J-D

I am asking you a question.

This is the question: HOW is ancient mythology relevant to ancient history?

I really don't know whether you are having trouble understanding what the word 'HOW' means.

TedM

I would suggest consulting a dictionary.


This appears to be one of your favorite responses these days. Since the nature of Jesus' flesh was important for 'theological reasons', any claims that a purely divine Jesus wasn't really purely divine and had come in the flesh would also have been important for 'theological reasons', I would assume. Would you not?

..which simply says that they found deeper and hidden meanings in the teachings of Jesus. It doesn't say they disregarded the historicity. As stated above, they still believed in the historical issues--Jesus was born of Mary, baptized by JTB, had a ministry of teaching with disciples, appeared to them. 'Allegory', to them, doesn't mean "didn't happen".

The early church orthodoxy--Justin, Ireneaus, Tertullian, all seem to prove this claim you keep making to be patently wrong. They were very interested in the historicity of the claims of the gospels, the tradition of history, the apostolic teaching. They had what you call a 'modern mindset on the issue'. Are you saying that people 50 years prior didn't?




I'm not sure why I was doing that. Many here have names that are not capitalized, so perhaps that is why. It is not intentional, and I'll try to be more careful.

GakuseiDon

How many times do we have to go through this? No, I persist in calling them "historicists" to designate that they thought that Jesus was historical. I agree that they didn't think "historically". In fact, I actually claim this as one of my points against Doherty. Early Christians showed a lack of sense of history. They not only gave few (if any) details about a historical Jesus, but they gave few historical details about anything. As I have said in the past, if they had given us historical details about the early church but nothing about Jesus, that would be one thing. But the lack of historical details about anything points to "something going on" back then that needs to be taken into consideration when evaluating early writings.

As I quoted Doherty from J:NGNM (my emphasis):

Another aspect is the fact that in almost all the [Second Century] apologists we find a total lack of a sense of history. They do not talk of their religion as an ongoing movement with a specific century of development behind it, through a beginning in time, place and circumstances, and a spread in similar specifics. Some of them pronounce it to be very "old" and they look back to roots in the Jewish prophets rather than to the life of a recent historical Jesus. In this, of course, they are much like the 1st century epistle writers. (Page 477)

We would expect that they should have written a different way, and even call it "human nature" to back that up. But clearly the evidence doesn't support it. The evidence supports that the "historicist" Christians didn't have a sense of history in the same way we might expect today.

EarlDoherty

The majority of the second century apologists do indeed lack a sense of history in regard to their movement. That is because it had none, at least not in the sense based on the Gospel events which you are imposing on their background, even though their texts contain not the slightest reference or hint of it, even though they have declared that it does not, in that most of them have said that in describing their religion they have gone into minute detail and included everything there is to tell. You have made Theophilus, Athenagoras, Minucius Felix, early Tatian, out to be liars, deceivers, and making false statements to the emperors to whom they are writing (and who would have been well aware of that fact had the Christian movement indeed begun with an historical Jesus). Is this your idea of prima facie reading, Don? A writer tells you he has given a complete description of his faith and your prima facie reading of him is to regard him as having concealed central information, of having lied to the pagan reader and discredited himself to the Christian one? Minucius Felix heaps scorn on the idea of worshiping a crucified and mortal criminal, and your prima facie reading is to claim that he means the direct opposite?

Of course, we know why you adopt this strategy. If those apologists are so silent and yet did in fact believe in an HJ (because you have imposed it on them), you can use this fabricated position to offer the same interpretation of Paul and the other epistle writers of the first century, who were silent virtually to the same degree on an historical figure as the originator of their faith and object of worship.

This is so like Ehrman and other NT scholars who dismiss a silence in one set of documents by appealing to the same silence in another set! Disturbed by the silence in Q on a death and resurrection for Jesus? Not to worry! We find the same silence in the Gospel of Thomas! Problem solved. A writer like James has reams of Gospel Jesus-like sayings in his epistle without the slightest attribution to him. So what? All the other epistles are equally silent about their Jesus-like sayings. Another problem solved. Hallelujah! We can sleep at nights. Multiple silences make a noise! And we can read that noise as anything we want!

Don, you and your ilk on this board have become pathetic. You are a transparent joke. Just as “archibald” declares he can recognize nothing in my recent list of prima facie mythicist readings. Not Hebrews 10:37 which quotes a famous prophecy that the Coming One will come soon, and ignores the fact that he had already been here. Or how Titus 1:2-3 says that the first action on God’s ancient promises has been taken in the apostolic movement of which Paul was a part. Or how ancient and many modern commentators have recognized “the rulers of this age” as a technical reference to the demon spirits, forcing Origen and those who came after him to suggest that Paul really meant the demons working through earthly rulers, even though he never mentions those rulers. Or how Romans 16:25-27 declares that the Christ Paul preaches after long ages of being unknown has been revealed through scripture. And so on. Are all these texts prima facie about an historical Jesus? I guess after you’ve subjected them to the contortions and strained interpretations to twist them away from their obvious meanings (not to be confused with claims about unquestioningly applying modern meanings to individual words, another favorite historicist tactic), then they become prima facie about an historical figure. I know that NT scholarship has a long history of such methodology, so you’re part of a hallowed tradition which has managed to deceive itself into thinking that such procedures are valid. (Religion is a privileged field where anything goes, I guess, even for declared historicist atheists.)

Now, maybe Archibald and others haven’t been around long enough to start feeling a tad embarrassed about flaunting their locked minds and blatant shenanigans of this sort, but you certainly have, Don. You’re a fixture here and elsewhere, you’ve given us years of this kind of deviousness and porcine-cephalic balderdash, despite being called on it time after time, which never seems to make any impact on you whatsoever. By now, of course, we are well aware you have no shame, and that’s certainly an asset for anyone determined no matter what to defend the indefensible.

Earl Doherty

Toto

OK, smartie, I know what "minimize" means, but your usage does not make any sense.

This also makes no sense. The orthodox believed that Jesus was purely divine and had come "in the flesh" - whatever that meant.

That's not what the section I quoted to you says, based on the work of Elaine Pagels. Allegory as applied to a story typically means that it didn't necessarily happen.

They were not historians. They repeated the stories as dogma, including the supernatural bits. They didn't go looking for the birthplace of Jesus or his tomb. By the time they wrote, any historical Jesus was unrecoverable in any case.

Toto

But they didn't think that Jesus was historical. They thought that he was pre-existent and a supernatural entity, the alpha and omega. So just call them orthodox, or proto-orthodox, or be clear about what they believed and why.

archibald

Lewis Carroll could not have put it better.

Toto

What's scary? What is your understanding of "historical?"

archibald

This is quite breathtaking.

Mine, I am guessing, is the usual one. Pertaining to an event which took place, or is seen as having done. Including figures seen as having existed.

For example, Sabbatai Zevi.

archibald

Toto, we are not investigating Jesus' supposed divinity.