Preparation for My Interview (if anyone thinks I am missing something)

[Secret Alias]

In the course of my research into early Christianity I stumbled upon something which I think is significant.
The name 'Jesus' doesn't appear in the earliest manuscripts of Christianity.
Instead we find two or three letter abbreviations of various 'sacred names' including the name of the man to whom the religion of Christianity is devoted.
Iota Sigma is the most common of the two letter codes as it were.
It is assumed by modern scholarship that these 'abbreviations' are short forms of the Greek name 'Jesus.'
Justin Martyr, a philosopher from the Samaritan city formerly known as Shechem who settled in Rome in the first half of the second century, and Irenaeus "the Exegete" as Cyril of Jerusalem calls him make the case the name is Hebrew and means 'Man.'

[MrMacSon]

In the course of my research into early Christianity I stumbled upon something which I think is significant.
The name 'Jesus' doesn't appear in the earliest manuscripts of Christianity.
Instead we find two or three letter abbreviations of various 'sacred names' including the name of the man to whom the religion of Christianity is devoted.
Iota Sigma is the most common of the two letter codes as it were.
It is assumed by modern scholarship that these 'abbreviations' are short forms of the Greek name 'Jesus.'
Justin Martyr, a philosopher from the Samaritan city formerly known as Shechem who settled in Rome in the first half of the second century, and Irenaeus "the Exegete", as Cyril of Jerusalem calls him, make the case the name is Hebrew and means 'Man.'

Some early Christian groups (previously categorized and marginalized as "gnostic") also worship an entity they call 'Man'

[John T]

Who is your interview with?

[Leucius Charinus]

Can the ligature for Jesus be decoupled from the ligature for Christ?

[Secret Alias]

This is how I think I am going to structure my interview:

1. I haven't published much because I am of the minority opinion that isn't a lot to be certain of in early Christianity.
2. academia is about publication. When you are publishing something it is presumably worthy of publication which means 'this much we know to be true.'
3. religious scholarship began with a set of assumptions inherited from the organized religion of Christianity.
4. the first assumption is that the four gospels are 'good enough' to develop an understanding of what Christianity was originally about and who 'Jesus' was. I am not sure about this 'first assumption.'
5. the idea of the correctness of four gospels or these four gospels appears to have been Irenaeus's. There is no mention of a gospel of Luke or John before him.
6. while he gives many allegorical even fanciful reasons for the correctness of the number four I can't help but feel that given Irenaeus's parallel emphasis of the diadoche of the apostles there is a conscious modeling of the four gospels from four apostolic traditions as loosely based on the four diadochoi of Athens the guardians or authorities of the four philosophical traditions of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno and Epicurus. That Irenaeus labels all those who stand outside of the four gospels as 'heresies' a word that comes from the philosophical tradition is noteworthy.
7. it was Irenaeus's point then to make the case that there were four diadochoi essentially associated with the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John who all agreed on the fundamental truths of Christianity. Polycarp was of the diadoche of John and presumably Irenaeus presented himself as Polycarp's successor. It is for this reason likely that Irenaeus was called 'the exegete' owing to his authority over the tradition - a title shared by Alexander of Aphrodisias who sat in the chair of Aristotle and the Aristotelean diadoche in Athens.
8. My point in bringing all this up is that scholars just pick up the 'gospels' and use them as if they were snapshots of early Christianity. It is more likely in my opinion that the overarching 'agreement' that exists between Matthew, Mark, Luke and John was arranged by Irenaeus to fit his overarching narrative about the 'heresies' and the fundamental truths of Christianity as established by the four diadochoi.

[Secret Alias]

9. if the listener will allow me to summarize. We can't just pick up the four gospels and say that we know anything resembling 'the truth of Jesus Christ' because the four texts were likely formed as a unit to reinforce the prejudices of Irenaeus. In other words in between us and the truth about early Christianity stands Irenaeus and his publication which was designed to reinforce a particular point of view.
10. if I could further elaborate I think it was Irenaeus's myth, inherited in part from Papias, that the apostle John came along and bundled the three synoptic gospels together and later added a fourth narrative whose chapter headings were used to established the authoritative chronology for the founder of Christianity.
11. that's probably too much for the hearer to digest right now but I want to illustrate how important myth is for the development of understanding. When we use the four gospels as independent eyewitnesses to 'the truth' we are being hopelessly naive. Irenaeus had his own myth about John, his apostolic predecessors and what the gospel was which was at odds with the world around him. For instance at Rome at the time he was active there were many who denied the authority of his 'John gospel.' Well if they denied John they necessarily denied the New Testament canon.
12. the notion that all the gospels agreed is at odds with the entire picture that emerges BEFORE Irenaeus. Papias implies Matthew and Mark didn't agree with one another. The reporting on Marcion similarly reinforce gospels which disagreed. In my mind we have to be utterly suspicious of Irenaeus's claims about an apostolic diadoche or diadochoi which totally agree on everything. There was fundamental disagreement from the beginning and so where it is that we find agreement between all the sects including what is now called orthodoxy we have to pay special attention to that.

[John T]

I would only add, if you don't factor in the ideology of the Essenes, you are painting a picture of early Christianity without a full pallet of primary colors.

Good luck with your interview.

[Bernard Muller]

5. the idea of the correctness of four gospels or these four gospels appears to have been Irenaeus's. There is no mention of a gospel of Luke or John before him.

Aristides of Athens, Basilides (a Christian gnostic) and a Valentinian gnostic mentioned John's gospel before Irenaeus' times.

The author of 1 Timothy, Basilides and Valentinus mentioned (or quoted from) Luke's gospel before Irenaeus' times.

http://historical-jesus.info/gospels.html: http://historical-jesus.info/gospels.html

Cordially, Bernard

[Secret Alias]

I don't want to dig through mounds of garbage. The references to A GOSPEL OF JOHN AND/OR A GOSPEL OF LUKE please.

[StephenGoranson]

Maybe relevant:

The Johannine Gospel in gnostic exegesis :
Heracleon's commentary on John
Pagels, Elaine H., 1943-
Nashville : Abingdon Press
1973
128 pages ; 24 cm.
Based on the author's thesis, Harvard, 1970.