Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 6:06 pm

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:07 pm

Tim O'Neill wrote:

9.10
... And then imagine that other forms of Christianity arose that believed those stories were true and accepted that there was such a Jesus in the early decades of the first century. And then imagine that the proto-form of Christianity died out and then imagine that the forms of Christianity that arose from the belief that there was a historical Jesus decided to destroy all references to the earlier form of Christianity.'
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https://www.youtube.com/live/16bLztnVJv ... hare&t=548
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[...]

And imagine that as a result no one noticed that this early proto-form of Christianity - the original form - existed at all until people in the 19th and 20th Century came along and discovered it by looking at the writings of Paul.

dbz wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 3:28 pm

• The evidence in 2 Peter or the evidence of Ignatius, or the impact of the problem of silence rebuts O'Neill

I've extended what you quoted from that 2020 web-article of Carrier's to add both 2 Peter 1:15—2:3 and the explicit point that Carrier made:

Richar Carrier wrote:
Richard Carrier, 20 July 2020
"99 Problems & the Truth Ain't One: Q&A on the Inspiring Philosophy / Godless Engineer Historicity-of-Jesus Debate (Part I)"

23

"2 Peter is not talking about Christ mythers. That is imposing a lot under the texts that wouldn’t be there. All's (sic) he is saying is, 'we did not follow cleverly devised myths.' Scholars I’ve read on that regard this as they’re talking about the pagan myths, 'we didn’t follow those, we were reporting [on] what we [actually] saw.' And, even if you are ri-, even if that’s not what it said, it is very, very general to [infirm] they're talking about Christ mythers." [29.13—40 @ https://www.youtube.com/live/GdiUgQFV30 ... are&t=1756]

Let’s look at the evidence. This is 2 Peter 1:15—2:3:

• 15 And I will also make every effort so that you are able to recall these things at any time after my departure. 16 For we did not follow cleverly contrived myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; instead, we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased!”[/i] 18 We ourselves heard this voice when it came from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 We also have the prophetic word strongly confirmed, and you will do well to pay attention to it[/i] … [here the author inserts a digression on prophecy, by way of explaining this remark before returning to the argument] 2 1 There were indeed false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, and will bring swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved ways, and the way of truth will be maligned because of them. 3 They will exploit you in their greed with made-up stories. Their condemnation, pronounced long ago, is not idle, and their destruction does not sleep. [Here the author goes on about how awful these people are and how they will be judged, making further clear he means fellow Christians, whose teaching is demonic and must be shunned.]

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There is no logical way to claim here that 2 Peter is rebutting “pagan myths.” This passage is indisputably rebutting the claims of what this author says are the 'false' Christian teachers he is condemning—and not just condemning, but elaborately warning his readers to shun. Those 'teachers' are “heretics” who rely on “made up stories” that amount to “even denying the Master who redeemed them.” In other words, these are Christians.

... How does this author—who is lying, BTW, as this is a forgery written to represent Peter as condemning this Christian heresy—argue against these heretics? By insisting stories like the Transfiguration are not “cleverly devised myths” that “deny the Master”, but were real historical events, “because I was there, we were there, this really happened!”. Which is a lie—this author is not Peter, and wasn’t there, nor evidently knew anyone who was. Rather, 2 Peter is simply inventing an eyewitness to a story in the Gospels, in order to “prove” the Gospels [were] 'historical' and not “cleverly devised myths,” myths which deny “the truth” and even, he insists, the reality of “the Master.”

... it is very clear what is happening here: there were Christians claiming the Gospel stories were myths, that no one ever actually met Jesus in person as the stories claim ... that teaching required this polemicist [ie. the author of 2 Peter] to respond by [asserting] “no, these were not myths, we were really there.”

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2 Peter 2:1 is pretty telling ie. about someone trying to influence the writer's version of Christianity

.."They will bring in destructive heresies"

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eta:
That guy comes back to 2nd Peter at 31.15

And, again, going back to 2nd Peter for the sake of this argument, I'm not assuming it's reliable. That could have been written in the 3rd, 4th century for all I care [we're] in this discussion; it would not challenge what Tacitus actually tells us about a historical Jesus, ok?

Then, at 32.31, Godless Engineer says

And, you know, 2 Peter: it shows that that there are people saying—regardless of whether they're pagans or not—it shows that there were people that were saying that: 'you followed cleverly devised stories' ...

To pull from one of your arguments, using an appeal to authority, John Dominic Crossan has a book out there called, 'The Power of Parable,' where he argues for all of the Gospels, you know, which would be the first accounts of Jesus, would be parables. And, so, it's not all that 'out there' to say that 2 Peter is talking about stories. Who are just saying that, 'oh, these Christians, they're following cleverly devised myths' or cleverly devised stories, rather. So, you know, I feel that 2 Peter is very important to the current argument because of that fact.

• https://vridar.org/tag/justin-martyr/?s=gospel

Josephus, Louis M. Feldman, wrote thirty years earlier, presumably without any conscious awareness of a Christ Myth debate, the following:

A point that has not been appreciated thus far is that despite the value that such a passage would have had in establishing the credentials of Jesus in the church’s missionary activities, it is not cited until Eusebius does so in the fourth century. This is admittedly the argumentum ex silentio, but in this case it is a fairly strong argument against the authenticity of the passage as we have it, especially since we know that Justin Martyr in the middle of the second century (Dialogue with Trypho 8) attempted to answer the charge that Jesus had never lived and was a mere figment of Christian imagination. Nothing could have been a stronger argument to disprove such a charge than a citation from Josephus, a Jew, who was born only a few years after Jesus’ death.
(Feldman, 182)

Feldman in none of his writings of which I am aware expresses any doubt about the historicity of Jesus. On the contrary, he even argues (in the same work quoted above) that the Testimonium Flavianum should be treated as the earliest non-Christian evidence for Jesus.

What I find of some significance is that a scholar seemingly unaware of any debate over the historicity of Jesus interprets the words Justin puts into the mouth of Trypho, and of equal significance, of course, the arguments Justin used to affirm that what he had to say about Jesus was not based on a “groundless report” or “invention”.

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--Godfrey, Neil (5 March 2019). "Justin Martyr Answers a Second Century Jesus Christ Mythicist". Vridar.

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 4:32 am

• If Justin knew 'gospels', I'm not sure we can know what versions or 'editions' he knew.
  
  So, I propose use of less 'certain' language about the nature of the 'sources' Justin might have known or used.
  • eg. Less use of the as in avoid ‘the definitive article’
  And, where there is 'confluence' or ‘correspondence’ between a passage in Justin and a canonical Gospel, I think we need to consider the possibility that, if one used or even just 'knew' the other, the direct might have been
  • Justin —> Gospel

I am aware of the places where Justin appears to know about sayings of Jesus that seem to have some overlap with what we find in the Gospels. I am also aware that in a few particular sections of his writings he speaks of the “Memoirs of the Apostles”, and in those sections we do read a few close points of contact with our canonical Gospels. Those are, I believe, other questions that require more detailed discussion: much has been published on those questions. The example of a clash with the Gospel narrative that I have raised above is, I think, an indicator that our canonical narrative is unknown — or thought of little worth — to Justin.

Is it a satisfactory enough explanation that Justin must have known about, and preferred, some other gospel narrative, now lost to us, that related this non-canonical version of events?

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--Godfrey, Neil (16 February 2011). "Did no-one know about the Gospels before half way through the second century?". Vridar.