Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 05-04-2011, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

....Hence Earl Doherty has many more sources at his disposal.
Everyone else is stuck out on a rotting limb with Big E.

So can you EXPLAIN why Doherty STILL uses the timeline of Big E for "Paul"?

Big E has led Doherty astray.

"EVERYBODY" is stuck on a rotting limb with Big E. "Paul" was NEITHER early or first.

But, Big E did ADMIT or CONFESS that his timeline for "PAUL" was bogus.

Big E made a BIG MISTAKE.

Big E claimed that "Paul" was AWARE of gLuke. See Church History 3.4.8.

Big E's Pauline timeline DON'T ADD UP.

Now, whether or not there was a belief in the Sublunar is beside the point since the Canonised Pauline writings cannot be about a Sublunar crucifixion of Jesus.

The Canon of the Church could NOT be reasonably expected to be HERETICAL. Once the Church preached that Jesus was crucified on earth then the Pauline writings ONCE CANONISED must be compatible with the teachings of the Church.

EarlDoherty · 05-05-2011, 08:58 AM

I must have missed something. Who or what the heck is "Big E"? Sounds like a member of the Mob!

As for Wells' theory vs. my own, I deal with this at a few points in Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, such as (p.109-110):

Quote:

Originally Posted by JNGNM

...Either it (Jesus' death) was seen as taking place on earth at some unknown time in a more distant past, or as taking place in a dimension beyond earth.

The former theory has been held by G. A. Wells, the foremost proponent of the mythical Jesus theory in the latter 20th century, and many on the Internet scene today who are sympathetic to Jesus mythicism subscribe to it. They are persuaded to this position on the basis of certain passages we are in the process of examining, such as “of David’s stock” (Romans 1:3) and “born of woman” (Galatians 4:4), or references to Jesus’ “flesh” and “blood.” It is maintained that such terminology can only have applied to a human man, and that if the epistle writers seem to know nothing about a recent Jesus of Nazareth, they must have regarded their Jesus as having lived on earth at some unknown time in the past.

Two things argue against this position. One is that those references fail to identify Christ as someone who is directly said to have lived on earth, whether at a specified time and place or not. The second is that such passages can have other, non-human, interpretations which are in fact pointed to by the texts themselves. (In one case, the possibility of interpolation is also available.) Over the course of the next few chapters, such considerations will be examined in detail, and it will also be seen that many features of these texts argue against an interpretation of their Jesus as one who had lived an unknown life on earth.

One general point may be observed at the outset. If this were the view of Paul and his contemporaries, that their Jesus had at some time lived on earth, we would expect a degree of speculation as to when and where he had lived, whether or what he might have taught, the role of other people in his life, especially those who had crucified him; we would expect an interpretation of him in terms of his possible earthly circumstances. We would also expect to find questions about these things put to apostles like Paul, and efforts by Paul to answer them as best he could.

For in fact, there was a primary source available to Paul to speculate on and answer such questions. His writings show that much, if not all, of his gospel about Jesus comes from scripture. But scripture has supplied only the basics: his death and resurrection and a few other theological elements of the long-hidden “secret” about God’s Son. Why would scripture not have been similarly mined to reveal other aspects of Jesus’ activities—namely, details of his life on earth? If Paul was using ‘prophecies’ in scripture to reveal the fact and significance of Christ’s redeeming act, surely scripture would also have been seen to contain prophecies of much more about him. It could have been used to construct a biography. This, of course, is precisely what the evangelists were later to do. Modern scholarship has revealed the heavy mining of scripture by Mark and those who expanded on him to create the elements of the Gospel story, through the process of midrash. That story, as we shall see, was essentially a fictional creation from start to finish, using passages from the Hebrew bible as its building blocks. It is hard to believe that apostles and biblical exegetes like Paul would not have undertaken a similar process much sooner, to open windows onto the unknown life their Jesus had lived in the past.

Earl Doherty

Toto · 05-05-2011, 09:26 AM

The "Big E" is Eusebius, considered by some posters to be the originator of the history of the church. According to Pete, he was a member of the Mob.

maryhelena · 05-05-2011, 10:45 AM

Perhaps its good to let Wells have his say.....

Can We Trust The New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Quote:

Can we trust the New Testament?: thoughts on the reliability of Early Christian Testimony. (2003)

By George Albert Wells

Page 49 and 50

In my first books on Jesus, I argued that the gospel Jesus is an entirely mythical expansion of the Jesus of the early epistles. The summary of the argument of The Jesus Legend (1996) and The Jesus Myth (1999a) given in this section of the present work makes it clear that I no longer maintain this position (although the change is perhaps not as evident from the titles of those two books as it might be). The weakness of my earlier position was pressed upon me by J.D.G. Dunn, who objected that we really cannot plausibly assume that such a complex of traditions as we have in the gospels and their source could have developed within such a short time from the early epistles without a historical basis (Dunn 1985,p.29). My present standpoint is: this complex is not all post-Pauline (Q, or at any rate parts of it, may well be as early as ca. A.D. 50); and – if I am right, against Doherty and Price – it is not all mythical. The essential point, as I see it, is that the Q material, whether or not it suffices as evidence of Jesus’s historicity, refers to a personage who is not to be identified with the dying and rising Christ of the early epistles.

Page 43

...This Galilean Jesus was not crucified and was not believed to have been resurrected after his death. The dying and rising Christ - devoid of time and place - of the early epistles is a quite different figure and must have a different origin.

In the gospels, the two Jesus figures - the human preacher of Q and the supernatural personage of the early epistles who sojourned briefly on Earth as a man and then, rejected, returned to heaven – have been fused into one. The Galilean preacher of Q has been given a salvific death and resurrection, and these have been set not in an unspecified past (as in the early epistles), but in a historical context consonant with the date of the Galilean preaching.

Bottom line for Wells is that history matters. That however much the gospel story is an interpretation of that history, a salvation interpretation, the history of the gospel time frame is relevant. It's not all, as Wells is now maintaining, all mythical. Sure, Wells has no evidence for his non-crucified Galilean preacher - but his willingness to consider that history does have an important role to play, in understanding the gospel storyline, is an important insight that mythicists need to consider.....Brushing off history as of no importance and opting for Paul's imagination, his flights of theological or philosophical speculation, is extremely shortsighted.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

I must have missed something. Who or what the heck is "Big E"? Sounds like a member of the Mob!

As for Wells' theory vs. my own, I deal with this at a few points in Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, such as (p.109-110):

Quote:

Originally Posted by JNGNM

...Either it (Jesus' death) was seen as taking place on earth at some unknown time in a more distant past, or as taking place in a dimension beyond earth.

The former theory has been held by G. A. Wells, the foremost proponent of the mythical Jesus theory in the latter 20th century, and many on the Internet scene today who are sympathetic to Jesus mythicism subscribe to it. They are persuaded to this position on the basis of certain passages we are in the process of examining, such as “of David’s stock” (Romans 1:3) and “born of woman” (Galatians 4:4), or references to Jesus’ “flesh” and “blood.” It is maintained that such terminology can only have applied to a human man, and that if the epistle writers seem to know nothing about a recent Jesus of Nazareth, they must have regarded their Jesus as having lived on earth at some unknown time in the past.

Two things argue against this position. One is that those references fail to identify Christ as someone who is directly said to have lived on earth, whether at a specified time and place or not. The second is that such passages can have other, non-human, interpretations which are in fact pointed to by the texts themselves. (In one case, the possibility of interpolation is also available.) Over the course of the next few chapters, such considerations will be examined in detail, and it will also be seen that many features of these texts argue against an interpretation of their Jesus as one who had lived an unknown life on earth.

One general point may be observed at the outset. If this were the view of Paul and his contemporaries, that their Jesus had at some time lived on earth, we would expect a degree of speculation as to when and where he had lived, whether or what he might have taught, the role of other people in his life, especially those who had crucified him; we would expect an interpretation of him in terms of his possible earthly circumstances. We would also expect to find questions about these things put to apostles like Paul, and efforts by Paul to answer them as best he could.

For in fact, there was a primary source available to Paul to speculate on and answer such questions. His writings show that much, if not all, of his gospel about Jesus comes from scripture. But scripture has supplied only the basics: his death and resurrection and a few other theological elements of the long-hidden “secret” about God’s Son. Why would scripture not have been similarly mined to reveal other aspects of Jesus’ activities—namely, details of his life on earth? If Paul was using ‘prophecies’ in scripture to reveal the fact and significance of Christ’s redeeming act, surely scripture would also have been seen to contain prophecies of much more about him. It could have been used to construct a biography. This, of course, is precisely what the evangelists were later to do. Modern scholarship has revealed the heavy mining of scripture by Mark and those who expanded on him to create the elements of the Gospel story, through the process of midrash. That story, as we shall see, was essentially a fictional creation from start to finish, using passages from the Hebrew bible as its building blocks. It is hard to believe that apostles and biblical exegetes like Paul would not have undertaken a similar process much sooner, to open windows onto the unknown life their Jesus had lived in the past.

Earl Doherty

mountainman · 05-05-2011, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

...... "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the ruler as useful" The more power that the ruler has the more useful religion becomes. History seems to indicate, at least in the cases of Ardashir and Constantine and Muhammad, that the more absolute miltary power that the ruler held, then the more absolutely useful religion became to them....

But, in antiquity, it would seem that it was the so-called "WISE" and "POWERFUL" that believed in the MYTH Gods and DEVISED ALL MANNER of Doctrine.

But they did not try and stuff any specific myth and/or doctrine down your throat with the sharp end of a sword. Read about the 3rd century golden days of the Platonic lineage, and the imperial sponsorship of The Holy Trinity of Plato:

Quote:

Unfortunately the traditional and custodial sponsorship of the Panhellenic culture and its philosophy was abruptly ceased in the Nicaean age of the Platonists Sopater and Iamblichus. Constantine directed a particularly savage destruction on the temples and libraries of Asclepius, for example. It remains an historical fact that where the Roman Emperor Gallienus publically praised Plotinus, the Roman Emperor Constantine publically executed Sopater. Historians should be aware of such a change in attitude "at the top level". Equally destructive, but far more lasting and insidious, the new high technology of the codex was imperially subverted to change the course of history.

Noone tried to stuff Aesop down anyone's throat for Christ's sake!
It was an absolutely immoral thing to contemplate ...

Quote:

The DEIFIED EMPERORS of ROME did SACRIFICE to the MYTH Gods and so did the WISE and POWERFUL of other NATIONS.

Yes they had their customs and formalities, but in the religious dept they were not seeking to create a monotheistic state religion. It was an organic milieu of cults and belief and literature before the burning started at Nicaea. They also had Plato and other philosophers.

Quote:

It must be remembered that BELIEF in Gods did NOT originate with the Jesus story or in Rome.

Obviously. We have the "Good Shepherd" and the "Rainbow Serpent" et . However IMO it was forcefully transferred from the old regime to the new regime during Constantine's 30 decade rule.

Hence the importance of the prevailing Platonic themes of the 3rd century, related to the so-called "middle Platonists". Earl's Platonic model is a good place to start, because that model was probably used to educate the authors of both the canonical and the non canonical books of the new testament. It is their philosophical signature, to a certain degree, representing the way people thought about things in general. Plato was the blueprint. He had a canon of books. He had an apostolic lineage. He had academies and some them very well appointed.

Until Nicaea.

EarlDoherty · 05-05-2011, 09:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Bottom line for Wells is that history matters. That however much the gospel story is an interpretation of that history, a salvation interpretation, the history of the gospel time frame is relevant. It's not all, as Wells is now maintaining, all mythical. Sure, Wells has no evidence for his non-crucified Galilean preacher - but his willingness to consider that history does have an important role to play, in understanding the gospel storyline, is an important insight that mythicists need to consider.....Brushing off history as of no importance and opting for Paul's imagination, his flights of theological or philosophical speculation, is extremely shortsighted.

This is confused. What “history” is Wells concerned about? There is a kind of ‘history’ behind the Gospel story in that it allegorizes in a single character a kingdom-preaching movement centered in Galilee on the first century scene. But nothing in that Gospel rendition is actual ‘history’. Critical scholars admit that nothing in the Gospels can be identified as “history remembered.” It’s all constructed out of scripture and discrete older components. Wells has certainly not been able to uncover any himself. He has simply been won over by groups like the Jesus Seminar who declare that a real man lies somewhere underneath it.

It’s absolutely ironic that scholars like John Crossan or the late Robert Funk can declare that a genuine Jesus can be uncovered at the root of Q, and yet at the same time say of the earliest stratum of ‘wisdom’ sayings that they show the earliest Christians preserved a focus that was entirely on the sayings and not on the man himself. Where is the ‘history’ of Jesus there? Crossan has just admitted that there isn’t any. Similarly, the Q scholar William Arnal can say that any distinctive character of Jesus, any distinctive element of his activities, has been “subsumed” in that of the Q preachers themselves, so that he is indistinguishable from them. Where’s the history of any Jesus there?

Is there any ‘history’ in Wells’ view of the Pauline Christ? Nothing there either. Paul, according to Wells, knows nothing about his Christ on earth, when he lived, where, what he did—other than get crucified, which Paul “knows” from scripture. We don’t even know that Paul regards his Jesus as having lived on earth at all, since he never tells us that, never shows any sign that he is curious, or speculates, about the ‘history’ of his Jesus on earth. A sacrifice on earth never figures in Paul’s soteriology or his theological speculation on the salvation act. Moreover, there are passages in the epistles in general which exclude any concept of a Jesus acting on earth. Essentially, Wells, like most historicists, has simply been blinded by a handful of phrases: seed of David, born of woman, and terms like “flesh” and “blood,” unable to see beyond an earthly literality for them (despite the fact that not a single one is identified with a specific human figure in history). A competent mythicist can easily dispose of them all.

And what is Wells’ concept of Paul believing in an unknown Jesus, living in an unknown past in an unknown place crucified by unknown forces, but precisely that: “Paul’s imagination, his flights of theological or philosophical explanation”? Wells certainly doesn’t believe Paul’s unknown Jesus really existed. So it would be all in Paul’s mind. No history there.

So what “history” maryhelena has in mind, either as gleanible from the record, let alone supplied by Wells, is a mystery to me. There is certainly nothing available to prop up some kind of historical Jesus.

Earl Doherty

mountainman · 05-05-2011, 09:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

I must have missed something. Who or what the heck is "Big E"? Sounds like a member of the Mob!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

The "Big E" is Eusebius, considered by some posters to be the originator of the history of the church. According to Pete, he was a member of the Mob.

The Church was the Mob in Eusebius's lifetime. Constantine ran the business and the army at the same time very efficiently. According to the ancient sources, his three decade rule started good, went bad, then turned ugly at Nicaea. http://tinyurl.com/bullneck

mountainman · 05-05-2011, 10:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

What “history” is Wells concerned about?

The "history" that has been unquestioningly received and accepted as "history". We can call it Eusebius rather than Big E. We can call it lots of things. History in a sense is our cultural conditioning, and part of that conditioning is the expectation that Jesus was historical, since so much has been suffered and inflicted in his name. But at the end of the day, I am just as happy letting the whole story fall away. I prefer Tolkien to Eusebius, so I'd expect to let go of reading "The Hobbit" last.

Quote:

There is certainly nothing available to prop up some kind of historical Jesus.

There is a vacuum of evidence for pre-4th century Christianiy.
What may get created out of a vacuum is anyone guess.
But the physicists tell us it will be oppositely polarised in some way.

maryhelena · 05-06-2011, 01:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Bottom line for Wells is that history matters. That however much the gospel story is an interpretation of that history, a salvation interpretation, the history of the gospel time frame is relevant. It's not all, as Wells is now maintaining, all mythical. Sure, Wells has no evidence for his non-crucified Galilean preacher - but his willingness to consider that history does have an important role to play, in understanding the gospel storyline, is an important insight that mythicists need to consider.....Brushing off history as of no importance and opting for Paul's imagination, his flights of theological or philosophical speculation, is extremely shortsighted.

This is confused. What “history” is Wells concerned about?

Wells said “its not all mythical” and “we really cannot plausibly assume that such a complex of traditions as we have in the gospels and their source could have developed within such a short time from the early epistles without a historical basis”. That’s it, Earl, history. Sure, Wells has looked to the Q material for his history - but the point is, Q notwithstanding, that Wells has realized that history has to be considered. We can debate just what history the gospel writers found to be relevant - but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that history was relevant to their gospel storyline, to their historical interpretations. If history was not relevant - then there was no need whatsoever for them to date their gospel story. Paul had no need for dating. The gospel writers did. That’s a fact that no amount of rationalizing will eliminate. The gospels are dated - history matters. Indeed, a date does not make a story historical - (and I certainly don’t view the gospel JC as historical) - but the dating carries it’s own history independent from the story that is set within the historical time frame. And it’s that history, Earl, not the pseudo-historical gospel JC story, that is relevant. Relevant for understanding the context the JC storyline is set within, relevant as the historical fabric from which the gospel JC story has been cut. Of course, OT scripture fills out the story but it is not the only component here. It is history plus scripture, history plus interpretation, history plus a ‘salvation’ interpretation. That’s the Jewish way, the OT way of re-telling and finding meaning within their historical environment.

Quote:

So what “history” maryhelena has in mind, either as gleanible from the record, let alone supplied by Wells, is a mystery to me. There is certainly nothing available to prop up some kind of historical Jesus.

Earl Doherty

Earl, you continue to miss the point of what Wells has written, and even what I write. Neither Wells, nor myself, uphold the idea of “some kind of historical Jesus” - if by that you mean some historical figure that reflects the gospel crucified JC. The gospel JC figure, for Wells, is a combination, a composite, of his Galilean preacher and Paul’s Jesus figure. The Galilean preacher, of Wells, is not crucified. Let me repeat that - the Galilean preacher, of Wells, is not crucified.

Consequently, for Wells, the gospel JC is not a historical figure ie the gospel crucified JC is not a historical figure. What that insight means for historical research into early christianity is that if any historical figure was relevant to those early christians, then that historical figure was not crucified around the time of the 15th year of Tiberius. That is a big deal, a big insight, that can take forward research into early chrisitian origins.

Quote:

The Jesus Myth: G.A.Wells (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Page 103/104

“......and the suggestion that there was more than one Jesus figure (real or legendary) underlying earliest Christianity is not altogether outrageous in light of Paul’s own complaint that there are people who “preach another Jesus whom we do not preach” (2 Cor.11:4). By the time we reach Mark’s gospel, the two have been fused into one: the Galilean preacher of Q has been given a salvific death and resurrection, and these have been set not in an unspecified past (as in the Pauline letters) but in a historical context consonant with the date of the Galilean preaching.

avi · 05-06-2011, 05:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

The "Big E" is Eusebius, considered by some posters to be the originator of the history of the church.

I believe that everyone will agree that Eusebius wrote the book called Ecclesiastical history.
Where we may disagree is how to interpret what Eusebius had identified as "history". How much of his text is genuine, and which parts fabricated seems uncertain....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eusebius, apparently quoting Origen: EH VI: 25.8

6. And the third by Luke, the Gospel commended by Paul, and composed for Gentile converts. Last of all that by John. (highlight by avi)

To my way of thinking, this text, written by Eusebius, but attributed to Origen, claims that Paul knew of Luke's gospel.

What is very unclear to me, is precisely what Paul meant, in writing euaggeliw.

For example, in 2 Corinthians 8:18, the Greek is universally translated into English as "gospel", (i.e. sacred writings, ostensibly created by, and about Jesus) but, the context, at least through my eyes, looks more like: "(Paul's) good news".

Apparently, this uncertainty regarding the exact meaning of euaggeliw, existed already back in the third century CE, judging from these comments, above, supposedly written by Origen, if one accepts the history of big E.

As an offtopic comment, (assuming that any of my posts are actually on topic), can anyone offer an explanation of why some of the oldest Greek manuscripts present, in Romans 2:16 :

dia cristou ihsou (Alexandrian), while others invert the two words:

dia ihsou cristou (Byzantine majority). Does one version reflect either Latin or Aramaic influence on the Greek? Does the inversion yield a clue about the relative dates of origin of the two Greek manuscript types?

Here's the whole sentence, again focused on elaborating the meaning of euaggeliw

en hmera ote krinei o qeoV ta krupta twn anqrwpwn kata to euaggelion mou dia cristou ihsou.

Here, one wonders about the distinction between "my" good news, versus "my" gospel. Why not "the" gospel, or "the" good news, particularly in view of the clarification that the "good news", or "gospel" was (written/created) by or through (dia) JC, himself?

avi

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05-05-2011, 09:26 AM	#23
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	The "Big E" is Eusebius, considered by some posters to be the originator of the history of the church. According to Pete, he was a member of the Mob.

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