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Reload this Page A Historical Argument Against Christianity [includes Sun Gods and Papias]
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Old 12-18-2004, 08:30 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman
If Papias wrote in 130, Jarius' daughter would be (130-30)+12 = 112.
That is, assuming Jarius' daughter was raised in c.30 and she was 12 years old.

What are the odds of that? Living to 112 during those times I mean. After the wars, the ensuing confusion, arbitrary killings and the scattered communities and the resettlements, somehow, Papias had a bug on her, knew her movements and knew her heart was still beating as he wrote.
I am not suggesting that anyone healed by Jesus was still alive during the reign of Hadrian. It is highly unlikely that they were.

I am suggesting that Papias made two claims a/ People raised by Jesus were still alive during my lifetime (ie they didn't die till after I was born) b/ I am writing this during the reign of Hadrian.

Philip of Side misunderstood this as a claim by Papias that the resurrected people were still alive in the time of Hadrian, although this was not what Papias meant.

This is a speculation based on analogy with what Eusebius says about Quadratus and may well be wrong. However if correct as to what Papias really meant it is perfectly chronologically plausible. It only requires people healed by Jesus to survive into the 80's CE.

Andrew Criddle
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Old 12-18-2004, 08:42 AM   #22
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Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman
If Papias wrote in 130, Jarius' daughter would be (130-30)+12 = 112.
That is, assuming Jarius' daughter was raised in c.30 and she was 12 years old.
No, she'd be a minimum of 57--Papias having lived at 75 CE, well before he was born. She only needs to be alive in his lifetime, not alive when he's writing, for Criddle's point to hold.

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Rick Sumner
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Old 12-18-2004, 08:09 PM   #23
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Originally Posted by Vinnie
I'll stick with reading credentialed scholars....
Vinnie, I wish you'd formulate more ideas which you can argue by yourself rather than such limp dependence on authority.

Just while we are dealing with the possibility that Jesus was a sun god, which I don't hold, but which is not totally unjustified, Jesus is linked to Samson, through the birth at Nazareth tradition, which says he will be called a nazwraios, referring back to Jgs 13:5,7 (Jgs uses naziraios). The name Samson of course is derived from Shamash, the sun.


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Old 12-19-2004, 04:04 AM   #24
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Even GA Wells who for over 25 years wrote books like "Did Jesus Exist" has recently come to accept an historical Jesus.
Please provide some evidence for this claim. We are getting very tired of hearing it.
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I am not suggesting that anyone healed by Jesus was still alive during the reign of Hadrian. It is highly unlikely that they were.
Papias suggested that people "healed by Jesus were still alive during the reign of Hadrian".
You said that is "perfectly plausible". Now you say "is highly unlikely", and that Philipe of Side misunderstood.

Could you please provide supporting arguments for the idea that Philipe of Side "misunderstood". Did Philipe of Side misunderstand because its highly unlikely or his "misunderstanding" stands even if the claims are likely?

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No, she'd be a minimum of 57--Papias having lived at 75 CE, well before he was born. She only needs to be alive in his lifetime, not alive when he's writing, for Criddle's point to hold.
Well, lets see Criddle prove that Philipe of Side misunderstood Papias.

Papias seems to have written in his old age, between the years 115 and 140.
At 75CE, Papias was around 6 years old.
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Old 12-19-2004, 06:02 AM   #25
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Originally Posted by Killer Mike
The concensus...
of opinions
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Originally Posted by Killer Mike
...dates Mark to about 70, shortly after the failure of the 1st Jewish Revolt against the Romans.
Though this is merely conjecture. The first evidence for the gospels themselves are the writings of Justin Martyr who knows of, but doesn't cite, them directly.

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You go to any major university (Harvard, Yale, Brown, Hebrew University, Oxford, etc..) and you will be taught Jesus did exist.
Doesn't make it correct, just popular. This is a problem that too many people have: they confuse opinions with evidence. Killer Mike is emptyhanded in the evidence department so far.

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Even GA Wells who for over 25 years wrote books like "Did Jesus Exist" has recently come to accept an historical Jesus.
Gosh, really?

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Originally Posted by Killer Mike
I dont think we need to come up with highly speculative ideas to disprove Christianity. Modern scholarship has disproven it already. We know the Gospels are neither histories nor biographies but mythopoetic. We also know Jesus was probably not even buried in a tomb as described in the Gospels. This is because it was common practive for the Romans to let bodies hang for days on crosses and let the body decay and rot following executions. This was done to remind people of the penalty for disobeying Roman authority. All one needs to do is take an intro New Testament course at any major university to learn about things like source and literary criticism. There you will find everything you need to refute Christianity. :thumbs:
Why are you reading the nt literature as though it were in some way aimed at being historical? You don't know anything about a Jesus in historical space, only literary space, which doesn't mean that a Jesus behind the literary figure didn't exist. It's just that we don't have any means of knowing whether he did or not. This is why the tendentious ideas you started this post with are worthless. Opinions on what lies behind the nt literature can't get you behind it.


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Old 12-19-2004, 06:30 AM   #26
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All one needs to do is take an intro New Testament course at any major university to learn about things like source and literary criticism. There you will find everything you need to refute Christianity. :thumbs:
WOW, that doesn't say much for our universities today! :down:
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Old 12-19-2004, 06:39 AM   #27
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There is no question that Jesus was a sun god, but that will be god with a small g. Aren't we all . . . and that is why "evening came and morning followed," in that order, until the seventh day which was the day on which evening did not follow the day and that is when the when the small g becomes a capital G.
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Old 12-19-2004, 09:47 PM   #28
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Vinnie, I wish you'd formulate more ideas which you can argue by yourself rather than such limp dependence on authority.
I have my own ideas. I only depend on "consensus" judgments in linguistic questions as I do not have the training in those areas to judge myself. Its more intelligent to trust the experts in this area over amatuers on the internet.


Back to the issue at hand:

Contra Ted Hoffman, Papias probably wrote during the first decade of the second century. There are several lines of evidence clearly suggesting this and only one suggesting a later date and that single line of evidence is really just a garbling of Eusebius by Philip. As I wrote in an article I still have oin my comp:

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Since many scholars have located Papias around 130 C.E., we must ask, are there any convincing arguments for a later dating? A statement by Philip of Side is our only concrete evidence for a later dating. He places Papias in the reign of Hadrian (117-138 C.E.) rather than in the reign of Trajan as Eusebius does. Philip’s information is chronologically located a century later than Eusebius (ca. 430 C.E.) and Gundry argues that a comparison of their respective statements shows that Philip’s information was dependent upon Eusebius--but he garbled the information.

Gundry writes, “Eusebius mentions a Christian writer named Quadratus, who addressed an apology to Hadrian, the very emperor during whose reign Philip puts Papias’s writings. The claim of Quadratus that some of the people whom Jesus healed and raised from the dead have lived up to his own day sounds something like the claim of Papias to have gotten information about the Lord’s commands “from the living and abiding voice� of the elders and other disciples of the Lord (see Eus. H.E. 3.39.1-4 with 4.3.1-2). More strikingly, however, when Philip quotes Papias, the phraseology sounds more like Eusebius’s quotations of Quadratus than of Papias; in other words, it looks as though Philip transferred what Quadratus wrote over to Papias.� Mark A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross p. 1028

Just as Eusebius locates Quadratus in Hadrian’s reign and quotes him as speaking of those raised from the dead by Jesus who are still living, Philip associates Papias in Hadrian’s reign and writes that he spoke of people raised from the dead by Jesus who are still living.
Also evidencing this interpretation is the existence of another Quadratus who was a prophet, not an apologist. It may have been easy for him to do so since he found Eusebius’ similar discussion of Papias bounded by references to the name “Quadratus.�

Another cause of the garbling of Eusebius by Philip may have been Eusebius’s connection of Quadratus with the daughters of Philip the apostle. Eusebius writes (H.E. 3.37.1) “Among those that were celebrated at that time was Quadratus, who, report says, was renowned along with the daughters of Philip for his prophetical gifts.�

It seems probable that Philip is dependent upon Eusebius and simply garbled or conflated some Eusebian details.

As Hoffman wrote:

Quote:
Papias suggested that people "healed by Jesus were still alive during the reign of Hadrian".
You said that is "perfectly plausible". Now you say "is highly unlikely", and that Philipe of Side misunderstood.

Could you please provide supporting arguments for the idea that Philipe of Side "misunderstood". Did Philipe of Side misunderstand because its highly unlikely or his "misunderstanding" stands even if the claims are likely?
I just explained that above. Second, even the Quadratus claim is misunderstood. The exact quote is "even in our day" or something like that which is consistent with an earlier time. I mentioned this to Peter Kirby over on Ebla. Here is what I wrote:

Quote:
I am not convinced, via, an english translation, as it stands, he says people whom Jesus healed ca 30 c.e. are still alive 117-138. [This is not shown to be the case]

The quote:

2 He himself reveals the early date at which he lived in the following words: "But the works of our Saviour were always present, for they were genuine:-those that were healed, and those that were raised from the dead, who were seen not only when they were healed and when they were raised, but were also always present; and not merely while the Saviour was on earth, but also after his death, they were alive for quite a while, so that some of them lived even to our day." Such then was Quadratus.

It is said that he "reveals the early date at which he lived" in those words. The point is he is early, not late.

were always present,

This quote is past tense.

for they were genuine:-t

past tense.

those that were healed,

past tense

and those that were raised from the dead,

past tense

who were seen not only when they were healed and when they were raised, but were also always present; and not merely while the Saviour was on earth, but also after his death, they were alive for quite a while,

No problems yet. some people whom Jesus healed lived on past his death and told of their "healing". Quadratus allegedly lived during the last third of the first century and knew some of these people.

so that some of them lived even to our day."

My question here is, to what does "to our day refer". Does it mean still existing or does it refer to his generation when he was a specific age? Does it refer to events of 20 or 30 years ago? He could be pretty old at the time and "his day" meant 20 years ago.

Is it even clear that he said this specifically to Hadrian and intended it to apply to that time? He could have been quoting his own standard preaching he used over the years or something. There is no specific context for it whatsoever and its posible reading Eusebius supplies us with a psuedo-context. I note it is ridiculous to assume a person--let alone people!-- healed by Jesus before 30 c.e. is/are still alive 120 c.e. This fact alone causes me to question how you interpret the passage. I take "our day" as referring to an earlier period (the end of the first century as a maximum). That it is contextless essentially allows this. That not interpeting it as such leaves us with several at least 110+ aged people forces me against it for obvious reasons.

Though it is certainly possible 2d christians held a number of absurd beliefs like this. Maybe he also simply exaggerated. The context of it makes it seem like its common and testable knowledge. To me it puts me in an earlier period when it was more of an actuality.
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Old 12-19-2004, 09:57 PM   #29
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There is no evidence for this. Plain and simple. If you want to believe everything you read, do you also believe the fanciful account from fragment number three where Papias narrates a fanciful account of the death of Judas, or how Barnabas drank snake poison, or about Papias' claims that the dead that were raised by Christ survived until the reign of Hadrian?
You ought to take your own medicine. Lets go in order:

1. Death of Judas. There was a common practice of assigning codign endings to infamous characters in antiquity. Matthew had Judas hang himself as did Apthowhatever his name was who betreayed David and hung himself (MT parallels this extensively). Luke has him swell up an burst or some such thing (as happend to other evil characters) and there are actually two different (conflicting) versions from Papias on the fate of Judas. I don't know what to make of the different versions but Judas was evil and in the eyes of all Xians back then it was probably most reasonable that such a despicable man who committed a crime so terrible would come to a grotesque, fast and immediate end.

2. Barnabas. Not familiar with this one. Can you quote it?

3. Still alive during reign of Hadrian....dealt with above. Papias cannot be shown to have said this. Philip confused Quadratus with Papias.


On to your other claims, you are simply misinterpreting Papias' view on texts. Your strange belief that he authored no texts of its own seems to be contingent upon this. Your positions has really forced you into a corner. I believe both Eusebius and Irenaues (though preserved by Eusebius) constitute evidence for the literary activity of Papias. Doesn't Eusebius uote him?

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He doesn't use him for what would have mattered most: A saying from the very mouth of an apostle.
Eusebius used him to authenticate a bunch of these. Eusebius already had two books written by Apostles (Matthew and John) and one wroitten carefuklly researched by Luke and one written by an interpreter of Peter. Therefore, Eusebius had about 3-4 tomes of eyewitness apostolic material at his disposal. As also noted, he didn't like Papias.

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Old 12-19-2004, 10:05 PM   #30
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Are you even familair with the quotations????

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.1-2

1 ... And of Papias there are five treatises in circulation, and which were entitled, An Exposition of the Lord's Reports. Irenaeus also mentions these as his only writing, using the following words: And these things Papias, who has been a hearer of John and a colleague of Polycarp, an early man, corroborates in writing in the fourth of his books. For there were five books that he composed.

2 So wrote Irenaeus. Yet Papias himself, according to the preface of his volumes, in no way presents himself to have been a listener and eyewitness of the holy apostles, but teaches that he had received the articles of the faith from those who had known them, for he speaks as follows

Is Eusebius lying about Papias here? For what reason he obviously did not like the man?

Furthermore, was he lying about Irenaeus mentioning this works?

Was he cleverly carring on his pointless lie by discussing contents from the preface of this imagined work?

Then Eusebius makes up a huge quote and then goes on to dissect it.

Why does Eusebius reference his readers in verse 14 to non-existent works?

http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/...ext/papias.htm

We should just argue Papias never existed. Hell, the attestation for Papias is actually worse than for Jesus isn't it?

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