bacht

Thanks Spam. My own speculation is that i) the NT material was written by Diaspora Jews, or ii) any anti-Roman sentiments were removed later.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought the temple in Jerusalem was functionally similar to pagan temples ie. the building was the 'dwelling' of the god/goddess, and professional priests officiated the sacrifices. The Jewish god was invisible and not to be represented by statues etc, but the building itself was typical wasn't it?

I hesitate to comment on Paul, his letters might have started with the anti-YHWH Marcion. But what about the catholic epistles?

ApostateAbe

I am, indeed. The canonical New Testament seems to contain most of the earliest records pertaining to the origin of Christianity. If all we had were the texts of the New Testament, then that would be enough, but, like I said, we also have some apocrypha (i.e. the Gospel of Thomas) and non-Christian writings (Josephus, Tacitus), in addition to early Christian apologists and commentaries (which I forgot to mention). All of that data I take to be sufficient for building a general theory of the beginnings of Christianity. All of the data is relevant, because, if it is like a typical memeplex, all the ideas emerge from (or attempt to relate to) a single origin.
"...collections of less comprehensive models." I am not exactly sure what you mean by that. Maybe you can give me an example. The way I see it, larger theories are built from collections of data, not collections of small models. For example, the theory of plate tectonics was built in large part from observations of similar fossils on coastlines separated by oceans, observations of two sets of rocks that fit together separated by oceans, and observations of two coastlines that fit together separated by oceans. None of those things are "models." They are raw data, and you build a larger theory out of them.

The same applies to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. A set of observations, including the observations of a distribution of taxa (over a set of islands) adapted to mechanisms of survival, and the nested hierarchy of taxa, and the observations of the artificial selection of agriculture and livestock, were all used to construct the general theory. Maybe you have in mind something like Linnaeus's theory of taxonomy forming part of Darwin's model of common descent. A smaller model is sort of used to build a larger model. If so, then I point out that the smaller model is not needed to build the larger model, because the original set of observations is all that is needed to construct the larger theory.

When the smaller explanations are closely tied to the larger theories, then it makes every bit of sense to first decide which larger theory is correct. If a smaller explanation doesn't fit into the larger theory, then you either need to replace the larger theory with another theory that is more probable (very difficult), or else the smaller explanation is taken to be unlikely. Suppose we were to decide the explanation for the existence of the human coccyx. Without knowing anything about embryology, fossils, primate phylogeny or atavisms, we may still decide that the most likely explanation is that the coccyx is a vestige of the tail, because we have a larger theory that tells us that humans descended from monkey-like ancestors. If we have no larger theory, then that explanation seems presumptuous and with little evidence. It is assuming the conclusion! Is it not perhaps equally likely that the coccyx has an explanation that we simply don't know about? Maybe it is meant to anchor a few muscles, or perhaps it makes for more comfortable sitting.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Apostate Abe: What does your model of the New Testament say about what Jesus "actually" said and did, not about what he "allegedly" said and did? I am assuming for the sake of argument that a historical Jesus existed.

ApostateAbe

It is all "allegedly," because it all comes from Christian sources who tended to misquote and make up stories about Jesus according to their own religious interests, but there are some claims, or inferences from the claims, that we can judge to be probably roughly accurate. For example, Mark 9:1 says, "And he said to them, 'I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.'" Since all of the earliest sources including Mark paint Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher, this quote fits that profile, and it is a profile we may expect to be present in the time and place, we can judge this quote to be probably roughly accurate. If you want to see a more complete model of what I think Jesus actually said and did, then you can review The Gospel of Abe. I hope that helps.

show_no_mercy

This is incorrect. Only in Mark, and writings influenced by Mark, does Jesus have apocalyptic speech. Christian writings earlier than Mark do not depict an apocalyptic prophet. They don't even depict a prophet. They depict a near-godlike salvation figure.

That is, if we accept that all of the NT epistles were written before Mark...

spamandham

Considering that Caligula never followed through with his threat to erect a statue of himself, and considering that the rebellion referred to didn't happen in response (it was fear of rebellion that stopped him, not an actual rebellion), I don't see how this could be a reference to him.

In contrast, Hadrian completely razed what was left of the temple that had previously been ruined in 70CE, erected a temple to Jupiter in it's place, evicted all Jews from Jerusalem and prohibited them from returning even for religious holidays, renamed Jerusalem and converted it into a completely Roman city, and his actions resulted in a full scale war of rebellion (the Bar Kochba revolt). The description matches Hadrian's actions, not Caligula's.

ApostateAbe

OK, if you say that Paul didn't portray Jesus himself as an apocalyptic prophet, then I will grant you that. Paul seems to portray Jesus as the agent of the apocalypse, and I take that to be sufficient for an inference that Paul thought of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet (spiritual or not, doesn't really matter). At the least, we can agree that the epistles show that Paul belonged to an apocalyptic religion with Jesus as the central authority. Here is 1 Corinthians 15:19-30.

If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’ But when it says, ‘All things are put in subjection’, it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.

Otherwise, what will those people do who receive baptism on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?

And why are we putting ourselves in danger every hour?

spamandham

If it is enough, then how is it possible that well qualified scholars have come up with hundreds of mutually exclusive models? This sorry state of affairs can only happen because what you are claiming in regard to the quality and quantity of data simply is not true. This entire subforum could hardly even exist if what you were saying were true. The lack of quality data is what allows for rampant speculation.

Ok. Newton defined the model for classical gravity that we use *. It works well for a certain class of problems, but was not comprehensive enough to account for observations made in the 18th and early 19th centuries. A more comprehensive model, general relativity, built on the classical model, such that Newton's model could be shown to be a subset of it. But general relativity is still incomplete, because it's not compatible with quantum mechanics, so the search continues for an even more comprehensive model. Science is actively seeking new information to help build a complete gravitational model that has some a priori confidence. If you look into the history of any particular scientific theory, you will find this same process at work.

Now contrast that with the approach you are proposing, which is basically to try to guess at a complete and final model and declare it probable until disproven. This is the equivalent of expecting Newton to have developed a theory of quantum gravity.


(*) Newton also built on pre-existing established ideas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...ational_theory

I think we're talking past eachother. You are free to continue your big bang approach to discovery in spite of my thinking it's a misguided approach. This discussion isn't really going anywhere.

bacht

In Paul the apocalyptic theme includes Christ as the saviour yet to come, not a second coming as predicted in Acts. I don't think he describes Jesus as a prophet, certainly not one recently active in Palestine.

Paul's whole mission was supposedly gathering the gentiles before the final judgment.

show_no_mercy

I agree with this.

No, there's absolutely no reason for this inference. Unless you insert later written gospel material into Paul and the other NT epistle writers. As it stands from what we have of Paul, he does not think of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet.