Rationalist Presses

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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cantonin_01
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Joined: Sun Jan 12, 2020 6:02 pm

Rationalist Presses

Post by cantonin_01 »

I was given a thrashing on Twitter by someone who informed me that mythicism and hypercriticism (e.g. late dates, no genuine NT writings) were effectively refuted in the latter 20th century, but were in fact “mainstream” in the early 20th, and this was due to the influence of “Rationalist presses.”

I happened to have a few of these writings, from Monist and others. They published the work of WB Smith and others. I didn’t know they were such a huge phenomenon. The ones I have found have always been by chance, based on a search of some term that may lead to a Google Book. I have found others in links shared on threads here.

But might there be something like a more comprehensive list of these, or at least the major and most important works put out by these presses? Many of you seem to have a treasure trove of these and I’m thankful for the ones I’ve found through lurking.

Also, any truth to what the gentleman said? I was familiar with the Dutch school and the major American, English, German and French radical critics but never got the sense that this was ever mainstream, still less due to rationalist journals and pamphlets.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Rationalist Presses

Post by Joseph D. L. »

This is what I despise about academics and those who just repeat what they read/see/hear. When first century manuscripts of the NT books are discovered, then you can say it has been effectively disproved. As it is mythicism is just as viable a theory as historicism.

The problem is that mythicism was usually argued by people with less than stellar credentials--being a veteran of the Zeitgeist wars of '07-'08, that word triggers me now--people like Drews, Couchoud, Cassels, Graves, and Carpenter. That's not to speak ill of these men, but it does serve to point out that academics have this notion about themselves, that they and only they are singular qualified to discuss and speculate on such matters and no one has a right to encroach upon their private industries. But even in their day, their analysis of Christian documents led to a scepticism about Christian origins, especially the NT--taken up mostly by Bauer and the Tubingen school. Christian history is treated as if it's some sort of science, when it isn't. It's why there isn't a unified theory of who and what Jesus was, and how the sequence of events was so that it eventually led to the Christianity we have today.

So the scepticism should be focused on those arguing for historicity, as they are the ones making the positive claims.

Even the few scholars I respect I treat with caution. These people don't have access to some great library that contains the true history of Christianity. They have the same resources at their disposal as we do. We just need the time to examine it ourselves.
cantonin_01
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Re: Rationalist Presses

Post by cantonin_01 »

That's not to speak ill of these men, but it does serve to point out that academics have this notion about themselves, that they and only they are singular qualified to discuss and speculate on such matters and no one has a right to encroach upon their private industries.
Yes, it very much reminds me of an interview I saw with a New Testament scholar who is very vocal against mythicists. He was being interviewed on a show where, I guess, mythicists occasionally come on and the hosts gave him a chance to do a counter-argument. Anyway, he effectively said that NT scholars are the only ones appropriately trained to interpret and understand these texts. Then as an example of that, he essentially said that when Paul says that he met Jesus' brother, then we therefore ought to surmise that there had to be a Jesus for there to be a brother of Jesus. Does one really need a scholar to draw that conclusion? One can hear the same thing in a church sermon. I very much agree with the idea that the conservative paradigms are more deserving of skepticism, built as they are on a Jenga tower of assumptions. And I too don't see what is so scientific in their method; to me it always seemed to be a matter of mulling over texts. A smart enough "muller" could come up with a paradigm just as good as any of these.
Giuseppe
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Re: Rationalist Presses

Post by Giuseppe »

My view in short about the past Mythicists:
  • 1) in general, the European mythicists are better than the American mythicists, apart William B. Smith
  • 2) a division exists along where the crucifixion was localized for Paul and the early Christians:
    • some placed the crucifixion on earth, as a rite made any year (of which at least only the last practice, during the turn of the era, provoked the birth of Christianity, (to my knowledge, none assumed only one earthly crucifixion in the recent past)
    • some placed the crucifixion on earth but in a distant past
    • others (the majority) placed the crucifixion in heaven
    • a minority assumed that the Talmud was right about a crucifixion of an obscure historical figure lived before the CE
  • 3) despite of the simpathies for Marcion, they were not persuaded at all about Marcionite priority
  • 4) the majority assumed that, even if Marcion preceded our Gospels, the Earliest Gospel preceded even Marcion (in particular, they liked the idea that the Earliest Gospel started with a descent of Jesus from heaven already adult, beyond if there was or not the baptism)
  • They agreed all about Marcion being hater of YHWH
  • a minority liked the Mark's priority in order to apply the Reductio ad Paulum (following Volkmar)
  • 5) another division exists along the time of the Origins:
    • some placed the Origins after the 70 CE, denying any authenticity to Paul
    • Others (the majority) assumed the authenticity of Paul
  • I have ignored deliberately any reference to precursors of Atwill and/or Acharya as unworthy of any even minimal attention
A constant is the emphasis on 1 Corinthians 2:8 as witnessing a crucifixion by only demons in heaven. Effectively, I can't resist the suggestion. It is too much strong.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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