Attonitus

Vinnie, seriously. In the successive I promise you the same treatment to my granted.

Vinnie

Please List the writings of each and the evidence these people existed and wrote these works of which we do not have any authographs.

Make sure the evidence for details from their life (e.g. the fact that the historical Plato wrote something or that the historical Alex wrote something) is backed by contemporary, primary source data in its favor. Because claiming Plato wrote something needs to be historically justified.

A later author saying person x wrote this work will not do as its not CPD. Also, manuscripts from hundreds of years after the fact attributed to an alleged person back in the day do not mean anything. Papias, records tradition that Mark wrote Mark in possibly the first decade fo the 2nd century and pushes this tradition back earlier than himself which means it occurs just a few years after it was written. THis attestation is certainly bogus so you must do much better than list mere external attestation. Plus someone attached headings to the Gospels which were certianly anonymopus at first. Not to mention psuedepigraphia!!! Heck, even some doubt the authentic Pauline epistles despite all their self-claims.

So where is your evidence? Submit it and show that the author of the quote made bad choices of names (of which there are certainly better ones and the point would still stand).

Also, please state the textual attestation and earliest copies of each external attestation your provide (e.g. Aristotle on Plato).

I'd like to analyze your arguments and see if I can detect any "historical criteria" at work in them. Then I can more clearly expose any special pleading when it comes to an HJ.

Vinnie

Layman

You obviously have not read Doherty. His whole point is that the early Christians believed that Jesus was a purely spirit being who never existed on earth in any form.

NOGO

Is this all you have?
It was not a problem for people at the time therefore Tatian was a HJer.

Is this Chrisitan logic?

Until you deal with his actual words you have nothing.

Christians have lived with Paul and GJohn for centuries and both of these portrait Jesus very differently than the synoptic gospels.

As Doherty explains GJohn is an attempt at fusing the HJ of the synoptic Gospels with Paul's MJ.

The NT is full of contradictions some of which are funcdamental and Christians never had any trouble with them.

Your argument is rather weak which leaves us with Tatian's actual words which you have not addressed.

You do not need Tatian to make such an argument.
Christians who believed in an HJ never had a problem with Paul's letters therefore Paul was a HJer. Dah!

Your dagger is more like a toothpick that breaks on first use.

Layman

The letter of "1 Clement" is an official response on behalf of the Roman Church at the request of the Corinthian Church. It was not the musing of someone who happened to be a member of the Roman Church.

105-115 CE, of course. If you have some radically late, personal dating then we are so far apart little will come of the discussion.

Clayton N. Jefford, Reading the Apostolic Fathers, pages 57-58.

Please list references to these facts so I can follow your argument. It is quite possible for Marcion to be in Rome without being an accepted member of the Roman Church there.

It was quite possible to be Roman and not in Rome. Or to be in Rome and not Roman. Justin was in Rome and taught his Christian church there.

If you show it, I'll respond.

My examples of Luther and Russell still stand. Their heretical thoughts started in their respective orthodox churches. It took them, and their authorities, years to come to the point of separation and rejection.

I am still very skeptical that you had those who claimed there was no Jesus on earth in any way under the same roof as those who claimed there was a HJ and he was a flesh and blood human being, under the same roof, worshipping together.

I don't think you've provided a single reference to anything. It has been argument by sheer assertion on your part.

Why does Luther's traning matter? THe point is that heresy is usually not uncovered and condemned overnight, as you suggest. There are plenty of examples where orthodoxy took time to deal with their respective heresies.

I say Marcion started out orthodox or something close to it. It took a while for his heresy to either develop or become a point of contention. Eventually he was thrown out and his large contribution of money returned to him.

If there was any toleration of the complete Jesus Myth in Rome, I expect we would have heard of it, yes.

rlogan

The thrust of this anti-Doherty missile seems to be:

Here is an HJ'er (Tatian) who wrote a Christian apology without mentioning Jesus details.

Therefore, Paul is an HJ'er who also did not mention Jesus details in the epistles.

1) There is insufficient evidence that Paul is an HJ'er, period. This must be established in its own right.

2) Tatian is writing to non-Christian Greeks, not a Christian Church. Paul was not writing an apology to outsiders. To make an analogy, if you were defending homosexuality to a bunch of straights, the arguments would lie in equality before the law, justice, hypocrisy, etc. You would not discuss the defining element (ick!) of homosexual behavior. The argument above has not given any consideration to the motives, audiences, and strategic considerations in the writings.

How do you convince Mom that boxing is OK for junior? Talk about broken noses? No, it's discipline, hard work, goal-setting, etc. But with the guys you talk about cracking heads. Why should Tatian try to impress the Greeks with *yawn* a super-hero story? Rather, argue that the Greeks have their super-heros, so why can't you have one.

3) How did we establish Tatian as an "Hj'er"? The most compelling evidence was the Harmony. Well, I suppose on these grounds every novelist believes in his story.

Vinnie

""""""Here is an HJ'er (Tatian) who wrote a Christian apology without mentioning Jesus details.""""""

It would appear so.

"""""""Therefore, Paul is an HJ'er who also did not mention Jesus details in the epistles."""""""""

I don't think Tatian is necessary. I would say, without Tatian, Paul was an HJer who didn't mention MANY details. If the historicity of Jesus is demnonstrated on grounds other than the Pauline corpus, then Paul should naturally be given this backdrop though its possible his beliefs still varied significantly from the pillars and other Christians (or Jesus followers if you prefer).

""""""""1) There is insufficient evidence that Paul is an HJ'er, period. This must be established in its own right. """"""""

See the thread I linked above started by Vork which is entitled along the lines of Vinnie and Vork.

""""""Paul was not writing an apology to outsiders""""""

Paul was writing to converted Christians. There is no need to explain to them in detail that Jesus existed as a person. They know this and many other details. It needs to be shown what is likely to be historical (according to critical scholars) and then from that base we need to see if Paul "should be required" to have said or mentioned these in his, mostly, short, occasional letters.


"""""""3) How did we establish Tatian as an "Hj'er"? The most compelling evidence was the Harmony. Well, I suppose on these grounds every novelist believes in his story."""""""

I put five or six pieces of the puzzle in tandem so this misrepresents me at least:

Justin HJer uses Gospel Harmonies.
Tatian a few years later writes his own harmony.
Docetism and Marcion and other views deemed "heretical".
Gospel of John. Much of the serenely transcendental and pre-existent Jesus in the Gospel of John is philosohically close on, a prima facie reading, to what I see in Tatian here. Though John certainly has a "human Jesus".
Irenaeus comments.

I am also told that Clement was a pupil of Tatian? Or at least scholars assume he was on the basis of one of his comments. Collectively this all works out.

I am surprised no one disputed Tatian authorship of the Diatessaron yet

Vinnie

rlogan

[QUOTE=Vinnie
I put five or six pieces of the puzzle in tandem so this misrepresents me at least:
[/quote]

You did. I did not address them. Too feeble at present. A midget among giants.
Oh - did I mention that Tatian authorship of the gospel harmony is in doubt?

spin

The historical jesus part was the main interest of my question. (But "official response"? This is simply taking the text as though it was a witness for itself and that has no value at all.)

I don't really care what official lines you believe. You should know over the last few centuries there has been a long debate over the validity of Ignatius's letters and the facts of his life.

Let me cite Eusebius 5.5.7, which says that Trajan forbad xians "to be sought after". Trajan's reign of course is not known elsewhere for its persecutions, yet Ignatius supposedly was martyred at the time. And Eusebius states with little conviction the martyrdom of Ignatius, starting, "It is said that he was sent from Syria to Rome . . ."

Polycarp's letter to the Philippians was written, it claims, during the life of Ignatius (13:1). It also says in ch 12, "Pray for the kings, and potentates, and princes, and for those that persecute and hate you . . .", yet at the time of reputed death of Ignatius there was only one king in the empire at the time. You have to wait until Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. And Polycarp's was one of persecution. He also gives sage counsel regarding wives and widows, quite impressive for someone supposedly in his early twenties. It is much more likely that he is speaking from a position of authority, a position of age, ie it was written much later in his life. Irenaeus recommends the letter highly, while totally oblivious to Ignatius. Polycarp's is the best attestation Ignatius has and that points to much later than 107 CE.

The letter to the Philippians is no help in dating the death of Ignatius other than to say that the death was after the letter. Lucius Verus shared the throne with Marcus Aurelius from 161 to 169 CE, so we should be looking in this period, as Polycarp indicates he was still alive during their reign. [Polycarp was in Rome sometime during the time of Anicetus (155-166 CE). Both Eusebius and Jerome date Polycarp's death to the double reign, Jerome indicating the seventh year of Marcus Aurelius, ie 167 CE.]

You know there is no point citing opinions. I wish you would stop that. You are supposed to be dealing with initial sources, ie from the times we are dealing with.

He flourished under Anicetus.

You missed the point. Justin came to Rome later in life after growing up in Palestine then living in Ephesus. He is not representative of the Roman church.

Iren. Haer. 3.3.4, 3.4.3

Show that there was an orthodox church at the time of Marcion.

Blind as well, eh? Did I make comments about what you are talking about? No. I simply mentioned a state of heterodoxy.

Is it assertion that the Roman church house Marcion for so long? Is it assertion that it also housed Valentinus for long enough for him to decide to abandon it, or for Cerdon to start teaching his gnostic flavoured ideas? Rome was happy to accommodate all of them for a long period. You simply assert that they were orthodox all the while until they were thrown out.

This is a continuous flow of assertion in the church: x was orthodox until he crossed the line and then he was thrown out. Cerdon, Marcion, Tatian, Tertullian and on to Paul of Samosata, Arius, etc. Each of these fellow wake up one day no longer orthodox. Of course they were not orthodox according to hindsight and not orthodox while in the church.

No, heresy is not "uncovered" overnight. But the real point is that something has to be seen as heresy before it can be called heresy. As I have already said, the church defined itself by by cutting itself up, deciding that something that someone says is not kosher. By Luther's time the theology was almost without a chink in the armour and Luther was brought up within the church. Almost none of the great church fathers were brought up wihtin the church, so your analogy of Luther is irrelelvant as not representative of the people and their backgrounds who you are trying to make the comparison with.

Ahh, that's getting a little nearer to the problem: "It took a while for his heresy ... become a point of contention." This is the case with heterodoxy moving towards orthodoxy. When something becomes a point of contention, that is a defining moment. We don't like those ideas any more so you're out.

I don't know personally if there was or not (I don't even advocate MJ), but there was toleration of Valentinus, Cerdon, Marcion and Tatian, which is what I have been interested in in this thread, ie the church of Rome and its accommodation of those who would be later labelled heretics. As I have already said, none of the great church thinkers came from Rome, though a few went to Rome. We cannot therefore make assumptions as to the orthodoxy of the Roman church.


spin

GakuseiDon

It's part of it, but there was more to it than that, I think. The part you quoted was in response to Vork's claim that Tatian's writing on AttG contradicted the central tenets of the Christianity of the time. I pointed out that not only did no HJer notice (in a time where heresy was noted), but AttG was actually widely used and praised as one of his best works.

I agree! I need to explain any of the problems with the text raised by HJers of the time. You need to find them. Over to you.

Really? No-one had trouble with them, eh?

Christians never tried to explain away contradictions in the NT?

Christians never tried to make changes to it because they had no trouble with it?

Is that what you are saying, NOGO?



Fair enough. Not much point in you contributing any more to this thread, then, is it? Unless you want to present some evidence.