Layman

Spin,

From 1 Clement, to Ignatius, to Justin Martyr, to Iraneus, there is an unbroken record of the HJ Christians speaking favorably of the Church in Rome. Indeed, 1 Clement and Justin Martyr are products of that church. Marcion was forced to leave Rome after he began announcing his heretical ideas. Valentinias left Rome to found his own heretical sect. There is no evidence that Rome tolerated their heretical ideas once they became known. Indeed, the evidence is all to the contrary.

Your only response is to say that because M. and V. stayed in the Rome church for some time, the Roman church must not have believed in the HJ. Or, even more oddly, that the Roman churh happily harmonized those who believed in a HJ, those who denied a HJ, and Docetists who advocated a different HJ than 1 Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Iraneus. Or even of Tatian in his harmonization. Thus, you assume that M. and V. must have been public proponents of their later heresies for their entire stay in Rome.

That assumption is unsupported by any evidence. As I have shown, heretics generally start out as orthodox or something close to it. As they become more heretical, or more open about their heresy, there comes a challenge. Some are tossed out, like Marcion and Luther. Some leave to start their own sects, like V. and Charles Russell. That Christianity was a hundred years old at the time adds nothing to your argument. Indeed, if anything it could explain why the heresies of M. and V. were cloacked for some time.

Layman

You are committing the same fatal error. The question is not what you or I believe about Zeus. But whether some Greeks believed Zeus came down to earth. Yes, of course many did.

The same is true for Marcion. Whether you believe in a docetic possibility or not, the fact is Marcion did. Marcion had traditions about Jesus he liked and those he found repulsive. He could not stomach the idea of Jesus being born and being a real flesh and blood person. So he had to change those ideas. He did by mutiliating a copy of Luke and Paul's letters.

Attonitus

A creature that is born in that way, or that it preexists from the eternity as in John, it can be any thing less human

Vinnie

1. Paul was writing to Christians. Christians he and others preached to. These occasional letters addressed pressing issues at the time. Some of Paul's letters are actually several letters combined, hence there really are only about 2 lengthy writings from Paul. Did Pilate really crucify Jesus apparently, was not one of the issues Paul had to deal with. Jesus didn't exist apparently was not one either.

2. You appear to assume no written Gospels = no HJ details. There was an oral stage. As Papias demonstrates early in the 2d century oral transmission of material was still popular in some areas (most areas?). The first Gospel (Mark) can be deconstructed to show the evolution of this process.

3. Much in the Gospels in not historical (I can say this whereas GD and Layman will not). THe PN came largely from Passion Proophecy (Crossan is brilliant here and I share his judgement that much of the passion is not historical) thus these details were not widely known or might not have even been invented in Paul's day. We see exactly what we should, passion prophecy and the Cross cast in light of the OT. For example, why would Paul mention an empty tomb when there was no tomb to mention? See Crossan's Who Killed Jesus. I absolutely loved it.

4 Your comment has a canonical bias since I assume you meant canonical Gospels. THere are other Gospels which lack narrative details. THomas, the Synoptic Sayings source and so on.

5. What is historical at core in the Gospels is the individual periopes. It i a fact that Paul and other epsitles of the first century that show clear knowledge of Jesus' teachings and sayings (e.g. divorce, last supper drawn from Jesus' table fellowship practice evident in the Gospels).

THis is what we expect. Jesus died a shameful horrible death. We have teachings of his ministry known and practices of his life carrying over into sayings (table-fellowship) and we have passion prophecy and apologies for the cross. In essence, we have positive and negatives. His life was the positive with all the sayings and teaching and his ministry and followers but his death was negative. What we see are apologetics and passion prophecy regarding this.

The passion narrative was not widely known as passion prophecy led to its invention. Since it was invented it was not widely known by all stages of the tradition initially but had to become popular. First we have some of the material in GPeter (yup I been reading Crossan) and Mark and then Matthew, Luke and John). In the 2d century this material would be more common as the four-fold Gospels were ever becomming popular and written texts were becoming the norm.

Passion prophecy, I believe, is most clearly seen in Barnabas and even Justin Martyr has it. That whole two goats thing made my head spin but there it is in the texts!

Vinnie

Attonitus

No. The question is that you are sustaint what you cannot prove. Doesn't exist any base to sustaint that Marcion believes in Jesus like in a historical man.

Vinnie

This is quite comical. Only an atheist or agnostic can now attest to the historiciry of Jesus according to Attontitus' standards. Obviously if anyone thought Jesus perfomed a miracle (a non-placebo one) they can't have been an HJer or support the HJ case in light of this. This is that same, tired, and formerly refuted nonsense that the existence of Jesus is an extraordinary claim. It has reared its ugly head again, only in a different form this time. This beast was slain before. Ironically, it is a naturalist who resurrects it back to life.

Vinnie

Attonitus

Argumentum ad hominen? You besides not having any education simply cannot refute my arguments

Clivedurdle

Isn't the whole point of a mythological perspective that people believe in Jesus, Zeus and Superman but that these are imaginary and fictitious constructions?

You cannot state that Doherty believes that there was no Jesus on earth ..or as a spirit being, because the whole point of the mythical argument is that there is not a spiritual world!

The Docetists or alleged HJ thinking had not developed that far then, this is a far more modern concept, so the argument would have been about different types of Jesus - I do not think HJ's were that clear either about the historicity of Jesus, they constantly talk in exultant language of the Christ.

I know many xians who would swear in court that they know Jesus personally. Would their statements be taken as evidence of the historicity of Jesus? I think not.

We do not have clear first hand evidence that this person existed! That is very interesting of itself!

Vinnie

I'm not the one saying only atheists or agnostics can present evidence of something historical. I am not engaging in cultured prejudice and historical ad hominems. My point was that you are.

Vinnie

Vinnie

We do not have clear first hand evidence that this person existed! That is very interesting of itself!

The evidence for pre-Gospel material and oral tradition is legion. We have Mark written when some followers were still alive and Paul providing contemporar-Primary source data that they lived and existed. We also have a host of sources and forms independently attesting various people in the context of an HJ.

See this thread:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=81415

We might not have contemporary primary data for Jesus but we have some contemporary primary data on those figures who followed him initially and carried on his ministry.

Aside from this, it is telling that you would require contemporary primary data. As the Jesus Faq clearly refutes this notion. See number three

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/jesusfaq.html

[3] Argument: Only Contemporary Evidence for the Historicity of Jesus will work. The rest is just hearsay.

Rebuttal: This argument effectively demonstrates the non-historicity of John the Baptist and a lot of other figures of which there is no contemporary primary source material on. Further, John the Baptist and these other figures are widely regarded as having been historical individuals. This breaks down merely into a case of historically uninformed special pleading.

In the case of John the Baptist we have Josephus mentioning John. All four Gospels and possibly some underlying sources behind them mention John. Christians cannot be said to have invented the Baptist. He is too troubling to them throughout the record. There is also a fair amount of Baptist material in Q! Now we have multiple attestation not only of sources, but of forms (sayings Gospel vs. narrative Gospel). Yet these are all cavalierly dismissed by this argument.

The historicity of Jesus is just as strong or stronger than that for John the Baptist We may close by saying that the requirement of primary-contemporary source data for the reconstruction of historical details imposes too strict a standard on the field. As I once read on a scholarly historical Jesus list (X-Talk):

"If you expect contemporary primary source material on every historical individual, be it Plato, Apollonius, Alex the great, etc., there would be no history.�

Vinnie