Solitary Man

It doesn't follow that Josephus was around. He could have taken it from earlier reports. He could have been wholesale fabricated with real history entered in. How do you know? You're merely assuming that Josephus was there. Your "methodology" is riddled with assumptions. Odd then that you lambast others' assumptions while blatantly ignoring your own.

RTFA.

It shows where the tradition lay. The Christians regarded their founder Christ as real, but the Ebionites regarded their founder Christ as real. Tertullian takes the name from the Ebionites, but all information about Ebion comes from outside the trajectory. It doesn't fit the information trajectory. Meanwhile, within the Christian information trajectory, Christ is always regarded as real, even if later authors have qualifications to that.

Accepted into whose tradition? The Ebionite or the "orthodox"?

Saying that Thomas is Gnostic because it was found among the Gnostic texts (even though you're equivocating here - Coptic Thomas was found among the Gnostic texts, not Greek Thomas, which was found at Oxyrhynchus, and lacks the many "Gnostic" characteristics of Coptic Thomas) is like saying that Plato's Republic is Gnostic, because it was also found among the Gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi.

Quit the sophistry spin. Where does Paul say he's Christian? Paul associates himself with James, Cephas, and John. He likens both their gospel. He contrasts his gospel, having been received by revelation, with their gospel, by necessity having been received by man. Where did they get their gospel? By man. Not revelation.

You want to make point with that? The author's lateness doesn't have that great a bearing as it does on the dating of their sources and the transmission of their tradition.

Any evidence to back that up?

Read up on the Petronius Question.

Solitary Man

Yes, I think one can effectively argue that the birth narratives are not based in history. I don't think I ever argued against such an idea. Your "one liner" is more of a rhetorical cheap trick than any meaningful dialogue here.

spin

Rubbish. You need to show you are not being arbitrary. "This bit here I believe was not to be taken as kosher. When there's nothing I can see that's wrong with that other bit so I'll keep it." Hmmm. Not arbitrary? Go figure.


spin

Solitary Man

Thanks spin, but until you familiarize yourself with Matthean soteriology, your criteria for "arbitrary" is merely your own ignorance.

spin

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

You cannot do your job.

You don't deal with the issue by changing the subject. The Ebionites are a red herring to the issue that people saw Ebion to be a real person. How Ebion made it into tradition is probably different from how Jesus could have. That too is irrelevant. When you want to deal with the fact that non-historical figures can be seen as real then let me know.

Non sequitur.

Greek Thomas is an incomplete fragment of what Coptic Thomas is a complete version of. No equivocation. You're just squirming. There is no contextualization of the Oxyrhynchus fragment as it was a reuse. We are sure that gnostics used it.

What sophistry?

Now that's sophistry! Normally, we use "christian" as a shorthand for a believer in Jesus called christ. Paul is such a believer.

He tries to, but doesn't succeed.

And what is their gospel? Who knows?

My point is that Paul claims that his tradition comes directly from divine revelation. He doesn't need any other source for his religious beliefs.

It is merely a response that says information is often generated without it being genuine, though without it having been fabricated either. When you tell a story which gets retold and retold and retold, the inevitable result is a different story with explanations and developments that weren't in the original. Hence chinese whispers. I'm merely looking for ways of development that seem plausible and without the necessity to accuse anyone of anything not above-board for matters of belief to the individual are always perceived to be above board -- with the exception of people who take advantage of believers as Peregrinus (of Lucian of Samosata fame) did.

Let's start off: who is Titus Petronius??


spin

spin

Hey Rocky, nothin' up ma sleeve!

OK. I'll assume for argument's sake that your original statement may have some coherence to it. Where exactly? On what non-arbitrary grounds were you claiming: "He wasn't arguing that such things really happened. He was making a point."


spin

Solitary Man

How can you tell if a work is satire? Features, spin, features. Epic recasting, fabrication of tradition, remodeling of given tradition, lack of information from the trajectory prior to Matthew, how it relates thematically, motivations for creation, independent attestation, lack of ability, and finally, necessity of information fill.

Matthew's tradition is twofold - what he inherited from Mark, and what he brought with him. He didn't inherit the infancy narrative from Mark. So where did he get it? Did he make up a random story. Not likely - it's not random. There's the Moses theme, casting Jesus as Moses, and finding the story through the scriptures. Is Matthew able to know what happened at Jesus' birth? Again, not likely, given our knowledge of how information spreads. (You seem to have a hard time handling modern studies on oral cultures and tradition.) Does the story relate to the overall picture thematically? Yes. Aside from the narrative, it has strong Mosaic overtones which fit with Matthew's overall depiction of Jesus. Is there a motivation for creation? Yes, Matthew's Mark and Q both lack birth narratives. We can compare it to Luke and John, both of which added a prequel to the main story: Luke with a birth narrative, and John with a treatise on the eternality of the Word made flesh. That covers two birds with a single stone. And not only is there a lack of attestation, there's good reason to think that the surrounding story itself would have merited some attention. I think its safe to say that Herod massacring a large number of infants would have somehow been recorded, most likely by Josephus, as well as other Christian authors independent of Matthew, none of which do.

Solitary Man

Your switching the argument now. From what was once a point against Jesus, it now becomes to a general "imaginary people can enter the tradition has historical". No one argued that. Didn't you see Walter Shandruk and his Castenada post?

Just because you cannot see the relevancy... I thought we dealt with the primary text? Tertullian is secondary to the actual Ebionite texts themselves. All that wishwash about "primary texts" is thrown out the window when you get down to it, eh spin?

The Gnostics also used Plato. I dare you make the statement that Plato is Gnosticism.

You see how you try to trap? But it's a failure. This is your sophistry, spin. You asked where James was called Christian. I pointed out that Paul isn't called a Christian either. Your sophistry may fool some here, but it's a cheap trick and is sub-par for scholarship.

Oh? And so when he rebukes Cephas for reverting back to James after he accepted Paul's version, what do you call that?

Non sequitur.

False. That's your assumption that he doesn't need any other source. You assume that he's satisfied - the texts don't allow for that. Why else would he be trying to get to the Pillars?

In other words, no evidence.

He was said by Pliny and Plutarch to have sent to Nero a sealed document.

spin

I used the Satyricon as an example of an ancient text that was not transparent in its significance. It's not a measure for you to deal with Matthew.

?

If by "Matthew" are you referring to a writer? If so are you assuming a single writer? If so, why? If not, why might you assume uniformity of purpose?

I don't set out to read them, so you have no basis for the claim. I have no problems with the notions of oral cultures and traditions, but you merely have a text.

(So you do assume uniformity. Now I do need a reason, as I have seen indications that that might not be the case. One example I gave was the omission of the Marcan nazarhnos references only to later include mention of nazwraios. This may be the one writer at two different occasions, but it doesn't seem likely to me.)

While there is an obvious Samson overtone at the end of the birth narrative, ie the reference to Nazara (error from Narizite), and the name is a direct allusion to Joshua, I can't see any reference in the birth narrative to Moses.

This generally doesn't support your initial claim:
At the same time, there is sufficient overlap between the Matthean and Lucan birth stories to know that they depended on earlier tradition, which may have developed sufficiently between the time of its inception and the time their writers received the divergent traditions for them to have been substantial narratives in themselves, but we (including you) have no way of knowing the details. That's a problem with traditions: their origins are often totally obscured from us. So I think you are left with guessing about traditions, in this case a birth narrative that you want to read in a particular way that the text seems not to give you sufficient back up for.

It seems to me that you've guessed about the purpose of the birth narrative (or you've derived it from a source that has), especially as it is possible that the writer has received a relatively developed version from his local tradition.


spin

spin

Once I saw that the argument was for a constructed figure, it didn't seem reasonable to me. The point about Ebion is that it is reasonable and did happen. I've added the wife of Pilate as well. Unheard of in Mark, no room in Matthew, but eked into existence for Luke. She later goes on to bigger and better things as a saint in the orthodox church. Once they enter tradition they somehow tend to grow. (Chinese whispers and all that.)

Ebion was always about how non-existent figures can be seen as real ones. IF you missed that point, then I'm glad it's been cleared up now.

You seem to be back to misunderstanding Ebion.

Plato's material was written before the time of the gnostics.

Still sophistry. Oh, no, wait. You just don't get it! Your task is to show that James (of the pillars) was a believer in Jesus. You can't assume you know what James's religious views were from later literature. Paul in Galatians doesn't help you.

So Paul criticizes Cephas. That's par for the course. How does that help y ou?

Rubbish. You don't know what the religious beliefs (gospel) of the Jerusalem messianists was.

Gal 1:11.

Prestige and support. But he gets neither.

It is an explanation that you can see in practice in the gospel tradition.

He was said by Pliny and Plutarch to have sent to Nero a sealed document.[/QUOTE]
He was one. It was a family that had representatives in the second and third centuries. There has been a strong argument for the Satyricon to have been written in the late second century (Marmorale).


spin