Sheshbazzar

A bit of context clarifies the subject.

This is NOT history. This is nothing more than imaginative religious fiction.
And is certainly not any valid evidence of any real-world history or situations, or that a dead and buried person ever came back to life, and was then able to -teleport- himself about and -levitate- off into the clouds.


All fabricated Christian religious horse-shit, but some desire to pluck bits of straw out of this stinking steaming pile of horse-shit, and try to pass them off as being a pieces of actual history.

That alleged 'evidence' of the alleged 500 is NOT, and cannot be used as any form of valid 'evidence' as to the number of Christians present in the 1st century.
It is however a valid part of the evidence -against- Christianity and its horse-shit claims.



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andrewcriddle

Unless you define "credible scholar" as "scholar who agrees with me", I doubt if this claim can be defended.

Andrew Criddle

tanya

Thanks, Andrew.

Yes, certainly you raise a valid point, 1 Corinthians 15:6 is a source of information, I agree with you.

But, is it a valid source of information?

What does constitute a veracious bit of data, whether in our time, or in ancient times? How do we decide whether or not, certain "facts" found in ANY document, whether contemporary, or ancient, are true, false, deceptive, or simply exaggerated? It is not as easy, as some would argue.

Philosopher Jay is very skillful at drawing out contemporary examples, generally from cinema, to illustrate a particular point on this forum. I lack his skill, obviously, but, I would point to an event in our recent memory, Colin Powell's presentation, a decade ago, to the UN Security Council, televised world wide. There, we saw evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and based upon this evidence, the USA invaded Iraq--a consequence of believing the accuracy of that bogus data.

We know now, that the entire "evidence" presented was simply a pretext--Bush intended to invade, and needed an excuse. Much of Powell's "evidence" was misrepresentation, some of it was simply misinterpreted, and some of it was concocted out of thin air.

If an event, with that degree of world wide observation, can emerge, and then give rise to consequences of enormous import, in our own times, under the gaze of television cameras, it seems a fair question to ask you, how do you know, Andrew, that the figure quoted in 1 Corinthians 15:6 is accurate?

a. supporting evidence from other texts?

b. evidence from material other than written words?

I think we need to be very careful about accepting as legitimate, any data from a couple thousand years ago. Even something as relatively benign, as, for example, the quantity of persons dying with the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE, could be wrong by an order of magnitude. Who reported the event, and what axe did they have to grind?

I am not writing here, that you are absolutely wrong. I am writing that it is wrong, in general, to accept at face value, numbers introduced, supposedly in the first century CE, whether inflated, or underestimated, given the long history of interpolation in the original materials, as may be readily observed, simply by looking at the several different versions of the same verses in the Bible.

Even the verse you cite, Andrew, is dissimilar, (in, admittedly, trivial ways) when we compare the Byzantine version with that found in Codex Sinaiticus. (yes, I understand that both versions cite 500 people as witness to Jesus' resurrection)

Byzantine:

επειτα ωφθη επανω πεντακοσιοις αδελφοις εφαπαξ εξ ων οι πλειους μενουσιν εως αρτι τινες δε και εκοιμηθησαν

Codex Sinaiticus:

επειτα ωφθη επανω πεντακοϲιοιϲ αδελφοιϲ εφαπαξ εξ ων οι πλιονεϲ μενουϲιν εωϲ αρτι τινεϲ δε εκοιμηθηϲαν

But, then comes the bigger problem: none of the four gospels make the same claim.....

Mark 16:8 (last verse of Mark)

Byzantine:

και εξελθουσαι εφυγον απο του μνημειου ειχεν δε αυτας τρομος και εκστασις και ουδενι ουδεν ειπον εφοβουντο γαρ

Codex Sinaiticus:

και εξελθουϲαι εφυγον απο > > του μνημειου · ειχεν γαρ αυταϲ τρομοϲ και εκ>ϲταϲιϲ · και ου> δενι ουδεν ει> πον εφοβουν το γαρ

The other three gospels, similarly, fail to mention this figure of five hundred witnesses. Such disharmony, serves only to heighten one's awareness of a potential for fraudulent interpolation in the epistle. Had it been written before the gospels, and been viewed by the gospel writers as authentic, how reasonable is it to conclude that they simply disregarded this bit of information on the singular event of all Christianity, the resurrection of Jesus?

Either the gospel writers, like the αδελφοις in 1 Corinthians 15:6, were also sleeping, else, the passage arose well after the gospels had begun circulating.

Sheshbazzar

So we are to just completely disregard the blatantly mythical context and claims that this reference to the 500 is enshrined in; Act and think like this context does not even exist?

The 500 claim, is based upon and integral to the statement; "he was buried, and that he rose again the third day", and is not one whit more credible.

You may as well swallow ALL the rest of the NTs bogus history and ridiculous claims whole hog.

The Resurrection and Ascension stories are religious mythology. The 500 claim is part of, and is totally dependent upon the veracity of, and the acceptance of that same mythology.

There would be no 500 claim without an consequent acknowledgement of the preceeding context.

The mythical 500 claim is not of any historical value in determining the number of Christians present in the 1st century CE.

1 Cor 15:6 is NO source of evidence for the minimum number of very early Christians.




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outhouse

Tanya

Interpolation? Price makes his case for it, I dont buy it at all.


P46 would posit "if" there was interpolation, it would have been early on. Before a canon existed. AndThe other three gospels also make fraudulent claims that are identical. The "sermon on the mount" for example places jesus in front of giant mythical crowds


and please dont start with a conflict in Galatians, that is a weak arguement. We all know paul wrote from what he learned hunting this sect down as well as oral tradition present at that time. Besides Paul was faced with a different issue in Corinth and it shows. Paul inherited a number of specifically Christian traditions and admitts it making Galatians a non issue.

Paul didnt even lie. He just was so far removed from the actual event, he had no clue and wrote what he was told or heard and believed it.


the 500 is nothing more then the roman authors of jesus mythology competing with roman emporers for roman divinity

outhouse

failure to seperate the two and investigate each mythology in detail for its own merits would be a blatant mistake. We dont use one legend to verify another or denigrate another unless there is a known tie.


but beyond that we already know both are 100% mythology and hold no historical core

Net2004

there was an angel who came down and floored the guards. there were 500+ witnesses. we would assume that the angel + 500+ witnesses would do a tag team and kill the claim that the body of jesus was stolen, but matthew gives his readers the impression that the stolen body claim was so famous that it was "told till this day"

yalla

Pardon me for not reading all the preceding posts but I was just reading online a recent book by Roger S Bagnall [link to Ch. 1 below], a very eminent historian of ancient Egypt, and I noted that he estimates the Christian population as low as 1% of the imperial Roman population of some 55 million in the second century.
He puts the Christian population of Egypt [supposedly a major Christian centre] c200 CE as about 20,000.
For detail see pages 18-20 inc Table 1.2.

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9059.pdf

Toto

Roger S. Bagnall: Early Christian Books in Egypt (or via: amazon.co.uk)

sotto voce

1% is approximately what Christians would expect. Others have estimated 2%, as I mentioned here a while ago.