jjramsey

This kind of sloppy generalization tells me that rational argument with you is a fool's game, but for the benefit of others ...

This is simply wrong.

If you mean that there was no "popular association between Jesus and the cross" among the Christians, than this is an argument from Tertullian's silence in Ad Nationes, and one thoroughly unjustified considering associations made elsewhere between Jesus and the cross.

Tertullian was trying to argue that the pagans already did what they made fun of Christians for doing. Of course, this line of argument is going to focus on pagan practices rather than Jesus.

Nonsense. Again you are arguing from Tertullian's silence.

Not necessarily. This would depend on whether the disciples knew where the grave was. Given that the disciples had fled, and Jesus' body was in the custody of the Romans, this is hardly improbable. His body may have ended up in a criminal's graveyard for all we know.

Steven Avery

What you originally said surely sounded like translation:

"Christian apologists claim that the references to the tree in the Bible really mean cross, that its just a different word for cross. Of course, this is nonsense."

In my expereience that is simply wrong.
And you will have a hard time finding it on the web.

Possibly you talked to someone was using a modern version mistranslation, especially the NAS, which in fact does mistranslate xulon as cross.

Acts 5:30 (NAS)
The God of our fathers raised up Jesus,
whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross.

The Jews were used to thinking in terms of tree, per the prophecies, and the Greek word can be used for a structure made of wood, tree-sized or small.

In the Greek where there is a different word for a living tree, dendron, used about 20 times, but that is not used in any of the verses about the crucifixion. Here is one example.

Luke 6:43
For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit;
neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

And the word used in the verses you mention, xulon, can be anything from the tree-based structure of the cross to wood or a stave.

Good ol Holding goes into this for you at
http://www.tektonics.org/guest/osama04.html

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Didymus

Not really. There is a fundamental difference. There is no comparison either in purpose or methodology. The gospel writers' primary purpose was the religious conversion of the reader/listener, and their method was to string together a series of miracles intended to convince the audience that Jesus was Lord and Savior. The gospel authors were on a mission to save mankind; Suetonius et al were on a mission to edify mankind.

I didn't say that claims of divinity count against historicity.

When there is substantial evidence of the existence of a figure, e.g., Augustus, it's worthwhile to sort the wheat from the chaff. But we shouldn't feel compelled to assume the historicity of every figure who is said to have walked the earth.

As to where the line should be drawn, well, some Christians make a case for the historicity of Satan. And they can cite all sorts of literary "evidence" to support his existence and active participation in the affairs of mankind. Is it worthwhile to sort through all that rubbish in order to find Satan's "historical core"?

Once again, that's a straw man argument. I didn't say that claims of divinity count against historicity. However... when the purposes of an author are obviously and solely evangelical, faith tends to trump fact, and that alone should cast a shadow of doubt on his claims.

I don't know what to make of such a statement.

D

Ben C Smith

And I did not claim divinity for Francis! Miracles were the topic at this point.

A shadow of a doubt, yes. I agree.

Ben.

Didymus

Uh oh. I have a feeling that that was too easy. I didn't intend "shadow" to be construed as minimizing the degree of skepticism.

Perhaps a revision is in order:

However... when the purposes of an author are obviously and solely evangelical, faith tends to trump fact, and that alone should cast a deep shadow of doubt on his historical claims.

Howzat?

D

Ben C Smith

I know. But I saw the opening and, like Terrell Davis in Superbowl XXXII, I took it.

I imagine you and I are doomed to disagree forever on such matters. I do not think that religious devotion either hinders or helps historical accuracy any (or at least much) more than political bias or social agenda. Having an axe to grind is not the special province of the religious (and I would extend the same courtesy to the devout in any religion, not just my own, as well as to atheists, agnostics, and secular humanists, all of whom have just as much reason to warp the facts as do the devout).

Just my view, of course.

Ben.

jakejonesiv

The argument that crucifixion was so embarrasing that it must be real is BS. The romance fiction of the period utilized crucifxtion. empty tombs, mistaken identity, and escape fom death. Chaereas and Callirhoe, Chariton. The Alexander Romance, Xenophon's An Ephesian Tale.

Here is Robert Price's conclusion.
Jake Jones IV

Ben C Smith

From Martin Hengel, Crucifixion (or via: amazon.co.uk), pages 81-82 (underscoring mine):

A brief word should also be said about the Greek romances generally. Crucifixion of the hero or heroine is part of their stock in trade, and only a higher form of this 'recreational literature', as represented say by Heliodorus' Aethiopica, scorns such cruelty. In the Babyloniaca written by the Syrian Iamblichus, the hero is twice overtaken by this fearful punishment, but on both occasions he is taken down from the cross and freed. Habrocomes, the chief figure in the romance by Xenophon of Ephesus which has already been mentioned, is first tortured almost to death and later crucified. Even his beloved, Anthea, is in danger of being crucified after she has killed a robber in self-defence. However, heroes cannot on any account be allowed to suffer such a painful and shameful death — this can only befall evil-doers. Chariton of Aphrodisias, who was perhaps still writing in the first century AD, gives a vivid description of crucifixion as a punishment for slaves: sixteen slaves from the domains of the satrap Mithridates escaped from their lodgings, but were recaptured and, chained together by necks and feet, were led to the place of execution, each carrying his own cross. 'The executioners supplemented the necessary death penalty by other wretched practices such as were effective as an example to the rest (of the slaves)', i.e. the whole proceedings were designed above all as a deterrent. The hero of the romance is saved at the last moment, just before he is to be nailed to the cross.

And from note 36 on page 82:

Crucifixion simply represents the supreme threat to the hero, and screws up the tension to the highest pitch.

The obvious rebuttal is that our earliest source for the crucifixion of Jesus, the apostle Paul, is not writing novelistic fiction in any meaningful sense of the word.

Ben.

jakejonesiv

If not a novel, a passion play.
You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Galatians 3:1
See Paul the Stigmatic, Charles Ensminger,

In Gal. 2:20 alleged Paul states that "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:". This is often interpreted figuratively, but it is likely to be literal. Just as at the Baptism, when the Christ spirit is said to have first possessed
Jesus, the Christ spirit could presumably hop from person to person, and now inhabited Paul. And much more, Paul had literally been crucified.

"Henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." (Galatians 6:17). According to Ensminger Paul is claiming that he is, in fact, the personification and/or incarnation of the Christ.

These are not just any old wounds, these are wounds that confer undisputable authority, the marks of crucifixion. the hands, feet, and perhaps side. Paul taught that "Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified." Gal. 3:1. This was probably in a passion play, in which Paul was actually being nailed up.

We see hints here of an early rite in which others take the place of Jesus on the cross.

The characters of Paul and Simon Magus (the negative image of Simon Peter) had certain traits in common. Being dogged and disputed with by Peter, buying the good will of other apostles with money, etc. Both claimed to be inhabited by the Christ spirit.

Paul's presumed alter-ego, Simon claimed to have appeared in Samaria as the Father, in Judea as the Son, and among the heathen as the Holy Ghost, a manifestation of the Eternal. (Irenaeus, Adv. haer 1.23.1).

Could the legend of a certain Simon being crucified be a reflection of Simon Magus' claims? "And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross." Matt. 27:32.

"He appeared, then, on earth as a man, to the nations of these powers, and wrought miracles. Wherefore he did not himself suffer death, but Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross in his stead; so that this latter being transfigured by him, that he might be thought to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance and error, while Jesus himself received the form of Simon, and, standing by, laughed at them." Irenaeus (Adv. haer. 1.24.4)

For since the angels ruled the world ill because each one of them coveted the principal power for himself, he (Simon Magus) had come to amend matters, and had descended, transfigured and assimilated to powers and principalities and angels, so that he might appear among men to be a man, while yet he was not a man; and that thus he was thought to have suffered in Judaea, when he had not suffered. Irenaeus, Adv. haer, 1:23:3.

In The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, it is stated "They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. I was another upon whom they placed the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height over all the wealth of the archons and the offspring of their error, of their empty glory. And I was laughing at their ignorance."

Jake Jones IV

Didymus

I'll grant that religious fanaticism is no worse than any other kind. But you seem to make no distinction between fanaticism and mere "bias." Should polemics, folktales, morality plays and gospels really be put on an equal footing with historical scholarship? Is it only a "matter of degree" that separates, say, "The Lives of the Saints" from "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," or Lenin's "Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism" from Charles Beard's "An Economic Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution"? Can the anonymously written, undated and derivative "Gospel of Mark" REALLY be given the same credence as, say, the historical works of Frederick Jackson Turner?

Do "tradition" and "canonization" really make the Gospel of Mark any more credible than the Gospel of Marcion?

Ivory tower scholarship may not always emit the pure white light of unsullied truth, but at least objectivity and truth are the central aims, and the workings of the natural world are subject matter. On the other hand, distortions, exaggerations, tautologies, legends, false assumptions and rumors-presented-as-fact are the stock in trade of neo-cons, revolutionaries, reactionaries, paranoids, writers of ad copy, millenarians, evangelists and other fanatics.

When doctrines are at stake, they seek to persuade, not to inform.

D