Jesus Mythers: Earl Doherty vs N.T. Wright [Archive I]

luvluv

March 23, 2004, 03:58 PM

Here's a link to 3 audio sermons by Wright I found. I doubt they do his actual scholarly arguments justice, but this is a start.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~kbush/wrightpage.html

Scroll down to the section marked "Wright Audio/Video" and you'll find 3 sermons on the ressurection. You might want to skip past the worship services at the beginning of the mp3's and get to the arguments. I haven't heard them yet myself, so I'll give them a listen with you. (I was linked here by a friend, but I never had time to look through the page).

But to be clear on this, I was told that Wright throughly undressess the claim of Spong, Crossan et al that the apostles took Jesus ressurection to be a metaphor or some kind of event in the heavens and not a physical reality. I'm also told he goes into basically incredible detail about the social environment in which the Ressurection was preached (both in this book and the 2 500+ page books on Jesus which are previous to this book). I would imagine that this would also contradict Doherty. So I didn't start this thread with the intention of getting into arguments about the Ressurection, but just to see if anyone had compared Doherty's findings in this area with Wright's.

(For the record, do you believe in the physical ressurection? If so, do you believe it can be argued for historically? )

Toto

March 23, 2004, 04:57 PM

There's a summary of Wright's theories here (http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showarticle?item_id=37):

Wright sees traditions that have been passed along relatively intact, with some editing done by the transmitters and then by the Gospel writers. He believes that this model better fits what we know of the way early Jews handled revered or sacred traditions than does the Bultmannian one, which contends that the Gospel material was handled rather like ancient folklore such as Homer's Odyssey or Iliad. The gestation period for the Gospel material is at most only a generation or so, a period of time in which there were still numerous eyewitnesses to corroborate or correct this or that form of a Jesus tradition. Thus, analogies with the handling of legendary material by writers far removed from any eyewitnesses simply will not work.

That's a BIG leap of faith right there, given that Mark was written at the earliest around the time of the destruction of the Temple and the scattering or slaughter of any eyewitnesses.

Wright understands that a Jesus separated from the passion narratives is to a large degree a passionless and perhaps pointless Jesus. The Jesus of endless one-liners or short pithy sayings or even of modest social reforms was highly unlikely to cleanse the temple or get himself crucified during one of the major Jewish feasts, and certainly unlikely to generate the variety of Christologies one finds in the New Testament.

A good argument for the incoherence of the Jesus character.

Another online article (http://www.union-psce.edu/news/Publications/archive/Spring%202000/N_T_WRIGHT.shtml)

Tuesday’s lectures on "Why Did Christianity Begin?" and "Paul and the Resurrection," took the questions to a deeper level. Wright described how Christianity was at once a kingdom of God movement, a messianic movement, and a resurrection movement. And he noted several ways that these Judaic notions had to be radically re-constructed following Jesus’ crucifixion. For Wright, the only explanation for this re-construction was that Jesus had been raised from the dead.

"There is no room…for the suggestion (as is often made today) that Paul’s view of Christianity, including the resurrection, was just one of many positions in the early church, and that there were many other movements in the same time, or even earlier, in which Jesus’ death and resurrection were unknown or of little importance." Further, Wright argued that not only did virtually all of the early Christians believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, but that the truth of this conviction can be accepted by modern persons as well. "Some scholars affirm the first while denying the second. I affirm both.

"Many scholars who firmly themselves disbelieve in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, acknowledge that, as far as we can tell, most of the early Christians did seem to believe it. As historians, we have to inquire whether we have any better alternative to offer, or whether in fact the early church was right."
. . .

"Paul was not dependent on the Gospel evangelists, nor they on him, yet the stories they tell dovetail, provided we do not get bogged down with [small] details."

Okay, he bases his beliefs on some discredited ideas: the eyewitness character of the gospels, and the "no better explanation" idea.

"Proof is impossible," Wright noted. "But it is equally impossible to explain the origins of Christianity without something like this happening."

It is not only possible to explain the origins of Christianity without resorting to supernatural explanations, it has been done. And it is not clear what kind of wiggle room something "like this" is intended to provide.

Doherty agrees with most liberal New Testament scholars who think that the origins of Christianity can be explained without a resurrection, and that Christianity can be explained without Jesus.

I think Wright is talking to keep his own courage up. It does not appear that he has anything new or especially persuasive to add to the debate.

luvluv

March 23, 2004, 05:36 PM

Toto:

Have you ever actually read a book by Wright?

Toto

March 23, 2004, 05:39 PM

I have not yet, but I now intend to. If those online articles misrepresent him, I'll let you know.

(Do you seriously think he is so persuasive that I will fall to my knees and confess Jesus is Lord??)

Dr Rick

March 23, 2004, 05:46 PM

Originally posted by Toto
(Do you seriously think he is so persuasive that I will fall to my knees and confess Jesus is Lord??)

Good Lord, Toto; if he's that good, please let us know, and I'll read it, too.

Amaleq13

March 23, 2004, 05:59 PM

I own and have read Who Was Jesus? by Wright but it is more of a review/critique of several then-current scholars who were offering their views on the historical Jesus. It is more of a pamphlet on steroids than a real book. I tend to agree with Vinnie on Wright despite the resulting pain that agreement causes me.:D (I assume he will recommend the standard treatment of beer, taken orally, until the pain subsides.)

I also think I screwed up your poll because I responded before reading your post that specified a different book. Sorry.:o

luvluv

March 23, 2004, 06:16 PM

Toto:

Do you seriously think he is so persuasive that I will fall to my knees and confess Jesus is Lord??

No, but I expect that he is qualified enough that one should not make statements like this...

I think Wright is talking to keep his own courage up. It does not appear that he has anything new or especially persuasive to add to the debate.

...until and unless one has read him.

Toto

March 23, 2004, 06:52 PM

The Jesus Seminar Strikes Back (http://www.westarinstitute.org/Periodicals/4R_Articles/Nicea/nicea.html)

Wright is an able, articulate speaker and a forceful debater. He uses the writings of scholars with whom he disagrees—and these are many—as a foil to highlight the significance he attaches to his own views. The way he presents their ideas, and his attitude towards them, gives the impression that only his own views and conclusions are reasonable. His arguments appear conclusive: it is as if he alone has solved issues that have puzzled New Testament scholars for more than two centuries.

The issue facing Wright and those with whom he disagrees is the same: how to interpret the New Testament so that it makes sense to people who live in the modern world. The approach that Wright has taken is not only grossly misleading but is potentially disastrous for the church.

. . .

Wright discards what he calls the "skepticism" of Reimarus and categorically asserts that Jesus did rise bodily from the dead. This he believes is a conclusion that can be defended by a fair and unprejudiced examination of the claims made about accounts of the resurrection of Jesus in the gospels. He defends the view that the gospels are reliable as reports of events that actually happened—as history—on the basis that this is precisely the claim advanced by the writers of the gospels, and they would not lie or deliberately mislead their readers.

Is this a fair and accurate assessment of Wright?

luvluv

March 23, 2004, 07:25 PM

Read him and find out. What's with all the searching and googling for criticisms of Wright? I linked a page with articles and audio presentations of his views. Most of his books are in libraries and can be read at no cost to you (except your time). He's clearly the most qualified dissenter to your view. How can you claim to be intellectually honest in your opinion if you won't read the best argument against your position?

Enough of the middle-man quote-mining! You owe it to yourself, as an intellectually honest Jesus Myther, to engage his writings.

Steven Carr

March 23, 2004, 07:30 PM

Originally posted by Toto
Stephen Carr makes a point of posting nonsense statements here from the Bishop of Durham, which has made me a bit reluctant to invest the time in a 700 page work of apologetics from someone who knows what conclusion he has to reach before he starts.

I read somewhere that Wright's FOG index is very high, so I would be curious to know if anybody has read all 700 pages.

I don't post nonsense statements from the Bishop of Durham. I just post things and ask them to be explained to me.

Steven Carr

March 23, 2004, 07:32 PM

Originally posted by luvluv
Are you taking this Steven Carr to be an authority on... well... anything?

I hope not. That would be a big mistake.

Bernard Muller

March 23, 2004, 07:50 PM

Gregg

March 23, 2004, 08:34 PM

Originally posted by Bernard Muller
Just a thought:
Doherty's arguments against N.T. Wright ones
It seems to me it is assumed one of the two is right.
But as far as I know, we are looking at two extreme positions.
I already debunked one here (http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/djp1.html).
I am quite sure I could do the same for the other.
Would they be the only ones to be considered?
Would the solution to that polemical mess not lie somewhere in the middle? That is between extremes?

Best regards, Bernard Bernard, I don't think any Jesus Myther is going to agree with you that you "debunked" Doherty.

And I fail to see how the Jesus Myth position is "extreme." All it suggests is that Christianity started with a belief in a dying/rising savior god, similar to other dying/rising savior gods who no one asserts must have been real people once--then later someone wrote an allegorical story about this dying/rising savior, and a few decades after that people began mistaking this allegorical tale (and others based on it) for a biography.

What is "extreme" about this? I just don't understand.

luvluv

March 23, 2004, 08:48 PM

Steven Carr:

I hope not. That would be a big mistake.

Heh. Sorry, I only know you from the EoG forums. But in looking over your profile it seems that you spend a lot of time here in BC&H, much more than myself, and it also appears that you know your stuff in this area.

I apologize to you and I retract my smart alecky statement.

luvluv

March 23, 2004, 09:06 PM

Bernard Muller:

Well, I didn't intend for this to be a discussion on the literal Ressurection. Rather, I'm told Wrignt presents a pretty scathing critique of any attempts to suggest that Paul (or any 1st century Jew) could have meant by the word "ressurection" anything other than a bodily ressurection. This is where I wanted to compare Wright's evidence with Doherty's, but it seems to have gotten away from me. Also, I am surprised that so few people have read any of Wright's books about the origin of Christianity, since they are probably the most scholarly treatment of the orthodox view. I thought quite a few of you would have read it, if only to attempt to refute it. Perhaps the length is prohibitive of such an endeavor.

General Question

As a side-note, how many of you are formally educated in Biblical Criticism or History, and how many of you have post-graduate degrees in either discipline? Just want to get a sense of who are the hobbyists (no offense) and who are the proffesionals. I don't visit this board very often so I wouldn't know, and I don't want to give anyone's opinion less (or more) weight than it merits.

Vinnie

March 23, 2004, 09:28 PM

Originally posted by luvluv
Here's a link to 3 audio sermons by Wright I found. I doubt they do his actual scholarly arguments justice, but this is a start.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~kbush/wrightpage.html

Scroll down to the section marked "Wright Audio/Video" and you'll find 3 sermons on the ressurection. You might want to skip past the worship services at the beginning of the mp3's and get to the arguments. I haven't heard them yet myself, so I'll give them a listen with you. (I was linked here by a friend, but I never had time to look through the page).

But to be clear on this, I was told that Wright throughly undressess the claim of Spong, Crossan et al that the apostles took Jesus ressurection to be a metaphor or some kind of event in the heavens and not a physical reality. I'm also told he goes into basically incredible detail about the social environment in which the Ressurection was preached (both in this book and the 2 500+ page books on Jesus which are previous to this book). I would imagine that this would also contradict Doherty. So I didn't start this thread with the intention of getting into arguments about the Ressurection, but just to see if anyone had compared Doherty's findings in this area with Wright's.

(For the record, do you believe in the physical ressurection? If so, do you believe it can be argued for historically? )

I do believe Jesus' followers believed he rose from the dead and that he would return again. I do not believe they had the same view of Jesus as the author of the Gospel of Mark or as Paul. They all had common threads but they all had major differences.

I do believe it is certainly possible some of them believed in a spiritual resurrection as well. But some of my views are fluctuating right now. I am reading Maccoby. Was Payul really a Pharisee? You know, Josephus can be proved to habe given false claims about his religious orientation to bolster himself as well. That or he was practicing some kind of hitherto unknown math. There are a lot of issues about the Jerusalem church that are unknown.

I think some (like Paul) had visions. The rest developed from there. I deny the empty tomb story. The original apostles never advocated such a notion. Some may have believed in a bodily rez others a spiritual. At any case, the body was buried in a shallow grave//left for the dogs.

Vinnie

Vinnie

March 23, 2004, 10:03 PM

Summary of Wright:

Wright sees traditions that have been passed along relatively intact, with some editing done by the transmitters and then by the Gospel writers. He believes that this model better fits what we know of the way early Jews handled revered or sacred traditions than does the Bultmannian one, which contends that the Gospel material was handled rather like ancient folklore such as Homer's Odyssey or Iliad. The gestation period for the Gospel material is at most only a generation or so, a period of time in which there were still numerous eyewitnesses to corroborate or correct this or that form of a Jesus tradition. Thus, analogies with the handling of legendary material by writers far removed from any eyewitnesses simply will not work.

Toto's Response: That's a BIG leap of faith right there, given that Mark was written at the earliest around the time of the destruction of the Temple and the scattering or slaughter of any eyewitnesses.

From my MArk article:

The Gospel material cannot be compared to folk literature in that it was not transmitted orally for a long enough duration. Unlike true folk literature, the Gospels are second and third generation sources which make use of earlier (oral and written) sources. "

This also fails to appreciate how Gospel material developed.

Also, Wright is wrong in his evaluation. Its simply incabable of being demonstrated. Neither can it be demonstrated that the church was ridiculously creative with the synoptic material (not counting passion). John is another matter.

The correct form critical assessment is we don't know. In general, the material was altered but it was not subject to reckless abandon.

Vinnie

Peter Kirby

March 24, 2004, 02:29 AM

Originally posted by luvluv
Well, I didn't intend for this to be a discussion on the literal Ressurection. Rather, I'm told Wrignt presents a pretty scathing critique of any attempts to suggest that Paul (or any 1st century Jew) could have meant by the word "ressurection" anything other than a bodily ressurection. This is where I wanted to compare Wright's evidence with Doherty's, but it seems to have gotten away from me. Also, I am surprised that so few people have read any of Wright's books about the origin of Christianity, since they are probably the most scholarly treatment of the orthodox view. I thought quite a few of you would have read it, if only to attempt to refute it. Perhaps the length is prohibitive of such an endeavor. I have read the complete text of Wright's The New Testament and the People of God. Unfortunately, it was a paperback and the spine broke, so I can't sell it. I have purchased his resurrection book (in hardback). The earliest that I will be able to read it is this summer. Finding time is a big problem.

If we want to have a discussion of "Spiritual vs. Physical" interpretations of resurrection language in the first century, I suggest that we start a new thread. I will post some links to material that anyone can read to get it started.

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

March 24, 2004, 02:55 AM

Damn! Sure wish I had time to check into this thread! Just too busy right now, probably won't be back here for a while, maybe not until summer.

Here is a page of NTWright mania from some poor bastard who is obviously very far gone.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~kbush/wrightpage.html

All I can say, luv, is the Wright is simply a more scholarly version of Josh McDowell, and it is hard to take him seriously. I can think of lots of 700 page books I'd rather spend time with than Wright; in fact, Vols 2 and 3 of A Marginal Jew just arrived today.....

The site above has a long cite of the Resurrection Apologia...

http://home.hiwaay.net/~kbush/Wright_RSG.txt

For my own opinion, it's hard to read that, and imagine that I am interacting with a scholarly mind that is interested in generating a robust and credible explanation of the origins of Christianity.

I'd love to say more, but I am posting in ten minutes between classes. I probably won't even be able to answer this for a couple of weeks. Not being able to post here is simply pure torture. ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!

Vorkosigan

Steven Carr

March 24, 2004, 07:07 AM

Originally posted by luvluv
Well, I didn't intend for this to be a discussion on the literal Ressurection. Rather, I'm told Wrignt presents a pretty scathing critique of any attempts to suggest that Paul (or any 1st century Jew) could have meant by the word "ressurection" anything other than a bodily ressurection.

So when the Witch of Endor raised Samuel from the grave, Samuel was bodily present?

Wright shows that a resurrection meant a bodily resurrection, by denying that any other type of resurrection is a resurrection.

A variant of the No True Scotsman Fallacy.

In any case, Paul says clearly that our new body is already in Heaven

2 Thess. 5:1 Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

How anybody can interpret this to mean that resurrected people will not have a body is beyond me. Paul clearly says that they will.

Gregg

March 24, 2004, 07:12 AM

Originally posted by luvluv
Bernard Muller:

Well, I didn't intend for this to be a discussion on the literal Ressurection. Rather, I'm told Wrignt presents a pretty scathing critique of any attempts to suggest that Paul (or any 1st century Jew) could have meant by the word "ressurection" anything other than a bodily ressurection. This is where I wanted to compare Wright's evidence with Doherty's, but it seems to have gotten away from me.Of course Paul believed in a bodily resurrection. Please show me where Doherty suggests otherwise. It's very frustrating when people raise objections to arguments that Doherty doesn't even make.

If Christians can believe in the Trinity--three persons mystically coexisting in one person--then why couldn't Paul believe in a dying/rising savior god who mystically "became flesh" or "took on the likeness of flesh" while remaining in a spiritual dimension? Why couldn't he believe that this mystical "bodily death" and resurrection was sufficient for effecting the resurrection and transformation of human bodies? Why must literalism ("If he said flesh and a body, he must mean a real body that walked around on Earth!") apply in this instance?

This is the crux of the whole thing, IMO. It's hard for the 21st century mind--even 21st century minds who still accept strange, mystical things like the Trinity, substitionary atonement, and the like--to grasp the idea that Paul could believe in a being who mystically "became flesh" without actually becoming a person who walked on Earth.

Steven Carr

March 24, 2004, 07:26 AM

Originally posted by Vorkosigan

The site above has a long cite of the Resurrection Apologia...

http://home.hiwaay.net/~kbush/Wright_RSG.txt

For my own opinion, it's hard to read that, and imagine that I am interacting with a scholarly mind that is interested in generating a robust and credible explanation of the origins of Christianity.

Wright writes :-
'This 'transphysicality' would represent a theo-
logical view of new humanity for which Jewish belief in resurrection had in some ways prepared the ground, but which goes beyond anything we find in non-Christian Jewish texts of the period.'

I thought Wright was claiming that we can tell what Paul thought Jesus would be resurrected as (bodily, ghostly, etc) by looking at Jewish texts to see what 'resurrection' meant. Luvluv seemed to be implying that.

Now we find we cannot do that, as the Christian conception of resurrection was different.

So what does examining Jewish ideas of resurrection tell us about what Christians thought a resurrection could be?

And what is 'transphysicality'? Does Wright want to claim a physical body when it suits him, and deny it when it does not?

Wright continues 'Furthermore, had they been attempting to speak of continuity and discontinuity between the present body and the risen one within the framework of biblical reflection common to mainstream first-century Judaism, they could have reached for an obvious solution, based on Daniel 12: while the
present body remains non-luminous, they could have had the risen body shining like a star.'

But Jesus could glow in the dark BEFORE the resurrection. Why does Wright say the present body remains non-luminous?

Luke 9:30 says 'Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus.'

Wright says the resurrection appearances have to do with recognition and non-recognition.

But it is very easy to recognise a resurrected body. It appears in glorious splendour, and the person can be recognised straight away, even if the observers have never seen the person before in there life.

Wright talks about the appearances being in Galilee in one Gospel and in Jerusalem in another and then says

'I suggest in fact, that the stories must be regarded as early, certainly well before Paul; and that, when placed side by side, they tell a tale which. despite the multiple surface inconsistencies, succeeds in hanging together.'

How can placing the appearances in Galilee, while another evangelist has Jesus commanding no trip to Galilee be a 'surface inconstincy', and how can these stories 'succeed in hanging together.'?

luvluv

March 24, 2004, 09:45 AM

Perhaps if you read the 700-plus pages leading up to these statements, your questions would be answered?

In this thread I'm really not seeing much disputing Wright's methods or arguments, only his conclusions. Is he not worthy of respect simply he thinks the Ressurection is possible, and that's a cultural and philosophical no-no?

Vinnie

March 24, 2004, 10:21 AM

lubvluv, you keep throwing out variations of the "argument via book" tactic.

Someone who has read the books please state the following three:

Tom's dating of Early Christian writings (all of them). What books does he use? Does he accept the two source theory?

I don't need the episltes really, just GThomas, the four Gospels, Q if applicable. Also is John dependent or indepednent?

Authorship: Does he accept traditional authorships? If so all or which ones?

Reliability: On what grounds does he argue the Gospels are basically reliable? Rabbinic transmission a) is disproven by a synopsis, abd b) doesn't apply to the passion anyway.

I think an argument for "reliability" (in a VERY general sense) can be made for the transmission of pre-Gospel pericopes and teachings. The exact words and nuance were not preserved even here though so "relaible" in what sense? But for the most part Jesus teachings were handed down with variations. In most cases we simply can't recover the exact saying. But most of them are nothing like what we see in the Passion or Infancy narratives. They also developed independently.

basically I also note that Wright reconstructs a mentally insane portrait of Jesus. For example, suppose, without any Christian baggage, one of your friends did the two following things

1. Claims to be God, God's Son and Speaks on Behalf of God.

2. Man also claims he is a special agent, pre-ordained from eternity past who has to go commit suicide and singlehandedly die for the world's sins and inaugurate a new era in the universe.

Such a man would be viewed as bonkers and locked away today. If you think you are God, you are not. On historical grounds, I see Tom Wright as offering the world a mentally retarded image of Jesus as none of the miracles (aside from placebo ones) can be proven on historical grounds. If Tom Wright is right Jesus was nots. Maybe thats why his family tried to detain him in Mark. Maybe thats why he was acccused of being a drunkard. Maybe thats why he was accused of casting out spirits by the Power of Beelzebub. Maybe thats why Judas betrayed him. Maybe thats why he was actually crucified. I tend to doubt all this though.

Vinnie

luvluv

March 24, 2004, 11:19 AM

Vinnie, I'm not engaged in any argument by book. I'm asking for opinions, and trying to gauge the familiarity of this forum with the extended case of their opposition. Again, for the points I intended this argument to be about, Wright would be an ally to your position (which, IIRC, is for some kind of Historical Jesus).

But when Vork et. al describe NT Wright in some rather dismissive tones, I wanted to know if this was because of Wright's use of evidences and arguments or because of Wrights philosophical presuppositions don't jibe with scholastic "orthodoxy" (regarding the impossibility of miracles, etc.)

In short, methinks thou dost protest too much.

To all

Again, I'd appreciate it if you folks did us the favor of divulging your level of training and/or expertise in the fields involved. I've noticed that there are a lot of "internet experts" out there who really have no formal education in the fields in which they proclaim expertise. Not that this will disqualify the position of any knowledgeable person (I find many of Layman's arguments rather convincing, despite the fact that he wears his laymanship on his sleeve). But if anyone is going to make a dogmatic statement that a scholar in his field is "wrong", that person should display his credentials to make such a statement, and/or show why he believes said scholar is wrong.

Bernard Muller

March 24, 2004, 11:29 AM

Greg wrote
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by luvluv
Bernard Muller:

Well, I didn't intend for this to be a discussion on the literal Ressurection. Rather, I'm told Wrignt presents a pretty scathing critique of any attempts to suggest that Paul (or any 1st century Jew) could have meant by the word "ressurection" anything other than a bodily ressurection. This is where I wanted to compare Wright's evidence with Doherty's, but it seems to have gotten away from me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greg, this is not my quote!!!
:mad: :banghead: :confused:

Anyway, on this page (http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/hjes2x.html), I spent some time into analysing the business about resurrection (as understood in the 1st century) and I responded to a major argument from N.T. Wright which I got through Layman.
Open that page, and then search on > resurrection < to get at the start.

Best regards, Bernard

Family Man

March 24, 2004, 01:03 PM

But when Vork et. al describe NT Wright in some rather dismissive tones, I wanted to know if this was because of Wright's use of evidences and arguments or because of Wrights philosophical presuppositions don't jibe with scholastic "orthodoxy" (regarding the impossibility of miracles, etc.)

If history is defined as the study of natural, human events that happened in the past, and miracles are defined as supernatural events, how can miracles be considered historical events? Please note, luvluv, that this argument does not consider miracles to be necessarily impossible -- that is a typical theistic strawman. But they are outside the realm of historical study. Thus, the resurrection can not be said to be a historical event. It may be a real event, but that is a matter of faith, not of historical conclusion.

There has to be standards for making analysis. Not all claims made in ancient texts are equally valid, and one of the decisions scholars routinely make is to discount tales of the supernatural. (There are other, more worldly, claims that are frequently discounted also.) This has nothing to do with "scholastic orthodoxy". It has everything to do with the nature of the subject matter being researched.

In other words, if Wright is using the supernatural claims of the Bible to support his positions, he is not making a historical argument. Not having read Wright, I'm not about to say that's what he's doing. But as a knowledgeable amateur, I am comfortable saying that the resurrection is not a historical event. I'm just not going to say that it definitely didn't happen either.

luvluv

March 24, 2004, 02:01 PM

Family Man:

If history is defined as the study of natural, human events that happened in the past, and miracles are defined as supernatural events, how can miracles be considered historical events? Please note, luvluv, that this argument does not consider miracles to be necessarily impossible -- that is a typical theistic strawman. But they are outside the realm of historical study. Thus, the resurrection can not be said to be a historical event. It may be a real event, but that is a matter of faith, not of historical conclusion.

But this seems a rather arbitrary and nonsensical requirement unless one is convinced that miracles are either impossible, infrequent, or unimportant. If the historian grants that miracles are possible, that they can be evidentially supported, and that they can play a substantial part in human affairs, why would he think he could leave them out of his inquiry into the past and come up with anything like an accurate picture of what has actually happened?

Consider this scenario. Suppose a man had claimed to be capable of parting the the Atlantic Ocean and walking across it to England. Thousands of newscameras and reporters showed up, as well as millions of eye-witnesses. To their shock and awe, the man actually was able to perform the event. The Atlantic Ocean actually parted, and within a few months, the man actually walked through the "partation" and reached England. Now, let us suppose that this miracle was not only recorded in it's entirety, it was also documented by millions of eye-witnesses and vetted by hundreds of scientists, none of whom could find a plausible naturalistic explanation for the event. Let's say, in other words, we had a bonified, documented case of a supernatural occurance. Should this event be recorded in history books or not? Obviously this event would have a massive affect on the beliefs of billions of people throughout the world. History would suddenly record philosophers and scientists of all stripes giving up their beliefs in supernaturalism. Now, would it be good historical scholarship to ignore the video-tape and testimonial evidence of the Atlantic Ocean parting and instead propose "naturalistic" counter-explanations for this sudden ressurgence of belief in the supernatural?

The exclusion of the supernatural from historical consideration is simply ridiculous unless the exclusion is made on the basis of the philosophical impossibility of the miraculous. If the historian admits that the miraculous is possible, yet miraculous occurances can be ignored, then that historian has essentially given up on giving an accurate representation of what has happened in history.

I can understand the need for methodological naturalism in science, but why in history?

In other words, if Wright is using the supernatural claims of the Bible to support his positions, he is not making a historical argument.

I haven't read any of his books myself, but in listening to some of his speeches and reading some of his articles, he seems to be using historical evidences (as he sees them) to support the supernatural claims of the bible, not the reverse.

Toto

March 24, 2004, 02:07 PM

Originally posted by luvluv
Perhaps if you read the 700-plus pages leading up to these statements, your questions would be answered?

In this thread I'm really not seeing much disputing Wright's methods or arguments, only his conclusions. Is he not worthy of respect simply he thinks the Ressurection is possible, and that's a cultural and philosophical no-no?

luvluv

First of all, I am not a professional historian. But I feel that I can identify logical fallacies and bad arguments.

The problem with your first statement is that, according to the Amazon reviews, in order to really appreciate this 700+ page book, you have to have read the preceding two books in the series. From what I have read of Wright, he likes to overwhelm the reader with verbiage - well written verbiage, but still overwhelming, with a lot of appeals to "this must have been true." I think it is a little disingenuous of you to hint that there is some answer to any question that one might have in the preceding 700+ pages. Have you read it? Is in impossible to say definitely that he supports his conclusiona and solves any problems? Is it impossible to summarize?

The problem with your second statement is that some of the preceding comments have in fact disputed Wright's methods. I don't think that anyone here has stated that since Wright accepts the historical resurrection of Jesus that his opinion on whether the apostles thought that Jesus was bodily resurrected is not worthy anything. I would accept that a Bishop in the Anglican Church is under some compulsion to support traditional Christian doctrine, and look at whatever else he had to say.

Steven Carr

March 24, 2004, 02:09 PM

Originally posted by luvluv
But if anyone is going to make a dogmatic statement that a scholar in his field is "wrong", that person should display his credentials to make such a statement, and/or show why he believes said scholar is wrong.

I quoted Wright and explained why he was wrong, or at least , asked for clarification of what I see as problems in what he wrote.

What more do you want?

For example, when wright said ''Furthermore, had they been attempting to speak of continuity and discontinuity between the present body and the risen one within the framework of biblical reflection common to mainstream first-century Judaism, they could have reached for an obvious solution, based on Daniel 12: while the present body remains non-luminous, they could have had the risen body shining like a star.', I pointed out that shining had already been done at the Transfuguration, so why was wright laying that down as a red herring.

I haven't noticed a single defense by you of Wright's claims , except to note the number of pages in his book. Presumably if Wright's book was only 600 pages long, there would be no evidence for the resurrection, as the fact that he managed to get to 700 pages is your only argument so far.

Toto

March 24, 2004, 02:14 PM

Originally posted by luvluv
. . .

. . . . Let's say, in other words, we had a bonified[sic], documented case of a supernatural occurance. Should this event be recorded in history books or not? Obviously this event would have a massive affect on the beliefs of billions of people throughout the world. History would suddenly record philosophers and scientists of all stripes giving up their beliefs in supernaturalism. . . . .

Isn't this a good argument against the idea that Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead? If there actually had been a verified resurrection, why was the Christian movement so small? Why is there so little mention of it in the first century? Why did not every resident of Jerusalem immediately convert to Christianity? Why did Christianity stay so small and only grow at the rate of other new religions?

luvluv

March 24, 2004, 02:14 PM

The problem with your first statement is that, according to the Amazon reviews, in order to really appreciate this 700+ page book, you have to have read the preceding two books in the series. From what I have read of Wright, he likes to overwhelm the reader with verbiage - well written verbiage, but still overwhelming, with a lot of appeals to "this must have been true." I think it is a little disingenuous of you to hint that there is some answer to any question that one might have in the preceding 700+ pages. Have you read it? Is in impossible to say definitely that he supports his conclusiona and solves any problems? Is it impossible to summarize?

Well, sue me for proposing the radical idea that in order to dismiss a person's arguments you might actually be required to first read them. I don't know where I picked up such a silly idea. I'm sure that when you are asked in a debate for your opinion on how Wright's work impacts your opinion, everyone will accept "Wright's books are too long and wordy" as an intellectually satisfying rebuttal to Wright's conclusions.

I would accept that a Bishop in the Anglican Church is under some compulsion to support traditional Christian doctrine

You, my friend, have obviously not been to an Anglican church lately.

Toto

March 24, 2004, 02:59 PM

Originally posted by luvluv
Well, sue me for proposing the radical idea that in order to dismiss a person's arguments you might actually be required to first read them. I don't know where I picked up such a silly idea. I'm sure that when you are asked in a debate for your opinion on how Wright's work impacts your opinion, everyone will accept "Wright's books are too long and wordy" as an intellectually satisfying rebuttal to Wright's conclusions.

Wait a minute, I haven't "dismissed" Wright completely. You are the one asserting or hinting that somewhere in a 3 tome opus there is the answer to my questions. But it appears that you haven't read him either.

If I read an excerpt from Wright and see a problem, do I have to read everything else he has written to see if he has hidden a solution to that problem somewhere, before I can react to the words before me? That must be why he has written so much. His would-be critics would have to spend too much time plowing through all of his works before they could criticize any part of his argument.

luvluv

March 24, 2004, 04:00 PM

Toto:

That must be why he has written so much. His would-be critics would have to spend too much time plowing through all of his works before they could criticize any part of his argument.

Yes. I'm sure that's the reason.

Family Man

March 24, 2004, 04:54 PM

luvluv --

I don't disagree with you that, if we had good evidence of the supernatural -- and I think it is at least theoretically possible -- then it should be considered. The problem is that we don't have good evidence of the supernatural either today or especially in the past. Historians don't think that past miracles "can be evidentially supported" or that "they can play a substantial part in human affairs" except to the extent that people came to believe in them.

And it is factually true that historians routinely dismiss miracles as being non-historical. I've proposed this challenge in the past, and you're free to try it yourself: name one supernatural event outside of the Christian religious tradition widely held by scholars to be a true, historical event. I guarantee you you won't find any.

The reason why they do that should be obvious: the ancients made miracle claims at the drop of a hat. For example, after Caesar defeated Pompeii in Greece, it was reported that a large statue in a Greek temple turned around (supernaturally, of course) and a large fern miraculously popped up in front of it. Caesar was later proclaimed a god. Should we take the credulous stance that this is evidence that Caesar really was a god, or should we come to the obvious conclusion that the ancients were indulging in some hyperbole here? And, if it is the latter, how can we rule out that the gospel writers weren't engaging in exaggeration also? Especially since there is considerable evidence that this is exactly what they did. Remember the star in the birth narratives or the earthquakes and zombies walking around after the crucifixion? Classic examples of pious rhetoric that almost certainly didn't happen.

Or consider this example. Both Jesus and Vespasian were reputed to have cured blindness by spitting in the eye. Now, if they both did it, then what's so special about Jesus. If neither did it, then we suspect that someone was indulging in some rhetorical effort. And if one did it but not the other, we have some special pleading going on. None of these options reflect well on this evidence of the miraculous, and the particular claim that Jesus was a god.

In other words, historians don't dismiss the miraculous because of some philosophical bias against the possibility of the miraculous, but because there are some very real evidential difficulties in coming to the conclusion that the miraculous ever occurred. Since we do now that they were making at least some of it up, how do we come up with a principled way of saying which miracle stories are valid and which are not? (There are ways to do that with non-miraculous stories).

In short, there are far more problems than you're letting on and historians don't consider the miraculous to be historical for some very, very good reasons. If you want to argue otherwise, you're going to have to come up with a methodology for separating out the true miracles from the hyberbole that no other historian has been able to figure out. If you come up with something, I suggest you get a Ph.D. in history and start publishing. You'd be famous.

luvluv

March 24, 2004, 05:42 PM

Family Man:

I don't disagree with you that, if we had good evidence of the supernatural -- and I think it is at least theoretically possible -- then it should be considered. The problem is that we don't have good evidence of the supernatural either today or especially in the past. Historians don't think that past miracles "can be evidentially supported" or that "they can play a substantial part in human affairs" except to the extent that people came to believe in them.

So it seems you are now saying that miracles can be historical, provided sufficient evidence? Is this the claim of all historians?

So the Ressurection is not thought to be ahistorical a priori, but only after investigation into the evidence? Or is there even an investigation into the evidence? Is a literal, bodily Ressurection a live option in the pool of alternatives prior to the evidence being assessed, and only removed after investigation?

Or consider this example. Both Jesus and Vespasian were reputed to have cured blindness by spitting in the eye. Now, if they both did it, then what's so special about Jesus. If neither did it, then we suspect that someone was indulging in some rhetorical effort. And if one did it but not the other, we have some special pleading going on. None of these options reflect well on this evidence of the miraculous, and the particular claim that Jesus was a god.

What's so special about Jesus? You know, the guy did a little bit more than spit in one person's eye. But in my opinion the relavent question would be which one was recorded first? The other story may be a copy. I'm not really arguing for the veracity of any particular miracle story, I'm just asking why ordinary investigative tactics can't be applied to them.

In other words, historians don't dismiss the miraculous because of some philosophical bias against the possibility of the miraculous, but because there are some very real evidential difficulties in coming to the conclusion that the miraculous ever occurred. Since we do now that they were making at least some of it up, how do we come up with a principled way of saying which miracle stories are valid and which are not? (There are ways to do that with non-miraculous stories).

I don't understand. What are the relavent differences between natural and supernatural claims that makes supernatural claims so much harder to assess evidentially? Why can we approach evidentially the truth of whether or not Jesus was baptized, but not the truth of whether or not Jesus actually fed a crowd with a single loaf of bread and a single piece of fish? What is the method by which you assess the baptism story, and precisely why could this method not apply equally well to the miracle story?

Steven Carr

March 24, 2004, 05:58 PM

Originally posted by luvluv
Why can we approach evidentially the truth of whether or not Jesus was baptized, but not the truth of whether or not Jesus actually fed a crowd with a single loaf of bread and a single piece of fish? What is the method by which you assess the baptism story, and precisely why could this method not apply equally well to the miracle story?

Miracle storys do get examined. Christians examine the miracle stories in the Koran, and these are well-known methods which can be used to examine the NT miracle storys.

See http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/mirc1.htm for examples of analysis of miracle storys.

Mageth

March 24, 2004, 06:03 PM

Originally posted by luvluv
I don't understand. What are the relavent differences between natural and supernatural claims that makes supernatural claims so much harder to assess evidentially?

Well, that should be obvious, but I'll take a stab at it anyway. To establish a claim of a natural event as probably historical or historical, all you have to do is to estabish that the event probably or did happen.

To establish a claim of a supernatural event as probably historical or historical, you have to first establish that the event happened, and then also establish that it requires a supernatural explanation, that there is no viable natural explanation for the event - that it was indeed a supernatural event.

And "supernatural" is not assumed to exist; you have to establish that there is such a thing in the first place, which has not been done. That makes establishing a supernatural explanation rather difficult, no?

Obviously, establishing that some event in history requires a supernatural explanation is no easy task, much more difficult than demonstrating a natural event occurred in history. That's why natural explanations for events that are claimed to be of supernatural origin are generally preferred. ;)

Toto

March 24, 2004, 06:21 PM

Robert Price in The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man uses a simple test that seems so obvious you wonder why no one talked about it before. You look around and see what happens today. You don't see any miracles, you don't see anyone rising from the dead. But you do see a lot of supernatural claims that are always debunked when a skeptic examines them. You see a lot of new religions that start with claims that seem ridiculous to those outside the religion.

So start with the evidence for a resurrection or other miracles. The "evidence" to support it is confined to stories written well after the time. Even if the writing were contemporaneous, you have to ask, what is more likely, that the miracle happened, or that someone made up the story? You have to ask why the resurrection did not make a bigger impression on contemporaries if it happened.

Extraordinary events demand extraordinary proof. Ancient documents just do not constitute the extraordinary proof of those events. They do not even rise to the level of ordinary proof.

Mageth

March 24, 2004, 06:25 PM

Also, please define what this "evidence of the supernatural" we would look for is supposed to be, exactly. I'm not talking about claims of the incredible, I'm talking about some real, bonafide empirical evidence of the supernatural.

luvluv

March 24, 2004, 06:53 PM

Mageth:

Well, that should be obvious, but I'll take a stab at it anyway.

Thank you for coming down off of your lofty perch of intellectualism to enlighten the unwashed masses...

To establish a claim of a supernatural event as probably historical or historical, you have to first establish that the event happened, and then also establish that it requires a supernatural explanation, that there is no viable natural explanation for the event - that it was indeed a supernatural event.

I don't understand. If the historian admits beforehand that the miraculous is possible, then why should he have to eliminate all possible natural explanations before accepting the supernatural one? You have a pool of live explanatory options, several of which are supernatural. If you admit the supernatural is possible, and the supernatural explanation explains more than all the other explanations in the pool, why is it necessary to exhaust all possible naturalistic explanations (even ones which weren't in the original pool and which are completely ad hoc)? It seems to me that all these explanations are just attempts to hide a philosophical bias behind a thin veneer of empiricism.

Also, please define what this "evidence of the supernatural" we would look for is supposed to be, exactly. I'm not talking about claims of the incredible, I'm talking about some real, bonafide empirical evidence of the supernatural.

Well, how about my example of the person parting and crossing the Atlantic, with millions of eye-witnesses, video tape evidence, and the stumping of all the world's scientists. Would that do for ya?( If not, then again I'd say the problem is philosophical, because for you naturalism is apparently unfalsifiable and so supernatural explanations are excluded by you prior to the evidence.)

Toto:

Extraordinary events demand extraordinary proof.

This is sort of my point. If the historian is philosophically open to the possibility of miracles, then why is the claim extraordinary? At any rate, history is nothing but the record of extraordinary events, so if there's no philosophical bias going on, what exactly is so super-extraordinary about a supernatural claim?

Gregg

March 24, 2004, 07:57 PM

Originally posted by luvluv
This is sort of my point. If the historian is philosophically open to the possibility of miracles, then why is the claim extraordinary? At any rate, history is nothing but the record of extraordinary events, so if there's no philosophical bias going on, what exactly is so super-extraordinary about a supernatural claim? Why do you have to have a "philosophical bias" to be skeptical of supernatural claims? Would you cry "philosophical bias" if someone professed to be skeptical of the supernatural claims of non-Abrahamic religions? Wouldn't you scoff at a claim that invisible gremlins keep your car from starting? If so, why? After all, there's no way you can disprove it. Aren't you showing your philophical bias by denying that invisible gremlins live under the hood of your car?

Miracles today all seem to consist of funny coincidences, third-hand anecdotes, semi-hallucinatory experiences occurring to people under considerable stress, and spontaneous healings from seemingly terminal diseases. (Assuming that the original diagnosis was correct, there's still a lot we don't understand about the body, so there's no reason think spontaneous healings don't have any natural explanation.) This is piddling, unconvincing stuff. Where are the BIG miracles--three-days-dead people returning to life, water changing into wine, storms being calmed, seas being parted, demons going into herds of swine and driving them wacko, giant pillars of fire and smoke that move about in the absence of volcanic vents or combustible material?

There's no "philosophical bias" inherent in preferring a natural explanation over a supernatural one. It's just common sense.

Family Man

March 24, 2004, 08:22 PM

luvluv --

Basically, it comes down to the fact that historians can not use their normal tools of evaluation to come to a judgement about supernatural events. For example:

1. Independent sources -- by this we mean sources not just from one side of the story. If we had one source that said "Yay, Joshua blew down the walls so we won" and another source that said "Yeah, well we would have won if Joshua hadn't blown that damn horn," then we'd have good evidence. The fact of the matter is there is no such animal in the historical record.

2. Archeological evidence -- Caesar, in his History of the Gallic Wars, described pits filled with spikes that he had placed during a battle. At the site of that battle, archeologists found exactly what he described. This strongly suggests his account is accurate. There is no supernatural event I know of that has comparable evidence.

3. Motivation for the story -- Also in his History, Caesar tends to blame his underlings for failures. Historians dismiss these claims, because it is a rather self-serving claim for Caesar to make. On the other hand, the crucifixion is widely held to be true because it is a strange strange and embarrassing thing to have happen to a divine messiah. The resurrection, on the other hand, is the archtypical apotheosis. As a explanation for Jesus's strange death, it has to be considered suspect.

4. Likelihood -- The more likely the claim, the more believable it is. As I noted earlier, the dead supposively rose and walked through the streets of Jerusalem. And no one noticed? There are many, many supernatural claims that, had they really occured, would have been noticed and commented on. The fact that they weren't strongly suggests that all supernatural claims are suspect.

5. Explanatory Power -- How does the events help explain the rest of known history. For example, Roman history makes no sense unless Julius Caesar did would he is reputed to do. That isn't true of supernatural events. The early history of Christianity does not need a supernaturally risen Christ to explain it. All it needs is the belief that Jesus was resurrected. And using Occam's Razor, that is the far more likely scenario.

The bottom line is that there isn't a philosophical bias against the supernatural. It is simply impossible to use the tools of history and conclude that any supernatural event actually happened -- in fact, the only conclusions I've ever seen is that certain supernatural events couldn't have happened.

In short, you can be a Christian historian, rightly hold that the resurrection is not a historical event, and still believe that it happened. But you can not use the tools of history to conclude that the resurrection happened. They simply do not apply

the_cave

March 25, 2004, 01:25 PM

Originally posted by Gregg
Bernard, I don't think any Jesus Myther is going to agree with you that you "debunked" Doherty.

And I fail to see how the Jesus Myth position is "extreme." All it suggests is that Christianity started with a belief in a dying/rising savior god, similar to other dying/rising savior gods who no one asserts must have been real people once--then later someone wrote an allegorical story about this dying/rising savior, and a few decades after that people began mistaking this allegorical tale (and others based on it) for a biography.

What is "extreme" about this? I just don't understand.
Gregg--it's "extreme" in that the allegorical story is taken to be held as detail-for-detail fact, in that it became such for a widespread community, and eventually an empire and a continent, in that there are no contemporary documents stating that it's all merely an allegory, and in that these documents became the basis of a religion (and not merely a folkloric tradition)

One of the issues at hand is the issue being discussed here--that the commentators in this tradition insisted that it was not merely allegory--and Paul did it even before the gospels were written. So a great deal hinges on what Paul meant by "in the flesh". The claim that he does not mean "earthly flesh", but rather "spiritual flesh"(?), is a radical opinion--in that the possibility of this meaning has only been raised very recently, in that it is quite foreign to our ways of thinking, and goes counter to 2000 years of contrary interpretation. This of course doesn't mean it's incorrect, but it does mean that it's radical.

sismofyt

March 25, 2004, 02:23 PM

Gregg wrote;

"Of course Paul believed in a bodily resurrection. Please show me where Doherty suggests otherwise. It's very frustrating when people raise objections to arguments that Doherty doesn't even make."

Hmm, according to Doherty, Paul didn't believe in an earthly human & historical Jesus. Thus not a bodily ressurection. Or did I misunderstand something? Or you?

I thought that it was his whole argument in "The Jesus Puzzle". No human historical Jesus amongst the early christian writers = no human historical Jesus at all...

Having read both the NT & "The Jesus Puzzle", I agree.

Gregg

March 25, 2004, 05:29 PM

Originally posted by sismofyt
Gregg wrote;

"Of course Paul believed in a bodily resurrection. Please show me where Doherty suggests otherwise. It's very frustrating when people raise objections to arguments that Doherty doesn't even make."

Hmm, according to Doherty, Paul didn't believe in an earthly human & historical Jesus. Thus not a bodily ressurection. Or did I misunderstand something? Or you?

I thought that it was his whole argument in "The Jesus Puzzle". No human historical Jesus amongst the early christian writers = no human historical Jesus at all...

Having read both the NT & "The Jesus Puzzle", I agree. I made serious errors in that post--writing at 5:30 a.m.--that I meant to correct, but forgot about it. Paul taught the resurrection of the dead, but I guess it's not clear if he believed people in their graves would come back to life. It seems more likely he felt the dead would be given new, glorified bodies. My mistake.

As to Jesus, what I was trying to address is this insistence that Jesus must either be entirely spiritual or entirely physical, i.e., an earthly, human, historical person. People keep looking at this issue through 21st-century lenses. No allowance is made for a first-century religious mindset, in which a spiritual being can mystically assume the properties of flesh and blood, get killed, and be resurrected (although possibly not in same "body" he died in), without actually coming to earth and living a human life.

I was basically a little frustrated and wrote too hastily. A lot of people don't seem to "get" the Jesus myth argument because they insist on looking at it from a 21st century viewpoint which makes a sharp division between the "spiritual" and physical realms. But when we've all seen modern-day Christians get blue in the face defending an irrational, mystical concept like the Trinity, is it really so hard to imagine a 1st-century mystic like Paul believing in a divine being mystically "becoming flesh," being invested with the necessary characteristics of the Messiah, and being crucified, shedding blood, and being resurrected, without actually coming to Earth? Especially when other mystery religions of the time had similar teachings? Especially when Greek neo-Platonism taught that as you descended through the layers of heaven, things became increasingly "earth-like"? Especially when in the wider pagan world, belief in human-like gods who did very human things was commonplace?

The Jesus myth theory just makes a lot more sense when you try to imagine yourself as a 1st century mystical thinker exposed to the swirling religious and philosophical ideas and impulses of the time.

sismofyt

March 25, 2004, 05:44 PM

Well, I tried really hard to look on the Jesus matter without 21st century eyes. I've read a lot about middle eastern history.. spend a lot of time thinking on matters and came to the conclusion long before I read Dohertys book or started going to IIDB.

I'm sure I understand what you mean, "insistence that Jesus must either be entirely spiritual or entirely physical". How can he be both?

Either he is an historical figure. Or not.

For me it makes a lot of sense that he didn't exist, but was never the less worshipped by 1st. xians as a spiritual deity. It also makes alot of sense that later xians turned him into a historical figure. Both with 1st & 21st eyes...

Thanx for your reply. Fascinating stuff...

Gregg

March 25, 2004, 05:55 PM

Originally posted by sismofyt
Well, I tried really hard to look on the Jesus matter without 21st century eyes. I've read a lot about middle eastern history.. spend a lot of time thinking on matters and came to the conclusion long before I read Dohertys book or started going to IIDB.

I'm sure I understand what you mean, "insistence that Jesus must either be entirely spiritual or entirely physical". How can he be both?

Either he is an historical figure. Or not.This is my point. The question is not "how can he be both," but "was it possible for someone like Paul to BELIEVE he could be both." Since we know that even modern-day Christians can believe things that are logically inpossible, the answer is certainly, "yes."

No, Jesus was NOT a historical figure for Paul in the sense of being a human being who'd walked on Earth. Nevertheless, Paul did believe that Jesus had descended to the lowest level of heaven, where, according to neo-Platonist philosophy, things were more "earthlike" than at the higher levels. There Jesus mystically took on the likeness of flesh and blood and was put to death by the Archons, the demon rulers of the lower heavens. I doubt that for Paul, Jesus became entirely human...he became human enough that he could share in human suffering, and thus create the link that made it possible for believers to share in his resurrection.

Gregg

March 25, 2004, 06:29 PM

Originally posted by the_cave
Gregg--it's "extreme" in that the allegorical story is taken to be held as detail-for-detail fact, in that it became such for a widespread community, and eventually an empire and a continent, in that there are no contemporary documents stating that it's all merely an allegory, and in that these documents became the basis of a religion (and not merely a folkloric tradition)

One of the issues at hand is the issue being discussed here--that the commentators in this tradition insisted that it was not merely allegory--and Paul did it even before the gospels were written. So a great deal hinges on what Paul meant by "in the flesh". The claim that he does not mean "earthly flesh", but rather "spiritual flesh"(?), is a radical opinion--in that the possibility of this meaning has only been raised very recently, in that it is quite foreign to our ways of thinking, and goes counter to 2000 years of contrary interpretation. This of course doesn't mean it's incorrect, but it does mean that it's radical. No, it's not "merely" allegory. It's an allegorical tale about spiritual events that were believed to have been very real by the writer of "Mark" and his community.

"Mark" and the other documents based on it were not the basis for the religion. The religion existed long before they were written. What the Gospels initiated was a gradual transition from a belief in a Jesus who "only" descended to the lower levels of heaven and took on the "likeness" of flesh, to a belief in one that had actually been on Earth. This process would have been accelerated by the destruction of Jerusalem and the depopulation of Palestine, after which Christianity became primarily a European Gentile faith. European Gentiles wouldn't have had the same resistance to equating a human being with God that Jews and Christians with a Greek neo-Platonist background would. They were also unlikely to be aware of, or troubled by, the geographical, historical, and other factual discrepancies in the gospels. Nevertheless, as Doherty shows in "The 2nd Century Apologists," belief in a non-historical Jesus--and ignorance of the gospel "tradition"--persisted for quite some time after the gospels were written.

As to finding "contemporary documents stating that it's all merely an allegory," well, how likely are you to find something like that after centuries of Christian censorship? Still, some fascinating tidbits survived, like this from Doherty's "The 2nd Century Apologists":

'A clue to the solution of this puzzle lies in Tatian's Apology. In chapter 21 he says, "We are not fools, men of Greece, when we declare that God has been born in the form of man (his only allusion to the incarnation) . . . Compare your own stories with our narratives." He goes on to describe some of the Greek myths about gods come to earth, undergoing suffering and even death for the benefaction of mankind. "Take a look at your own records and accept us merely on the grounds that we too tell stories."

This may well be a reference to the Christian Gospels. But if he can allude to the incarnation in this way, why does he not deal with it openly and at length? His comment is hardly a ringing endorsement, or a declaration that such stories are to be accepted as history. The way Tatian compares them to the Greek myths implies that he regards them as being on the same level. Certainly, he does not rush to point out that the Christian stories are superior or, unlike the Greek ones, factually true. Nor can we get around the fact that Tatian pointedly ignores those Gospel stories in the rest of his Apology. (He was to change his mind by the time he composed the Diatessaron.) Furthermore, he ignores them even though his language clearly implies that the pagans were familiar with them.'

Vorkosigan

March 25, 2004, 06:42 PM

But when Vork et. al describe NT Wright in some rather dismissive tones, I wanted to know if this was because of Wright's use of evidences and arguments or because of Wrights philosophical presuppositions don't jibe with scholastic "orthodoxy" (regarding the impossibility of miracles, etc.)

No, it is because I've read enough of Wright, and enough criticisms of Wright, to know what his beliefs, positions, and methods are. And I know those are bogus.

But don't take my word for it. Thiessen and Merz, who are both Christians of a conservative scholarly bent, wrote a massive reference work on Jesus entitled The Historical Jesus (which I highly recommend). It covers all aspects of Jesus, social and political world, the texts and sources, and his role as the founder of a cult. Everything. And yet, that book nowhere cites NT Wright. Why do you think that is, luv? Similarly Udo Schnelle, another scholarly conservative, only cites Wright twice in History and Theology of the New Testament Writings and then in the introduction to the sources, and in the intro to the Pauline writings. Despite the fact that Wright's work is centered on the historical Jesus, prominent works in that area ignore him. Doesn't that tell you something? Most tellingly, John Dominic Crossan, who has done more thinking on methodology than everyone else combined, cites Wright only to abuse him.

The fact is that everyone, not just Infidels, ignores NT Wright because Wright's work has no scholarly value. Sad, but there it is. I'm not "dismissing" Wright -- I'm taking my cue from Wright's peers.

Vorkosigan
PS: Yes, I know Marcus Borg wrote a book with him. A popular book.

the_cave

March 26, 2004, 08:35 PM

Originally posted by Gregg
No, it's not "merely" allegory. It's an allegorical tale about spiritual events that were believed to have been very real by the writer of "Mark" and his community.
Well, there are no contemporary documents stating that it's that sort of allegory, either. Again, this doesn't disprove anything, but the fact that no one is arguing that they're allegorical is somewhat suspect to me.

European Gentiles wouldn't have had the same resistance to equating a human being with God that Jews and Christians with a Greek neo-Platonist background would.
Perhaps this is a meaningful distinction, but it seems more complicated than that to me. I don't see any evidence that, say, Christians in the Western half of the Empire were more "earthly incarnationalist" than Christians in the Eastern half.

They were also unlikely to be aware of, or troubled by, the geographical, historical, and other factual discrepancies in the gospels.
Also quite possible, but heck, Origin lived right next door, and apparently was not too troubled by any discrepancies (such as they are?)

Nevertheless, as Doherty shows in "The 2nd Century Apologists," belief in a non-historical Jesus--and ignorance of the gospel "tradition"--persisted for quite some time after the gospels were written.
The "2nd Century Apologists" are not exactly good evidence for a traditionally historical Jesus, but their discussions are not very good evidence for a wholly heavenly Jesus, either. I would be happy to discuss this on another thread (and apologize for not bothering with NT Wright at all. I have not read him.)

As to finding "contemporary documents stating that it's all merely an allegory," well, how likely are you to find something like that after centuries of Christian censorship?
This seems to form part of the backbone of the MJ case, and I must say it's rather flimsy as a principle. I can think of all kinds of historical events whose truth I can prove by conspiracy...

Still, some fascinating tidbits survived, like this from Doherty's "The 2nd Century Apologists":

'A clue to the solution of this puzzle lies in Tatian's Apology. In chapter 21 he says, "We are not fools, men of Greece, when we declare that God has been born in the form of man (his only allusion to the incarnation) . . . Compare your own stories with our narratives." He goes on to describe some of the Greek myths about gods come to earth, undergoing suffering and even death for the benefaction of mankind. "Take a look at your own records and accept us merely on the grounds that we too tell stories."

....If he can allude to the incarnation in this way, why does he not deal with it openly and at length?
What would constitute dealing with it openly and at length?

His comment is hardly a ringing endorsement, or a declaration that such stories are to be accepted as history.
Agreed. But it is a suggestion that they are.

The way Tatian compares them to the Greek myths implies that he regards them as being on the same level.
In some ways, they are--but then why is there any confusion about it at all? The Greeks (would they be neo-Platonists?) seem puzzled about the Christian claims. Why would they be, unless there were a reason to be puzzled by them? Furthermore, Tatian does not say "Oh, but it's really the same thing". He says in effect "Well, our stories are at least no different than yours," the implication being that there is some way in which they are different.

Certainly, he does not rush to point out that the Christian stories are superior or, unlike the Greek ones, factually true.
But isn't this the implication? I mean, he doesn't go out of his way to say they're equivalent, either.

Nor can we get around the fact that Tatian pointedly ignores those Gospel stories in the rest of his Apology.
Are we then to assume that he's therefore not actually talking about anything? Surely we must assume that he had some story in mind!

(He was to change his mind by the time he composed the Diatessaron.)
Quite possibly that is because by that time he had actually read them.

Furthermore, he ignores them even though his language clearly implies that the pagans were familiar with them.'
Shouldn't that be exactly the reason why he doesn't address them at length?

Semblance

March 28, 2004, 02:25 AM

...but the fact that no one is arguing that they're allegorical is somewhat suspect to me.

Who would be motivated to say that the stories are allegorical? The supporters are going to tend to claim historicity while detractors would either not be paying any attention or would dismiss the stories as untrue.

This seems to form part of the backbone of the MJ case...

No, I would say the lack of early documents describing the events as historical are the "backbone".

Johann_Kaspar

March 28, 2004, 07:48 AM

Just a thought:
Doherty's arguments against N.T. Wright ones
It seems to me it is assumed one of the two is right.
But as far as I know, we are looking at two extreme positions.
I already debunked one here (http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/djp1.html).
I am quite sure I could do the same for the other.
Would they be the only ones to be considered?
Would the solution to that polemical mess not lie somewhere in the middle? That is between extremes?

Best regards, BernardResurrection is crap. Resurrection is superstition. Resurrection is useful for people afraid by death.
Now more crap by xians quoted from the provided link:
Once again, it seems Papias was addressing concerns when he wrote:
"Matthew compiled the sayings in the Aramaic language, and everyone translated them as well as he could [explaining why the "logias" came in different versions!]."
I did not know that the English for Ebraidi dialektw was Aramaic language. :) :) :)
xians commited so many lies that it is now impossible to re-build any sustainable truth about a lot of issues of that time. Even Eusebius does not understand Papias... It shows that the ideology had time to go way away from the original path/fight. Upside down would be a correct description. Once a revolt, then a submission.

Gregg

March 28, 2004, 09:36 AM

Arrrgghh...I replied to this then LOST it because the forum was taken down for updating. I hate it when that happens...Well, there are no contemporary documents stating that it's that sort of allegory, either. Again, this doesn't disprove anything, but the fact that no one is arguing that they're allegorical is somewhat suspect to me.In my view, Tatian DOES argue that they're allegorical. But that aside, I think it's possible that the historicization process happened so gradually that by the time it became the dominant expression of the faith, those who might have objected to it just weren't around anymore.Perhaps this is a meaningful distinction, but it seems more complicated than that to me. I don't see any evidence that, say, Christians in the Western half of the Empire were more "earthly incarnationalist" than Christians in the Eastern half.Yes, of course it's more complicated than that. But the basic fact is, you have a major shift of the faith from East to West. The East now took its cues from the West, not vice versa.Also quite possible, but heck, Origin lived right next door, and apparently was not too troubled by any discrepancies (such as they are?)Origen was writing in the third century, and from a position of faith, not skepticism.The "2nd Century Apologists" are not exactly good evidence for a traditionally historical Jesus, but their discussions are not very good evidence for a wholly heavenly Jesus, either. I would be happy to discuss this on another thread (and apologize for not bothering with NT Wright at all. I have not read him.)Au contraire, I think they provide very good evidence that a historical Jesus simply was not important to the faith of many Christian thinkers well into the second century.This seems to form part of the backbone of the MJ case, and I must say it's rather flimsy as a principle. I can think of all kinds of historical events whose truth I can prove by conspiracy...But in the case of Christianity, we KNOW that Christians engaged in wholesale suppression of heretical doctrines, destruction of heretical texts, redaction of other texts to adhere to official doctrine, etc. Anyway, if the historicizaton process was very slow and gradual, there really doesn't have to be that much "conspiracy" involved. There may have been very few, if any, writings in the first place that explicitly claimed the gospels were allegories. And since if a writing was not copied, it usually didn't survive, well, all that had to happen was for an abbot at some point during the Middle Ages to decide not to have this or that document copied. Of course, that's assuming that any even survived events like the sackings of Rome or the destruction of the Library at Alexandria.What would constitute dealing with it openly and at length?Perhaps providing evidence, a justification for why the Christian incarnation story should be taken as historically true, while the Greek myths and allegories shouldn't?Agreed. But it is a suggestion that they are.I don't understand how. You're overlooking the fact that at this point, the Greeks regarded their OWN stories as myths and allegories. Tatian puts the Christian incarnation story on the same level. It seems to me his point is quite clear--the Greeks should not call Christians fools for having mythical stories, when the Greeks have them too. You're saying he "implies" that the Christian incarnation story is actually different. So why doesn't he go ahead and elaborate on this, if that's really his point?In some ways, they are--but then why is there any confusion about it at all? The Greeks (would they be neo-Platonists?) seem puzzled about the Christian claims. Why would they be, unless there were a reason to be puzzled by them? Furthermore, Tatian does not say "Oh, but it's really the same thing". He says in effect "Well, our stories are at least no different than yours," the implication being that there is some way in which they are different.You're overlooking the fact that Christianity was still a minority faith. Not all Greeks would have been neo-Platonists or otherwise familiar with the bases of Christian philosophy and theology. Besides, there were other things the Greeks could have been puzzled about, such as the idea that a man crucified as a criminal could become God. While they had myths about incarnations and gods sacrificing themselves for humanity, they didn't really have any story quite like that.But isn't this the implication? I mean, he doesn't go out of his way to say they're equivalent, either.I don't think he's "implying" anything. He's made his point quite openly and explicitly--despite their differences, the Christian story and the Greek stories are cut from the same cloth.Are we then to assume that he's therefore not actually talking about anything? Surely we must assume that he had some story in mind!Well, yeah. I think you miss Doherty's point. If Tatian wanted to argue that the Christian incarnation story should be regarded as historical, while the Greek myths should not, then he has a lot more explaining and justifying to do.Quite possibly that is because by that time he had actually read them.Obviously Tatian had either heard of or even read a gospel or two at the time he wrote his apology.Shouldn't that be exactly the reason why he doesn't address them at length?No, because being familiar with the basics of the Christian incarnation story obviously wasn't enough. We don't know if the Greeks had read a gospel or if they had just heard bits or a general outline of the story, or what. But if Tatian was trying to convince them that they should regard the Christian story as factual, while their own myths and allegories should continue to be regarded as just that, then he would have needed to at least briefly recap the story in the course of defending its historicity.

GakuseiDon

March 29, 2004, 05:41 AM

I think you miss Doherty's point. If Tatian wanted to argue that the Christian incarnation story should be regarded as historical, while the Greek myths should not, then he has a lot more explaining and justifying to do.
Gregg, I suggest you check the source on this. Leaving out the parts of the quotes from Tatian's "Address to the Greeks" that are inconvenient to an argument is worse than dishonest. I can't see how it could have been done accidentally. (I'm assuming Doherty has done this, and not you).

This is what you quoted from Doherty:
'A clue to the solution of this puzzle lies in Tatian's Apology. In chapter 21 he says, "We are not fools, men of Greece, when we declare that God has been born in the form of man (his only allusion to the incarnation) . . . Compare your own stories with our narratives." He goes on to describe some of the Greek myths about gods come to earth, undergoing suffering and even death for the benefaction of mankind. "Take a look at your own records and accept us merely on the grounds that we too tell stories."

This is what Tatian actually says in that section: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/tatian-address.html
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... compare your mythical accounts with our narrations ...

... looking at your own memorials, vouchsafe us your approval, though it were only as dealing in legends similar to your own. We, however, do not deal in folly, but your legends are only idle tales.

It's quite different to what Doherty implies, isn't it? This is what Doherty concluded: "The way Tatian compares them to the Greek myths implies that he regards them as being on the same level. Certainly, he does not rush to point out that the Christian stories are superior or, unlike the Greek ones, factually true. "

Keep in mind that Tatian composed a harmony of the 4 Gospels, and was a student of Justin Martyr, a confirmed HJer. Given that, and given also that Tatian is contrasting "mythical accounts" and "idle tales" with "narrations" suggests he doesn't regard them as being "on the same level" at all.

Gregg

March 29, 2004, 06:32 AM

Thanks for this information. I've e-mailed Doherty about this to ask for his explanation. I don't think it effects the overall mythicist case, but I will need to look at Doherty's arguments much more carefully and critically from here on out.

Thanks again,

Gregg
Gregg, I suggest you check the source on this. Leaving out the parts of the quotes from Tatian's "Address to the Greeks" that are inconvenient to an argument is worse than dishonest. I can't see how it could have been done accidentally. (I'm assuming Doherty has done this, and not you).

This is what you quoted from Doherty:

This is what Tatian actually says in that section: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/tatian-address.html

It's quite different to what Doherty implies, isn't it? This is what Doherty concluded: "The way Tatian compares them to the Greek myths implies that he regards them as being on the same level. Certainly, he does not rush to point out that the Christian stories are superior or, unlike the Greek ones, factually true. "

Keep in mind that Tatian composed a harmony of the 4 Gospels, and was a student of Justin Martyr, a confirmed HJer. Given that, and given also that Tatian is contrasting "mythical accounts" and "idle tales" with "narrations" suggests he doesn't regard them as being "on the same level" at all.

Vinnie

March 29, 2004, 07:51 AM

No, it is because I've read enough of Wright, and enough criticisms of Wright, to know what his beliefs, positions, and methods are. And I know those are bogus.

But don't take my word for it. Thiessen and Merz, who are both Christians of a conservative scholarly bent, wrote a massive reference work on Jesus entitled The Historical Jesus (which I highly recommend). It covers all aspects of Jesus, social and political world, the texts and sources, and his role as the founder of a cult. Everything. And yet, that book nowhere cites NT Wright. Why do you think that is, luv? Similarly Udo Schnelle, another scholarly conservative, only cites Wright twice in History and Theology of the New Testament Writings and then in the introduction to the sources, and in the intro to the Pauline writings. Despite the fact that Wright's work is centered on the historical Jesus, prominent works in that area ignore him. Doesn't that tell you something? Most tellingly, John Dominic Crossan, who has done more thinking on methodology than everyone else combined, cites Wright only to abuse him.

The fact is that everyone, not just Infidels, ignores NT Wright because Wright's work has no scholarly value. Sad, but there it is. I'm not "dismissing" Wright -- I'm taking my cue from Wright's peers.

Vorkosigan
PS: Yes, I know Marcus Borg wrote a book with him. A popular book.

Paula Fredriksen described it best:

Wright's argument is dense, lengthy (well over twelve hundred pages . . .) and learned. His Jesus, who enjoys a detailed command over so many scriptural and extrascriptural verses and allusions that he must have been the envy of the scribes and Pharisees he tangled with, essentially creates Christianity, which in turn is faithfully preserved in the canonical texts of the New Testament. I find this picture impossible in whole and in part." (JofN, p. 292)

GakuseiDon

March 29, 2004, 08:29 AM

Thanks for this information. I've e-mailed Doherty about this to ask for his explanation. I don't think it effects the overall mythicist case, but I will need to look at Doherty's arguments much more carefully and critically from here on out.

Thanks again,

Gregg
No problem. Let us know what Doherty's response is.

IMHO Tatian's "Address to the Greeks" exposes a major flaw in Doherty's case, given what is known about the life of Tatian. Remember, a large part of Doherty's case is the apparent lack of details from the Gospels in the writings of early Christians. Yet here we have Tatian, knowledgeable about the Gospels (he actually wrote a harmonisation of the 4 Gospels called the Diatessaron (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/diatessaron.html)) who writes an apology that has no references to Gospel details at all. Even if Tatian regarded the Gospel accounts as allegorical, what is the reason that he doesn't refer to them as he does to the other Greek gods in his apology?

Doherty says "Nor can we get around the fact that Tatian pointedly ignores those Gospel stories in the rest of his Apology. (He was to change his mind by the time he composed the Diatessaron.)"

I believe that we have only the equivalent of about 2 webpages worth of quotes by or about Tatian outside the Diatessaron. You can check them out on the Kirby's earlychristianwritings website. Where is there anything written about a "change of mind" with respect to the Gospels? In short: there isn't. Doherty has made it up to fit with his thesis. For Doherty to admit that someone could know about the gospels and still not refer to them potentially weakens his argument about the so-called silence of Paul. Thus his "change of mind" comment.

Vorkosigan

March 29, 2004, 08:38 AM

Keep in mind that Tatian composed a harmony of the 4 Gospels, and was a student of Justin Martyr, a confirmed HJer. Given that, and given also that Tatian is contrasting "mythical accounts" and "idle tales" with "narrations" suggests he doesn't regard them as being "on the same level" at all.

That is not Doherty's point in the passage in question and to focus on it the way you have is to come close to misrepresenting Doherty the way you claim he is misrepresenting Tatian (I don't think you are being malicious). Rather, he is asking why Tatian does not make any serious reference to all the events in the Gospels. He cites the chapter as evidence.

Further, you have misunderstood Doherty's words, not really difficult because Doherty has not expressed himself well. When Doherty says "he does not rush to point out that the Christian stories are superior" he does not mean that Tatian does not regard them as superior in some sense. Rather, when you read the whole paragraph, what Doherty is focusing on is the fact that while Tatian lists a number of thumbnail summaries of Greek myths, he does nothing comparable for the Christian side. There is no summary at all anywhere in this writing of the Gospel stories, no clear reference to the gospel legends, no concrete tale of the suffering and death of Jesus.

Further, when you read the whole apology, you will find that while it is rich in references to Greek history and mythology, it is completely impoverished when it comes to Christianity. For example, he has a whole passage on the vindication of women full of references to Greek history and mythology, but there is not a single reference to any woman from the NT legends. No Mary, Elizabeth, Salome, Magdalene, Dorcas, woman who annoints Jesus with oil, etc. Tatian even notes that Xtian women are all chaste, but somehow fails to connect that to Mary;s Virginity! Hello, strange silence #45,201! That is the real point of Doherty's argument. Hell, Tatian doesn't even talk of his co-religionists as "Christians."

Further, true to pattern, whom does he compare the Greeks to? The OT heroes! No NT heroes at all!!!! Tatian spends lots of ink discussing not Jesus, but Moses in an attempt to prove that their philosophy is older than the Greek philosophy -- older than writing, he says. Does that describe Christianity?

I think you should go back and re-read Tatian and really think about what Doherty means here. Also, read the paragraph prior to this section and you can grasp what he means when he says that Tatian thinks the two are "on the same level." What he really means is that Tatian treats them like competing conventional philosophies, and seeks to justify them on purely conventional grounds of antiquity and ethics. He doesn't simply whip out the trump card: our ideas came from the son of god, so a stiff middle finger to you! which would mean, the way Doherty is looking at it, that the two were on different levels. By attempting to justify Christianity in the same terms that its competing philosophies were justified in, Tatian has, as Doherty noted, put them on the same level.

I believe that we have only the equivalent of about 2 webpages worth of quotes by or about Tatian outside the Diatessaron. You can check them out on the Kirby's earlychristianwritings website. Where is there anything written about a "change of mind" with respect to the Gospels? In short: there isn't. Doherty has made it up to fit with his thesis. For Doherty to admit that someone could know about the gospels and still not refer to them potentially weakens his argument about the so-called silence of Paul. Thus his "change of mind" comment.

The third option of this false dichotomy being, of course, that Don has missed Doherty's point.

Don't be fooled by Doherty's inability to express himself clearly sometimes. And don't rush to assume that he is misrepresenting texts when it is clear that you do not understand what he is talking about.

Yet here we have Tatian, knowledgeable about the Gospels (he actually wrote a harmonisation of the 4 Gospels called the Diatessaron) who writes an apology that has no references to Gospel details at all. Even if Tatian regarded the Gospel accounts as allegorical, what is the reason that he doesn't refer to them as he does to the other Greek gods in his apology?

Don, Tatian wrote his Diatesseron AFTER this. No weakness of Doherty is exposed here. Please demonstrate that at this point in time Tatian knew anything at all about the narrative hisstory in the gospels. Doherty's comment implies what is obvious from the text: Tatian seems to have had a change of mind about how he presented the stories -- assuming he knew them.

Which it is now in your court to prove.

Vorkosigan

GakuseiDon

March 29, 2004, 09:57 AM

That is not Doherty's point in the passage in question and to focus on it the way you have is to come close to misrepresenting Doherty the way you claim he is misrepresenting Tatian (I don't think you are being malicious). Rather, he is asking why Tatian does not make any serious reference to all the events in the Gospels. He cites the chapter as evidence.

Further, you have misunderstood Doherty's words, not really difficult because Doherty has not expressed himself well. When Doherty says "he does not rush to point out that the Christian stories are superior" he does not mean that Tatian does not regard them as superior in some sense. Rather, when you read the whole paragraph, what Doherty is focusing on is the fact that while Tatian lists a number of thumbnail summaries of Greek myths, he does nothing comparable for the Christian side. There is no summary at all anywhere in this writing of the Gospel stories, no clear reference to the gospel legends, no concrete tale of the suffering and death of Jesus.
But why should there be? He is attacking Greek philosophy, not providing an education - thus the description of Greek myths as "idle tales". When he refers the Greeks to "our narrations" ("I call on you who reproach us to compare your mythical accounts with our narrations"), we can see that the Greeks are already familiar with Christianity. So why should he give a summary? Why haven't I given you a summary of the Gospel stories in this thread? Would you use it as evidence that I didn't know them?

Further, when you read the whole apology, you will find that while it is rich in references to Greek history and mythology, it is completely impoverished when it comes to Christianity. For example, he has a whole passage on the vindication of women full of references to Greek history and mythology, but there is not a single reference to any woman from the NT legends. No Mary, Elizabeth, Salome, Magdalene, Dorcas, woman who annoints Jesus with oil, etc. Tatian even notes that Xtian women are all chaste, but somehow fails to connect that to Mary;s Virginity! Hello, strange silence #45,201! That is the real point of Doherty's argument. Hell, Tatian doesn't even talk of his co-religionists as "Christians."

Further, true to pattern, whom does he compare the Greeks to? The OT heroes! No NT heroes at all!!!! Tatian spends lots of ink discussing not Jesus, but Moses in an attempt to prove that their philosophy is older than the Greek philosophy -- older than writing, he says. Does that describe Christianity?
For Tatian's purpose, which is to show the antiquity of Christianity: yes, of course. If the Greeks already knew the story of Christianity and weren't already impressed, why repeat it? He is going for credibility through antiquity.

I think you should go back and re-read Tatian and really think about what Doherty means here. Also, read the paragraph prior to this section and you can grasp what he means when he says that Tatian thinks the two are "on the same level." What he really means is that Tatian treats them like competing conventional philosophies, and seeks to justify them on purely conventional grounds of antiquity and ethics. He doesn't simply whip out the trump card: our ideas came from the son of god, so a stiff middle finger to you! which would mean, the way Doherty is looking at it, that the two were on different levels. By attempting to justify Christianity in the same terms that its competing philosophies were justified in, Tatian has, as Doherty noted, put them on the same level.
Except that Tatian doesn't. You missed out a part of Doherty's claim: "Certainly, he does not rush to point out that the Christian stories are superior or, unlike the Greek ones, factually true. ".

Read again those bits that Doherty left out of his quote: "We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle tales" and "We, however, do not deal in folly, but your legends are only idle tales".

Tatian IS pointing out they the Christian narrations are superior, and not on the same level. This is not Doherty failing to express himself well - he has left out bits in the middle of a quote that he gave, and those bits go against the conclusions he draws.

Don't be fooled by Doherty's inability to express himself clearly sometimes. And don't rush to assume that he is misrepresenting texts when it is clear that you do not understand what he is talking about.

Don, Tatian wrote his Diatesseron AFTER this. No weakness of Doherty is exposed here. Please demonstrate that at this point in time Tatian knew anything at all about the narrative hisstory in the gospels. Doherty's comment implies what is obvious from the text: Tatian seems to have had a change of mind about how he presented the stories -- assuming he knew them.

Which it is now in your court to prove.
No problem. Tatian converted around 150 CE. He was a student of the HJer Justin Martyr (martyred around 165 CE). He wrote "Address to the Greeks" around 160 CE to 170 CE. He write the Diatessaron around 170 CE to 175 CE (dates from Peter's website (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com)).

It is not 100% proof, but I would say that it is extremely likely that Tatian had to have known about the Gospels when he wrote the "Address to the Greeks". Can we agree on that much before continuing?

Vorkosigan

March 29, 2004, 10:17 AM

But why should there be? He is attacking Greek philosophy, not providing an education - thus the description of Greek myths as "idle tales". When he refers the Greeks to "our narrations" ("I call on you who reproach us to compare your mythical accounts with our narrations"), we can see that the Greeks are already familiar with Christianity. So why should he give a summary?

Gosh Don, the Greeks are already familiar with their own myths. They are FAR MORE familiar with them than with Xtian stories. So why does Tatian dwell on that at length and in numbing detail???? Why, in a missive meant to compare the two and show the superiority of his philosophy, does he not mention any specific details about the originator of that philosophy? And if he believes in Christianity beginning with the HJ, how can he possibly claim it is older than writing!? The fact is that because Tatian discussed "our narrations" does not mean he is referring to gospels. We don't know what he means. You cannot backread your hoped-for conclusions into Tatian's phrase.

You're completely missing the boat. Doherty is specifically saying THE WAY TATIAN COMPARES THE TWO. He is talking about HOW Tatian makes the comparison shows that Tatian puts them on the same "level." Of course he thinks Christianity is the better philosophy! That is not the point. He compares them in the same way -- by comparing the ethical behavior, antiquity, and other things.

For Tatian's purpose, which is to show the antiquity of Christianity: yes, of course. If the Greeks already knew the story of Christianity and weren't already impressed, why repeat it? He is going for credibility through antiquity.

Yes, putting his philosophy on the same level as theirs. He doesn't go through credibility by saying Xtianity comes from the son of god. And further, if the Greeks are already familiar with the tale, why is it necessary for him to make this demonstration that his philosophy is older? They already know that! Your own questions undermine you.

that Tatian doesn't. You missed out a part of Doherty's claim: "Certainly, he does not rush to point out that the Christian stories are superior or, unlike the Greek ones, factually true. ".

Don, where in this quote from my post...
Doherty says "he does not rush to point out that the Christian stories are superior" he does not mean that Tatian does not regard them as superior in some sense.
...did I miss that. It seems you did not even read my post. A pity.

Tatian IS pointing out they the Christian narrations are superior, and not on the same level. This is not Doherty failing to express himself well - he has left out bits in the middle of a quote that he gave, and those bits go against the conclusions he draws.

Again, you have totally missed out what Doherty is saying. Doherty does not mean that they have "same level" of validity nor does he mean that Tatian does not prefer his philosophy. Rather, he says specifically "THE WAY HE COMPARES THEM" -- his mode of argument -- puts the two on the same level. That's what he means. Had Tatian simply reached for the "son of god told us" argument, that would be a completely different type of comparison. For example, if Tatian had said that "you guys get your stuff from Homer, but we get our from the Son of God," then it would be a whole 'nother ball game. But Tatian instead places the two on the same level and then attempts to prove that according to Greek notions of ssuperiority, his belief (which he never names) kicks butt.

No problem. Tatian converted around 150 CE. He was a student of the HJer Justin Martyr (martyred around 165 CE). He wrote "Address to the Greeks" around 160 CE to 170 CE. He write the Diatessaron around 170 CE to 175 CE (dates from Peter's website (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com)). It is not 100% proof, but I would say that it is extremely likely that Tatian had to have known about the Gospels when he wrote the "Address to the Greeks". Can we agree on that much before continuing?

No, Don, it is not proof at all. All the evidence we now have shows that Tatian was not aware of the gospel narrative history when he wrote the Address to the Greeks. Simply saying that he converted and was a student of an HJer does not tell us anything. The only evidence we have for Tatian's ideas is his own writings. And they do not show that at this point, he knew the gospel stories. Not until a decade after this do we get the Diatesseron and the gospel fictions. If Tatian even wrote that...or this....

...and that is Doherty's point. If you give up your presuppositions and take a careful and conservative view of the evidence, it cannot support the contention that Tatian knew the narrative history outlined in the gospels.

Vorkosigan

NOGO

March 29, 2004, 10:37 AM

GakuseiDon
But why should there be? He is attacking Greek philosophy, not providing an education - thus the description of Greek myths as "idle tales". When he refers the Greeks to "our narrations" ("I call on you who reproach us to compare your mythical accounts with our narrations"), we can see that the Greeks are already familiar with Christianity. So why should he give a summary? Why haven't I given you a summary of the Gospel stories in this thread? Would you use it as evidence that I didn't know them?

You seem to base all your argument on the attitude shown in the text which goes something like this.

"your stories are myth and can't be compared to our stories"

You wrongly conclude that this implies that Christians considered their stories to be historically true.

Let's look at another similar case.

In the OT there a recurring theme
"Our God is real while you worship statues"

You can conclude that the authors believed their beliefs superior to others.
You cannot conclude that Yahweh is any more real than any other God.

This attitude is certainly carried over to Christians who regard their faith as the only true faith. But apart from that you do not have an argument.

All the words which you highlighted do not imply nor prove that the author was comparing history to myth. He was comparing what he believed to be true to what he believed to be false.

NOGO

March 29, 2004, 11:25 AM

GakuseiDon
For Doherty to admit that someone could know about the gospels and still not refer to them potentially weakens his argument about the so-called silence of Paul. Thus his "change of mind" comment.

Paul's silence is backed by the fact that what Paul does says is so contrary to the Gospels. I have tried in the past to get this across to you but you are definitely bent on ignoring the evidence.

Paul's focus is entirely on the OT.
He was probably told about Jesus the same way with quotes and mishrashing of scriptures.

That is how Paul can claim that he got this information from no man.
He got it from scriptures - ie God in is mind.

If Jesus walked the earth Paul's focus would have changed.
He would have wanted to know all that Jesus said and did.
He would have preached on that basis.

If Paul was aware of Gospels why does he contradict them all over the place.
This is more than just silence.

If Jesus resurrected in the flesh and went up to heaven as Luke says why then does Paul say that flesh cannot enter the kingdom of God.

If Jesus was born of a virgin and was therefore the Son of God as Luke tells us why then does Paul state that Jesus got the title of Son of God after his resurrection.

If Jesus' teachings are key to salvation as the gospels state why does Paul tell us that every Christian is connected to the mind of God and receives inspration directly from him.

Paul does not want Christians to follow Jewish dietary laws. The Gospels agrre with him yet he fails to argue that this was part of Jesus' teaching despite the fact that Peter evidently did not get this message from the HJ according to acts anyway.

This and other similar problems do not point to a central authoritative figure of Jesus as described in the Gospels. It points rather to a group of people who get their inspiration from reading scriptures. Each has his own interpretation and beliefs.

The variety of contrary beliefs make Paul's silence not a incidental phenomena but rather a clear indication that Paul did not know anything about any HJ.

UV2003

March 29, 2004, 01:35 PM

I am currently reading TISSOM by Price. I am a complete layman as to biblical studies, but I like Price's way of making analogies.

Having had some experience with friends and family with mental illness that was attributed to "demon possession", I have had to think long and hard about this issue. When I think about Christian theology there are a few things that come to mind about Satan and demons:

If Satan is God's most highly created angel that fell from favor when he wanted more glory for himself and took his demons with him and he and his demons are capable of performing "demonic miracles", then I think those of us in the lay public have sufficient grounds to expect evidence. I often read from Christian apologsits that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", but I think that "presence of evidence is evidence of presence." So, let them step up to courtroom and present the evidence.

I asked a fundamentalist pastor why I should believe in the miraculous portents of the crucifixion in Matthew that are missing from Mark if I am to disbelieve in the miracles of other religions. He told me that "the false religions" have all sorts of demonic activity. He said he had seen t