Chaucer

You do know that Arabic scribes were largely responsible for the restoration and virtual discovery of most of the Greek and Roman texts that have been preserved today and that were previously neglected totally by the Christian West, don't you?

Chaucer

Kapyong

Gday folks,

Well, there are plenty of early Christians who believed in a spiritual or mythical Jesus, or a phantom or non-flesh Jesus or even NO Jesus at all :


1st century Hebrews :
Christ performs his sacrifice in heaven, and -

8:4 “So then, if he were on Earth, he would not be a priest”

usually translated slightly oddly to avoid actually saying Jesus was never on Earth.


Revelation talks about Christ as a 'First Born of Heaven' - the birth actually happens in heaven and a dragon tries to get the baby - it's all weird stuff about a mythical Jesus that has NOTHING to do with history.


Consider the esoteric poem in Ephesians (probably not by Paul) - it seems to be a climactic prayer from the initiation ritual in the Mysteries of Christos (ch.5:14) :

"Therefore it is said:
Awake O sleeper,
and arise from the dead
and the Christos will shine on you"

Really? WHEN "is it said" ? This sounds exactly like an initiatory ritual - the initiate, called 'dead' in the physical body, is enticed to 'rise' above the physical so the Christos may shine on him. That clearly is all about a mythical Christ - not a historical Jesus.


Early 2nd century we have the odd case of the Didakhe (the Two Ways, or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), a book that describes Christian beliefs and practices, including a ritual meal of wind and bread. What's notable is what's MISSING - Jesus is missing - all the Gospel stories appear unknown to this writer - e.g. it quotes "Love Thy Neighbour" but does NOT say it came from Jesus !


Early 2nd century, 2 John warns of those who don't

"acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh"

He is referring to others Christians of his time who do not believe Jesus ever came in the flesh at all.


Barnabas declares Jesus is NOT the son of David or Son of Man (because he is Son of God,) he was revealed in 'flesh in a figure' - i.e. something like flesh but not really. Paul also talks of Jesus and his "likeness of flesh".


Marcion, in mid 2nd century, claimed Jesus was a phantom or spiritual entity, and not born of Mary :

“...they deny ... His humanity, and teach that His appearances to those who saw Him as man were illusory, inasmuch as He did not bear with Him true manhood, but was rather a kind of phantom manifestation. Of this class are, for example, Marcion...”

Basilides, in mid 2nd century, claimed Jesus was a phantasm, not flesh:

"Christ sent, not by this maker of the world, but by the above-named Abraxas; and to have come in a phantasm, and been destitute of the substance of flesh"

A book called the Pastor (or Shepherd) of Hermas was written in early 2nd century or so - it was part of most early 'bibles' for some centuries - but it has almost no historical Jesus in it at all, rather some mythico-mumbo-jumbo.


About this time there is a Christian book called (Mathetes Epistle to) Diognetus - it responds to 'close and careful inquiries' and preaches in Neo-Platonic tones of the Logos, his Son - but no time, place, or identity for this incarnation are provided. The name Jesus never appears once !


Minucius Felix, in about 2nd century, explicitly denied the incarnation and crucifixion along with other horrible accusations. It's dense writing which is why it was not censored I guess, but he is actually saying that he has heard the story that Christians worship a man who was crucified but he does NOT agree - he does NOT think crucifixion is a Christian belief at all! And he specifically says Christians do not worship a God born as a man, because Gods are NOT born as men :

"...he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men ... when you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross you wander far from the truth"

Then there is the odd Heracleon from the 160s or so – it is quite esoteric, quotes the Gospel of John and discusse places in the Gospel as representing certain planes of existence (like dimensions) :

' The “child” “in Capernaum” is one who is in the lower part of the Middle (i.e. of animate substance), which lies near the sea, that is, which is linked with matter. he child’s proper person was sick, that is, in a condition not in accordance with the child’s proper nature, in ignorance and sins. ' and ' The words, "After this he went down to Capernaum," indicate the beginning of a new dispensation, for "he went down" is not said idly. Capernaum, means these farthest-out parts of the world, the material realm into which he descended. '

In the 170s, Athenagoras of Athens wrote a detailed esoteric Christian treatise On The Resurrection Of The Dead arguing that resurrection is possible (in a non-fleshly body), but without once mentioning the resurrection of Jesus, or even using the words Jesus or Christ ! He also composed In Defense of the Christians - no Jesus nor Christ is mentioned, but the Logos is directly equated with the Son of God.


So -
we see that quite a few early Christians had all sorts of bizarre NON-historical beleifs about Jesus. Of course we rarely hear about them now, because the literalists WON - and the rest is, er, history.


Kapyong

Toto

That does not include Josephus.

Toto

Uh, yeah? Your point? Have you read Ehrman on the Orthodox Corruption of Scripture? Mendacity is too strong a word.

Christians believed in their religion. Their religion did not have a commandment to preserve ancient texts accurately

Juststeve

Toto:

Yes I have read Ehrman and nothing he wrote supports the claim that Christian copyists inserted a fictitious character, (Jesus) into the accounts of pagan writers. That's more the province of the self published.

If it is your claim that Christians inserted a fictional character into the works or Josephus, Tacitus, et. al. than Mendacity is not too strong a word. That's exactly what it is, a willful altering of another work. Mendacity it would be but it is mendacity which you only suppose but can't prove.

Steve

Chaucer

Can you give me a citation on that, please?

Thank you,

Chaucer

andrewcriddle

I would describe Tacitus' structure rather differently.
First we have the description of the fire.
Second we have the rebuilding followed by an evaluation.
Thirdly we have the attempts to propitiate the Gods culminating in the execution of Christians.
Fourthly we have the broader national and international implications of the fire.

Tacitus leaves the precise chronology of the responses to the fire unclear, but the persecution follows a series of elaborate ritual propitiations which presumably took some time to plan prepare and carry out.

Andrew Criddle

spin

Beside the fact that I included the propitiation in the evaluation for brevity's sake, the structure basically seems the same to me. I think giving implications is the same as giving an evaluation.

How long do you imagine, a month? two?


spin

Toto

But he did point out scriptural "corruption" of Christian works at the hands of Christian scribes. If these scribes would alter holy writ, why would they hesistate to rewrite pagan or Jewish literature?

These scribes surely did not think that Jesus was a fictional character, and it would not take any really evil motive for one of them to assume that the James mentioned in Antiquities was in fact the James listed in Mark as a brother of Jesus, and in Paul as a pillar of the Jerusalem Church.

But this mistake, whether it was mendacious, evil, or just a natural misunderstanding, removes Josephus as an independent source for a male relative of Jesus.

The idea that the TF contains significant Christian additions, even if it was not invented from whole cloth, is not a fringe idea. Every modern scholar sees some high probability of Christian interpolation in this passage.

Toto

Steve Mason, Josephus and the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk). You can read the introduction online. especially pp 7-10. Christian writers starting with Origen adopted Josephus. The Crusaders took along copies of Josephus as travel guides to the Holy Land.