Roland

The satire works ONLY on something not taken seriously by Christians, otherwise Christians won't see the absurdity of it. The same could be done with the Book of Mormon or "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" (there are plenty of examples in the latter two of the Criterion of Embarrassment - much of what the gods and heroes do makes them look foolish, petulant, childish etc.).

I think the satire is brilliant and most effective.

It is now up to the Christians reading it to show why the criteria he makes fun of work for the Bible but not other works of ancient literature.

andrewcriddle

What I think this shows is the limits of internal evidence in establishing historicity.

Unless one has first clearly established on the balance of probability that tradition X can be traced back to say less than a century after the events it describes then it becomes almost impossible to use internal grounds to argue for historicity.

Now the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is probably from the 2nd quarter of the 2nd century CE. (It appears to be influenced by Luke and has a pronounced 'Gnostic' feel to it. On the other hand it was probably known to at least some 'Gnostic' groups in the late 2nd century eg the Marcosians according to Irenaeus.)


Hence it is too far away from the events it describes (c 10 CE) for internal evidence to be able to support historicity.

Andrew Criddle

Julian

We do not know, other than it is thoroughly gnostic and very early.

Julian

Ulrich

Why do you arbitrarily pick "less than a century after the events", rather than say, less than a decade after the events?

Oh I see, the choice wasn't entirely arbitrary. Less than a century allows you to hold on to the canonical gospels whilst discarding the IGT, less than a decade would force you to discard all of the gospels.

Chris Weimer

All the gospels are fictions, that should be obvious by now, so it doesn't matter that it was written ten years after the imagined events or 100 years after the imagined events.

In any case, gnosticism has an early tradition originating in Paul and in the early 2nd century document (at the earliest late first century) Gnostic gospel of Thomas, and all four gospels show signs of heavy redaction from the earliest, so I think it's safe to assume that we have nothing (proper) now within 100 years of the imagined events.

andrewcriddle

There have been several threads on the reliability of oral tradition of past events as a function of time.

According to research by modern and ancient historians, reliability seems to become a major problem somewhere between 50 and 120 years after the events.

(See Ronald Hutton 'Witches Druids and King Arthur' chapter 1 for discussion and references)

I gave a hundred as a typical figure from these studies.

Without getting sidetracked by questions of the exact period of reliability, would you agree that material committed to writing say 40 years after the event must be treated very differently from material only written down 140 years after the event ?

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

IF Thomas is written c 100 CE, as you suggest, then we have at least one source written well within a 100 years of the events.

If as is IMO probable Thomas is dependent on at least one of the synoptics then we would have a source even closer to the events.

Andrew Criddle

Diogenes the Cynic

You're assuming a.) that there were any events in the first place and that b.) the writing had any foundation in oral tradition.

When you say that a Gospel was "committed to writing" 40 years after the alleged events it describes (I'm assuming you mean Mark), you're making an inherent presumption that the narrative aspects of that book had any existence at all prior to or independent of their literary existence.

Diogenes the Cynic

I don't believe for a second that that Thomas is dependant on the synoptics. At least not the first layer. If Thomas is derived from the synoptics then why doesn't it mention the crucifixion or resurrection? Why doesn't it have any hint of a Pauline conception of Jesus? The sayings themselves are clearly sapiential, in my opinion, not Messianic or apocalyptic in the least.

andrewcriddle

I wasn't making any assumption here about when Mark was written.

I was merely trying to separate criticisms of my post based on the historical claim that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is not substantially later than the Synoptic Gospels from criticisms that even if it is much later it would make no real difference.

Both types of criticism; criticism based on the specific facts and criticism based on issues of principle may have merit, but I think they should be distinguished.

Andrew Criddle