spamandham

I don't know why you continue. You've already made it abundantly clear you don't think what I presented has any substance. Again, we're done.

By the way, what standards are you referring to that you claim are my standards?

Amaleq13

I don't know I why I assumed you were actually reading the thread. I've already addressed why I have continued to try to improve your understanding and already provided the answer, in bold text, to your closing question.

<hint: focus on the phrase at the end following "yet">
I included your apparent standard in my question:
This was, of course, a reference to your apparent acknowledgement that identification of a "similar prior tradition" is necessary to establish a connection:
Apparently I haven't been sufficiently clear because that has not been the point. It is not a question of just failing to convince me but one of failing to provide support for your claim by any rational definition of the concept.

Unsupported assertions are irrelevant to a rational discussion of the evidence.

spamandham

Normally, I would just take your word for it that I said that, but since you are attempting to pick bones, I demand you point to the my quote in which you claim I said that a similar prior tradition is necessary to establish a connection.

Further, you claimed I violated my own standards. So you owe me a quote to at least one other standard of mine that you claim I failed to live up to.

Amaleq13

I already provided the exact quote from which I extrapolated your apparent acknowledgement (phrased it just that way in fact) above. It certaintly gives the appearance that you understand and accept this painfully obvious necessity but I may have given you too much credit. If that is the case, I certainly apologize for thinking you understood more than you do.

:rolling:

I can understand your desperation to salvage something at this late stage but this is just sad to the point of pathetic. I assume you have more than one standard but the fact that you clearly have not met one of them means you haven't met your own standards. Please quit while you are behind as your willful obtusity has become excessively tiresome. :wave:

spamandham

If you read more carefully, you'll see that what I said was, it only makes sense to state that a particular aspect comes exclusively from one side, if there is no prior tradition on the other side. But there IS prior tradition on the pagan side. I did not claim what your extrapolation says I claimed.

So where do you get off claiming I have not met my own standards?

I'm not trying to salvage anything. I'm just stooping to your level.

The usual coarse of discussion is someone presents something, others scrutinize it and ask for additional justification as they see fit, the author continues to provide more until he has nothing more, or until someone proves significant points wrong. If he has nothing more, and yet others are unconvinced, oh well. If significant points are proven wrong, the author concedes.

We reached the end of what I had, and you were unconvinced, oh well. But for some reason you refused to drop it and started pedantically nit picking points unrelated to the primary discussion instead, and trying to claim standards are mine which are not (an extrapolation, aka FABRICATION, by your own admission). I don't know what your motives are, but they don't seem honorable.

Amaleq13

Yes, that is why I asked you for the "prior similar tradition" connecting pagan use of the cross as a symbol with Christian use.

Apparently, you don't understand the implication of your own words.

You have provide no prior similar tradition to support your assertion despite that it is quite obviously necessary and despite that your comment suggested you recognized that fact.

Then, as I indicated, I overestimated your comprehension. Again, my apologies.

You're right. You clearly don't understand your own words enough to recognize the entirely rational standard implied by them. My mistake.

You are free to continue to make unsubstantiated assertions but somebody is bound to call you on it here. I would hope you've been here long enough to know you shouldn't act all offended when somebody points out that you don't know what you're talking about.

I fully agree though you still don't appear to grasp that you have yet to provide anything that actually justifies your assertion. I don't know if this is willful and I really don't care anymore.

Some reason? I've explicitly explained why at least twice. Your failure to comprehend is not my problem. You have not offered anything that provides support or justification for your claim by any rational definition of "support" or "justification". I can only hope you will avoid making the same wholly unsubstantiated assertion in the future but I'm not putting any money on it. Willful ignorance is a very tough weed to uproot.

That you do not comprehend that everything I've written has been central to establishing the illegitimacy of your assertion, is as unsurprising as it is sad.

My initial motive was to determine if there was any basis for your original assertion:
When it became clear that you actually had no evidence of such a direct connection and that you were apparently ignorant of meaning of the cross to 1st century Jews, my motive was to improve your understanding of what constitutes support for a claim. Such an improvement could only benefit your future posting endeavors but you have proved to be a somewhat reluctant learner

There is nothing that establishes or even suggests that early Christian use of the cross as a symbol is "directly" connected to pagan use of a cross symbol but you seem either unable or unwilling to acknowledge that fact.

IOW, your mouth wrote a check your ass clearly cannot cash.

spamandham

That isn't my standard, that's YOUR strawman of my standard that you admit to having extrapolated, yet for some reason, keep insisting it's my standard nonetheless even though I've explained my standard (which I don't think any reasonable person would have confused anyway, but ...)

My standard is merely to establish the significance of the cross symbol among prior pagan tradition, and further, to establish period pagan influence in the NT. I've adressed both points in followup posts. My first post discussing the cross in this thread ( http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showpost.php...2&postcount=23 ), made it damn clear I was referring to the significance the cross held in pre-Christian paganism that did not exist in pre-Christian Judaism. No-where have I said nor implied that the cross in pre-Christian paganism had the same meaning as what it means in modern Christianity, which appears to be the argument you are trying to stuff into my mouth.

My standard does not necessitate identifying a specific smoking gun link between pagan crosses and Christianity, that's YOUR standard. My standard only requires that the people who wrote the books be strongly influenced by paganism, and that the cross symbol play a role in period paganism. To me, this seems reasonable, because if I were writing a book to syncretize two religious traditions that I was straddling the fence on, that's what I would do. I would look for ways to make a cohesive story out of it.

My position is compatible with a historical crucifixion, but is not dependent on it.

Your position is absolutely dependent on a historical crucifixion as the only way to explain the cross obsession in Christianity, and that is entirely dependent on appeal to the historicity of patently absurd legends.

Sure I do. But my position is not your extrapolation. I'm not going to defend your strawman. It isn't my position.

The usage of the cross symbol in pre-Christian paganism IS similar to the usage of the cross in early Christiany. It was a revered icon in both. I have neither claimed nor implied it had the same meaning in both.

Indeed. Perhaps as tough to lick as the strawman.

Amaleq13

Really? You honestly do not think that identifying a similar prior tradition in either a previous pagan or Jewish culture is necessary to show a direct link to a subsequent particular Christian tradition?

That sounds more like a goal than a standard.

What do you think "standard" means in this context?

Yes and you were clearly doing so in the context of offering explanations for the origins of specific Gospel details (e.g. 12 disciples, the cross).

Are you claiming that, in the post you link to, you were not identifying parts of the Gospels that were directly connected to pagan traditions?

Nor have I said or implied that you did. You asserted a direct connection between pagan cross symbolism and Christian cross symbolism. And I've been trying ever since to get you to understand that you need a similar prior tradition to make this claim.

You would argue similarity between Stoic wisdom and Jesus' teachings to establish a direct connection.

You would argue similarity between (I assume) the story of Osiris and the story of Lazarus to establish a direct connection.

Again, I don't understand how you are using the word "standard" because both of those are conclusions.

I've already told you that you were wrong about this. This may come as a shock but I know my own position better than you do and, to repeat, nothing you say above is correct.

Presuming a mythical Jesus does not require anything I've written to be changed. The cross was still a potent symbol of pain, humiliation, and death for anyone suffering under Roman oppression. And that connects directly to the significance Paul attributes to the cross in his descriptions of Christian beliefs.

The direct connection between the general symbolism of the cross to people under Roman rule and Christian cross symbolism is apparent whether one assumes Paul's Christ to have lived on earth or in some heavenly sphere.

You honestly consider that sufficient to claim a direct connection between the two?

If that is the case, your standards (whatever they might be) are ridiculously low to the point of foolishness.

gupwalla

"Sun/Son" are homonyms in English, which helps you make your connection. If you can show that they are homonyms in Aramaic, Greek, or Hebrew (I'd even take one word in one language, another word in another language) then I might be inclined to follow you further down that path. As it is, adding a convoluted bit of hocus-pocus is not (to me) persuasive.

As it is, the simpler hypothesis by far is that there are 12 tribes in ancient Israel, and Jesus (or at least his biographers) wanted to draw a connection with those tribes into C1 CE Israel.

As for the question of why there are 12 tribes (even though it takes some creative math to get to 12 in that case as well), I strongly suggest a connection with Egypt, which used base-12 and base-60 components in their mathematics. Even if one does not subscribe to the Exodus story, it really isn't too hard to glance at a map and see that there would have been some level of cultural sharing between two neighboring nations.

gupwalla

I'll bite on this one, and I'll even stay away from 20th century Germanic crosses.

The ankh, Egyptian symbol of life.

We're not exactly talking about an obscure or rare symbol here; the cross is one of the easiest markings to make and even in the primacy of drawing and writing, it would have been easily made and easily recognized. For example, the Norse used a cross-like symbol to represent Thor.

However, the cross as a symbol of Christianity was pretty late to the game, arising decades or centuries after the Christian movement got its legs going. Its association with Jesus is probably related to an initialized form of Χριστός (Christos), enhanced by the widespread notion that among the various styles of gibbet used by Romans in their executions, some versions resembled the now-familiar perpendicular crossbeam. It also made for a dramatic artistic presentation of the crucifixion, so once the demand for your very own execution scene to hang over the dining room table caught on, there was just no going back.