Gregg

I went back over what I actually said. You are changing my words and claiming I said things I did not. Guess I need to pay a little more attention:

I did not say "groups." That's your word, and I should have realized and called you on it earlier. I said "philosophers and religious mystics."

I do apologize for a not being rigorously clear in my meaning, since you imputed a different meaning into what I said and then demanded evidence for that. What I was trying to say to G'Don was that the general view of a lower heaven that is more earthlike than the upper heavens, of descending beings who can change in form, of regions where gods can "die" and return to life, etc., was clearly held by many philosophers and religious mystics in the ancient world (that writings about these things survived suggests to me that more than a few people believed them). I really don't know if "quite common" is the best way to put it or not--note that I qualified even that with "seems." I am sure you will accuse me of "backpedaling" here, but I'm guilty of nothing more than imprecision in a forum posting.

The way you jump on me for saying it's "hardly inconceivable" for ancient peoples to imagine a divine being descending to an earthlike lower heaven and being put to death there is completely unwarranted. Jesus mythicists are not proposing anything unthinkable or outrageous. This is not in any sense a gigantic leap from things peoples of that time already believed--progressively more Earth-like levels of heaven, heavenly intermediaries, descending redeemers, (who descend to Sheol, not to Earth), Earth-like things happening in the aer, dying/rising gods, things on Earth having heavenly copies and vice-versa. Do we have step-by-step documentation about how various separate beliefs got combined and synthesized into a new belief system? No. No outside observer made note of it as it happened. Nobody at that time wrote an objective thesis on "The Genesis and Evolution of Pauline Christianity from Pagan and Jewish Source Beliefs and Philosophies ," and religious types aren't exactly known for admitting anything but purely divine origins for their convictions. (Greek philosophers claimed to come by their beliefs through pure reason, but they still came up with some whoppers.) We don't know exactly how Judaism proceeded from polytheism to monotheism either.

What historicists would have us believe is that some Jewish man of whom we know very little, who was executed by the Romans for fomenting insurrection (since it's unlikely the Romans would have agreed to execute someone for blasphemy against the Jewish religion) was almost immediately claimed by his followers, and by Paul who never met him, to be the incarnate Son of God, with a vast elaborate pre-existing (although not unified) mythology draped around his shoulders. Yet until "Mark," they seem to show no interest in the earthly life of this Jesus, other than the bare facts that he established a sacred meal on the "night" he was "given up" and that he was crucified, died, was buried, and was resurrected. Stuff that's hardly unique in ancient world-belief, other than the manner of execution (but then Attis being castrated by a bull is pretty unique too, no?). Not even when Paul argues against those who preached an uncrucified Christ does he attempt to justify his belief that the crucified man Jesus was the Christ. Not even when he attempts to strengthen new converts in their faith does he refer to Jesus in anything but scriptural terms. None of them had any doubts that this crucified man Jesus was really the Christ? Why him and not someone else? You'd think there would be others going around claiming that their crucified guy was the Christ, but instead we have people saying the Christ wasn't crucified at all.

On the other hand, this reaction is pretty much what you'd expect it to be if Paul believed in a descending heavenly intermediary similar to what others believed in, but (as the Jerusalem group did) added the bit that when the Christ entered the firmament, he was put to death by the demon spirits; again, hardly a brand-new concept in ancient-world belief, but apparently rejected by some adherents of Christ mythology. The belief that the Christ (or variously Logos, or personified Wisdom, or Sophia, not that these all necessarily mean exactly the same thing, although the author of John clearly equates Logos with Christ) saved by imparting spiritual wisdom endured into the second and third centuries.

Ben C Smith

Are philosophers and religious mystics the same thing? If not, then you are talking about (at least) two groups.

Regions where gods can die and then return to life. All the regions of which I am aware where this was seen as happening are on the earth. Simple question: Are there other regions, not on earth, where this can happen, according to ancient thought of the relevant time period? Yes or no? If yes, what is your evidence? If no, then you and I probably agree that Doherty is working beyond the constraints of evidence (that is, speculating).

I would be happy with evidence of one or two people who thought that there was a material world, not earth, where gods could descend to die and so forth.

You are clearly able to conceive of it, as am I, so sure, it is hardly inconceivable. I agree with you.

You are right. Everything you have proposed is certainly possible.

I care not at this stage whence religious pagans claimed their ideas had come. I am seeking evidence that they had the ideas you claim in the first place. We agree that they could have. Did they? Show me the evidence, regardless of whence they claimed the ideas originated.

...irrelevant here. Let us assume for the sake of argument that the historicists are wrong; there was no historical Jesus. You are still making claims that can be tested against the available evidence. Did (any) pagans hold the views you are imputing to them? A mythicist like Wells has no need to argue that there was believed to be a material world not earth. A mythicist like yourself depends on it. Assuming that historicism is wrong, please help me decide between your brand of mythicism and that of Wells by producing evidence for your view.

I asked you before about this. What is your reference?

Ben.

Amaleq13

Outside of a courtroom, the words are synonyms.

As interesting as this semantic tangent has been, could it be that only those who use the term in a technical sense as part of their job/training were confused by it?

S.C.Carlson

Few words are completely synonymous; almost always there's always some differences in connotation. "Gossip" has the connotation of "talk of a personal, sensational, or intimate nature"; "hearsay" doesn't have that connotation.

No, as far as I can tell, spin has no legal training, yet he was confused.

Stephen

jakejonesiv

I am afraid that it was I who intoduced the concept of hearsay, and was responible for the mispelling "heresay." Man, is my face red. I would link to the message, but I can't find it now, too many Papias threads!)

My bad, so please don't blame spin.

On the other hand, I did ask for Stephen's professional opinion and was grateful when he obliged. Many thanks.

Jake Jones IV

Gamera

Seems more likely that spin was trying to use a technical term to jazz up an otherwise untenable argument. Namely, the fact that an historical text involves facts conveyed to an author by a witness, rather than the author having experienced those facts "firsthand" is no criticism at all given that 99.99% of our historical texts involve authors who are dead and can't therefore be questioned any more than the witnesses who transmitted the facts to an author. The relationship of the author to the witness is exactly the relationship of the text to the dead author. Spin wants to valorize the latter, but criticize the former, which doesn't make sense.

Doesn't matter what you call it, it raises the same evidentiary problems (hence the reason the hearsay rule applies to both in formal trials).

Gamera

I don't necessarily disagree with what you say about Esebuis (though you'd have to shore up your claim about Luke being pro-Roman in a manner that casts doubt on his historical claims). But I don't know if it ends there. Once we establish an agenda, the issue becomes how it plays out in the text. Clearly Esebius wants to establish apostolic succession, but I just don't think that in itself resolves the argument started by Vinnie's topic thread, though it ought to inform it.

If the standard is, Esebius is biased so he made up everything he says about Jesus and apostolic succession, then like I say, we have just effaced all classical history, every word of which having been written by men with agendas every bit as distorting as Esebius', if not more so, since personal power and money was on the line for guys like Tacitus.

jakejonesiv

Hi Ben,

I asked before, what about the Elysian Fields? They are ambiguosly part of the earth, but certainly not part of the prosaic world inhabited by mortal men.

Do the Elysian Fields meet your criteria?

Also, what about hades and the underworld? Again, occasionaly heroes will enter from earth and only with great difficulty return, and gods die sometimes are allowed to return in the spring.

So, does the underworld meet your criteria? Why or why not?

I was looking at the introduction to Colossians (chapter1) (where the thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities seem to hover in the lower heavens) earlier today, and a certain thought struck me.

Doesn't the Colossian Paul represent himself as a co-Redeemer (sort of like the catholics say of Mary), finishing up the work of Christ that Jesus didn't complete?

Here Christ's affictions as defined as the sufferings in the flesh of "Paul" and his body is the church.

Jake

jakejonesiv

Oh I agree totally, and nicely said. We don't throw Eusbius away, we just proceed cautiously when we examine items within the area of his agenda.

On this criterion, the remarks in Tacitus concerning Christianity seem more trustworthy than Eusubius on Papias because Christianity is not Tacitus' main issue. He certainly has biases in other areas (you mentioned money and power). But he has less stake in Christianity, so has little reason to fabricate. (There are other caveats involved with Tacitus which lie outside the scope of this thread).

Jake

Ben C Smith

I do not know. I never know until I see the evidence at hand. I need to see some ancient quotes.

In dealing with Doherty, no, since he does not place the crucifixion, AFAICT, in Hades. A grammatical difficulty is impeding my understanding of the part about gods dying. Are you saying that redeemer gods would descend to the underworld, get killed, then return to the heavens?

The interpretation of that verse is difficult on all sides, but I am not sure I understand the connection between it and a realm of flesh, not earth.

Ben.