Toto

Why not?

What's interesting about going over the same material again?

archibald

Because it doesn't. :huh:


Evasion noted. Also inconsistency. (a) the thread is categorically NOT about going over the same material (in how many threads have people objectively summarized their views of both sides? I know I hadn't. Have you?) and (b) you often 'go over the same material'. We all do.

C'mon. Don't be shy. It'll only take a couple of minutes.

mountainman

In discussing Porphyry's Egyptian 'de Abstinentia' II.47 M. J. Edwards disambiguates the "Pagan Origen" and the "Christian Origen". A recent and in-depth treatment of Neoplatonism and Gnosticism ( hypotyposeis.org blogsite ) on this specific issue concludes that:

"Origen the Platonists is almost (but not quite) certainly a different person than Origen the Christian and his interpretation of the Parmenides was very unusual."

and

"The most important fact in the history of Christian Doctrine
was that the father of Christian Theology, Origen,
was a Platonic philosopher at the school of Alexandria.
He built into Christian Doctrine the whole
cosmic drama of the soul, which he took from Plato."

Harvard Theological Review (1959);
cited by Bernard Simon (2004),
The Essence of the Gnostics, p.111

(1) WIKI disambiguates the two Origen's of the 3rd century. (There is an Origenist controversy in the 4th/5th centuries)
(2) A similar disambiguation page exists for Ammonias.
(3) Recent academic discussion disambiguates two Anatolii.

This may represent systematic identity theft by Eusebius. Fabrication of a pseudo-history to back the Myth of Jesus is undertaken by simple identity fraud, stealing the reputation of important philosophers from the previous century, and pious forgery. Just the sort of criminal activity we should expect from the "Early Church History Researcher".

But then again you might feel entirely comfortable with the amazing coincidence that three identities in the lineage of 3rd century important Christians match exactly in name and dates of birth and death to three identities in the lineage of 3rd century important Platonists.

Hence Dylan:

jules?

My original view on reading the book decades ago was that Castaneda who was writing a paper on shaman practises had probably met with local shamen, read up on the subject and collected stories. Rather than producing a dull academic work that few would read he packaged up the material in more personal terms where the research was incorporated into a single semi fictional character with the author exploring the subject in a very personal way. This accessible approach is almost unique in presenting an academic paper and highly successful.

don Juan is such a common name as is Joshua son of Joseph that it was perhaps possible to have found a namesake practising shaman activities in the area.

Mark is such a well written story with elements of classical convention and in the tradition of rewriting classics that it is more similar to a screen play 'based on facts' yet mixing up a great deal of source material.

A slight aside but within British comic drama writing there is a tendency for characters to make reference to their close friendship to famous people [Elvis, Hendrix, Bob] which is scoffed at by others only for it to be revealed at the end that they really were telling the truth. A reflection, perhaps, of a cultural affectation. I'm sure once the xtian thing took off it wasn't hard to find someone who's father, friend, grandfather etc had known the real man.

'that Jesus bloke, had him in my taxi one, he said 'Brian my friend go forth and multiply', I did, mind he was a crap tipper'.

archibald

Indeed.

I wouldn't disagree that Mark reads like a 'screen play 'based on facts' yet mixing up a great deal of source material.', especially to us (now), which is no insignificant point, which is why I'm not inclined towards thinking that either Mark himself or later writers meant it or saw it as fictional. I can't think why I should be more persuaded in that direction? I'm not suggesting you were pointing me there, just that it has come up, earlier.

Here's an incidental example which ocurred to me today. Take the birth story of Jesus. Everyone, scholars and liberal Christians and atheists and sceptics and mythicists alike agree that this was probably non-historical.

But, trying to cast our modern minds back 2000 years to a very different set of values and perspectives, did Luke? And, if he did (which I agree is the more likely, although it's possible he was not the originator but had heard the story elsewhere and incorporated it unquestioningly and what we might nowadays this of as gullibly, but either of those is not the same as knowing it to be made up fiction) does it mean he would have assumed it was made up about a non-historical person?

Several possibilities there, as you can see, without calling Luke (or Mark) liars or fiction writers.

Think of another example of the sort of thing that went on way back then. Think of...say...other people, thought to exist, who were attributed birth narratives. Ebion, say. He didn't exist (we now think) and maybe certain Church Fathers made a mistake in thinking so. But they did. And when Ebion was attributed a birth narrative (albeit not so conspicuous or detailed, as far as I know) it seems to have been 'added'/'fabricated' (delete as you see fit) by peole who thought he existed, not by people who thought he didn't. it seems.

As ever, these thoughts of mine are just meant as possible explanations, not conclusive evidence. :]

tanya

Hmm. Now where did I hear that line before? Oh, the convertible's back seat...

archibald

Lol

Though at least we can be fairly confident your recollection could not involve an Irishman.

dog-on

No convertables in Ireland?

archibald

Is that a question about catholoicism, or cars?

dog-on