PhilVaz

PhilVaz << and has no more basis in history than the cult of Jim Jones, Joseph Smith's visions, UFO's, and Scientology? >>

Cynic << What is not historical about any of the things I've bolded? >>

All right you got me, I should have said "is no more credible" than the cult of Jim Jones, Joe Smith's visions, UFO's, and Scientology. I gotta be careful. Basically, according to Amaleq's post, Catholic Christianity and the bodily resurrection (what I hold to) is as credible as Jim Jones, Joe Smith, UFO's and L. Ron Hubbard. That's what I meant, sorry. According to him, Christianity has no real basis in history, is a deliberate concocted lie based on fantasy. And I'll add, according to Vork, all the stories mentioned in the Gospels "are second century fictions." There I got it right I think.

Well of course, I'll agree with you, if there is no basis for believing any of the eyewitnesses mentioned in the New Testament were eyewitnesses, that Matthew didn't write Matthew, that John didn't write John, that Luke was incompetent, that Mark did not know Peter, that the Gospels are not historically trustworthy, that all the stories and people are second century "fictions" or inventions not based on eyewitnesses or real history, or (more radically) that "Jesus and his apostle didn't even exist" -- then of course the "historical" basis for Catholic Christanity is very weak to say the least. That's the question. I'll look into Doherty and Price.....and I'll have to re-read Blomberg of course to be fair. :wave:

Phil P

PhilVaz

PhilVaz << HARNACK: BRUCE: CULLMANN: LIETZMANN: PELIKAN >>

Vork << Hmm....conservative scholars, every one. Do you have someone more modern and mainstream? >>

BTW, F.F. Bruce I understand as conservative. But not the others. The others (Church historians, or biblical scholars, or both) I would put in the category of Fr. Raymond Brown. Not exactly conservative, but moderate. Compared with J.D. Crossan (who believes Jesus' body was probably food for the wild dogs) or the "Jesus Seminar" yes conservative. On early Church history, can you get more mainstream than Jaroslav Pelikan? He is certainly "modern" since he is still writing books as far as I know. Has a multi-volume history of Christianity called "The Christian Tradition."

If I want to find out the truth or falsity of the following statement --

"Peter and Paul were martyed in Rome in the first century, and the traditions and evidence for that is historically reliable"

-- who do you suggest I go to? I've listed the most mainstream scholars I know and their comments. Bruce would be conservative I agree, the rest not.

Phil P

Vorkosigan

Anyone that Christianity Today warmly approves of is "conservative" in my view.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/152/42.0.html

• Pelikan's life work has given him a way to combine his scholarly passion with just such convictions about the enduring reality of Christian orthodoxy. "I came to think that the same historical study which relativized absolute claims at the hands of Harnack could also reintroduce the next generation to the valid and continuing affirmations of the Christian tradition. Historical study became for Harnack the bridge by which he crossed from the orthodox Christian tradition to a kind of reductionist liberalism. At some point I discovered the bridge was a two-way street. As someone who had come from the tradition and lived in the tradition and never really seriously contemplated believing any other way, I became not just a curiosity in a museum but a spokesman for what was still a living reality."

Doesn't sound very liberal to me. Sounds like an erudite apologist, like Gundry. But I confess I have never read Pelikan's history.

I suggest you start with a survey of the data for Rome. A nice conservative one is Lampe's From Paul to Valentinus. Then you would have to look at each strand of that tradition, and make judgments. For example, what is the earliest mention of this tradition? Peter's death isn't even dated until Eusebius, though John 21 seems to aver he was martyred -- but that is a redacted addition to the Gospel of John that seems to have been added very late. You can't just look in one place.

But if you want to discuss that, start a new thread. Here we're all awaiting your remarks on the Resurrection.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Phil, it is well-known among mainstream scholars that none of the Gospel documents were written by eyewitnesses or by the people whose names are appended to them. The quotation from Papias that Mark knew Peter is not widely accepted outside of conservative circles (it is clearly wrong).

The historical basis for Cathlic Christianity IS very weak indeed. That is why the later Church wrters found it necessary to invent so much of it in the second, third, and fourth century.

I'll go over the Catholic Encyclopedia in a moment in new thread.

Vorkosigan

spin

I personally wouldn't lean too heavily on the notion of fiction, at least in the modern conscious sense of the notion.

With the relatively modern educated context of a 1930's radio audience which had had a modicum of education to at 13 years of age, listening to a piece of drama performed by Orson Welles's theatre group, The War of the Worlds, people suddenly started seeing UFOs. That idea didn't exist before a lot of people tuned into a radio fiction and took it for reality, until the programme ended.

People only need the right ingredients and they can unconsciously fabricate new realities, which seem credible to them. This is not a case of "hey, let's create a new reality", but of "we hadn't thought about it that way, but it must be so". When, for example, Hebrew bible prophecies became decontextualised (say, the prophecy given to Ahaz regarding the arrival of the Assyrians, that they would come before the child, now in the womb of a young pregnant woman, grows to being able to know the difference between good and evil), they can become recontextualised (let's translate it into Greek, so that the young woman becomes a virgin, not yet pregnant, and the child will be the messiah, in our new messianic context).

Your Garner Ted Armstrongs and the like were able to concoct futures based on their recontextualisations of biblical passages. I'm sure that they believed, or half-believed, the shite they were peddling.

The person, who took the "one like a son of man" and, apparently uninterested in the original context, turned it into a titular "Son of Man", probably believed he'd found a messianic indication. The Hebrew bible stopped meaning what it said at some stage and started meaning what readers thought it meant to them. Meanings were up for grabs. Biblical lives can become allegorical for other lives. The messianic birth will be made of elements from the births of the biblical greats. The suffering servant of YHWH, Israel, becomes, after a long gestation of unfulfilled Jewish messianic expectation, a suffering messiah. The agonies of psalm writers will also be enlisted, because obviously there is a deeper meaning in these apparently obscure texts.

People don't need reality as a basis on which to create reality.

At the same time there have always been crooks like Elron and Joe Smith. Dashiell Hammett also paints a picture of it in his Dain Curse. But we can go back to Lucian of Samosata and his Passing of Peregrinus and his False Prophet Alexander. But I don't think people need to be led by the nose into their own stews. They are quite capable of doing it by themselves. All they need is the right environment. Nevertheless, a good prophet who believes his own stuff will help the process along. A Paul, who "realises" that the christ must already have been once, will help messianically inclined geese into their own pots.

spin

fta

Come to think of it, is there any early Christian document whose authenticity is NOT disputed?

Chris Weimer

First of all, why should there be? We know Homer was extensively edited, so too was the Bible. Sacred Scriptures have this tendency to be heavily edited, forged, interpolated, etc... simply because they have a sort of speciality of being considered authoritative. When dealing with orthodoxy and control, it's so simple to "find" a missing document or alter it slightly to give it a new theological twist. The thousands of MSS should make this obvious, how every new find is a tad bit different than the others. As for autheniticity, there are only four undisputed (or where the disputers are in the minority) letters of Paul - Romans, Corinthians A & B, and Galatians, and sometimes in the list Thessalonians A and Philemon is added. James and Jude are often considered authentic, although Jude less so than James.

What else is there?

Steven Carr

We know that very early Christians did make up stories about Jesus. Paul complains about it.

Matthew 28:17 says that the apostles doubted.

Clearly this is apologetics to get around the fact that many of them packed in their Christianity.

As for not getting anything out of it,Paul says people made a living preaching the Gospel.He himself received gifts, and organised money for the Jerusalem church.

Quo bono?