What is the history of claims that Christians' accounts about Jesus were accurate?

[andrewcriddle]

Papias didn't make any claims, he's a figment of Irenaeus' imagination.

Even if that be conceded, the claims attributed to Papias by Irenaeus mean that by c. 180 CE, Christians were not willing to use the tactics of Justin (C. 150 CE) in referring to anonymous undifferentiated memoirs of apostles; rather, they wanted precise authorship and accounts of how texts had been transmitted. Has anyone used this as an argument for why 1 Peter should be dated to the 2nd half of the 2nd century CE?

Do you mean 2 Peter ?

1 Peter is almost certainly quoted in the letter of Polycarp (1st half of 2nd century.)

Andrew Criddle

[mlinssen]

Do you mean 2 Peter ?

1 Peter is almost certainly quoted in the letter of Polycarp (1st half of 2nd century.)

Andrew Criddle

Which is attested only by Irenaeus, earliest copies of which are 11th CE, so again this is solely circular "evidence"

No surprises there

[ABuddhist]

Papias didn't make any claims, he's a figment of Irenaeus' imagination.

Even if that be conceded, the claims attributed to Papias by Irenaeus mean that by c. 180 CE, Christians were not willing to use the tactics of Justin (C. 150 CE) in referring to anonymous undifferentiated memoirs of apostles; rather, they wanted precise authorship and accounts of how texts had been transmitted. Has anyone used this as an argument for why 1 Peter should be dated to the 2nd half of the 2nd century CE?

Do you mean 2 Peter ?

1 Peter is almost certainly quoted in the letter of Polycarp (1st half of 2nd century.)

Andrew Criddle

If you are correct about the quotation, which your wording suggests that you are willing to concede may not be true, then redating Polycarp's letter to later is still an option. Certainly, more radical things have been proposed, here and elsewhere.

[davidmartin]

Not exactly what you were after but the gospel of philip contains an eyewitness statement

Philip the apostle said, "Joseph the carpenter planted a garden because he needed wood for his trade. It was he who made the cross from the trees which he planted. His own offspring hung on that which he planted. His offspring was Jesus, and the planting was the cross."

what's curious is it names Joseph in the role of Jesus as founder. typically 'wood' stands for people and the 'paradise' (in the MS, not garden) would then stand for a church. but instead of talking about the cross literally he says it was made out of the members of the church (the trees). it talks of Jesus more like as a spirit. it's not nonsense but if this were typical of the 'eye-witness' accounts available in 2nd century they just are too esoteric to be used as any kind of proof. i'm suggesting something historical could be read into this and i think it carries more weight than the likes of 1 Peter. Is this the case in Buddhism?!

[Peter Kirby]

Do you mean 2 Peter ?

1 Peter is almost certainly quoted in the letter of Polycarp (1st half of 2nd century.)

Andrew Criddle

Which is attested only by Irenaeus, earliest copies of which are 11th CE, so again this is solely circular "evidence"

No surprises there

That's not what circular means, and the word evidence here is inappropriately placed inside scare quotes.

[Peter Kirby]

Do you mean 2 Peter ?

1 Peter is almost certainly quoted in the letter of Polycarp (1st half of 2nd century.)

Andrew Criddle

If you are correct about the quotation, which your wording suggests that you are willing to concede may not be true, then redating Polycarp's letter to later is still an option. Certainly, more radical things have been proposed, here and elsewhere.

Andrew Criddle has this funny fault of trying to follow the evidence fairly and carefully, while pointing out the relevant data.

People who consistently argue in favor of the holding open the option for "more radical" proposals have a very different way of approaching things. Which is quite simply, to try to snuff out any impact of the relevant data. The possible is their favorite refuge. It requires no real thinking or research.

[ABuddhist]

Not exactly what you were after but the gospel of philip contains an eyewitness statement

Philip the apostle said, "Joseph the carpenter planted a garden because he needed wood for his trade. It was he who made the cross from the trees which he planted. His own offspring hung on that which he planted. His offspring was Jesus, and the planting was the cross."

what's curious is it names Joseph in the role of Jesus as founder. typically 'wood' stands for people and the 'paradise' (in the MS, not garden) would then stand for a church. but instead of talking about the cross literally he says it was made out of the members of the church (the trees). it talks of Jesus more like as a spirit. it's not nonsense but if this were typical of the 'eye-witness' accounts available in 2nd century they just are too esoteric to be used as any kind of proof. i'm suggesting something historical could be read into this and i think it carries more weight than the likes of 1 Peter. Is this the case in Buddhism?!

What you quote is a strange eyewitness statement, being in third person and not claiming to recount what Philip saw.

Buddhism and eyewitness accounts is a complicated thing. All Buddhist Suttas and sutras open with the phrase in Pali "Evaṃ me sutaṃ" or in Sanskrit "Evaṃ mayā śrūtaṃ", which in English means "Thus have I heard"; traditionally, this is supposed to indicate that the narrative's events were being recited from memorey by Shakyamuni Buddha's close disciple Ananda, and certainly the Pali Suttas often seem to be oral in terms of their structure and length. In contrast, Mahayana Sutras can be much longer - the Flower Garland Sutra is longer than the scriptures of the Jews and the Christians and the Muslims together - and are less obviously oral. They are also much more prone to recounting visionary experiences - the Sutra of Golden Light includes a chapter in which a character has a dream about a drum being beaten which is given an alleghorical interpretation by a voice. I also understand that some Mahayana sutras abandon the pretense that they were recited by Ananda and claim to have been recited by Bodhisattvas, such as Manjushri, who have no role in the Pali canon.

But there are portions of some Mahayana Sutras which are regarded as indirect eyewitness accounts, albeit in a less flattering way.

Jan Nattier's book about Mahayana Buddhism "A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā)" [University of Hawaii Press; New edition (May 31 2005), uses the term "principle of embarrassment" and refers to the term as "commonly used in New Testament studies" on page 65. She claims that she was introduced to the term by David Brakke. Nattier describes the "principle of embarrassment" as useful in Buddhist studies for assessing the reactions of non-Mahayana Buddhists to the claims made in Mahayana Buddhist scriptures. Thus, Nattier takes the admission in the Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines that many Buddhists asserted that the Perfection of Wisdom literature was not authentic Buddhist Scripture and the claim in the Lotus Sutra that some Buddhists stood up and walked away when the Lotus Sutra's teaching was first preached as reflecting genuine skeptical reactions by Buddhists to Mahayana Buddhist scriptures.

"Bodhisattvas Of The Forest And The Formation Of The Mahayana: A Study And Translation Of The Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra", by Daniel Boucher, claims that the author of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra all but admitted in the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra that his master and his master's master both refused to believe that the work which he presented as the authentic words of the Buddha was anything other than a forgery.

[davidmartin]

ah thanks for that, interesting i've sometimes seen Thomas on Buddhist leaning websites. the similarities esoteric branches of religions have always fascinate me, i see that as the origin of Christianity coming from the Jewish side of things. but it's just a guess i admit that, no-one knows for sure. as someone drawn to esoteric shit it's oddly appealing and studying the Odes has shown up a ton of Jewish esoteric ideas that connect to Thomas and Jewish philosophy

What you quote is a strange eyewitness statement, being in third person and not claiming to recount what Philip saw

yeah it is, there's got to have been quite a disconnect from the original thing for the variety of sects that popped up not long afterwards.

The idea that members of the 'church' (or whatever non-loaded word) hang on Jesus is straight out the Odes, same language. The assumption is whatever they taught before they incorporated the cross into it, but as pneumatics Jesus straight away becomes an aspect of God, or God and the Odes seem to not distinguish too much, as if it wasn't that essential. Hence the elliptical language of Philip.
I think it's possible to see how this gets codified by Paul into something with a lot of similarities. In other words, the previous idea that he did a total 180 on a literalist Torah observant Rabbi Jesus, not quite, there's more of a connection but he did change stuff. that's just what i see, it doesn't really undermine Christianity all that much but having said that religious zealots are an ungrateful lot, i doubt they will appreciate that!

[mlinssen]

Do you mean 2 Peter ?

1 Peter is almost certainly quoted in the letter of Polycarp (1st half of 2nd century.)

Andrew Criddle

If you are correct about the quotation, which your wording suggests that you are willing to concede may not be true, then redating Polycarp's letter to later is still an option. Certainly, more radical things have been proposed, here and elsewhere.

Andrew Criddle has this funny fault of trying to follow the evidence fairly and carefully, while pointing out the relevant data.

People who consistently argue in favor of the holding open the option for "more radical" proposals have a very different way of approaching things. Which is quite simply, to try to snuff out any impact of the relevant data. The possible is their favorite refuge. It requires no real thinking or research.

That's a dumb statement Peter.
Everything is always possible, and it is only the likelihood of something that counts. The likelihood of Papias having existed and written what Irenaeus claims is awfully small, given the fact that Irenaeus is his sole witness. And obviously the FF need to close the gap between Jesus and Justin, and evidently they do so

I don't have a "more radical" proposal, I have a very straightforward proposal that is backed up by giant amounts of data - and there are a few thousand pages of it freely available

Just tell me one thing: logion 96 that irrefutably says 'colostrum' instead of leaven, why does it get translated incorrectly by all?

viewtopic.php?p=125061#p125061 for the full story, viewtopic.php?p=146602#p146602 for the quick pics to verify

You may accuse me of anything, and you highly likely meant someone else when you referred to "no real ... research". But if you're all in favour of real research, then finally do some cleaning up on your links to Thomas, as some of it is dead and some of it entirely useless and not even half finished, like Hansen's

[Peter Kirby]

Everything is always possible, and it is only the likelihood of something that counts.

Hey! That's the point I was making!

You may accuse me of anything, and you highly likely meant someone else when you referred to "no real ... research".

Yes, and what you're quoting was not in reply to you.