arnoldo

Rodney Stark doesn't support your argument, instead Stark presents that church growth started small then began to expand exponentially as christians themselves were the witnesses for people to convert. . .

How can you cite Stark to support your arguments in any way whatsoever?

Johnny Skeptic

On the contrary, I said "In the first century, Christianity was apparently a very small movement." 7,530 Christians in the entire world in 100 A.D. is certainly a very small movement. The book of Acts says that 3,000 people became Christians after a brief sermon by Peter. Do you believe that that event happened? If so, obviously not much happened regarding the growth of the Christian church from that time until after 100 A.D.

Regarding Christianity's eventual rapid growth, that only became possible after all of the supposed still living eyewitnesses died. Until then, since Jesus did not perform any miracles, and since he did not rise from the dead, when people checked things out, the usual response was "What miracles, and what Resurrection? We did not see any miracles, and we did not see Jesus after he rose from the dead."

Logically, if Jesus performed many miracles, and rose from the dead, and appeared to over 500 people in one place after he rose from the dead, the first century would have been the most likely time for the most rapid growth in the Christian church due to the presence of thousands of still living eyewitnesses. Obviously, that did not happen.

Consider the following Scriptures:

Matthew 4:23-25

"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan."

Jesus went throughout "all Galilee," and "throughout all Syria," and "[healed] all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people," and yet, what non-Christian, first century sources confirm the miracles?

Do you know of any eyewitness testimonies in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John was written too late to be of much value to Christians.

There is a lot of secular evidence that explains why Christianity eventually grew rapidly, and a lot of the secular evidence is in Stark's book.

Johnny Skeptic

Well of course it is not surprising that only 7,530 Christians left no trace. I have never said anything to the contrary. What is surprising is that Roman records do not say a lot about the miracles that Jesus supposedly performed, and, as a side note, that only the Old Testement mentions the Ten Plagues in Egypt. If the Ten Plagues occured, they would easily have been the most important news events of the century, if not the millennia, and historians from all over the Middle East and beyond would have recorded them.

Roger Pearse

I agree to some extent, but not on the key point, I suspect.

We cannot reasonably use this as a reason not to tabulate the data and see what it says. After all, how else can we find out any of these things -- where the texts originate, how they relate to each other, the history of the culture and the church --, except... by looking at the texts and seeing what they say!

By all means make the framework of the question larger, if you think it relevant; but as far as I can see, it runs the risk of increasing the labour of discovering what the data is, without measurably assisting us.

This seems to be reiteration; I refer you to my earlier reply.

I would only observe that we have moved from "Irenaeus does not say..." to "Irenaeus does not say in one of the only two works now extant..."

Is this a suggestion that Eusebius composed Irenaeus' Letter to Florinus? but if so, you would need to establish this, and even then... I feel averse to such arguments, such attempts to debunk primary sources. We all know the tricks of the debunker these days. They don't usually help us.

Just a general point for lurkers: some perhaps are unaware that the works of Eusebius are a treasure-house of quotations from the library of Origen and Pamphilus at Caesarea. His habit of verbatim citation, unusual in antiquity, is one of his great contributions to the development of modern historical scholarship, because later writers followed him.

Every ancient literary text comes to us by being copied; whether the copies are standalone, or embedded in other works makes no difference. An example might be the De Abstinentia of Porphyry, which is quoted in Eusebius Praeparatio Evangelica, but has also reached us in direct transmission. But the latter is so damaged that Eusebius' quotations give us generally a better text.

Another letter of Irenaeus, relating to the Florinus business, is extant in Syriac fragments.

As I remarked above, I do not see the force of it.

The remainder of the argument seems to consist of an appeal to a speculation as to what the text "must" say, in our opinion, if John taught Polycarp? That type of argument does not seem valid to me, whatever it is made in respect of. For it to work, surely we would need to know much more than we do about the circumstances of composition of any ancient work?

Trying to look into the mind of a writer and second-guess him, from 2,000 years distance and across an unimaginable cultural gap, must be pure guesswork. What we always need to see is hard data which can be tested.

But I think that we have established that ancient sources tell us that John was Polycarp's teacher, which I think was the point at issue.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Toto

This isn't quite what Stark says. He says that the evidence is explained by a growth rate based on social contact that is not typical of new religions (it is "exponential" because that's what growth rates are by definition.)

He explains the growth of the church not by Christian witness, but by their care for the sick, taking in foundlings, and other social practices that do not prove the existnence of their god or of Jesus.

aa5874

No information from Eusebius or Irenaeus is about a human only Jesus, it is about a God and man called Jesus Christ.

Church History 2.1.2
Church History 3.5.2 All the information from the Church is about an entity that was born of a virgin without sexual union called Jesus Christ who ascended to heaven. There is no other Jesus Christ in the writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Hegesippus, the NT, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius and other church writers.

Jesus Christ was presented as a God and man in virtually every single document from the Church.

Jesus Christ must be the most documented myth in history.

Clivedurdle

Interestingly John is said to have seen the Lord.

It would be very interesting if we are looking at a group vision of the Christ that later got historicised into a bloke called Jesus preaching around Galillee.

They thought their visions were of the Word!

And who is the Lord here? Is it the Greek Yahweh again?
(PS - Polycarp is reporting hearsay isn't he?)

Roger Pearse

Heh. Wouldn't it be considerably more interesting if someone were going to come out with some original "Jesus: the real story"? These ones are SO dreary, and SO stale. Bring on the dancing girls, boys, if you want our attention.

I favour the Eric von Daniken one myself. Better artwork, you know. Good old Eric, where is he now?

Indeed I remember days when some atheists were still going around proclaiming the "Jesus was an astronaut" story, with the utmost confidence. Where did they all go, I wonder?

Indeed -- memory taking me back -- I even remember some wonk proclaiming (in the mid 80's) that LSD didn't do you any harm. I've always thought that much of modern life is best understood, if you realise that our leaders and thinkers spent their youth using drugs. One look at their policies, and you learn that drugs really do cause brain damage.

(Sorry if you meant your comments seriously. They just triggered my sense of the ridiculous.)

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Solo

....and note how they support each other or where they are at odds.

...I'd gladly run the risk


But there was a series of issues that I see as relating to each other. It's not just that Irenaeus does not know how to assert Polycarp's relation to John, but also that Polycarp leaves no trace of it, and the copy of letter to Florinus that Eusebius presents seems to be refering to John in a formulaic manner (as one of the apostles who saw the Lord) which belies a notion of personal relationship.


Some lurkers are perhaps also unaware that Eusebius openly advocated pious fraud in the cause of furthering the faith. Here is an excerpt from his Praeparatio Evangelica 12.31:


Fair is fair. I don't know whether Eusebius composed the letter, and frankly doubt it. He conceivably may have received a copy which had already been manipulated, and perhaps only in adding "John" to the mention of apostles, in the original text by Irenaeus. Yes, perhaps, in this instance he did not forge himself. Perhaps, the text was not forged at all. But boy does the mention of John ever look suspect !

You (whoever it is you are speaking for in the plural) have established no such thing. If the evidence you have shown is all you have, you (the gang) might as well proceed directly to territio realis.

Jiri

Johnny Skeptic

And what is my argument? Well, I said:

Stark supports my argument because 7,530 Christians in the entire world in 100 A.D. is certainly a very small movement.

The book of Acts says that 3,000 people became Christians after a brief sermon by Peter. Do you believe that that event happened? If so, obviously not much happened regarding the growth of the Christian church from that time until after 100 A.D.

Regarding Christianity's eventual rapid growth, that only became possible after all of the supposed still living eyewitnesses died. Until then, since Jesus did not perform any miracles, and since he did not rise from the dead, when people checked things out, the usual response to their investigations was "What miracles, and what Resurrection? We did not see any miracles, and we did not see Jesus after he rose from the dead?"

Logically, if Jesus performed many miracles, and rose from the dead, and appeared to over 500 people in one place after he rose from the dead, the first century would have been the most likely time for the most rapid growth in the Christian church due to the presence of thousands of still living eyewitnesses who could have verified claims of miracles, and Jesus' appearances after he rose from the dead. Obviously, the Christian church did not start to grow rapidly until after 100 A.D.

Consider the following Scriptures:

Matthew 4:23-25

"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan."

Jesus went throughout "all Galilee," and "throughout all Syria," and "[healed] all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people," and yet, what non-Christian, first century sources confirm the miracles?

Do you know of any eyewitness testimonies in Matthew, Mark, and Luke? John was written too late to be of much value to Christians.

There is a lot of secular evidence that explains why Christianity eventually grew rapidly, and a lot of the secular evidence is in Stark's book.

Where did you get the idea that I said that it is surprising that 7,530 Christians at the end of the first century left no trace? Well of course it is not surprising that only 7,530 Christians left no trace. I have never said anything to the contrary. What is surprising is that Roman records do not say a lot (actually very little) about the miracles that Jesus supposedly performed. As a side note, it is surprising that only the Old Testement mentions the Ten Plagues in Egypt. If the Ten Plagues occured, they would easily have been the most important news events of the century, if not the millennia, and historians from all over the Middle East and beyond would have recorded them.