dog-on

What cult of John the Baptist?

ApostateAbe

Such a cult is implied in the gospels and told explicitly in the account of Josephus.

dog-on

Not sure where Josephus explicitly discusses the cult of Jon the Baptist, as 18:5.2 doesn't say as much...

Seems like you are reading a bit into ol' Jo here.

ApostateAbe

OK, that's cool, I am just looking for the way that you make sense of the evidence. I conclude that there really was a cult of John the Baptist based on this statement by Josephus:

Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,)

A group of people who seem ready to do anything that a religious leader should advise is very close to my definition of a cult. How would you make sense of this? Was John the Baptist more like just a popular celebrity?

Sheshbazzar

Personally. I don't think there were even any people known by the name 'Christian' in 1st century Israel, the name is late and of a foreign origin, where it does occur within the texts it was 'supplied' by later writers.
Just like all of those alien 'Christ' references within a Hebrew Jewish milieu, the 'same' but different, and anachronistic.

Unlike you, I do not believe that the texts of the NT were derived from actual events, or are authentic to the time periods they purport to be reporting upon.
I see them as all being post-Temple Hellenistic/pagan literary propaganda productions, albeit cobbled together from edited earlier Jewish genre of 'messianic' midrashim and 'sayings' documents.
The purpose being to explain the demise of the Jewish Temple, demonise the religion of Judaism, and institute an 'authoritative' 'no Law' Gentile priesthood. All post-Temple concerns

Thus to me the supposed rivalry you purpose is as mythical as the content of the Gospels. They are simply not what they purport to be, or are purported to be.

blastula

This is all circular implication, that only your explanation has all that above any other. That's what you need to prove. As you like to say about mythicist hypotheses, you're only giving a possibility. "A Jesus character existed and the baptism occurred" is a possibility and plausible, but to say it's probable enough to consider it a historical fact takes more work. And it's not good enough to just beat out any other explanation (if you could), you also have to explain why the evidence is good enough to form any conclusion at all rather than being simply insufficient to answer the question.

Take the question of the existence of the Golden Plates of the Book of Mormon. Does the content of the Book of Mormon make it probable that they existed? It might, if you could show Joseph Smith intended and had the knowledge to write an accurate history. There are also witness attestations to the claim from people living at the time. By the standards you are using with the Christian texts, wouldn't you have to say then that it's even more certain that the Golden Plates existed than that Jesus existed? A Mormon apologist might ask, why would the religion have grown so rapidly if the plates weren't real? Why would anybody invent this detail of golden plates? He could have just as well said he received the words in a vision.

Why would people invent a story of baptism if none of it ever happened? If it is a fictional theological account, then plausibly because the baptism ritual was important theologically to the people who were inventing this story. A theological narrative does not require a historical basis to its characters, as can be seen by the Garden of Eden story or the Nephi story. Theologies evolve among different sects and so the stories also evolve. You can see the same thing in the JDEP accounts in the OT. They each have their own biases. Showing that one group changed the story from an earlier version doesn't prove that the underlying story was historical, it only minimally proves that the story was important to them.

I don't see how the baptism scene better proves HJ nor how it is problematic at all for a fictional hypothesis. It's only problematic for certain theologies. You haven't laid out a strong enough case. The best you got is that it looks that way to you.

ApostateAbe

OK. What about the cult of John the Baptist? When do you suppose that began? Or, when did the myth begin?

Sheshbazzar

Again, from POST #130
And POST #139
And POST #116 (today) of the thread 'The Jesus myth-again';
I think I have explained my position regarding John the Baptist.

ApostateAbe

Those are well-expressed thoughts. I really do think that an explanation only need to be the best explanation in order for it to count as probable fact. The methodology I subscribe to is, "Argument to the Best Explanation," and it really is all about the best explanation, not the only explanation. If the premises and arguments have absolute probabilistic values, then maybe we really can jump to evaluating the probabilities of an explanation independent from all competing explanations. When such probability values are lacking because the evidence is subjectively interpreted, then we can at least make relative probability estimates, as in one explanation is more probable than another. And, for that, we really do need to pick the best explanation out of many, and no single explanation is established as probable all on its own without respect to competing explanations.

The relativistic way of evaluating hypotheses is actually more predominant than you may expect. It is typical in science, not just history. For example, evolutionary biologists will often claim that the theory of evolution is by far the most probable explanation for life that we have to fit the evidence, and so that is the theory we accept, until an even better theory comes along. This, despite the reality that the theory of evolution is the most probable and well-established theory in all of science (in my opinion). Such a way of thinking is appropriate, because slightly-revised theories of evolution will at times replace the old established theory, because of its greater probability, as what happened with Punctuated Equilibrium in the eighties.
In this case, we do, again, evaluate the relative probability values of the competing explanations. If the best explanation really is that Joseph Smith received golden plates from the Angel Moroni, then that is the explanation we accept, whether we like it or not. As it is, that explanation would have problems relative to competing explanations, especially the problem of plausibility--not fitting in with the patterns or the systems of the world as we have observed it. So, we conclude that Joseph Smith was really only telling lies, as that is the best explanation for evidence.
OK. I take the expression, "it looks that way to me," as basically an expression of the judgment of any probable conclusion. Do you think that the details of the baptism account that I listed, that I proposed are well-explained by the historical reality of the baptism of Jesus and John the Baptist and the subsequent embarrassment, count for essentially very little? The evidence is ambiguous, and maybe the reality that it is the best explanation doesn't necessarily mean that it is a probable explanation in an independent absolute quantification of probability, but the best explanation is really all I am going for, anyway.

ApostateAbe

Sorry, I wasn't clear. My question was: "When do you suppose that began?"