lpetrich

I think that Metacrock might enjoy calculating Jesus Christ's Lord-Raglan score. When I've done so, as I've done in some long-ago threads like this one, I come up with 18 or 18.5 or so, which puts him in such company as

Moses
Zeus
Oedipus
Perseus
Hercules
Romulus
Krishna
the Buddha

By comparison, people well-known to be real typically score much lower. Alexander the Great scores 7, perhaps the highest. I've attempted to score Charles Darwin and JFK, and I find scores of 5 or so -- at most.

I think that JC's very good fit strongly implies that the JC of the Gospels is essentially mythical, with a possible "historical Jesus" likely being too hidden to recover.

Metacrock

You are not listening. Try to focuss now:

(1) There were gnostics or proto gnsotic "types" in Paul's day. But they did not have either the influence nor the acceptence that Doherty tries to give them. He tries to say that the whole faith was gnostic first, then became historical latter. that's totally absurd.

(2) They did not have the neo-platonic spin tha the tries to give them. He wants to say that Jesus was first concieved as a spiritual victim in some universal platonic realm and that this is where the resurrection happened. He patterns that on a mixture of Philo and Neo Platonic sources.But Neo Platonism was not until the foruth century, so he's anachronistic in his understanding of Gnosticism.

(3) He trires to make Paul into one of these Gnostics, when in reality Paul was clealry combatting them.

(4) In Paul's day they were small, not influential, mostly confined to Corinth and asia Minor. For Doherty to be right about the Jesus "myth" being mythical first and becoming historically based in the second century,the faith itself would have to start out as this gnostic idea. Clealry it did not begin that way.

(5) I believe he has the gnostic view streaching back prior to the advent of Christianity in 33 AD which is ludicrous (there were gnostics then, but not Christian gnostics talking about Jesus--he steaches this cosmic Jesus mythos back into the intertestamental period).


now do you understand?

Metacrock

What are you talking about?

(1) developed in 1936! Every heard of John Dewy? Dewy beats Truman? No social quantitative research was very good before 1950.

(2) it's the wavy gravy end of scoial sciences.

(3) Totally invalid becasue it's constructed to show that Jesus wasn't real. read the list of criteira, it's practically designed to prove the Christ myther ideal. It's constructed to fit the Jesus of the Gospels.

(4) totally ignores the facts about mythology, the dying rising savior gods are not there. They aren't what they are cracked up to be.

Steven Carr

''This touching is most important because he is debunking the Gnostic heresy that Jesus we not a fleshly being but an ethereal illusory being (the very theory Doherty is touting).''

So the Gnostic heresy (the very theory that Doherty is touting) was what some early Christians believed, *even in Paul's time*, according to Metacrock.

How then can Doherty be so far off when he claims that early Christians in Paul's time believed the very theory Doherty is touting? Even Metacrock admits some Christians in Paul's time believed Doherty's theory.

Of course, we have Metacrock's word for it that this Gnostic heresy - the very theory Doherty is touting - was a small, uninfluential group.

Metacrock says there are very few Christian writings before the Gospels, yet he can tell us exactly what influence each group had. By what means, pray?

How does Metacrock assess the relative numbers of each Christian group that existed in Paul's time?

Metacrock

that source says that 1 Clem doesn't mention the empty tomb. What he fails to observe is that it does mention the virign brith. It even venerates Mary. That means Jesus was seen as a flash and blood person, born of a woman, as early as the writting of 1 clem. Table the empty tomb. I am only concerned with the argument that Jesus didn't exist. Clearly he was seen as histoircal as ealry as the 90s.


You have to allow for tavel time, for Clement's allusion to knowning Peter, and so forth. So that sets as historical the basic background of the Gospels. The empty tomb is a side issue. Jesus could be a real person without the empty tomb.


He can say that. The reason he says it is because atheists in the 19th century popularized the assertion. But it is wrong! I've already given you the source, and it was an Isreaeli not a Christian, and a major Israeli archaeologist. Cornfeld.

Now, the fourth century reference is to Eusbuis. But What he did was to quote sources, pilgrims in the second century, and then went out and found the tomb, or accompanied Contantine's solders while they found the tomb. they knew they found it because the thing to look for was the temple of Venus. That was put up in 135. That was the bar Kabba rebellion,I believe. So the tomb was venerated before that.

Now how do we know they got it? Because in 1968 an Italian archeaologist, Corbo, found the temple of Venus, it was under the chruch of the Holy Seplechur, which is histoircally where Constantine chose the site. So Eusebius is proven right. There was a Temple of Venus under the site.

There is also an expedition in 2000, Biddle I think was the name. An Englishman and his wife. they confirm the site by other ear marks, and they had historical sources about what to look for. So this goes way back with lots of sources repeating old old stuff about where the site was that was vinerated.

Metacrock

I explained that. Did you not read it?


common knowledge dude.show me some evidence that Christian gnsotics existed anywhere other than Asia minor in the time of Paul? They aren't known to have been in Palestine. Jewish one's, but they didn't have a story about a cosmic Christ. I can show you tons of sources saying they were in Asia minor, but you can't show me any saying they were in Palestine (Christian gnostics that is).


Sure, but all we can argue from is what we have. Doherty doesn't have any secret knowelde that scholars are not privy to.


I've seen demographic breakdowns but can't remember the stats. If you think there were Chrisian gnostics all over Palestine and Spain and Greace and Rome then show me some docs.

Amaleq13

It is the date used by most scholars (Christian and non) that I've read. Peter offers a good summary at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark.html where a broad range of 65-80 is offered but 70 appears to be the common focus. If you consider the Catholic Study Bible a reliable source for scholarly opinions, it acknowledges that modern scholarship dates the authorship to around 70 but "perhaps shortly after".

Could you provide the source and/or basis for this "rule", please?

Please provide this evidence. To my knowledge, there is archeological evidence that the location was used as a graveyard prior to the 1st century and that people lived in that location in the late 1st century but that there is nothing to indicate the existence of a village by that name in that location in the early 1st century.

The linguistic evidence, as explained by spin seems to suggest that "Nazareth" is a mistranslation of Mark and that the author never intended to suggest this as the name of Jesus' hometown.

If two or, possibly, three of the "versions" are actually rewrites of a single original, why is this significant? Even if the fourth version ("John") is independent, it certainly can't be said to be identical to Mark's "down to minute details". For example, the Temple Disruption has an entirely different chronological placement in the Fourth story as compared to the First.

How did you determine that the healings, raising of the dead, walking on water, stilling of storms, and turning water into wine are historical?

When you refer to "people" are you thinking of Pilate? If so, how do you conclude the Gospel depiction is historical when it appears to conflict with depictions of Pilate found elsewhere (eg Josephus)

Peter Kirby

It sucks.

Please quote the part of 1 Clement dealing with the virgin birth.

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

Meta, first, it is not "me" who is "wrong" but Udo Schnelle. See the footnote on p477 of History and Theology. "The result for the dating of p52 is that the 125 CE period, usually given with extraordinary certitude, must now be stated with some doubt. One must at least allow a margin of 25 years, so that one could think of a dating around 150."

By all means bring out some scholars to discuss the issue. But crying that "I" am "wrong" doesn't being to address the problem of where p52 fits.

Meta, the point is that it isn't even a summary of a summary. It is nothing but unsupported and often incorrect rants at the moment. And if it is not intended to be anything important, than why did you offer it?

Why yes -- as Amaleq has already point out to you, that's the majority opinion today. You could have looked it up in any intro work. My Sacra Pagina Mark puts it at ~70. So does Schnelle. Koester between 70 and 80, but in the years right after 70 (History and Lit. Sanders puts all the gospels between 70 and 90, but notes some scholars date Mark into the 60s. Your claim is a clear error.

Nothing prevents you from investing in a good intro work, Meta. I'd advise investment in several. And Doherty's expertise is not at issue in our discussion here, Meta -- yours is.

There's neither methodological nor evidential support for that; it is simply a convenient rule used by some scholars. If there is, please bring it on. Nothing prevents transmission of a text within a few weeks (travel time) of its writing. And again, a date of 120 for Rylands does not refute a date of 90 for Mark even under that rule.

Thanks for admitting that I am right. Why don't you take down this heap of errors, rewrite it, pay a senior at your school to edit it properly, and do the job right? There is nothing preventing that.

We're not talking about Doherty. No matter how incompetent he is, you cannot wriggle out of your own low standards here by attacking him.

We're not talking about Doherty. No matter how incompetent he is, you cannot wriggle out of your own low standards here by attacking him.

We're not talking about Doherty. No matter how incompetent he is, you cannot wriggle out of your own low standards here by attacking him.

We're not talking about Doherty. No matter how incompetent he is, you cannot wriggle out of your own low standards here by attacking him.

We're not talking about Doherty. No matter how incompetent he is, you cannot wriggle out of your own low standards here by attacking him.

We're not talking about Doherty. No matter how incompetent he is, you cannot wriggle out of your own low standards here by attacking him.

We're not talking about Doherty. No matter how incompetent he is, you cannot wriggle out of your own low standards here by attacking him.

We're not talking about Doherty. No matter how incompetent he is, you cannot wriggle out of your own low standards here by attacking him.

We're not talking about Doherty. No matter how incompetent he is, you cannot wriggle out of your own low standards here by attacking him.

No, you don't. Your own writings are so one-sided, so fraught with error, misunderstandings, and slanted presentations, that they are incapable of refuting Doherty.

Then demonstrate it!

I see. You wrote a refutation of Doherty but you weren't trying to?

We're not talking about Doherty. No matter how incompetent he is, you cannot wriggle out of your own low standards here by attacking him. Guess what! Your stuff does not become competent written work even if his is garbage.

And BTW, I do not subscribe to Doherty's thesis. So please stop the "why don't you open your eyes" and "Doherty groupies" stuff. It is the experience of longtime list members that people who attempt to refute Doherty do not understand his thesis, and often misrepresent or ignore it, or attempt refutations that do not address the issue, or even support it. Your writing above is a good example, containing not even a single quote of Doherty in the body of a text meant to be a "summary refutation."

Vorkosigan

lpetrich

First, I think that the relevance of Lord-Raglan scoring is that here is a line of research that has been orthogonal to Earl Doherty's -- and that converges to the same result: that Jesus Christ had been a myth.

Lord Raglan's mythic-hero profile.

Says who? I've done some Lord Raglan scoring myself, and I get results close to Raglan's and Dundes's.

How so? And how might it be much worse than (say) religious studies?

Demonstrably false. Read Lord Raglan's The Hero some time, or the collection In Search of the Hero (Princeton University Press). Lord Raglan nowhere mentioned Jesus Christ in his construction of his mythic-hero profile; he elsewhere acknowledged that JC would make a good fit, but that he preferred to work with less-controversial examples. Fortunately, Alan Dundes has filled in for him.

I'm reminded of Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species, CD carefully omitted the question of human evolution from his magnum opus, most likely because he knew that it was the most controversial aspect of evolutionary biology.

Only if one splits hairs like a sleazy lawyer.

Metacrock, do real people have biographies like Jesus Christ's? Including being recognized as heroes-to-be in their infancy and evil people trying to kill them in their infancy for that reason?

Let's see how well Charles Darwin, the great biologist, fits Lord Raglan's profile.

Was there anything strange about his conception? Did his mother get pregnant with him without the involvement of her husband or some other man?

When he was born, did anyone predict that he would become a great biologist? Did some fundie bishop learn about that and try to kill him? Did his parents flee with him? Or even give him to some foster parents to raise?

Late in his life, was he dismissed by his colleagues as a crackpot? And did he mysteriously disappear from his tomb?

And one last thing. Please improve your spelling. Who said you can't proofread? I do it with everything I write, so why can't you do it?