spamandham

John had to have been at least 20 in the year 30. Polycarp died in ~155 according to tradition. That means their combined ages at death are 155 + 20 - 30 = 145. By itself this is very unlikely in a time period where the average lifespan of those who made it past childhood was 45.

But I don't think it's reasonable to assume Polycarp was handed the apostolic torch at birth. If we assume the traditional age of authority in the ancient world of 30, then that means their combined ages at death is probably closer to 175. Worse yet, Irenaeus claims this authority was passed to Polycarp not just by John, but by John and other unnamed disciples - requiring that even more people lived to the age of 80 or 90.

This is abject bullshit. Irenaeus is a propagandist, not a historian.

sschlichter

If John was 20 at the time of Christ and lived to the year 100. that makes him 90 years old. Not unprecedented at all and far short of even strange. If Polycarp was born in 70 that makes 30 years of overlap. His living into his eighties is hardly the stuff of mythology.

if John lived to his 90's their is still 20 years of overlap and this assumes much on the age of John.

What is difficult about this?

show_no_mercy

Where are the statistics of poor itinerant preaching Jews in the 1st century living to 90 years of age? Hell, what are the statistics of any modern poor itinerant preachers living to 90 years old? I certainly haven't met any street preachers travelling around the world at 90 - especially as a 15 - 20 year old. And I certainly haven't heard of any world travelling 90 year old itinerant preachers getting lessons in their teens or early 20s from other 90 year old itinerant world travelling preachers.

sschlichter

Perhaps you have not looked enough. I can think of a few. Hosius was 101 years old assuming you do not beleive him to be fictitious as well. My grandfather was 96 years old. he was certainly not fictitious in my experience.

clean living.

show_no_mercy

Were your grandfather and Hosius wandering itinerant poor Jewish preachers who were supposedly travelling all around the Roman empire spreading the good news? Just pointing out a person who lived to old age in antiquity doesn't match the criteria that supposedly typified John and Polycarp.

I have a few friends who were taught by Frankie Manning (I could have been taught, but sadly I missed out ). But the reason why he wouldn't match the profile of John is that he wasn't an illiterate Jewish fisherman who was supposedly poor and travelling all around the Roman Empire preaching. Frankie Manning had all of the convenience of modern medicine, modern travel support, literacy, affluence, etc. to support a 90 year old teaching swing dance workshops all around the world. I can't imagine 90 year old John or 80 year old Polycarp having the same benefits and comfort of living as Frankie.

sschlichter

This is a silly conversation. Please point out the lifestyle differences between Hosius and Polycarp and supply me with some reason why one could live to be 101 and the other could not live to be in his eighties.

~steve

show_no_mercy

Do you really think they had the same lifestyle? Hosius lived when Christianity was the legal religion of the Roman Empire. Polycarp lived when Christians were seen as a misanthropic cult. Polycarp was supposedly travelling around the entire Roman empire under constant threat of martyrdom without any support from Roman authorities. Persecutions of Christians ended in 313. During Hosius' lifetime, Christians were the ones persecuting pagans. Hosius had the support of the official Roman Catholic church and actually met with Emperor Constantine.

They lived in two totally separate sociological contexts, not to mention 200 years removed from each other. You might as well find it "silly" that a white northern banker lived longer than a runaway slave in the 1800s.

spamandham

The probability of this 2000 years ago, is quite small. Not zero of course, but small. If we use modern 3rd world demographics, the probability of living to age 90, for those who make it past childhood, is around 0.01

Similarly in the 3rd world, the probability of living to 80, for those who make it past childhood, is about 0.04.

The probability of *both* of these events is 0.01*0.04 = 1 in 2500. This is already quite remarkable by itself. But it gets worse, because Irenaeus claims other disciples agreed with John to pass the torch to Polycarp. If there were originally 12 disciples, that means that at least 3 of them had to live to around age 90.

The probability of 3 of 12 living to 90 (using binomial distribution, 12 take 3 with p=0.01), I calculate as 0.0002. We then calculate the probability of 3 of 12 living to ~90 *and* Polycarp living to ~80 as:

0.0002 * 0.04 = 1 in 125,000.

It's true this is not "impossible", but we are already at lottery style odds, and any reasonable person would conclude this is bullshit. We can also identify the motive for Irenaeus to concoct this story, closing the case.


This calculation, IMHO, is overly generous.

sschlichter

1) why would we use modern 3rd world demographics?

2) disciple <> apostle

3) otherwise, I will trust you on the math.

spamandham

...because we don't have 2000 year old demographics, and the modern 3rd world, for which we do have demographic data, is the closest thing we have to conditions similar to that of 2000 years ago. If you come up with something better, we can recalculate. However, we do have a single data point, which is that ancient authors stated that 45 was the normal life span of a man (who made it past childhood obviously). This is actually a little less than in the modern 3rd world, so I think the numbers I used were generous.