Did Celsus and His "Jew" Offer Different Arguments?

[Peter Kirby]

I am afraid what I have found to be the case so far in book 3 is the boring outcome

I think you're right, Ben. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.

(I mean, other than that we don't seem to know what Celsus really thought about the origins of Christianity...)

On the other hand, I gave up somewhere mid-book-four, so maybe there's some nugget left in there waiting to be mined. IDK.

[DCHindley]

We can be certain that Celsus instances the cases of Aesclepius, Aristeas, and Cleomedes... it seems probable that Origen is right about this being Celsus' own opinion (that he lived and did deeds)... but mostly because there is no basis on which to argue otherwise.
...
In the quote of Celsus 'instancing' the miracles of Aesclepius, the snippet quoted has Celsus claiming it is a belief of the multitude.

I was thinking he was citing Celsus too, at first. If you look closely at the 2nd half of chapter 22 and chapter 23, Origen says that he (Origen) can find instances of crowds of Greeks & barbarians who believe that Aesculapius was really seen far and wide as a physical human after his death. He says that Celsus should applaud the fact that Christians were paying credence to hero stories, but Origen's aim seems to be to catch up Celsus in a contradiction.

Celsus, so claims Origen, does not believe that "deified" men are really gods (like Zeus who is a real god), or share the same godly nature. If they are not really gods, these kinds of sightings must be seen as proof that they had material bodies after death, much like Jesus. Christians of Origen's ilk believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead into a human body, which made Origen feel he had just made a "grand slam" rhetorical victory over Celsus.

I think it sounds petty, and the quality of his argument is no better than those proposed by modern Christian apologists.

DCH

[Aleph One]

The separation of τὸ Ἰωάννην from βαπτιστήν by the infinitive (of indirect discourse) γεγονέναι suggests to me that Origen is calling on Josephus to confirm that John was a baptizer, not that John the baptist existed. It also seems to me that the πως in the second clause might be understood as Celsus expressing doubt as to what his own Jew believed, namely that John was a baptizer (Celsus himself, in other words, expresses doubt that John baptized people, against his own Jew, who somehow believed it anyway).

Hmmm... I guess the question here is, Does it really make any sense for Celsus to be doubting that John baptized people? The point being that if you strip that away from John the Baptised then what's left? That he was just some guy that happened to be in the river when the dove came down to Jesus? And if there weren't baptisms going on then why were they there in the first place? It just seems like a farfetched reading to me.

The reason I bring this up again (and I've read all the above replies on this topic), is I think this could be a valuable wedge to work into the main question Peter's asking. It does sound to me here like Celsus is doubting whether John the Baptist was a real person, which I think does a lot of things. (If this is the correct way to read the passage in question), then it shows that he was capable of thinking in those terms (questioning the historical reality of a religious figure), and that he was using such a train of thought in his attack on the legitimacy of Christianity. It also gives us an example (once again, if my reading is the correct one) of how he would sound when discussing such an issue.

I draw attention to this for the moment because I can see glimmers of what Peter is suggesting about Celsus doubting the historicity of Jesus all together, but as is obvious to everyone here, the text is difficult and ambiguous to say the least. I'm still trying to understand the passages relevant to this thread enough to pin down something solid.

[Ben C. Smith]

Hmmm... I guess the question here is, Does it really make any sense for Celsus to be doubting that John baptized people?

Well, however you answer that question, you have to deal with the fact that we have two apparent quotes from Celsus to the effect that Jesus was next to John, not baptized by John. That may be Celsus simply reading the gospels against themselves: I already pointed out that Luke 3.21 says that Jesus was baptized, but does not specify that it was by John. Celsus may easily have seized upon this and avoided ever affirming that John baptized Jesus (using those next to statements); and, since Jesus was the only one at issue in the discussion, he also never affirmed that John baptized anybody (not from doubt, but simply from not having any occasion to mention it; why would he?), except that he had his Jew call John a baptizer.

So Origen notices that the Jew calls John a baptizer but that Celsus himself avoids describing an actual baptism of Jesus by John; and the rest falls into place. I am not saying that this is the only viable reconstruction, but it explains the data we have assembled so far, including the word order.

Ben.