Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Iskander · 06-22-2010, 08:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

...and giving up the global flooding of the forum with endless repetitive stuff may, hopefully, happen

You mean like public opinion polls on the origins of christianity? Good luck.

Thank you

Littlejohn · 06-22-2010, 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander:

I thought you were going to surrender to the whimsical!

Professor Dale estimates the first letter of paul to have been written in the year 50 AD.
The gospel of Mark is dated 70 AD writing down material used in the oral tradition.

http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studie...lecture02.html
.

As the same mountainman has clarified, already in the first half of the nineteenth century, the prestigious assembly of scholars, known as 'Dutch Radikal Kritik', had solved, almost unanimously, that none of the letters 'Pauline' was written in the first century. Personally, I think not before the 140 year.

Today we even have a famous document of the second century, accepted as authentic by the Catholic clergy, which indirectly confirms that the results obtained by the scholars of Radikal Kritik's school were corrects. This means, if it be necessary to specify, that absolutely can not one sustain the argument that it was Paul of Tarsus the 'inventor' of the Catholic-Christianity!

Greetings

Littlejohn

.

aa5874 · 06-22-2010, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Littlejohn

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874:

....And further, Justin Martyr did write that there were people called "Christians" who did not believe in JESUS during the reign of Claudius which was before the Jesus stories were written.
.

That is much interesting ... Have you read this step yourself in the works of Justin, or simply you report the contents of any review? ...

Greetings

Littlejohn
.

See "First Apology XXVI.

J-D · 06-22-2010, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Did you read as far as the fifth option?

You seem not to understand that I have included the fifth option.

You can't have. It makes no sense to say that there is no evidence that there is no evidence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

The evidence from sources of antiquity show that "Christianity" did not start with or did not need Jesus, Paul or Constantine.

The word "Christian" is derived from the Greek "anointed".

This is the EVIDENCE from "Theophilus to Autolycus" XII

Quote:

And about your laughing at me and calling me "Christian," you know not what you are saying. First, because that which is anointed is sweet and serviceable, and far from contemptible........... Wherefore we are called Christians on this account, because we are anointed with the oil of God.

The existence or non-existence of Jesus, Paul or Constantine has NO effect whatsoever on the "Christians" who believed that they were "anointed with the oil of God".

And further, Justin Martyr did write that there were people called "Christians" who did not believe in JESUS during the reign of Claudius which was before the Jesus stories were written.

The question I am posing is not about the origin of the word 'Christians' (which is easy), but about the origin of Christianity. Etymology is not identity.

J-D · 06-22-2010, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

No, I don't think I do.

I thought you were going to surrender to the whimsical!

Professor Dale estimates the first letter of paul to have been written in the year 50 AD.
The gospel of Mark is dated 70 AD writing down material used in the oral tradition.
http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studie...lecture02.html

Transcript

Quote:

The oldest written materials of Christianity are actually the letters of Paul. This may come as a surprise, because you get to the gospels first in the New Testament. And most people assume, "Oh, the gospels, they're about the life of Jesus. That must be the oldest stuff." Well, the gospels are actually all written after the letters of Paul were written by 20 or 30 years. So the oldest material we have are the letters of Paul. And the oldest one of those letters is 1 Thessalonians, probably, dated to
around the year 50 or thereabouts. Pretty quickly, though, different churches, probably Paul's churches, initially, started sending around copies of Paul's letters. Remember, there's no printing press in the ancient world. Whenever your church would get a copy of one of these letters from Paul, you would have scribes, often slaves, because slaves were especially trained to be scribes. They would take that letter, and they would make a copy of it. And then, they might keep theoriginal, and they'd send the copy off to somebody else. Or they might keep the copy and send the original off to somebody. And so letters would be copied, and books would be copied and sent around from different communities. This obviously happened.

So we can tell that the gospels start off with oral tradition that's being passed around, different sayings and stories about Jesus. And then, gradually, but only about 40 years after the death of Jesus, the Gospel of Mark is in the year 70. If Jesus was crucified around the year 30 that's a 40 year period of time between the death of Jesus and the appearance of the first gospel that we possess. Although there were other written materials being passed around during that time.

I am aware in general terms of the estimates made about the dating of the different Christian books, although I am not sufficiently learned to judge the derivation of those estimates. But the question I posed was not about those books originated but about how Christianity originated.

J-D · 06-22-2010, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

...and giving up the global flooding of the forum with endless repetitive stuff may, hopefully, happen

You mean like public opinion polls on the origins of christianity? Good luck.

I don't think this is endless repetition, or even repetition at all. I've never seen a poll like this here before.

Petergdi · 06-22-2010, 09:36 PM

I voted for the first option, but I would include a caveat that Jesus did not see himself coming from a tradition but from his understanding of God's reign combined with the scriptures in the light of that understanding. Granted that he was influenced by the Pharisees and others, his teaching about the Kingdom seems to be a new understanding.

Littlejohn · 06-22-2010, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by Littlejohn

That is much interesting ... Have you read this step yourself in the works of Justin, or simply you report the contents of any review? ...

Greetings

Littlejohn
.

See "First Apology XXVI.
.

Thanks you!

Greetings

Littlejohn

.

Iskander · 06-23-2010, 05:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

I thought you were going to surrender to the whimsical!

Professor Dale estimates the first letter of paul to have been written in the year 50 AD.
The gospel of Mark is dated 70 AD writing down material used in the oral tradition.
http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studie...lecture02.html

Transcript

.................................................. ....
Secondly, it is mere propaganda that slaves often were scribes when it can be shown that a scribe was often a professional, of the social elite class and well-educated in antiquity.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribe

Slaves employed as scribes?, yes

Quote:

To simplify, one might say that Roman slaves were of three main kinds: those in urban households, those who worked in the fields in the country, and the chained slaves employed on great estates (latifundiae) and in the mines.'8 The lot of domestic slaves, as might be expected, was more privileged than that of their unfortunate counterparts involved in heavy manual labor, and this was not just because of the lighter duties. The more slaves a wealthy Roman possessed, the greater his prestige; some had 400 or more in their household.'9 There were thus more slaves than jobs for them to do, and to compensate a ludicrous division of labor arose, whereby one slave would buy groceries, another would cook, another put on his master's shoes, another dress him, another massage him, and another follow him around to attend to his every need. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus, the great intellectual influence on Marcus Aurelius, pointed out the absurdity of all this - and he knew, because he had been a slave himself.20

In Rome slaves could be found in a bewildering variety of occupations: as street cleaners, builders of baths and temples, factory workers, navvies on roads and aqueducts; as shop workers, cooks, barbers, hairdressers, nurses, tutors, secretaries, butlers, laundry women, house cleaners, seamstresses and schoolteachers. Roman patricians were often in a kind of competition with their wealthy neighbors to see if they could buy better-looking or more accomplished slaves, and the oversupply of labor thus generated meant that male slaves were often found doing household chores that females could easily do.:>'>It will be clear, then, how different Roman slavery was from that of the antebellum American South, quite apart from the consideration that American slaves were always black and those in the Roman Empire could be any color. Roman slaves were often talented, clever and educated, occupying positions of responsibility and with a real prospect of freedom.

Under the Roman republic, slaves were acquired largely by war and piracy. The slave population thus consisted of conquered and defeated people,

Marcus Aurelius, Warrior, philosopher, emperor (or via: amazon.co.uk)
Frank Mclynn
Vintage 2010.
ISBN 9781844135271
Pages 7-8

Iskander · 06-23-2010, 05:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Littlejohn

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander:

I thought you were going to surrender to the whimsical!

Professor Dale estimates the first letter of paul to have been written in the year 50 AD.
The gospel of Mark is dated 70 AD writing down material used in the oral tradition.

http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studie...lecture02.html
.

As the same mountainman has clarified, already in the first half of the nineteenth century, the prestigious assembly of scholars, known as 'Dutch Radikal Kritik', had solved, almost unanimously, that none of the letters 'Pauline' was written in the first century. Personally, I think not before the 140 year.

Today we even have a famous document of the second century, accepted as authentic by the Catholic clergy, which indirectly confirms that the results obtained by the scholars of Radikal Kritik's school were corrects. This means, if it be necessary to specify, that absolutely can not one sustain the argument that it was Paul of Tarsus the 'inventor' of the Catholic-Christianity!

Greetings

Littlejohn

.

Greetings

It is the first time I have heard anyone claiming that Paul was the founder of Catholicism.
I cannot understand you.

The Dutch are very clever people, no doubt

View Poll Results: How did Christianity begin?
With people listening to the teachings of Jesus, derived from his interpretation of Jewish tradition	9	18.37%
With people listening to the teachings of Paul, derived from his visions produced by meditation techniques, neurological abnormality, drug use, or some combination	7	14.29%
With people listening to the teachings of Paul deliberately fabricated to attract a following	3	6.12%
With the Emperor Constantine promulgating for political purposes a religion which he had had deliberately fabricated	4	8.16%
We do not have enough information to draw a conclusion	26	53.06%
Voters: 49. You may not vote on this poll

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06-22-2010, 09:36 PM	#27
Petergdi Regular Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 354	I voted for the first option, but I would include a caveat that Jesus did not see himself coming from a tradition but from his understanding of God's reign combined with the scriptures in the light of that understanding. Granted that he was influenced by the Pharisees and others, his teaching about the Kingdom seems to be a new understanding.

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