Freethought & Rationalism Archive

arnoldo · 02-21-2009, 07:41 AM

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Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

According to the following source the Ebionites believed that Jesus was not the offspring of the Holy Ghost.

So, Jesus was an archangel according to your source.

What is the fundamental difference between an archangel and the offspring of the Holy Ghost?

The Ebionites believed the Jesus was born fully human and later was created like an archangel. This concept of adoptionismis attributed to the Ebionites.

aa5874 · 02-21-2009, 08:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

So, Jesus was an archangel according to your source.

What is the fundamental difference between an archangel and the offspring of the Holy Ghost?

The Ebionites believed the Jesus was born fully human and later was created like an archangel. This concept of adoptionismis attributed to the Ebionites.

Based on your source, in "adoptionism", Jesus was regarded as sinless, this position is contrary to the NT.

Ro 3:23 -

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]
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

You have failed to present a realistic human Jesus with historical information.

This is your Jesus so far, a sinless man who was created as an archangel.

This is basic mythology.

Amaleq13 · 02-21-2009, 08:40 AM

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Originally Posted by aa5874

Well, if what you say is true, ancient biographies are fiction novels.

Except for the parts where they describe real people and real events.

aa5874 · 02-21-2009, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Well, if what you say is true, ancient biographies are fiction novels.

Except for the parts where they describe real people and real events.

You must mean implausible people and events. Remember ancient biograhies are not defined by plausibilities.

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Originally Posted by Amaleq

1. Ancient biographies contain implausible bits.

2. Plausibility is not a defining characteristic (ie requirement) of ancient biography.

Amaleq13 · 02-21-2009, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

You must mean implausible people and events. Remember ancient biograhies are not defined by plausibilities.

No, I meant what I said. Not being defined by plausibilities does not mean that no plausibilities were included.

Ancient biographies contained both plausible and implausible claims.

aa5874 · 02-21-2009, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

You must mean implausible people and events. Remember ancient biograhies are not defined by plausibilities.

No, I meant what I said. Not being defined by plausibilities does not mean that no plausibilities were included.

Ancient biographies contained both plausible and implausible claims.

You don't know what you are talking about . Look!

Fiction novels contain plausibilities and implausibilties.
Ancient biographies contain plausibilities and implausibilities.

Fiction novels are not defined by their plausibilities.
Ancient biographies are not defined by their plausibilities.

Ben C Smith · 02-21-2009, 11:41 AM

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Originally Posted by spin

If one is flexible, the term "biography" becomes all encompassing.

Not even with all the ingenuity in the world could biography be stretched to encompass Greek tragedy, Greek comedy, epic, lyric, or any other poetical genre; nor could one reasonably mistake the histories or probably even the novels (still working on that angle) for biography. Encomia? Sure.

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First, I was mainly pointing out a specific type of implausibility. A couple of eagles in the sky don't mean much to me, baby. But a voice out of heaven saying "you are my son" means more and less. Some duffer might be stupid enough to think that the eagles might mean something, but it is quite reasonable that eagles were seen. Was such a voice heard and who could have? Such a statement would not have been addressed to anyone but Jesus.

I am beginning to think you really do not know what a lot of ancient biographies contain. I suspect that, when you hear me say that Mark belongs to a subgenre of ancient biography, you immediately call to mind Suetonius, Tacitus, and Plutarch by way of comparison. Most of those belong to the upper end of proper Greco-Roman biography. There is also a lower end, and there are also examples that are not Greco-Roman.

Yes, it is quite reasonable that somebody saw eagles. But there is a lot in ancient biography that is not reasonable.

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Plutarch didn't have much quality control, confusing tradition with history. He seemed to have treated tradition as though it were history, leading to a few rather questionable "biographies", Theseus, Numa Pompilius, Lykurgos.

Yes, Plutarch confused tradition with history. So did the evangelists.

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I doubt whether he would have let himself get away with stuff of the ilk of Gethsemane or the temptation or the heavenly voice directed only to Jesus.

Gethsemane is not in the same class as the heavenly voice. It is easy to imagine Jesus telling his disciples at some point about the heavenly voice (again, for the benefit of those who like to jump to conclusions, I am not saying that this is what happened). Gethsemane is a different matter.

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I don't really know much about the Life of Apollonius. It has never really been in the need to know category. I just know that Philostratus was writing far to long after the events to give me much hope of usefulness.

Suffice it to say that this Life belongs, IMHO, to what I above called the lower end of Greco-Roman biography.

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Thucydides wrote purely of his own time, so did Polybius, so basically did Tacitus -- his own time and that of people he could query whether directly or through descendants. The encyclopaedic guys are worries, writers like Livy and Diodorus.

These are historians, not biographers (except Tacitus in one work). History and biography overlap, but I do not think one can (or should) confuse them. Plutarch famously did not confuse them (I am writing biographies, not histories).

Ben.

aa5874 · 02-21-2009, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

...History and biography overlap, but I do not think one can (or should) confuse them. Plutarch famously did not confuse them (I am writing biographies, not histories).

Ben.

So, Plutarch was confused about history after all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Yes, Plutarch confused tradition with history. So did the evangelists.

Ben C Smith · 02-21-2009, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

...History and biography overlap, but I do not think one can (or should) confuse them. Plutarch famously did not confuse them (I am writing biographies, not histories).

Ben.

So, Plutarch was confused about history after all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Yes, Plutarch confused tradition with history. So did the evangelists.

Yes, he confused tradition with history, as I said, and he turned both into biography.

He did not confuse the genre of history with the genre of biography, as I said.

Thank you for doing your part to confirm what I said.

Ben.

arnoldo · 02-21-2009, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

The Ebionites believed the Jesus was born fully human and later was created like an archangel. This concept of adoptionismis attributed to the Ebionites.

Based on your source, in "adoptionism", Jesus was regarded as sinless, this position is contrary to the NT.

Ro 3:23 -

Quote:

]
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

So are you saying that the position of the NT,according to your understanding, is that Jesus was not sinless?

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

You have failed to present a realistic human Jesus with historical information.

Can you demonstrate how to present a realistic human person who lived over two thousand years ago with historical information? You can provide an example of any person you wish.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

This is your Jesus so far, a sinless man who was created as an archangel.

That is the Jesus of the Ebionites of the late first century.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

This is basic mythology.

Thank you for your opinion

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