Johann_Kaspar

Nobody knows when each different sentence was written or copied, nor by whom, nor where.

aa5874

No known 1st century writer has information to coroborate your statement. I t appears that the non-orthodox religion, the heresy called Christianity, was developed sometime in the 2nd century.

Ideologist

I'll come back to this.

And why not the other way around?

And the reason all of this wasn't done so that it could satisfy these valid theological reasons is, of course, because you don't believe in his historicity.

The apologetic works of the first few centuries must be taken in context of the two major heresies of the Ancient Church; Arianism, where Christ was a non-divine creature, and Docetism, where his body was an illusion. Neither group denied that Jesus existed in some form - that wasn't seriously contended until the 19th century - and so they didn't spend much time proving it. It was generally a given.

Yes; most of these were written to specific audiences. The theological debate done in these letters was usually between reasonably learned people.

No one is perfect.

Which is a defense of an event in the New Testament, not a defense of Jesus himself. Disagreeing with events in the New Testament is a much older tradition than that.

But by writing off the Scripture as evidence, you're committing an error. These works weren't written to prove the historicity of Jesus to you; they were written to prove the dual nature of Jesus to people who already believed in the basics of the Scripture. You can't use theological defenses as historical defenses.

It's legitimate, yes, but it's also silly.

Given the traditional dating of the foundation of Rome in 753 BC, that would put "the first Christian" in 135 AD.

In which case, what do you call Ignatius of Antioch, who died in at latest 117 BC? Heck, what do you call Paul of Tarsus?

Of course, if you're just referring to the name Christian you may be right, but that's a semantic point at best.

In support of the belief that Josephus wrote something about Jesus, we have the writings of several ancient writers saying that he "did not accept Jesus," which would imply that he said something. It can't be proven without a more ancient manuscript of the Testimonium than we have, but it's highly suggestive.

I'll analyze your points individually;

I don't think it's necessarily odd that Josephus would have written a neutral word about Jesus; while Josephus was certainly a Jew, it's not unreasonable to think that a historical work written for the Romans would have needed few attacks on a figure who was, at the time, quite marginal.

If this is the case, Josephus clearly believed it enough to print it. As a Jew, I think it's unlikely that he would have taken the testimony of Christians without any doubt.

Perfectly fair.

Yes, but so necessarily is every position on the historicity of that passage.

He's simply giving a plausible way in which it could have been corrupted; that is, giving the position some theoretical backing. This is effectively the same as removing the passage entirely; it is simply demonstrating a way the passage could have looked before corruption.

Not necessarily true; we have the testimony of Origen, among others, to show that he did not believe that Jesus was Christ; however, one must know of something to not believe in it.

Now, there is a certain argument that this is poetic language for "he is a Jew," but that does not seem to be the majority position.

Therefore, the providence is inconclusive, so all I can do is refer to the same source (Alice Whealey) that you did at the beginning of the section;

Twentieth century controversy over the Testimonium Flavianum can be distinguished from controversy over the text in the early modern period insofar as it seems generally more academic and less sectarian. While the challenge to the authenticity of the Testimonium in the early modern period was orchestrated almost entirely by Protestant scholars and while in the same period Jews outside the church uniformly denounced the text’s authenticity, the twentieth century controversies over the text have been marked by the presence of Jewish scholars for the first time as prominent participants on both sides of the question. In general, the attitudes of Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish and secular scholars towards the text have drawn closer together, with a greater tendency among scholars of all religious backgrounds to see the text as largely authentic. On the one hand this can be interpreted as the result of an increasing trend towards secularism, which is usually seen as product of modernity. On the other hand it can be interpreted as a sort of post-modern disillusionment with the verities of modern skepticism, and an attempt to recapture the sensibility of the ancient world, when it apparently was still possible for a first-century Jew to have written a text as favorable towards Jesus of Nazareth as the Testimonium Flavianum.

I won't go into your position on the second Jesus mention, because I'm not as familiar with it.

The shaky consensus is that it was referring to this Jesus.

But, yes, it's certainly possible that there was *some other Jesus* who was doing it. But it doesn't fit with the reasons for the current scholarly consensus that the passage is at least partly true.

Again, what do you call Ignatius of Antioch and Paul of Tarsus? Are their verifiable writings somehow fictitious?

There's absolutely no consensus that they were written as late as 132.

The Gospel of Mark, which is generally believed to be the first written, was done as early as the 60s and is believed by most to have been written by the 70s. The consensus for Luke and Matthew is in the 80s (and at latest 100). John, the last, isn't regarded as having been written much later than 120.

While it's probably true that none of them were written by the Apostles themselves, the texts and the dates would support it having been written by their immediate disciples; the Gospel of John in particular shows clear marks of having been written based on stories the author heard.

it comes down to, then, whether one considers a second-hand account to be close enough to the requirements, and I'd generally say "yes." It's unlikely that any of the Apostles would have been terribly cultured people, making them much more suited to preaching than writing; it therefore makes sense for their disciples to have been the authors.

No, but it is the current consensus position.

Which, of course, raises the questions of "why would you build a huge movement around a despicable thug" and "why would you build a schismatic movement rather than integrating it into Judaism," respectively.

Though perhaps as early as 80.

I think we need to define Christianity.

"Christianity" is a name with only minimal significance. It's an epithet, a symbol, a title. Christianity the term does not a religion make.

Now, what "Christianity" represents is a certain family of beliefs and customs around the purported teachings of Jesus and his Apostles. We can't verify the origins or the dates of the Gospels, or the origins of specific teachings. What we can verify are;

- some of the players (eg. Ignatius) who were around in the 1st century and seem to have expressed something similar to Christianity in their writings, which can be safely dated to that period
- some of the writings; many of the Pauline epistles can be dated to the 50s and 60s, some of the writings of the Church Fathers can be dated to *somewhere before 100,* and the Gospels, though they can't be dated to a specific decade, were probably written before 100 with the exception of John
- that there appears to have been a tradition before the Church Fathers of the mid 2nd century of *some sort of schismatic group in Palestine* with views broadly similar to theirs

Now, all of these things would suggest that Christianity, in form if not in name, was around before 100 AD. It just can't be proven, because it was too small to be remarked upon by most Jews and too Jewish to have been remarked upon by most Romans.

aa5874

Guignebert's refutation of the mythicist case is extremely weak. He has not put forward any information of substance.

Guignebert needs to explain why Josephus (37-100 CE) does not mention even one of the thousands of followers and disciples of Jesus the Christ, when he ,Josephus, mentions the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essens and even became a follower of a sect headed by the unknown Banos.

Guigenebert needs to explain how is it that Josephus, who lived in Galilee for sometime, did not mention a single miracle by the followers of the charismatic Jesus the Christ and did not write about the followers of Jesus the Christ who advocated the breaking and abolishment of the Mosaic Laws.

If the book called Acts is read, the author claims that many thousands were converted to Christianity after the Acension of the Christ, yet these events, the New Heresy called Christianity, or the heretics of Jesus the Christ, failed to get a word from Josephus in all of his writings.

There were numerous god-man concepts around in the 2nd century, see Irenaeus 'Against Heresies', the Eusebian concept was just one of the many heresies of the day.

Toto

But none of their writings are verifiable, nor can they be dated. We only have versions of Paul's letters, some of which we know to be later forgeries, and all of which might well contain interpolations. Paul could have been a leader of a sect of Judaism who believed in a celestial Jesus-Savior; this sect could have evolved into one of the factions of Christians in the second century. You may call this Christianity, but it did not go back to a human Jesus.

You are new here, Ideologist, and I don't know how widely you have read in the archives. These are themes that have been discussed here frequently. I don't like to stop my inquiry at the current consensus of scholarship, which often seems based on unproven assumptions and either religious or political values.

aa5874

Christianity was heresy and there were many forms of this heresy, the doctrine of the Trinity included. Christianity, in its origin, must have been heresy, since it was non-orthodox at some time in its history.

From deduction alone, it can be concluded that Arianism considered Docetism, the doctrine of the Trinity, the Marcionites or the doctrine of Valentinians as heresy and each other considered the opposing doctrine as heresy. The heresy of Eusebius became orthodox because of Constantine.


You need to read writings of the 2nd century, Jesus the Christ was regarded as an AEon, see 'Against heresies' by Irenaeus, at least 1800 years ago.

Ideologist

It is essentially true that the Pauline epistles may be faked, but so too may virtually any work of the period; the difference is between "possible" and "plausible."

Right now, the majority of the Pauline epistles seem to be internally consistent in their style and vocabulary (they don't show evidence of significant interpolation), they fit with the generally established facts of the time period, they are generally consistent in their theology, and were universally regarded as authentic as far back as we can establish their existence.

Now, yes, Romans and Galatians and Corinthians (among others) might all be forgeries, but if they are, then so too are many of the works of Ignatius, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and Polycarp. The more likely conclusion is simply that they are authentic letters.

In my experience, consensus among scholars in this postmodern age is rarely based on religion with regard to substantial issues. And the authorship of the Pauline epistles is certainly an issue that has been debated ad nauseum among scholars.

Malachi151

As to the claim that the "existence" of Jesus wasn't challenged:

Ideologist

This is heresy in the context of Christianity the schismatic movement, not heresy from Judaism in general. Everything distinctly Christian is a heresy from Judaism, obviously, but clearly none of these early Christian apologists were writing from the position of Orthodox Judaism.

No; the doctrine of Eusebius became Orthodox because it was the traditional position. The Nicenen Creed was signed overwhelmingly by its Council for more reasons than "we're scared of Constantine and Alexander."

Yes; it was denied that he existed in the flesh. Gnosticism, and all.

But they never existed that "something named Jesus" existed.

Toto

Forgery has been suggested for most of these, if not all - especially Ignatius, whom Protestants in particular reject.

Forgery in Ignatius

For background on Paul, see this thread: Interpolations in the Pauline Epistles.