krosero

It is, in short, an excellent illustration of your mythicist interpretations and conclusions about the ancient situation, based on your reading of the ancient texts. And I need not tell you, or point you to, where we have disagreed with your readings. I just put one example up: Doherty thinks that the apologists denied an HJ incarnation, just as his hypothetical professor pours scorn on the U.S. Presidency. But if Theophilus' supposed "denial" of the incarnation is one of Doherty's strongest examples, then let's just say that the analogy doesn't fit.

The analogy, Ted, is an expression of what Doherty mythicists believe, from A to Z, about the record; is it not an obvious fit with the self-evident data. You like it, I suggest, because it expresses perfectly what you have concluded about the record; but all of what you have concluded is exactly at question.

Kevin Rosero

EarlDoherty

There has been too much said over the past few days for me to respond to it all, so I will be selective, and not always in order of posting. (The bolded texts in the first quote are Kevin’s; the italics in the text of Theophilus are mine.)

There is no getting around that the italicized passage above is indeed “a virtual denial of an incarnation.” Theophilus is clearly saying: Now, don’t think that I am defining the Son in the sense that the poets do, that is of a son fathered on a mortal woman (in the context, of course, of such a son living on earth), but he is a Son and Word who resides in the heart of God.” The latter being the standard Logos idea, that from God emanates an aspect of him; he is his “first-born” (as Philo also puts it). This “Word” has a separateness, but is continually in contact and contiguous with God.

Now where is the crack in this description of the Son, and the clear denial of what he is not (a son begotten in the sense of being ‘born of a woman’), in which an incarnated Jesus could find a foothold? There isn’t one. You’ll have to explain to me how you can logically see it otherwise. Furthermore, it is illegitimate of you to try to sneak him in in another way. You claim that since Theophilus is arguing that the Son/Word can be “sent to a place” so that God can, in a philosophically permitted way, be “found in a place,” this means that he can also have in mind being sent to the world as the historical Jesus. This founders on two considerations. One is strict logic. If we are questioning whether Mr. X went to Los Angeles, and we come across a record that he went to Atlanta, you can hardly say, “See. He went to Atlanta. That means he also went to Los Angeles!” (Whether he could have gone to L.A. is a different matter, and is simply theoretical.)

The second is more a common sense thing (I know, that’s a dirty word with some here). Apparently, someone Theophilus knows has raised the philosophical objection that God cannot be said to be in any specific place. Remember Theophilus’ definition of the Word. He is a part of God, virtually inseparable. Now, at the beginning of this chapter (II, 22), Theophilus has proposed: “You will say, then, to me: ‘You said that God ought not to be contained in a place, and how do you now say that He walked in Paradise?’” Note the “You will say, then, to me.” In other words, Theophilus himself seems to be posing this hypothetical question relating to Paradise; it’s not something Autolycus has actually asked, even if it’s a type of question Theophilus has encountered from pagans.

In either Theophilus’ mind, or any pagan mind, if the Word is part of God, why would it occur to him to refer to such a God “being in a place” only in terms of him walking in Paradise? Surely the most momentous and immediate example of God “being in a place on earth” would have been in the form of Jesus’ recent human incarnation! This would have been an even more philosophically objectionable idea of God being in a “place” than simply having his spirit come to the Garden of Eden and speak to Adam and Eve. Why would Theophilus content himself with the Paradise example? Even if he wanted to include it, surely he would also feel compelled to include God being humanly incarnated. Yet he does not. And you can’t simply claim that by referring to the former, he was implicitly referring as well to the latter.

So please don’t accuse me of “ignoring the context.” Yours is a far more onerous example. And there’s another passage from the above quote you are ignoring:

“But when God wished to make all that He determined on, He begot this Word, uttered, the first-born of all creation…”

All he determined on? Did he not determine on salvation, on redemption from the Fall, on an atoning sacrifice for sin? Since this was supposedly a significant part of God’s “determination,” should Theophilus not have mentioned the later “begetting” of Jesus to earth as a human being to carry out that divine purpose? I have made this point countless times: that in the epistles, as in such apologists, everything they say and don’t say inevitably suggests that they in fact have no human historical figure in their minds when they write, and all the multiplicity of ad hoc rationalizations which you and others have sought to apply to this or that passage, or to my arguments, as to why they didn’t mention the compellingly mentionable fact of an historical Jesus fails to make any headway against the consistent void itself. Quite apart from the fact that many of these ad hoc rationalizations are weak, if not fallacious in themselves.

No, I have not said that it is just the surviving documents that would have slipped under the radar, although I don’t subscribe to your implication and assumption that the six extant ones would have to represent some vast unified movement with cells in every neighborhood of even every major city, any more than I accept that developing orthodoxy was that widespread or coordinated. But you also overlook the nature of what I have called a “Logos religion”. It is essentially a philosophy. (I refer to it as a ‘religion’ because it includes the idea of ‘salvation’—through knowledge of the Word.) There is little or no evidence in such apologists of any ritual, ecclesiastical organization, etc, though they all have meetings and perhaps even communal meals. But the words “bishop,” “eucharist” and “baptism” do not appear in the apologists. Justin does not discuss bishops, but speaks of a “president” of the assembly at which they gather for a communal meal. Theophilus defines “Christian” as one who is “anointed with the oil of God.” No reference to any baptism in Christ here. And I place no reliance on Eusebius (or Jerome) telling us that Theophilus was a “bishop” in Antioch, any more than I would rely on any of the lists and figures and traditions later imputed to early Christian history (such as Mark evangelizing Egypt, which is sheer polemically-motivated invention, as Walter Bauer recognized).

I see the apologists’ ‘religion’ as a pretty esoteric circle, even if arising in many centers. If they give evidence of anything, it is of the appeal of the Jewish scriptures and the Jewish God to significant and diverse elements of the Graeco-Roman population. But I say again, if they had no thought of an incarnated Jesus (never even using the name), I see no problem in thinking that they could have slipped under the radar of HJ heresiologists.

Don’t get me wrong. I regularly admit that there are ‘loose ends’ in this whole area. Legitimate questions (I might prefer "legitimate-sounding") can be raised. With relatively little to go on (and, unfortunately, a lot of orthodoxy-based assumptions regularly read into what we do have), it’s almost impossible to put together a coherent jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces fit nicely, with no apparent contradictions. What is not legitimate is to blithely maintain, in the face of the texts themselves, that if we could just look behind them or between their lines, everything would be hunky-dory and all would prove tidily orthodox. That’s nonsense. There is a vast problem to do with the 2nd century picture as a whole, and placing oneself in a state of denial is not going to elucidate that picture for us.

Your opening sentence here is overstated. You, and many others, are influenced by modern communications and the spread of cultures. A knowledgeable person today is familiar with practically the entire global scene. We know, for a fact, that documents like Theophilus and Athenagoras are not attested to for centuries after their supposed dates. The early documentary record of Christianity often shows a seeming ignorance on the part of one circle for another. The actual links you mention above have geographical connections. Tertullian and Felix were both writing in North Africa. Tatian lived in Rome, and it was there that Irenaeus visited (around 177) and went back to Gaul to write tracts against the heresies he became familiar with there. If he never encountered writings of Athenagoras and Theophilus further east, that would hardly be surprising. Minucius Felix (if you don’t insist on reading HJ orthodoxy into it) shows that there were circles and there were circles, some overlapping, some only by repute.

You’re ‘spinning’ here. “Searching” for those who agreed and disagreed? Do you think Irenaeus went about the empire tracking down every document, or even every little cell of belief, to see if it agreed or disagreed? We don’t know how Tertullian read Felix, or what he might have recognized in it. Instead, he ‘corrected’ it by revamping it into an orthodox work. And if later generations could reinterpret all these writings, including the bulk of the NT epistles which have their own anomalies that are not any the less puzzling than the apologists’, and see them as all talking about an HJ, why couldn’t Tertullian do the same with Felix?

This is fantasy, Kevin. How is an heresiologist like Irenaeus, living in the south of Gaul, to learn about Athenagoras of Athens’ apology to the emperor, find a copy, and subject it to this kind of review? And that’s even assuming Athenagoras’ salutation is genuine, or that the document really found its way into the emperor’s hands. (I’ve written letters to the Editor that never get published and are preserved, sometimes, only in my bottom drawer. Maybe someday someone will dig them out and make unfounded assumptions about them.) And unlike Letters to the Editor, such things are hardly “published,” let alone are “public”.

Again, what you can “imagine” is more fantasy. I don’t need to repeat previous points. But I want to call your attention here to the passage itself. In other words, the text, rather than some vague and undemonstrable secondary considerations. First of all, Theophilus is talking on a very broad scale; certainly not within the confines of “Christianity”, whether orthodox or not. Within the world as a whole, he says, like the sea it needs the influx of nourishment to avoid being parched. And what is that “influx”? Beginning with an earlier portion you did not quote:

Two things here. First, I think it is clear that Theophilus is thinking on the grand scale, not on a sectarian one. The world as a whole is beset by sin, and God sends the faith/truth Theophilus subscribes to in order to save and nourish it. We find this theme throughout the apologists. Justin, after investigating other philosophies like Platonism and Stoicism (see Trypho II), is converted to the Jewish God through the Jewish scriptures. The contrast throughout them all is simply with paganism, with ‘godlessness’ as they see it. The “doctrines of error” applies to everything that is not “Christian” (as Theophilus subscribes to it). What he means by, or even what the word in Greek actually is for “heresies” I don’t offhand know, I can’t find a Greek text online, and the seminary copy I have looked at in the past would take me half a day to get at. But in any case, there is no reason why he can’t simply mean all those religions around the world that don’t have the truth.

The second is even more telling. What is this island of salvation which God has given to the world? “The law of God and the prophets,” which are spoken of as sweet, compassionate, righteous; the “holy commandments of God.” To a world “tempest-tossed” by sins, God has given assemblies/churches “in which survive the doctrines of truth.” I know you all can see where I’m going here. Squarely into the void on any historical Jesus, his ministry of salvation, his commandments, his prophetic word, his truth, and sweetness, and compassion, and righteousness. Could any apologist for the Christian faith have left all this out, not give it a passing glance? Like the other apologists (and Justin before he encountered the Gospels), this is a religion of the Jewish God and the prophets of the Jewish Bible, who, as interpreted by this circle, provides the knowledge of truth and salvation. An historical, crucified man, has nothing to do with it.

Yet another case of the texts having to take pride of place, requiring the setting aside of secondary, special and erroneous pleading of other considerations that are built on quicksand and hang from skyhooks.

You bring up Tatian. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Tatian was a “pupil” of Justin, and he makes the clearest reference to “stories” we can identify with the Gospels. And the fact that he seems to disparage or dismiss them as equivalent to myth, indicates that he knew them because he moved in Justin’s circle, and that he clearly did not subscribe to everything that his ‘teacher’ subscribed to. And you’re right. Heresiologists focused on Tatian’s Encratism. It’s not unreasonable to assume that such a subtle dismissal of the Gospels as we find in his Apology got lost in the shuffle, or did not even register. And do we have any evidence that any heresiologist ever spoke to Tatian directly, and got his 'heresy' unmistakeably from the horse's mouth? Of course not.

As for others’ (like Theophilus’) references to “the gospel”: it’s significant that none of these references are to biographical or historical events in the life of Jesus. None of them are incompatible (as Jacob points out) with sayings collections, or free-floating elements. The term “gospel” as someone like Theophilus uses it, is in the sense of “the message.” Nor is it clearly a case of “it is written”. Note one of Ben’s quotes:

The “holy writings” is a reference to the prophets. The “gospel”, on the other hand, is the product of “those borne by the spirit”. Is this in writing? Hard to say. Theophilus refers to sayings attributed to Jesus as “it (the gospel, the message, God's truth) says. “The voice of the gospels says…” And even more astounding: In chapter 13, a “quote” from Matthew’s Jesus is introduced by: “And the voice of the Gospel teaches…” Yet in that same chapter, Theophilus twice introduces OT sayings with “Solomon says”!!! Is he being perverse? Are they all being perverse? They can ascribe sayings spuriously to Solomon, but deny any attribution to Jesus of his own sayings? Presumably, written right there in the narrative of his teachings and life, read by a full and undoubted believer in an HJ? And what kind of perversity is required in those who claim that this is all OK, it’s all from the hands of HJ writers, all of it’s part of a nice little picture of orthodoxy? Loose ends, maybe, as I said before, but nothing that is going to discredit the overpowering implications of the texts themselves.

Anyway, the bottom line is, none if these “gospel” quotes are necessarily to be derived by the apologist from written narratives (any content of which is notably lacking anywhere in their apologies), even if the wording is identical to that found in a Gospel like Matthew. (Edit: In light of all this, perhaps Ben would like to rethink his enumerated statements about Theophilus and what he had/knew at his disposal, as well as whether my above analysis is correct in regard to the “written” aspect. If he does this, I may respond, but I’m not going to do so directly to that enumeration at this point.) On the other hand, it may be just conceivable they are drawing from some form of written narrative Gospel and be treating it as Tatian did. But to think that they and their circles fully accepted such a “story” as historical, representing the centrality of their own faith, and yet fail to introduce its entire narrative and principal character into their Apology would be inexplicable.

Incidentally, a further point against those who maintain that these apologists suppressed an HJ out of “fear” or lack of courage (this was Holding’s claim, or implication), this too can’t stand up to common sense. Such people simply wouldn’t have undertaken to write an Apology in the first place, realizing that they couldn’t bring themselves to admit the central elements of their religion. Those who hesitate or fear to proclaim the faith don’t write textbooks on it to those on the hostile side.

I had wanted to address this the other day, but had no time. You keep ignoring the fact that the Diognetus reference is in ch. 12, which in the surviving manuscript is in a different hand, and which in the view of scholars is from a homily added to the main text and therefore cannot be included here. Some even attribute it possibly to Hippolytus of the 3rd century. So it proves nothing. We are left with Athenagoras, “Resurrection of the Dead” 18. The quote is introduced as part of a discussion about the respective responsibilities and fates of the two components of a man, soul and body, in regard to eternal reward and punishment:

We know this as a quote from 1 Corinthians, 15:54. Are we secure in the knowledge that Athenagoras did? Not at all. There are a number of possibilities. Just as everyone considers that sayings of Jesus were passed around by oral tradition, there is just as much chance that ‘sayings’ of Paul were, especially one that was directly related to a subject which exercised seemingly all forms of Christian belief, right from the beginning: that is, whether there was a resurrection of the dead and what form it took. One apologist drawing on one saying of Paul hardly does what you and others would like it to do: create a knowledge of Paul’s letters and all they contained, let alone subscribing to those entire contents—on the part of a whole slew of writers. Is Athenagoras really referring to Paul in his mind by his use of “the apostle”? We don’t know that either. Prior to 180, when Athenagoras supposedly wrote (some tentatively place him earlier), there is not a single example my Search function can find of a writer using the phrase “the apostle” in connection with Paul. It starts to appear in Irenaeus, then Clement of Alexandria, and the later forgeries of Ignatius, like To the Tarsians. A few, like 1 Clement and the ‘authentic’ Ignatius refer to “Paul” but do not use the phrase “the apostle” in reference to him. (1 Clement 5 has “the good apostles”, referring to Peter and Paul, not the same.) So your argument there is invalid. And what might Athenagoras have meant by “the apostle”?

As the comedian said, “timing is everything.”

As the theologian said, “to God a day is as a thousand years.”

Do I know what else that theologian said? Do I know any of his writings? Do I know the specific identity of that theologian, or even if there was a specific one? No. You can’t start from a single straw and build a house from it. You can’t build an “awareness” of Paul, let alone a familiarity and acceptance of his entire theology, out of this one straw.

Finally:

Sorry, but your “actual quote” is not the actual quote. The actual quote is in Latin. And your quote is only one translation of several. Here’s the relevant Latin:

.

In other words: I hear it from some…Others say…And whoever says…

This makes rendering all cases in the sense of “some say” perfectly legitimate and consistent with my point. I am not “quoting from memory.” Other translations render it “I am told…others…anyone who…” and “I hear…It is also reported…There are also stories about…” In other words, “Some say,” then some other ‘some’s say, and yet further ‘some’s say…

That’s it for me today, maybe for a couple of days (other than brief comments, perhaps). I really have to get at other work in earnest. I think my basic contentions have been amply demonstrated, and I don’t need to address every little point, all of which seem to be variations on a theme, notes that I have shown are discordant and don’t fit into the symphony as a whole.

Postscript which I’ll insert here:

You're not getting it. The difference between the two is that we know that my analogy’s denial of the Presidency is wrong. We don’t know that the apologists’ “denial” of the HJ is wrong. That's the issue under debate. My analogy is based on this: If there were an HJ that the apologists believed in, then their texts are equivalent to what my American professor would be doing if there were an actual American Presidency. And you and other scholars would be in the position of having to explain why the professor wrote as he did and try to put the best face on it.

The analogy is an exact fit, and doesn't depend on whether you are willing to accept my claims of what constitutes a denial. In any case, my examples are based on what we have in the texts which can reasonably be interpreted as a denial. I’ve illustrated that above, and on other occasions, even if you or Don won't countenance it. In other words, that reasonable interpretation is to be distinguished from your refusal to acknowledge it as such. If you like, I'll give you a distinction between "actual" denial and "apparent" denial. By any dispassionate reading of the text, the business about ‘what the Son is not’ is an apparent denial. By any dispassionate reading of the text, the business of the crucified criminal in Minucius Felix is an apparent denial, regardless of the very strained and tortuous kind of spins that Don, and now you, are offering. My point is, there is no reasonable way to avoid seeing that "apparent denial" as an "actual denial". And this is exactly what my analogy illustrates: there is no reasonable way to accept the apparent denial of the politics professor as not being an actual denial; no way to justify it. The analogy, of course, could never actually happen given that we know of the existence of the Presidency; it simply would never be written. It shows that the orthodox claims about the 2nd century Apologies under consideration could never actually happen either, if we were given the existence of an HJ as the genesis of their faith. It shows that it would be impossible to explain and put any "best face" on them. Ergo, given that such apologetic texts do exist, we have to reject the idea that their writers subscribe to an historical Jesus as the genesis of their faith.

But there is only so much that one side of a debate can be expected to do to convince the other side if it doesn’t want to be convinced. Yes, we did go 15 rounds, Don and I, and it was a knockout. If I had unlimited time and energy (and desire), I’d go over the whole thing and show that. But I don’t.

Of course, I realize you don’t accept that, so we’re at an impasse. An impasse I may choose not to devote any further time to (I've devoted over half a day to this post, and can't do that every time). Others can judge the situation as they will.

Earl Doherty

krosero

As I said to Ted, I am not trying to establish a rule which your alternative history must pass or fail. And certainly if we did use a rule, it could not be that what is unique or unparalleled can never occur. With that rule we’d be justified in questioning the moon landing, and that is absurd. But I will say about this analogy with the moon landing, that this achievement of space exploration occurred largely out of competition, in which one party was deliberately intending to do what no one else had done. And in physical exploration generally, someone has to be first to a new spot, so of course you can’t rule out that the first person got there just because no one before had done so. What I asked you for was another instance(s) of a group that the orthodox misperceived so badly that they took the group to be orthodox and even absorbed its authors’ writings.

But I do see that you’ve offered below an example to compare against.

They were “just silent”? What about the “denials” that you constantly see in them? This is a fundamental inconsistency in your model: you say on the one hand that these texts were ambiguous enough to seem compatible and generally inoffensive to the orthodox; on the other hand you say that these texts are filled with denials of the HJ. We, supposedly, can see them, but the orthodox, who had far more at stake in being careful and suspicious, and had far more ability than we do to find out about these texts, never identified the texts with a group that was not small, was spread out around the Mediterranean, and was producing public writings.

This tension seems intrinsic to your model and nothing you have offered makes me feel that your proposed scenario is probable, to say nothing of secure.

You should also know something further about how this tension sounds in the ears of your listeners (at least your HJ listeners). You appeal over and over again (especially in your last long post, which I may not get to until next week) to the sheer obviousness of the HJ-rejection in these texts. But then you say that these texts were “more or less compatible with developing orthodoxy.” I am not just pointing out a tension or contradiction: I’m saying that it also undercuts the confidence that any observer might have for either set of arguments that you make. Both sets seem at war with each other, and rather than both appearing to be persuasive, or even one looking correct, it looks like neither set can be built on a secure foundation, if one is routinely contradicted by the other.

Once again, here is the actual quote from Theophilus:

You have left out the critical qualification, “from intercourse”, in your quote above. With that qualification, there is no reason for Irenaeus to suspect here that Theophilus was denying Jesus’ divine parentage: clearly what is denied is a begetting through intercourse.

Where the qualification “from intercourse” occurs, you have put an ellipsis.

I don’t know why that is, because on a previous page in this thread, you did quote this sentence from Theophilus in full, with the phrase, “from intercourse.” So I can hardly believe that it was not in your translation or that you’d simply forgotten it was there.

So after asking time and again where your apologists, if they were HJ, put in what you have called a “saving qualification” for their HJ savior, you now cover up an obvious saving qualification with an ellipsis? Just so the qualification does not get in the way of presenting this apologist as unorthodox?

Yes, that’s how bad it looks.

What’s your explanation?

It actual takes on a brutal quality, the way you take two things which are not inconsistent with each, which can be shown to be not inconsistent with each other, and constantly call it “denial.” If the Logos could be identified with Jesus, then how in blazes is it a denial of Jesus merely to urge someone to know the Logos? I would think that if anything, there is an invitation here to know the Logos fully and all that is associated with it.

What there is, of course, is a silence about Jesus. Anyone can see that, and contrary to your repeated strawman assertions, especially in your last long post, no one argues that Athenagoras is pointing to or even implying the incarnation in Jesus. Perhaps a reader of the time who knew something about HJ Christianity might understand a subtle allusion there, but if we were to say that, we’re not getting it from the actual level of the text. At that level, there is a technical silence. You constantly assert that we’re saying something like, “Aha, he talks about the Logos, so there’s Jesus, too!” And that is not the argument at all. The silence on Jesus is real – but where you seem like you interpret the text brutally is your repeated insistence that a silence is denial. The two are very different.

I will not accept as an answer, here, that your cumulative case demonstrates a denial. That would be merely repeating what we all know you think. What you have above, rather, is an exegesis of a single line, in which a mere invitation to know the Logos seems to you, as clear as daylight, to be a denial of Jesus – as if the Logos were a necessary and obvious contradiction with Jesus.

I’m glad you’ve described this evolution as “uneven,” because any evolution is going to be just that. But I suggest you’ve never closely addressed the questions that your scenario raises. The original Christians, in your model, came to accept that Christ had come to earth, that their apostles had seen him, and that their apostles had preached the HJ, but in your model there were living memories of their apostles preaching the MJ, establishing MJ churches. In your model, no one at the start of the second century could remember the HJ idea going back more than a few years – since you have the idea first appearing around the year 90.

Moroever, if Ignatius believed that Jesus walked the earth, and he tells us that Peter was with him, then for Ignatius, Peter and other disciples preached the HJ originally. Ignatius’ hero seems to be Paul, and I find it inconceivable that Ignatius could have regarded Paul more highly than Peter if the former preached an MJ while the latter was preaching the truth. So Ignatius in all probability believes that Paul preached the HJ too -- unless he can explain it to himself how Paul, when he went to Jerusalem, either was not told that Christ had come to earth or refused to accept this great truth.

Ignatius certainly does not speak of Paul as he does his enemies, who are “those evil offshoots [of Satan], which produce death-bearing fruit, whereof if any one tastes, he instantly dies. For these men are not the planting of the Father.” (Trall. 11). Nor do I think he would have spoken of his enemies in this way if Paul had been MJ.

A further problem: there were MJ churches still around to deny any claim that these apostles had preached the HJ or, certainly, walked with him. They would defend Paul’s record as an MJ apostle, against whatever Ignatius said about him – and in your model, they had all the evidence to show that they were right and Ignatius was wrong.

You liken the evolution toward the HJ to the growth that children undergo, but what we actually seem to have here is two groups with conflicting historical and political claims. You seem to acknowledge as much when you assign Ignatius as one of the opponents – and a virulent one – of the MJ idea. But as so often happens in your theory, you make this sort of impression at one moment, and contradict it at another moment with a softer image in which MJ Christians were merely coming to see that the real truth was different from what they’d previously (but fervently) believed. Now, Jesus had walked the earth, their apostles had walked with him, Paul had preached him and not established MJ churches, etc.

This suggestion you make, that Ignatius merely grew to accept new ideas, is somewhat different from what you said about him in Appendix 3 of The Jesus Puzzle. There you said that Ignatius may not have been clear who was a docetist and who was an MJ Christian; there you gave the impression that the two theologies, MJ and HJ, were separate churches, and not that one was growing into the other.

There is A LOT to cover here. I’m just giving you a taste of the problems I see, which I laid out more fully in “Earl Doherty’s Christianities.”

Here you do offer a chance to compare and contrast. Thank you.

You point out some similarities, and I take no great exception to any of them – partly because similarities are abundant whenever comparing religions. It’s the differences that can break an analogy.

You say that Gnosticism was misunderstood. It certainly was, to a great degree. But were any of its texts adopted as orthodox? I still don’t see that parallel with your Logos-followers. The orthodox were confused – as they often admit – by Gnostic movements, and they misunderstood the extent to which Jesus Christ figured in those movements; but they did not take the extra step of believing that an orthodox Jesus Christ was at the center of those movements. They knew the Gnostic Jesus was unorthodox and unacceptable.

So what you offer does tell us that a group like your Logos-followers, generally speaking, was plausible. What you offer speaks, as your model often does, to the internal evidence. It does not illuminate us on how the external evidence looks the way it does, with external witnesses mistaking a very unorthodox group for an HJ group.

I don’t understand this at all, because in your model, Ignatius is certainly treating his former understanding very harshly; we don’t even need your model to read the harshness of his words against his opponents.

Yet you say this about Ignatius:

This is all vague language, this talk of an earlier form getting replaced by a newer one. That merely recapitulates what you think happened; it doesn’t begin to deal with the conflicting claims made by MJ and HJ groups.

Again the inappropriate analogy of growing up. When you grow up you leave behind certain things. But what is the fundamental contradiction between I-pods and vinyl records? There are differences, yes; but this is nothing like the competing sets of historical-political claims that I mentioned above in describing the MJ-HJ conflict.

No, I didn’t think you would accept these arguments of mine, because as you repeat here, you think that the apologists deny, falsify and scorn the HJ faith; you think that the allusions to an incarnated figure can all be spiritualized, allegorized or otherwise dismissed, and that there are no reliable points of contact between the apologists and HJ faith. With such an assessment as yours, of course you will see my thoughts on persecution as denying the obvious. But my assessment is different from yours. I see the central figure of the religion already taking up very little space in the apology of the HJer, Aristides, which tells me that there is nothing outlandish about saying that other apologists could have said just a little less about him (failing to bring up the name but often still alluding to him). How much space does Aristides devote to Jesus, and particularly I mean to Jesus as a past historical figure and not as the savior who will come in judgment? Just one brief paragraph. Then he jumps into his main topic, which is paganism – and that is a significant or central topic of all your apologists. Their audiences are pagan, after all. I suggest that the apologists wanted to speak to pagans at length about the foolishness of paganism and spoke about Jesus to varying degrees – most of them, including the HJer Aristides, choosing to say very little if anything about him, with Justin being the exception that illustrates the rule. Justin brought Jesus into the conversation a lot, and when you contrast your apologists with him, as you consistently do, the gap seems very wide. Not so when you bring Aristides into the picture. There you have an apologist who, if he had been only a little more silent about Jesus, would have been included among your Logos-followers.

This is not a comprehensive answer, of course, to the silence in the apologists – it is just a notice that any answer(s) dealing with the silences should have to explain not just the silences in your Logos-followers but the silence in Aristides, as well.

And that is a silence that your model cannot explain, because you have routinely thrown away in scorn all the ordinary common-sense considerations (e.g., that the apologists wanted to talk to the pagans about paganism; choosing for the most part not to bring in the controversial founder; that they knew their winning argument was in talking about Christianity as a philosophical movement; that they tried to embrace the Jewish scriptures, more than the NT, in an attempt to give the look of antiquity to their religion). How, then, do you describe Aristides? You can’t explain him as a Logos-follower, because he is clearly HJ. In your book you even offer that Aristides does not belong to the Logos background at all. But all the other explanations are, in a sense, no longer available to you, unless you’re willing in fairness to give them weight when assessing your apologists, too.

Instead you merely fall back on the subjective judgment that you always use to set Aristides aside: that he was not a careful writer. You told Don in your formal debate that Aristides does make at least three statements against pagan gods that could be turned back on Christ, but that Aristides was probably “just oblivious” to the contradictions. So how do we decide that one writer is oblivious and, more importantly, that your MJ apologists (which I do agree are more sophisticated than Aristides, just to be clear) are so much more superior that they cannot be making statements that could be turned back on them?

I don’t know how you would objectively draw that line, though I have argued here the common-sense solution that all authors can make statements that can be turned back on them (including such a careful and methodical writer as Irenaeus), because I don’t think there is a line separating people into those who make self-contradictions and those who don’t. We all make them.

So what would be your explanation for the silence in Aristides?

I knew that someone would be cheap enough to try this tactic, and I was hoping it would not be you. Of course I don’t think that modern Christians are irrational. I simply group them as non-rationalists; they don’t call themselves rationalists and are not called that by others. Hence the mistake that some make, in their own minds, disassociating Christians from rational people. THAT’S what I was talking about: your almost ritual way of dismissing anything that does not match your idea of reason.

Consider the following hypothetical case.

A scholar from an atheist or agnostic background is finding the silence in the apologists perplexing. He cannot find a satisfying solution to it; maybe he’s even tempted to create a new entity out of authors he sees as silent. But he feels that there may be answers he’s overlooking; or at any rate, he would like to hear as many possible solutions as he can, before he starts positing new entities.

So he reasons that maybe a modern-day apologist might help him. He goes to one, and says,

“Friend, for the life of me I just can’t figure out why Felix would speak this way of the crucified man, or why Theophilus would leave him out altogether. I think I know some things about the world that these men lived in and their general thought-world, but I wonder if you have any insight into what they might have wished to accomplish as apologists, and the difficulties they may have faced. You’re an apologist, too, albeit in the modern world – but heck, you’re the closest analogy I’m going to get! So what do you think? Any insights?”

In your opinion, Earl, is such a conversation worth having?

Kevin Rosero

EarlDoherty

We’ll, Don is up to his old tricks. I have made the point countless times before that he ignores my responses to his arguments, to his “challenges,” and simply repeats himself as though nothing had ever been said in answer to them. That is why I refuse to have anything to do with him, and why I am justified in saying, as I have many times, that he is fundamentally—what word can I be permitted to use? Dishonest? Disingenuous? Lack of integrity? Whatever the words, he is impossible to debate on a genuine and rational basis. He deserves the strongest of censures for his antics.

He has recently recycled his “Spot the Mythicist” feature of a couple of years ago, listing the same excerpts he did before. Perhaps he hopes that no one here will remember that this was part of a debate which took place across our websites, and that I gave a lengthy and detailed response to the whole business in my second installment of that debate, none of which he acknowledged or replied to.

I am going to reproduce here the pertinent part of that installment, but for those who wish to peruse the entire article, see here.

And for a further follow-up record of our subsequent debates on the Minucius Felix question, in which I offer “An Irrefutable Trio” of arguments concerning the crucified man passage, see here.

But now, Spot the Atomist:

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

As a follow-up to what I've just posted regarding Don,

No, I argue much more in regard to Aristides than that "he was not a careful writer." I go quite a bit into the nature of his text, and try to relate my arguments to it objectively. And for Tertullian, my arguments are a lot different and more thorough.

You talk as though I offer nothing to justify drawing the line between Aristides and Felix & Co. The latter part of the excerpt I posted does that thoroughly.

As for consulting a "modern apologist", haven't I done just that on IIDB? I consider you guys much more knowledgeable on the subject of the 2nd century apologists than any standard commentator. Have you actually read their stuff on the subject? A lot of shallow platitudes, poorly argued, if at all. Mainly because they're oblivious to the mythicist take on the subject.

That's a compliment, by the way.

Earl Doherty

andrewcriddle

Veyne is a French scholar and anti-clerical has a specific meaning in the French context. See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-clericalism
It is more about opposing any claims to political power by the church than it is about hating Christianity.

I suspect almost all proponents of a MJ would oppose giving the church political power.

Andrew Criddle

Ted Hoffman

Thanks Kevin for a clear and well-written post. For the record, I think my charges of false analogies were on target and relegating your points "simple" and to "modest point not meant to prove anything conclusively" and reducing your arguments to acts of "merely pointing out" does not detract from the fact that they were fallacious. By all means feel free to compare them with others but your lack of what to compare witth should not be presented as a rebuttal.
To cut the chase, please demonstrate where and how Felix explains to pagans that the crucified man they are referring to was not an earthly being. If you cannot do that, your argument has no legs to stand on. This is irrespective of what Ireaneus argued. Unless you want to maintain your earlier argument that Christians werent always rational.

If this is what you are doing, why demand for examples from Doherty? He has no monopolized access to data any more than you. He has explained Pauline mythicism and the logos-type Christianities.
Since you are talking probability, showing that there have been some victims murdered using pens in a city does not increase the probability that a certain victim was also murdered using a pen. Or does it?
They[mythicists and logos-type Christians] did not have their own texts: they were Christians too.
How do you determine "fast" and "slow" here? You want to erect an argument based on speed? Start by demonstrating what is "normal" speed then we move from there. Per orthodoxy, Jesus died c37CE and by the 50s we have Paul writing to Christian communities. Is this too fast or normal?
Did the JBap sect vanish too fast? What about the Apollos one?

"Popularity of sublunar deities in his model"? Where does Doherty argue that?
Is your argument framed as follows: If mythicism existed, then it could have taken X years before dying out. But it does not. Therefore it is not probable that mythicism existed.
If that is the argument you intend to make, what is X? If you cannot assign it a value, then your premise is based on an arbitrary subjective figure.
If it isnt your argument, what is your argument?
Maybe that is because (a) it wasnt a religion and (b) it was not wiped out? It formed a starting point for Christianity. Remember, going by my colourful language, mythicism is left stunned, not obliterated.
It is quite clear that latter-day Christians imposed historicist interpretations to Paul's writings, so again, mythicism never died out so the explanations you need as an account of the death of mythicism is ill-conceived and misplaced.
Mea culpa. My bad. Why are you asking us whether the apologists believed in a heavenly or earthly crucifixion? Dont we all have access to their texts? Or do mythicists have a monopoly over them? This seems to me to be an attempt at throwing anything that comes to your mind at mythicists. If you have an argument, make it.
You are missing the point: he is saying he means emanate and not begat literally. He is also saying "God is always conversing with His Reason." The logos is being used as a force here, not a human being.
We agree. And you are guilty of imposing historicist interpretations on it.
I dont remember describing it as a significant movement.
Christianity was popular and before it, among the Greeks and perhaps among the Romans, Philosophical-sounding stuff was the rave. Some of the converts to Christianity adherents imported Philosophical beliefs with them. Chief amongst these was the logos and its role in creation and revelation of God's message. They probably supplanted the mystical mythical stuff with the philosophical one. Just in the same way historicists supplanted these antecedents with a HJ.
Doesnt mean squat. Even Marcion was aware of the gospels.
This is not a sufficient reason to make historicist assumptions. You need historical statements to assume historical meanings.
He fails to mention the central character and the central belief about Christianity.
Even Paul's writings are preserved to date. It doesnt mean squat. Christians can and do routinely interpret texts in ways they themselves prefer.
Common Sayings Tradition.
GakuseiDon has argued that he omitted whatever he omitted because the word "Christ" was hated.
Anyways, its possible that Theophilus may not have agreed with Matthew on everything or had some form of protogospel. But those are details.
For us as mythicists, it is sufficient that you equally find the silence remarkable and perhaps in need of an explanation.
Doherty attempts to explain the silence.

Ben C Smith

I think GDon is correct that the name Christ was hated. Tertullian, Apologeticum 3.5-6:

Christianus vero, quantum interpretatio est, de unctione deducitur. sed et cum perperam Chrestianus pronuntiatur a vobis, nam nec nominis certa est notitia penes vos, de suavitate vel benignitate compositum est. oditur itaque in hominibus innocuis etiam nomen innocuum. at enim secta oditur in nomine utique sui auctoris.

Christian [as a word] indeed, as much as it is to be interpreted, is derived from [the word] anointing. And even when it is falsely pronounced Chrestian by you, for neither is there any certain notice taken of the name among you, it is made up of sweetness or benignity. Thus even an innocent name is hated among innocent men. But indeed the sect is hated in the name of its author.

Yes, those are both options.

What if the explanation is even more remarkable than the silence? (I personally would attempt in such a case to find a different explanation.)

Ben.

Toto

I suspect almost all proponents of a HJ would also oppose giving the church political power.

GakuseiDon

I've apologised to you before when you've accused me of similar things, since I've always tried to ensure that I don't misrepresent anyone. There's not much more I can do. If you can actually quote me, then I will sincerely apologise. If not, I'll just ignore it, and continue on with the debate.

I've used it to make a specific point, and nothing in your response goes against the point. In fact, quite the opposite, as I will go into below. But otherwise, you're right that I should have linked to your second rebuttal on my website, and I will add that when I get a chance (I am currently travelling on business, so don't have access to my home computer). I will probably add a third article on my website when I get a chance.

I also recommend that people should read Doherty's article, to see if my comments below are reasonable. As I always like to point out, we need to look at the literature of the day to get a more complete picture of what people believed.

Doherty points out that some Second Century writers could make statements seemingly against a human Jesus, and he asks (all but rhetorically) how can these writers use that manner of presentation without indicating how the same criticism didn't apply to Christ? I raised the question of Aristides and Tertullian, who did exactly the same. Doherty's response on Aristides:

Now, let me allow that all these statements do constitute criticisms of features of pagan theology which could be said to have their counterparts in the Christian religion. Certainly, Christ was mutilated, he died by violence, and he did not choose to save himself from death. In ridiculing those ideas in pagan thought, Aristides offers no qualification for the supposed parallel situations in regard to Christ's life, situations we assume he was familiar with, since he refers to "written gospels" (though no authors and only basic details are mentioned).

Here Doherty shows that it IS possible for a HJ writer to make such a presentation. As Doherty goes on to say:

But context is everything, and we need to consider that context.

Exactly! This is something that I've ALWAYS said. And part of the context is formed from examining the literature of the day. I'll talk more about this context below, but for now let's finish off on Aristides. Doherty writes (my emphasis):

I suspect that Aristides was simply oblivious to any contradictions; they would have gotten lost in the shuffle. The great bulk of his Apology is taken up with diatribes against the theological beliefs of the Greeks, Jews, Egyptians, and Barbarians. He goes into great detail, ridiculing and condemning all, about the worship of natural elements, about the absurdities of the Greek myths and the reprehensible behavior of their anthropomorphic gods, about the stupidity of
deifying animals as the Egyptians do; he is a little less harsh with the Jews, though he maintains that they are deceived into directing their rituals toward the angels rather than God himself. In the midst of all this, and quite in keeping with the negative image in which he is trying to cast the other religions, he throws in some criticisms which resemble features of the Christian faith. But even here, we might excuse him for not thinking that qualifications were needed for Jesus, since the contexts are not that close. When he condemns the idea of a god being bound and mutilated, he is speaking of the myth of Zeus doing this to Kronos, one god to another, not of some allegedly historical event on earth; the mutilation involved the latter's genitals. Should we really expect Aristides to worry about an obscure parallel with Christ, let alone trouble himself to offer a proviso in his case?

"Aristides was simply oblivious to any contradictions"? "We might excuse him for not thinking that qualifications were needed for Jesus"? I suspect that this will sound as adhoc to others as it did to me. I can imagine if I used the sentences in bold as reasons for why the "Logos" apologists didn't offer qualifications, Doherty would have a field day! Even if he has a point (which I don't believe personally), we can see that Doherty can have hardly examined the literature of the day.

Doherty goes on to list differences between Aristides and the other apologists, and suggests that the situations were not the same (I don't see how his comments are relevent, but I'll let others decide if he has a point). But it certainly confirms what I was claiming: we have examples of HJ writers making the same manner of presentation as the mythicists. Doherty's rhetorical question is hardly justified. At the least, he needs to note that there were HJ writers who did the same.

Along the same lines, but on a slightly different point, let's look at how Doherty responds to my comments about Tertullian. Doherty writes (again, my emphasis):

In my Response to his critique, I took him to task for his fallacious use of Tertullian's Ad Nationes as an alleged example of an historicist writer "avoiding" mention of details of Jesus life and even of his name. Let me reiterate: in virtually the same breath as this 'avoidance,' Tertullian clearly refers to the "founder" of his sect, and urges his pagan readers to learn as much as they can about this founder so as to make a proper evaluation of the Christian faith. In view of this, and of the fact that the exclusive focus of Ad Nationes is on countering pagan calumnies against the Christians and in condemning the pagan gods (it is not a defense of the faith), a silence on the name or life details of Jesus is completely irrelevant. Yet in his rebuttal GDon still persists in appealing to this so-called 'silence'.

There are several points here, but one that I would like to highlight is: It doesn't matter that Tertullian is urging his readers to learn more about "the founder". I'm sure that Doherty would agree that by this time the pagans already knew about Jesus Christ as the founder of Christianity. The point is that in Ad nationes, Tertullian avoids the use of the names "Christ" and "Jesus" altogether. Why? What on earth would he gain by NOT using the names "Jesus" or "Christ"? As far as I know, Doherty has not addressed this specific point. (Can Doherty or someone else point out if he has done this?). Just claiming that Tertullian urges the readers to find out more about the founder does NOT explain why Tertullian avoids using "Jesus" or "Christ". Earl, wouldn't you agree that if anything, it compounds the mystery?

Next, Doherty comments on my three quotes from Tertullian from my "Spot the Mythicist" challenge. For each, Doherty finds a reason for why Tertullian didn't think it applied to Jesus. Each of them is interesting, but I'll quote the second one, in detail. Doherty writes (my emphasis):

In a nicely fashioned argument, Tertullian chastises his pagan readers for seeking an 'out'
by declaring that such traditions are the invention of poets and thus mere fables, and yet they turn about and glorify such poetic license and make such works as those of Homer the basis of their "fine arts" and "the very foundation of your literature." [Ibid., p.135] The apologist thinks to catch his readers in a contradiction:

"But when you say that they only make men into gods after their death, do you not admit that before death the said gods were merely human?" [Ibid., p.136]

He is speaking of the poets making men into gods, and a specific class of men, namely dead kings and heroes. If that is their claim, then the pagans are being irrational in not admitting that such would-be gods must have been simply men to begin with. Once again, this is a specifically focused discussion about a type of pagan practice which Tertullian would hardly think to associate with the case of Jesus, and thus the lack of some kind of qualification in regard to Jesus is of no significance.

Now, this immediately raises the question of whether similar reasons can be attributed to "Logos" apologists. Is it conceivable that apologists who had already been pushing Jesus as the pre-existing Logos to pagans also "hardly think to associate with the case of Jesus"? In fact, if their Christianity was centred on Jesus as "pre-existing "Logos" rather than "Jesus the man", wouldn't bringing up the man distract from their points about the centrality of the "Logos" Jesus? Again, I'm not saying that they are hiding Jesus (any more than Tertullian did), but that they were presenting what they thought was central to their religion -- and arguably "Jesus the pre-existing Logos" was more central than "Jesus the man".

Here is Doherty's explanation for why M. Felix is different (my emphasis):

Having gone through GDon's objections, let's briefly review the situation in the major second century apologists so as to bring the underlying issue into focus. Looking first at the quote from Minucius Felix which GDon thinks to compare to his selection from Tertullian and Aristides:

"Therefore neither are gods made from dead people, since a god cannot die; nor of people that are born, since everything which is born dies." [23, ANF IV, p.187]

Unlike the case of Ad Nationes, this and other similar statements appear in the context of a debate in defense of the Christian faith, in which the author is presenting an exchange of arguments. There should be no impediment to either side countering an accusation by the other. Thus it makes little sense for the apologist to place in the Christian's own mouth a statement which would rebound negatively on features of his own faith, while providing no proviso or clarification for it.

Felix's declarations also have a more universal application than those of Tertullian. I have pointed
out that Tertullian's references to "gods" and the deaths thereof are tied to a specific identification with the topic under discussion. By contrast, Felix's claim that "a god cannot die" is not so specific. It is a general statement, and as such, directly contradicts his alleged Christian faith, which is not the case with Tertullian.

Keeping in mind that the "Logos" Christians would have also regarded Christ as an eternally existing entity, and the pagan gods as not (and therefore not true gods), I can't see much difference between Tertullian's comment and M. Felix. I'll be polite and say that Doherty's response appears to be adhoc. Or, to put it less politely, a steaming LOAD of adhoc.

The question here, as always, is context. Doherty seems to build his case as though each writer was writing in a vacuum, and as if pagans had no knowledge of Christianity. Yet, most of those apologists (in fact, arguably all) wrote from 160 CE onwards, at a time when most pagans would have known what Christians now believed about their origins (paraphrasing from Doherty).

What else would the pagans have heard about Christianity and Christ? I suggest that by the time
those apologists wrote, the pagans not only knew of Jesus Christ, but that they also knew that Christians regarded Jesus as a pre-existing entity who came to earth as the Divine Word. Since Paul arguably initiated the concept (though he didn't use "Logos" itself IIRC), by the time you get to Justin Martyr and the Gospel of John by the middle of the Second Century, this idea appears to have been quite wide-spread, and writers used this in their philosophical treatises. It wasn't to hide Jesus -- pagans already knew about him -- but to present Christianity in a new light. We can see some apologists attacking the pagan gods by pushing the idea that the pagan gods were mortal but Christ was eternal. We see other Christians defending Christianity as being philosophically sound and based on "Platonic" concepts.

Earl, let's start with this: We see Tertullian not referring to "Jesus" and "Christ" at all in Ad nationes. Why? And what are the implications for the other apologists who also didn't refer to the names "Jesus" and "Christ"? (Again, I will point out that saying Tertullian referred to "the founder" is begging the question). If you've responded to this already, please point me to it.