aa5874

It is possible that you are right when you say "a little too strong and/or early".

But, how is that when there were at least SIXTEEN Christians cults with at least SIXTEEN different christian doctrines up to the 3rd century?

Up to the 3rd century, according to Origen, many Christians were NOT at all crystalised in their beliefs about Jesus.

Well, can you explain why neither Tertullian, Clement, and even Origen did NOT write that "Irenaeus" was " a little too strong or a little too early"?

Examine "De Pricipiis" Why is Origen, in the 3rd century, NOW trying to "lay down an unmistakable rule"?

How is it that in the 3rd century many who believe in Christ differ in virtually everything about him?

What 4 Gospels were crystalized?

Well, Origen in the third century will tell you about the versions of gMark in "Against Celsus".

"Against Celsus" 1.62 "Against Celsus" 6.37 So what was really crystalized in the third century? Not even gMark was crystalzed.

There is just NO credible evidence that any Christian cult used the 4 contradictory non-harmonised Gospels simultaneously.

There were at least SIXTEEN different Christian doctrines in the 3rd century and it was in the 4th century that the Universal Church, the Catholic Church, and their Universal doctrine was FIXED under Constantine.

Kapyong

Gday,

Indeed.
Christian beliefs and doctrines about Jesus are many and varied - both then and now.

But of course what I was actually discussing in this little sub-argument was the dating of the NT canon, or list of books, (not beliefs or doctrines about Jesus,) and I think everyone agrees on late 4th C. for that.

I then went on to distinguish the Gospel 'sub-canon', or "list of four Gospels" as I wrote - which list formed a little earlier than the wider list of the whole NT canon.

At the earliest, one could argue the Gospel sub-canon had formed, or crystalised, by late 2nd C. with Tatian's diaTessaron, and Irenaeus.

And the Gospel sub-canon seems fairly solid by early 3rd with Tertullian and Origen.

I'd say that is a pretty non-controversial claim. Although these days, almost everything is being challenged.


K.

DrZoidberg

I thought the "original" gospel, if one can call it that was Mark, and the rest of them were derivative. So then there's only one gospel mentioning it, which proves fuck all.

gurugeorge

So you're prepared to hold the notion of historicity in these fantastic stories as a fixed axis, around which the rest (god-man or mere man?) can revolve?

Well, you'll forgive me for saying that just seems totally batshit crazy. There's no justification for it at all.

WHY? Just because it sounds like a nice story about a nice guy if you strip away the fantastic elements? (And after all, nice guys have existed and can exist?)

There's no logic there at all, it's totally arbitrary.

Let me see if I can't put even clearer the insanity that's going on here. You have a fantastic traditional story that purports to be a historical, eyewitness account of a god-man. For centuries, people took these scribblings as PROOF, as EVIDENCE, that once and only once in our human history, in 1st century Palestine, the God who created this universe sent an avatar of himself down to live among us, who suffered and died as a man, but resurrected as a god.

And now, you arbitrarily want to scrape away all that fantastic religious stuff, everything that sounds implausible to your ears, and retain just that element of the story that purports to be historical witness????

The historicity of that story pertained to the god-man. If there can have been no god-man, the historicity element doesn't now suddenly float free so you can appropriate it for whatever "wise man" construct you fancy.

The texts' "purporting-to-be-historical-witness-ness" pertained to the god-man; it is not available as an abstract quality to be detached from that story or retained by just stripping away the fantastic elements.

Madness.

Do you not realise that all that has happened here is that over the course of a few centuries, rationalists managed to get out of the grip of Christian dogma while retaining their necks by cleverly and pseudo-respectfully allowing that there might have been a "wise man" underneath the comic-book character? You are not meant to take that seriously, it was just a subterfuge! It actually makes no logical sense, it's just a plausibility argument, it's just something you say to someone who has your life in their hands, who believes something very strongly and if you deny it they will kill you, but you still want to retain some self-respect and stick by some rationalist principles.

Now of course that's not to say it's impossible - it is possible. But it has to be argued for, from scratch. IOW, that there are historical elements hidden beneath the myth, that there is some historical witness in this tall tale, that this particular myth has euhemeristic roots, has to be argued for.

Petergdi

You ought reasonably to know that this is not what orthodox Christians believe. And AFAIK no unorthodox ones do either. But your argument appears to require that we take your parody of Christian beliefs seriously.

Peter.

Juststeve

Guru:

There is nothing arbitrary about scraping away the fantastic details from a story about a historical character. To the contrary it is what rational people do.

When I scrape away as you put it the claim that Jesus walked on the water, or came back to life after crucifixion I am not acting arbitrarily. I have good reasons for discounting those claim. Similarly if I discount the claim that Washington threw a silver dollar over the Delaware I am not acting arbitrarily. I’ve have good reason to believe he could not have done it.

As I told bracht, no one here is defending the theory that there was an historical figure who walked on water, rose from the dead or who was born of a virgin.

Steve

show_no_mercy

What exactly is the parody of Christian belief here? You just used about 30 words when all you really wrote was "no".

No Robots

It already has been, in my opinion, adequately argued. That some do not accept the argument for historicity is not unexpected. But no one has the obligation to make the argument now that it has already been made. It is either to be accepted or rejected. In the end, proofs do not convince, but convictions prove. In other words, we will carry on thinking and acting on the conviction of the historical reality of Christ the man, and the fruits of this thought and action bear the proof of the practical effectiveness of the conviction. The contrary conviction, that the historicity of the man, Christ, is untenable, unknowable or uncertain, does not lead to any kind of practically effective thought or action. Thus, mythicists are left to squawk about their conviction, and complain about the invalidity of the contrary, while historicists carry on shaping the world in Christ's image. This is what infuriates the mythicists, that Christians continue to use Christ for their own purposes, to build a world centered on this person. It doesn't matter that the mythicists don't like it. The important thing is for Christians to go about the business of building a better world, and not heed the distracting voices of those who want to obliterate Christ from the ongoing work of shaping human destiny.

bacht

I was wondering that too. I thought George gave a nice summary of the gospel.

bacht

But this is what the texts are saying. If we project our own interpretation then what's the point of following the texts at all? Did Mark expect later readers to scrape away his details to uncover the real story? What kind of game is that?