Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 01-21-2012, 08:22 AM

The Plny letter is non-apologetic evidence that there were Christians who did NOT know of the Jesus story, that Pliny himself had NO idea what Christians believed and that he FIRST found out the Beliefs of Christians, NOT in Rome, but in Bythinia, AFTER he had TORTURED some of them.

Pliny had PROMPTLY executed Christians without knowing what they Believed.

Pliny Letter to Trajan

Quote:

...Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure:

I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed.

For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished. There were others possessed of the same folly; but because they were Roman citizens, I signed an order for them to be transferred to Rome...

It is CLEAR that Pliny himself had NO idea what Christians believed up to 110 CE and the he himself had NO knowledge of a character called Jesus worshiped as a God.

It must NOT ever be forgotten at all the Pliny was a Magristrate and Lawyer and Lived in Rome and still had no knowledge of the Beliefs of Christians up to 110 CE.

la70119 · 01-21-2012, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

And the bizaare forgeries in Slavonic Josephus.

Care to detail what these 'forgeries' are?

You can read the whole thing in the work, G. R. S. Mead, Gnostic John the Baptizer:Selections from the Mandæan John-Book (Link), Part III. Here is Professor Mead's conclusion (emphases mine):

Quote:

III. The Slavonic Josephus' Account of the Baptist and Jesus.

In conclusion, then, it may be said that the hope of extracting anything of value out of these astonishing and puzzling interpolations depends on establishing the reasonableness of the hypothesis, that they are based on echoes of popular traditions still floating about in the Jewish environment of Christianity in, say, the last third of the first century. There is, I think, much that goes to show the likelihood of this supposal, or at least to deter us from summarily dismissing it. But even if we are persuaded to this extent, we are confronted with the still more difficult task of imagining a satisfactory conjecture as to the status and motive of the writer.

If we hold him to have been a Jew, as the above analysis seems to require, what plausible motive can we ascribe to him for interpolating the matter into the text of Josephus? Was he a disinterested lover of history who thought that Josephus had fallen short of historical impartiality by neglecting to mention two such remarkable personages as John and Jesus and two such important movements as those associated with their names, and desired to amend the historian in this respect in days when copyright had not yet been dreamed of? Or may we assume that a pupil of Josephus would think himself entitled to amend the narrative?

If, on the contrary, he was a Christian, the interest in filling the gaps would be easily understandable, had he based himself on canonical tradition. But the divergences from and flat contradictions of that tradition are so extraordinary, that one is all the time kept asking in astonishment: What sort of a Christian could this man ever have been?

To have succeeded in producing such an impression designedly argues the procedure of a mind of such extraordinary subtlety and psychological dexterity that it is too uncanny for credence. Any deliberate attempt of this kind would surely have betrayed itself in some way; but as a matter of fact there is no indication of subtle manipulation of gospel-data anywhere. It is not only very difficult but entirely out of the question to think that any late Christian forger could have thus deliberately challenged the firmly established canonical tradition on so many points. Therefore if the writer were a Christian, he must have been a first-century man; that is to say he wrote before the Greek canonical gospels were in general circulation or at any rate before they had penetrated to his environment.

There remains only one other possible conjecture—from which everybody has so far instinctively shrunk: Can the writer after all have been Josephus himself? But if so, why does he contradict himself so flatly,—to say nothing of the difficulty of conjecturing his motive for cutting out the passages?

It thus appears that, whatever hypothesis of authorship we make—whether Christian, Jew or Josephus, we are left floundering in a welter of inconsistencies; all that can be said is that the Jew alternative is the least improbable.

And there we must leave this baffling problem, in the hope that our readers will at any rate be interested in having it brought to their notice; for in any case these passages must be considered striking curiosities, even perhaps the greatest to be found, in the ancient literature that is generally classed under the caption—'Christian forgeries.'

(http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/gno/gjb/gjb-3.htm)

So in the end, apparently Prof. Mead considers these to be bizaare Christian forgeries.

maryhelena · 01-21-2012, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

And the bizaare forgeries in Slavonic Josephus.

Care to detail what these 'forgeries' are?

You can read the whole thing in the work, G. R. S. Mead, Gnostic John the Baptizer:Selections from the Mandæan John-Book (Link), Part III. Here is Professor Mead's conclusion (emphases mine):

Quote:

III. The Slavonic Josephus' Account of the Baptist and Jesus.

In conclusion, then, it may be said that the hope of extracting anything of value out of these astonishing and puzzling interpolations depends on establishing the reasonableness of the hypothesis, that they are based on echoes of popular traditions still floating about in the Jewish environment of Christianity in, say, the last third of the first century. There is, I think, much that goes to show the likelihood of this supposal, or at least to deter us from summarily dismissing it. But even if we are persuaded to this extent, we are confronted with the still more difficult task of imagining a satisfactory conjecture as to the status and motive of the writer.

If we hold him to have been a Jew, as the above analysis seems to require, what plausible motive can we ascribe to him for interpolating the matter into the text of Josephus? Was he a disinterested lover of history who thought that Josephus had fallen short of historical impartiality by neglecting to mention two such remarkable personages as John and Jesus and two such important movements as those associated with their names, and desired to amend the historian in this respect in days when copyright had not yet been dreamed of? Or may we assume that a pupil of Josephus would think himself entitled to amend the narrative?

If, on the contrary, he was a Christian, the interest in filling the gaps would be easily understandable, had he based himself on canonical tradition. But the divergences from and flat contradictions of that tradition are so extraordinary, that one is all the time kept asking in astonishment: What sort of a Christian could this man ever have been?

To have succeeded in producing such an impression designedly argues the procedure of a mind of such extraordinary subtlety and psychological dexterity that it is too uncanny for credence. Any deliberate attempt of this kind would surely have betrayed itself in some way; but as a matter of fact there is no indication of subtle manipulation of gospel-data anywhere. It is not only very difficult but entirely out of the question to think that any late Christian forger could have thus deliberately challenged the firmly established canonical tradition on so many points. Therefore if the writer were a Christian, he must have been a first-century man; that is to say he wrote before the Greek canonical gospels were in general circulation or at any rate before they had penetrated to his environment.

There remains only one other possible conjecture—from which everybody has so far instinctively shrunk: Can the writer after all have been Josephus himself? But if so, why does he contradict himself so flatly,—to say nothing of the difficulty of conjecturing his motive for cutting out the passages?

It thus appears that, whatever hypothesis of authorship we make—whether Christian, Jew or Josephus, we are left floundering in a welter of inconsistencies; all that can be said is that the Jew alternative is the least improbable.

And there we must leave this baffling problem, in the hope that our readers will at any rate be interested in having it brought to their notice; for in any case these passages must be considered striking curiosities, even perhaps the greatest to be found, in the ancient literature that is generally classed under the caption—'Christian forgeries.'

(http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/gno/gjb/gjb-3.htm)

So in the end, apparently Prof. Mead considers these to be bizaare Christian forgeries.

Thanks for providing all of that.....

"...baffling problem" ? Indeed - and will remain so as long as JC is considered a historical figure. Ditch that assumption and Slavonic Josephus ie the wonder-doer story contained within it's pages - can be re-considered. Charges of 'forgery' against an account that one has already labeled "a baffling problem" betrays a mind locked into a historicists mindset. For the JC ahistoricsts Slavonic Josephus is a goldmine.

aa5874 · 01-21-2012, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Thanks for providing all of that.....

"...baffling problem" ? Indeed - and will remain so as long as JC is considered a historical figure. Ditch that assumption and Slavonic Josephus ie the wonder-doer story contained within it's pages - can be re-considered. Charges of 'forgery' against an account that one has already labeled "a baffling problem" betrays a mind locked into a historicists mindset. For the JC ahistoricsts Slavonic Josephus is a goldmine.

No, it is the Pliny Letter that is the Smoking Gun.

Slavonic Josephus is a KNOWN unreliable source.

The author of Slavonic Josephus did NOT even live during the 1st century.

Pliny the younger WROTE a letter and is a FIRST hand account of the fact that he did NOT know of Jesus and had NO idea what Christians believed up to 100 CE.

la70119 · 01-21-2012, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

You can read the whole thing in the work, G. R. S. Mead, Gnostic John the Baptizer:Selections from the Mandæan John-Book (Link), Part III. Here is Professor Mead's conclusion (emphases mine):

So in the end, apparently Prof. Mead considers these to be bizaare Christian forgeries.

Thanks for providing all of that.....

"...baffling problem" ? Indeed - and will remain so as long as JC is considered a historical figure. Ditch that assumption and Slavonic Josephus ie the wonder-doer story contained within it's pages - can be re-considered. Charges of 'forgery' against an account that one has already labeled "a baffling problem" betrays a mind locked into a historicists mindset. For the JC ahistoricsts Slavonic Josephus is a goldmine.

Exactly!

So is Pliny, Tacitus, Justin Martyr, Melito of Sardis, and even (to a lesser extent) Minucius Felix and Tertullian!

Minucius Felix, Octavius

Chapter 29 in which Minucius Felix denies that Christians deny that they worship a man crucified as a criminal under the laws of Rome, or the cross he was nailed to and impaled on!

Quote:

These, and such as these infamous things, we are not at liberty even to hear; it is even disgraceful with any more words to defend ourselves from such charges. For you pretend that those things are done by chaste and modest persons, which we should not believe to be done at all, unless you proved that they were true concerning yourselves. For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth, in thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to be believed God. Miserable indeed is that man whose whole hope is dependent on mortal man, for all his help is put an end to with the extinction of the man.

And yet, in the NT, Pilate executes Jesus as a criminal, despite declaring his innocence and defending him! (Which is totally absurd)

The charge hinted at by the New Testament? Crimen maiestas (charge of High Treason) for being "King of the Jews."

Minucius Felix did not know the gospel story as laid out in the New Testament.

But he heard rumors from Christianity's detractors and sought to put that issue to rest by denying the whole thing.

These sources destroy the New Testament Jesus as "Historical Jesus" and with it, early church history.

Celsus was right. Christians kept changing their story and the story of their God-man, once they pulled him down from the "heavens".

rlogan · 01-21-2012, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlogan

There is no mention of Christianity in Josephus' writings (or any other contemporaneouos historian for that matter), but Pliny's investigation does put the longest practicioners into the 90's CE. So that is the dawn of Christianity.

Except for that cuckoo's egg (dog's egg more like!!) called "Testimonium Flavianum" (Ant. 18.3.3) and the Jamesian reference (Ant. 20.9.1) which could easily be an interpolation.

Well yes, of course. The great thing about that is listening to Eusebius, the first who makes mention of the TF, preen about it. The guy is oozing with the hubris born of having an Emperor's backing to make the forgery, and the forgery itself is so preposterously stupid the same thing goes there - an Emperor's backing means you can tell this fantastical lie.

Mary Helena - we agree on proto-Christianity: that its origin is not with an earthly Jesus.

In the passage you quoted from Melito of Sardis (in his apology to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) he deploys a manipulative argument about Christianity's birth having co-existed with the establishment and flourishing of the great Roman Empire, ergo suppressing Christianity will undo the empire.

It seems to me that this late 2nd century apology is just relying on the apologetic myth already in circulation regarding JBapt preceeding Jesus, which is how you get the history back-dated into the reign of Augustus.

This apologetic myth is what the Pliny-Trajan correspondence destroys in conjunction with the complete lack of any contemporaneous note of Christianity in the first century.

maryhelena · 01-21-2012, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

You can read the whole thing in the work, G. R. S. Mead, Gnostic John the Baptizer:Selections from the Mandæan John-Book (Link), Part III. Here is Professor Mead's conclusion (emphases mine):

So in the end, apparently Prof. Mead considers these to be bizaare Christian forgeries.

Thanks for providing all of that.....

"...baffling problem" ? Indeed - and will remain so as long as JC is considered a historical figure. Ditch that assumption and Slavonic Josephus ie the wonder-doer story contained within it's pages - can be re-considered. Charges of 'forgery' against an account that one has already labeled "a baffling problem" betrays a mind locked into a historicists mindset. For the JC ahistoricsts Slavonic Josephus is a goldmine.

Exactly!

So is Pliny, Tacitus, Justin Martyr, Melito of Sardis, and even (to a lesser extent) Minucius Felix and Tertullian!

Minucius Felix, Octavius

Chapter 29 in which Minucius Felix denies that Christians deny that they worship a man crucified as a criminal under the laws of Rome, or the cross he was nailed to and impaled on!

Quote:

These, and such as these infamous things, we are not at liberty even to hear; it is even disgraceful with any more words to defend ourselves from such charges. For you pretend that those things are done by chaste and modest persons, which we should not believe to be done at all, unless you proved that they were true concerning yourselves. For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth, in thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to be believed God. Miserable indeed is that man whose whole hope is dependent on mortal man, for all his help is put an end to with the extinction of the man.

And yet, in the NT, Pilate executes Jesus as a criminal, despite declaring his innocence and defending him! (Which is totally absurd)

The charge hinted at by the New Testament? Crimen maiestas (charge of High Treason) for being "King of the Jews."

Minucius Felix did not know the gospel story as laid out in the New Testament.

But he heard rumors from Christianity's detractors and sought to put that issue to rest by denying the whole thing.

These sources destroy the New Testament Jesus as "Historical Jesus" and with it, early church history.

Celsus was right. Christians kept changing their story and the story of their God-man, once they pulled him down from the "heavens".

Changing, updating and developments, within a storyline are the prerogative of it's creator/creators. This literary activity is only of negative consequence for the JC historicists. For the mythicists/ahistoricsts its a literary aid useful for seeing the progress or development of the storyline.

Yes, the Pilate crucifixion story of JC - anywhere from dating Pilate early, 19 c.e. to 36 c.e, is pseudo-history. And yes again, that's story 'criminal' inference is bizarre when take literally for Christian theology/philosophy. However, that a crucified man was important to early, proto-christianity, is something that can't be washed away by charges of pseudo-history for the gospel JC story. The gospel JC is ahistorical. That does not mean that history was not relevant to the creators of the literary and pseudo-historical gospel JC story. On the one hand there is history - and on the other hand is that history's 'salvation' interpretation - retold in the literary form. A history of a terrible death at the hands of the Romans - retold as 'salvation history' within a different context, within a new, different, time slot.

To destroy the historical JC assumption is not to destroy, or negate, the history of early Christianity. The JC gospel story - or Paul himself - are not the historical roots of early, proto-christianity. Yes, 'Paul' and the gospel JC story are what we today know as Christianity - and it's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that what we have today is what always was. What we have is the finished product. For the real deal we have to get our hands dirty with real history - itself not an easy task as we have to face Josephus. We have to come face to face with a prophetic historian with the ability to mix history and pseudo-history into a tapestry of incredible intrigue.

aa5874 · 01-21-2012, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

..... For the real deal we have to get our hands dirty with real history - itself not an easy task as we have to face Josephus. We have to come face to face with a prophetic historian with the ability to mix history and pseudo-history into a tapestry of incredible intrigue.

We don't have to face Josephus at all. He wrote NOTHING about Jesus of the NT just like Philo, Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny.

You are really wasting time with your Antigonus--Josephus--JC story. You are looking in the wrong century--the Jesus story is 2nd century.

Please read Tacitus "Histories 5" for up to c 110 CE the Jews did NOT worship any man as a God and was NOT ever involved in the Ritual of Human Sacrifice of Murdered Victims to appease the God of Moses.

The Jesus Christ story had NOTHING whatsoever to do with Josephus at all and was COMPLETELY unknown to the Jews.

You seem to have COMPLETELY forgotten that Josephus and Pliny were Contemporaries and that they may have even MET in Rome.

The Letter from Pliny to Trajan corroborates the writings of Josephus and Philo--there was no character known as Jesus, a former leader of Jews and no known Jesus cult of Christians up to c 110 CE.

maryhelena · 01-21-2012, 11:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlogan

Quote:

Originally Posted by la70119

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlogan

There is no mention of Christianity in Josephus' writings (or any other contemporaneouos historian for that matter), but Pliny's investigation does put the longest practicioners into the 90's CE. So that is the dawn of Christianity.

Except for that cuckoo's egg (dog's egg more like!!) called "Testimonium Flavianum" (Ant. 18.3.3) and the Jamesian reference (Ant. 20.9.1) which could easily be an interpolation.

Well yes, of course. The great thing about that is listening to Eusebius, the first who makes mention of the TF, preen about it. The guy is oozing with the hubris born of having an Emperor's backing to make the forgery, and the forgery itself is so preposterously stupid the same thing goes there - an Emperor's backing means you can tell this fantastical lie.

Mary Helena - we agree on proto-Christianity: that its origin is not with an earthly Jesus.

Not quite

Ground zero is not pie in the sky - intellectual ideas/philosophy of one sort or another. Ground zero is reality. Earthly reality. That's where proto-Christianity would have found it's springboard. History. No historical gospel JC does not mean that history was not relevant to the gospel writers.

Quote:

In the passage you quoted from Melito of Sardis (in his apology to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) he deploys a manipulative argument about Christianity's birth having co-existed with the establishment and flourishing of the great Roman Empire, ergo suppressing Christianity will undo the empire.

It seems to me that this late 2nd century apology is just relying on the apologetic myth already in circulation regarding JBapt preceeding Jesus, which is how you get the history back-dated into the reign of Augustus.

This apologetic myth is what the Pliny-Trajan correspondence destroys in conjunction with the complete lack of any contemporaneous note of Christianity in the first century.

The gospel JC story is late. It's the finished product. No historical JC means that one has to look outside the gospel Pilate time frame, early dating 19 c.e. to 36 c.e, for the real history of early or proto-christianity. Which means that whatever arguments can be put forward re early non-christian writers having no knowledge of the gospel JC - while interesting - have no relevance for searching for the roots of proto-christianity. One has to go much further back in time than Pilate. Pilate is only the historical time slot chosen for the retelling, the new literary stage, for a 'salvation interpretation', a pseudo-history, of history.

How far back? Augustus has been mentioned. Born in 63 b.c. died in 14 c.e. We also have to face the Toledot Yeshu stories and the rule of Alexander Jannaeus (103 - 76 b.c.) Which simply goes to show that we are now into Hasmonean history. A heritage claimed by that prophetic historian, Josephus.

Pseudo-historical stories set within specific historical time frames. It's the time frames that should be of interest for those seeking historical roots for proto-christianity. The stories might well have their own value for theology/philosophy - but if it's history we are after the stories have to be set aside. One has to work from what is known to be historical.

aa5874 · 01-21-2012, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

.... One has to go much further back in time than Pilate. Pilate is only the historical time slot chosen for the retelling, the new literary stage, for a 'salvation interpretation', a pseudo-history, of history....

You are going the wrong way. Turn around. You have to go FORWARD not backward. The farther back you go the worse your story line gets.

Even apologetic sources show that the Jesus story was hardly known by the Roman Emperor, the Senate and the People of Rome CONTRARY to the claims of the Church and its writers.

The writings of Justin Martyr do show that Justin himself was NOT aware of an actual character called Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews and a Pharisee that evangelised the Roman Empire preaching Christ crucified and resurrected.

You are going in the wrong direction. You need to go PAST 110 CE towards, Justin, Lucian and Celsus and you will find the History of the Jesus cult of Christians.

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