Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog

[outhouse]

The second century's where it's at, dog.

Of course I might agree with you, if I thought we knew much for certain, without inference, about Christianity in the first century.

I agree the second century gives us important information of how the earliest movement evolved forward.

BUT anything past john, is technically worthless for any aspect for any possible historical core.

The people in the second century give us a glimpse of the majority of traditions and context that are not left in the fraction of text we now possess. I understand the importance.

Second century is important to understand details attributed and progression of theology and mythology, but worthless for anything that is evidence towards a mans possible existence.

[outhouse]

Its why I have little interest in anything after 100 CE ish.

What do you do with a story that was set in the Persian empire but written during the Roman empire?

Great questions. I understand how the Hellenist quote mined the OT text and cherry picked every aspect to rhetorically substantiate their new theology.

What do you do with Hellenist who had been perverting cultural Judaism to the point he Proselytes were literally coming out of the wood work all over the Diaspora, and did no longer want to be identified with trouble making Jews, but wanted to keep the one god concept ?

Is your date referring to the contents of the story or the time the story was written?

Your assumption is only valid if the story is 100% mythological. Its not.

This is where there is value in Paul, because he firmly anchors a time period in place. He was hunting down a NEW threat to the temple why it was standing.

I only need Paul, the rest of the gospels are just additions to the evidence. But what is funny is how every single bit of evidence fits the martyred man hypothesis in full, and quite naturally as if it actually took place.

[MrMacSon]

The people in the second century give us a glimpse of the majority of traditions and context that are not left in the fraction of text we now possess ...

Second century is important to understand details attributed and progression of theology and mythology, but worthless for anything that is evidence towards a man's possible existence.

Except all the texts we have are 2nd century or later ie. the texts we have are physically later than the 2nd century, and these are likely to include redactions and edits of any alleged earlier texts.

The versions of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John we do have are likely doctored during the 2nd C or beyond; and that is probably also the case with the Pauline texts.

[neilgodfrey]

This is where there is value in Paul, because he firmly anchors a time period in place.

What about the ancient fictional letters that were set in a time period long before their real author wrote them? How do you tell if they really are what they claim to be?

[neilgodfrey]

Is your date referring to the contents of the story or the time the story was written?

I don't think you really mean to say that we only have myths or history from the ancient world. Surely we acknowledge that there are many other stories that fit neither of these categories. There are ancient stories that are historical fictions. Example, there is one written by an author in the Roman era about events in the Persian empire, with historical persons in the story.

How do you tell if a story is ancient historical fiction or genuine history?

We know that real histories sometimes contain information that is not true; and some of them include myth and miracles. But they are still works of history.

Ancient fiction also contains information that is both true and not true. But the story is all fiction even though it includes historical persons in it.

So how do you tell the difference?

[Ulan]

I only need Paul, the rest of the gospels are just additions to the evidence. But what is funny is how every single bit of evidence fits the martyred man hypothesis in full, and quite naturally as if it actually took place.

I agree with you notion that Paul is the anchor. However, the "martyred man" hypothesis is less clear-cut of an argument than it looks. You just need a singular source for this belief/story, which is already obvious for the gospel stories, so you only have to integrate Paul into this. And the source may be scripture, as Paul says or Mark implies (like Isaiah 53, psalms), or some historical event. Even in the second case, the first source still applies (in that case just for the kerygmatic Jesus), as it's actually mentioned in the texts.

That's where the blog gets it right: Occam's razor is a wonderful tool, and I think it's, most of the time, advised to at least see where this approach leads you, but it's no guarantee to get it right. Even if a historical Jesus may be more likely, from the data we have, we simply cannot know.

[neilgodfrey]

I agree with you notion that Paul is the anchor.

And of course the anchor is known to drift -- the chances of any of our texts of Paul having been preserved in their original wording are, well, a tad low.

But we do have other texts, too, that help us understand Paul's writings. We can find many of the ideas in Paul expressed in many Jewish, Roman and Greek writings that came before Paul or were from the same period in which he appears to have been writing. Curiously these works contain ideas far more akin to Paul's than much of what we read in the Book of Acts or the Gospels.

[Ulan]

Curiously these works contain ideas far more akin to Paul's than much of what we read in the Book of Acts or the Gospels.

Sure. However, you can even read gMark pretty much in a way that it is a good match for Paul's theology. It only gets difficult with the other gospels. Even despite likely changes to Paul's text, there isn't much in there that bolsters historicity.

[outhouse]

The versions of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John we do have are likely doctored during the 2nd C or beyond; and that is probably also the case with the Pauline texts.

Probably so, but doctored doesn't change the historical core to first century aspects of the text.

The thing here is, they had no conspiracy to hide mythology, the only conspiracy would be to hide the man in divine clothing.

We see the theological motives for change here.

[outhouse]

This is where there is value in Paul, because he firmly anchors a time period in place.

What about the ancient fictional letters that were set in a time period long before their real author wrote them? How do you tell if they really are what they claim to be?

Again.

We see their theological motives, we see why they were changing the theology to match the needs of the cultures as the movement evolved forward, and to adapt to the fact the imminent end of the world did not take place.

That's the beauty and skill of the study, following and tracking the evolution in proportion to context.