anethema

Is there a difference between theology and history in the first century according to the powers that be, re. "scholarship"? In Egyptology there is no argument concerning interpolations, harmonizations, euhemerizations, or plagarizations with regard to recieved documents. Why should there be about 2nd century Roman documents. Please educate me if you can about the difference in the two disciplines.

anethema

OK that's a leading question as a lawyer might say. But its also a "sitz un lieben" for the current state of discourse, imo. I really want to see the difference between what is taught about thutmose III and Yeshua bar Yuseph in the schools in our country, and what rational people have to say about it. That's why I'm participating in the discussion.

Toto

Are you saying that Egyptologists do not need to worry about the veracity of their evidence? This might be because they have well preserved physical artifacts. In contrast, there are no existing 2nd century Roman documents, only unreliable copies of copies. Trying to pin down the actual content of the second century document is a difficult forensic question, when we know that the documents were at times altered for theological reasons.

If you do not consider the possibilities that the copies of documents that we have are unreliable, you might end up naively accepting some 4th century theologian's biased fiction as history.

John Dominick Crossan has charged that a lot of historical Jesus studies are actually theology that is labeled as history. Take that for what it's worth.

stephan huller

I don't know where you are going with this but the situation is so bad in the first and second centuries that what survives is essentially Irenaeus's personal 'library.' Imagine if all that survived of the 1990s music scene was that of a particularly influential teenage girl fan of Nsync and it was 'decided' by this girl fan hundred years later that Justin Timberlake is the greatest singer of all time. That's the modern equivalent (I think I am channeling an Adam Sandler movie I watched last night on TV filmed at the Grand Wailea).

anethema

There are innumerable Roman artifacts from the first and second cen.s. For instance the Pontius Pilate stone Carrier used to refute Errorman. Also the whole pile of oxyrynchus papyry. Think of Titus's triumphal arch. These are all actual 1st century sources-indisputibly. When anyone tries to discuss 1st century Palestine all of a sudden we have to get theological (what the "jews" thought). I just think that there is a cognitive dissonence going on here, that doesn't happen in other periods of ancient history, and I'd like an explanation if possible from people who are educated, rational, and should know better.

aa5874

There is a vast amount of recovered ancient manuscripts but none about Jesus, the disciples and Paul in the 1st century.

We have the DSS and many more writings that have been dated to the 1st century.

What is most remarkable is that whenever NT manuscripts are found and dated outside of and later than the 1st century it is ALWAYS assumed that the manuscripts are copies of 1st century or earlier writings.

If manuscripts of the Paul/Seneca letters were found and dated to the 4th century when should we assume they were written??? One hundred years earlier??

anethema

Incredibly after I started this op I sat down to watch monday night football, I went over to the military channel during a commercial and lo and behold! there talking about lost gospels. They start with "Thomas" of course and its totally ridiculous. This is the thing that makes my skin crawl, that whoever watches thinks it is the current state of "scholarship". From there on it gets worse, they go from "Mary" to "Judas", willy-nilly, in the end they say something about early Xtian beliefs(absurd), then conclude that of course the 4 we got are legitimate. They actually say that the gnostics (whoever the f they were) were actually at the council of Nicea, and were repudiated. I'm going back to da Bears vs boys. There is no wonder that the current state of US intellect is on life support, and fading fast.

anethema

there is a BIG IF about the dating of the DSS. I am not an expert, but I have read Eisenman and halfheartedly agree with his conclusions about them. I also have nothing against Crossan's conclusions in his "The birth of christianity". IMO there was some sort of indigenous tax revolt against Roman hegemony in Palestine (particularly, the galilee region in the 40,s CE.) Whether this was the genesis of the Jesus movement I have no clue, but its almost beyond dispute it was the the seed of the jewish revolt. The parts of Josephus's "Jewish War" leading up to it aren't to my knowledge in dispute. Judas the "Gallilean" was obviously from duh galilee. I am always reminded of Occham's razor, it simply seems a group of disaffected jewish people perhaps with their own holy men somehow survived the apocolypse that Titus perpetrated on their country and tried to make sense of it. The allegory of salvation coming from utter defeat ie. the cross(as a personification of the jewish nation crucified) may have been the genesis for the stories.

Littlejohn

There is no need to disturb the ancient Egypt to make such comparisons. We can take as an example the figures of Julius Caesar and of 'Yeshua bar Yuseph'.

The reason why there are excessive suspicions about the genuineness of the information we have about Julius Caesar - on the contrary instead of what happens with the documentation concerning the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth - depends on the mere fact that around Julius Caesar was NOT built a religion such as the one 'catho-christian', which forced the founders to upset not only historical evidences, but also the same course of historical events, involving in this hallucinating and vast operation of historical mystification, even many archaeological evidences! (think of Nazareth, Bethlehem, Capernaum, Qana, Magdala/Dalmanutha, Kefar Gamala/Bet Jemal, Lydda/Mount of Olives, etc.)


Littlejohn S

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outhouse

the difference here is we are dealing with cross cultural theology written in mythology.

Egypt wasnt mainly written from cross cultural oral tradition.


Everything to do with jesus was written by a different culture and different geographic location, and even a different sect of the religion. decades after the fact.

add the mythology of turning a man into a deity, and you have a can of worms.






now you do make a good point, much of what is written with historicity in other areas and cultures are not held to the same standard as it is with historical jesus. with jesus, everything is under a microscope