GakuseiDon

You didn't actually ask a question. You wrote:

"The Gospel of "John" refutes this claim. "John" clearly states that there were people around, in his day even, who refused to confess that Jesus had "appeared in the flesh" - in any other words that Jesus had appeared in history."

I responded that AFAIK the Gospel of John doesn't have that, and you were probably thinking of the letters of John.

No, it isn't. When 1 John and 2 John were written, some Christians were preaching that Christ hadn't come in the flesh.

aa5874

A belief that Jesus existed does NOT contribute any evidence for the existence of Jesus just like the BELIEF that Marcion's Phantom existed does NOT contribute any actual evidence for the PHANTOM'S existence.

Frank

1) wishful thinking
2) cultural influences
3) garden variety indoctrination
4) probably a bunch of other silly shit

mountainman

Hi GDon,

Thanks for this second response. The penny dropped. I was citing the "Gospel of John" - not the letters of "John", in error.


OK.

Thanks for the explanation and the clarification. When do you suppose these letters of "John" were written? And would it not suggest that, whatever date one decides to put these letter of John at, then -- if we are to believe them -- there were many disbelievers around at that time?

To what extent were such ancient disbelievers "mythicists"?


Best wishes,


Pete

maryhelena

[T2]2 John 1:6-8 (New International Version, ©2011)

6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

7 I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8 Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.[/T2]

Oh, my, maybe that's the big deal - mythicism can be likened to the 'antichrist' - (and McGrath has missed this one.....). Such a stigma - no wonder why it would be preferable for a leaning towards mythicism academic to stay in the closet. Not just the academic chair being at stake but hoards of baying for blood christian heresy hunters at ones coattails....

Chaucer

This is practically identical to one line of argument I've already read in favor of a God!

Chaucer

GakuseiDon

The Earlychristianwritings entry for 1 John includes:

"The terminus ad quem for I John is provided by Polycarp, who presupposes I John 4:2 in Phil 7:1, and by Papias, who used texts from I John according to Eusebius in HE 3.39.17. This places the letter sometime in the first quarter of the second century."

Yes,

To the extent of mythicists who didn't believe that Christ came in the flesh, I suppose. If you mean ahistoricists, then I don't know. I suppose they could have been ahistoricists who believed that Christ didn't come in the flesh,

mountainman

What would the Terminus post quem be? Mid first century? And would the same arguments and answers still apply?

Well answered. I do consider ahistoricists to be a subset of the mythicists.

Doug Shaver

That could be an exception, but historicists will just say that John is talking about docetists, and I don't feel competent to argue the point.

Doug Shaver

If the subject is history, I would not assume we're talking about mathematical-type proof. In this context, a piece of evidence proves something if it just gives you a good reason to believe it.

Let me suggest a way. We would know, if we had a document reliably dated to the second century in which the author explicitly stated something along the lines of, "Christians claim that some Jewish preacher called Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified by Pilate, was actually the Son of God, just because somebody wrote a book saying so. Don't those fools realize that the book is just a work of fiction and there was no such preacher?"