stephan huller

i would go one step further. clement knows of a josephus who wrote a chronology in 147 CE (= Hegesippus). does anyone really believe that josephus the jewish rebel knew about dionysius of halicarnassus and modeled a work after the roman antiquities? bullshit. the synergoi are second century forgers.

outhouse

#1 he was a poverty stricken handworker doing odd jobs in Galilee, there was nothing to write about such a man, and his complete history was unknown.

#2 false, he traveled around small villages in Galilee healing and teaching about the coming of the kingdom of god, which its true meaning is debated heavily.

#3 it lasted in between 1 and 3 years by our best accounts

#4 yes and gnostics were a small obscure sect, no big deal or relevance to jesus or his movement we know very little about, due to the cross cultural oral tradition the gospels were created from.

LegionOnomaMoi

What does "main historical competition" mean, and why would Marcion, rather than (for example) Celsus or Valentinus be the "main" among these?

This is little better than aa's thesis about christians believing Jesus was a myth because they believed he was born by the power of the holy spirit. Marcion certainly believed Jesus was a historical individual, as did gnostics in general. What many believed was that Jesus had no human form, ever. He only appeared to be human. This is quite different from the belief that Jesus never walked on earth as an individual. And, more interesting, it appears that this belief developed later. The further into the centuries we get, the more we find increasingly strange texts with developed cosmologies involving Jesus and a demiurge and so forth. Yet, according to the most common mythicist position, this was the first belief: Jesus was a mythic figure who somehow became mistaken for a historical one. But Marcion was using Luke, not some older tradition, and it appears that the belief that Jesus was a spiritual entity (who did, nevertheless, appear on earth) developed out of the position that he was a human chosen by god and capable of doing the impossible. So if the mythicist position is correct, then what started as something akin to certain gnostic views was turned by Mark and those following that tradition into a view about some historical individual who had powers granted by god, only to turn back into something close to the original position (but quite independently of it) by later "gnostic" christians who relied on deviations from the tradition began (or at least set into textual form) by Mark.

stephan huller

because that was the sense of celsus's testimony according to origen

aa5874

What utter BS. Marcion's Phantom is NOT an historical character. The HJ argument is NOT that Jesus merely was believed to have existed but that Jesus was human with a human father.

The Greeks and Romans BELIEVED Gods and Sons of Gods exist and Jesus was believe to EXIST as a God in antiquity.

Please get familiar with Greek/Roman Mythology. Not every thing that was believed to have existed is a figure of history.

Satan was BELIEVED to have EXISTED in antiquity even today.

LegionOnomaMoi

This doesn't tell me what "main historical competition" means.

stephan huller

'main historical competition' is an unfortunate choice of terms but I believe his point is that it was influential enough to have been mistaken for the official Church or to represent Christianity as such which is what Celsus seems to have done according to Origen. I favor a date of 161 - 169 CE for the True Word. For instance, the example which pops readily in my head is Celsus's reference to two gospel traditions with one woman and two women appearing at the tomb. These seem to correspond to a Marcionite gospel and proto-Matthew. Celsus does mention other groups beside what is later termed 'the Marcionites.' Nevertheless he seems to take the Marcionites more seriously and suggests they are more influential in Rome at least (assuming he wrote from there).

There certainly were Valentinians in Rome as Lampe hand others have shown. Nevertheless it is worth noting that the Patristic writers often speak about the 'Marcionites and Valentinians' in the same breath. I don't pretend to know what the exact relationship was between the two sects but it was close enough that they were often paired together.

aa5874

At this point LegionOnomaMoi is just not making much sense. If he does NOT understand what the term "historical Jesus" means then why doesn't he first find out???

Marcion's Son of God is NOT a figure of history when it had NO birth and NO flesh but came DIRECTLY from heaven to Capernaum in the 15th year of the Reign of Tiberius according to Tertullian.

The Jesus of gMark of the NT ALSO has NO birth narrative and called the Son of God that WALKED on water and Transfigured whose supposed "Body" vanished.

gMark's Jesus may well be Marcion's Son of God and Phantom.

No MAN with FLESH can WALK on Water--perhaps gMark's Jesus was a PHANTOM.


Again, if Jesus did exist and was A NOBODY who did NOTHING then the TF must be a forgery.

Josephus, a Jew, a Pharisee, who FOUGHT against the Romans EXPECTING Messianic rulers c 70 CE would NOT claim a NOBODY who did NOTHING was the Messiah.

Josephus claimed VESPASIAN was the Prophesied Messianic and it is claimed Vespasian made the Blind SEE and the Lame walk.

Please, the TF MUST be a forgery once HJers claim their Jesus was an UNKNOWN BACKWATER NOBODY who did NOTHING Messianic.

maryhelena

I referenced Eusebius regarding controversy over a crucifixion in the 7th year of Tiberius. Now, you can either take that to reference a simple dispute over dating the death of the gospel JC - or you can take that dispute as being an indication that the 'history' of JC was a problem back then as it is for the JC historicists today. And that is the issue here, is it not, the claimed historicity for JC? From the records we do have, the gospels themselves - and Eusebius and his problem re the 7th year of Tiberius - the details of the history of JC were disputed. From the date of his birth to the date of his death, there is no consensus whatsoever in the sources we do have. So, you might well say, the christian writers had no historical facts to use in their JC biographies - so what, they did the best they good. Try that approach with selling a biography today....

The more rational evaluation of the sources is that, since there is no consensus on the date of birth or the date of death (that great decider of an ideas's value.....) that there was no historical data available for any one of those gospel writers to use. So what you might say - it's only important that he lived and died that horrible death on the cross - possible of course - but that approach will only get as far as ones faith will take one - it will not get one anywhere near the historical origins of christianity.

Perhaps re-read what I wrote....Euisebuis had a problem with a crucifixion in the 7th year of Tiberius. A dating that supports the context of the TF in 19 c.e.
Again - check out the book I referenced by Daniel Schwartz re dating Pilate.
Euseibus is using an interpretation of Josephus to refute the 7th year of Tiberius crucifixion 'forgery'. Dating Pilate is the issue here.
What does exist is the Josephan TF - placed within a context of 19 c.e. That is the source that has to be dealt with here.

I'm interested in searching for early christian origins. I am not, let me repeat that, I am not interested in any debate over the question of the historicity of the gospel JC. I've no interest in such a debate. I made my decision for ahistoricity nearly 30 years ago - and have no intention of getting sidelined in, what for me, is a waste of time. Once one makes a decision one runs with that decision as far as it will take one. That is the premise upon which I base any arguments I put forward for debate. There is no historical gosepl JC of any variant. What is there is Jewish history; Jewish history that is reflected within the gospel story and it's composite JC figure. It is that reflection of history that allows the gospel JC a veneer of historicity. But a veneer is only a dressing, a cover, it has no value beyond what it helps to display.

So, when you read anything that I write - don't try to make me backtrack to the debate over the historicity of the gospel JC - I'm not going backwards - I've far more interesting things to do.....

maryhelena

It's in the chart - within Slavonic Josephus the TF reference is after the issue of the Roman standards and prior to the issue regarding the water problem. That is why when it came to using the wonder-doer story in Antiquities, that Josephus did not have much choice of where to put it. Antiquities places the TF after both the standards and the water issue - and then goes into the story re the 19 c.e. expelling of the Jews from Rome. What Josephus has done in Antiquities is place both the issue of the standards and the water issue, issues related to Pilate, prior to or around 19 c.e.

As for gLuke and needing Josephan support for his new 6 c.e. context for his JC nativity story - that's a bag of worms right there.....Methinks that relationship needs investigating....:constern01: