aa5874

But based on Irenaeus in Against Heresies, Cerinthus believed Jesus was just human whose parents were Joseph and Mary and born naturally. It also appeared that Cerinthus believed in some other Power than the God of the Jews.

Against Heresies XXVI The doctrine of Cerinthus In Against Heresies, there is no indication that Cerinthus had any association with the gospel of John when Cerithus himself did reject the God of the Jews. And according to gJohn "The Word was God", (see John 1).

andrewcriddle

I'm sure the Alogi/Alogoi were wrong to associate Cerinthus with John's Gospel. My point was that their (erroneous) suggestion of a very early 2nd century non-apostolic author for John's Gospel, indicates a firm belief that whoever wrote the 4th Gospel it was written well before 150 CE.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

It may be an indication that they did not know when the gospel called John was written and was probably seeing this Gospel with the name John for the very first time.

If it was well known that there was a Gospel with the name John, that was actually written by an apostle name John around 100 years before Irenaeus, and confirmed and established by ALL the Churches, then I can see NO good reason for anyone to claim it was written by Cerinthus.

And since such a claim was made, according to the link, by the Alogi, then I consider that it was not yet established or confirmed when the Gospel with the name John was written upto or around 170 CE and that the Alogi became aware of this Gospel with the name John at around the same time, 170 CE.


Now

patcleaver

Thanks for your help answering "Solitary Man". Feel free to answer anything directed at me from anyone. Don't pay any attention to "Solitary Man". He is upset because he is not searching for answers, but thinks he has already found them, and is simply attacking anyone who disagrees with his silly unsupported beliefs.

There are several people on this site who claim that we should only rely on "primary references" to support our beliefs. They claim that it will make this site more "scholarly", and to some extent I agree that it would. However, this is not a scholarly forum, it is open to anyone who wants to express their opinions and provided their arguments.

Some of the people who claim that we should only rely on "primary references" do it to try to invalidate scholars such as D. M. Murdock, Kersey Graves, Freke & Gandy, Gerald Massey, not because they have found mistakes in their work (there are bound to be mistakes in all scholarly works), but simply because some of her claims are not supported in their books by primary references.

Some of the people who claim that we should only rely on "primary references" are simply hypocrites, because while claiming that we should only rely on primary references, they believe all kinds of silly superstitious things without any evidence at all.

patcleaver

Why are you posting some biased Christian apologetics website as authority for your silly propositions?

Do you have any real evidence that the Gospel of John was written before the 4th century?

Toto

Actually, we strive for a higher standard in the upper forums than just unsupported opinions.

The reason to rely on primary sources is that there are a lot of highly inaccurate secondary sources in the field of Biblical studies. If you rely on secondary sources, you risk passing on bad information.

If know of no evidence that anyone is insisting on primary sources as a way of getting at someone like Acharya S in particular.

dog-on

The truly aggravating thing, imo, is the "cherry picking" of sources. This relating specifically to the historicity of JC. As far as I know, the true primary sources for JC are Paul and Mark, with Matthew adding the early years.

These works portray JC in a specific way. The gospels portray JC as doing specific things, that in the case of any other character, would be considered fictional. Paul's JC is a god in the heavenly realm that speaks to him through revelations.

The historical JC that is purported to have actually existed has no relation at all to the "primary sources" of his "existance". So in the end, exactly what is the importance of "using primary sources" when it comes to this specific discussion.

Amaleq13

And you know that they are cherry picking because you have access to the primary sources.

QED

I'm not sure it does except in terms of a counter argument since it appears to have been brought up specifically in defense of certain scholars who, IIUC, do not believe Jesus was historical. At least some of those identified scholars have been discovered to have misrepresented what the primary sources actually say or demonstrated ignorance of what they say. Fans of the works of such scholars tend to take exception to having their "primary sources" shown to be inadequate or poorly researched. It is embarrassing to learn that the conclusion one embraces has such a poor foundation.

Whether you agree with them or not, scholars who accept or assume Jesus to have been a figure in history do tend to consistently reference their primary sources. It makes no sense to suggest that their opponents should not be held to at least the same standard.

I would hope that everyone here is intelligent enough to recognize that lowering the standards of scholarship is a bad idea that can only lead to more false conclusions being accepted as true.

aa5874

There are NO primary sources for Jesus as only human.

The so-called early Christian writers have declared that the Jesus of the NT was a God, and this includes the Jesus of gMark and the "Pauls".

Zeichman

Why back up anything that is said, when you can just assert it without evidence?