Hierarchical Clustering of Early Christian Writings

[Ben C. Smith]

Yes, I definitely suspect it came in from the historicist side. My educated guess in my OP was that it was the name of a sect with which the historical Jesus was (rightly or wrongly) associated, leading to the retroactive connection with the village of Nazareth (as spin argues).

I have previously presented a kind of mythico-historical take on things. Lots of speculative (or wrong) details therein:

http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... f=3&t=1356

Key Idea:

But, particularly in the context of the world after the First Jewish Revolt and the new sense of danger attending any group speaking about a Christ, Jesus was invented in order to prove, once and for all, that the followers of the true Christ, who have no political aspirations, have nothing at all to do with the messianism of Judas the Galilean.

The OP essentially made "Judas the Galilean" into the original "HJ" on the "historicist" side (or rather, at least, the foil of the Gospel Jesus and the bad guy as "Judas" the betrayer), with his sons James and Simon his disciples (Antiquities 20.5.2 - "The names of those sons were James and Simon, whom Alexander commanded to be crucified"), who were all generally members of the "Nazarenes aka the Galileans aka the Zealots," but there are other possible configurations I am sure.

Ah, yes, I remember reading that with much interest some time back. I believe it even inspired some of my ideas about scouring Josephus and others for possible "Jesus figures" who may have served either as templates or as the actual spark for our existing story.

It becomes very difficult to say what the kernel was on the historical side, once we let go of the connection to Paul. The leeway for different dates and different teaching and even different names all become greater.

Most certainly.

[rakovsky]

The question, then, which has never received a fully satisfactory and complete answer, is: why? Why these terms? What about them was held in disrepute?

Group 3 has a ton of Gnostic materials like the Cerinthian Apocryphon of James. They easily may have had a heretical idea of Jesus's role theologically.

Oh, then perhaps we should all just go home. Irenaeus and his friends said so. Problem solved.

The issue is that when you line up three groups and you find that the gnostic group lacks terms of Lord, Saviour, etc., then OK, you have found some new information about the gnostics. You have a lead to understanding their unique theology in that the gnostics didn't call Jesus those things.

[Peter Kirby]

The question, then, which has never received a fully satisfactory and complete answer, is: why? Why these terms? What about them was held in disrepute?

And, given the non-answer "because gnostics," why these "gnostics" and not others?

Group 3 has a ton of Gnostic materials like the Cerinthian Apocryphon of James. They easily may have had a heretical idea of Jesus's role theologically.

Oh, then perhaps we should all just go home. Irenaeus and his friends said so. Problem solved.

The issue is that when you line up three groups and you find that the gnostic group lacks terms of Lord, Saviour, etc., then OK, you have found some new information about the gnostics. You have a lead to understanding their unique theology in that the gnostics didn't call Jesus those things.

You have only confirmed that what I have said is true.

I said that nobody has ever provided a fully satisfactory and complete explanation of this (on the assumption that all the Group 3 texts are secondary to the Pauline and Synoptic influences -- it is fully explained by the hypothesis that I have provided, of independence from that tradition).

If your attempt is to say that "the gnostics didn't call Jesus those things," then your attempt is both incomplete (because it makes not even the faintest effort to address the self-identifications nor does it attempt to show why these words came under the knife) and, in fact, necessarily wrong because it is contradicted by known references and texts where "gnostics" have indeed used these words, such as "Jesus," "Christ," and "Lord." Indeed the so-called "gnostic" classification as it is used in scholarship and by the church fathers would apply to some texts put in Group 1, some put in Group 2, and some put in Group 3. This does not provide an explanation, first because it fails to identify correctly the facts in need of explanation and second because it fails to do anything at all to provide any reason why any person would have done what they did with this set of terms.

Saying the word "gnostic" is not an explanation.