Freethought & Rationalism Archive

cornbread_r2 · 06-22-2013, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

This topic comes up periodically.

Freke and Gandy classify the docetists as early mythicists. Most mainstream scholars reject this, because they think that docetists would have believed in a Jesus who could interact with the world, although he was of a different substance (ectoplasm?)

Earl Doherty believes that the earliest Christians in the mid first century believed in a spiritual Christ, but by the time of the second century heresy hunters, this tradition was lost, and the gospels were accepted as historical. (I guess this is your position.)

That would be my position. I was remiss in not crediting Mr. Doherty for giving me the basis of my response. My apologies.

The obvious question an apologist would ask is: How was that tradition lost? While I think a plausible explanation can be had in the inherent, naturally limiting, exclusionary nature of (an essentially) mystery religion as well as the more natural appeal of a religion grounded in a real, live miracle-working human, any such explanation would be highly speculative and far less parsimonious than the assertion that "no such cult existed". Until we have a lot more information about the various species of the earliest forms of Christianity there doesn't appear to be a way for me to answer this objection convincingly.

Robert Tulip · 06-22-2013, 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Tulip

(snip)

This method of selective quotation followed by brief snarking distorting response illustrates why I find Mr Pearse impossible to conduct a sensible conversation with. But that is to be expected for anyone who does not bow down to worship Tertullian.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

you have no idea whether any ancient source supports the claims you made

My point, which Roger "snipped" (does that mean ignored?), was that the Gospels and Epistles contain strongly Docetic text and support the claims I made. The challenge is to read the Bible as indicating a coherent vision. That means a mythicist origin.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

The term Docetism is not ambiguous .Docetism, like any other Christological theory, tries to explain the man Jesus and his relation to God; the starting point for all such explanations is the existence of the man Jesus living among us.

I disagree. The single meaning you describe was imposed by orthodoxy, which could not comprehend or tolerate the fact that Jesus was invented like any other mythological hero. It is far more plausible that Docetism originated in an understanding that Jesus was invented, but came to be viewed through the distorted orthodox prism of the claim that the 'seeming' existence of Jesus was ghostly rather than imaginary.

MrMacSon · 06-22-2013, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cornbread_r2

.
Among the reasons this apologist cites for believing in a historical Jesus is the apparent fact allegation/proposal that none of early church fathers spent any time arguing against the notion that Jesus was not a real, historical person.

As he puts it:

Other heresies, such as Gnosticism or Donatism, were like that stubborn bump in the carpet. You could stamp them out in one place only to have them pop up again centuries later, but the mythcist “heresy” is nowhere to be found in the early Church. So what’s more likely:
that the early Church hunted down and destroyed every member of mythicist Christianity in order to prevent the heresy from spreading and conveniently never wrote about it, or

that the early Christians were not mythicists and so there was nothing for the Church Fathers to campaign against?

That's a false dichotomy; as is this - .

Quote:

Originally Posted by cornbread_r2

.
My hypothetical response:

The earliest Christians who believed Jesus to be a cosmic figure readily accepted the historical portrait of the later gospel writers; and/or
were long dead and gone by the time the church fathers started dealing with other heresies.

There were a myriad of varying belief systems in the 1st & 2nd centuries (and probably before and after them, too), each changing and interchanging over a number of generations.

"The earliest Christians who believed Jesus to be a cosmic figure" were not around when "the historical portrait of the later gospel writers" was 'developed' -

Quote:

The formation of the New Testament canon (A.D. 100-220 [or later])

The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council.

The Catholic Encylopedia

aa5874 · 06-22-2013, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cornbread_r2

Among the reasons this apologist cites for believing in a historical Jesus is the apparent fact that none of early church fathers spent any time arguing against the notion that Jesus was not a real, historical person.

As he puts it:

Other heresies, such as Gnosticism or Donatism, were like that stubborn bump in the carpet. You could stamp them out in one place only to have them pop up again centuries later, but the mythcist “heresy” is nowhere to be found in the early Church. So what’s more likely: that the early Church hunted down and destroyed every member of mythicist Christianity in order to prevent the heresy from spreading and conveniently never wrote about it, or that the early Christians were not mythicists and so there was nothing for the Church Fathers to campaign against? (Some mythcists argue that the heresy of Docetism included a mythic Jesus, but I don’t find that claim convincing. See this blog post for a good rebuttal of that idea).

My hypothetical response:

The earliest Christians who believed Jesus to be a cosmic figure readily accepted the historical portrait of the later gospel writers and/or were long dead and gone by the time the church fathers started dealing with other heresies.

Your opinions?

Thanks

I am extremely astonished that you have no idea that the MJ/HJ argument is not really about belief of existence but the NATURE of existence.

In other words, if Christians believed Jesus EXISTED AS a God and Conceived without a human father then the Christian Jesus was a Myth.

In antiquity, so-called Christian writers ARGUED vehemently that Jesus did NOT have a human father, could NOT have a human father and was the Son of a God born of a Holy Ghost.

See Tertullian's On the Flesh of Christ.

Tertullian claimed or implied it was a LIE that Jesus had a human father.

Are you aware that virtually all Apologetic writers who mentioned the birth of Jesus claimed he was born of a Ghost?

1. Ignatius in the Epistle to the Ephesians--Jesus existed as a Holy Ghost son.

2. Justin Martyr's Apology---Jesus existed as a Holy Ghost's child.

3. Irenaeus' Against Heresies--Jesus existed as a Holy Ghost's offspring.

4. Tertullian's On the Flesh of Christ--Jesus was begotten of a Holy Ghost.

5. Origen's De Principiis--Jesus was born of a Holy Ghost.

May I remind you that Christian writers of the Jesus cult also claimed Satan the Devil existed and was WITH Jesus when he was on the Pinnacle of the Temple.

Adam and Eve were also believed to have existed as claimed in the creation mythology called Genesis.

Jesus was a Myth based on how Christian writers claimed he existed.

Jesus Christ EXISTED as God the Creator in the Bible.

Jesus Christ made Adam and Eve.

What a monstrous fable!!!

What monstrous mythology!!!

MrMacSon · 06-22-2013, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I always understood that gnostics were docetic, but not all docetists were gnostics.
Roger Pearse

I thought the Docetics were Gnostics, but not all Gnostic were Docetics ...

Iskander · 06-23-2013, 05:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Tulip

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

The term Docetism is not ambiguous .Docetism, like any other Christological theory, tries to explain the man Jesus and his relation to God; the starting point for all such explanations is the existence of the man Jesus living among us.

I disagree. The single meaning you describe was imposed by orthodoxy, which could not comprehend or tolerate the fact that Jesus was invented like any other mythological hero. It is far more plausible that Docetism originated in an understanding that Jesus was invented, but came to be viewed through the distorted orthodox prism of the claim that the 'seeming' existence of Jesus was ghostly rather than imaginary.

It should be possible to agree on what “docetism” means.
Dictionary definition of Docetism
Docetism

Quote:

Christianity / Ecclesiastical Terms) (in the early Christian Church) a heresy that the humanity of Christ, his sufferings, and his death were apparent rather than real

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Docetism

The domain of the definition of the word “Docetism” is Christianity. Outside Christianity the word “docetism” has no meaning.

Who is the object of the docetic deliberations? Which Christian assertion was Docetism reacting to?

MrMacSon · 06-23-2013, 06:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

Which Christian assertion was Docetism reacting to?

Docetism was not necessarily reacting to anything; or, if it was, it may not be a "Christian assertion" it was reacting to.

It was an early form of Christianity per se - a pre-flesh one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

What is the object of the docetic deliberations?

Doeticism may not have had a clear objective, either.

Likely to have been just a variation of a version of a salvation story for the increasingly dispersed and down-trodden Jewish Diaspora.

Iskander · 06-23-2013, 06:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMacSon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

Which Christian assertion was Docetism reacting to?

Docetism was not necessarily reacting to anything; or, if it was, it may not be a "Christian assertion" it was reacting to.

It was an early form of Christianity per se - a pre-flesh one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

What is the object of the docetic deliberations?

Doeticism may not have had a clear objective, either.

Likely to have been just a variation of a version of a salvation story for the increasingly dispersed and down-trodden Jewish Diaspora.

Quote:

It was an early form of Christianity per se - a pre-flesh one.

This early Christianity, how early was it? .Was it based on what? . What made it Christian?

aa5874 · 06-23-2013, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMacSon

Docetism was not necessarily reacting to anything; or, if it was, it may not be a "Christian assertion" it was reacting to.

It was an early form of Christianity per se - a pre-flesh one.

There is absolutely no known recovered manuscript that show a docetist Jesus before the stories of Jesus of Nazareth.

And again, even in the Canon, Jesus had NO human father--Jesus was BORN of a Ghost, a Quickening Spirit, God the Creator and a Transfiguring sea water walker.

Docetist or NOT, the supposed Flesh of Jesus was NOT real.

In the earliest story of Jesus, he WALKED on the sea and instantly Transfigured.

Mark 6:48-49 KJV

Quote:

.... about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.

But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out..

Even in the Canon, it was NOT expected that human Flesh could walk on sea water.

The very Bible and EARLY Fathers show that the Jesus of Nazareth character was a Myth--a Jesus of Faith and Fiction.

It is a Myth that Jesus in the Canon had real Flesh when it is publicly documented and circulated in the Roman Empire that he walked on the sea for 25-30 Furlongs [about 3-4 miles].

Jesus was a "REAL" Spirit.

John 6:19 KJV

Quote:

So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid...

Then, to confirm he had NO real human Flesh in the Canon , it is claimed he instantly Transfigure in the presence of some of his disciples.

Mark 9:2 KJV

Quote:

And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them.

Robert Tulip · 06-23-2013, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

Docetism

Quote:

Christianity / Ecclesiastical Terms) (in the early Christian Church) a heresy that the humanity of Christ, his sufferings, and his death were apparent rather than real

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Docetism The domain of the definition of the word “Docetism” is Christianity. Outside Christianity the word “docetism” has no meaning. Who is the object of the docetic deliberations? Which Christian assertion was Docetism reacting to?

Saying that Jesus was "apparent rather than real" can be read in different ways. The orthodox heresiologists who are our main direct sources on Docetism apparently failed to understand it properly. Orthodoxy assumes the Gospels are historical, so the orthodox reading of Docetism sits in that framework, and does not engage with the truly heretical possibility that Docetism was the original source of Christianity whereby the Gospels were written as pure fiction.

The sun seems to go around the earth, but actually does not. Frodo seems to travel to Mordor, but actually does not. Saying the Christ spirit appeared to be present in Jesus can be read against either of these examples of seeming, even though one (sunrise) has a factual explanation and the other (Frodo) is purely imaginary.

My view is that the most probable explanation of Christian origins is that Docetic fiction was the original authentic Christianity, inventing the myth of a divine saviour as a secret mystery, and this origin was suppressed, ignored, forgotten and denied by a rampant triumphant orthodoxy.

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