Vorkosigan

Clement also is often cited as quoting the Gospels - in fact he does NOT do so, merely giving a couple of SAYINGS of Jesus, with NO mention of Gospels or the evangelists, while clearly citing OT books by name as scripture, and Paul's as wise writings.

I think there are five Jesus sayings in Clement as I recall offhand, and three are in Q, as I recall. That is one reason I have decided Clement is late rather than early.

Vorkosigan

Metacrock

Meta=> Sure, and let me apologize for the tone.I re-read it just now and am apauled at myself. I was just excited, not angry. But came over as angry. Sorry about that.

I get into this stuff!




Meta => that would seem to contradict your arugment below, where you say that Christians, and Paul and Gnostics believed in a 'spiritual Jesus.' What's the difference in a "spiriutal" Jesus and a Phantom Jesus? I find that a nebulous distinction.


Also, "gnsotic" is a general catch all term that the Orhtodox use for all the heretical groups. While you are right that Doketics were one versoin, the others weren't distinct form them as "gnostics." They were all "gnostics" and none of them called themselves that.



Meta => I can't see the difference in that and what is said above. That's one of Doherty's more confussed arguments. I think the proof is ample that the early chruch did think of Jesus as a flesh and blood person, including Paul.


http://www.geocities.com/meta_crock/other/ResIII.htm





Meta => No offense, but I think that is a really fanciful way to get Doherty off the hook. Because I don't believe you can pull that off vis the expectations of first century Jews. Where do you see the Jews of the first centruy ever turning to an idea of a spiritualized non fleshly Messiah?


Meta => I doubt it. It think that is one of D's biggest mistakes, to read neo-platonism back into a time two centrueies before it existed and try to pull a spiritual crisis out of a hat and invent a set of mystery cults which didn't even exist in Palestine.

Meta=> Yes but they only believed it two centuries after Paul's existence. There is no decent evidence that any of that was going around in Paul's day. The kind of prodo gnosticism that Paul dealt with was not about that sort of thing.

the stuff in 1st John might imply that by the end of the first centruy there were such views floating around Asia Minor, but that doesn't prove they existed when Paul grew up there.it certainly doesn't prove that paul held to them But the only evidence we have of that sort of belief in the first century comes form 1st John and we assume that is connected to the gnostics. But we don't know enough to know how widespread it was. But for that matter, why did John dennouce those views? At least some segment of the early chruch rejected that apprach as ealry as the first century.


Meta => The Ms evidence alone disproves that. We have fragments that are much ealirer than a century latter. As I've said textual critical evdience pushes the story of the passion and the empty tomb back to AD50. that would certianly include the idea of a fleshly christ, since he died on the cross in the passion narrative.

meta => that is a totally ficticious acocunt. who ever attacked the gospels as fiction in the early centuries? as for being non historical, they were assumed to be historical even by Josephus and by all their Pangan assalients.

Metacrock

Meta => OK now wait a minute! I assume you refur to your statment:


Now that's a problem in the way you are looking at the text. You are putting in an interpretative step that isn't warrented by the text. He questions if Jesus existed, but you infer from that that the that the Christians themselves didn't believe that Jesus existed! The text never says that. It says nothing about the Christians themselves not believing that.

When did he live? What chirstians groups did he know? What is the MS evidence for that quoation? What source did you read it in?


He wrote;
"(you) invent a Christ for yourselves,"

i.e. he charges them with INVENTING a Christ


Meta => But see that's the problem with your method of interp. "Christ" was not his proper name! Inventing a Christ is like saying inventing a Messiah. In other words, you take this guy (a real historical guy) and turn him into Messiah, you are inventing a Messiah. You are making him into something he's not, that doesnt' mean they made the man himself up. And even so he still doesn't say that that the Chrisitans themselves didn't believe he existed! In fact if you think about it, what he does say implies that they did believe he existed, or at leas said he did. Otherwise,why would they be inventing him? That would imply, your way, that they didn't even believe in the spiritualized version but knew it to be fiction!


No offense but it seems to me that you and Doherty are so avid about finding proof for the early chruch's belief in a spiritual Jesus that you are just reading it into anything that's even remotly suggestive of it.



Meta => Jews used the word Chrsit to mean Messiah. He doesnt' have to distinguish it, the audience would know that's what he means. So say "you invent a christ" is not the same as saying "you invent the historical Jesus."


Meta =>So what? just because he himself didn't believe in a historical Jesus doesn't mean they didn't! But I take that stament not to be a question about the historical Jesus, but about Messiah. He's not saying "If Jesus as a man was born anywhere, or just exists as a fiction" but rather, "if the Messiah has been born anywhere" in other words, this historical man Jesus isn't the Messiah.

Was this guy a chrisian? I dont' think so. So what does it matter what he thought?


Meta => You are distorting the wording. See you just slipped in "Jesus" but Jesus is not named in the passage.



Meta => You guys really love argument form silence don't you? But all silences speak two voices. He also doesn't say that he doesn't believe in Jesus, or that the Christians don't believe in Jesus as an historical man. So that is at best inconclusive.

Metacrock

Not sure who said that, I think it was Larry. Mabye Moe. Be that as it may, that is so aburdly ridiculous. have you no concept of preseumption? I've tried to get accorss to you the way history works. Yes, it's assumed bozo because there is no reason to doubt it! you dont' even have a concept of what presumption in an argument is do you? [i] It's your burden of proof, yes it is an axiom because it's always been so. It was accepted by historicans for 2000 years, and if you want to overturn that, you have to prove why it should overturned. We don't have to defend it, it's probality. history is probablity, i've said this plenty of times.


You all get "f" for not understanding the nature of history and not listening.


For one thing, the best argument isnt' here because I made a new thread. But other arguments have been alluded to, and nothing has been presented which would come cose to overturning the presumption. All you have done so far is read into obsure sources what you think ought to be there, with no real basis in why we should we should undestand the text that way.

Metacrock

Meta =>If you are basing that statment on the passage you quoted in the other post I'm not impressed. you are just reading into it the assumptions you think should be there.





Meta => That is as fallacious as hell! There are christians writtings earlier than those, and I'll have to read it again, but it seems pretty clear Anthenagoras mentions Jesus. He's Trinitarian even at that early date.






Meta => Well isn't that interesting? Because the Rylands fragment, having been found in Egypt and dating to about 120 is always seen as indicative of an earlier John, not something as late as second century. But there are textual critical arguments that put the gospels way erlier than that. We have extra canoncial sources that are earlier than Rylands too which do mention Jesus of Nazerath and read much like the cannonicals.





Meta =>No, I['m sorry. You've asseted that so many times, and I've argued every time the Koster stuff that puts the Passion narrative in AD 5o. You ignore that like I didn't say it.


There is no history in the Gospel stories of Jesus.


Meta =>bunck! I'm sorry, I hate to become offensive, but you keep making these statments that are just way too broad and beyond your expertise to make. I will have to get tight assed about it. You don't know what historicity is! You don't how to establish it. It is not an empirical matter. it is not proven like an empirical thing in science. It's probablistic, so the proof of it doesnt' have to be of the sort that the result of a scinetific experiment would be. It's a matter of documents and texts. There is no reason to assume that the Gospels were not influenced by communities of living people whose recollections go back to the events which inspired the narratives. Also, you hav Paul who met many of them. There are more aspects to historicity than just the four gospels. There is ample evdience for some basic level of historicity.






[quote]Rubbish.
Trypho did in 2nd century, just as the Gospels first arose.
Celsus argued the Gospels were fiction in 2nd century, just after they became popular.
M. Felix argued against the incarnation and the crucifixion in 2nd century.
Poprhyry specifically denied the Gospels as invented in the 3rd century.[quote]


Meta =>They weren't christians! Trypho was a Jew, Celsus a pagan. What speicial knowledge did they have to understand the cas anyway? who cares if they didn't believe it? But none of them challege Jesus as a historical figure and you admit that Celsus accepted his historicity. He's a postive soruce for my view.



Plus other early writings such a 1 John which show Christians who did not believe in Jesus,



Meta =>NO! That does not establish christians who didn't believe in Jesus as an historical person. They understood him in a different way, either as atherial being who appeared to be a man, or as a man who was not Messiah but that doesn't mean they thought that there was no person there when people of Jesus of Nazerath.





and writings such as Athenagoras or Theophilus which say nothing about Jesus even when explaining Christian beliefs in detail.

Meta =>I think Athenagoras does, but even so, that's argument from silence again. You are assuming that they would have the same approah and understanding as a modern fundie. So you conclude that his silence is really dmaning. But that is a false assumption. It's still argument from silence.

Metacrock

It has been asserted several times in this thread that the Gospels date from times a century after the fall of the tempel. That is way too late. the vast majority of shcolars accept that all four canonical gospels existed by AD 80.

really I shouldn't even bother with this, because it's not totally relivant to the historicity of Jesus. But the early existence of the passion narrative is a good indication of Jesus' historicity. However, I don't want to get into a thing about the Gospels at this time. Let's keep the foucs on Jesus' historicity and only argue about Gospel material as it touches on that, ok?

Here is an argument, based upon the work of Helmutt Koster, which indicates good reason to believe that a prodo version of the Gospel, with passion and empty tomb existed in writting by AD 50.


. Gospel material pushed back to earlier date.


However the material upon which the Gospels are based dates back to an earlier period, and in a form which is essentially the same as that which is found in the Synopitics. This actually pushes the date of the Gospel story, including the death, burial and resurrection (including the empty tomb) to A.D. 50.


"Studies of the passion narrative have showen that the Gospel accounts are dependent upon one and the same basic account of the suffering, crucifixtion, death and burial of Jesus. But this accounted ended with the discovery of the empty tomb." Hemut Koster Ancient Chrsitian Gospels p. 231


A. Diatessaron

The Diatessaron ..of Titian is the oldest known attempted harmony of the Gospels. It probably dates to about 172 AD and contains almost the entire text of the four canonicals plus other material, probably from other Gospels and perhaps oral traditions. It is attested to in many works and is probably the first presentation of the Gospel in syriac.

IN an article published in the Back of Helmut Koester's Ancient Christian Gospels, William L. Petersen states:





"Sometimes we stumble across readings which are arguably earlier than the present canonical text. One is Matthew 8:4 (and Parallels) where the canonical text runs "go show yourself to the priests and offer the gift which Moses commanded as a testimony to them" No fewer than 6 Diatessaronic witnesses...give the following (with minor variants) "Go show yourself to the priests and fulfill the law." With eastern and western support and no other known sources from which these Diatessaranic witnesses might have acquired the reading we must conclude that it is the reading of Tatian...The Diatessaronic reading is certainly more congielian to Judaic Christianity than than to the group which latter came to dominate the church and which edited its texts, Gentile Christians. We must hold open the possible the possibility that the present canonical reading might be a revision of an earlier, stricter , more explicit and more Judeo-Christian text, here preserved only in the Diatessaron. [From "Titian's Diatessaron" by William L. Petersen, in Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development, Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990, p. 424]


While textual critics find it more significant that the early implications are for Jewish Christianity, I find it significant that the pre-Markan material in the Diatesseran includes a miracle story. Those miracles just never really fall out of the story. They are in there from the beginning. But for our purposes the most important point to make is that here we have traces of pre-Markan material. That is, Mark as we know Mark was not the earliest Christian Gospel written, it is merely the earliest of which we have a full copy. The date assigned to the composition of Mark is not the date assigned to the sources used to redact that composition. This pushes the written record of the Jesus story before A.D. 60 and makes it at least contemporaneous with Paul's writings. In other words it is clear that written Gospels with Jesus in an historical setting, and with Mary and Joseph the Cross and the empty tomb existed and circulated before the version of Mark that we know, and at the same time or before Paul was writing his first epistle (50'sAD).


B. Papyrus Egatron 2

The Unknown Gospel (Egatron 2) preserves a tradition of Jesus healing the leper in Mark 1:40-44. (Note: The independent tradition in the Diatessaran was also of the healing of the leper). There is also a version of the statement about rendering unto Caesar. Space does not permit a detailed examination of the passages to really prove Koster's point here. But just to get a taste of the differences we are talking about:


Koster says:




"There are two solutions that are equally improbable. It is unlikely that the pericope in Egatron 2 is an independent older tradition. It is equally hard to imagine that anyone would have deliberately composed this apophthegma by selecting sentences from three different Gospel writings. There are no analogies to this kind of Gospel composition because this pericope is neither a harmony of parallels from different Gospels, nor is it a florogelium. If one wants to uphold the hypothesis of dependence upon written Gospels one would have to assume that the pericope was written form memory....What is decisive is that there is nothing in the pericope that reveals redactional features of any of the Gospels that parallels appear. The author of Papyrus Egatron 2 uses independent building blocks of sayings for the composition of this dialogue none of the blocks have been formed by the literary activity of any previous Gospel writer. If Papyrus Egatron 2 is not dependent upon the Fourth Gospel it is an important witness to an earlier stage of development of the dialogues of the fourth Gospel....[Koester , 3.2 p.215]



Koseter shows that the Gospels are based upon pre-markan material which dates from A.D. 50 and ends witht he empty tomb, the resurrection appearnces of Jesus he believes were added from other sources. In this theory is partially in agreement with Crossen who also believes that the pre-Markan material can be traced to A.D. 50 and includes the empty tomb. Koester also uses the Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Peter and several other works to demonstrate the same point.[please see Jesus Puzzell 2 for more on this point]
This puts the actual writting of the Gospel tradition just 20 years after the original events. There still many eye-witnesses living, the communities which had witnessed the events of Jesus' ministry would have still basically been intact. The events would be somewhat fresh, and plenty of oportunity for witnesses to correct mistakes.


Thus the basic historical validity for the Gospels can be upheld, since they are based upon material which actually goes back to within a mere 20 years of the original events. This means that many of he eye witnesses would have been in the community and able to correct any mistakes or fabrications which were put into the text.




II. Community as Author
We do not have to know the exact identity of the authors, because the original material comes from the community itself

A. It has the check of eye-witnesses in the Community.
B. oral tradition was not uncontroled spreading of rurmor a disciplined and ancient method of disseminating teachings.


Oral tradition in first-century Judaism was not uncontrolled as was/is often
assumed, based on comparisons with non-Jewish models. From pg. 53-55 in B.D.
Chilton and C.A. Evans (eds.), "Authenticating the Activities of Jesus"
(NTTS, 28.2; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998):

"...[T]he early form criticism tied the theory of oral transmission to the
conjecture that Gospel traditions were mediated like folk traditions, being
freely altered and even created ad hoc by various and sundry wandering
charismatic jackleg preachers. This view, however, was rooted more in the
eighteenth century romanticism of J. G. Herder than in an understanding of
the handling of religious tradition in first-century Judaism. As O.
Cullmann, B. Gerhardsson, H. Riesenfeld and R. Riesner have demonstrated,
[22] the Judaism of the period treated such traditions very carefully, and
the New Testament writers in numerous passages applied to apostolic
traditions the same technical terminology found elsewhere in Judaism for
'delivering', 'receiving', 'learning', 'holding', 'keeping', and 'guarding',
the traditioned 'teaching'. [23] In this way they both identified their
traditions as 'holy word' and showed their concern for a careful and ordered
transmission of it. The word and work of Jesus were an important albeit
distinct part of these apostolic traditions.

"Luke used one of the same technical terms, speaking of eyewitnesses who
'delivered to us' the things contained in his Gospel and about which his
patron Theophilus had been instructed. Similarly, the amanuenses or
co-worker-secretaries who composed the Gospel of John speak of the
Evangelist, the beloved disciple, 'who is witnessing concerning these things
and who wrote these things', as an eyewitness and a member of the inner
circle of Jesus' disciples.[24] In the same connection it is not
insignificant that those to whom Jesus entrusted his teachings are not
called 'preachers' but 'pupils' and 'apostles', semi-technical terms for
those who represent and mediate the teachings and instructions of their
mentor or principal.[25]
------------------
22. O. Cullmann, "The Tradition," in Cullmann, The Early Church (London: SCM
Press; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956) 55-99; B. Gerhardsson The Origins of
the Gospel Traditions (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979); H. Riesenfeld The
Gospel Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970) 1-29; Riesner, Jesus als
Lehrer.
23. Rom 6:17; 16:17; 1 Cor 11:2, 23; 15:3; Phil 4:9; Col 2:6-7; 2 Thess
2:15; 3:6; 2 Tim 3:14; Titus 1:9; 2 John 9-10; Jude 3: Rev 2:13, 24. Cf.
Abot 1:1; Philo, The Worse Attacks the Better 65-68.
24. John 19:35; 21:24-25; cf. 13:23; 18:15-16; 19:26-27; 20:1-10; 21:7,
21-23. Cf. J. A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1976) 298-311.
25. On parallels with other rabbis and their disciples and other Jewish
usage cf. Mark 2:18 = Luke 5:33; K.H. Rengstorf TDNT 1 (1964) 412-43;.TDNT 4
(1967) 431-55.

Also, there wasn't necessarily a long period of solely oral transmission as
has been assumed:

"Under the influence of R. Bultmann and M. Dibelius the classical form
criticism raised many doubts about the historicity of the Synoptic Gospels,
but it was shaped by a number of literary and historical assumptions which
themselves are increasingly seen to have a doubtful historical basis. It
assumed, first of all, that the Gospel traditions were transmitted for
decades exclusively in oral form and began to be fixed in writing only when
the early Christian anticipation of a soon end of the world faded. This
theory foundered with the discovery in 1947 of the library of the Qumran
sect, a group contemporaneous with the ministry of Jesus and the early
church which combined intense expectation of the End with prolific writing.
Qumran shows that such expectations did not inhibit writing but actually
were a spur to it. Also, the widespread literacy in first-century
Palestinian Judaism [18], together with the different language backgrounds
of Jesus' followers--some Greek, some Aramaic, some bilingual--would have
facilitated the rapid written formulations and transmission of at least some
of Jesus' teaching.[19]" (p. 53-54)
------------------
18. Cf. Josephus, Against Apion 2.25 204: The Law "orders that (children)
should be taught to read."; cf. idem, Ant. 12.4.9 209; Philo, Embassy to
Gaius 115, 210, Further, see R. Riesner, Jesus als Lehrer (WUNT 2.7;
Tubingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1981; 4th ed., 1998) 112-15.
19. Jesus had hearers and doubtless some converts from Syria (Matt 4:25),
the Decapolis (Matt 4:25; Mark 3:8; 5:20; 7:31), Tyre and Sidon (Mark 3:8;
7:24, 31; Matt 15:21).


N. T. Wright, critiquing the Jesus Seminar's view of oral tradition as
uncontrolled and informal based on some irrelevant research done in modern
Western non-oral societies writes:

"Against this whole line of thought we must set the serious study of
genuinely oral traditions that has gone on in various quarters recently.
[65] (p. 112-113)
---------------
65. For example, see H. Wansbrough (ed.), Jesus and the Oral Gospel
Tradition (JSNTSup 64; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), referring to a large
amount of earlier work; Bailey, "Informal Controlled Oral Tradition," 34-54.
The following discussion depends on these and similar studies, and builds on
Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 418-43; and idem, Jesus and
the Victory of God, 133-37.

"Communities that live in an oral culture tend to be story-telling
communities. They sit around in long evenings telling and listening to
stories--the same stories, over and over again. Such stories, especially
when they are involved with memorable happenings that have determined in
some way the existence and life of the particular group in question, acquire
a fairly fixed form, down to precise phraseology (in narrative as well as in
recorded speech), extremely early in their life--often within a day or so of
the original incident taking place. They retain that form, and phraseology,
as long as they are told. Each village and community has its recognized
storytellers, the accredited bearers of its traditions; but the whole
community knows the stories by heart, and if the teller varies them even
slightly they will let him know in no uncertain terms. This matters quite a
lot in cultures where, to this day, the desire to avoid 'shame' is a
powerful motivation.

"Such cultures do also repeat, and hence transmit, proverbs, and pithy
sayings. Indeed, they tend to know far more proverbs than the orally starved
modern Western world. But the circulation of such individual sayings is only
the tip of the iceberg; the rest is narrative, narrative with embedded
dialogue, heard, repeated again and again within minutes, hours and days of
the original incident, and fixed in memories the like of which few in the
modern Western world can imagine. The storyteller in such a culture has no
license to invent or adapt at will. The less important the story, the more
the entire community, in a process that is informal but very effective, will
keep a close watch on the precise form and wording with which the story is
told.

"And the stories about Jesus were nothing if not important. Even the Jesus
Seminar admits that Jesus was an itinerant wonder-worker. Very well.
Supposing a woman in a village is suddenly healed after a lengthy illness.
Even today, even in a non-oral culture, the story of such an event would
quickly spread among friends, neighbors and relatives, acquiring a fixed
form within the first two or three retellings and retaining it, other things
being equal, thereafter. In a culture where storytelling was and is an
art-form, a memorable event such as this, especially if it were also seen as
a sign that Israel's God was now at last at work to do what he had always
promised, would be told at once in specific ways, told so as to be not just
a celebration of a healing but also a celebration of the Kingdom of God.
Events and stories of this order are community-forming, and the stories
which form communities do not get freely or loosely adapted. One does not
disturb the foundations of the house in which one is living."[B.D. Chilton
and C.A. Evans (eds.), Authenticating the Activities of Jesus (NTTS, 28.2;
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998) p. 113-115.]

Metacrock

Meta => that's true, but the material in those sections is recognized as going back and drawing upon earlier stuff. That's widely recognized. 1) It's very much like Celsus material, the bit about Mary being a Hair dresser, which indicates they both used the same sources 2) see F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents, are They Reliable? See also Edersheim Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah



Meta => Well bull honky do do, 90% of those attacks are fallacious, silly, based upon misunderstandings, not Ms based, not textually based, or just idiotic assumtions which assume that the only christian view is that of verbal penary inspiration. You see a "contradcition" in two books you assume that invalidates the whole Bible right? That's a silly assumption.

Besides your whole argument is just guilt by assoiciation. o there are criticisms of the Bible so therefore the Gospels are not historically based! that doesnt' follow.



Sure, some of these sources do assume that Jesus existed - so what?


Meta => No one before the 19th century ever assumed he didn't!









Meta =>That's absurd! do you know what you are saying? Have you even thought about that? you are saying that silence always counts in your favor. If a source is silent on some matter, that should be taken as indication that he supports your position. Do you understand that you are merely arguing from lack of evidence? What you are saying is no better or different than saying "I have no evidence so that proves my case." If a source is silent then he's silent for both of us and you have no right to count that against the historicity!


ah but then 90% of the Jesus myther case is based upon argumetn form silence and tuns upon that concept!





Julian, e.g., attacks Jesus as "invented" and "spurious" - clearly arguing there was no such person.



Meta => NO he does not!!! You are reading that into the word "christ!" It says Christ and you read "the man Jesus." He did not say "Jesus of Nazerath never existed as a man. You cannot show him saying so and evne if you could, he was in no position to know that! He was a couple of centuries latter, he had no real knoweldge that would make that statment authorititaive. but he did not say it!








Meta => I dismiss him because he never said it.






Meta =>I've lost the thread here. Are you trying to claim that Eusebius says that never existed?



In terms of actual hard evidence -
We have no sure idea who Mark was,
We have no sure idea when Mark wrote,
We don't even know for sure exactly WHAT Mark wrote.



Meta =>So what? We dont' need it. That's not important. You can't dismiss the historicity of Jesus just we dont' know who wrote Mark! and there is ample reason to think it came form a community, which is what most schcolas think. Almost no one in any historical of Biblical filed accepts the Jesus didnt' exist thing as anything like credible.

WE dont' need to know Mark to know that his Gospel came from a community which was linked to the original events.




Poppycock!
The empty tomb is UNKNOWN to any Christian until mid 2nd century :



Meta => NOt true. IT's the second centruy before the Jewish chrisians showed it to the Getiles. But they marked the site that had been venterated because it was turned into a pagan shrine. They used that shrine to mark where it had been,and probaly Contantine used that as a maker too. The tales of pilgrims in the second century refur back to the Jewish christian's memories of the site.

Now I'll grant you this isn't absolute proof, but why would they even have a sight in the second century if they thought Jesus wasn't a real guy? that totally contradicts what you say before about Athenagos and so on. You have your theories overlapping. You try to show christians in second century who don't belive in flesh and blood Jesus, and yet why did venerate a site for the tomb in the second century?







Meta => All arguments form silence! that's not proof! that's not going to establish anything. It's probaly because he was writting to people who knew the story and there was no reason to mention it. But so what? see the link on the other post about Paul and resurrection theory.

but moreover, Heberws clearly sets out a flesh and blood Jesus.

btw why are you not answering on the therad about dying rising gods?





Meta =>Yea they do! "what our hands have touched." That's not a gnostic idea. that's counter gnostic. Allusion to resurrection!














Meta => I think res is alluded to in Clment. I have to look for it.





Meta =>Not a one of them denys it! Silence works both ways! They are silent for me as well as for you. I too can say "they are silent so that proves it." That is nothing more than arugment form silence.








Meta =>See the long post I just made. See also Helmutt Koster Ancient Christian Gospels (which is in that post).





Even though we have Christian writings covering most or all decades from 50CE to 150CE, not ONE of these two dozen earliest writings shows ANY knowledge of the empty tomb story.



Meta =>Argument from silence.



So, what evidence do you base your claim on, Metacrock?




Meta =>Proving there was an empty tomb and proving Jesus was historical are two different things. I dont' need the former to prove the latter.

but you admit that there is second cetnruy evidence for tomb and that blows everything for you. Because that means christians were believing in flesh and blood Jesus at a time that your argument assume they did not.

Passion narrative and empty tomb, corss Gospel of Crosson all push the recored of the tomb back. You can't make that go away just by asserting that there's no evidence. See the long post on this thread. I just made it.





Meta =>all irrelivant and immaterial. Both him and Justin are evidence for historical Jesus, because they both clealry believed Jesus to be historical. So what if he name an evangelist. You have the wiredest assumtpions You seem to think that I'm Josh McDowell or something and that if I miss one step in the fundie program thant he whole thing is proven wrong

Man I'm telling you, that is no way to think as a historian. I am arguing for the historicity of jesus, I don't have to have any evidence about the evangelists and frankly I couldn't care less. To be honest I don't even beleive that any of the four nameskes wrote the Gosples that bear their names, so what? So bleeding what? That is totally irrelivant!










This is a very similar picture to Justin's writings, and show that c.150 the Gospels were still un-named and not finally formed.




Meta =>Big whoopie do do! So bleeding what!??? that doesn't disprove Jesus historicity at all!



Ignatius - assuming his wrtings to be authentic (something I doubt)


Meta =>O I'm sure the scholarly community is waiting for your monogram on the subject with baited breath.





he does NOT show knowledge of the Gospels, but he does give the FIRST mention of Pilate, and is the FIRST to clearly argue for a historical Jesus, yet he gives very few details of the story, evem when the context demands it, showing he did not posess the Gospels.



Meta =>how many details does he have to give buckwheat? You dont' have an arugment from siclence, so you try to claim argument form mostly silence! But his mention of those things puts the lie to your method of silence. moreover the quotes extensively from John, and Plycarp clearly knew John. IN fact I thin Anthengoras shows signs of quoting John as well.


I meant by that Poly knew the Gospel of John, not the man. Althugh he may have known him too. I'll get into aruging for who knew whom latter.








Meta =>geeeez! Holy Mole, that is such a transparent assumtpion. you can't calim argument form silence, he stands as a glearing contradition to the whole thesis so you invent this bogus notion of a transitional form! He's quoting John all over the place! He clealry had a copy of some verison on John in hot little hands!


doesn't it even bother you at all that your theory has mthology running backwards? No other example in human history has a mth coming first and a concrete historiy being invented for it houndres of years after the mth was invented!





Meta =>No, he quotes extensively from Matt and other gospels. he doenst' have say where the source is form, we know form the quote where it's from, and there are many of them. He even speaks of the Viriginal conception! Clealry attests to a flesh and blood Jesus and claimis to have seen Peter, or at least to have known those who did see him die!




All of which goes to show that the Gospels are late productions, the story of Jesus arose a century and more after the events, a century of warfare and destruction and religious ferment.

Meta =>Amazing. How you can live in deniel that way. How you can just look at stark contradictions to your world view and rationalize them so absurdly is beyond me. all of the above proves conclusvely that late first century christians thougth of Jesus as a flesh and blood man and that they knew people who saw him!

Metacrock

Clement quotes Matt and other Gospels a lot. see The Chruch Fathers ed. Eugene R. Fairweather.

Metacrock

The statment was made that no positive evdience has been prestented. Jospehus is positive evidence, and you can't stand up to the acceptenece of the TF in the scholarly world.

But just to summarize, I put a link to my Historical Jesus pages, and that was overlooked. Here's a summary of my arguments, just to keep in mind the arguements that do exist.



Historical Jesus Arguments

I. Overview.

Overview: dealing with the atheist argument from silence. Issues pertaining to documentation for the Historicity of Jesus. Defense of secular soruces in fist and second century that mention Jesus. List of scholars who accept that Joesephus passages about Jesus are authentic.

II. The Evidence from Chruch "Fathers."


a brief look at Iranaeus, Eusebius, Polycarp, Papius, 1 Clement.


III.Ancient Secular and Jewish Historians.

One of many pages discussing historians of the first two centuries, not Christian, who speak of Jesus.


A.Josephus (3 pages)
B.Tacitus
C-D. Thallus and Phelgon
E. Lucian
F-I. Suetonius, Galen, Celsus, Talmud (Jewish)



IV. No Alternate Versions (3 pages).


The argument that most myths proliferate over time, but there is only one version of the Jesus story that is ever told, and it was basically the same from the begining. This is an indication that the facts are historical and everyone knew it from the begining.

V. The Web of Historicity.

Everyone in the Jesus story is historical, the places, the events, the characters; everything around Jesus and everyone i the story who knew him really lived, why wouldn't the center peice of the story be historical too?

Iasion

Greetings Vorkosigan, Metacrock,

Actually just 2.


No he doesn't.


Here is my analysis of Clement -

Possible Gospel (and Acts) references in Clement of Rome's Epistle

There are five possible references or allusions to the Gospels, (and one to Acts), and 2 uses of the word "Gospel" in an informal way, Clement never directly mentions the formal Gospels and does not state or imply he is quoting scripture for the words of Jesus - rather he seems to be refering to the Sayings Tradition with forms such as "remember the words of the Lord" :

Ch. 13 : ... the words of the Lord Jesus which He spake, teaching us meekness and long-suffering. For thus He spoke: "Be ye merciful, that ye may obtain mercy; forgive, that it may be forgiven to you ; as ye do, so shall it be done unto you; as ye judge, so shall ye be judged; as ye are kind, so shall kindness be shown to you; with what measure ye mete, with the same it shall be measured to you. "

55 Comp. Matt. vi. 12-15, vii. 2; Luke vi. 36-38.

Mt 6:12 and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors. 6:13 And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. 6:14 "For if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 6:15 But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you your sins.
Lk 6:36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. 6:37 "Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven. 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you: a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be poured into your lap. For the measure you use will be the measure you receive."

This is not a direct quote by Clement, but shows some similarity to the Gospel wording.


Ch. 15 : For saith in a certain place, "This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me."

59 Isa. xxix. 13; Matt. xv. 8; Mark vii. 6.

Mt 15:7 Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said, 15:8 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me,
Mk 7:6 He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

This is a quote from Isaiah, also found in the Gospels.


Ch. 24 : The sower goes forth, and casts it into the ground; and the seed being thus scattered, though dry and naked when it fell upon the earth, is gradually dissolved

102 Comp. Luke viii. 5.

Lk 8:5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the sky devoured it. 8:6 Other seed fell on rock, and when it came up, it withered because it had no moisture. 8:7 Other seed fell among the thorns, and they grew up with it and choked it. "

This is not a direct quote by Clement, but shows loose similarities with the Gospel story.


Ch. 27 : When and as He pleases He will do all things, and none of the things determined by Him shall pass away

111 Comp. Matt. xxiv. 35.

Mt 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away

This is not a direct quote by Clement, but shows some similarity to the Gospel phrase.


Ch. 46 : Remember the words of our Lord Jesus, for he said, "Woe to that man, it were better for him that he had never been born, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my elect. Yea, it were better for him that a millstone should be hung about, and he should be sunk in the depths of the sea, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my little ones."

210 Comp. Matt. xviii. 6, xxvi. 24; Mark ix. 42; Luke xvii. 2.

Mt 18:6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
Mt 26:24 The Son of Man will go as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for him if he had never been born.
Mk 9:42 If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone tied around his neck and to be thrown into the sea.
Lk 17:2 It would be better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.

This is not a direct quote by Clement, but shows definite similarity to the Gospels.


Ch. 2 : and were more willing to give than to receive.

6 Acts xx. 35.

Acts 20:35 ... and remember the words of the Lord Jesus that he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive."

This small fragment is not a direct quote by Clement, but shows some similarity to Act, possibly from a common source, as Acts is probably later than the epistle.

Ch. 42 : The apostles have preached the Gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ;
Ch. 47 : Take up the epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul. What did he write to you at the time when the Gospel first began to be preached.

Here, Clement apparently uses the term "the Gospel" in its simple meaning of good news (or teachings), but he specifically refers to an "epistle " of Paul.


Iasion