Secret Alias wrote:
1. familiarity with what the Church Fathers say about the heretics
... But the idea that we should start with the question of 'historicity' is IMO effing retarded.
completely agree
Secret Alias wrote:
2. familiarity with Jewish sources say about heretics.
... Jesus, whatever that was, was understood to be the second power of the Jewish heretics reported among the tannaim. This is clearly the cultural 'starting point' for everything. Mythicism had little or nothing to do with paganism or syncreticism but rather represented a long simmer feud within Judaism about whether two gods were manifest on Sinai or one. The correct answer - based on Jewish usage of a Samaritan-type text of Exodus - two. Monotheism was the innovation going hand in hand with monarchianism (i.e. Imperial recognition of the Emperor as cosmocrator).
This point is a reach, your unproven opinion. I'm not opposing it just pointing out you need to recognize its a theory based on accepting the Catholic framing of the debate about the properties of God (addressed below)
Secret Alias wrote: I could go on but I don't see the point in continuing to repeat what I've said before. We need to evaluate proposed mythicist theories within the framework of their applicability in what we know of (a) known debates within Christianity and (b) known debates within Judaism in the early to late second century. I don't see anyone having done this yet.
Mostly I agree with your post, except the assertion we know the Jewish Exodus debate is the starting point.
I think your last point is your best, and it is exactly what I think scholarship should be focused on. And the known debates in Christianity can be much better focused when we reconstruct more completely the Marcionite text. Many arguments I see, and from all sides, confuse Marcionite and Catholic texts, because they are looking past the context of the text in front of them and focusing on a debate prior to its writing, perhaps a century prior (hypothetically).
The contours of the situation in the Marcionite text unfortunately do not bring us to a point of singularity. There is not only present the larger debate of one or two Gods - or more accurately a debate about whether or not the properties of Law, Prophets, Judgment and Creation belong to the high God and father of Jesus (we tend to accept the Catholic framing) - but also significant diversity within those camps, especially the heretical. There are also many mundane contours the text hints at, some I think are not doctrinal but rather temporal, such as the organization of the church, and the make up of its membership and relationships outside the community. Specifically the Marcionite text shows the early stages of franchise building, with a strong sect leader model, little to no concern about appearance to outsiders, and no concerns about how to handle initiates, and no hierarchy to speak of. The later text has many references to more structured hierarchy and many concerns about how to treat initiates and the image of the church to the community at large, touching on subjects such as interfaith marriage and the offspring of members; all matters that are generationally separated from the earlier texts, thus they concern a more mature movement.
This suggests IMO that Christianity was very small and only expanded rapidly with the Marcionite evangelism. This was countered rather effectively by a more structured proto-Orthodox evangelism in and after the mid 2nd century. As point of comparison I can think of many companies who had a rival across the street locally (so to speak: think Coke and Pepsi; GM and Ford), so franchised to outflank and outnumber their rival. And in doing so it caused their rival to also franchise rapidly as well. So in the process both became global within a generation. But I digress.
What my point is, there seems to be no NT text or proto-text (Marcionite, and also I argue proto-Gospel predating that) devoid of influence of the internal debate. My second point is can we really assume the debate was a spillover from Judaism? Could it not be that the Jewish debate was inspired by the Christian debate, drawn in by the Christians use of the Greek version of the Jewish scriptures?
A final point, we cannot altogether dismiss synchronism with pagan beliefs and cults. I am merely agreeing we need to understand the internal Christian debate and correctly assign and assess material in those terms first. The Jewish origin is to me an overreach, even though it is clearly a major element in Christianity's origin.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
