Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Philologus wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 6:11 am
... The New Testament has material mostly written in the 1st century ...


Most of the elements of " the historical Jesus' " life (his origin, crucifixion, authentic sayings), according to critical scholars, come from the first 3 canonical gospels. Some of that material dates back to the 60s.
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• These are traditionally the most common assertions, but are they true ?

Philologus wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 6:11 am The Pauline church banned and destroyed all writings that contradicted its teachings in the first century.

• What evidence is there for this ?

Philologus wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 6:11 am There seems to be an explosion of material afterwards, but nothing was preserved from before, besides the one-sided attacks by Paul on "the Jerusalem church," which scholars use as an indirect source of information about the latter.

• Yes, the account in Galatians is used as evidence of "the Jerusalem church." But is that justified?

Philologus wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 6:11 am It's as if there was a 1st century conspiracy to completely hide every trace of the non-Pauline Jesus movement and it succeeded. The victorious church seems almost certainly to be the wrong church, from an originalist perspective. We have literally nothing of what James, Peter, Jude, and others must have written (letters and such).

• Fundamentalists believe the canonical letters attributed to James, Peter and Jude are authentic.

• The canonical letters attributed to James, Peter and Jude point to various tensions ...

Philologus wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 6:11 am ... We only have hints of what they must [may] have taught, through indirect references by Paul in his letters attacking them. There are the literary devices in the gospels portraying them negatively on the one hand (deniers, doubters, complacent, dimwits), and other texts immortalizing them as saints who always said what the authors of the sources wanted them to say, "martyrs" who approved of the emerging orthodoxy.

• Which all points to later 'resolutions', yes?
  (see the point above about the canonical letters attributed to James, Peter and Jude ...)

The Odes of Solomon remains the only non-Pauline Jewish-Christian writing we have that shows any sign of being early
Paul in Romans 1 says Jesus becomes Christ at the resurrection - erasing his entire earthly life, ministry, and whatever his followers are saying. Thats his schtick, his motif. Of course the gospels portray the apostles (!) not understanding the theology that knew nothing about, because it's not original

The Odes is more adoptionist, the dove descends at baptism and is freaking a mystical writing all is spiritualised up the wazoo
I think the Pauline movement is an offshoot at right-angle to this kind of base
Never gonna find a traditional Jewish original to this thing. If anything the so called Jerusalem church is another right-angle off in a different direction and Paul is duking it out with these rivals. two offshoots fighting. that is why Paul denies being anything to do with the original movement in Galatians to them, they both oppose that which is where the Odes are from

The basic idea of the Odes is the messianic age has come. Once the Roman war started there was no chance this simple message could survive "hatred will be taken from the earth and war is over" is what the Odes say, peace breaks out, the earth flooded with knowledge
That is why it is early, pre 70!

None of this is a conspiracy theory if it's what the evidence says happened

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2023 3:52 pm

Philologus wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 6:11 am Most of the elements of " the historical Jesus' " life (his origin, crucifixion, authentic sayings), according to critical scholars, come from the first 3 canonical gospels. Some of that material dates back to the 60s.
.

• These are traditionally the most common assertions, but are they true ?

According to the criteria of multiple attestations, dissimilarity, and embarrassment, apparently so!

Philologus wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 6:11 am The Pauline church banned and destroyed all writings that contradicted its teachings in the first century.

• What evidence is there for this ?

Good point. Do you suppose people stopped copying that material naturally and it vanished from history?

• Yes, the account in Galatians is used as evidence of "the Jerusalem church." But is that justified?

Why would the Pauline church preserve that idea otherwise? Why would they invent the concept that the "Brother of the Lord" and Peter were opposed to Paul?

• The canonical letters attributed to James, Peter and Jude point to various tensions ...

Those letters seem to preserve a much softer tone than what Paul hints at in his letters, almost as if they were redactions of earlier traditions that still "leaked" some of the original ideas.

Philologus wrote: ↑Sat May 13, 2023 8:47 pm

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2023 3:52 pm

Philologus wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 6:11 am Most of the elements of " the historical Jesus' " life (his origin, crucifixion, authentic sayings), according to critical scholars, come from the first 3 canonical gospels. Some of that material dates back to the 60s.
.

• These are traditionally the most common assertions, but are they true ?

According to the criteria of multiple attestations, dissimilarity, and embarrassment, apparently so!

Paging mythicists. I repeat, paging mythicists. We have a live one.

I kid, I kid. But this forum does have a lot of active participation with doubt about these ideas. It's usually better not to kick the hornet's nest if you don't want a debate on it to erupt immediately.

Most of the elements of “the historical Atlantis” (9 thousand years earlier than Plato, West of the Pillars of Hercules, and their people, government, laws, wars, and sudden catastrophic destruction), according to critical scholars, may very well date back to Critias, and Solon, and even earlier to the priests of the Middle (or more likely, the First Kingdom), and from that period to the historical context of Atlantis itself. At any rate, we know the specifically existing chain of oral tradition (paradosis) via Egyptian priests, who certainly existed, through to Solon, who certainly existed, and Critias, whom both Socrates and Plato knew personally, so of course he existed.

I know there are many questions about these claims, but there they are. And if Atlantis never existed, how pray tell could it have vanished from history? Does one casually dismiss a vast bibliography of historical Atlantean research, numbering many thousands of catalogued books, articles, archeological expeditions? Do the names—to speak only of ancient witnesses to the historical facts—Strabo, Posidonius, Philo, Tertullian, or Proclus mean nothing? Well, nothing vanishes unless it is already. But enough of these games.

/s