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Old 08-29-2011, 01:13 AM   #41
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I am always amazed that revelation via the writings is so hard for people to accept, especially when it is stated point blank by the author and that everything written by the author, basically, confirms this to have been the case.
The bits of Paul about Jesus humanity seem designed to suit his theology.

He needed a man to counteract the effects that another man - Adam - wrought.

Hence his Saviour had to be a man.

He needed a way of removing the Law. Hence his Saviour had to be born under the Law.

He needed a Messiah. And Messiahs were of the ancestry of David. Hence his Saviour was of the line of David.

None of this is history. It is just theological reflection, asserted as fact.

Jesus was born of the seed of David. How could that be an historical fact?

DNA testing?

No, it was just theology. How could somebody who existed before Abraham be born of the seed of David? Easy. Theology doesn't have to be consistent. Paul could assign any human qualities he deemed necessary to his Saviour. It no more makes his Saviour a real flesh and blood person than stories of God wrestling with Jacob.

It is called anthropomorphising.
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Old 08-29-2011, 01:16 AM   #42
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I am always amazed that revelation via the writings is so hard for people to accept, especially when it is stated point blank by the author and that everything written by the author, basically, confirms this to have been the case.
The bits of Paul about Jesus seem designed to suit his theology.

He needed a man to counteract the effects that another man - Adam - wrought.

Hence his Saviour had to be a man.

He needed a way of removing the Law. Hence his Saviour had to be born under the Law.

He needed a Messiah. And Messiahs were of the ancestry of David. Hence his Saviour was of the line of David.

None of this is history. It is just theological reflection, asserted as fact, no matter how ridiculous it was.

Jesus was born of the seed of David. How could that be an historical fact?

DNA testing?

No, it was just theology. How could somebody who existed before Abraham be born of the seed of David? Easy. Theology doesn't have to be consistent. Paul could assign any human qualities he liked to his Saviour. It no more makes his Saviour a real flesh and blood person than stories of God wrestling with Jacob.

It is called anthropomorphising.
Indeed.

Like I said, it's all pretty simply laid out by the author.
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Old 08-29-2011, 02:30 AM   #43
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We can see how histories were written in the Roman Empire, and the gospels do not read like histories or biographies of actual people.
What do they read like, then?

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You've been appealing to this vague "something that was going on" for some time. You don't seem to have made any progress in identifying it. I would suggest that the reason there is no history in these early Christian writings is that there just was no history.
That's certainly one option. But then why so few details about anything, then? And Doherty himself notes that there is "something going on". The fact that we find the same "something" going on among historicist writers is the interesting point.

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And don't try to pretend that the second century writers were historicists in the modern sense. They believed that Jesus was a historical character for theological reasons, not because they had any historical evidence.
Why do you keep bringing this up as though I disagree with you? :huh:
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Old 08-29-2011, 04:30 AM   #44
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Default Dillon & Middle Platonism

As is my habit, I'll continue to ignore the bickering over everything and nothing.

As long as we are speaking of myths, even Middle Platonists used them too. The Timaeus contains a story about the creation of the cosmos that Plato admits is not definitive, just probable.

Here is what Dillon says about the "Dominant Themes in Middle Platonism":
[page 45] 2. PHYSICS

Throughout our period, the question of the nature and activity of the supreme principle, or God, is dominant. Later Platonists preserved the Old Academic opposition of Monad, or One, and Dyad, though they varied in the relationship that they postulated between the two. Antiochus, indeed, seems simply to accept the Stoic pair of an active and a passive principle, but Eudorus of Alexandria, while re-establishing the Academic and Pythagorean Monad and Dyad, places above them both a supreme One, possibly drawing some inspiration here from the metaphysical scheme of the Philebus. With Plutarch we are back to the basic duality, but he, and his follower Atticus, grant the Dyad rather more independence than orthodox Platonism would allow. For Albinus, by contrast, God is dominant and Matter simply passive, not even attaining to actuality. In the Neopythagoreanism of Numenius, on the other hand, a radical dualism seems to be asserting itself, though partially held in check by the influence of orthodox Platonism. Since it is from Numenius rather than from more orthodox Platonism that Plotinus derives his inspiration, this tendency to dualism persists as a tension within his thought.

Besides the first principles, there is, as an intermediate and mediating entity, the World Soul. This is basically the entity whose creation is described in the Timaeus, but traces appear, in such men as Philo and Plutarch, of a rather more august figure, which almost seems to reflect [page 46] a Speusippean Dyad, a figure not evil but simply responsible for multiplicity, and thus for all creation. In Philo, as we shall see, the figure of Sophia appears, who is interchangeable with the Dyad, and Plutarch, in the preface of his essay On Isis and Osiris, seems to describe such a figure, whom he identifies with Isis. Elsewhere, as in Albinus, the World Soul is depicted as an irrational entity, requiring 'awakening' by the Demiurge, and even in the latter part of the Isis and Osiris (369ff.) Plutarch makes Isis rejoice at 'impregnation' by the Logos of God, thus producing somewhat of a discrepancy with the portrayal in the preface.

The reason for the vacillation as regards the status of this figure seems to lie in another development characteristic of Middle Platonism, deriving not from the Old Academy but rather arising as a development from Stoicism, that is, the distinguishing of a first and second God. The distinction is between a completely transcendent, self-intelligizing figure, and an active demiurgic one. The later Platonists adopted the Stoic Logos into their system as the active force of God in the world, and when they reinstated a transcendent immaterial First Principle, as did Alexandrian Platonism after Antiochus, they arrived at two entities, one basically the Demiurge of the Timaeus, the other the Good of the Republic and the One of the first hypothesis of the Parmenides. In Philo, partly, no doubt, because of his strongly monotheistic inclinations, we have a contrast rather between God and his Logos than between a first and second God, but later Platonists such as Albinus, Apuleius or Numenius postulate two distinct Gods, both Intellects certainly, but one in repose and turned in upon itself, the other in motion and directed outwards, both above and below itself. Some Pythagoreans, such as Moderatus of Gades and Numenius, go further and postulate a trio of Ones or Gods in descending order, deriving the inspiration for this, perhaps, from a curious passage of the Second Platonic Letter (312E). In either case, however, the third member of the trio turns out to be the World Soul, so that the basic metaphysical scheme is unchanged.

Besides these major figures, the Platonic cosmos was filled with subordinate, intermediate beings, the race of daemons. There are broadly two theories on the nature of daemons, one static, so to speak, the other dynamic, and both are represented within our period. Xenocrates already, as we have seen, had elaborated on Plato's doctrine of the intermediate nature of daemons, expressing it in geometrical terms. Such daemons sound like permanent fixtures in the [page 47] universe, though the question of their relationship with disembodied souls is unclear in the evidence available to us. The alternative theory, represented by Plutarch and by Apuleius, is one according to which daemons are in fact souls, either on their way up or on their way down the scale of being, either heading for complete purification (and thus divinization) in the Sun, or for embodiment on the Earth. For this theory Plutarch could appeal back to the authority of Empedocles (Is. et Os. 361C). The theory is not presented by Plutarch with complete coherence, however; the static theory also appears. In particular, evil daemons are recognized, as they were by Xenocrates. Are these daemons permanent elements in the universe, or are they souls in the process of being punished for misdeeds during incarnation? Both possibilities seem to be entertained by Plutarch, as we shall see. Truly evil daemons, as opposed to avenging agencies of God, are not a properly Platonic conception, but rather a concession to popular belief, or perhaps an influence from Persian dualism. 'Avenging' daemons, on the other hand, are a more acceptable concept, since they are subordinate to God and their activity is ultimately beneficent. Even Philo finds such entities compatible with his monotheism. Besides daemons proper, there is also mention made of heroes and angels, the latter possibly in origin non-Hellenic but certainly accepted in Neoplatonism into the Platonic universe. Heroes are more respectable, but the distinction between them and daemons in the Platonic period is not quite clear. Posidonius wrote a treatise on the subject, but it is lost. One distinction can be that heroes are souls formerly embodied, but this distinction assumes a permanent class of unembodied souls, which is only acceptable on the 'static' theory. Whatever the differences in detail, however, it is common ground for all Platonists that between God and Man there must be a host of intermediaries, that God may not be contaminated or disturbed by a too close involvement with Matter.

The Platonic Ideas or Forms suffered various transformations during our period. We are hampered, as I have suggested earlier in this chapter, by not really knowing what stage the theory of Ideas had reached in Plato's mature thought. It is very probable, however, that for Plato already the Ideas were numbers, though explicitly differentiated from mathematical numbers by being unique in their kinds. Neither Speusippus nor Xenocrates liked the distinction between Ideas and Mathematical, and, as we have seen, each abolished it in different directions. What Polemon thought about the Ideas is unknown to us. [page 48] When the theory surfaces again with Antiochus, it looks very much as if they have become assimilated in his mind to the Stoic 'common notions', which would dispose of their transcendental aspect. For the source behind Tusculan Disputations I they still seem to be transcendent entities; there is anamnēsis of them, which involves their existence outside the human mind. But it is not certain that the source of TD I is Antiochus, and even there it is by no means clear that we are dealing with the Platonic Ideas in their pristine form; it is much more probable that they are to be seen as thoughts in the mind of God.

With the assimilation of the Platonic Demiurge to the Stoic Logos, the situating of the Ideas in the mind of God becomes more or less inevitable—if, indeed, they had not already been established there by Xenocrates. When the distinction is later made between a First and a Second God, the Ideas gravitate towards the mind of the second, demiurgic God. It seems also as if they were thought to exist in the World Soul in a secondary, 'extended' form; at least we find in Plutarch and the later Pythagoreans the equation of the soul with the Platonic 'mathematicals' which in the context of Middle Platonism correspond to something intermediate between Ideas proper and sensible objects.1

But if there was significant theorizing in the Middle Platonic period on the theory of Ideas, not much sign of it has survived. Albinus summarizes the accepted Middle Platonic formulae as to what there are Ideas of, and what relationship they have to other entities, such as God and the physical cosmos, but he gives no hint of serious thought as to their nature or their relevance to a theory of knowledge. Plutarch wrote a work (now lost) entitled 'Where are the Ideas situated?' (Cat. Lampr. 67), but it probably did not raise any basic questions. The complacency of the later Platonists about the theory of Ideas is, as it stands, extraordinary, considering the powerful arguments that Aristotle had directed against it.

Another issue that surely merited serious questioning, but does not seem to have received it, is that of the relationship of the Ideas to Matter, and the related question of the creation of the physical world out of the basic atomic triangles. I can discern no sign of philosophic questioning behind Albinus' summary of Platonic physical theory in chh. 12—22 of the Didaskalikos, which may be taken to represent the established position (up to the mid-second century A.D.) on these questions. For Antiochus, who accepted Stoic materialism, the problem [page 49] of the relation of the immaterial to the material did not arise, but for all subsequent Platonists it was, one would think, a very serious issue. Yet we do not find them worrying about it. Albinus, for instance, simply summarizes the Timaeus, and leaves it at that.

The only issue on which we find much dispute in this area (and even this disagreement is partly vacillation) is as to whether we are to accept a four-element or a five-element universe, rejecting or accepting Aristotle's theory of aether as the element proper to the heavenly realm. Even this tends to dissolve into a dispute about formulations. Many Platonists assimilated Aristotle's aether to the Stoic pure fire, and the Stoics recognized that the fire of the heavenly realm was of a superior type to that of our experience, though they were not specific as to its innate circular motion. We shall see men like Philo and Plutarch apparently veering back and forth on this question within one and the same treatise, which seems to indicate that they found the two theories compatible. On the basic issue all were agreed, that the heavenly realm was qualitatively different from our own, intermediate, indeed, between the sublunar and the intelligible realms, a place of unchanging, divine forms pursuing perfectly regular courses. Once this is agreed, the issue of four or five elements becomes secondary.

If the Middle Platonists seem uninterested in questions of what we would term Physics, they are after all only reflecting the remarkably non-scientific bias of the age in which they lived. After the active period of Alexandrian scientific speculation, the civilized world relapsed into an attitude so anti-experimental that a man like Plutarch, if he wished to find out the answer to some practical question, turns instinctively to some 'authority', such as Aristotle's Problems, rather than conduct an experiment himself. His Quaestiones Conviviales are full of futile discussions on matters of this sort, with the learned disputants quoting ancient authorities at each other on practical questions which could only be solved by experiment. Only in the field of medicine, in the person of Galen, does one find a refreshing reliance on experiment and first-hand observation.

48n1) See Philip Merlan, From Platonism to Neoplatonism, ch. i.
I have to begin working, but it might be nice if someone (else), anyone, would comment about how any of this relates to Earl's account.

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Old 08-29-2011, 09:05 AM   #45
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Earl, I've done the investigation that I feel should be done. I'm happy with my conclusions. The torch has now been passed on to Doug Shaver. Doug, over to you!
Your usual evasive bull shit, Don. Glad you offered it so clearly, so everyone can see what you're about. You won't back up your accusations with specifics, so how do you expect this "investigation" to proceed? From some kind of memory of what you've been bleating over and over across the years? What do you mean "over to Doug"? What is he going to respond to?

I suggest if anyone isn't clear about what it is you claim as my failings in regard to Middle Platonism (actually, my case is more about Platonism in general than too much specific to so-called Middle Platonism) they can simply read my response to your wretched review of Jesus: Neither God Nor Man which I posted here in installments early this year and then placed on my website: here, especially Part 4. There (as I have to a great extent in DB debates over the years) dealt with your constantly repeated claims surrounding the mystery cult myths, your laughable contentions about what Plutarch says in Isis and Osiris, and anything else you've claimed about my deficiencies in understanding ancient thinking. You're welcome to bring up your arguments specifically and in detail here again, but without you doing that, there will be no "investigation" and the only thing you will have proved is...well, I'll leave it to others to fill in the blank. That way, I won't get into trouble with the mods.

Incidentally, DCH has demonstrated that much of what constitutes the interests of Middle Platonism, in the context of what John Dillon discusses in his book, is largely irrelevant to the specific issues in our debates, the nature of God, the soul, creation, etc. Let's face it, Don, for you the only 'middle platonistic' issue that has been of any interest to you is the "sublunar realm where Jesus could have been crucified" idea (which I don't necessarily attribute to Paul in that specific a literality of location) which you roundly reject, despite my presentation of reams of evidence that can be used as 'proof of concept' (or, if you like, 'indication of concept') in my new book, not only in pagan thought but in many documents of Jewish sectarianism. The latter, incidentally, you tend to ignore, to focus on your fixation on a lack of trees and nails in the firmament, and the fact that when we look up toward the moon we can't see such things. Other than general declarations which woefully lack specifics (and now still do, despite my challenge) your constant mantra that "Middle Platonism doesn't support Doherty" is really nothing much more substantial than that.

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Old 08-29-2011, 09:10 AM   #46
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This is one reason I urge Doherty to put parts of his theories into peer-review. Why not show that pagan beliefs included such concepts? Or why not send them to Dillon for his evaluation?
I think your fixation on peer review is misplaced. Of course it will have to happen eventually, but just because it hasn't happened yet does not mean we interested lay people should not take the idea seriously -- at least those of us who, exercising our own scholarly judgment to the best of our amateur abilities, are persuaded that there is something to the idea that merits serious consideration.

And it isn't as though NO professional scholar agrees with us. I can sort of understand writing off Richard Carrier as a lightweight novice, but Robert Price is neither novice nor lightweight. And questions like this are not decided by a show of hands, either.

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Anyway: Can you point to Dillon where he supports, say, the idea that man/flesh/"seed of [David/anyone else considered historical]" existed in the form of an entity who was killed above the earth ?
I don't claim, and I understand Doherty not to claim, that anything so specific is to be found in the Middle Platonist literature. What is to be found is a sublunar sphere inhabited by sentient noncorporeal beings with varying degrees of superhuman abilities and certain characteristics, again to varying degrees, that the ancients would have regarded as divine. It is apparent to me that a philosophical environment of that sort is all that a mind as inventive as Paul's would have needed to conjure up ideas of the sort that Doherty finds in Paul's writings.

But at this stage of my research, this is only a very strong impression that I've gotten. A more detailed defense will have to wait until I can take the time for a more thorough analysis of Dillon's work.

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I agree his work is dense, since it is a survey of the beliefs of major Middle Platonists over several centuries rather than a methodical discussion of Middle Platonism per se. But if you can remember which MPist supported this, and how, that would be appreciated, and I will definitely look into it.
I have taken plenty of notes. I may have chance to review them within a few days to look for some quotes that seem to back me up. I can't promise anything yet, but I surely do want to do more than merely assert, "Dillon says so."

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I'm happy to work with you via PM or email if you'd prefer that.
The offer is appreciated, but I'd actually prefer to keep it public. Of course, if you have anything to say or ask that you think is nobody else's business, then by all means your e-mail will be welcome. The address is on my Web site, just in case it has escaped your notice.
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Old 08-29-2011, 09:15 AM   #47
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We can see how histories were written in the Roman Empire, and the gospels do not read like histories or biographies of actual people.
What do they read like, then?
To me, they read like fiction. There are enough commentators who call them "sui generis" that it seems like an unproductive use of time to find the precise category. It is enough to state that they are not, and do not pretend to be, historical records.

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That's certainly one option. But then why so few details about anything, then? And Doherty himself notes that there is "something going on". The fact that we find the same "something" going on among historicist writers is the interesting point.
The "something" is the lack of any real history.

AND THERE ARE NO HISTORICIST WRITERS IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY.

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And don't try to pretend that the second century writers were historicists in the modern sense. They believed that Jesus was a historical character for theological reasons, not because they had any historical evidence.
Why do you keep bringing this up as though I disagree with you? :huh:
So why do you keep referring to historicist writers? Why do you keep quoting that one paragraph from Doherty about something going on, as if it indicated some sort of mystery yet to be explained, when you know what he means?
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Old 08-29-2011, 04:26 PM   #48
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This is one reason I urge Doherty to put parts of his theories into peer-review. Why not show that pagan beliefs included such concepts? Or why not send them to Dillon for his evaluation?
I think your fixation on peer review is misplaced.
My fixation here is on the pagan side of the equation. Unfortunately too much focus is on Doherty's claims about what Paul thought, but his claims on what pagans thought are just as controversial. I think he would get a lot of mileage for his theories if he could tie down that end.

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Of course it will have to happen eventually, but just because it hasn't happened yet does not mean we interested lay people should not take the idea seriously -- at least those of us who, exercising our own scholarly judgment to the best of our amateur abilities, are persuaded that there is something to the idea that merits serious consideration.
Sure. That is the situation I am in. It's a fascinating topic, regardless of whether Jesus existed or not.

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And it isn't as though NO professional scholar agrees with us. I can sort of understand writing off Richard Carrier as a lightweight novice, but Robert Price is neither novice nor lightweight.
I don't write any of them off, I just don't see them doing anything about it. If they are convinced Doherty has a strong case they don't seem to be pursuing it. Maybe Carrier's new book will change that. Still, Dr Price has written more about Acharya S's work than Doherty's, for what it is worth.

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I don't claim, and I understand Doherty not to claim, that anything so specific is to be found in the Middle Platonist literature. What is to be found is a sublunar sphere inhabited by sentient noncorporeal beings with varying degrees of superhuman abilities and certain characteristics, again to varying degrees, that the ancients would have regarded as divine. It is apparent to me that a philosophical environment of that sort is all that a mind as inventive as Paul's would have needed to conjure up ideas of the sort that Doherty finds in Paul's writings.
It depends on how inventive you think Paul was. As I've said many times, if someone claimed that early Christians had their own unprecendented cosmology that was unique from the cosmology of their contemporaries so that same terms had different meanings, there is nothing I could say. Nor would I be interested.

But when someone (e.g. Doherty, Acharya S) says that the early Christians had X beliefs that were consistent with the cosmology of their contemporaries, that early Christianity can be explained via an understanding of pagan beliefs, then I become interested and the debate can move forward. Did the contemporariness believe X? What are the differences, what are the similarities? Very interesting stuff.

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But at this stage of my research, this is only a very strong impression that I've gotten. A more detailed defense will have to wait until I can take the time for a more thorough analysis of Dillon's work.
I think it's great that you are doing this. I am always urging Doherty supporters to investigate his theories, either to confirm them or identify problems or weaknesses in them. And identifying problems or weaknesses doesn't mean he is wrong overall, it just provides an opportunity to do further investigation and build a stronger case (or, as I believe, to show his case is weak.)

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I'm happy to work with you via PM or email if you'd prefer that.
The offer is appreciated, but I'd actually prefer to keep it public. Of course, if you have anything to say or ask that you think is nobody else's business, then by all means your e-mail will be welcome. The address is on my Web site, just in case it has escaped your notice.
Thanks. No, keeping it public is best, inviting comments from knowledgeable participants. I learn a lot from reading this board, so I look forward to seeing what you find out!
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Old 08-29-2011, 04:36 PM   #49
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AND THERE ARE NO HISTORICIST WRITERS IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY.

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And don't try to pretend that the second century writers were historicists in the modern sense. They believed that Jesus was a historical character for theological reasons, not because they had any historical evidence.
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Why do you keep bringing this up as though I disagree with you? :huh:
So why do you keep referring to historicist writers?
My apologies. By "historicist writers" I mean "writers who thought Jesus was a historical character, even if for theological reasons."

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Why do you keep quoting that one paragraph from Doherty about something going on, as if it indicated some sort of mystery yet to be explained, when you know what he means?
Because it shows that I am correct and that there was a pattern. Doherty believes that the pattern exists because there were Christians in both the First and Second Century that had no historical Jesus at their core of their beliefs. I argue that the Second Century apologists did have a historical Jesus at the core of their beliefs.

Of course it depends on which of us is correct in how we interpret the pattern. My point is though, either way, the pattern exists. If those silent Second Century apologists were arguably historicists, then this should set our expectations on how we see First Century silences.
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Old 08-29-2011, 05:52 PM   #50
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.... Doherty believes that the pattern exists because there were Christians in both the First and Second Century that had no historical Jesus at their core of their beliefs. I argue that the Second Century apologists did have a historical Jesus at the core of their beliefs.

Of course it depends on which of us is correct in how we interpret the pattern. My point is though, either way, the pattern exists. If those silent Second Century apologists were arguably historicists, then this should set our expectations on how we see First Century silences.
But these 2nd century apologists did not have any historical data about Jesus. They accepted that he came in the flesh for theological reasons. The pattern is consistent: people without any historical data about Jesus will either not include any details, like these 2nd c. theologians, or will make things up, like the 2nd century gospel writers.

My expectation is still that if there were a historical Jesus in the first century, the likelihood is that someone would have mentioned some detail of his life.
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