Toto

sotto voce has his own private definition of who is a True Christian^TM. You have to watch out for that.

No one else here seems to have that problem. Justin was a Christian. Origen was a heretical Christian, but very important for understanding early Christianity.

Duvduv

As far as I am concerned, the Dialogue of Justin should be renamed Monologue. And in any case I don't think it was written in the second century at all, and not by the person described in the Dialogue who couldn't even say a word about where his Old Man from the Sea got his Christ teachings from, or even how Justin himself knew what he knew about the Christ. However, Justin just happened to know that in some dusty box somewhere in Roman archives were the census information from Bethlehem, vital as evidence of the birth of his Christ.

aa5874

What you clam is the very points that show Justin Martyr's writings are most likely not a product of LATE interpolators.

We can tell how Justin Martyr's writings would look if they were manipulated by just merely examing "Against Heresies".

Justin Martyr had almost NO knowledge of Christians and Christian Beliefs until he met the Old Man.

Justin Martyr in his SEARCH for God went DIRECTLY to Platonists, Stoics, Peripatetics, Theoretics, and Pythagoreans but did NOT go directly to any known Christian of his time.

Justin Martyr appears to be the FIRST known Christian writer outside the Memoirs of the Apostles.

Amazingly, Justin Martyr did NOT name Paul, Ignatius, Clement, Polycarp, Hegesippus, Papias, Luke, Irenaeus, Barnabas, Timothy, Titus, Anacletus, Linus or any bishop of Rome or any other bishop of any other place.

Justin Martyr did NOT name his bishop and did NOT recognise that there were ever bishops.

Justin Martyr's writings virtually TOTALLY contradicts "Against Hersies" so it is least likely that they were manipulated.

Justin Martyr's writings EXPOSED a 120 year BLACK HOLE for the Jesus cult which is NOT expected if it was manipulated.

Justin Martyr knew of NO well-known Christian evangelist or Christian writers by name in the 2nd century and when he wrote his books did NOT name any of the supposed non-Canonical christian characters found in "Against Heresies" just one single Old Man he happen to meet by chance.

It is not expect that a manipulated source would say that Justin Martyr only found out about the Jesus story in the mid 2nd century by pure luck.

We would expect something like "Against Heresies".

sotto voce

It's strange that it is quite frequently alleged that one or more of the authors of the New Testament were not Christian; yet others, who have been canonised by no-one, are quite arbitrarily and without evidence designated as Christian.

The scholarly practice is to omit any mention of whether a writer was reckoned to be Christian. There is normally no need for it, and it retains the objectivity necessary for scholarship.

However, it perhaps needs to be said that there is a whole major tradition that seems to be completely ignored by some— that of Protestantism. This tradition holds that the only writing that can be relied upon to reflect Christian viewpoint is found in the New Testament. It holds that, while other writings, whenever written, may be of value for historic purposes, or for exegesis of the Bible, but are not to be used as authoritative on any point of theological controversy. This decision is taken particularly in the light of the apostolic warning of people claiming to be Christians, but actually introducing non-Christian ideas. And indeed, there is no tradition, afaik, that actually canonises any of these authors; it is to express mere private opinion, or hearsay, or even deliberate distortion, that they are Christians. So it is self-deception, or worse, to accept any extra-biblical work as necessarily Christian.

There are in fact those who argue that there are no extra-biblical works purporting to be Christian, from the close of the NT until the Renaissance, that are not demonstrably heretical.

mountainman

I suppose this refers to the authors the books of the canonical NT. What about the authors of the books of the non-canonical NT?

Adam

Wow, would that have ever outraged the Jewish leaders! Pilate would never have wanted to thwart them. That's why he only put up sign that Jesus was the King of the Jews, nothing about God.

aa5874

If Jesus was the King of the Jews how come HJers are arguing that THEIR historical Jesus was an OBSCURE preacher man???

HJers are confused.

A KING of the Jews could NOT be their Obscure HJ the preacher man.

mountainman

The classicists claim that there were two Origen's who lived and wrote in the 3rd century, one a Platonist and the other a Christian. See the WIKI disambiguation page. The so-called writings of "Origen" were deemed heretical in the mid 4th century - See the "Origenist controversies".

mountainman

What is this definition?

sv?

la70119

Pliny Elder, Natural History, 8.18 (for Latin text at Perseus Digital Library, NH 8.20 -- they have it screwed up)
Seneca Younger, Dialogue 6 (De Consolatione) 20.3
Seneca Younger, Dialogue 3 (De Ira 1) -- alium in cruce membra diffindere (diffindere = cleaved, split apart)
Seneca Younger, Epistulae 101;10-14, references to an acuta crux. Although technically it was the seat upon which the crucified sat, the fact that it was pointed indicated that it was a kind of "impalement" stake.
Porphyry, Against the Christians frg. 36, "Peter... was nailed to a cross and impaled on it."
Strabo, Geographica 3.14.8, "the Cantabrians, as [some] were impaled on poles, sang the victory paen."

Now I wasn't saying Tammuz was actually crucified by being pierced with a wild boar, but it was a violent death similar to crucifixion by simple direct impalement.