gnosis92

warning! txtspk used. if this offends u plz read no further.

as a courtesy to my reader i'm double spacing

i accept bart ehrman's definition of academic inquiry of history as research

into what most probably happened, based on secular critieria such as

independent attestation, contextual credibility, and dissimilarity.

if something probably happened in antiquity, then for the purpose of

doing academic history, the kind taught in universities, then it "happened"

and if it is improbable, then it probably didn't happen, i.e it is probable

shakespeare wrote his plays so the anti-stratfordian view did not happen.

i'm not sure if this argument has been used b4 considering how often

x-mythicism is raised here and how long and large the # of posts

and replies, as well as reviews, which i did not necessarily read all of them,

but this is one argument i thought of on my own:

according 2 doherty & other christ-mythicists, paul & the original

christians were a purely mystical-revelatory sect and that x was seen

as a purely spiritual figure. paul is the earliest x writer and his authentic

letters shows "no" evidence of a hj (where he does, it is explained

away as part of a world view of a fleshy sublunar realm) and that his

readers were all x-mythicists as paul was. paul wrote letters 2 the romans

in rome, (evidentally he did not establish this church, it was established

before him), to the churches in cities of corinth, galatians, thessolians, and

phillipi and to a man, philemon who obviously shared it, and these original

churches were all x-mythicists. that's at least 4 church-cities of early

xians. furthermore, paul lists by name many of the individuals he knew

at these churches in his greetings, and presumably all these individuals

were also x-mythicists, i.e junia. paul wrote around 40-50 ce. at least

some churches such as that in rome, were already in existence.

doherty argues a late date of 90 ce for mark and around 110-130 ce for the

other gospels. of course once written they do not instananeously become

accepted as there was no printing press that day. it might take at least

10 years of copying by hand for the gospel to become widely accepted.

that means around 100-110-ce mark became widely circulated,

what this means is that 100ce-40ce= 60 years, x-mythicsts in rome, corinth,

phillipi, galatia, were leading churches, teaching students, ordaining fellow

x-mythicsts, gaining new converts to x-mythicism, writing papers, in the

x-mythicist paulinist tradition that knew of no hj. according to doherty,

once mark was widely circulated, the original x-mythicists seemed to vanish,

without a trace, and early paulinists, like marcion, knew of no such

x-mythicists, and heresy hunters some educated in cities named above,

like iraneus never met such believers, celsus and pliny and tacitus

never met any x-mythicists from rome, even from where paul established,

these x-mythicists who were entrenched for at least 60 years, and possibly

more, did not dispute mark and other hj gospels but simply rolled over

and disappeared, did not form splinter factions, and early church fathers

such as polycarp and ignatius of churches of rome and corinth, knew of no

such believers as x-mythicists, and there was no competition btwn

x-mythicists and hj's in rome and corinth, and everyone overnight it seems,

including the x-mythicists who were training their students for at least 60+

years, accepted a hj. we would expect the x-mythicists in rome, corinth,

galatia, philipi to advocate their viewpoint of a purely spiritual sort.

there is no evidence of any such conflict such "heresy".

seems improbable and therefore it did not happen.


how do we explain the rapid acceptance of mark and other gospels

in corinth, rome, galatia, philip in terms of what probably happened in

antiquity?

simple. we reject doherty's "fleshy sublunar realm"

it appears that paul's letters to the various churches, his immediate audience

believed in an hj, not a myth-x, and the details of this hj roughly

map up w/ mark and other gospels, and when they were written, they

were accetped as accurate, passed down for over 60 years.

it's the simplest most parsimonous explanation of what probably happened.

since about 60 years passed from paul's original x-mythicist to the

widespread circulation of hj gospels, they if they did exist,

would have been present to oppose the hj gospels for their own

understanding of paul, and their opposition would be present in heresy.

what would become mainline orthodoxy, such as iraneus, would have

these folks as opponents. since we do not observe the consequences

of doherty's theory, it therefore is unlikely to be true.

what probably happened, based on the observations that the hj gospels

were quickly adopted by churches that were paul's recipient of his letters, is that

paul's audience understood "in the days of his flesh" "words of the lord" "born of

woman, born seed of david" "on the night he was betrayed" as speaking of an hj, not

a m-x.

i'd like to point out that paul's letters themselves show that there is a strong

judaizers opposition to his own "gospel", and it's hard to believe that if

paul understood x as a purely spiritual figure, that the judaizers would not

have mentioned this as a point against paul as they obviously were willing to use

torah as debating points against him.

Toto

I don't see a lot of txtspk, except 2 = to and x = Christ or Christian. The double spacing does not actually help.

I think you misunderstand things. You can try to research what probably happened, but then you only have what probably happened. You can't make the leap between what probably happened to "100% sure it happened."

Unless, of course, the names of those churches were added to existing letters, and there were only a few house churches in northern Greece, and no church in Rome.

Slow down. Doherty's date of 90 is not especially late. Some date gMark closer to the middle of the second century. And there is NO evidence that Mark's gospel was widely circulated by 110, OR that it had a historicist interpretation at that date. We have no evidence that Mark's gospel was circulated at all before maybe 150 or 180, and no evidence that it was given a historicist interpretation at that time. Certainly you cannot say that "according to Doherty, once Mark was widely circulated, the original mythicists seemd to vanish." This is not Doherty's theory.

We have no idea of the particular beliefs of the Christians that Pliny or Tacitus might have met.

That depends on how you classify Docetists. Those who believe in a HJ firmly believe that Docetists thought there appeared to be a historical Jesus, but his real essense was spiritual. At least some mythicists think that Docetists were the original mythicists. Doherty thinks that Docetists were a transitional form between the earlier believers in a spiritual Jesus and later believers in a Jesus who was both physical and a part of the Trinity, a doctrine which many have tried to understand and failed.

Non sequitur. You can't jump from what seems improbable to you to "therefore it did not happen."

Unless, of course, Paul's letters were edited by later Christians, and the Judaizers didn't believe in a physical Jesus either, or any of many other possibilities.

Rick Sumner

This doesn't seem ad hoc to you? Surely it's not good form just to go about positing interpolations (much less a reworking as dramatic as you're suggesting) wherever most convenient?

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Toto

We know that there were interpolations in most of ancient literature. You can't just assume that there were no interpolations, especially if you are going to try to work out what was most probable.

If gnosis92 is going to assert that what is most probably actually happened, he needs to demonstrate why interpolations are not probable.

EarlDoherty

Thanks, Toto, for an incisive reply to "gnosis##". And I found his text somewhat difficult to read, and skimming it was impossible. I think that there is no justification for textspeak, or lack of proper capitalization, etc., on this board. I for one would never bother to read or address it.

Also please note that since it is usually the case that (especially when I come onto the forum) I get inundated with opposing views, it is often impossible because of time and energy constraints to address them all. Please don't take my silence on some threads or to some postings as lack of interest, or (worse still, of course!) lack of possible counter-argument.

(Then, of course, there are those I choose to ignore, especially on repetitive topics.)

Earl Doherty

Rick Sumner

Not quite. We can both agree that there are interpolations all you like. You're suggesting that those interpolations occur at specific (and decidedly convenient) spots. You would need to show that that's the case--to argue that there is an interpolation in that spot.

We'd never get everywhere if we had to argue that each passage was, in fact, not an interpolation. It's also odd that I've never seen you make that demand of people you hold views more in common with. Though, to be fair, I've never seen anyone make that demand of anyone before. It's counter-intuitive and counter-productive to such a degree that it seems silly to even entertain it.

Though if we get to play things that way, I'll get in on the action too. I'll start by positing that the word "revealed" is interpolated in the entirety of the Pauline epistles. Since you're calling for a blanket "editting," rather than simple interpolation, I'll also kick it up a notch. It didn't originally read "revealed," it read "it was literally seen by. . ."

Prove me wrong.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

gnosis92

[QUOTE=Toto;4575246]
"It was inevitable that these varying expressions would gravitate toward each other. Some time in the late first century, within a predominantly gentile milieu probably in Syria, some Christian scholar or circle combined the community and founder of Q with the mythical suffering Jesus of the Pauline type of Christ cult. Perhaps his community had a foot in both camps, an expression of classic syncretism. The result was the Gospel of Mark. Its author seems to have worked from oral or incomplete Q traditions, for his Gospel fails to include the great teachings of Jesus and prophetic pronouncements which Matthew and Luke have inherited.

What did Mark do? He crafted a ministry which moved from Galilee to Jerusalem, now the site of Jesus' death. He virtually re-invented the Apostles out of early, now-legendary figures in the Christ movement; they served mostly instructional purposes. He brought into the Jesus orbit all the figures and concepts floating about in the Christian air, like Son of God, Messiah, Son of David, the apocalyptic Son of Man.

Most important of all, he had to craft the story of Jesus' passion. Some suggest that Mark used an earlier, more primitive fashioning of Jesus' trial and execution, one John later used as well. Others think that all the famous elements of our passion story are purely Markan inventions: the scene in Gethsemane, Judas the betrayer, the denial by Peter, the actual details of Jesus' trial and crucifixion, the story of the empty tomb. Considering that no concrete evidence surfaces in the record of any pre-Markan passion story, the second option is the most likely. We owe the most enduring tale Western culture has produced to the literary genius of Mark. "

http://home.ca.inter.net/~oblio/partthre.htm

"One will uncover valuable insights into the nature and diversity of early Christianity, the types of belief that were developing in different sectarian communities, where the light of the Gospels had not yet arrived to cast its artificial and distorting glare over the new landscape."


http://home.ca.inter.net/~oblio/supp04.htm

Toto

Why should I prove you wrong? You can believe anything you like.

The question you need to answer is why such an interpolation or amendation would be made - to change "was literally seen by" to "revealed." This doesn't track any of the ideological battles that we know about.

We do know that Marcion and his orthodox opponents each had different readings of Paul - it seems likely that each could have made editorial comments in support of their own philosophies.

But gnosis92 has a higher burder on proof. He has claimed that the most likely scenario has to be true. He has to show that it is more likely that the orthodox story of Jesus is true, than that some documents were forged or interpolated. So what makes more sense - that Paul met people who knew Jesus, but studiously avoided learning any details of his life, even to add local color to his letters, or that Paul conceived of a spiritual savior, and later orthodox Christians rewrote his letters to make it appear that he believed in a fleshy part of the Trinity? Is it more likely that oral legends circulated about Jesus until they were finally written down, after the catastrophic destruction of Jerusalem, or that somebody made up a good story, incorporated lots of religious symbolism?

Is it more likely that there was a developed church in Rome that we have no historical or other record of, or that later orthodox put Rome on a letter Paul wrote to another church, or to Christians in general?

I won't develop this argument here, since it's Friday night, but you can see how it goes.

Toto

gnosis92: Doherty does not assume that Mark was widely circulated by 110. That invalidates your argument as I understand it.

Rick Sumner

I've snipped the rest, because this makes the point brilliantly, in your own words.

The existence of such a sect is integral to both our suggestion of interpolations. You need a church that has no record to have existed and later been redacted out. My reductio ad absurdum needs the same sect to have existed, but been the redactor. If one isn't tenable by fiat, then neither is the other.

Interpolations need to be argued on a case by case basis, with the party endorsing them to bear the burden of proof. Put in simplest terms, it comes down to Occam's Razor: adding a redactor for a verse is a new entity. The person suggesting that such an entity exists needs to show that it's more likely than the alternative. The person suggesting that a verse is original owns no such burden, since the solution with the fewest unproven entities is preferred.

Whether you can develop the argument here is really irrelevant and unnecessary (Friday night or not). The point I'm disputing is not whether you can come up with an argument, nor is it whether or not the argument is right. On the contrary, what I'm disputing is who owns the obligation to develop such an argument.

Regards,
Rick Sumner