andrewcriddle

IIUC there is limited apparently independent attestation of a few events in the life of Apollonius. Dio Cassius has an account of his vision of the assassination of Domitian. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...s_Dio/67*.html

However it is quite likely that the historical Apollonius spent all his life in the Eastern Mediterranean and that his supposed journeys to Rome India Ethiopia etc are sheer fiction.

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle

Why isn't the quote about him standing on a rock also fiction? A of T may be a better example of an equivalent fiction to Jesus! But which was the earlier?

gstafleu

In this historicity cage match between A and J, it seems A is at least one body-slam ahead of J: we know who wrote Life of Apollonius (unless Philostratus didn't exist, of course). The same cannot be said of the gospels. But then, we also know who wrote Harry Potter.

Gerard Stafleu

mountainman

You should clearly note that the historical citations in respect
of A are of the form:

1) His own literature: Books, Letters, Wills, etc - See this page.
2) Hagiographical literature (ie: outside his own generation): Other biographies
were claimed to be extant in the fourth century and earlier.

NOTE: All the literature in category 1 was not preserved, except for certain
of the letters, which have been argued as being quite genuine. Most of
category 2 has also been destroyed with the exception of the survival
of the book "The Life of A" by Philostratus, which in itself tells a very
interesting historical account of suppression of re-transmission, and re-
publication. Notably, the treatise of Eusebius was mandatorily always
used as a preface to the Life of A, such that the antidote might be
supplied with the poison, soon to follow, as it were.

Additionally, there appears to be an archeological citation
with respectto a deed for land, bearing the name of Apollonius
of Tyana, perhaps an Egyptian plot, held at some US uni. I will
dig this citation out, and take the opportunity of increasing the
score against that criteria in the above assessment, but another
point or two --- if it proves authentic.


No, and this is the very point of this approach.
We can say a little bit more than "we dont know".

The introduction of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great into this
arena as you mention above, is the next step in all this comparitive
historicity exercise. We should make a similar and parallel criteria
assessment of both these figures in exactly the same manner
as done above for A1 and A2.

A3 = Julius Caesar
A4 = Alexander the Great.


Summary Conclusion

We have demonstrated using criteria furnished by Richard Carrier
and generously weighted for an initial trial run, that A2 looks
very roughly twice as authentically historical as does A1.

Prediction/Extrapolation

We will probably find the values for A3 and A4 (above) to be
twice the value of A2, somewhere around 70 or so, implying
that historians would treat these A3 and A4 with a corresponding
degree of historical authenticity.



Thanks for the comments and feedback.
XMas day is everyday Mr Gibson.





Pete Brown

neilgodfrey

I don't see how this gets us any farther towards establishing an historical existence for Apollonius of Tyana. It does establish that some centuries after A was said to have existed there were writings attributed to him. But later documents claiming to be writings of a famous name don't establish original historicity of that name.

Compare the writings attributed to Solomon and others claiming to be by Thomas or Judas. These do not establish the historicity of any of those characters. They can do no more than establish that later generations appear to have regarded them as having some historical basis.

Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

mountainman

Sure, clearly his writings have been destroyed, and a haggiography
written of him by Philostratus, perhaps 120 years after his death,
is the only remaining surviving large work.

However, you have not yet addressed the letters attributable to
the purportedly historical figure of Apollonius. It was common
knowledge that collections of his letters were commenced just
after his death.

Please address the letters of Apollonius. There is sufficient scholarship,
and some of it is quite recent.

There is a lineage of citations of some of these correspondences
which extend to the first century, through the collections of emperors.


I understand this problem in relation late citations.
As you point out, it is a major problem to these figures.
However this thread is specifically restricted to a
consideration of the comparitive historicity between
Apollonius of Tyana and Jesus of Nazareth, for a
good reason, that the former is mentioned by the
chief christian scribe Eusebius of Caesarea, about
whom is written:

It is only necessary to reflect for a moment
what a blank would be left in our knowledge
of this most important chapter in all human history,
if the narrative of Eusebius were blotted out,
and we shall appreciate the enormous debt
of gratitude which we owe to him.

The little light which glimmered over the earliest
history of Christianity in medieval times
came ultimately from Eusebius alone,
coloured and distorted in its passage
through various media.

-- J.B. Lightfoot, Eusebius of Caesarea, (article. pp. 324-5),
Dictionary of Christian Biography: Literature, Sects and Doctrines,
ed. by William Smith and Henry Wace, Vol II.

Pete Brown

Ben C Smith

This statement, innocuous coming from practically anybody else, from you is astounding. You are at present engaged in an enterprise that, if even moderately successful, would render virtually all biblical scholarship for the past seventeen centuries utterly moot. So here, with the letters of Apollonius, you are content with the statement that there is sufficient scholarship? That seems like a severe deviation from your usual course of inquiry.

From your page:

It is evident that Philostratus had access to letters attributed to Apollonius, for he quotes a number of them, [See i 7, 15, 24, 32; iii 51; iv 5, 22, 26, 27, 46; v 2, 10, 39, 40, 41; vi 18, 27, 29, 31, 33; viii 7, 20, 27, 28.], and there seems no reason to doubt their authenticity. Whence he obtained them does not inform us, unless it be that they were the collection made by Hadrian at Antium (viii 20).

How is it evident that Philostratus had access to Apollonian letters? Because he tells us so? That may be good enough for the likes of me, but for you it looks like it should be anathema.

Ben.

neilgodfrey

I see no reason to assume that any of the documents translated and discussed in your links (including Mead's piece) tell us anything more than that people at the time those documents were written appeared to believe or look to Apollonius as their original author. I see no reason to jump to the conclusion that those documents must be taken at face value as pointing to some "historical core". To do so would be to fall into the same ditch of naive "historical methodology" (or avoidance of methodology) as biblical scholars who begin their study of Jewish or Christian history with a naive reading of selected later texts.

Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

mountainman

Hi Ben,

The seventeen centuries of "biblical scholarship" commenced
according to our thesis with what is now known as the Arian
controversy, circa 317 CE, and of course, as we all know,
culminating in the official supremacy party.

The tribe of christians may not have existed prior to the issue
of "christian literature" being disseminated under the regime
of Constantine, in Rome, with effect from the time Max's
head was sent around the city.

The anniversary of this party will be in the year 2025, as taken
from the council of Nicaea, at which time the "package" of the
galilaeans was officially released and installed by signatoried vote.


1) Eusebius appears to provide a measure of authenticity.
2) The wife of the emperor Severus, Julia Domna, is recorded as
the person who had access to these letters, and to the biography
of Damis, whom Eusebius also mentions by name.
3) There are independent*** accounts of the work of Philostratus,
which is only one issue (Carrier's Criteria Number 2 - Were they a
subject of biographies or hagiographies?)


*** By independent, I mean the sources are distributed
across a number of different categories of authors, not
just one specific textual transmission category of authors)



I think you'll find that we are about to discover the difference
between what is known to the world as "biblical history" and
its far more ancient and authoritative counterpart, "history".

It is particularly important to note that no such
historiography exists with the solitary and elect
"letter of Jesus to the King Agbar", and that in
terms of Richard Carrier's first criteria, Jesus is
not scoring any points.

CRITERIA ONE: Were these people
an author of writings?


Best wishes,



Pete

Ben C Smith

Hi, Pete.

I am not sure you responded to my objection. I shall look again, but on first inspection I see no counter to the charge of arbitrariness when it comes to trusting scholars. On the other hand, I find yet another rather surprising statement on your part:

Ben.