outhouse

A few hundred people could be spread across the Diaspora making the movement widespread. 200 would make it small, and the different beliefs noted by Paul he was addressing makes it diverse.

Does it not?

MrMacSon

Good points. They are certainly part of a set within the Canonical set.

J-D

aa5874 only accepts evidence from antiquity.

J-D

The words you quoted were words I used, but reporting only half of a sentence, even if the report is accurate as far as it goes, is capable of distorting meaning and in this case does.I don't see you disputing that. If you think that such a large body of explanations does exist, you've given no hint of it.People were positing purely natural explanations of cultural change long before anybody came up with the idea of memes.

J-D

I wonder how you expect somebody who has been misrepresented to respond. If you find it problematic to deal with somebody repeatedly pointing out your misrepresentations, I suggest the solution is obvious: stop misrepresenting!You evidently do have the time and energy to make statements about what I've said; the problem is that you do it wrong.I don't see why you call it a 'retreat'. It doesn't feel like a retreat to me.A misrepresentation doesn't cease being a misrepresentation just because you endorse it.I was not attributing a specific view to anybody, so the question of direct misrepresentation does not arise. I am happy to enlarge on the point I was making in the hope of clarifying it.

If an explanation is sought for why somebody reports seeing something, it's possible the person sincerely believes in the truth of the report, and it's also possible the person doesn't. If the reporter doesn't believe in the truth of the report, it's possible that it's a consciously intended lie, and it's also possible that the report is intended to be taken as figurative but not literal. If the reporter does believe in the truth of the report, it's possible the report of what was seen is veridical, and it's also possible the reporter was hallucinating.

In the more specific case of somebody reporting having a vision of a Risen Jesus who was crucified in a timeless space by elemental powers, I rule out the explanation that there was a veridical vision, and I get the impression you wouldn't dispute that (although please correct me if I'm wrong). That leaves open other possibilities: for example, that the reporter was lying and that the reporter was hallucinating. There is also the possibly that the report was intended figuratively and not literally: in that case, the obvious question to my mind is what literal meaning the reporter intended.Perhaps I have misunderstood you again, but I am getting the idea of a scenario from what you're now posting.

In the scenario I'm referring to, there are a number of people who all report visions of of the Risen Jesus you described earlier, the one who was crucified in a timeless space by elemental powers, although they're not necessarily all in agreement in the message they preach on the basis of these reported visions.

Now, if I'm right in thinking that you'd agree with me that we can rule out the possibility that these reports are based on veridical appearances of any such Risen Jesus, it seems to me to follow that the reasonable explanation is that the later reporters derived the idea of the Risen Jesus, in one way or another, from the earlier ones, and this in turn, it seems to me, points to some original preacher of a Risen Jesus who was crucified in a timeless space by elemental powers. I get now that you're not identifying that original preacher as Paul, but whoever he was, how would that original preaching not count as the origin of Christianity?I don't know, but that may be so. I never asserted that modern Christianity reproduces without change something that was originally preached by Paul.I don't have enough information to answer those questions.

Robert Tulip

Your full sentence at #712 was "This is why 'it happened by memetic evolution' is not an answer to the question 'what started Christianity?'."

Your words "this is why" (which is much less than your claimed "half a sentence" by the way) that I left out do not change the meaning but merely link it as your conclusion to the preceding argument. In this sentence you endorse the statement that "'it happened by memetic evolution' is not an answer to the question 'what started Christianity?'." I have not misrepresented anything. You have still not said what the alleged "distorting meaning" actually was.

Yes, and people had ideas about evolution before Charles Darwin. His theory made those ideas systematic and excluded false hypotheses.

Memes are similarly a way of providing a systematic analysis of the history of ideas, explaining how the history of ideas follows the same evolutionary rules as the evolution of life, while recognising that the cross-fertilization of ideas is far more prevalent and rapid than the cross-fertilization of genes.

The relevance to the question 'What Started Christianity?' is that the meme 'Jesus of Nazareth', is among the most fecund, durable and stable units of cultural evolution in world history. Analysing the Christ meme against the science of biological evolution is a productive way to frame the research.

In The Selfish Gene, where he invented the concept of the meme, Richard Dawkins uses zoology as the model for philosophy. This is a highly productive method to apply to the study of Christian origins, because philosophy (and theology) are entirely nested within biology, just as biology is nested within physics.

J-D

There's nothing 'mere' about it.Yes, and just as Darwin's theory was not identical with earlier ideas about evolution, so 'memetic evolution' is not synonymous with 'natural explanations of cultural change'.So far I have seen no worked examples of systematic analysis using the 'meme' concept and following the same evolutionary rules as biological evolution--in fact, it's not even clear to me which evolutionary rules you have in mind.So far I have not seen what additional understanding is provided by identifying 'Jesus of Nazareth' as a 'meme'.If the method is so productive, why aren't you showing some examples of the products?

Grog

Well, if I am misunderstanding your position, why don't you correct me? From what I can tell you repeat the position in this very post:


Are you not trying to argue that what became Christianity started with an original preacher who preached a message and gathered a following?

Here's the thing that you seem to be missing: You think of this development as a linear process driven by the ideas of specific individuals. What we know about evolution is that it is not as linear as that, it is branching and morphing, similar subspecies can interbred creating new morphs, new innovations, new adaptations. It is very difficult to sort out the specific point when an identifiable new species emerges because it is a gradient and not even a straight line gradient. It's possible that humans interbred with Neanderthal for example. Or, even further back, the diverging ancestral branches of humans and chimps may have also interbred for a time before completing speciation.

When it comes to "what is in the air" the proper analogy is what is available in the gene pool.

I am saying the gene pool included ideas like this:


and this;

Philo's allusion to Zechariah is to a character with the same name as Jesus:

and this:

compare that to this:


Here the Logos descends to earth:

We are already familiar with Isaiah 53 and Daniel's apocalyptic Son of Man. Not to mention works like Enoch, the Shepherd of Hermas. And what about these ideas in the Apoc. of Adam, possibly pre-Christian and usually at least considered non-Christian:

It goes on and on. I am not talking about parallels, but ancestral ideas. The gene pool that led to emergence of Jesus-belief.

Again, you have a simplistic idea of evolutionary processes.

Here's more from the Apocalypse of Adam:

Notice here, like the Jesus revealed by Paul, the "great illuminator" has already come forth. Again, compare:

Considering all this obvious mythology, that perhaps puts the claim that Galatians 4:4 proves that Paul is referring to an actual known person of recent history into perspective:

Clearly, within the context of the ideas "in the air" at the time, Paul could very well not be referring to a literal (read: actual) human being known as Jesus of Nazareth.

aa5874

You could not have known those points and yet claim I have not answered your question.

Please, be specific and identify the question that I have not answered.

By the way, you have already admitted that the Pauline writer did NOT start Christianity.

Please, answer the question in the OP.

This is the question of the OP "What started Christianity?"

I have answered the question of the OP with the present available evidence from antiquity.

I am arguing that it was NOT the Pauline writers [the Persecutors of the Faith] that started the Jesus cult but the belief in the story of Jesus and the words of the Lord in the books of the Prophets.

In the writings of Aristides it is claimed people who believed the story of Jesus, the Son of God, were called Christians and in the writings of Justin it is claimed that Christians read the books of the Prophets and the Memoirs of the Apostles in the Churches when they assembled on Sundays.

The earliest reference to the texts used by the Jesus cult did NOT include the Pauline Corpus.

[U]Justin's Apology We know what the early Jesus cult used when they assembled up to the mid 2nd century--it was the story of Jesus and words of the Lord in the Books of the Prophets.

Aristides' ApologyHippolytus' Treatise Against the Jews The question of the OP has answered the Jesus cult was STARTED by people who BELIEVED the story that the Temple was made Desolate because the Jews killed the prophesied Messiah and Son of God.

Justin, Aristides, Tertullian, Origen, Hippolytus, Eusebius and others in antiquity believed or wanted people to believe the same story.

J-D

There are some instances of religions whose origin is well documented. There are other instances of religions whose origin is not so well documented.

All the instances of well documented religious origins known to me feature an original preacher. I'm not saying that original preacher didn't make use of pre-existing ideas, but in all instances of the kind I have in mind, that original individual with a message to preach can be identified. (I'm also not saying that the form the religion takes now is identical with the message of the original preacher.)

Since this is something that has actually happened, more than once--an original preacher with an original message accepted by an original audience identifiable at the origin of the religion--it's obviously a possible model for those instances where definite information about the origin of the religion is harder to come by, for example, Christianity.

That doesn't mean I'm saying that 'it began with somebody preaching a religious message that some people accepted' is a specific answer to the question of how Christianity began. Precisely because it is a general pattern applicable to several cases, it's not a specific answer to the question of how any specific religion began. However, until somebody can show me a reason to think otherwise, I regard it as possible that it's a model for a possible answer.

That doesn't commit me to any specific view about the hypothetical original preacher, the hypothetical original message, or the hypothetical original followers. A specific answer would have to provide more details those things, but I'm not offering one.

I'm not even committed to saying that the answer can only follow that pattern. I'm happy to learn of some other sort of answer there could be to the question of how Christianity (or some other religion) began that did not follow the pattern I've described. So far I haven't, that's all.