Toto

We can "scientifically" study Islamic suicide bombers (at the the ones who fail) and discover that they are psychologically normal, motivated by various things - family, nationalism, falling under the influence of a charismatic leader, etc.

We don't actually know who the early Christian martyrs were and how much of the story is later mythologizing, and you have still not explained why martyrdom is a particular problem for mythicists. If religious entrpreneurs can historicize a mythical Jesus, they can create stories of martyrdom, or they can take people who died for other reasons and turn them into martyrs. (There is already evidence in recent history of people being killed in anti-communist political action being turned into Christian martyrs, although they were not motivated by Christianity.)

You assert that martyrs were important in the growth of Christianity, but I have yet to see proof. In any case, there is martyrdom all over the world throughout history for a wide variety of causes. We might speculate that a tendency towards martyrdom is encoded in human DNA - you can check what the evolutionary psychologists say about altruism, and martyrdom is a sort of altruism.

As to a rational explanation of why the gospels are OT based, it appears that early Christianity was a branch of Hellenistic Judaism. How does this relate to martyrdom one way or another?

Marxist

I was reading Loisy yesterday. Fascinating guy, I can see why you’re infatuated with him.

Exactly what relationship, if any, Jesus had with John the Baptist is almost entirely speculation. Obviously there is some relationship there between the two groups, but not necessarily their founders. So much of this type of reasoning is based on the fallacious criterion of embarrassment, which Loisy himself describes as “a risky kind of argument.� In any case, equally plausible alternative scenarios can be constructed that don’t involve Jesus and JB knowing each other. Perhaps Mark simply needed a figure who would function as the returned Elijah, and the most famous person who could fulfill that function was JB. This wouldn’t be much different than the historical relationships that were fabricated between Jesus and other figures of the time.

I would think part of creating good history is to acknowledge when something can not be known, and to go no further with it. When you don’t do this, you run the risk of creating bad history, which is worse than no history at all. And in any case, if you are later proved to be right, it will only have been by accident, not having been based on a reliable historical method.

Loisy does seem persuasive, and I will definitely finish reading his books very soon. His reconstruction of the HJ is very coherent, and seems much more resistant to mythicist criticisms, as he readily acknowledges the mythical nature of the Gospels. However, his thinking seems too speculative at times (as in the case of John the Baptist).

If am I remembering Wells and Doherty correctly, the OT was seen as an early text about Jesus. Anytime Paul says “according the scriptures� he is referring to the OT. How much more detailed of an explanation do you want, and where do you think it will lead us to?

RuidosoCoog

The stories of Christian Martyrs is just another "Tall Tale" from the early Catholic Church.

Josephus doesn't write about them, nor did Tacitus. Who were actually murdered were, of course, the Jews during and after their revolt circa A.D. 66 to 70.

The Church at Jerusalem was an offshoot of the Essene Community of Qumran. They did worship "Joshua", the OT legend. Joshua, in Greek, is Jesus.
So the christian Church didn't begin with so-called Hellenistic/Christian Jews. The Church run by James was Jewish, worshipping Joshua.

Most martyr stories were invented in the 4th. and 5th. centuries, largely by reading names off Roman tombstones, then pretending that these dead people had been Martyrs.

Until Constantine declared it the State Religion of the Roman Empire, Christianity had made only small inroads into Roman Society.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Well, that's the problem then, isn't it, Toto?

If you don't know this, then you cannot claim to be a successful historian.

If you claim to be a successful historian, you'll need to correlate the mainstream view of Christian history with your alternative theory of how Christianity originated.

But this is just the mainstream view...

Pick up any mainstream Christian history textbook, and you'll find it there.

Was Christianity a successful hoax that the Jews somehow perpetrated on the Gentiles?

Was Christianity, from its very beginnings, a deliberate deception perpetrated by some secret society?

These are the questions you'll need to answer, if you claim to be a successful historian.

Yes, that's yet another question for you...

Yuri.

Toto

I guess I will never be a successful historian, alas.

The only "mainstream" view of martyrs in the rise of Christianity that I have read is Rodney Stark, who places much more importance on social factors. Do you have a reference to a mainstream historian who attributes the rise of Christianity to martyrs, without relying merely on Christian dogma?

Yuri Kuchinsky

It's more economical to postulate that there was some relationship there between their founders.

I doubt it...

I interpret Doherty's inability to answer these questions as an indication that he's a poor historian.

You interpret his inability to answer these questions as an indication that he's an excellent historian.

Oh, well, we can agree to disagree...

99.99% of biblical historians believe that Jesus knew John. Oh, well, I guess they are all "too speculative"!

YURI:
What, for example, are we to do with the simple and self-evident fact that the Gospels are for the most part OT-based? Surely, a competent historical investigator should be able to come up with some sort of a rational explanation for this?

Perhaps Christianity was a successful hoax that the Jews somehow perpetrated on the Gentiles?

What do you think about that?

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

You should really try and learn something about Christian history, my friend, before you engage in these disputations...

"Semen est sanguis Christianorum." ("The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.") Tertullian (c.180-230AD)

Regards,

Yuri.

Toto

Tertullian is a Christian propagandist. Got any real historians?

John A. Broussard

He also said, "I believe because it is absurd."

I'm not sure I'd trust anyone who holds to that view.

Marxist

I don’t see how. I don’t have the book with me, but in Wells The Historical Evidence for Jesus, he goes through a hypothetical scenario where eventually some Christians started to believe their Christ was a person who lived in the recent past. They would naturally suppose that Jesus had interacted with famous figures of the time, and make up relationships accordingly.

I don’t see how characterizing my position like this is helping us to understand each other. This is about where the evidence will allow us to go, and I don’t think it will allow us to go down that road.

You’re the last person I ever thought would appeal to the beliefs of the majority of biblical scholars, Yuri, considering the scorn you have heaped on them in the past.

I’m not sure what kind of explanation you’re looking for beyond what has already been provided.

It doesn’t seem likely to me.