Toto

When making such a broad statement, it is generally good form to provide some sort of reference - a book title or a web page.

But I should warn you that Habermas is a crank of no particular credibility here. Read Peter Kirby's review of The Historical Jesus.

Årçhai

That's interesting. . . But doesn't address what fully what I said (Paul, 6-8 sources, etc.).
References, references. . . Dr. Gary Habermas in an interview on 'Faith under Fire', hosted by Lee Strobel: Interview

spin

These guys are welcome to their opinions. I think they're conventional pipedreams. (And we try not to deal with opinions.)

There are no functional historical markers in the Pauline corpus that allow us to date those texts. (Check the archives before disagreeing.) So, what tangible evidence is there for dating Paul?

We need markers that are stable before we can proceed to build up a new historical context. As things stand we have none regarding the new testament material -- unless you've got some successful way of providing such markers.

I get tired of shallow thought that reduce things to reality and fiction. I wish you'd all get a life. It's the same boring binary reasoning that I've heard for decades.

If you shed the notion that the texts need either to be historical or fictional, then you have the opportunity to reconstruct them for what they are, but still it will be hard, because we have a set of traditions in this literature obscured by the overwriting of new ideas and new retellings.

Good luck.


spin

Årçhai

Yeah, something about that belief in Biblical inerrancy. . . . Doesn't leave room for fiction, where actual history is meant to be recounted.

spin

I couldn't parse your comment. I don't know why you mentioned inerrancy or how actual history is brought into the issue, especially when the context and genre of the texts haven't been established. Is it that you have have a priori issues?


spin

Årçhai

You mentioned shedding the notion that Biblical texts need to be either historical or fiction. I take the texts, in light of what you said, as historical, not fiction. And yes, that's an a priori belief.

spin

You may have misunderstood what I said. We need to do away with notions such as the text necessarily being historical or necessarily being fictional. There are possibilities other than history or fiction. Delusion, if for example Paul got his knowledge of Jesus from a revelation (as per Galatians 1). Errors in retelling. Logic based on wrong assumptions. And a host of other possibilities in an age when religious ideas were fast and furiously being developed.

You need to start clean with the texts. That's where the shedding of necessarily historical or necessarily fictional is important. There may be history or fiction in the texts, but you have to demonstrate this.

A priori is right out.


spin

Årçhai

I don't think I'd call a revelation a delusion, per say, in the negative connotation of the word. Nor do I think errors in retelling, in such a short period, is consistent with the Jewish model we have provided for us.

I don't quite get your 'logic based on wrong assumptions' point. . . And the last point is well taken, but I don't believe it necessarily results in error/wrong.

spin

The problem is that there is no objective way to differentiate between the two.

Think of chinese whispers as the model. The Jewish model is so far unsubstantiated and it is hard for one to project such an idea onto texts written in Greek for an apparently Roman audience, as Mark, the first gospel, was.

Tertullian wrote against a person called Ebion. His erroneous assumption, or that of a predecessor, is that the Ebionites were founded by one Ebion, then Ebion developed in patristic literature.

The importance of all is that one must not start with commitments in any direction. There are options other than history and fiction that can account for the manifestations of tradition found in the new testament. I don't necessarily advocate any. It's just that it is inappropriate to assume what is not known.


spin

Ben C Smith

We appear to agree that the one-and-all attribution to Leucius is probably false. (I myself have considered the possibility that the author of the Acts of John was Leucius; not wedded to that at all, but it is possible.)

Yes, omnes quos fecit Leucius discipulus diabuli apocryphi.

Yes, but you and I seem to agree that the evidence for these Acts all having actually been written by Leucius is suspect. So I fail to see your problem with Tertullian referring to the Acts of Paul early in century III.

Ben.