Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

mlinssen wrote: ↑Sat May 06, 2023 1:34 pm Why don't we have any text whatsoever in which the alleged heretics strike back at the orthodox?

• A dark age age spanning half a century from the time of Paul and the first time Christians are reliably mentioned outside the Bible is a possibility.

[T]here really is no basis for continuing to accept the traditional date of 1 Clement of 95 A.D. That is based on late, unsourced, and implausible legends; indeed legends based on factually false claims about the context of its writing (there was no Domitianic persecution that it could be reacting to; there was no bishopric when 1 Clement was written) and unprovable conjectures (we don’t reliably know anyone named Clement wrote it, much less a specific Clement in a specific decade). By contrast, 1 Clement’s complete ignorance of the contents of the Gospels and the Jewish War and its outcomes unquestionably dates it prior to both; while its mention of Paul’s recent death ensures it post-dates his authentic letters, which were completed by the end of the 50s, leaving the early 60s as the only possible date of 1 Clement’s writing.
[...]
[A] problem an early date for 1 Clement creates is that it means we have no records concerning what happened in the Christian movement not just for thirty years but nearly half a century between the time of Paul and the first time Christians are reliably mentioned outside the Bible—which then would be in correspondence between Pliny the Younger and Emperor Trajan around 112 A.D. (on this “mini-dark-age” in Christian history see OHJ, Ch. 4, Element 20, pp. 148-52; cf. How Did Christianity Switch to a Historical Jesus? and its expansion in Jesus from Outer Space). That Josephus mentioned Christians in the 90s A.D. is not believable anyway; but even the passages he would offer give us no information about Christianity from this period either. Apart from the Gospels of Mark and Matthew and the Book of Revelation (and maybe the forgeries of Colossians and Ephesians; everything else is either pre-War or more likely second century), none of which explicitly discuss events of their day (we can only try to infer or guess at their motivating contexts and other data of their own time), we don’t have anything reliably dated in between Pliny the Younger in 112 A.D. and 1 Clement and Hebrews (which both for the same reasons can date no later than 66 A.D., per OHJ, Ch. 11.5), which is a span of 46 years, then almost an average human lifetime (Element 22, Ibid.).

So we have no idea what Christians were saying about these new Gospels, or any disputes over doctrine or claims about their own history, or anything else usable for reconstructing the very decades in which a historical Jesus is being invented. Indeed, from later sources (like Papias: OHJ, Ch. 8.7; and Eusebius: How To Fabricate History: The Example of Eusebius on Alexandrian Christianity), it is clear Christians had lost access to all documentation, all reliable information, from this period themselves. Which collapses a lot of arguments against doubting the historicity of Jesus, keeping a doubt of it well within the realm of the plausible (again, see How Did Christianity Switch to a Historical Jesus?, which was expanded in Jesus from Outer Space). Of course, “the evidence of ecclesial events for the whole three or four decades after 95 is not what one would characterize as robust, either” (OHJ, p. 148). It’s pretty crappy. But there is at least something. Still, significant documentation and history for Christianity only really picks up toward the end of the second century. Whereas in the prior period, there is essentially nothing, “a thirty-year black box in which we can’t reconstruct what happened,” beyond the vaguest or most minimal of things (like, Jewish Christianity still existed and was futilely arguing against the legitimacy of its Gentile branch). But that’s if 1 Clement’s traditional date is correct. If it’s not, then it’s not a thirty year black box, but a nearly fifty year black box. Half a century.

Why was an entire lifetime of Christian history erased from the record, precisely when a historical Jesus and all the novel myths and tall tales about him were first being decidedly promoted? And even if it was all just lost from happenstance, how can we make claims about what “didn’t” happen in that lifetime? The evidence we would need to rule anything out—is gone. Even the Christians of the second century had lost access to it. Even they could not speak authoritatively about their own history. So they fabricated one.

---

--Carrier (19 December 2022). "How We Can Know 1 Clement Was Actually Written in the 60s AD". Richard Carrier Blogs.

dbz wrote: ↑Sat May 06, 2023 2:47 pm

mlinssen wrote: ↑Sat May 06, 2023 1:34 pm Why don't we have any text whatsoever in which the alleged heretics strike back at the orthodox?

• A dark age age spanning half a century from the time of Paul and the first time Christians are reliably mentioned outside the Bible is a possibility.

mlinssen wrote: ↑Sat May 06, 2023 1:34 pm We have tons of refuters, aka FF / Falsifying Fathers, aka Patristics. They refute what they label heretics, which are those who are refuted, aka the refuted

Do we have any text of the refuted in which they refute back at the refuters?

No - save for the gospel of Philip who refutes the virgin birth and the resurrection, of course

Now - could someone perhaps tell me why that is the case? It is evident that Philip narrates about Chrestians becoming Christians, as he so very clearly and unequivocally distinguishes between both forms in a very undeniable chronological and logical order; the text likely dates to the infancy of Christianity, viewed through the lens of a Chrestian turned Christian, while refuting some core tenets of the new Christianity:

viewtopic.php?p=146150#p146150

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Sat May 06, 2023 2:50 pm Arius shot back and Bart Ehrman thinks some of the received Arius is authentic.

https://ehrmanblog.org/the-actual-heret ... own-words/

No? Why not. Yes? Then what happened to it

davidmartin wrote: ↑Sat May 06, 2023 11:47 pm

No? Why not. Yes? Then what happened to it

i think the gnostics did but they didn't write long books like the church fathers did - who were mostly writing to themselves and must have been wealthy, their books are looooooong and expensive who paid for all this i wonder!!

i think one aspect of the Sophia myth is it represents orthodoxy, there's no way the gnostics would be ignoring their arch enemies in their writings

but how about the NHL 'testimony of truth'? that's kind of in that direction.

"Such were the doings of these people with names of ill-omen slandering the creation and marriage, providence, child-bearing, the Law and the Prophets; setting down foreign names of Angels, as indeed they themselves say, but in reality, of Daemons, who answer back to them from below."

It is only when Grabe refers to the Simonian Antirrhêtikoi Logoi, mentioned by the Pseudo-Dionysius, which he calls "vesani Simonis Refutatorii Sermones," that we get any new information.

A certain Syrian bishop, Moses Barcephas, writing in the tenth century,[93] professes to preserve some of these controversial retorts of Simon, which the pious Grabe—to keep this venom, as he calls it, apart from the orthodox refutation—has printed in italics. The following is the translation of these italicized passages:

"God willed that Adam should not eat of that tree; but he did eat; he, therefore, did not remain as God willed him to remain: it results, therefore, that the maker of Adam was impotent."

"God willed that Adam should remain in Paradise; but he of his own disgraceful act fell from thence: therefore the God that made Adam was impotent, inasmuch as he was unable of his own will to keep him in Paradise."

"(For) he interdicted (he said) Adam from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, by tasting which he would have had power to judge between good and evil, and to avoid this, and follow after that."

"But (said he) had not that maker of Adam forbidden him to eat of that tree, he would in no way have undergone this judgment and this punishment; for hence is evil here, in that he (Adam) had done contrary to the bidding of God, for God had ordered him not to eat, and he had eaten."

"Through envy (said he) he forbade Adam to taste of the tree of life, so that, of course, he should not be immortal."

"For what reason on earth (said he) did God curse the serpent? For if (he cursed him) as the one who caused the harm, why did he not restrain him from so doing, that is, from seducing Adam? But if (he cursed him) as one who had brought some advantage, in that he was the cause of Adam's eating of that good tree, it needs must follow that he was distinctly unrighteous and envious; lastly, if, although from neither of these reasons, he still cursed him, he (the maker of Adam) should most certainly be accused of ignorance and folly."

davidmartin wrote: ↑Sun May 07, 2023 1:42 am Got it. GRS Mead quotes something he attributes to Simonians but i don't believe that. I think it looks more Marcionite could this be from his refutations?

"Such were the doings of these people with names of ill-omen slandering the creation and marriage, providence, child-bearing, the Law and the Prophets; setting down foreign names of Angels, as indeed they themselves say, but in reality, of Daemons, who answer back to them from below."

It is only when Grabe refers to the Simonian Antirrhêtikoi Logoi, mentioned by the Pseudo-Dionysius, which he calls "vesani Simonis Refutatorii Sermones," that we get any new information.

A certain Syrian bishop, Moses Barcephas, writing in the tenth century,[93] professes to preserve some of these controversial retorts of Simon, which the pious Grabe—to keep this venom, as he calls it, apart from the orthodox refutation—has printed in italics. The following is the translation of these italicized passages:

"God willed that Adam should not eat of that tree; but he did eat; he, therefore, did not remain as God willed him to remain: it results, therefore, that the maker of Adam was impotent."

"God willed that Adam should remain in Paradise; but he of his own disgraceful act fell from thence: therefore the God that made Adam was impotent, inasmuch as he was unable of his own will to keep him in Paradise."

"(For) he interdicted (he said) Adam from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, by tasting which he would have had power to judge between good and evil, and to avoid this, and follow after that."

"But (said he) had not that maker of Adam forbidden him to eat of that tree, he would in no way have undergone this judgment and this punishment; for hence is evil here, in that he (Adam) had done contrary to the bidding of God, for God had ordered him not to eat, and he had eaten."

"Through envy (said he) he forbade Adam to taste of the tree of life, so that, of course, he should not be immortal."

"For what reason on earth (said he) did God curse the serpent? For if (he cursed him) as the one who caused the harm, why did he not restrain him from so doing, that is, from seducing Adam? But if (he cursed him) as one who had brought some advantage, in that he was the cause of Adam's eating of that good tree, it needs must follow that he was distinctly unrighteous and envious; lastly, if, although from neither of these reasons, he still cursed him, he (the maker of Adam) should most certainly be accused of ignorance and folly."