Ted Hoffman

20th century? Whoops!
That will be 2nd century. I should stop multitasking

Vork, why isnt Christ Logos enough as a central figure for Xstianity?

the_cave

This is completely speculative, and there's no reason why I have to believe it. Sure, it could be true--it's equally plausible with the argument that he truly believed that there were two historical personages.

Well, the argument that the Greek gods were originally real people is thousands of years old...but getting beyond that, Semele is a mythical character--which is to say, the story of Semele was shared among a population of millions, and its replication depended upon its being an accepted fact--"Others believe in Semele, therefore I do". Ignatius has no such motivation for speaking of Mary. Furthermore, his insistence on the actual earthly existence of these two people--Mary and Jesus--is unlike Dionysus and Semele, and may in fact be unique.

I'm not saying this is slam-dunk evidence for anything. I'm merely saying its a datum that can't be fully explained mythically. Partially, but not fully.

But these examples are examples of mythological events happening to purportedly historical figures. If you're saying that Ignatius thought Mary was a historical figure, fine. What I would protest is her invention out of whole cloth, because Ignatius shows no signs of doing that.

He did though as I recall if you look at the argument closely, he suggests a date as late as the early 1st c. BCE. His is the only argument that I know of that places Ignatius earlier than the traditional date. Which reminds me, even if Ignatius post-dates Mark (which also brings up the question of, why doesn't Ignatius quote Mark? Had he heard of it?), we still have to explain why Mary shows up in Mark.

Ted Hoffman

Two historical personages? please explain.

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Well, the argument that the Greek gods were originally real people is thousands of years old...but getting beyond that, Semele is a mythical character--which is to say, the story of Semele was shared among a population of millions, and its replication depended upon its being an accepted fact--"Others believe in Semele, therefore I do". Ignatius has no such motivation for speaking of Mary.

The same could be asked about Mark - why arent you subjecting Mark to this kind of questioning? You are treating what Amos would call a "mythmaker" and myth-readers together.
He (Ignatius) was a Bishop. He wrote and they read.
Besides, how do you know Semele was a mythical character?
How do you know that they believed her to be mythical?

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Furthermore, his insistence on the actual earthly existence of these two people--Mary and Jesus--is unlike Dionysus and Semele, and may in fact be unique.

Hence Toto's postulate above.

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I'm not saying this is slam-dunk evidence for anything. I'm merely saying its a datum that can't be fully explained mythically. Partially, but not fully.

So which is the other half that is historical? And on what basis do you make that judgement?

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But these examples are examples of mythological events happening to purportedly historical figures. If you're saying that Ignatius thought Mary was a historical figure, fine. What I would protest is her invention out of whole cloth, because Ignatius shows no signs of doing that.

What would you classify as the "signs" that someone is inventing a story whole cloth?

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He did though as I recall if you look at the argument closely, he suggests a date as late as the early 1st c. BCE. His is the only argument that I know of that places Ignatius earlier than the traditional date. Which reminds me, even if Ignatius post-dates Mark (which also brings up the question of, why doesn't Ignatius quote Mark? Had he heard of it?), we still have to explain why Mary shows up in Mark.

Why do we have to explain why Mary shows up in Mark? Dont we need to explain why JBap shows up and Baptizes Jesus? What about Josep? Does "explain why" merely entail pulling out a literary parallel and juxtaposing her with Mary?

Why exactly, is Mary a problem?

[tangent]aah, that reminds me of The Problem of Mary of Physicalism - ever heard of it? very interesting[/tangent]

Vinnie

So now Ignatius invented the HJ? Its hard to type when laughing so hard. My stratification arguments and treatment of GMark blow this clean out of the water. Its nothing more that absolute and unmitigated nonsense. Thats not even mentioning that the author of Mark did more passing on than anything else.

Your synangogue argument was nonsense as well. Extrabibilcal references were referenced as well for which you used apologetical-like harmonizations" to dismiss. You were beaten silly but you persisted and I grew tired of talking to you.

Plausible motive or not, it is irrelevant. The evidence overturns the plausible motive. The HJ existed already. Ergo, there was no need for Ig to create it.


This "assertion" is being demonstrated in the "Textual Evolution, Helmut Koester and what Josh Mcdowell forgot to tell us..." thread. Feel free to chime in.

Vinnie

Toto

I guess I need to research more before I post.

Why do we even think that Ignatius mentions Mary? There is a good case to be made that Ignatius' letters are partly or completely forgeries, and no evidence at all of any mention of Mary before the gospels were widely available

Introductory Note to the Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians gives the convention view of partial forgery:

And from the Dutch Radical perspective, which is that all of the letters are forgeries: {See the article for the full arguments}

Also see The epistles of Ignatius: are they all forgeries?

In short, Ignatius is not reliable evidence of anything.

keyser_soze

Thanks for the linky, interesting read!

the_cave

1) Jesus
2) Mary

Hey, fine, let's treat Mark this way. Then we need to ask why Mark assumes Jesus was Mary's son, and both were historical. In fact, it's the mythicists (?)--Doherty in particular--who claim that Mark was in fact the first to write this down. So, why did he? (Vork, if you're reading, I'm going to try and respond to your comment about the Book of Mormon in that other thread.)

Well, shoot, if she was real, then...! This would just prove my point.
And if they didn't believe her to by mythical, then I have a hard time seeing how Doherty's thesis holds together--he claims explicitly that the Greeks did not in fact think their gods were earthly, which is why he thinks Jesus wasn't earthly. If the Greeks thought their gods were real, like you & me, that changes the context of this debate.

Again, it's ad hoc.

It's not half-and-half. Let me be more precise--authors such as Mark could have been using mythical elements to flesh out the details of somewhat dimly known history. The history is historical, the mythical elements are mythical. This is one explanation. I'm not saying there's anything to prove it, but it remains plausible. I make my judgment simply because this is a perfectly plausible scenario.

Ignatius doesn't in fact tell a story--he generally instead states some items: Jesus was earthly, he was born of Mary, etc.--as though they were facts. He doesn't in fact tell much of a story, and the brief one he tells (Jesus was on earth, he had a career, etc.) sounds as though it would make perfect sense to whomever was listening. If his audience were predisposed to understand things on a mythic level, I don't see how his message would get across very well.

My main question is: where does this information come from?

Well, yes, as a matter of fact, we do! (Some mythicists have attempted to do so...)I was just going to start out simple...I'm unsure what direction you're coming from...

Well, some people around here think so...I won't name any names You are doing a very good job of making my arguments for me...

The OP was, is there any evidience whatsoever for a historical Jesus? So, I trotted out a possible datum...

the_cave

Well, it's at least reliable evidence that someone wrote them down! Fine, I'll put "Ignatius" in scare quotes if you want, or refer to "The author of the Ignatian epistles", or something...

Regardless, either "Ignatius" came first, or Mark came first, or they both came up with Mary's relationship with Jesus independently. Whichever way it goes, I'm looking for an explanation. Lack of one does not disprove the mythicist's case; it would merely be yet another pointer towards "Jesus agnosticism", which many here actually profess--and quite reasonably so (it also being a point from which you can proceed in several different directions...)

Toto

But that someone could have been writing very late, when the myth had been solidified and worked out by others.

What the historicists need to explain is why Paul doesn't mention Mary or any lineage for Jesus, although he (or whoever edited his letters) does say that Jesus was born of a woman.

Vinnie

Why is Paul required to mention a name along with Jesus being born of a woman? Saying Jesus had a mom does not provide us without indication that Paul thought Jesus had a mom?

Saying he was born of a woman must have served some polemical intent. It very well may have made the point just as well as mentioning Jesus' mother by name. Further, greater emphasis was put on Mary in the second century if I am not mistaken?

Paul is not required to mention the name of Jesus' mother for any reason whatsoever.The historicists have nothing to explain here. This is simply an uncontrolled and rampant argument from silence on par with Turkel' specious apoologetics.

Vinnie