Clivedurdle

Jg, it might help if you would state your position on this. I thought everyone agrees there has been an evolution to the Nicene formulation, but also that the NT contains pretty clear parameters that Jesus was extremely special - Holy Ghost as dad, Angels at birth, star and magi, attempts to kill him, precocious in the temple, ability to do miracles, very wise, confounding the wise, chatting with the devil, holy spirit descending at baptism, casting out spirits, propheying end times and last but not least resurrecting and being seen with Elijah and Elisha.

Being a bear of little brain that looks a pretty impressive christology - oh I forgot logos and saviour and being born again, and any normal description of a godman.

Magdlyn

Dont forget a woman annointed him for his death and beheld his resurrection! What was going on there, eh? What kind of a "Jew" would stand for that?

spin

So, how will reading secondary sources get you closer than reading all the available texts??

Ummm, aren't you forgetting something here? Beside the archaeological evidence, all our knowledge comes from texts of the period. You can't get away from reading them. You can't rely on others' opinions about them. You have to roll up your sleeves and derive the context from the texts themselves.

This sounds good, but without a native speaker to tell you what's going on, you'll have no way of getting the information but from the texts themselves. And it doesn't really matter what your pundits say. So there'll be things that you cannot understand because they require knowledge no longer available to anyone.

This should not be rocket science to you, Jeffrey Gibson. I try not to be influenced by others' preprocessing of the data. My tendency is to read the widest range of early texts possible and let them do the influencing. And I belt the texts about with others a lot, which allows me to get a better grasp on those texts, iron out the misconceptions. (One has misconceptions because texts are inherently misunderstandable.) We will rarely ever be able to get it all right, but I don't want to get it wrong by following someone else's ideas.

The important thing in one's interaction with text is to formulate ideas about it, ideas that you can test and refine or rethink.


spin

Jeffrey Gibson

[QUOTE=Magdlyn;4926918]And tell me please how you you came by it.

Well, then perhaps you'd like to temper the the global and apodictic nature of the claims you make about what NT authors say.

Perhaps then you will save your wariness for Toto who does this with Carrier and Ted/Jacob who does this with Earl. But I'll be danged if I've given you any reason to think that I do this. I'd be grateful if you could show that I've done this, let alone that I've told you who may favourite authors are..

JG

Jeffrey Gibson

Everyyone? Does George? Does Magdlyn?

Let's first note that to make the "NT" say all this, you have to harmonize, say, Mark, who speaks nothing of a birth from God or the star and magi, with Matthew, and Matthew, who says nothing of angels and a star, with Luke with Luke, etc.

Besides that we should note that even if each of the NT writers said all of these things, that would not make Jesus as special as you seem to think they do, nor would it show that the NT is making out Jesus to be something that no one else ever been proclaimed as being or laid a claim to. NT christology is not asserting something that what would have been regarded as an ontological absurdity -- that Jesus is something that it was not possible for a human being to be. It is laying out a competitive claim that of all those who have been/are being proclaimed, or are themselves claiming, to be beloved of god and/or where God most definitively reveals himself (Moses, the Law, Augustus, Theudas, etc.), it's Jesus who deserves these honours.

It's interesting to see that it is in the very Gospel where the ontological absurdity option has been thought to be asserted (i.e., GJohn), we not only find this competitive claim being made, but being held up by the author/editor of this Gospel as the reason this Gospel's was written. On this, see D.A. Carson, _The Gospel according to John_ , 90-91; 661-663 and his "The Purpose of the Fourth Gospel: John 20:30–31 Reconsidered", JBL 108 (1987) 639–651.

Saviour is a term from the Imperial cult and Logos is applied to the Law.

Where is Jesus proclaimed as "being born again"? And please provide examples from ancient literature of what you consider to be "normal" descriptions of men who were gods and gods who were men.

JG

gurugeorge

Eh? Only two alternatives? As spin has been at pains to point out, there are numerous alternatives, that's the whole point. We have a bunch of texts that for a long time were believed to be some kind of proof of the manly component of a God-man (i.e. his fleshly existence, the fact that some people knew him in his manly aspect personally, etc., etc.). Non-Christian scholars obviously don't believe that, but there's still some lingering belief that, although they're not about a God-man, they must yet be about some man. That's the fallacy I'm pointing out, the non sequitur. There are indeed several alternative explanations for why texts purporting to be proof of a God-man might come about.

Aren't you just begging the question here Roger? The very point at issue is whether we have any reason to suppose the texts in question are eyewitness accounts or biographies at all. What reason is there to believe that, other than the old tradition that they're eyewitness accounts or biographies of the God-man Jesus? But if they're not eyewitness accounts or biographies of the God-man Jesus, what makes you automatically assume they are eyewitness accounts or biographies at all? Why can't they be just texts you'd investigate from scratch, to see how they might have come about as purported eyewitness accounts or biographies of the God-man Jesus?

gurugeorge

Oh please Jeffrey, some of us have got homes to go to, and don't spend all our time hunched over our computer hunting for heresy. Some of us aren't even particularly interested in having the last word in a debate. Can you imagine?

To addresss your points:

An entity that's both God and man. I would have thought that was self-evident?

As should be obvious from my post, I don't think some of the NT authors themselves intended any such thing (or rather, I think some NT writers did, and some later interpolators did, but some of the original writers probably didn't, in parts of the writings we have that haven't been too heavily tampered with), it's just that that's how the Jesus thing came to be understood by lots and lots of people for 2,000 years. He had to be God or there would have been nothing to get particularly excited about (people die horribly for their convictions all over the world, all the time); if he hadn't been a man, there would have been no sense of sacrifice (it would have been like a videogame in God mode, nobody would have been hurt, so, again what would there to get excited about?).

You have a nice line in irrelevant questions Jeffrey. Since I don't think many NT scholars apart from a few nutters on the fundamentalist side think that (and nor did I claim they did in my post) your question is a strawman as far as I'm concerned.

That's more difficult to answer, since I'm not familiar with those scholars. However, I can quote (a random web translation of) the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father [and the Son],
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Note the parts in bold. God ... and man. What particular niceties of interpretation various sub-sects of Christianity might have had of these terms in those days, or now, are of no relevance to the point I was making in my post, and are of little relevance to me personally. (It's like people telling you about their dreams: boring as hell.)

I've only read Ehrman's Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, don't know if that counts; other writers only in fragments as quoted by other writers I'm interested in, like Doherty or Price. If that puts me beyond the pale of reasoned discourse in your eyes, please do feel free to put me on ignore. I could do without time-wasting apologetic merry-dance-leading anyway.

However, I should point out that even if I had read all those writers first hand (as I presume you have), that would still be no reason to take anything I say as gospel (if you will pardon the pun). A theory stands or falls on its own merits and its own logic. Whether credentialed scholars in the relevant field take a theory seriously is a good first approximation, or time saving filter, in most scholarly fields, for sure, but I doubt it's a good filter in the field of NT scholarship, for the reason I mentioned in my post (which I notice you haven't addressed), which I put in the form of a question: if the NT isn't evidence of a God-man, why on earth should anybody still think of it as evidence of some man?

Jeffrey Gibson

It's not obvious from anything you've written previously that I'm aware of.

OK. So which one's did and which ones didn't? And what's your criteria for saying who did and who didn't? Is it a close and informed study of the terms they use in describing Jesus. Something else?

"probably"?

Which parts are those? And what criteria do you use to tell what's an interpolated/tampered bit and what's not?

it's just that that's how the Jesus thing came to be understood by lots and lots of people for 2,000 years.

I thought you just said that it wasn't so understood at the begiining of Christianity?

Yes, but notably not because of a belief that anyone, let alone Jesus, had to be God.

Do you have any actual evidence from, say, early Christian reports on martryrs or martyrologies that "Jesus having to be God" is what actually stood behind and informed pre constantinian martyrs willingness to give up their lives? Or is this just an assumption on your part?

Indeed, have you done any reading in the primary source material or in the standard histories (like that of Frend) of early Christian martyrdom to know not only what the evidence is for your claim is , but whether what you claim to be the case has any evidence going for it?

I ask because I'm trying to establish your degree of competency to speak with any degree of authority, or in any way has any warrant to be taken seriously, about what motivated EC martyrs.

And so it may well be. But why then do you think it is that people who are not, as you admit yourself to be, amateurs in the filed of NT studies, do not believe your claim that the NT is evidence that Jesus was both God and man?

What it puts you beyond is claiming that you have any right to make any claims about what NT scholars think or say, let alone that you should be taken seriously when you speak in any way about NT scholarship or the NT itself.

I fail to see how your conclusion about the credibility of what NT scholars say follows from, or is in any way demonstrated by, your question.

More importantly, what I do see is that you are trying to have your cake and eat it too since you said above that you don't think that NT authors thought Jesus was a man who was God or presented him as being so. If the NT authors did think or do this, then the NT cannot be evidence of a God man. It might be taken by others as such. But that's quite a different kettle of fish from saying that it is.

BTW, Virgil was taken by many to be evidence that Augustus was a man who was god. He even seems to think that Augustus was a man who was a God. How does that prove that Virgil was not speaking of a particular man, let alone that the man he was speaking of didn't exist?

JG

Roger Pearse

I'm sorry to say that I think that you have changed subject here. I am not here concerned with whether the biblical texts are 100% accurate or not. I am merely pointing out the problem with the 'either-or' that you posted. Since you retract that -- if I understand you correctly -- then you need to rethink your query.

If you are asserting that the biblical texts are 100% wrong, of course, then you need to start demonstrating this. I think that you will find this extremely difficult, bearing in mind that 1% accuracy would destroy your argument.

I wouldn't make these sorts of arguments, in your shoes. Life is not black and white like this.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

gurugeorge

The beginnings of Christianity are mixed and even after 300-400 years there were still some Christians who didn't go with the "God" part, and some who didn't go with the "man" part. But after 300 years or so the "party line" was "God-man", as is quite plain from the Nicene Creed which I took great pains to copy and paste from some random website for your information. Please refer to that if you have any more puzzlement about the term "God-man".

I don't think the NT is evidence that Jesus was both God and man; I think that's what the Catholic Church made it out to be, and hence what millions of believing Christians have thought it to be down through the centuries.

Well all I'm saying about most contemporary NT scholars - particularly non-Christian NT scholars, in relevance to the original thread - is that they think the NT Canon is evidence of a man.

I should think the proposition that most NT scholars think Jesus was a man is fairly uncontroversial, and would require no deep study of their works to prove it.

What I'm saying that might be understood to be controversial is that I think NT scholars may have a "blind spot": it may be that they've unquestioningly accepted the NT Canon as evidence-of-someone, even though they don't believe it's evidence of the entity it was purported (originally by the Catholic Church) to be evidence of.

Let me see if I can put it even more clearly:

Text A is presented as "evidence of x"
It's found not to be "evidence of x"
But it's now unquestioningly taken to be "evidence of y"?

Hello?

See the problem? If it isn't evidence of x, then there's no reason anymore to take it seriously as evidence at all, except indirectly, as a result of scholarly digging.

Its cover has been blown, so to speak.

Certainly, upon investigation, the text might reveal the existence of a y (or z, etc.), but it can't retain its character as "direct evidence of ..." any longer once it's cover as being evidence of x is blown. Once it's found not to be the evidence of x that everyone thought it was, it loses its purported character as evidence altogether, and becomes just a text that may or may not be indirect evidence of all sorts of things.

If this was purely a scholarly forum, then your efforts to sniff out my credentials would have some point, but since it's an open forum where anybody can discuss these matters alongside scholars (a great privilege) so long as they abide by the rules of the forum, your efforts are supererogatory.

I don't think some NT authors thought that, but they are the earliest ones, and buried under the heap of interpolated orthodox nonsense that tries to prove this "Jesus" entity was both God and a man.

My belief, which I base on my reading of Doherty, Price, Ehrman, etc., is that roundabout 0 CE there was a small religious community in Jerusalem that had a stunning new idea about the figure of the Messiah - a "revaluation of values" of that Jewish idea, indeed almost a reversal of all its traditional tropes. Instead of someone to come, he was someone who had been, instead of a great military victor, he was a great spiritual victor, instead of a king covered in glory, he died in utter obscurity, in the most shameful way possible at the time. But the good news (gospel, evangelion) was, there was no longer any need to look to the future: the Messiah's (spiritual) victory had already been won, Jews were saved, and that in the most profund, spiritual sense. This idea was taken up and universalised by "Paul", and there was an early spurt of growth due to his efforts, then at some point between 70 CE and 150 CE, due to attempts to "fill in" a biography for "Jesus" (which originally had been necessarily obscure, vague, scripture based), the idea came about amongst some parts of the Christian community that the cultic figure had been known personally to Cephas and the others in the original community. This idea spread because of its utility (it gave its upholders a seemingly better claim to an "Apostolic Succession" going back to the cultic figure himself, better than the merely spiritual provenance of Churches that descended only from Paul) and eventually became the dominant idea, and was expressed in all new "gospels" and read back into the older stuff. From around 300 CE onwards, the whole package was presented as evidence for a synthesised God-man who had lived circa 0-30 CE.

It doesn't - because we have evidence independent of whatever Virgil wrote about him, that Augustus' existed as a man. If you want to do the same for this "Jesus" fellow, you need to have some reason independent of the NT Canon, to think he existed and had at least some of the human characteristics ascribed to him in the Canon.

That's how you would rescue some evidence-quality from the NT Canon. Without that kind of effort, its just a cult text that has no automatic right to be taken seriously as being about anything real at all.