Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mens_sana · 10-27-2007, 08:17 PM

While Ehrman is a text critic, he is also a historian. In his The New Testament: A Historical Intro, he discusses how a historian has to handle miracles. The historian deals with the miracles as reports by the witnesses, without any excursus on validity. Special status of both miracles and texts is shelved. Personally, I found that once one get accustomed to shelving that "special status," there is no reason to revert to it.

sky4it · 10-27-2007, 10:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dogfish

[ But, if that were true, one would think that he might have helped make it a little clearer if he was interseted in keeping us from damnation.]

Well if being slaying on a tree dont do it for yah, then nothing will, good luck pal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dogfish

[ I hear wildy inconsistant and contradicting ideas of god and his will from believers, so I don't think any such reasoning should be said to have little value (unless you mean it would have little value to believers)

Whoever said it was a bonus point to find conradictions? If you want contradiciton, look to politics not God. Perhaps (or not) it might help to specify that the good news was profoundly simple, that a man who was God was slain on a tree, refutes the wisdom of man,( oh wait, that is sophisticated, we need a Liberal to sort that out) so that all could get the picture.

Hope it aint that all so difficult cause it aint for me

skyman

Diogenes the Cynic · 10-27-2007, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sky4it

Perhaps (or not) it might help to specify that the good news was profoundly simple, that a man who was God was slain on a tree, refutes the wisdom of man,( oh wait, that is sophisticated, we need a Liberal to sort that out) so that all could get the picture.

Actually, I would argue that this is a theology which betrays its human invention by virtue of its logical (not to mention historical) insupportability. I can enumerate a host of reasons why Christian soteriology (i.e its sacrificial salvation theology) is incompatable with an omnimax God.

sky4it · 10-27-2007, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

[Actually, I would argue that this is a theology which betrays its human invention by virtue of its logical (not to mention historical) insupportability. I can enumerate a host of reasons why Christian soteriology (i.e its sacrificial salvation theology) is incompatable with an omnimax God.

Well , since your from Minnesota as is Mwaaa, I shall cut you some slack, perhaps a cup of coffee? You know us Minnesota people lead the planet in coffee only right? Thats because the concept of a lattee was like coffee with little water? But even if your Scandanavian like Mwaaa, thats about as nice as i I get.

Please offer your coffin support to your insupportability? Shit , you make Wellstone look Brilliant, but then I digress. The offer of the unopen coffin was simply this" that a man who was God, died on a tree for what" As an example that we should be less aware of what exulted "us" and more aware of what hurt others. What a great guy this Jesus, (I only want to meet him) never concerned about himself just about how actions of us effect us. To the "Greek" foolishisness, to the rest of us the power of God.
Why the Greek? Because they were the "smart guys of that era" not unlike the atheists. Get it?

Its so tough a moron couldn't miss it. Thats why I am one "MORNON" WHO is a genius.

Shit, even my fellow Minnesotans are disturbing,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Ray Moscow · 10-28-2007, 03:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by capnkirk

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magdlyn

D'you want something like this?

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/fathers/

Magdlyn,

Did you realize that this link is edited by Roger Pearse? :huh:

As an aside: I think we're lucky to have Roger here. He brings in some good thoughts and very useful research, and he's always polite even when we skeptics give him a hard time.

Ray

youngalexander · 10-28-2007, 03:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray Moscow

Quote:

Originally Posted by capnkirk

Magdlyn,

Did you realize that this link is edited by Roger Pearse? :huh:

As an aside: I think we're lucky to have Roger here. He brings in some good thoughts and very useful research, and he's always polite even when we skeptics give him a hard time.

Ray

Not only that, but he usually makes more sense - even when he is dead wrong!

Magdlyn · 10-28-2007, 05:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray Moscow

Quote:

Originally Posted by capnkirk

Magdlyn,

Did you realize that this link is edited by Roger Pearse? :huh:

As an aside: I think we're lucky to have Roger here. He brings in some good thoughts and very useful research, and he's always polite even when we skeptics give him a hard time.

Ray

Actually, asking me for a link to "Fathers" and telling me I know more about early Xtianity than he does, was quite sarcastic and rude. I'm sure that gave you a good chuckle, Roger. How "Christian" of you.

Needless to say, I do not agree with his interpretation of what "true Xtianity" was in the first few centuries.

Quote:

1. Label as 'Christian' any group involved in controversy in early Christianity, Christian or not, regardless of whether the early Christians agreed.

When did Xtians ever agree? They can't even agree on a definition of the term.

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2. Having included Christian and non-Christian groups under the label 'Christian', assert that Christianity was 'diverse'.

We could play the same game ourselves. Let's assert that the term 'scholar' belongs to anyone who claims it. Then we can show that scholarship is not concerned with academic rigour, and jeer away at the slovenly standards of the discipline.

First, define and defend a "standard" of what it meant to be a Xtian in the first 2-3 centuries. Then, please demonstrate the "slovenly standards" of the gnostics. School by school. Why don't you start with, oh... the Shepherd of Hermas?

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Such games with words are for children.

Thanks for playing!

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If there is one thing that early Christianity was obsessed with it was right doctrine. This is why anti-heretical literature forms such a large part of ante-nicene literature.

I appreciate that is a POV which makes you feel comfortable. You are welcome to it.

That is why the proto-orthodox created a new definition for the word heresy, which used to just mean choice. Orthodox (straight thinking) was them, heterodox (different thinking) was for their opponents, who, as should be obvious, I consider actually the deeper, more courageous thinkers. There is no such thing as "right" doctrine. Exoteric for the psychic, esoteric for the pneumatic. Whatever suits your degree of intellectual bravery, rigor and maturity is right for you.

gurugeorge · 10-28-2007, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Unfortunately such revisionism [as Ehrman's in Lost Christianities] is very tedious to those of us who know the Fathers well. We've all seen this sort of inversion of history before, and it relies on a simple trick, which is this.

1. Label as 'Christian' any group involved in controversy in early Christianity, Christian or not, regardless of whether the early Christians agreed.

Pot calling the kettle black (you are yourself begging the question in this statement).

Quote:

2. Having included Christian and non-Christian groups under the label 'Christian', assert that Christianity was 'diverse'.

As I'm sure you know (and if you don't, you should) Ehrman basis his views partly on a qualified acceptance of Walter Bauer's basic argument in Orthodoxy and Heresy. The argument there is not circular at all, it's based on little inadvertent giveaways in orthodox (or rather proto-orthodox) surviving writings, which show that right from the kick-off, right from as early as we can find any evidence of anything called "Christianity", there were people who obviously thought of themselves as "Christians", who held different views from the proto-orthodox:

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Bauer argued that the early Christian church did not consist of a single orthodoxy from which emerged a variety of competing heretical minorities. Instead, earliest Christianity, as far back as we can trace our sources, could be found in a number of divergent forms, none of which represented the clear and powerful majority of believers against all the others. In some regions of ancient Christendom, what later came to be labeled "heresy" was in fact the earliest and principal form of Christianity. In other regions, views later deemed heretical coexisted with views that came to be embraced by the church as a whole, with most believers not drawing hard and fast lines of demarcation between them. To this extent, "orthoeoxy", in the sense of a unified group advocating an apostolic doctrine accepted by the majority of Christians everywhere, simply did not exist in the second and third centuries. Nor was "heresy" secondarily derived from an orginal teaching through an infusion of Jewish ideas or pagan philosophy. Beliefs that later came to be accepted as orthodox or heretical were competing interpretations of Christianity, and the groups that held them were scattered throughout the empire. Eventually one of these groups established itself as dominant, acquiring more converts than all the others, overpowering its opponents, and declaring itself the true faith. Once its victory was secured, it could call itself "orthodox" and marginalize the opposition parties as heretics. It then rewrote the history of the conflict, making its views and the people who held them appear to have been in the majority from apostolic times onwards.

Ehrman qualifies this (which is of course an outline of Bauer) with a section on "Reactions to Bauer", where he says:

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Probably most scholars today think that Bauer underestimated the extent of proto-orthodoxy throughout the empire and overestimated the influence of the Roman church on the course of the conflicts. Even so, subsequent scholarship has tended to show even more problems with the Eusebian understanding of heresy and orthodoxy and has confirmed that, in their essentials, Bauer's intuitions were right. If anything, early Christianity was even less tidy and more diversified than he realized.

He then goes on, in a section called "In support of Bauer's Basic Thesis: A Modern Assessment of Early Christian Diversity", to say the following:

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Probably the primary piece of evidence for this widespread variety comes from the proto-orthodox sources themselves, and in a somewhat ironic way. Eusebius and his successors quote these sources at length, including the books of the New Testament, in order to show that at every turn, their proto-orthodox forebears were successful in deposing false teachers and their heretical followers. But what they neglect to point out is that these "successes" presuppose the extensive, even pervasive, influence of false teachers in the early Christian communities. (Emphasis added)

Oopsy!

Magdlyn · 10-28-2007, 11:35 AM

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But what they neglect to point out is that these "successes" presuppose the extensive, even pervasive, influence of false [sic] teachers in the early Christian communities.

Correct. This is so self-evident, even a child should be able to see it.

And even when gnostic schools were made illegal and shut down, by threat of excommunication (entaling lack of funding), exile, torture, and execution, they continued to thrive underground, as evidenced by the Albigensian Crusade, close to a millennium later.

None of this was done out of piety. None of it was done out of concern for gnostics' souls. It was just politics and sycophantism.

sky4it · 10-28-2007, 02:42 PM

Anyways, nice meeting some of you people, i am going to bow out for a while, and thanks for a good discussion.

greetings to all and regards,

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10-27-2007, 08:17 PM	#121
mens_sana Regular Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: 1/2 mile west of the Rio sin Grande Posts: 397	While Ehrman is a text critic, he is also a historian. In his The New Testament: A Historical Intro, he discusses how a historian has to handle miracles. The historian deals with the miracles as reports by the witnesses, without any excursus on validity. Special status of both miracles and texts is shelved. Personally, I found that once one get accustomed to shelving that "special status," there is no reason to revert to it.

10-28-2007, 02:42 PM	#130
sky4it Regular Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: minnesota Posts: 227	Anyways, nice meeting some of you people, i am going to bow out for a while, and thanks for a good discussion. greetings to all and regards,

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