aa5874

Now, upto the 3rd century or the writing De Principiis by a supposed writer called Origen, this writer would imply that there was really no orthodoxy in Christianity with respect to matters, great and small, concerning Jesus.

De Principiis by Origen Origen has in effect destroyed the claims of orthodoxy by Irenaeus and Tertullian.

Vincent Guilbaud

To come back on the difference between G.A.Wells and E.Doherty theories.

I think it is a good thing we have these two great scholars.
They offer us two very interesting and convincing possibilities on the nature of early Christian beliefs.

They might be both correct as some Christians might have believed in an heavenly crucifixion while others in an earthly, though still mythical and belonging to Adam & Eve's kingdom.

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But Doherty and Wells also disagree on the Galilean movement.

I don't know about Eddy and Boyd's 3 categories,
But I see in reality 5:

1 - Christian:
Jesus was a man and also God (or something like that)
From Fundamentalist to Crossan

2 - Supernatural:
Jesus was a 'prophet' (with some extra power)

3 - Secular-Standard:
Jesus was just a man

4 - Secular - Myth 1 (Wells)
Jesus was just a man,
but he has never been crucified in Jerusalem
so Christianity started independantly of him.

5 - Secular - Myth 2 (Doherty)
Jesus has never even existed as a man.

I would give 95% for the two last ones and 0% for the first two.
Yet, there might be 50% people who believe 1 or 2 while surely less than 0.1% for the myth (4 or 5).

Crazy world we live in!

Toto

Cutting Jesus Down to Size: What Higher Criticism Has Achieved and Where It Leaves Christianity (or via: amazon.co.uk) by G.A. Wells is recommended by John Loftus

review on Vridar

mountainman

I assume you mean Origen (Greek: Ὠριγένης Ōrigénēs, or Origen Adamantius, c. 185–254[1]) the early Christian African[2] scholar and theologian, one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church and not Origen the Platonist philosopher who lived in Alexandria, student of Ammonius Saccas and a contemporary of Plotinus.

mountainman

Hi jakejonesiv,

The suggestion that docetism underlies the proto-orthodox position is astounding. How convoluted a Christology is this. ? We may as well say that a lie underlies the history.

Origen is being used to cite what the gnostic thought. His sources according to Eusebius, and our current panel of chronology experts, were the main series of Gnostic acts of the 2nd century - at one time thought to be authored by Leucius Charinus, the presbyter of Asia mentioned by Tertullian in regard to the Acts of Paul. Origen's sources therefore, according to generally accepted script of time were the Gnostics. These authors of early christian writings present a Jesus who changes like a chameleon throughout a independent "Acts" texts.

And the Gnostic author of the Acts of John argued that Jesus appeared to walk on the surface of the earth under the cosmic and universal laws of gravity, but in fact he floated above the earth, and the author tells us that the Apostle John, though he looked for them, could not find any footprints left by Jesus on the earth.

This suggests to me that if your are going to argue that the proto-orthodox position may have evolved from an earlier Docetic Christology, then it must follow that the orthodox were gnostics - perhaps in disguise. And this to me does not make sense.

.

Best wishes


Pete

aa5874

"De principiis" is attributed to a Church writer named Origen who DESTROYED the claims of orthodoxy in Christianity by Tertullian and Irenaeus.

It must be NOTED that the writings of Justin Martyr support non-orthodoxy in Christianity in the middle of the 2nd century. Justin Martyr even claimed that there were Christians who were BLASPHEMERS of the name of Jesus.

"Dialogue with Trypho"XXXV Justin Martyr is TELLING us that there were "Christians" who actually did NOT BELIEVE in Jesus Christ. This is an extremely significant admission which destroys the NOTION that the mere mention of the name "Christian" must be directly related to Jesus Christ.

mountainman

Yes, especially when retrospectively writing a report of the conflict.



Or even overnight. "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the ruler as useful" The more power that the ruler has the more useful religion becomes. History seems to indicate, at least in the cases of Ardashir and Constantine and Muhammad, that the more absolute miltary power that the ruler held, then the more absolutely useful religion became to them.

You are correct in pointing out that "the vast majority of believers couldn't actually read.".
We are reading the records of an extemely elite group from antiquity.

aa5874

But, in antiquity, it would seem that it was the so-called "WISE" and "POWERFUL" that believed in the MYTH Gods and DEVISED ALL MANNER of Doctrine.

The DEIFIED EMPERORS of ROME did SACRIFICE to the MYTH Gods and so did the WISE and POWERFUL of other NATIONS.

It must be remembered that BELIEF in Gods did NOT originate with the Jesus story or in Rome.

mountainman

Hi Vincent Guilbaud,

Thanks for the restatement of the OP.
I agree - both positions are interesting.

There are many perspectives. Someone else also pointed out that another difference in standpoint is the way each author handles the historicity of Paul. My position is closest to #5.

Thanks for the analysis. It's a good spectrum. There was a table ....
To be complete we need Myth #3 - Poius Forgery
That allows 3 types of HJ's and 3 types of MJ's.

6 - Common - Myth 3 (Pious Forgery)
Jesus as published never existed as a man.

mountainman

Wells could be wrong. One big argument in Earl's favor is the fact that the trend in scholarship appears to be less inclined to differentiate between the middle Platonists and the Neoplatonists. Everywhere in books about the so-called "neoPlatonist" philosophers of the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries, the authors seem to be very quick to point out that these people who have previously been termed "neoplatonists" would hardly have called themselves such.

"Plato's dialogues formed a coherent system structured "not in any unwritten doctrine but in an ordering of the corpus which was designed to lead the student from the experimental or tentative stage, a mere testing of his wits, to the communication in which all truth becomes luminous to the intellect" ..... These Platonists regarded themselves as true followers of Plato's teaching, focusing not only on the philological analysis of the dialogues but mainly on the philosophical discussion of the truths within them."

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2007) of Mark Edwards', "Culture and Philosophy in the Age of Plotinus" (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Hence Earl Doherty has many more sources at his disposal.
Everyone else is stuck out on a rotting limb with Big E.