The Best Argument Against Nihilistic Mythicism

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stephan happy huller
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Re: The Best Argument Against Nihilistic Mythicism

Post by stephan happy huller »

But the argument that the Pastorals is fake develops out of the idea that some letters are authentic. N'est ce pas? So too with the Marcionite claim that someone adulterated a body of letters which was supposed be authentic. I am hardly opposed to the idea that early Christian material is full of forgery, counterfeiting and corruption. But everything? How far are we from mountainman's suggestion that the Church Fathers were also wholly fictitious, manufactured in a factory somewhere?

The argument you are putting forward is akin to making the case that because all sharable evidence of sexuality is necessarily pornography, sexuality as such is necessarily pornographic. Not true.

The problem is in the demand for proof. I am not sure if this is an argument against atheism or the existence of Jesus but I think it is original and accurate.
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Blood
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Re: The Best Argument Against Nihilistic Mythicism

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stephan happy huller wrote:But the argument that the Pastorals is fake develops out of the idea that some letters are authentic. N'est ce pas? So too with the Marcionite claim that someone adulterated a body of letters which was supposed be authentic. I am hardly opposed to the idea that early Christian material is full of forgery, counterfeiting and corruption. But everything? How far are we from mountainman's suggestion that the Church Fathers were also wholly fictitious, manufactured in a factory somewhere?
The argument is, "We have seven letters that were written by the same person, and seven more letters written by different people, therefore the ones written by the same person are authentic." That isn't an argument. That's apologetics.

Again, I don't characterize any of this material as lies, forgery, or counterfeiting. It's an evolving theological dialogue written around idealized church figures who may or may not have existed.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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stephan happy huller
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Re: The Best Argument Against Nihilistic Mythicism

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I am not sure its seven. I am preparing a paper arguing that 1 Corinthians was not a letter originally but an introduction to the gospel affixed at the head of the canon. I'm open to anything. Just find some evidence
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Blood
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Re: The Best Argument Against Nihilistic Mythicism

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stephan happy huller wrote:I am not sure its seven. I am preparing a paper arguing that 1 Corinthians was not a letter originally but an introduction to the gospel affixed at the head of the canon. I'm open to anything. Just find some evidence
Find me an argument that isn't (a) special pleading, or (b) apologetics. I'm all ears.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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Re: The Best Argument Against Nihilistic Mythicism

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stephan happy huller wrote:I thought that I was being fairly generous with the evidence for Paul in favor of mythicism
stephan happy huller wrote:As I said I was very, very generous with what evidence I was allowing.
There is more than one mythicism.

There is Doherty and predecessors (Couchoud, etc.) saying that Paul had a heavenly Jesus.
There is Wells and predecessors (Mead, etc.) saying that Paul had the Jesus of a long, long time ago.
Then there is Detering and predecessors (van Manen, etc.) saying that the letters of Paul are second century texts (even later, maybe, than the Gospels).
(And there are some others besides...)

People tend to make arguments for a historical Jesus by tearing down a single mythicism. This is like making an argument for no historical Jesus because I don't like what J.P. Meier, J.D. Crossan, or N.T. Wright said. It just doesn't have any gas in the tank.

The case, to support a HJ, must be against all mythicist hypotheses. The simplest way forward is just to make a case for HJ directly. But if you want to work via negativa, it's not enough to look at Doherty's style of argumentation (the kind that is most commonly discussed online today).

Currently my primary area of interest in this discussion is in whether there may be anything to the van Manen / Dutch Radical / Detering hypotheses. But be warned: there are varieties here also. Some put Paul before Acts, for example, and others put Acts before Paul. Please don't hold it against them for the wide variety of opinion. The facts just are such that nobody made a very clear guide as to what was invented and when way back then--or, if you count the words that were said in antiquity, we've already discounted them a long time ago and have been left to puzzle it out on the internal evidence.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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stephan happy huller
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Re: The Best Argument Against Nihilistic Mythicism

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I think that as we speak here inter pares we will all recognize that mythicism should be decided by what Marcionitism will and won't allow. Here you have a Jesus coming from heaven. The claim that the original gospel came as a flower of a man who never met Jesus in the flesh. The question for me is - (a) who was Jesus for the Marcionites (b) what was Paul's relationship with Peter and (c) how did they recognize their supernatural Jesus with history. My gut sense is that we are dealing still with supernatural historicism i.e. the gospel as the story set in a particular year (probably 20 - 21 CE originally). Nevertheless one could argue that since it was written long after that year that the details were invented. It's a hard thing to wrestle with. Some days I get up thinking it's all made up, other days - most days - I think "well, the ancient mind was so immersed in poetry and allegory that they could allow for the existence of a supernatural 'Jesus' entity who empowered a famous living historical person or perhaps people who aren't known to us know" (Judas, Peter, Jacob etc). Josephus is a sucky guide book to contemporary Judean and Samaritan history.

Whatever the answer is to this ancient riddle I am not hopeful that I or anyone else will be able to figure it out to everyone's satisfaction.
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Blood
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Re: The Best Argument Against Nihilistic Mythicism

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In the Bible, Saul tries to kill David numerous times. I can't believe someone would make that up. It must have really happened.

I mean, if they were just making up all this stuff, they'd have all the royal figures live in perfect harmony, wouldn't they? Why introduce conflict?
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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stephan happy huller
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Re: The Best Argument Against Nihilistic Mythicism

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Good point. But on the other hand I think that the letters of Paul are referencing something that happened a few years ago for which the author was a witness. The only question for me is - did the Marcionite text of Galatians contain this reference?
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Re: The Best Argument Against Nihilistic Mythicism

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Is that an argument? Theologians only invent stuff that happened a long time ago. They don't invent stuff that happened recently. I know this because the author is an eyewitness.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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stephan happy huller
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Re: The Best Argument Against Nihilistic Mythicism

Post by stephan happy huller »

But are you suggesting that the Pauline epistles were wholly counterfeit? No historical apostle?
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