DevilsAdvocate

You have text. If you can prove fiction from it, you have your desired outcome. You have not addressed it.

You have demonstrated your position clearly. You have empty assertions, but no substance. You structure and bias the "examination" to reach the desired outcome. Like so many blinded fundamentalists I know, you see nothing you do not want to see. There is no integrity in these.

Asking and answering the right questions, given the information you can collect, is the path to enlightenment. You are not interested in that. You want to argue...not reason and discuss. It is sad really...

But along with the questions, I refuted your premise that lack of information such as yours is proof of fiction providing numerous known examples. I gave you a concrete path to your "proof" repeated below (complete with original typos). Honestly, I have found only little that would support your premise. You have demonstrated and stated what you know about it ... in your own expression ... "NOTHING."


"Show me credible assessible evidence that the authors were not substantially credible on their accounts....no matter their names
- Show me anachronisms in the texts
- Demonstrate an overall incoherency in unified texts
- Show me fictional places that they were supposed to have gone
- Show me an impossible timeline in events
- Show me something substantially inconsistant with the culture and customs of the day
- Show me linguistic problems
- Show me geographic problems
- Weigh all these against what the textx got correct
- At their core, the texts are more about a philosophy and a way of life than anything else ... define that philosophy and disrepute it ... and not by equating it with its heresies"


Is there anybody here that wishes to rationally discuss this premise? I would much like to be enlightened on it if there is any basis.

mountainman

Your premise is based on the internal history of the text as distinct from its external history. Have you ever known a forger to sign his name on the forgery? Answers to these types of questions, which is this case need to be asked, need to address the external history of the text, and its political environment. Answers to questions of external history (such as aa5874's argument for fiction) require study of external considerations in addition to the questions you have delineated above. Do you understand this?

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

DevilsAdvocate

Thank you for that Pete.

I wonder if Klaus may have been referring to the logos in the way the stoics and especially the Roman era stoics viewed it. The prescribed order of the cosmos, perhaps incarnated in flesh or personified in literature.

DevilsAdvocate

Thanks Pete,

I think I do understand this. Perhaps you can enlighten me more ...

I think it not unusual for ancient writers to not identify themselves in the body of the text. They may have identified themselves in a seal, transmittal letter, messenger, or post-script... i.e. Plato and his Socrates dialogues. As it is today, this would especially apply if it is meant as a history or narrative to be spread at large. So lack if identification would not forgery prove by any means.

As to internal vs. external history... Who cared about this obscure and at times illegal sect enough for outside writers of the time to biograph or even name them? It would not be surprising for external powers to largely ignore them. So external verification would be obscure and likely not survive the centuries.

But an author does leave his signature whether a name or not ... Several anachronisms and variations in language and structure in Old Testament scriptures point to perhaps some more ancient sources but a compilation and editing sometime near 700BCE.

Given the text in its ancient sources, internal history and evidences provide a reference to compare to documented secular history and assess likely time period and authenticity. Unfortunately, aa5874 is not interested an anything except what he would certify as credible external history, and his assessment is that if anyone can make up any story that might discredit it, it is completely without merit and unworthy of consideration. That is an insurmountable bias, and frankly unreasonable in this context. That said, real proof either way is unlilkely ,and we are left to believe what we choose to have faith in.

mountainman

In 343 CE Photinus, bishop of Sirmium in Pannonia,
began teaching his heresy. He denied the existence
of the Son prior to the incarnation, claiming that
the Son and the Logos are distinct. He viewed
Christ's divinity as something he attained through
moral growth, similar to the view of Paul of Samosata.

From here

aa5874

I don't know if you have read any fiction novels but you should realise in a book of fiction, credible authors generally declare that their work is fiction, this was not done in the NT and in some instances the authors are unknown and there are multiple authors using the same name.

In well written fiction novels, anachronisms may not be found, the text do not have be incohrerent, the places may all be similar to known locations and the timeline may all be seamless.

Authors who write fiction may do so with a knowledge of the culture that they wish to write about, or the language and geographical locations.

So even if a novel appears to be free of anachronisms, maintains a timeline and appears to be linguistically, culturally, and geographically correct, those qualities do not eliminate the novel from being fiction. The characters may all be fictitious.

Now, again, the authors of the NT and the Church fathers presented Jesus as god and man. These authors and writers of antiquity even condemned those who claimed Jesus was just a mere mortal, just human, they called them liars and demons. These authors asserted vehemently to the point of death that Jesus was a god and a man, the offspring of the Holy Ghost.

Now, since they insisted that Jesus god and man, I will examine every aspect of Jesus, both god and man and make a determination of his reality.

I will dimiss Jesus the god as complete fiction, a woman cannot become pregnant by a Ghost, Jesus could not have born as described in the NT. Total fiction.

I now only have Jesus the man to examine. The NT and the Church fathers claimed Jesus was exteremly popular and controversial. John the Baptist told many people about him. He had thousands of followers, he had little regard for the Sabbath, yet he would teach in the synagogues. He was believed to the Messiah or the Christ, the Son of God or one of the prophets. This Jesus single-handedly whipped or drove people out of the Temple, he would curse the chief priests and Pharisees and called them devils.

It was believed he raised the dead, carried out miracles and it was thought that he was resurrected. The author of John called Jesus the Word, the Logos, the Word of God who became flesh.

Surely this man must have been well known, he must have affected the landscape in an undeniable way. He was in Galilee, Capernaum, Jerusalem and all over Judaea. Eusebius, in Church History claimed Jesus' fame had spread all over the world far away from Judaea, even a King wrote to Jesus for healing.

This Jesus according to the NT and the Church fathers, was in Judaea, sometime between 4 BCE and 36 CE during the governorship of Pilate and the reign of Tiberius.

Surely this Jesus can be found in antiquity, I just have to look at writings from any non-apologetic source written in the 1st or 2nd century.

Now Philo of Alexandria, a Jew, lived at the same time as this Jesus and wrote upto or about 50 CE.
I looked in all Philo's extant writings, Jesus was not there, but Pilate and Tibereius were there. Philo expounded on the Word or Logos, but he never mentioned Jesus as the Word.

I looked at all of the extant writings of Josephus, a Jew, a Pharisee who wrote up to or about 92 CE, I found nothing about Jesus except two forgeries.

I looked at Suetonius, Tacitus and Pliny the younger, all these authors wrote about "Christians", but they never mentioned the man called Jesus.

Now how can a man like Jesus, a highly controversial Jew, believed to be the Messiah, with thousands of followers vanish without a trace from the history books of antiquity?

The apologetics said Jesus was charismatic and phenomenal, on the other hand, the non-apolgetics said or wrote NOTHING.

I think the NOTHING means something, it means Jesus, his disciples and Paul are fiction. Nobody knows them, even "Paul" have no history of Jesus and the the disciples.

schilling.klaus

they are not only unreliable, they are deliberately deceptive

Clement is a fraudulent fiction, as already proven by the Dutch Radical movement 100 years ago. Those who still believe in an authentical 1 Clement are to be disrespected rigorously at any cost.


Klaus Schilling

DevilsAdvocate

Finally some substance... Thank you.

You have listed more possibilities than nothing. So your problem is that Jesus and the apostles are not mentioned by name in enough places. Given extant sources, let's see if the references would fit the significance of the movement at the time...

Josephus' reference is questioned by some as a forgery, but given the obscurity of the text can hardly be considered proven. ... There is also an arabic translation of Josephus that some claim to be more authentic, that represents Jesus less generously, but includes him just the same. So that is not a factual fraud and may be evidence.

That Jesus was significant enough to mention by a Helenized Jewish philosopher from Alexandria in 50 CE (17 years after the supposed origin if the movement and before the significant spreading after 70 CE) is questionable at best, especially given the cultural controls of the Synagogue community system even in the possibly liberal Alexandrian community. Some would claim that the author of Hebrews apparently came from this community based on parallels of the expressed theology and philosophy. There is no record of of Jesus as logos except in the later writings and both traditionally by John from Ephesus unless I missed something.

If Pliny's letters are at all authentic, why would he care in that context what the names of the individuals were. He was concerned with administering Roman justice and capitol punishment against a benign group described in the letters as similarly described in the epistles....details agree. There is question as to source, but not proof and the content supports epistle writings.

Suetonius and Tacitus can be viewed similarly. Why do they care to relate the details of an obscure and sometimes illegal movement from Palestine of all ridiculous places? Tacitus mentions Christians as a targeted group is passing. Why would he go into detail? ... And Suetonius did not view them as significant. 16.2: "Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition." Why did he care to mention (or know) who the characters in the superstition were? But the mentions are there in the time frame and situation consistent with the accounts in Acts and the epistles.

In fact... the attitudes of these writers would indicate that there was little public interest in Christians outside of their own circles ... your rejected apologists. That may be seen as supporting evidence for the obscurity of secular references and point you to apologists writings as sources. It is hardly nothing.

Why would any Roman writer, except an apologist, care what the names of these people were... To assume the movement was significant enough for significantly detailed writing is to give complete credence to the gospels as written ... which you claim not to do. Unless you read enough to know that by the end of the ministry the followers were flocking away in droves because the Messiah was not ready to call them to open revolt. He became just another dead messiah figure except to the apologists... Even his apostles rejected him and returned to their old professions.

Well, Jesus may still have been seen as a threat by the Jews who for centuries have built a defense against him by name ... lending credence to his existence. In one ancient account he by name was the bastard son of an adulteress or the product of rape. They even have an account of him by name in the temple as a boy as depicted in the gospels debating with the priests. One record of a trial resulting in execution is held by some to be significantly similar to the martyrdom and names of James and others... but Jerusalem records of the time of the destruction are sketchy.

So... Thank you. You have provided some evidence of a movement consistant with the one described in the gospels and epistles. Whether they are completely accurate ot not, they are extant and the obscurity prevents us from discounting them completely. That is much more than nothing.

Good job !

DevilsAdvocate

What is the basis of these statements?
What is the evidence of the "radicals"...?

What is your definition of proof?

schilling.klaus

they are all personifying representations of the Logos for didactical literary purposes.

The incarnation is a speciality of the Roman Catholic church. The Stoics have been looking for the perfectly wise man , the example of all virtues, as the Logos made human, for centuries, and Seneca resigned from this, but by taking a closer look at the messianic prophesies of the Septuagint, some Roman Stoics turned confident that the Septuagint foretells the cosmopolitan logos incarnate as the Messiah. Of course the real messianist Jews ,such as followers of Judas Golonites and Shimeon bar Kohba, did not intend the Messiah as a Cosmopolitan but as a perfect Jew, yet after the defeat of those figures it was easy for the Roman Stoics to say , even with scriptural backup, that the Jews didn't understand their Scripture, and did not recognise the true Messiah, and even though the Messiah was sent to them as the chosen people, they behaved as ungrateful as possible, thus were rightfully punished by God in the subsequent wars, and the tribal messianic promise was unvealed as a cosmopolitan gospel.

Klaus Schilling