ApostateAbe

OK, so there is clear consensus among HJers about Jesus in terms of when he existed, his family, his hometown, his teacher, his core disciples, his area of ministry, and his death, and they agree a heckuva lot about the religion directly subsequent to Jesus (the New Testament canon and other early Christian writings being taken as direct reflections of that religion), but they don't have as much unanimity on the teachings of Jesus. The most popular theory among critical scholars, if not the majority theory (and it may very well be the majority theory), remains the "apocalyptic prophet" model of Jesus. Because this is the most plausible model of Jesus that is seen directly on the face of the earliest Christian documents, almost everyone agrees that imminent apocalypticism had a lot to do with early Christianity--the disagreement deals with whether it was Jesus who came up with the imminent apocalypticism or if it were the disciples of Jesus. If it were the disciples of Jesus, then you are free to make Jesus in your own image or whatever you want him to be, such as a cynic or a social reformer. One way or the other, almost everyone would agree that the apocalypticism was at the core of recruitment.

You might think that this isn't enough. And, well, you could be right. I propose that there is more disagreement than there needs to be among HJ scholars simply because they don't adhere strongly enough to their own methodologies, and they let ideological wishful thinking get the best of them. The scholars of the Jesus Seminar, for example, very much tend to be liberal Christians--more reasonable than conservative Christians, but with a significant ideological bent all of the same.

The mythicists can't agree on even the barest positive conclusions because they don't even have positive methodologies. As Toto pointed out, they have skepticism, and that is taken as a legitimate methodology for making sense of the evidence. It is a methodology that can not possibly help anyone come to positive conclusions, though it helps an antipathetic thinker come to all of the negative conclusions that he or she is inclined, with no other form of discrimination, which of course suits him or her just fine.

jgoodguy

I'd wager 150 years More or Less.

mountainman

So you think the 1st christians emerged about the time Marcus Aurelius was authoring his "Meditations"?

Toto

That would be from 170 to 180 CE.

Of course, the LXX was around for a few centuries before that.

mountainman

If the Letter of Aristeas (located in Josephus) is treated as a forgery, then who (after Josephus?) is the earliest witness to the Greek LXX?

Toto

Why? Certainly Josephus is a witness, and the LXX would be available for first and second century Christians.

jgoodguy

I did not say that did I.