Doherty and the 2nd Century Apologists [Archive I]

Layman

July 30, 2005, 10:26 AM

It's a good article Don, and the point you made on the "Challenge to Doherty" thread is also valid. We are expected to believe that Christianity went from MJ to HJ in the space of less than fifty years without a single trace of the MJ tendency left. And this despite the long lists of heresies that we hear about in the second century.

But is it fatal to Doherty's thesis? Probably not. The dividing line that he can always point to (assuming he does retreat from his second century examples) is the Jewish revolt ending in 70AD. Aside from Paul, getting back before that is always hard (although Hebrews is a big help here), and the only way to kill mythicism is to prove that Paul knew of a historical Jesus. Given almost all scholars (all until Carrier's so far unexplained conversion) already think this is proven, the argument is unlikely to develop.

What we need is someone very good at Greek (which means neither you, me, Doherty or Carrier) to carefully analyse the relevant Pauline passages with all the critical apparatus that is available. Then we will see where we are. I suppose the advent of computerised texts does make this much easier, though.

Best wishes

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason (http://www.bede.org.uk)

If he did have to retreat all the way back to before the destruction of the Second Temple, it will have to be more than a retreat in the face of the enemy. He will have to completely recast his theory. But even if he did, I'd be skeptical. How can there be absolutely no detectable MJ presence in the second century if Christianity started as a "riotous diversity" of different groups affirming a MJ? Perhaps they all ascended to a higher plan of existence, which seems as likely an explanation as any I've seen proposed so far.

Additionally, I think GKD does a good job of examining Doherty's methodology as far as determing when a writer was supposedly an MJer. He shows that admittedly HJ writers could write just like MJers, with a similar seeming lack of concern for the historical Jesus and influence by the "Logos" stream or platonism. That being the case, an absence of references to the HJ and obvious logos or platonic influence cannot be the basis for asserting that someone is a JMer.

Great work especially on Trypho (with a nod to Kirby's piece (http://www.christianorigins.com/trypho.html) on that as well), on Theophilus (http://members.optusnet.com.au/gakuseidon/Doherty2ndC_Review.htm#2.3%20Theophilus) , and Minucius Felix (http://members.optusnet.com.au/gakuseidon/Doherty2ndC_Review.htm#2.6%20Minucius%20Felix) ,

Great piece (http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2005/07/convincing-new-article-debunking-earl.html) of work overall, GKD.

Peter Kirby

July 31, 2005, 12:17 AM

This is good stuff. Do you think I could host a copy on ChristianOrigins.com (http://www.christianorigins.com/)?

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

GakuseiDon

July 31, 2005, 03:48 AM

This is good stuff. Do you think I could host a copy on ChristianOrigins.com (http://www.christianorigins.com/)?

best wishes,
Peter Kirby
Hi, Peter. Thanks! Sure, no problem. I may be making small changes, based on feedback I get here, but feel free to use it.

GakuseiDon

July 31, 2005, 04:10 AM

Great piece of work overall, GKD.
Thanks, Layman! :)

It's a good article Don, and the point you made on the "Challenge to Doherty" thread is also valid. We are expected to believe that Christianity went from MJ to HJ in the space of less than fifty years without a single trace of the MJ tendency left. And this despite the long lists of heresies that we hear about in the second century.

But is it fatal to Doherty's thesis? Probably not. The dividing line that he can always point to (assuming he does retreat from his second century examples) is the Jewish revolt ending in 70AD. Aside from Paul, getting back before that is always hard (although Hebrews is a big help here), and the only way to kill mythicism is to prove that Paul knew of a historical Jesus. Given almost all scholars (all until Carrier's so far unexplained conversion) already think this is proven, the argument is unlikely to develop.
But, would even that do it? Assuming the mythicists are correct, GMark was written as a midrashic-styled mythicist exposition of Christ within 20-30 years of Paul. Carrier and Doherty see Paul as being an initiate 'in the know'. If Paul talked about Jesus of Nazareth, miracles, the apostles, etc, why couldn't this be Paul using the mythicist GMark source when writing to people not 'in the know'? Or would the gap of 20-30 years be the determining difference in this regard?

What we need is someone very good at Greek (which means neither you, me, Doherty or Carrier) to carefully analyse the relevant Pauline passages with all the critical apparatus that is available. Then we will see where we are. I suppose the advent of computerised texts does make this much easier, though.
The problem is that from what I see, there is currently no case to rebute. There are a series of statements from Doherty regarding the writings of Christians in the first couple of centuries, but when you try to pin down the case that he is actually arguing, things get frustratingly vague. There is no cohesive case there. All that we are left with are a number of curiosities - Paul's lack of references of Jesus's ministry, for example - that tend to get argued separately.

That's one reason why I wanted to concentrate specifically on Doherty's comments on second century writings. At least there were specific claims that could be examined and possibly rebuted. I don't think there is ANY way to rebute "Paul was a mythicist who presented a historicized version to non-initiates", short of Paul saying, for example, "Jesus was REALLY born of a woman". But then Carrier might say that Paul is protesting TOO much, which IIRC he does for 2 Peter.

But hopefully, given his training, Carrier will provide a more rigorous and precise mythicist theory that can be examined.

Vorkosigan

July 31, 2005, 10:02 AM

Narkinsky reviews Doherty here (http://www.theism.net/authors/pnarkinsky/jesusmosaic.html). It is extremely bad, and very low level. Don's work is much better.

Amaleq13

July 31, 2005, 02:06 PM

If Paul talked about Jesus of Nazareth, miracles, the apostles, etc, why couldn't this be Paul using the mythicist GMark source when writing to people not 'in the know'?

I think Bede is right both about what would be required to conclusively deny mythicism and about the likelihood of any attempt to do so. Perhaps Carrier's treatment will provide the motivation for such an effort.

With regard to your question, I think that argument would only work if it could be established that the recipients were new initiates. If he included references like that to his extant audiences, who appear to have been sufficiently "in the know", I don't think mythicism would have a leg to stand on. The absence of those explicit references is the foundation of the theory.

andrewcriddle

August 1, 2005, 04:18 PM

With regard to your question, I think that argument would only work if it could be established that the recipients were new initiates. If he included references like that to his extant audiences, who appear to have been sufficiently "in the know", I don't think mythicism would have a leg to stand on. The absence of those explicit references is the foundation of the theory.
IF Mark wrote his Gospel as an attempt to describe in a symbolic metaphorical way what he and his intended readers regarded as a non-historical mythical reality, then I see no reason why Paul would have avoided similar ways of communicating his message.

IF Mark wrote his Gospel intending that new converts would be misled into believing that Jesus was a historical figure when in fact he was not, then the above argument would not apply. However this seems an unlikely suggestion.

Andrew Criddle

Peter Kirby

August 1, 2005, 04:27 PM

andrewcriddle

August 1, 2005, 04:48 PM

Oh, I've never looked at it that way before... the plot thickens.

Technically, though, wouldn't the compatibility of mythicism with Markan-like details in Paul raise the probability of mythicism?

best wishes,
Peter Kirby
I don't think so.

The argument that mythicism successfully explains the absence of details about Jesus' earthly life in Paul seems weakened if mythicism is compatible with such details,

In this case the absence of such details from Paul requires an additional explanation as well as mythicism and IMO mythicism probably becomes redundant as an explanation, the additional explanation whatever it is can probably serve on its own to explain the limited amount of historical information in Paul.

Andrew Criddle

Amaleq13

August 1, 2005, 05:34 PM

IF Mark wrote his Gospel as an attempt to describe in a symbolic metaphorical way what he and his intended readers regarded as a non-historical mythical reality, then I see no reason why Paul would have avoided similar ways of communicating his message.

What if the symbolic metaphorical meaning was intended only for those who had received adequate instruction and the initiates only knew the literal meaning? Wouldn't that be a good reason for Paul to avoid the metaphors when communicating with those not yet "in the know"?

IF Mark wrote his Gospel intending that new converts would be misled into believing that Jesus was a historical figure when in fact he was not, then the above argument would not apply. However this seems an unlikely suggestion.

I don't think "misled" is the right word. Within this context, Mark was written on two levels but the literal/basic level would not have been considered misleading. They would no more have been misled by the literal meaning than Paul misled his audience by initially giving them "milk" before the "meat".

Peter Kirby

August 1, 2005, 05:58 PM

I don't think so.

The argument that mythicism successfully explains the absence of details about Jesus' earthly life in Paul seems weakened if mythicism is compatible with such details,

In this case the absence of such details from Paul requires an additional explanation as well as mythicism and IMO mythicism probably becomes redundant as an explanation, the additional explanation whatever it is can probably serve on its own to explain the limited amount of historical information in Paul.

Andrew Criddle

It depends on how likely we see historicism under the absence of details in Paul. If that is seen as low, while the presence of details in Paul makes it a 50/50 proposition (as possibly suggested with the argument quoted from you above), then the probability could not rise above 50% on this evidence (and at 50% would be 100% chance of mentioning details).

It is possible that both hypotheses are probable enough under one state of affairs (such as mentioning details) while only one hypothesis is highly probable under the opposite state of affairs. If this is the case, then the opposite state of affairs, if probable, raises the probability of the hypothesis that is probable under that state of affairs. That the hypothesis is probable enough under the opposite condition harms it none.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

andrewcriddle

August 1, 2005, 06:02 PM

What if the symbolic metaphorical meaning was intended only for those who had received adequate instruction and the initiates only knew the literal meaning? Wouldn't that be a good reason for Paul to avoid the metaphors when communicating with those not yet "in the know"?

Could you clarify who you are suggesting were Paul's intended audience compared to Mark's intended audience ?

I'm not sure if you're suggesting that Paul's letters are intended as more esoteric than Mark's gospel or vice versa.

Andrew Criddle

GakuseiDon

August 1, 2005, 06:38 PM

IF Mark wrote his Gospel as an attempt to describe in a symbolic metaphorical way what he and his intended readers regarded as a non-historical mythical reality, then I see no reason why Paul would have avoided similar ways of communicating his message.

Oh, I've never looked at it that way before... the plot thickens.

Technically, though, wouldn't the compatibility of mythicism with Markan-like details in Paul raise the probability of mythicism?
I think there is more to it. For Doherty, the ancient pagan world was awash with mystery religions at the time and a mythical mindset was common. Apparently it wasn't uncommon for people to join more than one mystery cult, and they shared a lot of similarities.

If that is the case, then Paul would have been encouraged to present Christ in a similar way. This would be true even if (or perhaps, especially if) there was a historical Christ that Paul was trying to promote to his pagan audience. The 'outer level' that Paul would have been the common mythical/mystical expression common to those religions, while the 'inner level' was the hidden teachings of a historical Christ, who taught a message on how to achieve the Kingdom of God to his initiates. (I got this idea from Karen Armstrong, who indirectly implies something like this in her book "History of God").

Paul would have been trying to establish a mystery cult to the pagan world already familiar to such concepts, while Mark wasn't concerned with this, and wrote for a more Judaized pagan audience and thus concentrated on the historical Jesus.

According to Carrier, there is a possibility that Nero and the War disrupted the church leadership, thus destroying many if not most of those who were "in on the secret", and therefore leaving behind... well, who exactly? Wouldn't it have left pagans that Doherty said had a mythical mindset? IOW, if Doherty is correct, the trend would have been towards with the mythical, NOT towards a historical Christ. The mythicists took over the religion of Paul, and promptly moved to a historical Christ. (That's not to say that a historical Christ couldn't develop, but according to Doherty's scenario, this would have gone AGAINST the trend).

As we move into the second century, and more educated pagans with a background in philosophy (like Justin Martyr) became Christian, we see gnosticism and Logos-related ideas spring up, inspiring GJohn. But Christ remained historical. There was no apparent expression of the mystery Christian religion that Doherty envisioned to have been the common background of that era. Where did that mindset go? Why the trend towards historicity, which would have been the opposite of what we'd expect (assuming that Doherty was correct)? These are some of the things I hope Carrier might cover when he formulates his ideas on the Christ Myth.

Vorkosigan

August 1, 2005, 07:40 PM

Amaleq13

August 1, 2005, 07:42 PM

Could you clarify who you are suggesting were Paul's intended audience compared to Mark's intended audience ?

Paul's letters appear to have been intended for Christians more "in the know" than our hypothetical initiates but Mark's story would be intended for both. The initiate starts with the superficial literal understanding of the story and progresses to understand the deeper truth of the symbolic meaning.

I'm not sure if you're suggesting that Paul's letters are intended as more esoteric than Mark's gospel or vice versa.

Since Paul's letters appear to be addressed to Christians beyond the initiate level (ie milk/meat), they would be considered more esoteric. He can skip the milk and just talk about the meat. Mark's author, OTOH, has created a story that has a meaty center with a rich, milky coating. :D

PS My original comment to which you responded (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=2591867#post2591867) was referring entirely to Paul. After rereading your response, it seems as though you thought I was referring to the author of Mark.

Vorkosigan

August 1, 2005, 07:51 PM

Paul would have been trying to establish a mystery cult to the pagan world already familiar to such concepts, while Mark wasn't concerned with this, and wrote for a more Judaized pagan audience and thus concentrated on the historical Jesus.

Mark's Jesus is a total fiction, created by paralleling the OT and other sources, presented as quasi-history. The question is why, if Mark knew of a historical Jesus, he chose to overwrite him completely with other sources, and borrow sayings from the common pool, and create his crucifixion out of the Old Testament.

The proposals you make all start with the a priori conclusion that there was an HJ. But no credible evidence created by sound methodology supports that view. In order to preserve your HJ, you are now positing a situation that essentially concedes the mythicist case -- well, OK, on its face the documentary evidence doesn't support an HJ very well, so it must have been a secret teaching. But you can make any claim in that mode -- the HJ was actually an alien from the planet Glorph, and that was concealed in the Really Secret Teaching (tm) for which the Secret Teaching of the HJ was only a cover. Etc.

Really all you are doing is constructing plausible scenarios under which an HJ was known and preserved from the time prior to the 70s. But there is no need of that, and no evidence to support it. The HJ stems from Mark's story, and is a creation of Luke, both having written sometime after Josephus but before Iranaeus. He was constructed by Luke to serve the purpose of united two of the proto-othodox wings, Pauline and Petrine, and to give them both legitimacy by linking them back to a historical founder.

I pretty much agree with your analysis of the second century writers. Certainly some of them were convinced of an HJ, while others at least knew the story. Still others appear not to. The early epistles do not know an HJ, and neither does Paul. There seems to be a wide variance in early Christian belief.....

Vorkosigan

neilgodfrey

August 2, 2005, 02:11 AM

I've finally completed my review of Part 3 of Doherty's book, which deals with the Second Century apologists. It can be found here (http://members.optusnet.com.au/gakuseidon/Doherty2ndC_Review.htm) ............ I was surprised at how bad Doherty misread some of his sources. I found his suggestion that Justin Martyr converted to a Christianity devoid of a historical Christ as simply ludicrous. ............ Any comments on my article is welcomed.

Response 1:

I've compiled a list of exactly what Justin Martyr did say about the narrative (historical or otherwise) of Christ as opposed to the so-called 'sayings of Christ' and can leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions: http://members.dodo.com.au/~neilgodfrey/justinnarr.htm

As for the "sayings" as opposed to narrative content, it is widely understood (Koester, Bellinzoni) that Justin was using a gospel harmony as a source. As Yuri has pointed out that interpretation raises problems since the earliest known harmony was Tatian's. If a harmony really was the source then it is perfectly reasonable and plausible to suggest, given the literary culture of the period, that our Justin literature was really the product of a later author writing under his name. (But I've discussed this sort of thing elsewhere -- e.g. http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=2508359#post2508359)

Response 2 (my real response):

But as for the exact meaning of the call of Justin (or whoever the author behind the name) we arguably have nothing more substantial in this story of his call than a philosopher's narrative myth (c.f. Plato's penchant for teaching deeper truths through mythical stories) constructed out of the materials found in Luke's Emmaus road account. If so, the nature of the debate about Justin's belief in the historicity of Christ takes a quantum jump to somewhere else, I think. To the author, Christ is no more historical than the old man himself -- in fact he very possibly "is" the old man -- and Earl's argument carries much more weight than I think even he realized at the time.

At the risk of oversimplifying the arguments, I refer to Andrew Hofer's 'The Old Man as Christ in Justin's Dialogue with Trypho' in Vigiliae Christianae, 2003, Vol. 57 Issue 1.

To list without detailed rationale Hofer's Old Man parallels with Luke's Emmaus road:

1. Someone unexpectedly appears

2. He is not recognized/known

3. He interrupts a dialogue ("The attentive reader of Justin finds that Justin is having a 'dialogue' with himself")

4. The stranger enters a new dialogue by feigning ignorance at first of the subject of the previous dialogue

5. The stranger then teachers the deeper meaning of what had been feigned ignorance on his part

6. This teaching overcomes the real ignorance encountered by the stranger in his interlocutor(s), listening attentively to him

7. The subject matter is true knowledge about what has been written concerning God's work and immortality (explaining necessity of Christ's suffering and entrance to glory / discussing soul's knowledge/vision of God and immortality)

8. The stranger teaches the truth by explaining the prophets -- this being the heart of each story as it gives the proof by faith in a conversion

9. The reader does not know in either case what prophecies the stranger has interpreted

10. The stranger speaks of Christ in the third person

11. Something is opened (scriptures/gates of light), which changes everything since understanding of this can only come from God.

12. With this opening light or sight occurs (at point of or after the stranger disappears)

13. The mysterious stranger disappears (Justin increases the mysterious tone by use of an archaic word for "left" to describe this act of the stranger)

14. A fire burns within hearers

15. Those who thus experienced Christ tell others what happened (telling the 11 and others with them in Luke / telling Trypho and Trypho's friends)

The point of all this in both Luke and Justin? The reader is compelled to wonder about those pivitol prophecies discussed between the characters but not revealed to the reader. Earl may not like this but Acts can be seen as a lengthy set of speeches that do satisfy the readers curiosity about the exposition of those scriptures hidden from the reader in Luke; and Justin's Trypho Dialogue soon swings into a very lengthy exposition of the proof-scriptures initially hidden from the reader. Acts ends with Paul continuing to expound these scriptures from Rome; Trypho ends with Justin he could have said heaps more about the scriptures but has to hurry on (to Rome?)

Other Christ-Old Man identification hints: -- again without elaborating the textual/Greek supports for many of these so the following can be little more than suggestive in most instances

1. Just when Justin expects to see God immediately (ch.2) he sees an old man -- note 'mystery of incarnation guides all of Justin's debate with Trypho'

2. The unexpected stranger is an ancient, old one. C.f. descriptions of Christ in Shepherd of Hermas, Apocalypse of John, Ep to Diognetus, Melito's On Pascha, Acts of John, Acts of Peter, Apocryphon of John, early Christian art.

3. The old man is meek and religious. C.f. Zech.9:9

4. Sparse description of location at beginning and end calls for comment. Unnamed yet prominent sea, suggestive of creation? Galilee?

5. Words and movement of Justin symbolic of conversion to Christ. “Do you know me?�? “I do not�? …. Contrast naming intros between Justin and Trypho, old man never reveals his name, Justin uses his fav technical term for conversion when he “turns�? to the man

6. Old man is by the sea to look for and enquire after missing members of his household. Looking for the lost? Finds Justin?

7. Play on the words philology and Logos and philosophy with potential irony that the logos may be there in the form of old man himself

8. Old man presents himself as the teacher without reference to other authorities, stresses role of Holy Spirit and truth – the marks of Christ’s teaching

9. In the old man Justin sees the only sure truth/philosophy – and elsewhere Justin insists he does not follow human teaching. Justin calls both old man and Christ “father�?. (DT 3, 35)

10. DT 8 Justin says words of Christ are fearful to those who go astray – echoing old man’s talk of those of his household having gone astray.

11. Justin’s one other ref to the old man (DT 35) suggests his whole message is the word of God via the old man. A similar synecdochic rhetorical style is used in 1 Apol. 23 to use specific points/arguments as rep of the whole covered throughout the entire work; message of the old man is identified with same term used for Christ and heavenly wisdom (word of God).

12. Though converted by the old man Justin saw himself as given the understanding and grace of God to be so converted – as Jesus said none can come to him but by the Father.

Finally:

If the Old Man is Christ to Justin, Justin is continuing the apostolic traditions by imitating them as they imitated Christ. (I Cor 11:1; Gal 2:20; Ep to Diognetus 10.4). Christians were “christs�? by imitation and imitation of such was the essence of true discipleship – as they “saw�? Christ, so did Justin, as he appeared to them so he appeared to Justin, etc.

Could Justin really portray an encounter with an old man as an encounter with Christ? 1 Apol 55 gives the answer. Justin sees Christ and the crucifixion everywhere in everything – “sails; plows; the erect, outstretched human form; the human face; and Roman banners and trophies�? (Hofer).

I suggest it is more appropriate to speak of Justin's philosophical understanding of Christ than anything approaching an historical understanding.

And if Justin's old man was indeed meant as Christ then we have a further explanation for Doherty's point about Christ as such not being mentioned by that same old man.

GakuseiDon

August 2, 2005, 04:07 AM

That's interesting stuff, Neil! Thanks for that. It makes sense that the old man is either Christ or a stand-in for Christ. It makes me look at it with new eyes, though I don't think it really impacts the question of historicity one way or the other.

I suggest it is more appropriate to speak of Justin's philosophical understanding of Christ than anything approaching an historical understanding.

And if Justin's old man was indeed meant as Christ then we have a further explanation for Doherty's point about Christ as such not being mentioned by that same old man.
Yes, indeed. But I think the way Justin has the old man referring to ancient prophets announcing Christ is a strong indication that his conversion wasn't along the lines that Doherty suggests (i.e. that Justin was converted to a Christianity without a historical Christ at its core):
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-dialoguetrypho.html

[The old man says] 'There existed, long before this time, certain men more ancient than all those who are esteemed philosophers, both righteous and beloved by God, who spoke by the Divine Spirit, and foretold events which would take place, and which are now taking place. They are called prophets... they both glorified the Creator, the God and Father of all things, and proclaimed His Son, the Christ [sent] by Him'

Justin refers to the prophets thusly:

Of these and such like words written by the prophets, O Trypho," said I, "some have reference to the first advent of Christ, in which He is preached as inglorious, obscure, and of mortal appearance: but others had reference to His second advent, when He shall appear in glory and above the clouds; and your nation shall see and know Him whom they have pierced, as Hosea, one of the twelve prophets, and Daniel, foretold...

... when you knew that He had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven, as the prophets foretold He would...

... But now, by means of the contents of those Scriptures esteemed holy and prophetic amongst you, I attempt to prove all [that I have adduced]...

... since we were enjoined by Christ Himself to put no faith in human doctrines, but in those proclaimed by the blessed prophets and taught by Himself...

There's lots more along the same lines. The spin that Doherty puts on this defies logic AFAIC.

GakuseiDon

August 2, 2005, 04:11 AM

I pretty much agree with your analysis of the second century writers. Certainly some of them were convinced of an HJ, while others at least knew the story. Still others appear not to.
Which second century writers appeared to be unaware of a HJ? And are you saying that some knew the story of a HJ, but weren't convinced that there was a HJ?

Vorkosigan

August 2, 2005, 05:09 AM

GakuseiDon

August 2, 2005, 06:16 AM

Which second century writers appeared to be unaware of a HJ? And are you saying that some knew the story of a HJ, but weren't convinced that there was a HJ?
<shrug> Obviously, some had to be lying. Someone constructed the gospel of Luke, forged the Ignatia, the other letters of Paul., etc. Were the forgers believers in an HJ? Luke obviously wasn't for he recognizes Mark's sources and mines them for further parallels, which he could not have done had he understood Mark as history, IMHO. How do you think an honest historian would have acted if he had thought that Mark was writing history -- as Luke did, adding things, deleting others, and extending and deepening parallels to the OT? Don't think so.
Vork, I'm interested in your comments on the second century writers. You said that "Certainly some of them [2nd century authors] were convinced of an HJ, while others at least knew the story. Still others appear not to."

Which category do you put Luke and the writer/s of the Ignatius letters? Did they believe in a HJ, IYO?

I see no reason to assume that any of Doherty's "MJ" 2nd C writers believed in a non-historical Jesus. Which is the latest mythicist work and what date do you put on it? Are there any in the 2nd C, IYO?

Vorkosigan

August 2, 2005, 09:03 AM

Vork, I'm interested in your comments on the second century writers. You said that "Certainly some of them [2nd century authors] were convinced of an HJ, while others at least knew the story. Still others appear not to."

Which category do you put Luke and the writer/s of the Ignatius letters? Did they believe in a HJ, IYO?

I see no reason to assume that any of Doherty's "MJ" 2nd C writers believed in a non-historical Jesus. Which is the latest mythicist work and what date do you put on it? Are there any in the 2nd C, IYO?

Those are some damned interesting questions. I doubt Luke believed in a historical Jesus, or if he did, he wasn't very interested in the question. The forger of the Ignatia was orthodox, probably an HJer, since he is later than all the gospels. Mark is probably the last mythicist narrative in the orthodox trajectory *what's your position on the gnostic writers?). Mark is first half of the second century -- I thought maybe the second Jewish War, but Andrew raised a very cogent point against it -- an apparently dependent document that also mentions the same war.

Vorkosigan

Julian

August 2, 2005, 11:49 AM

Is it proper to put Mark in the orthodox trajectory simply because it was canonized? Mark is an out and out adoptionist/separationist document on one hand and a strong polemic against apostolic tradition on the other. That clearly makes it not just fictional but also an MJ story. Although a man named Jesus appears in the story, it is the christ spirit that enters him after the baptism and leaves him at the crucifiction that is the important message. Although, since a human being was involved, it is not strictly mythical it can be argued that Jesus is marginal to the story since the gospel is only concerned with the time period during which the christ/holy spirit is active.

For those reasons I would not consider GMark part of the orthodox trajectory despite its inclusion in the canon.

As for mythicism being widespread it is worth noting that gnosticism, decidedly mythical in most instances, was far more common than orthodoxy in many places. It is reasonable to assume that educated people, meaning upper middle class and above, would be familiar with purely mythical deities. This would also explain why orthodoxy eventually won out: it is easier to comprehend and therefore appeals to the largest population segment, the masses.

Just my $0.02...

Julian

freigeister

August 2, 2005, 02:33 PM

Mark's Jesus is a total fiction, created by paralleling the OT and other sources, presented as quasi-history. The question is why, if Mark knew of a historical Jesus, he chose to overwrite him completely with other sources, and borrow sayings from the common pool, and create his crucifixion out of the Old Testament.

This was a common practice in contemporary Judaism, as we see with Hillel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi_Hillel).

The proposals you make all start with the a priori conclusion that there was an HJ. But no credible evidence created by sound methodology supports that view.

The methodology is this: Jesus is either a man, a god-man, or a myth. The second and third options are prima facie absurd, therefore we establish the first option as our operating hypothesis, and test the available data against it. This is a valid scientific approach.

graymouser

August 2, 2005, 02:43 PM

The methodology is this: Jesus is either a man, a god-man, or a myth. The second and third options are prima facie absurd, therefore we establish the first option as our operating hypothesis, and test the available data against it. This is a valid scientific approach.
Why is this prima facie absurd? I'm not an expert, but Jesus being a myth and Apollonius of Tyana being a myth seem to me to be rougly equivalent, and nobody's running around discussing the Historical Apollonius...

-Wayne

Johnny Skeptic

August 2, 2005, 03:35 PM

What we need is someone very good at Greek (which means neither you, me, Doherty or Carrier) to carefully analyse the relevant Pauline passages with all the critical apparatus that is available. Then we will see where we are. I suppose the advent of computerised texts does make this much easier, though.

If you disregard 1st Corinthians 15:3-8, which is not at all difficult to do, what do you have left in 1st Corinthians to make a case for the bodily resurrection of Jesus? Paul's claim of the 500 eyewitnesses is not corroborated elsewhere in the New Testament. There is no credible external evidence that states that the surviving disciples consistently defended their status as eyewitnesses thoughout their lives. There is no evidence that in the 1st century more than a relative handful of people believed the supposed eyewitnesses. Claims made by Paul and the Gospel writers and claims consistenty defended by eyewitnesses are two entirely different matters. What external evidence can you provide regarding interviews with the eyewitnesses at various times in the 1st century?

Peter Kirby

August 2, 2005, 03:41 PM

Why is this prima facie absurd? I'm not an expert, but Jesus being a myth and Apollonius of Tyana being a myth seem to me to be rougly equivalent, and nobody's running around discussing the Historical Apollonius...

-Wayne
Why do you say that? I think that there's a historical Apollonius.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

S.C.Carlson

August 2, 2005, 04:32 PM

Why do you say that? I think that there's a historical Apollonius.

Has the full text of the Life of Apollonius ever been made available online?

Stephen

andrewcriddle

August 2, 2005, 04:51 PM

It depends on how likely we see historicism under the absence of details in Paul. If that is seen as low, while the presence of details in Paul makes it a 50/50 proposition (as possibly suggested with the argument quoted from you above), then the probability could not rise above 50% on this evidence (and at 50% would be 100% chance of mentioning details).

It is possible that both hypotheses are probable enough under one state of affairs (such as mentioning details) while only one hypothesis is highly probable under the opposite state of affairs. If this is the case, then the opposite state of affairs, if probable, raises the probability of the hypothesis that is probable under that state of affairs. That the hypothesis is probable enough under the opposite condition harms it none.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby
Rightly or Wrongly I'm uneasy about these type of mathematical calculations of probability. IMHO they provide an apparent objectivity which blurs the degree to which they depend on the exact way in which the prior probabilities are calculated.

What I was trying to say is that IMO in order for mythicism to be an interesting explanation for the absence of historical details about Jesus in Paul at least one of the following claims must be true.

a/ Non-Mythicist writers will be highly likely to mention such details
b/ Mythicist writers will be highly unlikely to mention such details.

If one accepts GakuseiDon's argument that those 2nd century writers who have few historical details about Jesus are (at least mostly) non-Mythicists then this undermines claim a/ ie being a mythicist is not a necessary condition for lack of historical details about Jesus.

If one regards Mark as a mythicist text then this undermines claim b/ ie being a mythicist is not a sufficient condition for lack of historical details.

The failure of a/ and b/ would not prove Paul was not a mythicist but it would weaken the degree to which mythicism is an interesting explanation for his treatment of Christ.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

August 2, 2005, 05:00 PM

Mark's Jesus is a total fiction, created by paralleling the OT and other sources, presented as quasi-history. The question is why, if Mark knew of a historical Jesus, he chose to overwrite him completely with other sources, and borrow sayings from the common pool, and create his crucifixion out of the Old Testament.

Assuming, purely for the sake of argument, that Mark has based the great majority of his narrative on the OT rather than on historical tradition, it would not need to mean that he did not believe in a Historical Jesus or even that he lacked historical traditions about Jesus.

It would be quite possible for Mark to genuinely consider reconstructing the life of Jesus on the basis of the inspired OT as more historically reliable than basing it on fallible human oral tradition.

Andrew Criddle

TedM

August 2, 2005, 05:43 PM

What I was trying to say is that IMO in order for mythicism to be an interesting explanation for the absence of historical details about Jesus in Paul at least one of the following claims must be true.

a/ Non-Mythicist writers will be highly likely to mention such details
b/ Mythicist writers will be highly unlikely to mention such details.

If one accepts GakuseiDon's argument that those 2nd century writers who have few historical details about Jesus are (at least mostly) non-Mythicists then this undermines claim a/ ie being a mythicist is not a necessary condition for lack of historical details about Jesus.

If one regards Mark as a mythicist text then this undermines claim b/ ie being a mythicist is not a sufficient condition for lack of historical details.

The failure of a/ and b/ would not prove Paul was not a mythicist but it would weaken the degree to which mythicism is an interesting explanation for his treatment of Christ. Andrew Criddle

I like that. For the argument of silence in Paul's writings to have strength we would expect either (a) or (b) above, yet Don has shown that (a) doesn't exist, and mythicists claim that (b) doesn't exist with Mark. As such, mythicists have to get into issues of expectation based on differences in TIMING of those writings with Paul's. I'm not so sure they do so effectively..

Assuming, purely for the sake of argument, that Mark has based the great majority of his narrative on the OT rather than on historical tradition, it would not need to mean that he did not believe in a Historical Jesus or even that he lacked historical traditions about Jesus.

It would be quite possible for Mark to genuinely consider reconstructing the life of Jesus on the basis of the inspired OT as more historically reliable than basing it on fallible human oral tradition.

Yes. It may seem like fabrication to us, but can we determine Mark's sincerity? How can we tell if Mark was intentionally writing things he didn't believe literally happened or 'filling in by revelation' details on a life he truly believed existed, based on inspiration he truly believed in?

ted

GakuseiDon

August 2, 2005, 06:29 PM

I doubt Luke believed in a historical Jesus, or if he did, he wasn't very interested in the question.
I'm not sure what you mean by that, but it sounds interesting. Are you saying that, even if there were a historical Christ, Luke wasn't interested in the question? Does the same apply to Mark?

The forger of the Ignatia was orthodox, probably an HJer, since he is later than all the gospels.
Is there any way of knowing whether he was a HJer or not, IYO? He certainly makes HJ statements in some of his letters, though not in all of them. In his letter to the Romans (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-romans-roberts.html), Ignatius doesn't refer to any historical details about Christ, and refers to Christ thusly:

[I wish] abundance of happiness unblameably, in Jesus Christ our God...

...But when I suffer, I shall be the freedman of Jesus Christ, and shall rise again emancipated in Him...

Now I begin to be a disciple. And let no one, of things visible or invisible, envy me that I should attain to Jesus Christ... let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ.

... I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham ...

Jesus Christ will reveal these things to you, [so that ye shall know] that I speak truly. He is the mouth altogether free from falsehood, by which the Father has truly spoken...

Are these the words of someone who was probably a HJer, IYO?

Mark is probably the last mythicist narrative in the orthodox trajectory *what's your position on the gnostic writers?).
The gnostic writers were an outgrowth of Paul's "mystery religion". "Mithras killed the cosmic Bull and from its blood the earth was renewed". That is the style with how the outer-mystery was presented, and understood by the pagan public, and that is the style in which Paul presented Christ. IMO the inner-mystery was 'Christ as bodhisattva', the historical man who became the first-fruits of a new humanity, and through whom we can obtain the same.

The gnostic writers would support this view (assuming I am correct), in that they appeared to have developed from the 'inner-mystery' idea (mixed in with ideas from other sources). Either they got this directly from Paul, or this view evolved from Paul's ideas, influenced by the 'mystery religion' mindset of the day.

Mark is first half of the second century -- I thought maybe the second Jewish War, but Andrew raised a very cogent point against it -- an apparently dependent document that also mentions the same war.
So Mark is either contemporary or even postdates the Epistle of Barnabas. 'Barnabas' appears to place Christ on earth. Did a belief in a historical Christ predate Mark, IYO?

GakuseiDon

August 2, 2005, 06:52 PM

Assuming, purely for the sake of argument, that Mark has based the great majority of his narrative on the OT rather than on historical tradition, it would not need to mean that he did not believe in a Historical Jesus or even that he lacked historical traditions about Jesus.

It would be quite possible for Mark to genuinely consider reconstructing the life of Jesus on the basis of the inspired OT as more historically reliable than basing it on fallible human oral tradition.

Andrew Criddle
Yes. Furthermore, if someone was trying to present Jesus as the expected Christ, the only way that could have been done would have been trying to tie him back to the OT, either in actions or in words.

If someone came to the Jews today and claimed they were the Messiah, I think we'd see the same thing.

Peter Kirby

August 2, 2005, 07:26 PM

Has the full text of the Life of Apollonius ever been made available online?

Stephen

Not that I know of. :(

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

August 3, 2005, 12:49 AM

This was a common practice in contemporary Judaism, as we see with Hillel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi_Hillel)

Thanks! That's useful information.

Yes, well this simply reinforces my point about Mark being fiction, doesn't it? The fictional Mosaic frame for Hillel's life is not quite what Mark was doing. In Mark the details all appear to be invented off of the OT as well, and the plot dictated by the conventions of fiction and the parallels that Mark had chosen. At every level Mark is fiction.

The methodology is this: Jesus is either a man, a god-man, or a myth. The second and third options are prima facie absurd, therefore we establish the first option as our operating hypothesis, and test the available data against it. This is a valid scientific approach.

All options are equally possible, except 2, which is ruled out by the nature of scholarly methodology and the fact that there is no supernatural. Additionally you left off more complex options, such as that Jesus was a real man but Mark knows nothing about him. A fictional Mark is compatible with each option you listed above. A fictional Mark simply says that nothing about the HJ may be known from Mark, except what we know from Paul (my position, BTW).

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

August 3, 2005, 12:53 AM

Not that I know of. :(

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

In German, here

http://www.klassphil.uni-muenchen.de/~waiblinger/texte/hist/hist.html

This link supposedly has it in English, but I can't get it to come up

http://magna.com.au/%7Eprfbrown/a_tyana0.html

Here's some parts of Coneybeare's 1912 translation

http://www.mountainman.com.au/a_tyana0.html

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

August 3, 2005, 01:03 AM

Assuming, purely for the sake of argument, that Mark has based the great majority of his narrative on the OT rather than on historical tradition, it would not need to mean that he did not believe in a Historical Jesus or even that he lacked historical traditions about Jesus.

It would be quite possible for Mark to genuinely consider reconstructing the life of Jesus on the basis of the inspired OT as more historically reliable than basing it on fallible human oral tradition.

Andrew Criddle

Sure, but then how are you going to prove that? Your position is like Don's -- it struggles to claim that Mark's Jesus has some link to history while conceding that there are strong reasons not to think so, assuming that my thesis about OT paralleling is correct, as we are doing here. One could argue on exactly the same evidence that Mark knew that Jesus was Titus and covered it up with the OT. If one begins by assuming facts not in evidence, then one can prove anything.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

August 3, 2005, 01:21 AM

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but it sounds interesting. Are you saying that, even if there were a historical Christ, Luke wasn't interested in the question? Does the same apply to Mark?

Luke is essentially a corporate publicist, skilled and polished, but with no real depth, whom Mark sometimes baffled. His goal is largely political -- to historicize Jesus and to reconcile the Petrine and Pauline wings of proto-orthodoxy.

If you look at the Gethsemane scene, Luke knows that Mark got it from the tale of Elijah's sojourn in the wildnerness as Jezebel was pursing him. Luke adds more detail -- the angel, and additional language from the Septuagint. If Luke understood Mark as something that had actually happened, why did he fill out and expand the parallel? Clearly Luke knows that Mark is nonsense, because he knows where to look for the parallel. What does that tell you about Luke's attitude toward his source and toward Jesus?

Is there any way of knowing whether he was a HJer or not, IYO? He certainly makes HJ statements in some of his letters, though not in all of them. In his letter to the Romans (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-romans-roberts.html), Ignatius doesn't refer to any historical details about Christ, and refers to Christ thusly:

[I wish] abundance of happiness unblameably, in Jesus Christ our God...

...But when I suffer, I shall be the freedman of Jesus Christ, and shall rise again emancipated in Him...

Now I begin to be a disciple. And let no one, of things visible or invisible, envy me that I should attain to Jesus Christ... let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ.

... I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham ...

Jesus Christ will reveal these things to you, [so that ye shall know] that I speak truly. He is the mouth altogether free from falsehood, by which the Father has truly spoken...

Are these the words of someone who was probably a HJer, IYO?

The Ignatia are familiar with the gospels, especially Matthew. How can one specify the beliefs of a forger without pertinent evidence? In any case he refers to a Church in Romans, and he knows that Jesus was of the seed of David and Abraham. <shrug>

So Mark is either contemporary or even postdates the Epistle of Barnabas. 'Barnabas' appears to place Christ on earth. Did a belief in a historical Christ predate Mark, IYO?

I am not sure. Barnabas looks like Matthew (the robe of scarlet, gall and vinegar) but it is hard to say which way dependency flows. It looks like we have the usual deduction of "historical" details from scripture. is Barnabas from a single hand?

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

August 3, 2005, 01:28 AM

I like that. For the argument of silence in Paul's writings to have strength we would expect either (a) or (b) above, yet Don has shown that (a) doesn't exist, and mythicists claim that (b) doesn't exist with Mark. As such, mythicists have to get into issues of expectation based on differences in TIMING of those writings with Paul's. I'm not so sure they do so effectively..

This is incorrect because I am not sure that any mythicist position save Doherty's argues for complete mythicism in the first few decades of the second century, and I am not sure that his does. Rather, everyone sees the historicist position as evolving gradually. Hence some historicism should visible in the second century as the HJ evolved out of the MJ.

Yes. It may seem like fabrication to us, but can we determine Mark's sincerity? How can we tell if Mark was intentionally writing things he didn't believe literally happened or 'filling in by revelation' details on a life he truly believed existed, based on inspiration he truly believed in?

The sincerity of the writer of Mark are not relevant. You may speculate on them if you please -- I am only interested in the origin of his historical "facts" in Mark. That seems to be either the OT or Paul, in all but a few cases. I note the constant struggle here to make Mark compatible with a historicist position.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

August 3, 2005, 01:45 AM

Yes. Furthermore, if someone was trying to present Jesus as the expected Christ, the only way that could have been done would have been trying to tie him back to the OT, either in actions or in words.

Sure. But that is true of ANY kind of Jesus -- mythical, historical, narrative fictional. Again you simply attempt to defend the axiom that Jesus is history. We know Mark is fiction. Beyond that it is very difficult to go. Mark-as-fiction does not necessarily imply Jesus-as-myth.

If someone came to the Jews today and claimed they were the Messiah, I think we'd see the same thing.

It might be interesting to test that by looking at how the lubavitchers present their messiah, rebbe schneerson.

http://www.kingmessiah.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubavitch

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0305/articles/singer.html

Unfortunately it seems that prooftexting is done off the rabbinical writings, not the OT, although I cannot tell for sure. I wish I knew of a good site/work that gave the prooftexts for Schneerson being the messiah.

Vorkosigan

GakuseiDon

August 3, 2005, 11:01 AM

Sure. But that is true of ANY kind of Jesus -- mythical, historical, narrative fictional. Again you simply attempt to defend the axiom that Jesus is history. We know Mark is fiction. Beyond that it is very difficult to go. Mark-as-fiction does not necessarily imply Jesus-as-myth.
We don't know that Mark was writing fiction. Even if everything was drawn from the OT, then what we could have had by Mark's time is a body of remembered tradition that parallels the OT.

Imagine there were 2 statements about Christ that were remembered. Statement A doesn't have a parallel in the OT, can't be used as evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, and so is not passed on. A parallel to Statement B can be found, and so Statement B is recast to make the parallel stronger.

Over 30 years, a body of pericopes develop. Finally, Mark puts them all together for his gospel. Why assume that Mark thought he was writing fiction at all?

As you say, we can't draw "Jesus was historical" from this, and I'm not trying to. But I think the fact that EVERYONE in the 2nd C seemed to assume that Christ was historical, and that we see them using 1st C texts with that understanding, can't be explained using a mythicist model as well as with a historicist model.

Ben C Smith

August 3, 2005, 11:02 AM

If someone came to the Jews today and claimed they were the Messiah, I think we'd see the same thing [an attempt to tie him back to the OT].

It might be interesting to test that by looking at how the lubavitchers present their messiah, rebbe schneerson....

Unfortunately it seems that prooftexting is done off the rabbinical writings, not the OT, although I cannot tell for sure.

Same sport, different ballpark.

freigeister

August 3, 2005, 01:04 PM

In Mark the details all appear to be invented off of the OT.

Please elaborate. Is this a rejection of a pagan origin for Mark's Gospel? Wherein exactly lies the distinction which allows acceptance of Hillel's historicity through the Talmud yet denies acceptance of Christ's historicity through the Gospels? Would you claim that, because it mythologizes Hillel, the Talmud is fiction? Would you claim that whoever wrote down the Talmud knew nothing of a historical Hillel?

A fictional Mark simply says that nothing about the HJ may be known from Mark, except what we know from Paul (my position, BTW).

But, because you first claim that Paul knows nothing of a human Jesus, you load the dice, don't you? What makes you believe that Mark draws on Paul at all, let alone exclusively? Why not the simple answer: that Mark is an occasional transcription of originally orally transmitted Gospels that existed independently of Paul?

Ben C Smith

August 3, 2005, 02:33 PM

What makes you believe that Mark draws on Paul at all, let alone exclusively?

Pretty good arguments have been advanced, not least by Vorkosigan himself (http://users2.ev1.net/%7Eturton/GMark/GMark10.html#10X), that Mark knew (some of) the epistles of Paul. Not all the points at that link are of equal weight, but the theological issues (such as food laws and the gentile mission stuff) seem fairly heavy to me. Certain parts of Mark just read better in a Pauline context, a mileau in which the readership has been softened up by Pauline theology and praxis.

Ben.

Amaleq13

August 3, 2005, 03:14 PM

What makes you believe that Mark draws on Paul at all, let alone exclusively?

I think you will find at least part of Vorkosigan's answer in this thread that he created on the subject:

Mark Knew Paul: Here's the DNA (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=110108)

freigeister

August 3, 2005, 04:17 PM

I think you will find at least part of Vorkosigan's answer in this thread that he created on the subject:

Mark Knew Paul: Here's the DNA (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=110108)

Textual patterns can be detected in many ways, but they do not necessarily prove causal relationships. The tendency is to find what one seeks viz. The Bible Code. The approach seeks to assert a decisive overturning of a well-established understanding on the basis of an idiosyncratic, not to say tendentious, correlation of textual structures. As such, it cannot persuade.

Toto

August 11, 2005, 03:42 PM

As noted in another thread, Earl Doherty has written a rebuttal to GakuseiDon's article.

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/CritiquesGDon.htm

From Doherty:

I would like you to issue a challenge from me that people read this response as readily as they read GDon's critique, especially people like Layman and Peter Kirby, who seemed to treat it like a dagger in the heart of mythicism. It is anything but that, and my response includes a lot of new discussion and insight into the whole question of the second century apologists. I deal with GDon's arguments--all of them--in good detail, including his contentions about my purported insufficient knowledge of writers like Tertullian. It seems to me that when something like GDon's critique is posted, many of those eager to praise and discuss it end up ignoring what I say in response. I will be challenging Kirby to post my article on his ChristianOrigins website if he . . posts GDon's.

Peter Kirby

August 11, 2005, 04:23 PM

Hmmm... does Doherty want his article on my site, or (more likely) a link? I am happy to do either or both.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Roger Pearse

August 11, 2005, 05:06 PM

As noted in another thread, Earl Doherty has written a rebuttal to GakuseiDon's article.

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/CritiquesGDon.htm

I see from this that some confusion has arisen in that article over who said what onmy page (http://www.tertullian.org/minucius/mf.htm) containing various citations on the subject.

Would someone let Mr. Doherty know that the page as a whole is by me, and so all non-indented material is mine? The authors quoted are all indented. So (for instance) Hardwick has no association with the material I quote from the Chronica Tertullianea et Cyprianea (CTC).

Do other people find that format confusing?

I ought to add a link to Petr Kitzler's article on Czech Scholarship on Tertullian (http://www.tertullian.org/articles/kitzler_czech_scholarship.htm) in which he makes the same statement, based on the HLL (see note 21: Heck, E., M. Minucius Felix. In: HLL (Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike) 4, München 1997, § 485, p. 512.)

The philological discussion appears to be in C. Becker, "Der Octavius des Minucius Felix", SBBayer, hft. 2 (Munich, 1967). (My apologies for getting the footnotes in a twist).

I'm not a Minucius specialist so I don't pretend to know authoritatively. But Mr. Doherty's argument requires it to be closed, and closed in the direction of a second century date, and this, clearly, is not the case.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Vorkosigan

August 11, 2005, 10:33 PM

Textual patterns can be detected in many ways, but they do not necessarily prove causal relationships. The tendency is to find what one seeks viz. The Bible Code. The approach seeks to assert a decisive overturning of a well-established understanding on the basis of an idiosyncratic, not to say tendentious, correlation of textual structures. As such, it cannot persuade.

That's the reason I relied on the perceptions of others of what the text said, at least in part.

Steven Carr

August 12, 2005, 07:28 AM

I'm not a Minucius specialist so I don't pretend to know authoritatively. But Mr. Doherty's argument requires it to be closed, and closed in the direction of a second century date, and this, clearly, is not the case.

Doherty writes '...why in his adaptation of Tertullian's Apology would the author of Minucius Felix cut out every reference to an historical Jesus....'

It is a good question , if you suppose that Tertullian came first and Felix adapted him.

Steven Carr

August 13, 2005, 08:14 AM

'For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth, in thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to be believed God.'

Seems pretty conclusive to me that Felix did not think that a being on earth was able to be God.

'The Egyptians certainly choose out a man for themselves whom they may worship; him alone they propitiate; him they consult about all things; to him they slaughter victims; and he who to others is a god, to himself is certainly a man whether he will or no, for he does not deceive his own consciousness, if he deceives that of others. Moreover, a false flattery disgracefully caresses princes and kings, not as great and chosen men, as is just, but as gods; whereas honour is more truly rendered to an illustrious man, and love is more pleasantly given to a very good man.'

And here Felix pointedly compares the worship the Egyptians give for a man, with what they should give for the man they had chosen - honour and love, but not worship.

But GDon takes 'honour' and 'love' and just ignores the obvious fact that Felix has very very pointedly not used 'worship'.

Egyptians worship men. They should not, as men can only be honoured and loved, not worshipped.

GDon writes ' M.Felix is defending the sign of the cross as a symbol of worship, noting that pagans also worship the sign of the cross: Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for.'

I have no idea how GDon can parse the sentence 'Crosses , moreover, we neither worship nor wish for' as a defense of worshipping crosses. This does not compute.

'Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners; and flags of your camp, what else are they but crosses glided and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it. We assuredly see the sign of a cross, naturally, in the ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up, it is the sign of a cross; and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with handsoutstretched. Thus the sign of the cross either is sustained by a natural reason, or your own religion is formed with respect to it.'

Felix points out that when a man adores God , he forms a cross, but this is just natural , in the way that crosses appear everywhere in nature.

He doesn't think the sign of the cross is a special sign, denoting a crucified person, it just occurs naturally when you stretch out your arms to God.

What on earth would be the point of his defending the cross as being a symbol of a crucified man, by saying that the cross was used in other religions?

The pagans would laugh themselves silly at the idea of someone claiming that it was OK to worship somebody killed on a cross, because a cross sign was used in their religions. They would retort that they used the symbol to mean a rather different thing.

It would be like Felix defending Christianity against the then current charge of drinking blood by pointing out that quite a few pagan symbols had red in them.

What did Gasukei Don make of 'Thus the sign of the cross either is sustained by a natural reason, or your own religion is formed with respect to it.'

Felix is saying that the sign of the cross just occurs naturally (because when stretching your arms out to God you have no choice but to make a cross), or that the cross has no more reference to crucifixion than the many crosses in pagan religions.

As GDon writes 'So, the sign of the cross is formed when ‘a man adores God with a pure mind, with handsoutstretched’.

So Felix thinks the sign of the cross is used by Christians, not to remember how their Lord and Saviour died, but instead to approach God with a pure mind.

GakuseiDon

August 13, 2005, 12:36 PM

Doherty's rebuttal appears to be mostly a restating of his position, with some new points thrown in. I'll be working on a reply to his rebuttal over the next few months.

Doherty still seems to imply that the second century apologists wrote in an information vacuum, as though we should assume that they were writing as if the pagans were unacquainted with Christians beliefs. Given that most (if not all) of his "MJ apologists" wrote after 160 CE, this is very unlikely. Tatian wrote:

We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle tales, when we announce that God was born in the form of a man. I call on you who reproach us to compare your mythical accounts with our narrations.

Does anyone seriously doubt that Tatian is referring to the Gospels when he talks about "our narrations"? And that he appears to assume that the pagans were familiar with, or at least had access to, these "narrations"?

FYI to Steven Carr: I actually have you on my ignore list, so I'm afraid I won't be responding to your posts. Anyone else is welcomed to present any points you bring up, if they are willing to own them.

Johnny Skeptic

August 13, 2005, 12:52 PM

FYI to Steven Carr: I actually have you on my ignore list, so I'm afraid I won't be responding to your posts. Anyone else is welcomed to present any points you bring up, if they are willing to own them.

Why did you put Steven on your ignore list, Gakusei Don?

GakuseiDon

August 13, 2005, 01:28 PM

Why did you put Steven on your ignore list, Gakusei Don?
I stress that this is my own opinion: Too many polemic statements, not enough debate. IMHO he is obsessed with JP Holding. He tends to post by deliberately (IMO) making a series of vaguely related statements, rather than presenting an argument (IMHO, of course). I just feel that he generally doesn't add to the debate. I also have Chili on ignore for the same reason. Anyway, I've mentioned this to Steve previously. If you don't mind, I'll leave it at that.

Steven Carr

August 13, 2005, 02:18 PM

Why did you put Steven on your ignore list, Gakusei Don?

Guess we will never know why Felix said that the Egyptians worship a man, yet the most that can be given to an illustrious man is love and honour, and that an earthly being could never be god.

What did Tertullian mean in Ad Nationes when he wrote 'But in your case, by being necessarily ignorant of the sect, through your ignorance of its founder, or else by not taking a fair survey of the founder, because you make no inquiry into his sect, you fasten merely on the name, just as if you vilified in it both sect and founder, whom you know nothing of whatever....'

Was he really writing in the way a MJer would,when he invited people to find out more about the founder , after whom Christianity was named?

And I really puzzled over GDons approving quote of Karen Armstrong ' As Karen Armstrong points out in her book "The History of God", the Roman ethos was strictly conservative, and Christians were regarded with contempt as a sect of fanatics who had committed the cardinal sin of breaking with the parent faith.'

Which pagan ever thought Christians had committed a sin by breaking with the parent faith?

Steven Carr

August 13, 2005, 02:26 PM

What Gasukei Don writes about Tatian on the resurrection is interesting 'Tatian response is orthodox: “Even though fire destroy all traces of my flesh, the world receives the vaporized matter; and though dispersed through rivers and seas, or torn in pieces by wild beasts, I am laid up in the storehouses of a wealthy Lord�?.'

The *world* received the vaporized matter, *something else* is laid up in the storehouses of a weathly Lord. All traces of flesh are destroyed.

How can this be reconciled with a claim that Christians taught that a resurrected body had the material it had before, but transformed?

How can God transform something of which all traces had been destroyed? Surely the Lord would have to create something that had been destroyed?

Whatever Christians believed about resurrection, they did not believe that God would resurrect flesh , something received by the world and destroyed.

andrewcriddle

August 13, 2005, 02:39 PM

Doherty writes '...why in his adaptation of Tertullian's Apology would the author of Minucius Felix cut out every reference to an historical Jesus....'

It is a good question , if you suppose that Tertullian came first and Felix adapted him.
Even if Minucius Felix is prior to Tertullian he is almost certainly later than 160 and probably later than 170.

At this date the absence of statements about the Historical Jesus is almost certainly a matter of deliberate choice and not a result of ignorance of the existence of any such accounts.

Hence we can say reasonably confidently that Minucius Felix (whatever his date) was for whatever reason deliberately avoiding making statements about the Historical Jesus.

Hence if he was to make use of Tertullian's Apology he would quite likely edit it in this way.

On the general issue: Minucius Felix is a heavily derivative writer making heavy use of Seneca and Cicero. Tertullian is a very original writer. It is prima facie more probable that Minucius Felix would copy Tertullian than vice versa.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

August 13, 2005, 02:51 PM

andrewcriddle

August 13, 2005, 03:25 PM

Steven Carr

August 13, 2005, 06:50 PM

Minucius Felix presumably believed that Christ was more than just an earthly being, ie he believed Christ to be in some sense Divine.

IF he believed (as seems quite likely) that Christ insofar as he was Divine ceased being human then this would be unorthodox by later standards, possibly even Docetic. However it would not be Mythical in Doherty's sense.

In the context of defending Christianity against a charge that they worshipped somebody put to death as a criminal, a claim that Christians did not believe that an earthly being could be God was hardly likely to produce in the pagans mind the belief that Christians did after all worship a being who had been on earth and had been crucified as a result of a trial.

Such an ellipictical statement of docetic belief by Felix is belied by the context of who he was writing to.

Steven Carr

August 13, 2005, 06:58 PM

Origen in 'Contra Celsus' book 5 quotes Celsus as saying

"[it is] an obligation incumbent on all men to live according to their country's customs, in which case they [the Jews] will escape censure; whereas the Christians, who have abandoned their native usages, and who are not one nation like the Jews, are to be blamed for giving their adherence to the teaching of Jesus."

Hi Andrew, could you unpack what you mean by that?

Celsus seems to me to be saying that Christians are to be censured for not following their native usages, yet most Christians of that time were not converted Jews, but were native Romans or Corinthians or Greeks or whatever.

They had abandoned their pagan gods,not Judaism. That is what is meant by not following their *country's* customs. Celsus thought that when in Rome, behave like the Romans.

Jews , of course, were not to be blamed for not following the local gods of where they lived ,because they were Jews,and should follow Jewish customs.

What do you understand Celsus to have meant by 'Christians, who have abandoned their native usages...' in the context of Karen Armstrong's claim that pagans regarded it as a cardinal sin for Christians to have abandoned the parent faith of Judaism?

GakuseiDon

August 13, 2005, 07:36 PM

And I really puzzled over GDons approving quote of Karen Armstrong ' As Karen Armstrong points out in her book "The History of God", the Roman ethos was strictly conservative, and Christians were regarded with contempt as a sect of fanatics who had committed the cardinal sin of breaking with the parent faith.'
Doherty says on this:

I can't verify his [GDon's] reading of Karen Armstrong, as he must have a different edition of her book than my own, but I'm very dubious about the Romans regarding the Christians with contempt for breaking away from Judaism, a faith they hardly held in high esteem themselves

Armstrong's original comment can be found in Chapter 3 ("A light to the Gentiles") of her book. She writes:

In the Roman Empire, Christianity was first seen as a branch of Judaism but when Christians made it clear that they were no longer members of the synagogue, they were regarded with contempt as a religio of fanatics who had committed the cardinal sin of impiety by breaking with the parent faith. The Roman ethos was strictly conservative: it valued the authority of the paterfamilias and ancestral custom. 'Progress' was seen as a return to a 'Golden Age' not as a fearless march forward into the future... Innovation was regarded as dangerous and subversive. Romans were highly suspicious of mass-movements that threw off the restraints of tradition and on their guard to protect their citizens from religious 'quackery'...

... Christianity seemed an irrational and eccentric movement to the Roman biographer Gaius Suetonius (70-160), a superstitio nova et prava, which was 'depraved' precisely because it was 'new'.

youngalexander

August 13, 2005, 10:11 PM

Even if Minucius Felix is prior to Tertullian he is almost certainly later than 160 and probably later than 170.

At this date the absence of statements about the Historical Jesus is almost certainly a matter of deliberate choice and not a result of ignorance of the existence of any such accounts.

Hence we can say reasonably confidently that Minucius Felix (whatever his date) was for whatever reason deliberately avoiding making statements about the Historical Jesus.

Hence if he was to make use of Tertullian's Apology he would quite likely edit it in this way.

On the general issue: Minucius Felix is a heavily derivative writer making heavy use of Seneca and Cicero. Tertullian is a very original writer. It is prima facie more probable that Minucius Felix would copy Tertullian than vice versa.

Andrew Criddle
This is a sequence of logical contortions.

"...the absence of statements about the Historical Jesus is almost certainly...". It is nothing of the sort. At least you must allow the strong possiblity that the absence results from lack of knowledge. Furthermore you are assuming that Felix would have interpreted the Gospels as relating to a HJ, but there is no evidence that this is the case.

"...for whatever reason deliberately avoiding making statements about the Historical Jesus." That is outrageous. With this logic we can prove anything we wish. He doesn't say so, but we know what MF thinks, and curiously it is just what we think.

"It is prima facie more probable that Minucius Felix would copy Tertullian than vice versa." Even if this were true, it could only be the case if Tertullian was prior.

What all this boils down to is that "for whatever reason" MF is "deliberately avoiding making statements about the Historical Jesus." Frankly I do not accept that - for lack of reason!

GakuseiDon

August 14, 2005, 12:40 AM

What all this boils down to is that "for whatever reason" MF is "deliberately avoiding making statements about the Historical Jesus." Frankly I do not accept that - for lack of reason!
What reason then do you give for Tertullian not making statements about a HJ in Ad nationes (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/tertullian06.html), then? He doesn't even refer to the names "Jesus" and "Christ". This is the closest thing he says:

But the sect, you say, is punished in the name of its founder. Now in the first place it is, no doubt a fair and usual custom that a sect should be marked out by the name of its founder, since philosophers are called Pythagoreans and Platonists after their masters; in the same way physicians are called after Erasistratus, and grammarians after Aristarchus. If, therefore, a sect has a bad character because its founder was bad, it is punished as the traditional bearer of a bad name. But this would be indulging in a rash assumption.

The first step was to find out what the founder was, that his sect might be understood, instead of hindering inquiry into the founder's character from the sect. But in our case, by being necessarily ignorant of the sect, through your ignorance of its founder, or else by not taking a fair survey of the founder, because you make no inquiry into his sect, you fasten merely on the name, just as if you vilified in it both sect and founder, whom you know nothing of whatever.

There is no doubt that Tertullian is referring to Jesus Christ, and that the pagans know at least the name. So why doesn't Tertullian refer to "Jesus Christ" instead of "founder"? And if he believes that the pagans "know nothing whatever" of Christ's character and Christianity, why not include something here?

In Doherty's rebuttal to my article, he says, "Given the narrow nature of the Ad Nationes subject matter, there is nothing particularly unusual, significant, or "weird" (as one reviewer on Amazon put it) about the lack of mention of Jesus' name or historical activities." Yet it isn't difficult to pick out problems if we apply a "Dohertynesque" analysis to "Ad nationes". For example:

1. Tertullian makes no comments on a HJ or Gospels. Surely this suggests that he doesn't know of any?

2. Tertullian discusses resurrection of the dead without referring, or even hinting, that the resurrection of the founder was a central part of his beliefs. Remember, Tertullian has stated that the pagans know nothing about the founder!

3. Tertullian writes "Others.. suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What then? Do you do less than this? ... you who reproach us with the sun and Sunday should consider your proximity to us" Far from setting pagans straight on the God of the Christians, Tertullian gives the appearance of agreeing! How can an orthodox Christian not at least even try to correct pagans on this, unless a HJ wasn't at the core of his beliefs?

4. He dismissively states that pagans "form a virgin from Diana" without any qualification that Christians haven't done the same.

5. He refers to crucifixion as a fitting punishment for "murderers" and "incestuous criminals", without any hint of embarrassment on how this reflects on the founder.

6. Tertullian writes: "But when you say that they only make men into gods after their death, do you not admit that before death the said gods were merely human? Now what is there strange in the fact, that they who were once men are subject to the dishonour of human casualties, or crimes, or fables?" How can an orthodox Christian refer to the folly of men being made into gods after their deaths, without even trying to point out that Christ was more than a mere man?

I could pick out more, but I think you see the trick to it. Assume that there is something unusual in the lack of presentation of a HJ, and any passage becomes a candidate for suspected unorthodoxy.

To quote Doherty, "How could the author place such statements in the mouth of his Christian debater and give himself no luxury of offering any qualification where Jesus was concerned?"

Are you able to give me reasons for the above points, youngalexander, that can't be applied to MF or similar writers?

That, to me, is the chief problem with Doherty's analysis. There is very little attempt to compare within the literature of the period. Too many arguments appear to be based on a "how can an orthodox Christian say that???" approach, without an examination of what orthodox Christians were indeed writing.

As I said in my article, this amounts to a one-sided presentation of the evidence. It's the same method that is used to prove that aliens built pyramids, and that man never walked on the moon.

Steven Carr

August 14, 2005, 03:59 AM

In the Roman Empire, Christianity was first seen as a branch of Judaism but when Christians made it clear that they were no longer members of the synagogue, they were regarded with contempt as a religio of fanatics who had committed the cardinal sin of impiety by breaking with the parent faith.

I see what Armstrong means.

At first the Romans saw Christians as just another branch of Judaism that had sprung up, and so just ignored it by and large. After all, the followers of Jesus still followed the Jewish Laws.

As they didn't understand Christianity, they didn't persecute it. Only when Christianity became *distinctive* , was it noticed.

Nothing to do with the 'cardinal sin' of breaking from a parent faith.

... Christianity seemed an irrational and eccentric movement to the Roman biographer Gaius Suetonius (70-160), a superstitio nova et prava, which was 'depraved' precisely because it was 'new'.

Weren't Essenes also quite new? And the followers of John the Baptist?

Steven Carr

August 14, 2005, 04:32 AM

Ad Nationes is a vitriolic attack on Roman gods, not a defense of Christian beliefs.

Gasukei Don writes as though Tertullian didn't realise that what he is charging pagans with could have been used by them against the Christian religion , and so necessitate a defense of the 'founder'.

If we look at what Tertullian writes, I really don't think it entered his head that he would have to explain why the founder really was a god even though he was crucified and born of a virgin, just like the false gods Tertullian attacks.

Tertullian was so full of bile, that he could not see the speck in his eye for pointing out the mote in others.

So great blindness has fallen on the Roman race, that they call their enemy Lord, and preach the filcher of blessings as being their very giver, and to him they give thanks. They call those (deities), then, by human names, not by their own, for their own names they know not. That they are daemons they understand: but they read histories of the old kings, and then, though they see that their character was mortal, they honour them with a deific name.

[2] As for him whom they call Jupiter, and think to be the highest god, when he was born the years (that had elapsed) from the foundation of the world to him were some three thousand. He is born in Greece, from Saturnus and Ops; and, for fear he should be killed by his father (or else, if it is lawful to say so, should be begotten anew), is by the advice of his mother carried down into Crete, and reared in a cave of Ida; is concealed from his father's search) by (the aid of) Cretans-born men! -rattling their arms; sucks a she-goat's dugs; flays her; clothes himself in her hide; and (thus) uses his own nurse's hide, after killing her, to be sure, with his own hand!

but he sewed thereon three golden tassels worth the price of an hundred oxen each, as their author Homer relates, if it is fair to believe it.

This Jupiter, in adult age, waged war several years with his father; overcame him; made a parricidal raid on his home; violated his virgin sisters; selected one of them in marriage; drave his father by dint of arms. The remaining scenes, moreover, of that act have been recorded. Of other folks' wives, or else of violated virgins, he begat him sons; defiled freeborn boys; oppressed peoples lawlessly with despotic and kingly sway.

[3] The father, whom they erringly suppose to have been the original god, was ignorant that this (son of his) was lying concealed in Crete; the son, again, whom they believe the mightier god, knows not that the father whom himself had banished is lurking in Italy. If he was in heaven, when would he not see what was doing in Italy? For the Italian land is "not in a corner."

And yet, had he been a god, nothing ought to have escaped him. But that he whom the Italians call Saturnus did lurk there, is clearly evidenced on the face of it, from the fact that from his lurking the Hesperian tongue is to this day called Latin, as likewise their author Virgil relates.

[4] (Jupiter, ) then, is said to have been born on earth, while (Saturnus his father) fears lest he be driven by him from his kingdom, and seeks to kill him as being his own rival, and knows not that he has been stealthily carried off, and is in hiding; and afterwards the son-god pursues his father, immortal seeks to slay immortal (is it credible? ), and is disappointed by an interval of sea, and is ignorant of (his quarry's) flight; and while all this is going on between two gods on earth, heaven is deserted.

No one dispensed the rains, no one thundered, no one governed all this mass of world. For they cannot even say that their action and wars took place in heaven; for all this was going on on Mount Olympus in Greece. Well, but heaven is not called Olympus, for heaven is heaven.

[5] These, then, are the actions of theirs, which we will treat of first-nativity, lurking, ignorance, parricide, adulteries, obscenities-things committed not by a god, but by most impure and truculent human beings; beings who, had they been living in these days, would have lain under the impeachment of all laws-laws which are far more just and strict than their actions. "He drave his father by dint of arms."

The Falcidian and Sempronian law would bind the parricide in a sack with beasts. "He violated his sisters." The Papinian law would punish the outrage with all penalties, limb by limb. "He invaded others' wedlock." The Julian law would visit its adulterous violator capitally. "He defiled freeborn boys." The Cornelian law would condemn the crime of transgressing the sexual bond with novel severities, sacrilegiously guilty as it is of a novel union.

[6] This being is shown to have had no divinity either, for he was a human being; his father's flight escaped him. To this human being, of such a character, to so wicked a king, so obscene and so cruel, God's honour has been assigned by men. Now, to be sure, if on earth he were born and grew up through the advancing stages of life's periods, and in it committed all these evils, and yet is no more in it, what is thought (of him) but that he is dead? Or else does foolish error think wings were born him in his old age, whence to fly heavenward? Why, even this may possibly find credit among men bereft of sense, if indeed they believe, (as they do, ) that he turned into a swan, to beget the Castors; an eagle, to contaminate Ganymede; a bull, to violate Europa; gold, to violate Danaë; a horse, to beget Pirithoüs; a goat, to beget Egyppa from a she-goat; a Satyr, to embrace Antiope. Beholding these adulteries, to which sinners are prone, they therefore easily believe that sanctions of misdeed and of every filthiness are borrowed from their reigned god.

[7] Do they perceive how void of amendment are the rest of his career's acts which can find credit, which are indeed true, and which, they say, he did without self transformation? Of Semele, he begets Liber; of Latona, Apollo and Diana; of Maia, Mercury; of Alcmena, Hercules. But the rest of his corruptions, which they themselves confess, I am unwilling to record, lest turpitude, once buried, be again called to men's ears.

But of these few (offsprings of his) I have made mention; off-springs whom in their error they believe to be themselves, too, gods-born, to wit, of an incestuous father; adulterous births, supposititious births. And the living, eternal God, of sempiternal divinity, prescient of futurity, immeasurable, they have dissipated (into nothing, by associating Him) with crimes so unspeakable.

Is it really possible to believe in an historical Jesus , and yet attack Romans gods for turning themselves into swans, and satyrs, and accuse them of murders and incest, without having to defend Jesus against similar calumnies?

I think it was.

Gasukei Don can take a couple of parallels between what Tertullian charges pagans with believing and say that Doherty's thesis would demand a defense of Jesus against the same charges, but I doubt that it ever entered Tertullian's head to do so.

G Don's points are actually good. Why does Tertullian *not* defend Christians against the charge that they have made a virgin out of Mary in the way a virgin was made out of Diana?

Perhaps he had no defense....

.

Amaleq13

August 14, 2005, 04:38 AM

I could pick out more, but I think you see the trick to it. Assume that there is something unusual in the lack of presentation of a HJ, and any passage becomes a candidate for suspected unorthodoxy.

I see the trick to what you are performing but, as I believe Doherty tries to point out in his rebuttal, you still seem to be selecting out only part of his argument and treating it as though it were the whole. Doesn't Doherty make it pretty clear that what is more important to his argument than what isn't said (your apparent focus) is what is said (what you ignore eg: Felix) and how it seems incompatible with the "orthodox" view?

Andrew suggested that MF is "avoiding" mentioning the HJ but it seems more like he is denying it to me.

GakuseiDon

August 14, 2005, 07:45 AM

I see the trick to what you are performing but, as I believe Doherty tries to point out in his rebuttal, you still seem to be selecting out only part of his argument and treating it as though it were the whole. Doesn't Doherty make it pretty clear that what is more important to his argument than what isn't said (your apparent focus) is what is said (what you ignore eg: Felix) and how it seems incompatible with the "orthodox" view?
Have a read through Doherty's analysis. Tell me where he actually shows MF stating unorthodox views. Most of his points are along the lines of my "Dohertynesque" analysis of "Ad nationes": argument by assertion, i.e. "No orthodox Christian would write that!" Can you show me something in MF that contradicts the views of Justin Martyr, or Tertullian, for example?

Andrew suggested that MF is "avoiding" mentioning the HJ but it seems more like he is denying it to me.
Let's look at the following, without gospel or mythicist glasses. The pagan charge listed by MF is the following:

he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men, that they may worship what they deserve.

There is no doubt that this is almost certainly a reference to a crucified HJ. Do you not agree?

MF's reply is:

For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth, in thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to be believed God. Miserable indeed is that man whose whole hope is dependent on mortal man, for all his help is put an end to with the extinction of the man.

What is MF saying here that is unorthodox, IYO? He is certainly saying that the being referred to is not an earthly being. But this is not an unorthodox view. He also doesn't appear to be denying that a crucifixion took place. Doherty's argument here doesn't go beyond "how can an orthodox Christian use such a limp argument?" He doesn't actually show that it is unorthodox. Please show me from what is said where the unorthodoxy lies.

andrewcriddle

August 14, 2005, 12:01 PM

Hi Andrew, could you unpack what you mean by that?

Celsus seems to me to be saying that Christians are to be censured for not following their native usages, yet most Christians of that time were not converted Jews, but were native Romans or Corinthians or Greeks or whatever.

They had abandoned their pagan gods,not Judaism. That is what is meant by not following their *country's* customs. Celsus thought that when in Rome, behave like the Romans.

Jews , of course, were not to be blamed for not following the local gods of where they lived ,because they were Jews,and should follow Jewish customs.

What do you understand Celsus to have meant by 'Christians, who have abandoned their native usages...' in the context of Karen Armstrong's claim that pagans regarded it as a cardinal sin for Christians to have abandoned the parent faith of Judaism?
What IMO Celsus is saying is that a/ Christianity is weird b/ It is not justified/excused by being ancient traditional weirdness like Judaism.

This is roughly what I thought Karen Armstrong meant, on rereading I'm less certain that this is what she was saying, but I'm not sufficiently interested in the correct exegesis of Karen Armstrong to pursue that point any further.

Andrew Criddle

Steven Carr

August 14, 2005, 12:04 PM

There is nothing orthodox about claiming Jesus was immortal. He did, after all, die.

Did Felix believe Jesus was God?

Felixalso writes :-
' If I were to call Him Father, you would judge Him to be earthly; if a King, you would suspect Him to be carnal; if a Lord, you will certainly understand Him to he mortal.'

Clearly Felix did not use the title Lord or King about Jesus.

Chapter 13 is a whole chapter about how invisible God is and how he can never be seen by human eyes. Did the writer really believe that Jesus was God?

andrewcriddle

August 14, 2005, 12:14 PM

This is a sequence of logical contortions.

"...the absence of statements about the Historical Jesus is almost certainly...". It is nothing of the sort. At least you must allow the strong possiblity that the absence results from lack of knowledge. Furthermore you are assuming that Felix would have interpreted the Gospels as relating to a HJ, but there is no evidence that this is the case.
If Minucius Felix is writing say 170 CE then this is around the time that Pagans like Lucian and Celsus show knowledge of claims about a historical Jesus (Celsus in considerable detail) and criticise them.

It is most unlikely that Minucius Felix had never heard of such narratives.

"...for whatever reason deliberately avoiding making statements about the Historical Jesus." That is outrageous. With this logic we can prove anything we wish. He doesn't say so, but we know what MF thinks, and curiously it is just what we think.

I think you may be misunderstanding what I meant.

I was not making an assumption here about what Musonius Felix thought himself. For the sake of argument suppose he did believe in a mythical Christ. He still almost certainly knew of alternative interpretations of Christianity which he is choosing not to mention.

If so there is nothing implausible in him editing material from Tertullian so as to remove references to a historical Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

TedM

August 14, 2005, 12:52 PM

That, to me, is the chief problem with Doherty's analysis. There is very little attempt to compare within the literature of the period. Too many arguments appear to be based on a "how can an orthodox Christian say that???" approach, without an examination of what orthodox Christians were indeed writing.

As I said in my article, this amounts to a one-sided presentation of the evidence. It's the same method that is used to prove that aliens built pyramids, and that man never walked on the moon.

Nice. But surely, you just have a 'failure of imagination'! :)

ted

Amaleq13

August 14, 2005, 04:22 PM

Have a read through Doherty's analysis. Tell me where he actually shows MF stating unorthodox views.

I've read it a couple of times, GDon, and it seems pretty obvious to me.

Nowhere do they [Clement & Tertullian] give us disparaging remarks about a crucified man such as we find in Minucius Felix, or an outright ridicule of the concepts of gods being born or coming back from the dead such as we find in more than one writer. Silence in a particular spot or document, when balanced by open presentation in others, is not "concealment."

He is even more explicit in the section specifically devoted to Minucius Felix which I will only partially quote:

GDon makes no attempt to deal with the following passages in Minucius Felix, all of them relating to the ridicule by the Christian Octavius of pagan beliefs in their gods:

"Is it not ridiculous either to grieve for what you worship, or to worship that over which you grieve?" [21, ANF translation]

"Therefore neither are gods made from dead people, since a god cannot die; nor of people that are born, since everything which is born dies....For why, if they were born, are they not born in the present day also?" [23, ANF translation]

"Why should I refer to those old wives' fables, of men being changed into birds and beasts, into trees and flowers? If such things had ever happened, they would happen now; but since they cannot happen now, they have never happened." [20, J.H. Freese translation]

"And yet, although so much time has elapsed and countless ages have passed, is there a single trustworthy instance of a man having returned from the dead like Protesilaus, if only for a few hours? All these figments of a disordered brain, these senseless consolations invented by lying poets to lend a charm to their verse, to your shame you have hashed up in your excessive credulity in honor of your god." [11, J.H. Freese translation]

I don't need to belabor the point that all these references supposedly have direct parallels in the Christian faith and (if we are to believe apologists like GDon) were part and parcel of the writer's own faith. And yet he could have his Christian character speak with scorn of the exact same things in the religion of the pagans without any worry over what effect this scorn would have on the identical features of his own. How could the author place such statements in the mouth of his Christian debater and give himself no luxury of offering any qualification where Jesus was concerned?

Toward the end of his response, Doherty also adds the following:

I contend that Octavius' answer is tantamount to dismissing the cross entirely as a Christian icon.

I would say that all of the above are part of a larger argument that Minucius Felix's expressed views must be considered, at the very least, unorthodox. I don't understand how you could read Doherty's response and fail to grasp what specific statements he argues Minucius Felix makes that clearly cannot be considered orthodox.

Can you show me something in MF that contradicts the views of Justin Martyr, or Tertullian, for example?

I would say denying the humanity of the crucified Christ constitutes a contradiction of any Christian belief in a sacrificed god-man or divine Son incarnated on earth. When Tertullian refers to a "founder", he seems to be referring to a man who acted as a leader to other men while on earth. As Doherty notes, however, Tertullian's Apology "contains no shortage of reference to Christ as a human man in history" yet that seems to be precisely what Minucius Felix is denying.

Let's look at the following, without gospel or mythicist glasses. The pagan charge listed by MF is the following:

[i]he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men, that they may worship what they deserve.

There is no doubt that this is almost certainly a reference to a crucified HJ. Do you not agree?

Yes and so does Doherty, apparently:

This is not to say that they were necessarily oblivious to other current expressions. Both Tatian and Minucius Felix indicate that they were.

MF's reply is:

For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth, in thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to be believed God. Miserable indeed is that man whose whole hope is dependent on mortal man, for all his help is put an end to with the extinction of the man.

What is MF saying here that is unorthodox, IYO?

He is denying that the crucified Christ should be considered an "earthly being" and that, contrary to your rebuttal, seems to me to be more consistent with Doherty's thesis than anything that might be considered orthodoxy. The orthodox view holds that Jesus was God (or at least the divine Son) AND human but Minucius Felix seems here to be completely denying the latter. I think Andrew is correct that this is much closer to docetism than anything that might be considered orthodox. I think, however, differentiating a docetic view from Doherty's MJ-believers might be difficult. It seems to me that docetism is sort of a middle ground compromise between the orthodox HJ view and Doherty's MJ-beliefs. An HJ proponent would claim that the divine Son really did become a human while the docetist would insist he only appeared to become a human while the MJ proponent would hold that there wasn't even an appearance on earth.

Minucius Felix's expressed views seem to me to clearly deny any humanity for the sacrificed Christ and, arguably, even any appearance of humanity.

How explicit were docetists in describing the illusion of the appearance on earth?

He also doesn't appear to be denying that a crucifixion took place.

When you make comments like this, it makes me think you are either losing your grasp on Doherty's thesis or never really understood it because there is no denial of a crucifixion to be expected from his MJ-believers. Likewise, when you made the following comment, I had to wonder how carefully you had read Doherty's response because he directly addresses it:

Does anyone seriously doubt that Tatian is referring to the Gospels when he talks about "our narrations"? And that he appears to assume that the pagans were familiar with, or at least had access to, these "narrations"?

Doherty clearly does not doubt that this is a reference to some form of the Gospel and tried to make that even more clear in his response as well as what he considers problematic about the reference for your position:

On the key question of what Tatian is referring to in chapter 21 of his apology, there seems to be more confusion. GDon quotes me as allowing that Tatian's statement "Compare your own stories with our narratives" is a probable reference to Christian Gospels, then he goes on to argue as though I don't make such an admission. The primary question is not what is Tatian referring to by "our narratives." We both agree, it's some form of Gospel. Rather, the question is, does Tatian regard these as on the same level as the Greek myths? I maintain that the text indicates he does, GDon maintains otherwise. I prefer the translation of Molly Whittaker [Tatian, 1982], less flowery and more direct than the Victorian ANF:

"We are not fools, men of Greece, nor are we talking nonsense when we declare that God has been born in the form of man. You who abuse us should compare your own stories with our narratives... So take a look at your own records and accept us merely on the grounds that we too tell stories. We are not foolish, but you talk nonsense [kai h?meis men ouk aphrainomen, phl?napha de ta humetera]...."

The statements prior to the last sentence would certainly convey the idea that Tatian is making a general equation of the Greek stories with the Christian narratives. Accept us because we too tell stories. Despite GDon's denial, my statement is accurate that neither here nor anywhere else does Tatian rush to point out that the Christian stories are "factually true." This is a devastating silence. I have also said that he doesn't rush to declare them "superior" to those of the Greeks. GDon thinks to read the last sentence above as doing just that. I see it as not much more than a schoolyard taunt. "You call us foolish? You are the foolish ones!" If Tatian were really concerned with pointing out the superiority of the Christian fables to the Greek ones, or their actual historicity, I think he was capable of doing it in a more sophisticated fashionand more obviously. He goes into some detail in itemizing the legends of the Greeks, which he accuses of being ridiculous if taken seriously, and he asks how they can mock those of the Christians. This may be the most telling remark of all, for how, on the question of whether legends are to be taken seriously or simply as 'stories,' can Tatian not address the question of how the Gospel accounts are to be taken? And do it by more than just "We are not foolish"? It is probably true that Tatian thinks the Greek legends have the greater degree of foolishness, but he has hardly advanced any perceivable case for regarding the Gospel tales as being in a different categorywhich would certainly be his opinion and his impulse to do if he were a believer in the historicity of Jesus and the reality of the account of his life.

What I will most look forward to in your counter-reply is a response to the section titled "A Missing Heresy?" which directly addresses a question you've been asking for quite some time. If they weren't Doherty-style MJ-believers, who were the people Ignatius condemned who did not preach a Jesus born of Mary, baptized by John or crucified by Pilate?