakuseiDon

Then what is the next step? What should Earl do, if anything? If the Vision of Isaiah thread has shown anything, it is the value of **knowledgeable** people looking at his theories rather than me. How can Earl get this to happen?

Ted Hoffman

He doesn't need to do shit. His objective should be to ensure his published idea is as well supported as possible. You can't force people to accept your idea, maybe the generation that will embrace it is yet to be born. If he has presented his work well and supported it well, his work is complete and his imprint in history remains indelible. Mainstream scholarship be damned.
At any rate, those so-called "knowledgeable people" only impress those who are not knowledgeable. Mark Goodacre has been responding to mythicists at the JesusMysteries Yahoo forum and from his writings compared to those of say, Michael Turton, Doherty, Jake Jones, Sid Greed or countless of other informed dilettantes, you wouldn't know he is an NT Scholar. Their contributions are crisp, well-written, well-informed and equally valuable.
I have, for example studied some of the works of E. P. Sanders. You think I would bat an eye if someone made a statement starting with "E. P. Sanders has stated that..."
Names are just names, degrees are just degrees. We need to focus on ideas and the evidence. Those so-called credentialed scholars blunder all the time.

GakuseiDon

TedH, thanks for your response.

ApostateAbe

We are on the same page, except that Earl Doherty's own written words are here in this thread and one his website, both of which I read at least in part. If anyone wants to send me Earl Doherty's book, I promise I will read it. I don't want to make this thread all about who I am, though. That would be selfish.

Ted Hoffman

Now, why would anyone value your opinion that much?