GakuseiDon

Cumulative arguments fail if the pieces of data don't form evidence for the argument.

Letters from Justin Martyr addressed to the Emperor of the day, comments by Lucian, even Doherty has said that by the 160s pagans generally understood what Christians believed about Christ. When did pagans generally think that Christians believed in a HJ, IYO?

Not sure I understand your point.

Not sure I understand this point, either. The philosophical approach was used at a time when presumably Christianity had become HJ. At what date do you want to put on it?

Some HJ writers also wrote epistles without mentioning a HJ.

"Some"? Name two.

HJ writers also talked about Jesus as the logos.

Some HJ writers also talk about salvation through knowledge/wisdom.

LOTS of HJ writers did the same.

Yes, indeed. "Etc, etc".

youngalexander

No, they attempt to use the authority of science. However, that attempt is thoroughly rejected by the scientific community. The analogy re 2nd C is simply not valid. I have read enough historic discussion here to understand that - 2nd C = 21st C, forgetit!

Come on GDon this is a bit of a long bow? Everyone writes to their audience - question is, who the hell are they?

Without rehashing previous threads, it would make a far better argument from your side if you stuck to the early Christian era without introducing these specious modern analogies.

I have argued previously, and am prepared to do so again, that the probabilty of:
cold fusion as a phenomena is zilch: P(cf) ~ 0
IDC as a scientific replacement for evolution is zilch: P(IDC) ~ 0
MJ has a reasonable P(MJ) > 0.1 probability, in fact rather better Carrier's probabilities

The point being that all this IDC stuff is Tommy-Rot, and if you do not know it by now, then you should.

Ben C Smith

Here is Matthew 5.28, 32:

Εγω δε λεγω υμιν οτι πας ο βλεπ[U]ων γυναικα προς το επιθυμησαι αυτην ηδη εμοιχευσεν αυτην εν τη καρδια αυτου.

Εγω δε λεγω υμιν οτι πας ο απολυων την γυναικα αυτου παρεκτος λογου πορνειας ποιει αυτην μοιχευθηναι, και ος εαν απολελυμενην γαμηση μοιχαται.

And here is Theophilus:

∏ας ο ιδων γυναικα αλλοτριαν προς το επιθυμησαι αυτην ηδη εμοιχευσεν αυτην εν τη καρδια αυτου. και ο γαμων, φησιν, απολελυμενην απο ανδρος μοιχευει, και ος απολυει γυναικα παρεκτος λογου πορνειας ποιει αυτην μοιχευθηναι.

The underlined words are exact verbal correspondences between the two.

Unless you are changing the meaning of the word allusion, these are more than allusions. Most of them are too close for coincidence to the gospel of Matthew. Do you think that Theophilus knew the gospel of Matthew, or do you think that Theophilus knew some text that is now lost to us?

Ben.

Ted Hoffman

I would postulate a common source for both of them. A source (CST?) without a HJ would be consistent with the MJ hypothesis.
Matthew in the form we have it would demand a cogent explanation from us regarding the following observations:
What would be your explanation for this peculiarity in Theophilus, dear Ben?

Ted Hoffman

But the pieces of data form evidence of the argument but not in isolation as you imply. Following the analogy I gave earlier, this is like arguing that all you need is blood on someone's hands to prove murder. And if I point out that whereas blood is good, we also need more, you throw away the blood evidence and complain that it is useless "if the pieces of data don't form evidence for the argument." You are like one arguing that you dont need motive and circumstance. The blood, motive, opportunity and so on are the pieces of data. In isolation, they are not sufficient to prove murder.
We find one of the earliest extra-biblical references to a HJ in Ignatius so if pagans were in the habit of reading Christian letters (forged or otherwise) that would set the terminus a quo but most references we have occur from the latter half of the second century.
You argued that the pagans knew that the word "logos", when used by Theophilus, referred to a flesh-and-blood man.
And you asked:
An impersonal force. We know that Hellenistic Jews such as Philo, and Greek thinkers, believed God to be transcendent and too spiritual and pure to come in contact with the material and impure world. Stoics, for example, believed that humans possessed the reasoning principle that governed the universe as per the mind of God. They called this the logos. Among Platonists, the logos varied between being God’s creative forces and being a divine entity. Philonic thought entailed a “heavenly man” who had the qualities of the logos. Doherty explains all this in TJP. Why in God's wooden sandals are you still trying to smuggle in gospel assumptions into such a fine discussion? After all these years?

The rest of your post is reflective of a lack of appreciation about what a cumulative argument is and it betrays an unrealistic and perhaps irrational insistence on a systemic black/white dichotomy between the beliefs of HJers and MJers.
Note that if that were true, we would not be having them all as Christians. They were lumped together with HJ Christians because there were areas of commonality. We set them apart from the rest because they do not demonstrate any awareness to a historical personage in their texts. We think this is remarkable because its a phenomena that is manifest accross a long period of time and in texts authored by different apologists and also because the historical parsonage in question is regarded as a central character of the religion in question by those that are aware of him.

GakuseiDon

Yes, that is a key question. Who were their audience? Athenagoras writes at the top of his "Plea for Christians":

"A Plea for the Christians by Athenagoras the Athenian: Philosopher and Christian. To the Emperors Marcus Aurelius Anoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus, conquerors of Armenia and Sarmatia, and more than all, philosophers… Allow me here to lift up my voice boldly in loud and audible outcry, pleading as I do before philosophic princes."

As a rule I avoid analogies, because you end up arguing more about the analogy than the problem. I don't believe in ID myself. I still think it is a good analogy for my point, but shall drop it.

krosero

This may be clear by now, but I am not calling Doherty’s group a non-Christian religion. If it existed, we can definitely call it Christian; the authors in his group all call themselves Christians.

Doherty calls it a religion, but I am not too concerned with the precise definition of “religion”, and I doubt that Doherty himself is that concerned. We can ask him, but I think he would use various words interchangeably, depending on the context: religion, sect, cult, group. I’ve also used the word “Christianities.”

If you wish to speak of an aspect of Christianity rather than a Christian religion, that’s fine with me.

I am not trying to establish a rule. I am trying something far less pretentious, which is simply to compare and contrast with other known sects. That can help us assess how realistic or probable Doherty’s scenario for his own groups is. But at no point do I wish to establish a general rule which his groups must pass or fail. History is far more interesting than that, and every case is unique. At the end of the day we all just have to decide how realistic or probable a given scenario is. Comparison and contrast – without the stricture of artificial rules – can help us do that.

I don’t know precisely what happened to them, but I will say this. I doubt that the orthodox took the followers of the Baptist to be orthodox Christians and adopted their texts, as is supposed to have happened with Doherty’s Logos group. As for the “Apollos religion” (I notice you feel confident enough about this case to call it a religion), it is one of Doherty’s proposed groups, and I have only requested an independent group known through work other than his own.

Answered above: I do not expect “the exact same thing” to happen in each case.

Agreed.

This is some of the most exaggerated language I’ve seen you use. Let me just suggest this. Right now we have a theory, Doherty’s, in which one of the biggest unexplained events is the early and relatively quick disappearance of Christianity’s original form. This sort of dramatic and unexplained event does seem to invite dramatic language, and I suggest you’re finding it easier to use dramatic words to persuade, rather than staring at the problem squarely.

At the same time, though, you do provide an argument: you say that Pauline mythicism did not have apostolic succession and therefore could not compete. You write: “Mythicism could not be beaten to a pipeline through which power could flow to the church leaders.”

This is a topic I think worth discussing, so let me just get the ball rolling.

The supposed lack of apostolic succession in Pauline mythicism caused its followers to abandon it within decades – rather inexplicably, I think. The Pastoral epistles show signs of growth: these communities now have pastors (unlike in Paul’s authentic letters), and leadership positions are being filled. The Pastorals are dated, in Doherty’s model, to about 120. But they are the last MJ documents that Doherty proposes; we have no more. Suddenly, we have no more documents from this recently growing religion, and within a quarter-of-a-century we have nothing but HJ documents as well as heresiologists who know nothing of the MJ belief.

This is pretty fast. Apparently no one held on in significant numbers to the original celestial Christ. But that movement had been, so Doherty tells us, pretty typical of the times. It was, if we may use the word, popular. Sure, some Christians among them might have found that arguments from apostolic succession – which were just starting, per Doherty’s model, around the time that mythicism disappears from the record – were forcible arguments to contend with. But communities don’t give way that fast to intellectual arguments; there are a host of sociological factors for the appeal and durability of any religion. How ascetic/celibate is it? Can it reproduce its numbers? Does it appeal to people’s beliefs? Does it provide for their needs? Does it make them productive? Does it help them adapt to external society?

On all these factors, I see no difference between Pauline mythicism and orthodox HJ faith. Nor should we expect to find any, since Doherty locates his group right in texts that have always been regarded as orthodox. Really the only differences I can see all count against Doherty: the supposed popularity of sublunar deities in his model, contrasted with the supposed narrowness (and novelty, a problematic quality in the ancient world) of the HJ tradition.

I mean, so what if the orthodox had an argument that would help them strengthen their leadership? That would be a long-term advantage, but there is no reason that Pauline mythicism could not have remained a popular movement for a long time, perhaps even as a more charismatic one than a structural one (though I remind you that the Pastorals are already building a structured leadership).

No single factor can wipe away a religion, as you put it, in a “nuclear winter.” The argument from apostolic succession would have given some leaders an advantageous argument over the leaders of the Pauline cult, but this hardly means that the Pauline cult would have disappeared right at the time that such arguments were getting started. No wonder you felt compelled to describe it as such a dramatic scenario.

And I get the sense from Doherty that he does not subscribe to such a quick turn of events; he said so in his last post, and has said so anytime that an HJ advocate has accused him of a too-quick disappearance of his group. Nor do I think that Doherty would depend on one factor alone to explain such significant events. So I will leave this argument of yours, Ted, alone for now and see if you can improve it.

You mean the Epistles of John. But that does no good here, since in Doherty’s theory, First and Second John opposed Pauline mythicism, not the Logos religion. I don’t think that Doherty tells us who Polycarp opposes, but Polycarp looks like he’s quoting 1 John, and on that basis he may have the same kind of opponent in mind (ie, Pauline mythicism – still kicking around the year 125).

Misunderstanding. My point was that my tradition was different from others, and that different apologists must have come from different traditions in antiquity, too. I offered this, if you look closely, as one factor among many to consider: I did not offer it as a comprehensive analogy between modernity and antiquity, and so my argument does not need the two time periods to be the same. Obviously, they are different.

I was not talking about how people should behave, but merely pointing out that they don’t always behave rationally. I hear that all the time on this board.

Each match is different, of course. Each situation faced by an apologist is different. Of course. I was pointing to character. Some people have the tendency to fall back, while others meet aggressive energy (persecution) head-on. Very simple and modest point, not meant to prove anything conclusively.

Another simple point – and it wasn’t even an “analogy.” I said only that I would have a hard time quoting Scripture against someone who seemed prejudiced against it. Other apologists, though they do speak of an HJ, do quote the OT for some of the points they want to make. Some of Doherty’s MJ apologists also quote the OT. There is really nothing hard to understand about my point. Accept it or reject it – but don’t dismiss it for failing as an “analogy”.

This phrase, “atheist fathers are stupid”, would of course be a problem for anyone who had an atheist father. That is to say, if one has an atheist father, there’s no way he can be excluded from the phrase “atheist fathers.” He is an atheist father, pure and simple. It cannot be debated.

Now let’s see if there’s something similarly non-debatable in Felix.

This is the statement that Doherty brought up (apparently it is his own translation?), from chapter 23:

“Men who have died cannot become gods, because a god cannot die; nor can men who are born become gods.”

Now, the pagan in Felix’s dialogues shows awareness, in chapter 9, that a man was punished on a cross and worshipped. As you might put it, he shows awareness that a man who died became a god.

Is that all correct? Is this what you find in Felix, which you compare to the (practically) equivalent phrases, “atheists fathers” and “my atheist father”?

Well, Felix does go on to tell the pagan, in chapter 29, that Christians have not worshipped, as God, an earthly being or a criminal. Felix is saying, as Don and I and others have argued, that this crucified man was not an earthly being – not a mere man such as the ones that pagans worship. That would be the missing qualification that you think is absent: Felix is telling the pagan that we’re not talking about a man who died and became a god; such a description would apply, says Felix, only to the pagan’s religion, in which mere men (or earthly beings) are regarded as deities (eternal beings). Rather, the Christians worship someone who is not even an earthly being, ie, NOT a man who died and became a god.

We went the full 15 rounds on this one. Per you and Doherty, our apologist is saying that Christians don’t worship any earthly beings or criminals, which by implication is a rejection of Jesus Christ. I have wondered how he could say this to a pagan, since the pagan is fully aware that Christians do worship a criminal man punished on a cross; he has directly charged Felix with doing so.

I would like to ask you, can Felix say that Christians absolutely do not worship any crucified figure, when the pagan already knows that some Christians do, and regards Felix as one of these Christians? Given the growth of HJ Christianity in this time, the pagan could easily go back to his sources about the worship of the crucified man and find that the rumors are based in fact: such worship is going on. I mean, seriously, where is Felix’s saving qualification? Where does he tell his opponent that he doesn’t belong to this practice? In your model, all he does is say that Christians could not have turned an earthly being into God. But the pagan thinks that they have, because his sources have told him this; and they would repeat the same thing if he asked them again, because in fact Christians were already worshipping what appeared to be a mere man turned into a deity.

In your model, Felix himself believes that this crucified figure was a mere man, turned falsely into a deity. But that is not what he tells the pagan: he says only that Christians have not worshipped a man as their God.

If Felix belongs to a particular sect that doesn’t worship Christ, then he could say that HIS sect doesn’t worship a crucified man. Then there would be no danger of the pagan coming back to him and accusing him of denying a veritable fact. Instead, Felix simply makes no distinction, and appears to be making a blanket denial that Christians practice this sort of worship.

Okay, I have to ask you to slow down when responding to my arguments. You’re telling me that I am assuming a certain belief on Felix’s part, and I am doing no such thing. I am working as Doherty does, assuming for the sake of argument that Felix is an HJ Christian, and then asking whether his arguments could be turned back on him if he were HJ. Doherty’s answer is different from mine, but our methodology is not different. I shouldn’t have to spell this out: Doherty thinks that if Felix were HJ, his arguments would be turned back on him directly, and that we must therefore conclude that he was not HJ. I argue above that even if his arguments could be turned back on him, we have just such a case in Irenaeus, too, and a pretty conspicuous one.

What???????????? What in heaven’s name is the importance of “if”? Irenaeus is talking about a god whom he doesn’t believe to exist, hence the “if.” I should not have to spell this out, either: my point is that if Ireaneaus says this about the God of the Gnostics, it could easily be turned back on him as an argument against the orthodox Christian God. My point is that Doherty can place too much weight on the fact that arguments could be turned back directly on the arguer.

You badly missed the thrust of my question, which I laid out in detail; it seems you just pounced on my opening question without reading what came after. That may be an aggressive style of responding, Ted, but you ended up punching at non-existent arguments. When I asked where the two apologists would have thought that Christ was crucified, I asked whether they believed in a heavenly crucifixion or an earthly one. That’s all. Nothing more specific than that. (I have no idea why you would bring a specific location like Golgotha into it, when the issue was simply whether the crucifixion was on earth or in the heavens). Go back and check it.

The same mistake here: I am not talking about precise statements about physical details such as the street address of the tomb. My point was entirely on a different subject: I was saying that mythicism has no unambiguous descriptions of the theologies that Doherty proposes.

I do not expect that. But it’s funny that you should say this to me, because it’s something I’ve been trying to get mythicists to understand: that Paul and the other early Christians were not interested in imparting clear historical data as much as discussing the meaning of the central events (the crucifixion and resurrection).

Here’s a prime example of what I’m talking about:

This is very important, because Doherty called this virtually a denial of an incarnation in Jesus. It’s one of his clearest errors, and I’m asking you both to look at what Theophilus actually says:

Theophilus here has directly answered your objection that the Word cannot be in God and in a specific place at the same time. Look at it: he says that God begat the Word but that this did not empty God himself of the Word. Clearly, the Word still resides in the heart of God. What has been begotten, even though it still resides in God, can be sent to a place.

A lot of Christians have thought of the incarnation in this manner, but we needed in this case to go no farther than the very paragraph where Doherty finds a particular line problematic. A more conspicuous case of ignoring the context could hardly be found.

But we can go to another document if you want. Look at this passage from Justin’s Second Apology, which we all agree is an HJ document:

By Doherty’s reasoning, Justin cannot believe that the Word is in every man at the same time that he is a particular man on earth. But Justin clearly believes it. It is mystical thinking. We are not dealing with prosaic statements about ordinary physics, where one object is “here” and cannot be “there.” God is not an object, nor is the Word an object.

This, I think, is as good an example as any of what I was suggesting before, namely that rationalist thinkers sometimes impose their modern-scientific, or simply prosaic, thinking upon documents that are very different.

Kevin Rosero

GakuseiDon

Because:
1. Theophilus appears to be aware of the Gospels
2. He wrote around 180 CE, at a time when people appeared to be aware of what Christians believed
3. What he writes is not inconsistent with early Christianity
4. Later Christians praised his work.

Richard Carrier notes:

“Near Tatian's Syrian church, but across the border in Roman territory (and amidst a decidedly Greek culture) flourished bishop Theophilus at Antioch, around 180 A.D. (M 117-9). Theophilus is important for a variety of reasons: he was the second, very shortly after Athenagoras (below), to explicitly mention the Trinity (Ad Autolycum 2.15); he may have composed his own harmony and commentary on the four Gospels chosen by Tatian; and he wrote books against Marcion and other heretics. He is also a window into the thinking of converts: he was converted by the predictions concerning Jesus in the OT (ibid. 1.14), perhaps the weakest grounds for conversion. But most of all, he routinely treats Tatian's Gospels as holy scripture, divinely inspired, on par with the Hebrew prophets (M 118). He also refers to John's Revelation as authoritative”.

Earl Doherty writes:

The first of the satirists to pillory Christians is Lucian, who in the 160s wrote On the Death of Peregrinus in which he mocks them for their gullibility in accepting beliefs "without any sure proof". Here he refers to "him whom they still rever, the human fellow who was crucified in Palestine for introducing this novel cult to the world." By this time the Gospels were in circulation, and everyone knew what Christians now believed about their origins. (my emphasis)

How about I give you a list of letters where the writer appear to be unaware of a HJ, and then you can tell me how you would determine whether the writer was a mythicist? I'll start a new thread if you like.

krosero

TedH,

There is also an argument I failed to include regarding the passing of Pauline mythicism due to the lack of apostolic succession.

You describe this lack as something decisive, something that left Pauline mythicism without a leg to stand on, so to speak.

I argued that no single argument, such as an argument from apostolic succession, could have killed off a significant movement, even within decades.

But if you do think it was such a significant factor as to blow mythicism out of the water and render everything a "nuclear winter" for those without apostolic succession, how then would you explain the popularity of Doherty's Logos-religion?

In his model, that religion cannot have apostolic succession linking back to a divine founder, because that religion did not look to any such founder.

Yet it obviously thrived. Doherty locates it right in mid-century when Pauline mythicism supposedly passed away; and he has located its roots in similar movements stretching back all the way to the first century.

It would appear, then, that the lack of an argument from apostolic succession affected Doherty's Logos-group not one whit.

Kevin Rosero

Ben C Smith

Hi, Ted.

What is a CST?

First, I would appreciate it if you would keep an even, noncondescending tone.

Second, one can only rarely tell what a source was by what the author left out (such as the names Jesus and Christ, or the concept of the incarnation).

Third, defining the son as the word through whom the world was created is not forbidden to HJ writers.

Fourth, salvation by obeying God is not forbidden to HJ writers.

I have already admitted that not mentioning an historical Jesus strikes me as odd. But that is all I can say. It strikes me as odd. IOW, it all has to do with my expectations. I do not trust my expectations (and, to be honest, I trust yours even less ).

What I trust far more than my own expectations is the interface of textual and historical connections:

1. Theophilus knows of a group of writings called gospels (plural), which he considers inspired.
2. Theophilus knows that one such gospel (singular) contains Matthew 5.28; Matthew 5.32 = Luke 16.18; Matthew 5.44, 46 = Luke 6.28, 32; Matthew 6.3. Notice that Matthew is the common denominator here (though there is also verbal affinity at times with Luke).
3. Theophilus hails from Antioch, reputedly the home of the gospel of Matthew.
4. Ignatius also hailed from Antioch (a generation or two before Theophilus), and knew of Matthean HJ traditions.
5. Theophilus also quotes from John by name.
6. As soon as Theophilus turns to (what we at least know as) the Pauline epistles, he changes his terminology from the gospel to the divine word, indicating that he did not find the stuff about the quiet life, taxes, and owing love in the same text as the other stuff he attributes to the gospel.

This collection of texts that Theophilus knows, which he calls gospels, containing things that are mirrored in Matthew (every time he refers to the gospel in the singular) and in John (whom he names)... what is it if not (at least some of) the canonical gospels?

Is it possible that there was an extant precursor of Matthew that lacked all mention of an HJ? Sure. It is certainly possible. But what will you give me as evidence? All you have, basically, is that Theophilus does not meet your expectations of what an author ought to write who has Matthew sitting open in front of him.

It is not that I am stubbornly resisting an obvious conclusion out of dogged devotion to an HJ theory. Far from it. I am not persuaded by that kind of evidence on any day of the week. I need more than my own expectations, and much more than yours.

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. On a thread from some time ago I reviewed part of the case made by Alan Garrow for (most of) the Didache preceding and being used as a source for the gospel of Matthew. Part of this case involves the teachings of the Didache being placed upon the lips of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew simply because the complete title of the Didache calls its contents the teachings of the Lord, and Matthew could simply have taken this to mean that Jesus uttered them during his tenure on earth.

Since the Didache is stingy in referring to an HJ, and the gospel of Matthew does it all the time, this hypothesis would help the MJ theory, right? At least it would not hurt. And I am quite attracted to it. As I mentioned on that thread, I am not convinced yet, but it is a good hypothesis, well worth considering, and very attractive in many of its particulars.

Now, keep in mind that Garrow makes his case across hundreds of pages in scholarly form. If that case has not entirely persuaded me, what chance do you think an offhand comment from a fellow amateur on a discussion board is going to have? I need details, cross arguments, supporting observations... the works.

I find it a lot easier to believe that Theophilus had some personal reason (as yet unknown to me) for omitting Jesus Christ from his text than to believe that he had access to a collection of works that contain what our gospels contain, and that he himself calls gospels, and that he even gives one of them the same name as we are used to, yet he never touched anything in the collection that we call gospels. All of that is, of course, possible. But it will require an argument, not just a remark (based ultimately on what Theophilus did not say) to the effect that such a postulated (body of) text(s) is compatible with the MJ theory.

Ben.