GakuseiDon

The dates are largely irrelevant to my argument, which is that there are HJers who wrote apologetics similar to those that Doherty say should indicate that the author was a MJer, and there were quite a few writers in the period who refer to a HJ. I only brought the dates in to reply to Roland, who said that the silence that Doherty refers to was in the first half of the 2nd C, and that the HJ writings were largely in the second half of the 2nd C. That isn't the case. But the point is largely incidental to my case, so I don't personally consider it as something to spend much time on at this stage.

OK. As it is irrelevent to my case, it doesn't concern me. Let's assume I'm wrong on my use of dates then, and move on.

Well, I've been travelling interstate on business, which I need to do most months, so I'd like to think that I haven't shut up about the same old stuff.

Spin, I like to debate. I enjoy the process. I think that it is possible to pose a case, supply evidence and debate the merits thereof without resorting to jabs and jives, and without spinning into tangents. I'm afraid you are a shocker. Any thread with you in it seems to veer into tangents. I have left boards because of people like you. The concepts of "staying on topic" and "spin says" seem to be mutually exclusive.

If you make a good point that is on topic, or show where I am wrong in something that I say, fair enough. You are obviously a very knowledgeable person, so I read your posts with interest. If your point is even actually on topic, all the better. But otherwise, do you mind if I just ignore you?

spin

GakuseiDon,

The topic is about dating and the silence of church fathers during the second century. At least that's what I thought the topic was.

If there is a silence during the second century up to the time of Justin Martyr with regard to gospel material, then this is obviously to do with the topic. Or are you just interested in taking jibes at Doherty who is not present here to respond to you?

You make claims based on conventional dating that try to push back early in the second century but are not prepared to deal with the dating that you simply blithely accept, apparently for debating purposes because you can score points via them.

I don't like debating for debating's sake. I'm interested in trying to get somewhere based on analysing the evidence for what can be got out of it, rather than accepting what is convenient.

Is it not important to say that a date can be justified and therefore useful?

I think that the silence in the second century comes to an end with Justin and the first clear signs of written gospel material and this is an issue that I am prepared to debate, because I think it is a fairly solid position.

If you want to retroject the modern idea of "HJer" into the second century that's fine, but meaningless, other than the possibility that someone was able to make the separation between what was accepted as real because tradition demanded it and what was real because history demanded it and that somebody worked on the second notion regarding Jesus. Remember, many peopletoday believe that the creation in Genesis was real because that is the tradition they subscribe to. It is not something that has a historical basis to. This is pertinent because I think your notion of HJer is simply anachronistic, ie it is modern blather when referring to early xianity.

Is the fact that Zeus had a sexual relationship with Leda at some time before the Trojan War according to early Greek tradition a sign that people who accepted the tradition were HZers, ie believers in a historical Zeus? (It was that sexual relationship which gave birth to Helen who would be kidnapped by Paris son of Priam of Troy.)

Is the fact that gospel material does not come into sight until Justin Martyr so irrelevant to your way of thinking on the subject of this thread?

You can ignore what you want, Gak.

It is, as I have said above, also my contention that it is in fact the case that we don't get any historical data for Jesus until Justin, ie not during the first half of the second century, and that the rare casual statements of a Jesus acting in this world before gospel material starts to appear are not greatly different from the rare cases in which Zeus intervenes in this world.


spin

NOGO

OK, I should have put it as "originally posted by GakuseiDon".
I assume that if you post the opinion of somebody else then you endorse that opinion.

It does not cut it as evidence for the HJ. The fact that you have incarnation statements does not mean the kind of incarnation described in the Synoptic Gospels. Theophilus clearly does not think much about Gods being born of human females. His Son of God was born in day one of creation.

In the first case between the Synoptic gospels, Paul and Theophilus and
in the second case between Theophilus and Hebrews.

The ideas were expressed by Christians; what does it matter which groups expressed them. The fact is that everyone had the freedom to create not from the life story of a man but from scriptures.

GakuseiDon

It's not being used as evidence for a HJ. It is being used as evidence for what the author believes about "Jesus Christ".

I agree. Other than a collection of sayings and the bare bones details of a man's life, the rest of the details were obtained from non-historical stories.

GakuseiDon

Spin, can you recommend a good website that has more accurate dating of sources than earlychristianwritings?

NOGO

If you really believe the above then please answer this.
Why would someone who believes in the Word of God who was born on day one of creation when God first spoke and created the world (according to Genesis) and who spoke through the prophets etc etc would confuse this heavenly entity with a man of whom he knew practically nothing ???

GakuseiDon

It's a good question. If we start with Paul, who is the earliest of the writers to express this (assuming of course that Paul believed in a HJ), then it isn't that "he knew practically nothing of the man", it is that "he knew enough of the man" to make the association of the man with the Risen Christ.

Remember, from a HJer perspective, Paul comes into the story after meeting the Risen Christ, so he would already be seeing Jesus as more than just a man. Of course, if the apostles actually believed they also saw the Risen Christ, then they would have no problem making the association between the man and the supernatural entity that was the Risen Christ as well.

After that, it's then just a matter of associating the Risen Christ with the pre-existing Logos. How that occurs I don't know, but from the writings of Philo it seems to have been an outgrowth of the wisdom theology of the period.

spin

The problem is that you have to be able to deal with the datings yourself. earlychristianwritings rightly just provides the conventional wisdom. It is providing a standard resource. It is not an authority, nor claims to be. Many of the things I have proposed are my own work or are my own developments on ideas gleaned from elsewhere. The suggestions on dating come from dealing as much with the implications of the evidence as I can.

I will soon enjoy having a little support from my books (Mohammed to the mountain).


spin

GakuseiDon

Out of interest then, when would you date these authors? The first date is the date given by earlychristianwritings. I've included the dates Doherty gives for the writers he refers to in his article. (As an aside, even Doherty has nearly all his "MJ" authors writing after Aristides).

Writers Doherty says were MJers:

175-185 Theophilus (Doherty: 180)
175-180 Athenagoras of Athens (Doherty: 180)
130-200 Epistle to Diognetus (Doherty: leans towards 130)
160-170 Tatian (Doherty: 160)
160-250 Minucius Felix (Doherty: between 150 and 160)

Writers Doherty says were HJers:

120-130 Aristides (Doherty: around 140)
150-160 Justin Martyr (Doherty: 150s)
178 Celsus (Doherty: no date given)
197 - Tertullian (Doherty: 200)

Other writers mentioning HJ details (not mentioned by Doherty):

105-115 Ignatius - non-spurious letters
110-140 Papias
120-130 Quadratus of Athens
120-140 Basilides
110-140 Polycarp
165-175 Melito of Sardis
175-185 Irenaeus

spin

I responded to parts of this cut and paste in the 16th post in this thread, ie Papias, Ignatius and Aristides. A number of the dates are tied to the same problematic assumptions, so the date for Polycarp is probably wrong as well. He lived until at least 161, when the two emperors were in control of Rome. (There is even a problem with dating Celsus because the Celsus of the text is not the famous pagan philosopher.)

Your use of Basilides is like the visit of Zeus to earth to impregnate Leda. It obviously happened in a past time, didn't it?

As I have indicated before I think the first clear cut gospel type information comes with Justin Martyr, so it is around that time that real world trappings could have been put on a non-real world saviour. I might be totally wrong, but there is no serious evidence to suggest otherwise. Jesus may have existed, but we don't have any historical evidence to say so.

If you want to argue with Doherty about it, why don't you contact him? But you'll have to do better than rely on other people's dates to do so.


spin