Thoughts about Dating Revalation to John to Hadrian's Time

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
ABuddhist
Posts: 1016
Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:36 am

Thoughts about Dating Revalation to John to Hadrian's Time

Post by ABuddhist »

I am not saying that I agree with such dating, but I have some thoughts about Christian origins if such were to be true.

So, if Revelation, which Gmirkin, many mythicists, and even some Christians (albeit obliquely!) note is a very primitive Christian text, dates to the time of Hadrian (as argued in Witulski, Thomas. Die Johannesoffenbarung Und Kaiser Hadrian: Studien Zur Datierung Der Neutestamentlichen Apokalypse. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007.), would this mean that Christianity only arose during that time period? Such a dating would fit with claims by later Christian apologists that Christianity remained united until the time of Hadrian, if one keep in mind the fact (emphasized by Doherty) that the early Christian movement was theologically diverse. According, therefore to a model in which Christianity arose during Hadrian’s time (which I am not supporting, just considering), later proto-Orthodox Christians, wanting to add authority and antiquity to their movement, acknowledged the real diversity at their religion’s beginning but invented an earlier, unified, past in order to give to their proto-Orthodox Christianity more authority.
schillingklaus
Posts: 645
Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2021 11:17 pm

Re: Thoughts about Dating Revalation to John to Hadrian's Time

Post by schillingklaus »

Revelation is nowhere near primitive but a complicated construction provided by an establishing Roman Catholic church.
ABuddhist
Posts: 1016
Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:36 am

Re: Thoughts about Dating Revalation to John to Hadrian's Time

Post by ABuddhist »

schillingklaus wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 9:32 am Revelation is nowhere near primitive but a complicated construction provided by an establishing Roman Catholic church.
Would you elaborate upon this?
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: Thoughts about Dating Revalation to John to Hadrian's Time

Post by neilgodfrey »

ABuddhist wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:22 am. . . . `dates to the time of Hadrian (as argued in Witulski, Thomas. Die Johannesoffenbarung Und Kaiser Hadrian: Studien Zur Datierung Der Neutestamentlichen Apokalypse. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007.), would this mean that Christianity only arose during that time period?
I will address this question on the blogpost but some things that speak against a second century origin of Christianity:

1. Revelation itself addresses congregations in seven churches in Asia, indicating that some of them had endured for quite a long time at the time of writing.

2. If, as Witulski argues, Revelation was written in response to events in the time of Hadrian, the same argument implies that those events marked a radical change to the status quo of Christian life -- again suggesting that Christians had lived in different circumstances for some time earlier.

3. Church Fathers (Quadratus and Aristides) writing at the same time (Hadrian) seek to assure their contemporaries that Christians are law-abiding, and if this was in response to Christians having problems over the unprecedented demands for emperor worship initiated under Hadrian then again it assumes that the situation they are addressing is something new: and hence Christians had been around earlier in different circumstances.

4. The evidence of the same Church Fathers indicates that Christians were already present in large-ish numbers that included literate persons -- Aristides and Justin write as if they have considerable company -- so again we have indications that Christians had been mushrooming for some decades at the time they wrote.

Sorry, I know that's not a direct response to your main question but it does qualify, I think, the assumptions behind the main question.
ABuddhist
Posts: 1016
Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:36 am

Re: Thoughts about Dating Revalation to John to Hadrian's Time

Post by ABuddhist »

neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 12:11 pm The evidence of the same Church Fathers indicates that Christians were already present in large-ish numbers that included literate persons -- Aristides and Justin write as if they have considerable company -- so again we have indications that Christians had been mushrooming for some decades at the time they wrote.
1. Why should we trust such people's claims as true rather than as a combination of wishful thinking and propaganda?

2. It is possible for religious movements to develop largish numbers and literate/intellectual members in multiple locations within only a few years if the preacher be charismatic and driven. Cf., for example, the development of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan under Shinran and Hoonen; and the spreading of the International Society for Krishna-Consciousness in the United States and Canada during the 1960s and 1970s.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: Thoughts about Dating Revalation to John to Hadrian's Time

Post by neilgodfrey »

ABuddhist wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 12:54 pm
1. Why should we trust such people's claims as true rather than as a combination of wishful thinking and propaganda?

2. It is possible for religious movements to develop largish numbers and literate/intellectual members in multiple locations within only a few years if the preacher be charismatic and driven. Cf., for example, the development of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan under Shinran and Hoonen; and the spreading of the International Society for Krishna-Consciousness in the United States and Canada during the 1960s and 1970s.
Their explicit claims about origins are mythical (e.g. twelve apostles fanning out from Jerusalem to spread the word at the command of the resurrected Jesus) but their writings presuppose Christians in numbers significant enough to attract the displeasure of both Jews and Roman authorities.

As for point 2, people like Aristides and Justin are writing as philosophers. Their beliefs come across as philosophically grounded and they are appealing to others with a similar respect for philosophical reasoning. I find it difficult to imagine that sort of Christianity arising from "charismatic and driven" preachers.
ABuddhist
Posts: 1016
Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:36 am

Re: Thoughts about Dating Revalation to John to Hadrian's Time

Post by ABuddhist »

neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 2:52 pm As for point 2, people like Aristides and Justin are writing as philosophers. Their beliefs come across as philosophically grounded and they are appealing to others with a similar respect for philosophical reasoning. I find it difficult to imagine that sort of Christianity arising from "charismatic and driven" preachers.
Why do you assume that the same religious impulse cannot be associated with both types of activity - even with the same person doing both types of deeds?

Xuanzang, for example, was learned in Buddhist philosophy/reasoning/debate, but also had a deep and abiding faith in Maitreya Buddha of the sort that we would associate with less sophisticated thinkers.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: Thoughts about Dating Revalation to John to Hadrian's Time

Post by neilgodfrey »

ABuddhist wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 3:03 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 2:52 pm As for point 2, people like Aristides and Justin are writing as philosophers. Their beliefs come across as philosophically grounded and they are appealing to others with a similar respect for philosophical reasoning. I find it difficult to imagine that sort of Christianity arising from "charismatic and driven" preachers.
Why do you assume that the same religious impulse cannot be associated with both types of activity - even with the same person doing both types of deeds?

Xuanzang, for example, was learned in Buddhist philosophy/reasoning/debate, but also had a deep and abiding faith in Maitreya Buddha of the sort that we would associate with less sophisticated thinkers.
I don't know that we have any evidence that the philosophical mind of the Greco-Roman era we are talking about were favourable towards those sorts of ecstatic practices. As far as I recall, they never make any appeal to such practices as signs of the spirit in their midst, and all their appeals are to reason. Justin's account of his conversion is an entirely "rational" one.

If the faith was spread only a few short years before Aristides and Justin I again find it quite difficult to imagine such calmly intellectual expositions appearing so soon and without a trace of reference to the ecstatic expressions of "the movement".

That is not to discount the charismatic types of practices from the earliest days. There surely were. Paul's letters speak of them -- even if they are second-century products they are early second century. And Tertullian fitted right in with them for a time. But they were evidently separable from other expressions of Christianity and that suggests to me a longer time of gestation than just a few short years.

I still think there were diverse forms of Christianity from the earliest, that there were various mutations from the very earliest days when the ideas were still forming. And I am open to the idea of Buddhist influences through Alexandria. But Justin and Aristides were not of the Alexandrian kind of Christianity.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: Thoughts about Dating Revalation to John to Hadrian's Time

Post by neilgodfrey »

Despite all of the above, and to get back to the nub of your original question, I would not be surprised if we might one day learn that Revelation was (at least one of) the earliest of our canonical writings and that all the others likewise were produced from the 130s (though I would allow for possible exceptions with some of Paul and Odes of Solomon and maybe Ascension of Isaiah).
User avatar
John T
Posts: 1567
Joined: Thu May 15, 2014 8:57 am

Re: Thoughts about Dating Revalation to John to Hadrian's Time

Post by John T »

ABuddhist wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:22 am So, if Revelation, which Gmirkin, many mythicists, and even some Christians (albeit obliquely!) note is a very primitive Christian text, dates to the time of Hadrian (as argued in Witulski, Thomas.
There you go again.
Who are these so-called; "many" mythicists you are referring too?
I thought 'mythcists' do not believe Christianity even existed during the time of Hadrian. :scratch:

Remind me again, when did Richard Carrier, et. al. say the myth of Jesus begin?

Thank you in advance.

John T
Post Reply